Super Mario 64 vs. Sunshine vs. Galaxy

it's been a hot minute since a traditional 3d mario title and man am i excited for super mario odyssey in leading up to odyssey i've been running a marathon of every main series 3d Mario platformer on my twitch channel and it's been a pretty fun way to revisit the series as a whole I've never played all these games immediately back to back to back before but I feel like now is the best time I'll ever have of these games completely fresh in my head to review well there are technically six 3d Mario platformers out there I'm gonna focus on the original three today galaxy 2 is in many ways a direct extension of the first galaxy and we'll mention it from time to time and while 3d Land and world literally have the word 3d in their title their timer and point based level style always felt more to me like a sequel to the traditional 2d Mario games rather than the first three Mario platformers there's a lot to be said about Super Mario 64 Super Mario Sunshine and Super Mario Galaxy and the format I'll be using today will be going through eight different categories for each game right here unlike most videos like this I'm not gonna be awarding any pure winners for each category because I think comparing and reviewing these games is a little more complicated than that but I will go through the strengths and weaknesses of each game for each category at the end I'll let you guys know my personal favorite of these three but I'm hoping today will be a fun critical journey through the highs and lows of Mario's first decade of 3d platforming let's jump in a lot of this section is gonna be an introductory explanation if you haven't played one of these games so if you want to skip right to the criticism you can jump right to this time stamp Super Mario 64 is the grandfather of today's list and while it is the predecessor for 3d Mario games it's also the predecessor for 3d platforming in general what is predated by some older 3d platforming titles such as jumping flash on the PlayStation Mario 64 is one of the first 3d games to take advantage of an analog stick for free movement and multiple camera options to see the world around you somehow despite being released extremely early into 3d console gaming's lifes man Mario 64 remains one of the best games of his genre its main mechanic of separate missions to retrieve collectibles in this case 120 power stars would lay the ground rules for these first three Mario games your main hub world is the castle itself connecting you to levels through magic paintings that transport you to vastly different worlds while it is a little generic the castle layout is simple enough to follow is the unlock additional stages on higher and lower floors while still leaving some room for you to take a different turn and end up stumbling across a new secret or to like an entire level hidden inside of a ghost in the courtyard or draining a moat to find a mini level outside the castle walls it isn't flashy but it's easy to jump into any level that you want to at any given time and it sets the stage for 3d Mario games to come Super Mario Sunshine took the foundation of mario 64 and ran it in several unexpected directions for better and for worse I think is the most experimental 3d Mario game trying a lot of different things that we haven't really seen since set in the tropical isle delfino Sunshine's adventure is a vacation gone wrong the way from home swapping the wide variety of worlds from 64 with a consistent tropical theme sunshine brought new storytelling techniques that we haven't really seen in Mario since most notably an actual narrative and fully voiced cutscenes throughout these voiced lines are extremely cheesy and it seems to divide fans into two groups either you love the campy Saturday morning cartoon feel of Mario's talking pals or you hate the chatter and wish that Mario dialogue was kept to the briefer text-based format sunshine also opened an unexpected door with flood an equippable water gun that serves as both the means of attacking and a movement ability well it does have its own swappable power of forms flood is a permanent addition to this game making sunshine a game built entirely around this new mechanic with messes to clean up and jumps to take into consideration with your new jetpack power the hub world of Delfino Plaza is huge with plenty to do full of markets buildings boats and an underground tunnel system while not all of its secrets are necessarily fun this is a really fun town to mess around in most of these levels are easy to reach although it is annoying that you're forced to collect a powerup every single time you want to visit pion to village all the way up here despite the massive hub world size though sunshine only contains half the number of main worlds is 64 with 7 compared to 64 is 15 Super Mario Galaxy brings Mario to the stars not these ones the literal cosmic setting of outers bass this is the first 3d Mario game that cuts back on huge explorable areas in favor of 40 plus mini worlds some of them revisited but others used for just one major mission while elements of outer space are prevalent throughout the adventure this game is most similar to mario 64 with its wide variety of individual level themes galaxy returns to a traditional looking mario with nothing equipped but it builds some unique mechanics for the motion based Wii mote controller including a new spin attack and a pointer system for collecting and firing the new star bit currency your hub here's the comet observatory run by the new Princess Rosalina this is