![]() Super Mario Sunshine is something of a black sheep among fans, but it’s the real highlight of the package for me-it’s such an unusual direction for Mario to take, and full of so many interesting ideas, even if they aren’t always executed perfectly. Whether it’s diving into paintings in Super Mario 64, cleaning up gunk in Super Mario Sunshine, or hopping from planet to planet in Super Mario Galaxy, there’s plenty of timeless fun that’s worth putting up with some frustrations to experience. Even Super Mario isn’t exempt from that.īut even if they haven’t aged as gracefully as one might hope, there’s still a great sense of fun and creativity at the core of the games in Super Mario 3D All Stars. Without the benefit of nostalgia, playing old games requires patience and a willingness to accept issues that have since been solved. ![]() Sunshine and Galaxy fare much better, but they still have their own aging issues, be it Sunshine‘s uneven platforming or Galaxy‘s awkward motion controls. Iconic and influential though Super Mario 64 is, its camera is a nightmare to deal with. Whatever flaws the original games had, they have the same here, and only made more apparent by how far things have come in the years since. There’s little in the way of additional features other than a built-in music player, and the games running at a higher native resolution is the full extent of any visual improvement. The trade-off is that if you’re not coming at it from a place of nostalgia or historic curiosity, Super Mario 3D All Stars is a tougher sell. This can be true of a faithful remake, too-just look at how successful Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 was in channeling exactly that sense of nostalgia-but there’s nothing quite like the original thing. If you grew up playing Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, or Super Mario Galaxy, being able to revisit them years out decades later and see exactly what you remember can be a delightful, comforting thing. This is also a wonderful thing from a nostalgic perspective, too. To have ready, convenient access to a game like Super Mario 64, as close to its original state as possible, is a great thing-even if its a game that might seem clunky or outdated by modern standards. As much as I like a good remake, they serve a different purpose. It’s fascinating to be able to look back on classic games from today’s perspective, to trace their influence and put everything that followed into context. It’s a collection of snapshots on time, made compatible with current hardware but in every other way preserving these games’ legacies exactly as they were.įrom a historian’s perspective, that’s a wonderful thing. Such things have their place, but 3D All Stars exists to remember these influential games exactly as they were, regardless of how well they have (or haven’t) aged. ![]() It’s not an attempt to polish up old games for a new audience or to redesign them for modern tastes, expectations, and technological advances. This isn’t a collection of remakes or remasters it’s the original versions of Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy running in an emulated form. Super Mario 3D All Stars is, for the most part, does a decent job of that preservation. Such historically significant games need to be preserved and made available as readily as possible. ![]() Super Mario 64, especially, influenced the entire direction of 3D games, and the likes of Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy made big impacts of their own. It’s hard to imagine what the videogame landscape would look like without 3D Mario. ![]()
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