Nintendo proved to everyone that Mario can continue his platforming roots in 3-D.

User Rating: 9.3 | Super Mario 64 N64
“How could you be able to create a 3-D Mario game without losing its touch?” This was the very question many Mario fans were asking around the time a new Mario game was announced. “Can you make it better than any 3-D game?” I asked myself around the time I saw the first screenshots of its production before the Nintendo 64 hit the shelves a little over ten years ago.

Super Mario 64 is one of the most innovative 3-D games ever made. It has tight controls, incredible depth, and addictive replay value than any other 3-D game at the time. The game starts off with the same story in previous Mario games: Save the princess and defeat King Koopa. But the story changes, this time you have to collect enough stars to continue the adventure: 120 stars worth!

You can wall jump, somersault, long jump, ground pound, crawl (no purpose using this strange move, but it must have been an afterthought from Nintendo), and every other not mentioned (the move list goes on and on.) You can use these moves to make it through obstacles such as using the long jump to leap through the other side of an area that you couldn’t pass through. And when you go against Bowser, you can grab his tail and move the joystick in circles to spin him, and then throw him off to the spiked bombs.

There are 15 worlds to explore including hidden areas to get more stars, as well as catching rabbits that might have stars to give you. It is an endless journey to find all 120 stars in order to unlock a secret within the game (Hint: Outside the Castle.) Even if you found them all, you just want to run jump and explore some more.

Super Mario 64 is a decade old which stunned fans and the entire videogame industry with its “3-D touch,” and many (me as well) declared it as “the best 3-D game of its time.” Now that the game will be downloadable for the Wii console [probably at launch day (November 19th)] those who’ve played it before and those who’ve heard or didn’t play it before should get this game as their first Nintendo 64 game for the Wii virtual console. It is still a classic among every gamer who experienced the world Mario ventured in, in 3-D form.