Ah who could forget the day the DS first came out? It seemed like only yesterday that this 2-screened system capable of 3-dimensional graphics with touchscreen capabilities came into stores. Who could forget the first release title for the DS? Yes sir, Super Mario 64 DS was one of the first DS games ever released for the Nintendo DS.
Before I begin my review on this game, let's focus on the "64" part of the title. If you owned Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64, you'd know why that was there. Changing the well known 2D Mario platformers on the NES and SNES, Super Mario 64 took a different approach with our Red Capped friend. Jumping through painting, collecting stars, and getting to kick Bowser's behind just to save a princess trapped in her own castle. Super Mario 64 was well known by most people. Seeing how the "64" is in the title of "Super Mario 64 DS", it plainly hints that this is a re-make of Super Mario 64.
Going back to the topic of Super Mario 64 DS, I'll finally begin my review.
Super Mario 64 DS is a full-fledged 3D game held in both palms of your hands. This game was not a direct port of Super Mario 64. It used a lot of the Nintendo DS's 3D graphic capabilities and managed to enhance most of the looks within the game. A picture is below displaying the difference between Mario's look in the DS version (left) from what Mario looked like in the 64 version (right).
In Super Mario 64, the only playable character was Mario. Super Mario 64 DS presented playable characters not only of Mario, but also Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario! Super Mario 64 DS also started the game a bit differently. In the 64 version, Princess Peach read her letter and Mario jumps out of a pipe that seems to pop up out of nowhere in front of the castle.
In the DS version, Peach reads her letter and Mario, Luigi, and Wario pop out of those same randomly spawning pipes in front of the castle. All three of them run into the castle and the camera shifts to the roof of the castle where we find Yoshi sleeping and then we fade to black... just to wake up and find out that Mario, Wario, and Luigi are missing and you're locked out of your own castle.
The powers that each character has:
Yoshi: Not only is he the character you start out with, but Yoshi now has a few uses that... well... only a Yoshi can do. His main attack consists of eating things by sticking out his long tongue and using it to grab things. He can swallow fire and spit it back out again as well. Yoshi's flutter jump also appears in the game. Just hold A as you jump and you'll gain a bit of a height boost! Yoshi can swallow some enemies and make an egg out of them to throw at enemies. If other enemies were close enough, when the egg is thrown, it would take out all the enemies nearby with one throw. You're limited to one egg though. Yoshi cannot break brick blocks you encounter within the game. He also can't eat boos. Thankfully, as you unlock Mario, Luigi, and Wario, you can wear these special caps that turn you into the player that wears that cap and you gain all the powers of that character! If you're hit once though, your cap will fall off and you'll revert back to your normal character. Yoshi's not the only one that can wear caps, but just remember that there's no such thing as a Yoshi cap! Lastly, Yoshi can gain to breathe infinite fire for a limited amount of time when getting a flower from the ? blocks that occasionally appear.
Mario: Not much can be said about Mario. He has the same moves he had in the 64 version which were the punch, kick, kick, jump, and all the other stuff that actually hurts things. Mario is the only character that can get either the feather powerup or the flower powerup from a ? block. The feather gives Mario the ability to fly through the air. The flower powerup inflates Mario and allows him to float up into unreachable places.
Luigi: Ah Luigi. Highest jumper you'll find in this game! Luigi has the same attacks as Mario. What's different about Luigi then? Well as stated previously, he jumps high. I'm not kidding; he can reach many places with his normal jump that Mario can't reach without doing a somersault! If you hold B while jumping, you "scuttle", which allows Luigi to stretch longer distances with his normal jump. Oh, and when Luigi does a somersault, he spins slowly causing him to fall at a small speed with the assistance of decent aerial control. Luigi can also walk on water for around a second as long as he doesn't fall or jump to get to the water. Luigi's flower ? block power up gives him the ability to phase through enemies and gates as well as attacks. This is probably the most common power up you'll use for this game if you're trying to get all 150 stars. (Oh yeah there's 30 more stars from the original 64 version.)
Wario: Lastly we have the fat guy. He may move slow, he can't jump high, but this dude's one hell of a guy! There are black brick blocks you sometimes encounter that not even Mario or Luigi can break. Wario's so strong that he'll shatter it with one punch! He's the powerhouse of the foursome and can actually prove really useful. If he punches small enemies, they'll fly into the air before falling back down to die. Lastly, there are pegs around that Yoshi, Mario, and Luigi have to groundpound three times just to get the coins from it. Not for Wario though, his heavy weight causes any peg (except for one really tall one) to slam into the floor with just one groundpound. Wario's flower powerup from the ? blocks causes him to gain a suit of metal making him impervious to damage and able to walk underwater and not need to breathe.
The levels are the same in Super Mario 64 DS as they were in the 64 version. There are a few new levels though! Including 3 new boss fights that you have to do if you want to unlock Mario, Luigi, and Wario.
Why is Toad able to disappear and fade in when walking close? We'll never know. Well anyway, toad was dumb enough to lose a lot of keys. You know what happened to all those keys? Multiple colored bunnies will frolic anywhere you can think to look. Catch them, and they'll give you a key to Peach's minigame room! The minigame room has a bunch of touchscreen games you can play if you're bored. They're actually pretty fun as well!
Though the existence of this is almost completely gone, Super Mario 64 DS was the best game out there you could experiment with using the Action Replay DS. If I get permission, I will post all the codes that a bunch of people and I worked together to find. (these codes only work for v1.0 of Super Mario 64 DS)
The overall gameplay was definitely fun. The replay value of this game is pretty high... which benefited me greatly since it was my only DS game for almost a whole year. Controls are basic and easy to get used to which is always important.
Overall, Super Mario 64 DS was a great game. It's one of the rare 3D platformer games you'll find for the DS that's great!
That's it I suppose.
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