Thoughts on Super Mario 64 DS

[swiftzx]

Wow, all the hate about the controls. Which version of the ds do you guys have? Ive played it on the ds lite and ds phat and the controls weren't bad for me.

[futuramaguy42]

I played SM64 DS more then the N64 one as well, though I didn't have the patience to get all the stars.

If you liked Super Mario 64 definitely play Sunshine and Galaxy. They are both great in their own ways. Sunshine has amazing water based worlds of similar size to the ones in 64, and Galaxy has all cool gravity stuff and more linear levels, kind of like the Bowser levels in 64.

[CFFJR]

I love the game and feel its superior to the original. Yeah I know, very unpopular opinion, but that's how I feel.

And yes, I played the original first, just in case that comes up.

I didn't think the controls were all bad. I only used the dpad, and while it took some adjusting, once I got used to it I had no problem. Hell, I actually liked holding the button down to run. I felt I had more control in slippery situations.

Plus, far as I'm concerned, the whole game is vastly improved simply because you can finally play as Luigi, something that should have been available from the very start.

[msimplay]

I love the game and feel its superior to the original. Yeah I know, very unpopular opinion, but that's how I feel.

And yes, I played the original first, just in case that comes up.

I didn't think the controls were all bad. I only used the dpad, and while it took some adjusting, once I got used to it I had no problem. Hell, I actually liked holding the button down to run. I felt I had more control in slippery situations.

Plus, far as I'm concerned, the whole game is vastly improved simply because you can finally play as Luigi, something that should have been available from the very start.

Na I agree to be honest it took a bit of getting used to the Dpad but once I did the game was the better version of Mario 64 as far as I'm concerned.
When I went back to the original I found the disappearing coins a bit annoying.
In the DS version they were full polygon coins instead of the sprite based ones as in the N64 version.

Analog is much better but as far as Mario 64 goes I would choose the DS version the graphics were tweaked and in my opinion look better than the N64 ones.

[gtmtnbiker]

I didn't think the controls were all bad. I only used the dpad, and while it took some adjusting, once I got used to it I had no problem. Hell, I actually liked holding the button down to run. I felt I had more control in slippery situations.

I did use the dpad for a bit but I found the controls to not be as precise. For instance, walking across a narrow ledge was easier with the stylus. Running a circle around Bowser or a Bully was easier with a stylus. Aside from those things, the d-pad was fine.

The only issue with the stylus for me was having to reset it periodically. That is, you would have moved it to the edge and have to bring it back to the middle.

I found the stylus controls to be very clever. I never would have thought of designing it such that you put it down and based on where it was originally, the character would move in that direction.

As I mentioned before, I used the stylus in my left hand and my right hand for the buttons. If you're a rightly with the stylus in your right hand, you would use the d-pad as buttons. This didn't seem good to me. Did anyone use the d-pad as buttons (jump, punch, etc)?

It would have been cool if Nintendo could have reversed it for righties. That is, you hold the DS upside down so the buttons would be on the left (x,y for a,b & a,b for x,y). I can see how that would be confusing for a lot of people except good gamers.

[xan_racketBOY_fan]

The dpad setup works perfect for me, which got me to wondering if there were any more quality 3D platformers on the DS. Also, why hasn't any one mention the superb collection of mini games?! The bob-omb sorting being my personal favorite.

[gtmtnbiker]

Also, why hasn't any one mention the superb collection of mini games?! The bob-omb sorting being my personal favorite.

That's a good point. I haven't tried the minigames yet even though I unlocked almost all of them. You definitely get your money's worth with this game.

[Ziggy]

I knew about this DS game for a while, but until this thread I didn't know about all the extras in it. I was telling my brother about it after reading this thread, and he ended up getting it for me for Christmas. I played a few minutes last night, just enough to get the key and get in the castle. I haven't used the stylus yet, when/what do you use it for? The controls seemed like they could be a little bit of a pain, but didn't seem too bad for the few minutes I played. I'll definitely be playing it today and tomorrow, the snow just started coming down for what's gonna be a blizzard dumping up to 16 inches!

edit: Just got the first 3 stars in the first painting. One thing I forgot about, my D-Pad thumb starts hurting/cramping after playing the DS for 15 minutes. Not just for this game, for any game. I have the DS fat. The controls for Mario 64 don't seem too bad. I still don't know what you have to use the stylus for. So far, the only thing I really don't like about the controls is having to hold a button to run.

[gtmtnbiker]

You can use the stylus to move the character instead of using the D-pad. Just touch the screen and then move it a little. The farther you move it from your original starting point, the faster it will move.

[Ziggy]

Yeah, I found that out after posting. Seems pretty horrible. Using the D-pad makes my thumb cramp up, but it's definitely better control in my opinion.