What was your reaction to Mario 64 back then?

[nogoodnamesleft]

I still remember so clearly

my dad took me to target to get ridge racer for my newly bought playstation

i wasnt big on game magazines at that point or forums etc (dont think we even had internet at that point, or it wasnt even common here in AU for households)

And as im walking towards target i see kiosks lined up with people playing

im like oh shit sweet, lets see what games they have

And then i see it for the first time. Mother fucking mario 64.

My jaw absolutely ABSOLUTELY stayed open and i was like, to my dad "OH MY GOD ARE YOU SEEING THIS"

I watched and i waited for my turn and then i got to play it and it was just jaw drop again. I couldnt believe it. This was NEXT gen. It made the playstation feel, to me, IMMEDIATELY SO DATED!!! (i now know, of course, it wasnt, but to young me?? I instantly wanted to get rid of my playstation for this)

For weeks at school i thought about it. It felt so unreal. That kind of freedom and fluidity, level design (only played 2 levels but still) i wanted it so badly

Eventually later my cousin lent me his nintendo 64 with mario 64 and zelda and i played them non-fucking-stop and finished them both. They are absolutely transcendent experiences for me and very few experiences now will replicate that feeling for me

 

[Deleted member 5491]

 

[TheChrisGlass]

"This camera sucks"

Basically I just felt like most of my time was fighting the camera controls. I couldn't pull out as far as I wished.

 

[Rexxo]

I was at a Toys R Us and got to try a timed demo of Mario 64 and was absolutely blown away. I was a Sega kid growing up so it was a huge "holy shit" moment.

 

[Combichristoffersen]

It was and still is a resounding meh. The game was groundbreaking, and one of the most influential games ever, in that it was a fully 3D platformer. But I've never found the game much fun to actually play.

 

[Dark Mantonio]

I couldn't believe it was real.

 

[Rzarekta]

It was a bit surreal, but it controlled so perfectly with the N64 stick that it made the transition to 3D gaming absolutely perfect. After maybe 1 minute running around outside the castle, it all just clicked and my brother and I were flipping out with excitement. An incredible classic.

 

[Anno]

I was blown away for a few days before I realized I actually liked the game way less than NES/SNES Mario titles. It's the first game I can remember really having a critical opinion about, and along with just hating the N64 in general pushed me away from Nintendo in general until the DS launched.

 

[Rats]

I thought it was a good game but I don't remember it blowing my mind, or anything. My best friend was way more into it than I was.

 

[Green Tentacle]

Walking into the bestbuy and looking up at the grid of CRTs showing Mario 64 was incredible.

 

[NickatNite]

I was ~8 / 9 when I played and had a very rough time with it.

Watching my brother play it was more enjoyable.

 

[ascii42]

I didn't like how it played, and preferred the gameplay of the 2D Mario games, because those to me controlled perfectly. I don't think I really bought into the idea of fully 3D platformers until Jak & Daxter. Well, I liked Crash Bandicoot, but that's not quite the same thing.

 

[Deleted member 79451]

I was really into it. What can I say. Compared to Crash Bandicoot and Nights it was just so much more of what I wanted out of a platformer. It hits the Mario vibe I like better than any 3D Mario game other than 3D World, too. So it definitely gave me the feels in the day.

I mean I had a PS so it wasn't jaw dropping like when PS first hit. But it was still really great.

 

[Superblatt]

It was beyond mind blowing at the time. I was 16, and it's the last time a game truly impressed me.

 

[bananab]

A friend of mine got it and a bunch of other friends went over to check it out. I remember thinking it seemed cool but not enough to go see for myself. Never actually saw it until maybe 5-6 years later. Similar deal with virtua fighter: friends talking about it but didn't see it until a long time later. In both cases I basically didn't even understand what they meant when they said they were 3d.

 

[Dekuman]

IIRC the N64 launched in Japan in July 1996 while the NA launch came later. So during the summer Nintendo of Canada had a booth at the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver Canada where I got to play PilotWings and Mario 64 early.

I was in a daze for days after. It was mind blowing to see 3D games on such scale.

