Best Level from Super Mario 64

another point for hazy maze cave: this moment of genuine like hushed awe in the dark lake deep underground

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mb34apkf4B1ru09vqo1_500.gif

haha it was so mean that you had to butt stomp its head

while we're on this nostalgia trip BRB

― 乒乓, Friday, February 1, 2013 11:49 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark

favorite place to hang out in Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

gonna throw a vote for snowman's land because i love it

in all its polygonal glory

snowman's land is awesome for shellsurfing

This was def a very consistent game, I have fond memories of every single level

The Bowser levels were the most fun with their pure platforming and instant easy deaths but a vote for them would bely the scope of the game. I vote Hazy Maze Cave, what with the Steel Mario bit and the part where you ride the dinosaur, great level.

nah you buttstomped its back to make it lower its head so you could climb on it before it raised it again. it's got fat back there; it can take it. altho the noise it made was p wrenching.

xp omg yes

also that little igloo that became this weird ice palace inside??

that xp was to dayo's zelda poll

Shifting Sand Land seems like a shitshow but it had those hilarious rolling metal boxes and the disembodied hand, come on, great level!!

I like Hazy Maze Cave because of the way the music changes depending on where you are. This is something I really love about Mario games by the way, like how you get the bongos whenever you're on Yoshi. Galaxy was full of tricks like this.

you fight the pair of disembodied hands with the eyes in them that you punch in shifting sand land, right?

yeah; i think that was my favorite boss. (possible competitor: big boo, not because of the actual enemy but because of the setting, up there on the mansion balcony in the dark and the wind with no guard rail.)

yes they're in the pyramid in that tomb in the middle that you can only get to by standing on the 4 pillars outside which causes the tip of the pyramid to explode revealing a secret entrance

hand boss was weird though. i didn't feel it fit in.

that boo battle was pretty incredible; all I remember is the camera angle really screwing with you, probably on purpose

yeah, me too. just the other day i dug out my n64+SNES+NES and hooked them all up, but my N64 and SNES controllers are busted, somehow. anyone know a good place to get new/used controllers? i see some on amazon but they all appear to be crappy 3rd party, stiff controls, etc.

― Z S, Friday, February 1, 2013 11:55 AM (40 minutes ago) Bookmark

the worst was analog stick dust

think I remember coming across a controller where the octagon ring surrounding the stick had literally been ground into a circle

the owner of it prob played 1080 snowboarding to death

hand boss was weird though. i didn't feel it fit in.

I liked it, it was scarier, suggested a dark heart

i'm surprised mario doesn't have CTE from me banging his head into so many basement walls trying to catch that fucking rabbit

i still can't do the fucking rabbit.

those fuckers who do the speedruns get him in like 2 seconds. always felt the rabbit was Nintendo's way of needling the player a bit

I look forward to playing this today.

this poll is amazing, thank you for making it, also I've literally only just woken up and in all seriousness thought one of the poll options was 'Tiny-Huge Cock'

Embarrassing nicknames from Mario's past

Cool, Cool Mountain isn't the best or most fun or rewarding level but I don't think I can vote against penguins

Cool, Cool Mountain did have that atmosphere.

I think my favorite single stars were the Bowser levels, but I can't fully seperate the experiences enough to vote for one of them right now. This is hard.

If this was "best place to hang out" like the Zelda poll then my answer would 100% be Jolly Roger Bay, I honestly did turn on the N64 sometimes just to go and hang around in there, the music for that level is still my all time favourite videogame music and yeah, you could remix it yourself by wandering round: the beach was chimes only, then the lovely filtered synth strings faded in as you jumped into the water, and you'd get those light skittery drums in the hidden cave. Whether or not it's the best level is trickier. Might just vote for it anyway though.

I was 21 when this came out btw.

