Welcome to Survive or Thrive, a brand new
series where we see what would happen if you were permanently transported into
a video game. We'll analyze 8 different aspects of the game's world and rate
them on a scale of 1 to 5. At the end, we'll add them all up to figure out if
you would just survive or truly thrive. So. You've just been magically placed into Super Mario 64's Mushroom Kingdom with no
way of escape. How screwed are you? Let's start with the important
stuff. Perhaps most important is water. You won't survive for more than
a week without water, or probably even half of that in a survival situation. And
before you outright die of dehydration, you'll definitely get weaker leading up to it. So
you wanna find a water source as soon as possible. Thankfully, we're spoiled for water in this game.
There's a ton of different sources throughout the different stages as well as the castle itself. The
waterfall in front of the castle might be the most useful, considering it's always flowing from
an unknown source. Since it is unknown though, you'd still want to do your best to make it
as safe as possible. Which means boiling it. I was about to go into a whole thing
about how difficult it'd be to get a fire going in this world. It's not impossible
to start one without a man-made firestarter, but it'd be difficult. And while
there are enemies that breathe fire, it'd be very dangerous to have
to do that on a regular basis. I was going to go into all that
until I remembered there's some fires in the castle basement. You
could grab a stick, light it up, and take it outside to boil your water. Not a good
idea to have a fire indoors without a chimney. There you go. Safe water to drink.
You won't die of dehydration. I'll give water availability a 4 out of
5. It's really easy to get water and you can clean it without putting yourself in harm's
way. Though in the grand scheme of game worlds you could find yourself in, it could have
been easier. A 4 out of 5 is fair I think. Next is food. While you likely couldn't survive
a week without water, you can make it by much longer without food. It heavily varies person to
person depending on how much body fat you have built up. And much like water, you'd be struggling
long before you actually just die of starvation. So what food sources are available to
you? Now I'm not a marine biologist, so I don't know what type of fish this is,
but I have a feeling you aren't gonna get much sustenance out of them. Like you'd probably
need a lot of these to get enough calories for the day. Fortunately, there's something a
bit... bigger out there. In Tiny Huge Island, you can catch yourself a Bubba. Well, you can
TRY. It's several times bigger than Mario and you have no fishing rod. You could maybe fashion
one together with sticks and some vines from this wall in Tall Tall Mountain, but this guy ain't
getting caught with a minecraft-ass fishing rod. Here's another option. Mario can't normally kill this thing. But
Mario doesn't know how to use tools. I say fashion up a bunch of sharp sticks and start
chucking them at Bubba. It might take a lot, but when you eventually do kill him,
that'll last you a while I bet. Cut him up into portions and store them in Cool
Cool Mountain. They'll last longer frozen. And if Bubba is too much trouble, get yourself
some Koopas. According to this BBC article, a family in 1971 survived for 38 days at sea just off turtles as well as some fish.
If they can do it, why can't you? Something that will be a problem though is vitamin
deficiency. I'm really racking my brain here, and I can't think of a single vegetable
or fruit in this game. The only thing that might help you out are Pokeys, because it
seems like some cacti have Vitamin C in them? Vitamin C is useful for protecting against
scurvy, and you definitely don't want that. Overall, I'll give food availability a 2
out of 5. You'll be able to procure meat somewhat easily, but you'll definitely
be deficient in some nutrients to the point where it'll likely become
a problem later down the line. Shelter is the final need, and I don't have to
spend much time on this. You have a whole ass castle to live in. Though it doesn't really
have any living space, so you'd have to make your own bed somewhere. Personally,
I'd put one in here. It's nice and cozy. Five out of five. Let's talk about safety. In some game worlds,
it'll be a fight for your life every single day just to make it to the next. Thankfully, Super
Mario 64 isn't really like that. While there are some stages that'll definitely be dangerous
to a normal human with normal human abilities, you can just avoid those. No reason to go on
Rainbow Ride and fall down to Earth from the clouds above. You could spend most of your time
in the castle if you wanted to, the only enemy outside of the main stages are these Boos.
And you don't have to come back here either. Though as we touched on, you will have to journey
out for food. Koopas and the big Bubbas are only found in stages. There's one Koopa Troopa on
Bob-Omb Battlefield, and the only enemies between you and him are some Goombas. Goombas should be
pretty easy to take out with a spear. You could maybe jump on them, considering Mario's just a
little over 5 feet tall. Keep in mind though, you wouldn't be able to jump as high as him.