also similar to Peach's castle in mario 64 we're separate branching areas bundle sets of levels together besides a few bonus areas the observatory focus is almost entirely on levels galaxy 2 takes this one step even further cutting the hub world almost entirely in favor of a level select screen that you use most of the time the galaxy games are definitely the odd one of today's Bunch they contain the same style of gameplay and star missions as the first two 3d Mario games but they definitely began a trend toward more levels and less exploration and we'll talk about that throughout the day in general that's what all these three games bring to the table but now let's see how they executed Mario 64 opened a massive can of worms that blew me away when I first played in 1996 before this Mario had like three moves jump run maybe a spin jump and that's about it 64 opened a toy box full of crazy maneuvers including running crawling punching kicking and flipping all over the place despite the game's obvious visual age I found that Mario still feels fun to control in 64 you have a lot of freedom for movement options from your jumps alone from long jumps to triple jumps to the small amount of momentum changing that you can do when you do that midair kick it's a fun puzzle to master what each of these moves do for Mario and how they can move you through the air Mario's land speed also feels like a great medium it's not too fast not too slow but he does accelerate pretty quickly unfortunately being the first major game of its kind on hardware 20 years olds does occasionally come with some shoddy programming sometimes you're sure your grab a Ledge but instead you're rudely bounced off or sometimes Mario can't seem to decide if he's gonna fall to his death or stand on the platform that you just jumped to sticking you in this uncomfortable purgatory where you're not sure if you're gonna fall or not sometimes I get knocked back by what appears to be an invisible wall while Mario handles extremely well for what I'd say is around 99% of the time it's that 1% that can truly ruin your day Super Mario Sunshine feels like 64 on steroids Mario is fast he Sprint's instantly with a very quick change of direction and he has tons of ways to launch you high up into the air such as the brand new rotation based spin jump while Mario still has a dive that launches him through the air he does lose the ability to long jump for horizontal distance which I did find myself missing a little bit he also can't punch or kick anymore instead replacing that with the new flood system sprang watered and over-the-shoulder shooting system that aims well and can change your shooting strength and how hard you're pressing the R trigger floods hover nozzle your default secondary mode starts a new era of Mario platforming that I call course correction it feels really bad when you line up a jump and you just barely miss it the Harvard nozzle can save you from bad times like these with an occasional safety net every once in a while Mario will act in a weird way where I feel like I don't have as much control over his horizontal momentum when hovering but it's mostly a clean experience while there are some other issues that we'll talk about later I find that sunshine has a fairly clean set of movement options that make a Mario that is very fast and fun to control Mario Galaxy is similar after a decade of programming polish galaxy super mario feels very responsive and easy to keep track of without many glitchy surprises this mario feels like the slowest of the three but i suspect that that's likely because the levels he travels through are so much smaller than the other two games the long jump is back to which I've always enjoyed Mario Galaxy released for the Wii which means that it had to be connected to motion controls in some way your traditional attack and course correction jump compact2 and one with the game's new spin jump move with the shake of the Wiimote Mario will twirl hitting enemies immediately next to you or propelling you slightly higher into the air like the hover nozzle the spin jump has saved me from hundreds of missed jumps making it a strong tool but occasionally easy to use as a crutch shaking the spin jump usually works but again I'd say something like 99 out of 100 times the 100th time when it does fail it'll have you screaming and wishing that this move was just mapped to a button instead of the stupid shake controls there's also the traditional point-and-click Wiimote controls usually used to collect and fire star bits but occasional use for latching on the pole stars are catapulting Mario with different mechanics it can take some time to get used to moving Mario with one hand while using the other hand to farm four star bits but you will get used to it despite how annoying it is to actually set up the wii motion sensor bar in 2017 I found that most of this stuff works just fine but it did hurt my wrist after hours of pointing at the TV instead of holding them in a usual relaxed position galaxies also loaded with a variety of motion specific minigames including balancing on a ball blowing Mario in a bubble or controlling gliding with this bird my experience probably varies for most but I found that many of the motion controlled levels were a lot of fun and easy to maneuver my personal favorite was the monkey ball style star rolling stages but I didn't like the way of covered manta ray racing very much all in all galaxy is technically sound with some minor motion based growing pains along the way even the best controlled game can suffer if