November 20, 2004 - Nearly ten years ago, Nintendo's Super Mario franchise made the ambitious leap into the world of 3D on the Nintendo 64. Along with introducing new game mechanics for the brand-new Mario outing, Nintendo had several goals with the release of Super Mario 64. Naturally it was a way to show off the capabilities of the new hardware, letting Mario strut his stuff in full 3D. But it was also a prime outlet for Nintendo to wean players into the realm of analog control; Nintendo made the bold move to incorporate analog control right out of the box, and to anyone playing Super Mario 64 on the system it's pretty obvious that the game and the controller were developed side-by-side. The end result: Super Mario 64 became a massive commercial, critical, and design success for the Nintendo 64 console, and though future games have built upon and improved on the ideas established by Nintendo's development team, gamers still regard Super Mario 64 as one of the finest examples of 3D platforming ever created.

Almost a decade since the game's debut Nintendo has revived the fantastic design for a new generation of players. The intention is nearly the same the second time around: Nintendo's system needs a "killer app" to demonstrate its new system's capabilities and unique control structure. Super Mario 64 DS successfully demonstrates that the Nintendo DS has the right stuff to recreate an existing "64-bit" game on handheld hardware, and there's no question about the quality of the game's production value. The problem lies within the fact that the game was always meant to play with a Nintendo 64 controller. Though the Nintendo DS developers pull off the game's original control structure extraordinarily well on a system without an analog stick, it still feels like a compromise and begs the question,"if this is your killer app to show off the system, why the heck didn't you include one in the first place?"

If you can manage to get past this question, though, you'll find a fantastic gaming experience that pushes nearly every element of the Nintendo DS hardware. You may not be convinced that dual-screen, touch-screen gaming is "the future" after playing Super Mario 64 DS, but at least Nintendo offers up some genuinely creative and enjoyable ideas to complement the existing, already fantastic Nintendo 64 game design.

Features

• 150 stars to collect
• Four playable characters
• More than two dozen touch-screen, dual-screen mini-games
• Cartridge save (three slots)
• Wireless multiplayer for four players (single cartridge)

When Nintendo created Super Mario 64, it didn't just change the perspective. The entire game structure of the Super Mario series shifted just as dramatically as the camera view did. Players no longer worked through linearly-designed levels to rescue the Princess. Instead, each area -- a fully explorable world -- had been designed in such a way that gave players many different tasks to complete, each with the same goal: grab each of the challenge's star to move on to the next area. To unlock areas deeper in the game, players need acquire a set number of stars, and even though players didn't need every single star to finish the game, it's the temptation to complete the checklist that kept gamers players going until everything was done.

That feeling has been completely retained in the Nintendo DS version. In fact, it's been enhanced. Super Mario 64 DS isn't a straightforward port of the Nintendo 64 design. The original N64 plays as the foundation for the newly-developed Nintendo DS edition, with the handheld version's developers constructing fresh ideas on top of the existing game design. The most obvious difference is in the game's introduction, where players begin the game as Yoshi, not Mario. It's a slight and clever nod to the ending of the original Super Mario 64, but more importantly this new beginning introduces a slightly altered gaming experience. Even if you've completed the original Nintendo 64 game, you've got some new challenges to accomplish in the familiar arena.