Snowman’s Land held distinction as the Super Mario 64 course I always most wanted to love but never quite could. As such, frequent detours elsewhere in the castle were necessary for patience reboots between endeavors to mount the four pillars or get my damn hat back from that freakin’ vulture. Though every one of the dizzying course’s obstacles proved at the very least interesting, the single-minded nature of a handful of its challenges made for incredibly irritating repeat attempts. In contrast to something like Whomp’s Fortress, Shifting Sand Land packed plenty of frustration-traversing its quicksand landscape could drive you damn near batty-but boasted a nearly unparalleled caliber of diversity among its missions, unlike what you’d find anywhere else in the game. Granted, some love is lost in trading in the fast-paced fun of the game’s landlocked courses for the more deliberate gameplay of its underwater lark, but Jolly Roger Bay earned some good will in the abstract.
Still, I appreciate the classical bravura of Jolly Roger Bay, which ran the gamut of everything you’d want in a sea adventure: pirate ships, sunken treasure, terrifying sea creatures, and underwater caves. All that said, I’ve always liked the owl.Īs I may have hinted at earlier, I’m none too keen on water levels in general (chalk it up to a paralyzing fear of drowning), and Super Mario 64’s especially. The course’s kickoff mission was something of a rehash of Bob-omb Battlefield’s inceptive brawl, while subsequent challenges shared more than a forgivable degree of overlap. The low ranking of Whomp’s Fortress has less to do with any especially frustrating characteristics-most of its missions were kind of a breeze, as a matter of fact-but with the fact that it really didn’t offer much in the way of unique charm. Sure enough, graduation from the castle’s basement to its second floor couriered no greater satisfaction than being able to put those banana-eared bullies behind me for good.īest mission: Elevator Tour in the Volcano Even when I did manage to reach a mission’s conclusion, none proved fun enough to justify the headache incurred getting from one point in this course to another. I remember every agitating slip into the course’s boiling sea, and every infuriating toss of poor whimpering Mario, derriere ablaze, high up into the air and right back down into the lava once again… and again, and again, and again, until the guttural chortling of King Bowser ushered us both back into Peach’s castle basement. Lethal Lava Land, on the other hand, I remember perfectly. But having already spent the sum of my amenability to waterborne gameplay on the superior Jolly Roger Bay, and finding no friend in the course’s unsettling theme music, I maintained a resilient aversion to Dire Dire Docks, braving its current only when I really needed another star. I remember the submarine, likewise the looming threat of the penultimate mission’s eponymous manta ray. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to draw to mind much detail about Super Mario 64’s basement-level water course Dire, Dire Docks. Not to toot my own warp whistle, but I’ve got a pretty acute memory when it comes to the varied plains, pipes, and remarkably dense cumulonimbus channels conquered (admittedly, less often by me than by my older sister) during my younger years in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Surely a more proficient gamer than I could delve into the technical highs and lows of every stage between Bob-omb’s Battlefield and Rainbow Ride, but I mounted this endeavor judging each of Princess Peach’s castle’s varied worlds based only on how good a time I had playing them.Without further ado, in the words of our generation’s greatest adventurer: Here we gooo! As such, I’ve taken on the task of ranking all of Super Mario 64‘s 15 levels-just the standards no Bowser courses or secret slides-from worst to best. But while I have few reservations about declaring the game one of the most fun and enchanting I’ve ever played, picking and choosing the most fun and enchanting parts of Mario 64 is a tougher challenge.īut if I’ve learned anything from Mario, it’s that any challenge can be bested with the right hat.
Excited though we may be for any new Mario exploit, we feel it is a biological imperative to divert attention back to our favorite Mario entries in Nintendo history. With Super Mario Odysseycharming the gaming public by way of playable dinosaurs and big city flash mobs, that plucky little plumber ( he’ll always be a plumber to me, Nintendo) is seated firmly on the brain.
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