you can't reliably see where you're going so next up we're gonna look at the camera for each of these three games as usual Mario 64 is one of the first games of is kind to deliver a feature this time being free camera control in a third-person game thematically I think it's kind of wonderful that they explain the in-game camera is a physical lakitu that follows you and records your adventure it's a fun idea made even more hilarious when you see him in the mirror later in your game in practice it's good but far from perfect by default the game presents you with a variety of preset angles most of them workable but if you desire to change your approach the left and right C buttons rotate the action because these are buttons and not a dedicated right stick like we're used to in the modern era of console gaming each press gives you a set rotation in the world around you sometimes it's too much sometimes it's too little sometimes lakitu just seem to tell you hey I can't turn anymore you also have the ability to press R and change camera modes to always follow the direction mario is I never used Mario mode when growing up so going through this place there was one of the first times I ever used it regularly while it's definitely disorienting when used regularly it doesn't make some things like crossing a narrow bridge feel a lot more natural and it alleviated some problem spots that I've had for the last 20 years before trying this mode you can also sit and look at the world and first-person at any time which does show off how ugly 1996 polygonal graphics are but it's also nice to have as long as you're in an area with no enemies nearby it definitely takes time to get used to and some intimate knowledge of the games levels in order to deal with the camera ultimately I would say that it's Mario 64's greatest weakness and probably its most common complaint for new players sunshine takes things in the near opposite direction your si buttons become the small yellow si stick on the GameCube controller and this gives you a near complete 360-degree control over the game's camera while also letting you zoom in and out blending up a specific camera angle can suddenly make a tricky balancing act into something that you can just hold up and walk past it's a welcomed addition the game also uses a silhouette system to tell you where Mario is if for some reason your camera puts an out of direct line-of-sight which is helpful but can become a huge hindrance in closed areas or feels like you can only view Mario from obscure silhouette angles while you have a lot more control over the camera and wide open areas a Felix sunshine gives you some pretty bad default camera angles especially in areas like the hotel rotating around pillars or other closed objects can be a bit of a problem as well I think it's a shade stronger than Mario 64's experiment but sunshine still suffers from rough patches at times meanwhile galaxy gives you the least active control of the camera opting for mostly fixed angles for the occasional situation where you can bump the view around a bit the d-pad surprisingly I found that galaxy was the game I had the least camera issues with but it makes sense when you consider the individual levels because they are smaller there's fewer places to get lost and fewer reasons where you need a specific angle to progress forward I think the designers knew how frustrating 3d cameras could be and opted to use galaxies and galaxies to is a way to remove this obstacle from the player entirely once again however this still isn't perfect because of the fixed angles there's definitely been a time or two where I fell to my death on a jump that I sure was correct wait what how did I miss that it felt perfect sometimes and you can't control your viewing angle some jumps can look or feel better than they actually are that said I think galaxy probably had to do things this way I feel like balancing the star bit wand mariusz movement and a camera at all times would have been overkill our next stop is level design arguably the most important topic of the day Super Mario 64 throws a ton on the table right from the beginning with 15 main stages and tons of bonus areas scattered around the castle like the famous slide here's that the classic 3d Mario formula is established or a large bulk of your collectibles in this game stars are discovered through procedural missions the first level typically takes you on a tour through most of the stage leading to a peak or a boss at an end point with everything else as exploratory points everywhere in between that you visit later one big distinguishing feature of 64 though is that stars can be found out of sequence if you happen to collect 100 points are before star number 5 then you can grab it it's yours some levels do require a specific star to load a boss or an object but in general you're free to explore each level to grab stars as you see them and discover them a majority of the stars you'll send us flying and quick to complete letting you jump from challenge to challenge without a ton of waiting there's also a lot of variety in this game and the iconic ba-ba-bam appealed to a desert pyramid combo level to a sunken ship to a floating ship there's some really inventive stuff in here too one of my personal favorites is tiny huge island where you freely hit pipes that allow you to traverse the same level as either a Godzilla tier or ant tier character big boos haunt is another one of my favorites full of all kinds of disconnected mysteries and secrets that give it a wonderfully spooky vibe I also enjoy