Topic: RetroActive 48: Super Mario 64

[pokepal148]

Honestly, difficulty in general is really kind of inconsistent for this game. A really good example of this is the moving platforms over a bottomless pit in Whomps Fortress. It's absolutely bizarre that for Nintendo's first 3D platformer game which is normally somewhat hesitant to throw any real challenge at you until the last 2 floors of the castle, the first time it throws any kind of moving platforms at you, it's over a bottomless pit with those slidy bits in whomp's fortress. It's not something that any 3D Mario since would dare to do and even the DS version expanded the bottom layer of the stage so that there is now solid ground beneath the moving platforms.

[nickmitch]

Honestly, difficulty in general is really kind of inconsistent for this game. A really good example of this is the moving platforms over a bottomless pit in Whomps Fortress. It's absolutely bizarre that for Nintendo's first 3D platformer game which is normally somewhat hesitant to throw any real challenge at you until the last 2 floors of the castle, the first time it throws moving platforms at you, it's over a bottomless pit. It's not something that any 3D Mario since would dare to do and even the DS version expanded the bottom layer of the stage so that there is now solid ground beneath the moving platforms.

There's back to back gaps on Tall, Tall Mountain where the first has a bottom and the second one doesn't.  So, it is pretty jarring when they don't 1-1 certain things don't have that.

[Luigi Dude]

I find it rather odd that Wet-Dry World is a later stage.  There's no bottomless pits in the stage and because of the water it's easy to refill your health.  I guess I can see Nintendo feeling the village part that requires you to be good at wall-jumping should be later, but even then, some of the earlier levels have stars I'd considering harder as well.

At the same time I've always found Cool, Cool Mountain one of the harder levels to get all the Stars in and yet that's one of the first in the game.  It's pretty easy to slide off the mountain if you're not careful, as well as the penguin race can be pretty tricky the first few times.  I honestly feel that's a harder snow related level then Snowman's Land, despite that level being a later one as well.

Of course part of me wonders if this was intentional.  Since you only need 70 stars to just beat the game, they put some of the harder levels earlier so it wouldn't be a complete cakewalk.  Since 99% of the stars can be taken in any order, if the game had a more linear difficulty, players could get almost all 70 stars in the easy levels by the time they reach the third floor.  That would certainly explain why something like Shifting Sand Land is earlier in the game when it's right up there with Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride in difficulty.