Super Mario 3D All-Stars (RIP)

[BowserBasher]

And with that Mario Galaxy is saved with 120 stars. This last lot of 10 stars weren’t all that bad, most being purple coin ones, as with the game on Wii, the purple coins on Luigi took the most attempts and even that was probably less than 10. Once I had my route and didn’t slip up I easily did it. The rest were fairly doable in one take. Nothing too frustrating this time. 
Again, this is easily my favourite Mario game. Absolutely amazing. I’m going to hold off on doing the “new world” lol as I don’t want to feel burnt out on it. It does mean I can go play Paper Mario and then come back to this at a later time. I never did the post 120 star stuff in the original. 

[Glen-i]

Luigi's Purple Coins is nowhere near as difficult as everyone makes out.

I've said as much ever since the game came out.

[BowserBasher]

50 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Luigi's Purple Coins is nowhere near as difficult as everyone makes out.

I've said as much ever since the game came out.

To be fair it wasn’t. Most of the time it was me messing up or getting caught on the spinning platforms. Once you have a route it’s not too bad. 

[EEVILMURRAY]

Managed to do the last of my Mario Galaxy 120 stars in handheld mode, the last one being the manta surfing trial star (which I had to slide out the Joycons and hold console in hand, as the controls weren't as tight). One thing I do wish towards the end with all the comets is that at least one other stayed after the rest, I had to keep going back to the Luma to make them appear each time.

I've never done 120 on Wii, was most excited when Rosalina said I could reach another world with them after rechallenging Bowser. However it seems I must do all 120 again with Weegee before I can go back to Mushroom Kingdom "Galaxy". As great fun as doing all this was, I'm not really in the mood of repeating it all over again any time soon for 1 extra star.

It's giving me feels to plow through Captain Toad again.

Or I might start Mario 64, see how it holds up in my hands.

[EEVILMURRAY]

I must be a camera god. Done just under 20 stars in Mario 64 and barely having camera problems at all. I had more issues in Sunshine.

But it's on the backburner as a casual side game naow as I play Abzu and replay Captain Toad. I know I'll make it my bitch again.

[Glen-i]

18 hours ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

I must be a camera god. Done just under 20 stars in Mario 64 and barely having camera problems at all. I had more issues in Sunshine.

I think the main issue is that its movement is a lot more limited compared to games these days. It takes some getting used to. Once you work your head around it, it does the job just fine. 9 times out of 10, you can get the angle you need, and for that 10% where it doesn't? Pressing R to switch to Mario Cam will sort it nicely.

Sunshine's camera is way worse because it gets caught on stuff way more often, despite being more free roaming.

[Helmsly]

The game just got an update: https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/50552/kw/3d all-stars#v110

Quote

• Players can now invert the camera controls within all three individual titles.
• Super Mario Sunshine now supports the Nintendo GameCube controller (sold separately). Players can now play this title using the same controls as found in the original GameCube release.
  • The Nintendo GameCube controller for Super Mario Sunshine is supported only in TV mode.
  • You’ll need the GameCube Controller Adapter (sold separately) to use this controller with your Nintendo Switch system. Information on connecting this adapter and controller can be found here.
  • The Nintendo Switch Lite system does not support this controller option.
  • All button displays within Super Mario Sunshine will not reflect the Nintendo GameCube controller.
• Other general fixes have been applied to improve overall gameplay across all three titles.

 

[Dcubed]

OMG!! GCN controller support!!!

And yes! The analog triggers & Digital Click are fully working!!

The game is finally playable! 

[BowserBasher]

Fantastic news on the GC support. It should have been in from the start but at least Nintendo listened. 

[Ike]

Didn’t expect them to add GC controller support. Taking a break before playing Sunshine paid off. Shame its through an update and not on the cart though.

[Hero-of-Time]

With the arrival of GameCube controller support, camera options and removal of the debug cubes, I'm quite tempted to now pick the game up. Stuff like this really should have been there on day 1. 

I do hope they show more care and attention to the inevitable Zelda collection next year. 

[Hero-of-Time]

So, I fired this up today and started with Mario 64. What the heck is going on with the changing character model in this version of the game? In certain instances Mario goes from looking normal to looking like some kind of Lego figurine.

I'm noticing it quite a bit and it's really starting to annoy me.

[Nicktendo]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

So, I fired this up today and started with Mario 64. What the heck is going on with the changing character model in this version of the game? In certain instances Mario goes from looking normal to looking like some kind of Lego figurine.

I'm noticing it quite a bit and it's really starting to annoy me.

You just didn't notice this on your tiny 12 inch CRT TV when you played it on the N64  Or later, I suppose because of the 480p output.

This is a feature of the original game which has been emphasises by the clean look of the game and the larger screens we use today. I watched a cool video explaining it on YouTube around launch. I'll have a look for it later and try to link it. 

It essentially comes down to it being necessary to maintain a smooth frame rate. 

[Hero-of-Time]

Interesting. 

Out of curiosity I've just loaded up the Wii U VC version of the game and it's present there as well. I guess I never noticed when I played it as I went through it on the GamePad.

This is the first time I'm playing the game on a 60 inch screen so I'm seeing all of its warts/defects for the very first time.