We'll talk more about that later though. And as I said earlier, killing a Bubba would be
a struggle. You could maybe figure something out, but messing up would not be
good. Plus, if you get injured, there's no hospital to help you. The only
sentient creatures around here are Toads, and I don't think any of them
went to school to be a doctor. I'll give this world a safety rating of 4
out of 5. Day-to-day life might be a bit more dangerous in Super Mario 64 compared
to real life depending on your situation, but there are much worse worlds
to be in. This one's alright. Traversability. This is a big one for this
game. Super Mario 64's Mushroom Kingdom wasn't built to be a believable realistic
world. It was built to jump around in. This is a platformer after all. It's fun to hop
around levels and make death-defying jumps. But what does that mean for the average human? For simplicity's sake, let's say Mario is
exactly 5 feet tall minus his hat. This is five feet right here. When he jumps, he
gains just about 5 feet as well. He can jump his own height. And that's without a
running start. AND THAT's not even taking into account the double and triple jump. Mario
truly is a beast when it comes to verticality. How high can you jump? When was the last
time you ever even thought about jumping? It seems like the average human
jump height is about 16-20 inches. The average height for an adult male is
5'7 and adult females 5'3. Either way, you might have noticed 16 to 20 inches
isn't exactly equal to 5 foot whatever. Fortunately, the average adult is a bit
taller than Mario, so you can potentially grab ledges while standing that he couldn't
before. You would need to get some pull-ups in to work out that arm strength though if you
wanna be going through a lot of these levels. But if you wanted to stick to the
castle and Bob-Omb Battlefield, you don't need any sick moves to just survive. I'll give the world a 3 out of 5
rating for traversability. Yeah you can make it through the simpler
stages just fine, but if you needed to reach the top of Whomp's Fortress for
something, or climb Tall Tall Mountain, you're gonna struggle. This world was not built
for people like us. It was built for Italians. The next aspect is socialization.
That might sound like a weird one, but hear me out. If you're gonna be
staying here until your dying breath, you'd probably want to be in the company of
others. I know some people out there can live alone in a cabin in the mountains all their
lives, but most people aren't built for that. Socializing is human nature. Without it,
you'd undoubtedly go crazy after a while. The sentient creatures inhabiting the castle
here are Toads. I don't know what a human being would have in common with a Toad, but I'm
sure you could find something to chat about. You could probably even be able assimilate
into their culture after a long enough time. Become an honorary Toad. That's what
it'd be like to truly thrive in this world. But you still are trapped in one location
with the same handful of beings. Maybe you'd get bored of them after a while. Angry at
them. I'm sure infighting would crop up at some point. With such a small group, something's
bound to go wrong after a long enough timespan. And yeah, Princess Peach exists, but I don't think you'd be able to save her. No offense
to you personally, but no human could traverse Bowser in the Sky here. Not even
an Olympic-level athlete. Sorry princess. While socialization could be worse, it definitely could be better. I think it rounds out
to a 3 out of 5 all things considered. Sustainability. I mentioned earlier that you could
probably get assimilated into Toad culture after a good while of surviving in here... but
how long could you survive? There's only one koopa troopa in Bob-Omb Battlefield. Could
you get a day's worth of calories out of that one turtle? And yeah, there's all these trees,
but what happens when you cut them all down? It'd take a LONG time for them to grow back.
Potentially a longer time than you might have. Considering you can exit a stage and enemies
respawn, I'm tempted to say everything you take would respawn once you re-enter. So you
could cut down all the trees you wanted, get a star or exit a stage, come back
and they'd all be right where they were. But then the Castle also resets too... That's not good. If everything resets, then you
can't build up a base of any kind and return to it after going into a stage. Any bed or shelter
you build is just gone the moment you leave it. That severely hampers your sustainability. Every
day would constantly be like your first in terms of how many supplies you have. The most you
could accrue is what you can carry on your person. So you'd have to light a torch and
bring it with you to Bob-Omb Battlefield to cook a Koopa Troopa, or bring the koopa
to the castle fire and cook it there. I didn't really think about that until this
section, but yeah, that's a major problem. I'll give sustainability a 2 out of 5. It would
be a 1 out of 5 if enemies didn't respawn, but still, things wouldn't be
good for you in the long run. And the final aspect, the X-factor.
This is about the vibes of the world. The je ne sais quoi. Is this a comfy
place that I'd want to spend the rest of my life in? Or do I feel put
off for some indescribable reason? I... think this world would be super nice to hang
out in. Something about the colors and the overall design feels so welcoming. It's cheerful and
bright. At least the castle and earlier stages in the game are. Lethal Lava Land is a stage
I probably wouldn't spend a lot of time in, but I wouldn't have to. I would never step foot in
Tick Tock Clock, that is just asking for trouble. The low polygon models and tiny textures
of this era are comforting to me. Though it is weird to think about what that'd do to
your brain after a while. We're used to such intensely detailed objects and places in
our world, what would it be like to live in a Nintendo 64 game and see these
textures for the rest of your life? Not sure, but I will give it a 4 out of 5. I
can't explain it, but there's just something holding me back from giving it a full 5 out of 5.
Those I guess that's the nature of this aspect, there's some indescribable part of this world
keeping it from having the perfect vibe. And that's all eight aspects. To recap, we gave it a 4/5
in the water department. 2/5 in food. 5/5 in shelter. 4/5 for safety. 3/5 for traversability. 3/5 socialization. 2/5 sustainability. And a 4/5 on the X-factor.
Giving us a total score of... 27 out of 40. Not too bad. Though I guess it's hard to judge
how good it truly is considering this is the first game we've looked at. If you have any
changes you'd have made scoring-wise or want to comment on a claim or assumption I made, leave
it down below. I'm curious about your perspective. While there are some problems you might come
across during your new life in Super Mario 64, I think it there are definitely some worse games you could find yourself in.
This one wouldn't be too bad. Let me know what you think about the video
in the comments. Kinda trying out something new here and I want some feedback. Like the
video if you liked it, that'll let me know. Thanks for watching and see you next time.
