Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is a three dimensional platformer launch title for the Nintendo 64, and the Mario series' first full foray into the third dimension. Super Mario 64 is considered one of the most influential games of all time, helping bring the platformer genre and gaming as a whole into the third dimension, and is regarded as one of the best Mario games.

The game starts with the protagonist, Mario, getting a letter from Princess Toadstool inviting him to her castle for cake. Upon arriving, he finds that the castle has been emptied as is threatened to leave by his arch-enemy, Bowser. From then on, Mario must journey to save Princess Toadstool by entering the many paintings that lead him to levels so he can collect as many stars as he can, while freeing the Toads from the castle walls.

As of recently, the game has received a cult following with the interest of speedrunning the game and the glitches and exploits found with it. With it has come the discovery that almost every copy of Super Mario 64 has been personalised for everyone whose played it.

Super Mario FX

 * Main article: Super Mario FX

Before the existence of Super Mario 64, the idea of a Mario game in the third dimension was hypothesised by Shigeru Miyamoto. This idea was thrown around with the existence of the Super FX chip, a component of the Super Nintendo which allowed for advanced polygon graphics and was prominently used in Star Fox and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. With the limitations of hardware at the time though, the game never took off very far and likely never entered development.

Recently, some footage and information in regards to Super Mario FX has surfaced. This includes potential showings of the game at E3, and other related footage as seen on the Super Mario FX Youtube channel. These discoveries contradict with statements that Super Mario FX never officially entered development, perhaps implying that the game's development was intentionally kept under wraps.

Ultra 64 Mario Brothers
Ideas associated with Super Mario 64 were conceptualised as early as September 7th, 1994. The game predates the existence of the Ultra 64 itself, with most of the testing being done on computers using keyboards as controllers. In this phase, the game was named Ultra 64 Mario Brothers, which can be seen in the iQue leak.

Super Mario 64, as well as many other Nintendo 64 games, was developed on a Silicon Graphics computer. Many stock assets from these computers would be used for the game's textures and pre-release sounds. For instance, the texture for Metal Mario is a low-quality metal reflective texture that has been rotated.

One of the many ideas thrown around about Super Mario 64 was the involvement of Luigi in a multiplayer mode. Many modes were experimented on. One mode had Mario and Luigi start ingon opposite ends of the map, and were expected to meet each other part way. This mode would've let the two brothers experience the game simultaneously, while also doing their own things. Another mode was more focused on co-operative play, with a camera that would zoom out to have both players on screen. Due to problems arising with how the camera would work and how levels would be built around it, this mode was eventually scrapped with Luigi in tow.

Earliest Builds

 * See: Super Mario 64/July 29th 1995 build and Super Mario 64/Sombrero Build

An apparently anomalous build of Super Mario 64 was made on July 29th, 1995. This dates back to before the original patent for the Ultra 64. Most information of this build comes from rumours of its existence, where it supposedly induced seziures and other effects to playtesters, all thanks to a texture bug which caused the textures to erratically flash and change colours. This build is also the one to supposedly hold the infamous Personalisation A.I. in its rawest form. The verasity of this build is up in the air, and its ties to Nintendo are also tenuous. While Nintendo was developing Super Mario 64 long before the existence of the Ultra 64, some claim that the build wasn't created by Nintendo at all and was instead given to them by an unknown Japanese developer.

This build would later be reworked and refined into the build used in the November 22th, 1995 patent for the Ultra 64. Although the contents of this build would be unknown.

Another build, known as the Sombrero Build unofficially, is known to exist using Nintendo 64 testing assets including the model of a man wearing an oversized sombrero. The origins and even date of this build is unknown. This also seems to be the origin of Bob-omb Village.

Pre-release

 * See: Super Mario 64/Spaceworld 1995 Beta

Personalisation

 * Main article: Personalisation A.I.

Discovered and theorised recently, every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalised. Nintendo implemented an experimental procedure into Super Mario 64 which slightly alters the game to suit the player whose playing it, which is why some players report that there's always something off when playing somebody else's copy of Super Mario 64.

Most content that is documented as "unused" is actually used if the A.I. deems it fit. This includes the mysterious dancing flowers texture, Blargg and unused text from Big Boo.

The A.I. put in place to alter the game additionally will mess with the player to see how they react to certain events in the game. This trait of the program leads to far more anomalous results within the game, going beyond that of minor gameplay tweaks. The most infamous of these is the Wario Apparition, an event that interrupts the midpoint of the game with an encounter against the disemboided head of Wario.

Phenomena

 * Read also: Iceberg