One of the most influential games of all time
I'm just amazed by this game, how could they make a style of open world game in 1996? It's incredible, the evolutions in the graphic department and with the controls, having the analog stick on the N64, was great.
Most of the time, the 3D games from that era don't hold up, but that doesn't happen with this one. You can play this game today and see how great it is, so just imagine how great it was at the time. I only played a couple of hours at the time it came out, but recently went back to beat it and get as many stars as I could.
Each time I play this game again I understand even more the people that say it's one of the most influential and well made games of all time. And I completely agree.
The camera wasn't bad for its time, and they managed to be so clever with the secrets around the levels and throughout the whole castle. The level design, making you replay each one a bunch of times so you can progress, without being not even close to boring, its impressive, I'm not a big fan of replaying things, but this one won me over. It's so cool to fly in the 3D camera as well, it had a great sense of speed.
The game introduced a few things by making Mario grab different caps throughout the game, that work like a Power Up. We saw Metal Mario for the first time, when you grabbed the Metal Cap, there was also the Vanish Cap and the Wing Cap. You could use cannons to shoot yourself to places you couldn't reach. You can do a wall jump, as well as having some tricks to do a double jump, a triple jump, a slide jump, to do a power stomp, some flips.
The game made you do something different each time on the level, to earn a new star, a couple of times was something completely different from traditional platforming. We got something new when it comes to boss battles as well, and you don't see as many as in the other games. The music is amazing as well.
