Julia looks at a classic game....
As the adaptation of one of the most popular platformers of all time, Super Mario 64 DS had a lot to live up to - not only did a massive, 3D game have to fit on a tiny little console probably more suited to simpler games, it had to be worth the transition. What I wasn’t expecting the makers to pull off was to make this game even better than it was originally.
The story of the game, for those unfamiliar with the Nintendo 64 version, is simple - Bowser, a big green dragon/dinosaur (turtle?) has kidnapped the Princess Toadstool and taken over the castle, hiding Power Stars within the castle walls. It’s the job of Mario, a plumber (of course!), to reclaim the stars by jumping into worlds inside the castle’s paintings.
On the DS version there are now 4 characters. At the beginning of the game we find that Mario, along with Luigi and Wario, has been captured - leaving it up to the undeniably adorable (for me, anyway) Yoshi, the little green dinosaur, to rescue all four, unlocking the other characters as the game progresses.
This game is massive - I couldn’t believe it could fit onto such a tiny little cartridge, but I’m just underestimating technology again. There are 15 levels, all with 7 stars to collect. Difficulty levels go from easy enough that I can do them at 7am to so hard I want to throw my beloved DS out of the window, which is great. There's nothing satisfying about finishing a game in half an hour. There are also many, many other tasks to complete outside of the levels, some of which involve catching bunny rabbits (yay!) in in order to access mini-games. The 64 version had 130 stars to collect (whereas this one has a total of 150, though not all are needed to rescue the Princess) and no mini-games - even if you’ve played that one to death it’s still worth getting this, in my opinion.
The addition of extra characters makes the game more interesting, as each have different moves (Yoshi can’t punch, for example, but does the adorable tongue-licking-eating thing, then lays spotty eggs to throw) and are used to complete different levels. Having to change characters can be irritating, but different coloured caps are available in levels so that you can change characters easily.
The graphics are superb, and a definite improvement on the original - water, for example, ripples and reflects light almost completely realistically. As realistically as you could expect in a world of bright green grass, angry walking mushrooms and permanently blue sky, anyway. The sound makes full use of the DS’s great speakers with DS tunes you’ll (quite embarrassingly) find yourself humming walking along the street. The stylus and controls are one area where many people have criticized the game, finding it difficult to use - there are various modes you can choose and they can be quite tricky to work out to begin with but once you get the hang of it I found the dual-hand mode (using the stylus to move and the directional pad for jumping, crouching etc) to be simple enough.
Super Mario 64 DS is a game that’ll keep you entertained for hours and is, in my opinion, a must-have for any DS owner - even if you’ll only look at it and marvel how clever it is to fit it all on such a tiny cartridge. [Julia]