 

[Neifirst]

Went with a buddy to Toys R Us once we heard there was a demo unit. Couldn't believe what I was playing and couldn't stop smiling. It was mind-blowing to control a character in actual 3D space.

I already had a Saturn and PlayStation at this point, and had enjoyed Nights quite a bit, but this was a whole other level.

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

It was beyond mind blowing at the time. I was 16, and it's the last time a game truly impressed me.

Click to shrink...

i think i was around that age too! ive had moments like this since but they are very rare

for me it was

mario 64

the dreamcast in general at launch

half life alyx/vr

 

[erekiddo]

I saw it at a Target demo kiosk and couldn't believe my eyes.

 

[pbayne]

im pretty sure i thought the first bowser boss fight was the greatest thing ever back then

 

[halcali]

I'd just received What's the Story Morning Glory for Christmas when I was playing Mario 64.
To describe the feeling I experienced is simply impossible for me... but it was Magical.

 

[Mekanos]

I remember clearly sitting and watching my cousin play it after he got it for Christmas on 96. I was very young and still barely grasping video games as a concept so while it was cool at the time, I didn't really appreciate the gravity of it since I didn't have an extensive history of pre-3D gaming. Nonetheless Mario 64 was and remains an extremely formative game for me that would influence me for years to come.

 

[Stopdoor]

Probably something like goo-goo gaa-gaa

 

[Neifirst]

i think i was around that age too! ive had moments like this since but they are very rare

for me it was

mario 64

the dreamcast in general at launch

half life alyx/vr

Click to shrink...

You're definitely right about Dreamcast being the next jaw-dropping moment. Soul Calibur was soooooo sharp and those NFL 2K replays were unreal!!!

 

[JMY86]

I bought a N64 console but for some reason all the games were sold out at Toys"R"us so I rented Mario64 from Blockbuster and still remember being absolutely floored by what I was seeing.

 

[mikhailguy]

Probably too young to fully grasp how great the controls were at the time, but I remember my mind being blown by the Loch Ness monster, the sunken city in Wet-Dry World, and the eel in Jolly Roger.

 

[DoctorDave]

The most blown away I've ever been with a video game. I had seen screenshots in Nintendo Power, but like others have said, seeing it running on demo stations at Toys ´R Us was just... something else. I could think of nothing else for days after that. I'm still thankful to my parents for getting me a N64 at launch as a (2-month) early birthday gift.

 

[BasilZero]

"Hmm, cool."

My first N64 game was Yoshi's Story.

(I didnt get SM64 until 2001).

 

[samred]

Click to shrink...

I memorized this issue's massive SM64 feature, fulllll of screenshots, well before I stumbled upon a playable kiosk at a Blockbuster Video. I'm pretty sure I refreshed N64.com a few times a day just in case any news about it came up. I was absolutely obsessed from the moment I saw what looked like a truly 3D character moving around a truly 3D environment, complete with free camera rotation as an option. It translated really well to magazine screenshots in ways that 3D fare like Nights and Jumping Flash never could.

 

[NotLiquid]

"What? There's no level timer??"

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

You're definitely right about Dreamcast being the next jaw-dropping moment. Soul Calibur was soooooo sharp and those NFL 2K replays were unreal!!!

Click to shrink...

not to mention the first time i saw DC running live gameplay was on small crt monitors at a local game shop in vga and it looked f u c k i n g incredible

when i got mine i wondered why doesnt mine look like that lol (on a normal crt tv) it still looked AMAZING but only years later i found out about the whole progressive scan thing

 

[Rainer516]

The fluidity of the movement blew me away. I was 11 at the time, and had only dealt with side scrollers and a few top-down games. I hadn't played anything past SNES or Genesis, only seen pictures of PSX games in magazines.

It was fun to look at and even more fun to simply control.

I still remember the first time I saw a triple jump.

 

[LifeLike]

A big "Holy Shit". It was outstanding.

 

[Jiggy]

I only had a PlayStation at the time and Mario 64 was the one game that made me really wish I had an N64 as well. I finally played it years later through the Virtual Console on the Wii.

 

[bananab]

I sorta wish I could have been in the blown away camp. Seems fun. Came out in my late teens "games are whatever" phase and by the time I saw it it was outclassed by dozens of other games tech-wise.