the pure platforming the games 3 Bowser levels which are a blast to revisit not every level is a winner though dire dire docks is an incredibly bland second water level that feels unusually small with nothing fun to explore and some really short and lazy stars it's just swimming without any of the intrigue or mystery of Jolly Roger ban please the lava lands disconnected Islands certainly look like they were just plopped into a square without a ton of thought and arrive can feel exhausting with its on-rails carpets that can't be skipped or sped up in any natural ways but overall I really enjoy mario64 stages and I think many of them hold up to the test of time pretty well there's a lot of places to visit and a lot of different ways to collect stars and it keeps my attention well Super Mario Sunshine is a really weird game to revisit it definitely has a lot of variety in terms of individual missions but its overall selection of worlds is small at just seven total some of these stages are massive but the games episode system usually dictates which area of the level that you need to go to some of my favourite sunshine levels have you climbing or exploring large areas with your newfound flood jetpack highlighting Mario's great mobility and movement options I like the freedom that you have to move around and create your own shortcuts and open stages like Rico Harbor I'm also a big fan of the game's pure platforming secret areas which are move flood and force you to run and jump the old-fashioned way these are a ton of fun and offer a lot of fair challenge speaking of challenge though sunshine is by far the Mario game with the most jank I've ever played I like a good intentionally difficult game but a lot of Sun shines infamous challenge seems to come from poor programming and design everyone knows the meme levels pachinko machine where you can't control flood at all for some reason the watermelon level were you so much as look at the watermelon in the wrong lane and explodes relying on the Chuckster NPC to three in the right direction where if you're one degree wrong you're sent flying the insanely finicky and disappointing final level where your boat has no control the list goes on and on I even found myself unintentionally breaking other levels like this one in Piazza village where you're supposed to drag a Chain Chomp into a bath I pulled the chump in but for some reason was sucked back toward it right before the cutscene that unlocks your shine and it instantly killed me weird unexpected stuff plagued me throughout the entire playthrough and it's a shame my last complaint was sunshine is that it can feel repetitive 24 the game shines our simple red coin collection missions with some stages having as many as three separate red coin levels in them this is just one more than Mario 64 which has 23 red coin levels but it feels exhausting because it spread over half of the level count each level also has a throw away shine where you chase and spray down shadow Mario there's a lot of filler in here like I mentioned there is a lot of good stuff to be found but sometimes you gotta dig through the broken or boring stuff to get there and you can't do missions out of order for the most part Super Mario Galaxy is like those filling yourself bags at the mall candy shop it's all kinds of stuff some things he never tried before some old favorites sweet sour spicy whatever there's tons of variety almost a comical amount but because the concepts are spread thin it's a double-edged blade when you don't like a level for me I didn't like this slingshot one it's over quickly and you only have to revisit it one or two times but when a level has an amazing concept like the power of blending freeze-frame galaxies or to go with their candy analogy the sweets cover titan galaxy they can leave you wanting more in general though I think the galaxy games have some of the best designs pure platforming levels I've heard this game described as what if they took the floodlit sections of mario sunshine and made an entire game out of it and that's pretty dang accurate Koenji high ashita became the level director of galaxy and overall director of galaxy 2 and his work is immediately apparent he likes crafting levels like a story or poem with an introduction to a mechanic a twist and a finale that tests what you've learned over the whole level with its mechanic it works and it works well even though underwater levels are fast and fun to explore but there isn't a lot of room for exploring in these tiny perfectly cut mechanic simulators most levels have you jumping from one small segment to the next rotating around sphere like surfaces using the game's entertaining but not realistic whatsoever gravity mechanics mario galaxy is the most linear 3d mario to date and that doesn't make it bad but it definitely gives it a very different feel from the first two games in the series even the most poorly designed mario 64 or sunshine levels are big enough to goof off in but galaxy doesn't leave you much room for sandbox style fun whether or not that's important to you is gonna depend entirely on what you like the most in video games while special abilities aren't needed to make a fun Mario game they've become a staple of the series and it's always fun to see what gimmicks they throw to make Mario games mix up your classic running and jumping Mario 64 is admittedly pretty dry when it comes to this category there are only three main power-ups in the game the flying metal and vanished camps it those three are just kind of jackets that you wear to unlock areas