98% of the Mario titles are truly spectacular and this game is no exeption.
Essentially, this is a remake of the classic game for the Nintendo 64 but with a few tweaks. Let's start with the story shall we? The Story begins as Princess Peach invites Mario, Luigi and thier not so evil cousin Wario to come over to the castle and have some Cake and have party. Sounds like a simple story huh? Well the story had a slight tweak from the original. Yoshi sleeps at the top of the castle and Lakitu wakes him up to tell him that the 3 Moustached Heroes have not returned and it is possible that they might be captured. So Yoshi goes to the Castle to find out that Bowser has Kidnapped Peach for the umpteenth time and he has taken over the Castle by stealling all 150 stars (HOLY MOLY THAT'S A LOT!). So it's up to our prehistoric friend to unite Mario, Luigi and Wario and to rescue Peach once more.
The Gameplay is essesially a 3D world where your heroes can explore the entirerity of the Castle and enter different courses through paintings with lots of challenges. After you complete a challenge you are awarded with Power Stars. You only need to collect 80 stars to win but you can replay the adventure by collecting the rest. The Controls are flawless although you will have some problem with them. You use the control pad to move, B to jump, X to change your camera syle (when you are in close camera mode, you can control the camera by using the control pad), holding Y and the control pad at the same time to dash, A to punch (for Yoshi it's swallow) and R to duck. In short, the game's controls are good although sometimes you will fall pits more often than you want to and you will often blame the controls. I recomend you play the Standard Control settings since it's more responsive and you have complete control without frustration.
Visually, the game is fantastic. The graphics are an enhancement of the original and it has that cartoony Mario look which everyone loves. Somtimes the visuals may look pixelated but overall fantastic looking game.
The 4 playable characters have very different attributes to make them stand out. Mario is balanced: He's speedy and powerful and he can jump high. Luigi is very agile: He can jump extremely high and he can run on water but he lacks power. Yoshi is a fast character: He's very speedy, he can jump beter than Luigi even but he's incredibly weak. Wario is extemely Powerful: His moves hit hard but his low jumps makes platforming difficult. All in All, Nintendo did a good job of making these 4 distinct characters stand out from each other. Also THERE'S A HEALTH METER IN A MARIO GAME FINALLY! IT'S SOO BEAUTIFUL!!
The Music is great but seems a bit recycled. Same for the SFX.
The downsides I found were these: Why does Yoshi have to be playable at the start! I know it's to differanate from the original but still it's Super Mario. Not Super Yoshi! Another downside is that why does it always involve Peach getting kinapped. It's getting old, boring and confusing all at once.
Super Mario 64 DS is a good game. Let's overview the facts shall we.
The Good: Good Controls, Characters are unique in terms of gameplay, Lengthy game (it will take at least 50 hours to beat), good minigames for replay value (especially Wario's section), full 3D evironment to explore, good controls, a Health meter at last.
The Bad (Dan Dan DAN!): Mario is not playable in the start (Yoshi is!), Controls can be 10% of the time be oversensitive.
The Ugly: There are no ugly points of this game (This should apply to every game I hope)
Title: EPIC!