 

[RecRoulette]

The only time I would see it was in the Walmart kiosk and I must've beat King Bobomb like 50 times.

It was crazy at the time, I thought the controller was dumb though lol

 

[Couleurs]

It was probably the most mind blowing gaming moment I've ever had. I obsessed over Mario 64's development in magazines during 95-96, and it's hard to emphasize how amazing the graphics were for its time. And the idea of playing a game with 3D movement was still really new. Then actually seeing the game in motion on a demo unit at Blockbuster before launch, it was so hard to talk myself out of playing it, since I wanted to save the experience for when the N64 launched.

 

[Hilarious_Bearious]

I thought it was a neat tech demo but not much fun to play. I figured I just wasn't going to enjoy 3D platformers.

 

[blacktout]

It was beyond mind blowing at the time. I was 16, and it's the last time a game truly impressed me.

Click to shrink...

This. I was a little younger (12?) and it was an absolutely formative moment. I doubt I would still be playing video games if not for Mario 64. I'm still chasing that high. Breath of the Wild is probably the closest I've come since.

 

[PtM]

The magazine I was subscribed to disected the whole game over multiple issues. I got to play it in a Woolworth's after school, a lot. I was going to buy a PSX, but then the price of the N64 dropped and that's how I went Nintendo.

So I got eased into the experience by a lot.

Oh, and I completely forgot I had been watching trailers before...

Spoiler

... on VHS.

 

[Durden]

I also remember it extremely clearly. It pretty much defined my entire future with games. I was 7 years old, and I realized then that video games were not just something that had to "end". They were going to grow up with me. To this day it's probably the single most important game I ever played

 

[xir]

got me back into console gaming as a snotty PC teen

 

[nogoodnamesleft]

I also remember it extremely clearly. It pretty much defined my entire future with games. I was 7 years old, and I realized then that video games were not just something that had to "end". They were going to grow up with me. To this day it's probably the single most important game I ever played

Click to shrink...

love reading posts like this!

 

[Kneefoil]

It was the first fully 3D game I played, although I had played games with a Z-axis like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom. Maybe I was too young to appreciate the 3 dimensional movement of it and get the kind of mind blowing reaction from it a bunch of people seem to have had with it. To me it was just another game, albeit one that I like a whole lot.

 

[Palmersaurusrex]

I saw an ad for it during the Australian afternoon kids show A*mazing and I thought 'wow, this Super Nintendo game looks incredible.'

 

[Gwarm]

I was just a kid, but I remember thinking it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. My cousin and I would just walk around the court yard, or swim and explore without even really going after stars. It just felt amazing to be in such an immersive world.

 

[NekoFever]

Mindblowing.

I'd been following it in magazines since the Ultra 64 was announced. Had a few goes when the local importer got Japanese machines in, but they knew 11-year-old me didn't have a few hundred for an import machine. And I have a distinct memory of playing it in Innoventions at Disney World in 1996, before it came out here in 1997.

By the time I got my own copy at the N64 launch, I'd seen most of it because UK magazines had done blowout features based on the Japanese and US versions, and I even bought the guide (I think it was the Gamefan one, and I probably still have it somewhere) on that same trip to Disney World so I had more to read about it, but it was and remains the most impressive generational leap for me.

It was amazing how Nintendo nailed it at the first attempt considering how many 2D gaming icons fluffed the transition to 3D.

"This camera sucks"

Basically I just felt like most of my time was fighting the camera controls. I couldn't pull out as far as I wished.

Click to shrink...

I remember the press at the time saying how this was the 3D platformer with the good camera, unlike all the others that just couldn't get it right. But having recently replayed the Switch version, I agree with you now.

 

[Son of Liberty]

I believe I saw it on a demo booth at Toys R' Us, I was very young at the time so it's a bit of a blur.
But I do know that I played a lot of that game.

 

[Professor Beef]

I was grounded when I first saw the commercial for Mario 64. My mom just looked at me and said "boy it'd be great if someone weren't grounded, wouldn't it?"

 

[P-Bo]

As a 6-7 year old, who'd only ever seen 16-bit sidescroller/platformers up until that point, it was like seeing magic.