without really changing what you do in your gameplay the flying camp is definitely the most dynamic out of the three offering flight out of a cannon or triple jump that controls pretty closely to how I feel the Cape from Super Mario World would if it was in 3d complete was swinging up and down to maintain your speed and height unfortunately the stages that used the flying cap the most like the flying cap stage itself in the secret stayed upstairs use the flying cap in a very specific red coin collecting way which is a bit of a chore arguably the best special ability is surfing over the water in lava with the Koopa shell which is incredibly fast and reckless also did you know that you can actually grab the underwater shells and use them just like in galaxies it's been 20 years and I just recently learned that you can do this it blew my mind Super Mario Sunshine powerup system was woven right into the game with flood immediately integrating new moves into your game plan we've talked about the regular spray and hover nozzles but let's take a look at the other two the rocket nozzle launches you high into the air and is honestly thrilling to use it takes you an absurd distance up letting you survey an area around you briefly or create shortcuts that were previously impossible before the turbo nozzle lets you run really fast so fast that you can even go over water there are shockingly few times that you actually use this nozzle unfortunately and it's a bit of a bummer even times where you think it would be used like racing over the water or instead passed over to these blooper things huh another annoying thing about these nozzles is the way that they're unlocked you unlock the use of these nozzles during story sequences with shadow Mario but you can't use every box right away each level has a main box that you have to discover an open first before the transparent box has become solid it's super strange having to unlock your boxes after you've already unlocked your boxes sunshine also introduces a playable Yoshi into the 3d Mario mix allowing you to eat enemies water jump ludicrously high and vomit in order to turn your enemies into blocks he also disintegrates into water for some reason which is infuriating and random there are only a few levels and secrets that require Yoshi but the insane spin jump that you can pull off with it is hilarious plus the extra percussion that gets added to your music every time that you ride is an adorable returning touch Super Mario galaxy's which two power-ups is pretty similar to its game design as a whole there are a lot of different power-ups and ability changers but each only has a few brief uses speaking a brief many power-ups are even timed disappearing after a short while is if they were the classic star seeing an all-time classic like the fire flower being put on a clock definitely surprised me at first a lot of galaxy one's power-ups are fairly safe the bee lets you float a little the boo lets you float a little and become a ghost the red star lets you float a little okay let's see fly but it's for like one level the spring is one of my all-time least favorites offering some unwieldly regular movement and a high jump timing that's just slightly different than the usual double and triple jump that you've been using for the rest of the game the ice flower though is incredible and skating or ice wall jumping is a super clever idea that works really well most of my favorite power-ups actually come from the galaxy - like the rock and the cloud not only does Yoshi make a return with the ability to freely spit back objects this time around but he also gets power-ups to the - pepper is a personal favorite of mine and showing off the true potential of a speed up powerup that I felt was underused in sunshine just like the rest of galaxy there's a lot of variety but you won't be using many of these mechanics from more than just one or two levels now if there's one place or fans seem to agree it's that all three of these games have incredible music nintendo legend koji kondo had a role in the music for all three games lending to some of the most memorable themes of any 3d game mario 64 has some particularly catchy memorable themes ranging from the booming bob on battlefield to the frantic slider theme - my personal favorite the soothing lullaby like quality the theme that you hear in the water stages my only knocking in 64 soundtrack is that it doesn't quite have the same level of variety as the rest of the game that classic song we call Bob on battlefield song it's actually the theme for Bob on battlefield whomps fortress tall tall mountain and tiny huge island almost every level in the game shares its theme with something else Super Mario Sunshine while having significantly less levels in scenarios than 64 does manage to get some personality to each level with a unique theme koji kondo composed about half the themes alongside Shinobu Nagato creating a mix that's relaxing and fun perfect for a tropical vacation does everything on isle delfino is a tropical resort the game's themes do blend together a little bit in my head but like most mario games it's an absolute joy to listen to one of my favorite bits is the electric guitar riff of the classic Mario theme when shadow Mario first shows up it's a nice touch Super Mario Galaxy soundtrack is in a league of its own koji kondo only composed a tiny bit for this game although his main work the Rosalina Observatory theme is a wonderful piece that gets more instruments and impact the deeper that you progress into the game the big name to