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Hero-of-Time said:

This is the first time I'm playing the game on a 60 inch screen so I'm seeing all of its warts/defects for the very first time.

Ah yes, low-poly Mario strikes again! You're not the first person to ask what's up with him in this thread.

Smash Bros Ultimate uses a similar trick. Pausing the game and then zooming in on a character will cause that character to suddenly get more detailed. You'd never be able to tell on that game though, because it's designed with HD TV's in mind, whereas Mario 64 wasn't.

You see this kind of thing all the time when a retro game gets emulated on modern technology. Take SNES games for example, some emulated games provide a "pixel perfect" option (SNES Mini comes to mind), but this tends to cause problems because developers took into account that TV's use 4:3 display.

A good example is a scene in Chrono Trigger where there's a great shot of a full moon. But put on a Pixel Perfect option and it becomes the wrong shape.

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, I've encountered the 2D pixel perfect stuff before but this is the first time I've come across something like this. It's really annoying!

To be honest, I'm finding the entire experience of playing Mario 64 pretty rough. He handles like a tank and it just doesn't feel smooth playing with the Pro Controller. The whole thing just looks and feels off. 

[Nicktendo]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, I've encountered the 2D pixel perfect stuff before but this is the first time I've come across something like this. It's really annoying!

To be honest, I'm finding the entire experience of playing Mario 64 pretty rough. He handles like a tank and it just doesn't feel smooth playing with the Pro Controller. The whole thing just looks and feels off. 

It had been so long that I actually ended up enjoying Mario 64 a lot, it was a huge hit of nostalgia.

However, once I got onto Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride it became absolutely miserable. There's a real lack of finesse to the controls and the pro controller really doesn't allow you much leeway in terms of making small adjustments. It's a shame, but the game is 24 years old, so I guess it's kinda expected. I'd like to give it another go with a N64 pad and see if that stick holds up better. My memory tells me it does. 

[Glen-i]

3 minutes ago, Nicktendo said:

It had been so long that I actually ended up enjoying Mario 64 a lot, it was a huge hit of nostalgia.

However, once I got onto Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride it became absolutely miserable. There's a real lack of finesse to the controls and the pro controller really doesn't allow you much leeway in terms of making small adjustments. It's a shame, but the game is 24 years old, so I guess it's kinda expected. I'd like to give it another go with a N64 pad and see if that stick holds up better. My memory tells me it does. 

The N64 stick doesn't compare, in my opinion.

That stick is revolutionary, but rubbish.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Glen-i said:

The N64 stick doesn't compare, in my opinion.

That stick is revolutionary, but rubbish.

Get him, @nekunando!

[Glen-i]

Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

Get him, @nekunando!

He'll never catch me! I can do a full circular motion buttery smooth!

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, Glen-i said:

He'll never catch me! I can do a full circular motion buttery smooth!

Ah, so you must be getting controlled with the N64 control stick then.  

[Glen-i]

Just now, Hero-of-Time said:

Ah, so you must be getting controlled with the N64 control stick then.  

[Hero-of-Time]

I finished Mario 64 this morning.

It took a while to get used to how Mario controlled but eventually everything clicked.

Playing through it again, I do think that this game could do with a remake. The game is fine but a lot of things haven't aged that well, with the controls and camera being two of them. The amount of times the camera would get stuck or drift and then block my view of a jump was insane. 

During my time with the game I noticed just how short the levels are. You can mop up most of the stars in a lot of the levels quite quickly, with the 100 coins per level star being the only one that poses a challenge.

Still, I did enjoy bits of the game and certain levels were fun to play through but I would have liked Nintendo to have given the game a proper update (something like BluePoint tend to do) rather than just putting out a higher resolution version of the original.

[darksnowman]

Nicely done, @Hero-of-Time. I was close to pre-ordering this All-Stars collection but I resisted, and continue resisting. Every day I forget about it a little more. It seems you are weaker.

I'm pretty certain I've only played Mario 64 on the N64 and DS. The N64 games I did go on to play on Wii Virtual Console felt real weird on the Classic Controller, so do you think it is just that Mario 64 (maybe the N64 in general) doesn't translate well to re-releases due to the differences in the controllers themselves, or is it just a problem with how they ported it to Switch?

Will you 100% Sunshine??

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

Nicely done, @Hero-of-Time. I was close to pre-ordering this All-Stars collection but I resisted, and continue resisting. Every day I forget about it a little more. It seems you are weaker.

I'm pretty certain I've only played Mario 64 on the N64 and DS. The N64 games I did go on to play on Wii Virtual Console felt real weird on the Classic Controller, so do you think it is just that Mario 64 (maybe the N64 in general) doesn't translate well to re-releases due to the differences in the controllers themselves, or is it just a problem with how they ported it to Switch?

Will you 100% Sunshine??

I'm not really sure. All I know is that it felt really weird in compared to modern games. It's as if you can't just turn on the fly and instead have to do a small circle. I fired up both Sunshine and Galaxy for a quick go and they feel much better. They are so fluid and smooth whereas 64 feels weighty in comparison.

As for 100% in Sunshine? Of course.