So, Mario Galaxy didn’t make my favorite Mario game, I did not play Odyssey, and I think Sunshine is not a fun game, so I guess that only leaves us with one Mario game to top all of them in my eyes. And it’s Hotel Mario, baby!
Hotel Mario follows Mario and Gay Luigi as they go through the seven hotels owned by Bowser in the hopes of saving Princess Peach- Nah, I’m just fucking with you, it’s Super Mario 64. Mario 64 follows Mario as he goes through the different paintings in Peaches castle to stop Gay Bowser and save Peach. Yeah, that sounds like a better plot synopsis. So what makes Mario 64 my favorite, you ask, anyone who hasn’t seen anything on this game. Well, it’s cause it is an all time classic for a multitude of reasons. Being Mario’s first step into the world of 3D gaming, there was a lot they needed to get right, and get right they did. You have a ton of worlds to explore, from Bob-Omb Battlefield, Rainbow Road, Thwomp Castle, Jolly Rogers Bay, Tick Tock Clock, and Boo’s Haunted Mansion or whatever. A ton of worlds with a ton of Stars to collect. You can go through this entire game and miss a bunch of stars, but when you find them, you can unlock new levels to go through until you eventually get to Bowser and defeat him. And if you manage to get all of them, you can find Yoshi on the top of the castle, who’ll give you a hundred lives (Kind of useless, now that I already got all the Stars, but whatever). Mario’s jumping in this game also feels real natural. His movement is smooth enough to enjoy, he jumps just right enough to have weight but not feel too heavy and right enough to make it onto those platforms that you need to get onto, and you have a ton of ways to traverse, from double jumps, triple jumps, running jumps, backjumps, all over the fucking place jumps, there’s so many jumps. They went all out with the jumps. Who says White Men Can’t Jump? But one of my favorite things about Super Mario 64 was the castle itself. It was a lot of fun to explore and see all sorts of things in this place. I remember seeing Peach’s Castle in Super Mario 64 and thinking, “I wanna go there”, but never could. Until now, of course. And it’s pretty spacious, with even more stuff added in the DS remake. And my favorite thing was finding all of the secrets in this game, from the underwater level behind the fishtank, the flying level you see by looking up at the light, and the really fun slide level that you can find behind one of the windows. There are so many secrets in this game for you to find and they make exploring the castle feel fun and rewarding. I was never the kid who believed all that L is Real nonsense, but damn, with how much time I spent running around the castle, I may as well have. And honestly, if I heard about it, I totally would’ve searched high and low for Luigi.
Super Mario 64 is considered one of the best Mario games, and for a damn good reason. It has an amazing amount of gameplay, and it pathed the way for what 3D platformers needed to be. It’s what so many tried to be, and while some succeeded, none could compare to Super Mario 64. At least in my eyes. It is just too good to compare. Maybe Mario Odyssey can beat it, but until I play it, Super Mario 64 will always be my favorite in the franchise.