think for galaxies music is actually newcomer Mohito Yokota who composed almost everything else galaxies delivers constant powerful and emotional pieces backed by the game's use of a 50-piece Orchestra there's a wonderful owada asks entirely about the music just for this game and I think it's definitely worth reading Yokota went through an agonizing and depressing process of living up to Koji Kondos legacy and Kondo even denied some of his first submissions a turning point for him was a quote from Kondo if somewhere in your mind you have an image that mihari oh is cute please get rid of it Mario is cool there's a lot I could say about galaxy soundtrack but yeah it's freaking cool the crown jewel of the experience is in my opinion gusty garden galaxies but there's a lot to love from top to bottom I listen to the soundtrack of all three of these games often and they've done an awesome job keeping the music exciting and unique over the years what's a Mario game without a big Bowser and some big baddies to go with them Super Mario 64 is notably light on bosses and the ones that are out there fairly simple punch me - winces I rock and big boo jump on me to win says wiggler and big bully some of the best bosses in the game come right at the beginning the whomp King while simple of has a fun premise of hit and run that keeps him as one of the game's most memorable bosses and King bombs sneak up and throw mechanic serves is a great tutorial to train you for the big fight with Bowser himself the 64 Bowser boss battles were iconic at the time for their use of analog stick swinging but been a 1 and 2 are over in just a single throw the three throw final fight adds a little spice of the collapsing platform and more attacks but the ability to immediately regrab Bowser eliminates a ton of the challenge that I think the designers originally intended sunshine adds a handful of positive experiences to Mario's boss collection including a simple but epic fight on top of or coaster versus a mecha bowser a few forms of PD piranha and the spice hating lot of wielding King boo someone is gonna have to explain to me why this game loves goober bloopers so much though because you fight this thing for three separate shines and it's barely different between each fight also if you can even call it a boss rushing teeth underwater was pretty dang miserable the final Bowser represents a bit of missed potential in my opinion he requires you to use the rocket nozzle to slam five platforms and call it a day and that's about it it got me thinking about how I would have liked to see more bosses use your unique nozzle power-ups and how I think it would have been especially epic it Bowser required you to use all four in one fight but dreams aside and think sunshine has a decent mix galaxy also had some incredible bosses like the ping pong battles of King Caliente or the sneak up from behind Dino piranha variations my favorite non final boss in all of Mario games is Balder Geist an epic duel that involves you swinging and throwing bamboos into the center body all while avoiding emerging pillars and the hands that can block your attacks it's a thrilling adventure that I loved reach Alan geing for my recent playthrough there are a few forgettable duds along the way like the many airship bosses in galaxy but I've especially enjoyed galaxy ones Bowser battle his final form is a great recap of the various skills that you've learned and the enemies that you've already faced complete with an epic choir the chance as Bowser becomes vulnerable for damaged galaxies to add some solid fights of its own but it's ground pound meteorite Bowser feels way more disappointing than galaxy 1 which is a shame I've always craved bigger and more involved Mario boss fights and I'm hoping that Super Mario Odyssey can deliver here and moving on to the end game here is secrets and completion this is where I believe Super Mario 64 truly shines Mario 64 is full of some crazy little details that you could easily skip over making it a really fun game to replay over the years there's a ton of hidden work points and a music can steal your hat or weird tricks like the underwater shell thing that I was just talking about earlier the numerous large levels are primed for goofing off and discovering little tricks or quirks or shortcuts this is also one of the most reasonable Mario games to 100% complete easily completable in a day or two if you're familiar with the general layout normally people prefer longer games to shorter ones but I really feel like Super Mario 64 doesn't waste your time it's packed full of interesting and varying star missions and even the more tedious task of 100 coin stars at least let you remain in the level to finish an additional star if you like as well the 120 star Easter eggs like yoshiyama roof or the incredibly fat end game penguin race are all pretty cute too if there's one thing that I'll not mario64 secrets for its accessibility I think some of its logic is a little too obscure at times like knowing that you need to fire your cannon at the corner of this wall to get a star we're tracking down secret coins all the way at the top of the pyramid that look exactly like regular coins I'd be curious to see how someone who has never played these games before would fare without ever taking a trip to the internet for advice Super Mario Sunshine is the same large explorable format as mario 64 and the hop world is a blast to explore for secret shines but your main reason the golf course in this game is to fulfil your endgame condition collecting all the shines which