User blog:Ultra64Detective2401/Why Every Copy of Super Mario 64 is Personalized

Sequence:The Basics of Anomalies

Previous:An Introduction to Anomalies

Next:The Process of Personalization

We left off last post discovering an anomaly-It appears some people have experienced cracks as clues to find the Whomp’s Fortress 1-up, even though that is not what was revealed in the game’s code, nor what happened in most copies of the game. We’ve debunked alternative explanations for this apparent phenomenon, forcing us to reach the strange conclusion that the cracks were real, despite appearing nowhere in the game’s code.

We left off with a few questions: How did this happen? Are there other strange occurances in the game? And why exactly does it feel wrong when you play someone else’s copy of Super Mario 64?

Well, you see... Every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized.

''What? How is THAT the answer?''

Think about it:Some had the crack, and some did not. There must have been something different about those other copies.. not only that, it would explain why it felt wrong to play a different copy as well. Two questions answered with just one explanation.

Couldn’t it just have been a rare bug?

Glitches don’t create entire new textures, that are nowhere to be found in the game’s code. And remember, ROM hacks are completely out of the question, since these cracks must have appeared sometime during or before July of 1999 as well-Remember the FAQ from then? How did they figure out about the 1-up? So it wasn’t a bug, it wasn’t a ROM hack.. there were explicit instructions somewhere. That were added in somehow.

And since every copy was manufactured the same way, that means that if there are differences between the copies anyway, they must have been personalized somehow.

https://youtu.be/FV-ocX_EhpQ?t=103

This is a rather strange thing that the designer of the game said. Technically, doesn’t every game change as it’s played? And yet, he speaks of it as something special about Super Mario 64, that is only possible because of the Nintendo 64. He can’t even be talking about the individual levels changing, because that was already a thing in Super Mario World with the Switch Palaces, and Super Mario RPG at a much greater amount! This must be talking about a level of change that has never happened before...

Like, perhaps, the game being personalized based on your playstyle, and what the game believes to be your desires?

And if every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized.. of course it would feel off when you play someone else’s copy. Their copy really is different than yours, even if only by a barely noticeable amount.

But, if that’s true, what’s causing the game to be personalized.. and why has Nintendo been trying to keep the existence of personalization hidden? Isn’t this a great feature of a game? Revealing the existence of personalization should only make the game look that much more amazing, and get more people to buy it. In fact, Miyamoto seemed to understand how good such a process would be, literally citing the process as a feature of the Nintendo 64 to promote it! Yet now they deny the existence of personalization. Why?

Well.. clearly that means either there are other anomalies that are quite a bit darker than the one I’ve revealed.. or the source of personalization is itself something that Nintendo would be better off have you never found it.

As you’ll soon learn, both of these possibilities are true... and in order for us to get there, we’ll have to learn a bit more about how the personalization actually works.

So, stay tuned for the next post!