Posted by Tom Rippon on Monday, February 27, 2012 ? 1 Comment?
When You Were Young
I?ll have to admit, I never owned a Nintendo 64 when I was younger. My first console was the original PlayStation, so I was raised on games like Crash Bandicoot and Rayman - adventure/platform games that, looking back, I was actually pretty good at. I always made well-timed jumps, my boss fight logic was trained to a high standard by my ruthless father, and despite the odd occasion in which I did screw up and die more than twice in a row, yeah, I was still darn good.
A castle of opportunity!
So imagine my surprise when I recently bought a Nintendo 64, along with Super Mario 64. Excitement was welling up left, right and center, and although I had never played any Super Mario titles as a child (I know, shame on me), I was looking forward to getting back to the genre that I remember from the good ol? days. But as it turns out, my adventure game skills have not gotten better with age. They?ve matured like a carton of semi-skimmed milk. Nastily.
Naughty Bowser
The plot of any Mario game should be familiar to anybody ? beautiful Princess is captured by ruthless tyrant, Bowser, and Mario, the handsome and courageous plumber, has to rescue her.
What I think really made Super Mario 64 hard for me, though, is that there was more to it than this. From what I was expecting, my first battle with Bowser would be my last. I had about eight Power Stars, I was doing pretty well, confident, and so on, and I went into another room of Princess Peach?s castle, expecting a level no more remarkable than the previous worlds I had explored. Fighting that giant Bo-Bomb and throwing him off his perch in the first world, followed by exploring the second world, and trying not to get squished by a giant paving slab, and the third world, where snow is king, and I first experienced the exhilaration of directing Mario down a giant ice-slide.
And so, with this build up, naturally I was shocked, scared and so many more things when I found myself entering Bowser?s domain. At this point in time, I was thinking, ?Wow, this is a really short game.? No it isn?t? it isn?t over.
Game Over
Boss fight? No problem!
As I have mentioned, my skill at jumping from ledge to ledge, platform to platform, all while dodging whatever it is Bowser and his minions want to throw at me, has gone stale. This is the first point I got really really stuck in Super Mario 64.
The first world in which players come across Bowser is a harsh and hostile place. There?s fire shooting out from pretty much everywhere, strange little electric birds circling overhead, and a bottomless drop if you miss a single one of the platforms.
This is where I struggled. I?m still good at boss fights. The great thing about Super Mario 64 is that all the bosses are stupid enough to tell you how to beat them. ?You?ll never be able to throw me off the edge of this platform!? I?m guessing that this is why I was able to enjoy the boss battles so much in this game ? they were pretty easy because the boss wanted me to win.
But the levels, the build up to the fight at the end, that is where I stumble. Bowser?s worlds are no exception. They?re designed like obstacle courses. At least with the previous worlds, if you fell off something, the likelihood was you?d slide down a hill to either where you were five minutes ago, or the start of the level. In Bowser?s worlds, there is no forgiving, there is no forgetting. I can?t tell you how many times I saw Mario get thrown back out of that trapdoor, like it had been disappointed by my efforts. It was embarrassing to play in front of my housemate, who grew up with an N64, watching and laughing as I continued to fail.
Timing is everything in Super Mario 64. Those platforms that move around, I fear them. I see them in my darkest dreams. It?s been a while since I?ve had such sweaty hands. It got to a point where the controller was so slippy that I?m still sure that that was what was making me lose. Oh, and of course, I did that whole clench-up-and-flail-around thing when I made a particularly risky jump. And even after I conquered them, I was still afraid of what future levels might bring.
In the end, I did beat Bowser (the first of three times), and it inspired in me a renewed sense of confidence, that was instantly shattered the moment I used his key to move into the next world. Super Mario 64 is a vicious circle of confidence boosts and then crushing my self esteem. I don?t know how my friends handled it when they were young.
I?m still playing it, every so often, but my self confidence is already low enough, and I don?t need Bowser making it worse with his ridiculous level design and impossible jumps. He may actually be one of the most psychologically evil video game villains I?ve ever come across?
Source: http://bnbgaming.com/2012/02/27/tough-as-nails-super-mario-64/
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