require collecting 240 blue coins which are sold to create 24 of the game's 120 main collectables blue coins are fun to find incidentally but they are miserable to complete like 64 some of them are tucked away in areas are spots that I feel are too obscure to find without some kind of external a tour guide many of them require you to spray completely random places with water and unless you plan to cover every square foot of this game with flood you'll want a guide to track these down also painful is that many blue coins are exclusive to episodes not just levels just look at this Mario wiki for Serena Beach blue coin locations we've got some stuff in episode 5 only episode 6 only episode 7 and 8 only there's no kind of completion marker telling you when you've got every coin in an episode either so you could realistically spend hours looking for coins and levels that you've already gotten all the coins in without even knowing it Mario Sunshine is a great game if you're just playing to complete levels that you enjoy and take on Bowser but it is one of the roughest Mario games I've ever played on going from 100% completion and it's all thanks to these little blue punks we kind of went over this four galaxies in the level design section but galaxies just doesn't really have secrets and it doesn't really have exploration you might do an alternate challenge here there for extra star bits or open up a branching path if you find a hungry luma but galaxies levels aren't really there to be dissected or lived in mostly exists with a single path and a single objective and that changes the game's dynamic quite a bit instead of Secrets are collectibles Mario galaxy's big twists are the new challenge Commons slightly altered versions of existing levels of new rules such as beating a level under a certain time or beating a level without taking damage I'll take these challenges over blue coins but they are somewhat superficial even more ridiculous is 100% completion which gates the final galaxy one level behind beating every single level a second time as Luigi no differences at all levels just Luigi galaxy two mixes things up a little bit by adding 120 hidden green stars all in slightly different places than their original location these are mostly fun to collect but do contain a few obscure spots that I don't think would be easy to find without jumping to suicide or consulting the internet for him at the very least these at least have an audio cue when you're near them to give you a little hint galaxy 2 also rewards completionists as well locking one of the toughest levels in Mario history to the end of the journey that's decent oh man is that it wow we did it those are my thoughts on the three major 3d Mario platformers I don't know if I'll ever play them immediately consecutively like this again but it's been fun looking at them in comparison to each other they all have their strengths 64 has lots of big levels and is packed with replay value sunshine is colorful and feels completely unique in tone and gameplay and galaxy hits hard was shorter but cleaner platforming and superior music I absolutely adore all three of these games but if I have to pick a favorite I'm going with Super Mario 64 it's funny I feel like I criticize 64 a lot during this review but there's something intangible district criticism that made it really stand out to me as Reggie would say the game is fun I had the most fun replaying Mario 64 I thought it'd be bored of it this time around but it somehow felt better than ever even directly compared to its sequels I'm playing through it all in a marathon is it nostalgia I mean partially No 6 years old when this game was first released and it was the first Mario game i 100% it on my own it's a game that I know in a game that I understand yet every time I picked this game back up it delivers something new there's lots to see enough move options to keep it interesting and enough content to feel fulfilling without overstaying it's welcome when I learned that I'd be able to meet Shigeru Miyamoto a few years ago I knew that there was one thing I'd have to get signed it's one of my favorite games that he's ever worked on and to the state my favorite 3d Mario game Super Mario Odyssey sure looks like it's inspired by the early 3d Mario platformers and I'm hoping it takes a little of everything from the games that we've talked about today if you want to catch my stream in that game when it comes out or catch anything in the past games that have done for this huge marathon already I highly encourage you to check out my twitch channel over a twitch.tv slash no J whoops to join in on the action while we were editing this video I've got a review copy for Super Mario Odyssey and my review for the game will be dropping on October 26th tune in to see my thoughts on the newest mario game thank you so much for watching this huge video and I'll see you guys next time with more Nintendo content [Music]

Channel: TheJWittz

Views: 1,074,211

Rating: 4.8403907 out of 5

Keywords: Mario, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, Super Mario Galaxy 2, Best Mario Game, Review, N64, Switch, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo GameCube, GameCube, 3D Mario, Sandbox

Id: uYqE1dkfH90

Length: 34min 6sec (2046 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/EpicalaxyMaster]

I find it a real shame how he mentioned Galaxy 2 multiple times and gave it a fair amount of attention but completely ignored SM64DS.

[u/All_Milk_Diet]

Good video, and I totally understand the frustration with those blue coins