I posted it on this board before but there is one level on this game that is just a straight rip of a caetano veloso song

the level's music obv (I'm sick)

I heard the dude who did the music for this game bought an affordable housing unit located inside a larger division of identical housing units with access to shared facilities and resources. he called it his koji den of sick jams

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IhAYJZ66giw

jimd really otm about the atmosphere in jolly roger bay -- plus the eel has the same, like, majesty as the monster in hazy maze cave, where it's this huge creature that mostly ignores you (although the eel will snap if you get too close) and that you can just watch swim around its habitat.

as a level there's not much to it but it's the prettiest.

playing the water levels of SM 64 + wave race 64 in such close proximity to each other really has made water environments the Best Thing in video games

wave race 64 still the finest racing game ever. who would sponsor such a tourney?

holy shit I forgot about Wave Race 64!

what a game.

^

Great poll idea.

No love for Tall Tall Mountain? I can't remember any of the specific puzzles but I thought it had a cool 'feel'. I hated any of the ones that felt too contained in an obvious box - especially Lethal Lava Land. Wet-Dry World had a solid gimmick but suffered from this IMO. Kind of claustrophobic. The more 'landscapey' ones I think brought out that sense of majesty or peacefulness. I could say a lot more but it's late.

i approve of this bomb ass remember the 90's thread. My favorite level was the ghosthouse, and wave race was my jam. Ghosts were so cool.

http://i46.tinypic.com/nlbzgh.pnghttp://i46.tinypic.com/nlbzgh.pnghttp://i46.tinypic.com/nlbzgh.png

http://i46.tinypic.com/20f3m35.pnghttp://i46.tinypic.com/20f3m35.pnghttp://i46.tinypic.com/20f3m35.png

playing through this again and I'm leaning toward tiny-huge island atm

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Yeah, I'm going Tall Tall Mountain, seems like an underdog and I just love how spatial it is - moreso than some of the others you get the sense of "oh yeah, now i'm above that place I was before" and so on. Also just hits that sweet spot I loved about Tomb Raider and even a shitty game like Ultima 9, these early 3D worlds where it was just so much fun to explore. It's a pretty small area but it feels more about roaming and experiencing the ambitious, death-defying landscape than it does about solving little polygonal puzzles.

This game is pretty damn sweet, but all the tweaks they've done since then and Super Mario Galaxy 2 is a WAY more enjoyable experience. For instance, the camera pretty much never is a problem anymore. Also, in 64, it seems like items are much smaller, so it's more difficult to collect them. Having never played 64 til now, til after SMG2, it's pretty clear that most of the innovations were born there and I have to give mad props to Nintendo for inventing them, and perfecting them over several series of games.

I love camera problems in 64, because you can imagine the lakitu just got tangled up and couldn't track you fast enough

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

picked up an N64 a month or so ago and been collecting games, catching up on stuff i missed. i grew up w a SNES but kinda stopped gaming once things got 3D. it's been fun to go play the games i missed.

that said i beat Super Mario 64 last night (w 75 stars) and Cool Cool Mountain and Big Boo's Haunt are both highlights. Shifting Sand Land also really grew on me, it was one of those stages i absolutely hated at first but soon grew to love once i figured out how to get around and where all the fly caps were. the pyramid interior was pretty cool as well. Hazy Maze Cave was pretty great for the atmosphere and honestly i wish there were more later levels like this or in this direction, these spooky kinda abstract underground 3D caves. right now i'm going back to Tiny-Huge island to get ie. the Wiggler star and it's brilliance is becoming more and more clear.

main my criticism of the game was not enough though this was compounded by (1) reaching the upper floors and seeing all those paintings only to realize you can only jump in a few of them (and most are duplicates or earlier paintings) and (2) repeating music tracks. not gonna blame the game for these choices as it's really only valid when comparing it to games that came after, compared to the SNES/NES of course the game is a breakthrough in every way.

the Bowser stages are all really cool. Tick Tock Clock is a great late-game platformer. Rainbow Ride i still haven't beaten so my initial negative reaction will likely change once i start collecting missing stars. ditto Wet-Dry World and Snowman's Land, my least favorite stages, also the ones i've played the least. it's almost like the levels are little puzzles that have a learning curve.

anyways i would vote Peach's Castle for the best stage. it has the best music in the game, it is the best hub world in any video game. looking forward to getting 120 and finding Yoshi!