The Revival of Super Mario 64

Written by: Tonu

Mario... One of the most recognizable video game characters of all time... The mustached Italian plumber has withstood the test of time. He made his debut in Donkey Kong in 1981 and he's still here today. He's come a long way... He started out as a little two-dimensional guy known as "Jump Man" and is now in full 3-D. And today we are talking about his most current game, Super Mario 64 DS.

This is a remake of the 1996 Nintendo 64 hit, Super Mario 64. It was Mario's take on 3-D gaming. It was an amazing game, and I was in disbelief when I found out it would be coming over to the new Nintendo Handheld, the DS. But it gets better... Not only will you be able to play one of the best games of all time on the go, but there will also be completely new characters, mini-games, stars to collect, and more!

As said above, there are new characters to play as, and to be completely honest, I think the new characters are great and add a bit of customization to the game... You start out as Yoshi, but very early in the game, Mario becomes available... And not long after that, Luigi (My favorite!) is available! Now, why would we bother to unlock the other characters? After all, now we have the best character unlocked. Well, without all of the characters, you can't collect all 150 stars! So I guess we have to unlock Wario. I don't particularly care for Wario, but he (just like everyone else) is needed somewhere. Wario was the hardest (in my opinion...) to unlock, mainly because the way you unlock him is something I never really thought of, and to be honest, I unlocked him by accident! So with four playable characters, that makes Super Mario 64 DS already a bit different from the original.

But there's more! Now we have wonderful mini-games to play! I think the mini-games are fantastic... With the new touch screen on the DS, it makes the mini-games a lot easier to play and it makes them more original than most mini-games in other video games... And they aren’t that hard to unlock! There are 36 total, and you start out with 8. My two favorites were playable from the very beginning! You unlock more by running around catching little rabbits, and there are 7 for each character to collect. So if you don't unlock every character, you can't unlock every mini-game!

So with 3 more characters, 30 more stars, 36 brand new mini-games, and an all new wireless multi-player mode, Super Mario 64 DS is definitely worth getting even if you have completed the first one. I got the Nintendo DS for this game alone, and I can honestly say I'm glad I did!