Super Mario 64 has taken a turn the past couple years. Liminal this, personalized copy that, why is SM64 a hotbed for so many theories? In this Video Game World Tour, we look at all that and more.
Transcript:
Is there something hiding in Super Mario 64? Something nobody’s ever seen?
Probably not.
But what if there was…? What if there was some weird secret just waiting to be uncovered 26 years later? Mario 64 is mostly a cheery game, but it occasionally has this aura of mystery. I’m gonna take you on a journey to see some of it’s weirdest and otherwise peculiar areas. Welcome to Video Game World Tours and this… is Super Mario 64.
There’s no better place to start than the castle grounds. This area is Mario’s introduction into 3d. It’s where the player comes to grips with controlling this traditionally two dimensional character in a three dimensional space for the first time. It’s a little playground to get used to the controls.
Like most playgrounds, there’s not a lot of hazards here. No enemies in sight. In fact, you have to go out of your way to die. The only way to lose a life here early on is by drowning. Outside of that, Super Mario 64’s starting area is completely safe. The grass is green, water is flowing, the birds are chirping. This is a beautiful area to get your bearings as a new player.
(Interlude)
Once you’re satisfied with the outdoors, you’re free to head inside the castle.
Peach’s Castle makes absolutely no sense in world. There’s no living quarters, no throne, no reason for existing… other than to house these paintings that take you to all the worlds in the game.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, it just gives the game a certain vibe. It eschews realism for pure practicality. Every single room in Peach’s Castle has a purpose. They all lead to a main world or a smaller secret stage. There’s no room that exists only for decoration.
There’s something appealing to that kind of design. A kid wouldn’t spend time in some dining room that has no gameplay purpose, so why develop it in the first place? That room might have a place in a deep RPG, but not in a 3d platformer.
The castle has almost a fairy tale-like vibe to it. Especially with the paintings. All of them are portals into little self-contained worlds. They aren’t thematically connected, you can’t see them in the distance from other worlds, they don’t interact with each other in any way.
The way those worlds are accessible via paintings, it’s like magic.
I mean, look at the design on the walls here. I could very easily imagine a child with this as wallpaper in their room. The magical paintings, the silly wall design, the bright colors. It all reads to me as very whimsical.
(Interlude)
The castle serves as the backdrop for your adventure. And while most of your time will be spent inside courses collecting stars, there’s still some interesting spots to be seen outside of the main levels.
First is this little room. It’s a cozy little spot that houses an entrance to a secret stage. Not much to say about it, it’s just kinda cute.
Next up is the Tower of the Wing Cap stage. This is where you unlock the wing cap for use in future stages. It’s an area you might not return to once you press the button and collect the red coin star here, but it’s an area that sticks with me for some reason. I think it’s the fact that this tower reaches up so high in the sky, you can’t see the ground below. Why is this tower so tall? Who knows.
The final area of interest in the castle is the courtyard.
The courtyard is the only other outdoor area of the castle, and it seems to be infested with Boos for some reason. But there’s a point of interest here.
The Star statue.
It’s lies at the heart of many stories and rumors from decade’s past.
But it’s just a plain old statue with seemingly no purpose. What draws people to it?
Here’s my theory.
Peach’s Castle conditions you to look for secrets. Entrances to stages like Whomp’s Fortress and Jolly Roger Bay are extremely hard to miss. But what about Snowman’s Land? Shifting Sand Land? Tower of the Wing Cap? These are entrances to areas that are hidden. By the time you learn that the castle can hold secrets, you start looking for more. If Shifting Sand Land is a stage hidden in just some random wall, now I gotta try jumping into every other wall that looks out of place.
You look for other anomalies. Things that seem out of place that might hide other secrets. Something like… a striking statue of a star.
Like I said earlier, there’s practically no area designed just for decoration in the game. And while the castle courtyard does house the entrance to Big Boo’s Haunt, there’s something about this statue that makes you think there’s more going on. After all, stars are what you collect throughout the game. Surely you’re able to break through the stone and collect this “Eternal Star”.
Now sure, we can say with the benefit of hindsight that this statue means nothing. People have been playing this game for over two decades and found nothing interesting about it. But you have to put your mind in the shoes of a gamer back then. A kid playing this for the first time has no idea what to expect from the game. For all they know, their friend Jimmy could be telling the truth that Luigi IS in the game. And that all you have to do is collect all the stars, collect all the coins in every stage, kill all but one boo in the courtyard, run around the courtyard pond 100 times, and Luigi will rise from the water to join you as a playable character.
All of that is to say, the game gets you thinking something like that is possible. Maybe not likely, but you don’t rule it out completely.
(Interlude)
I’ll touch more on that stuff later. For now, let’s visit some of the game’s main courses.
Our first stop is the final stage of the game. Rainbow Ride.
This whole stage has no practical grounding in reality. At least with a stage like Jolly Roger Bay, it’s pulling some inspiration from real life. Here, it’s just a bunch of random floating platforms, rainbows, and a magic carpet. It’s mystical.
The end point of the stage, the floating house, is what I wanna talk about specifically. It’s an area out of place in a level that doesn’t really have any grounding in our reality. We know what a house is, but one floating in the sky? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never seen anything like that in real life. And the inside of the house is barren. There’s a tiny little table with no chairs and a fireplace that shoots out a stream of flames. Who would live in such a boring yet dangerous house? Why was it built up here? It brings to mind so many questions that you’ll never have answers to.
(Interlude)
Next up is Hazy Maze Cave.
Hazy Maze Cave is a dank place. All these tight corridors feel like access tunnels under the castle. It’s unwelcoming.
As you go deeper into the caves, you come across more dangerous obstacles. But once you go deep enough, you come across this underground pond with a tiny island in the middle. This pond houses the ever-lovable Dorrie.
Dorrie is just the best. He has these beady little eyes that are somewhat off-putting but also adorable. And he’s always got a smile on as he swims in circles around the island. There’s a sign that warns you to “not become his lunch”, but Dorrie would never eat Mario. He’s a true friend.
On one hand, I kinda feel bad for him. He’s stuck in this tiny pond, doomed to swim laps around it for eternity, never flapping his flippers in open waters again.
But on the other hand… he looks like he’s enjoying himself.
(Interlude)
Big Boo’s Haunt is the game’s obligatory ghost house.
The framing of the level is pretty creative. To reach it, you need to ground pound this Boo in the castle courtyard we visited earlier. When you approach the cage that drops from the Boo, Mario shrinks and jumps inside it. Once you’re inside the level, you can look at the walls surrounding you and see the wiring of the cage. It’s some neat little world-building. Though it is weird the skybox is dark when the castle courtyard you were just in was bright and cheerful, but whatever. Darkness fits the mood.
Inside the haunted house, you’ll find all kinds of weird scenarios and enemies. Most important to me though, is the Mad Piano.
This one enemy is the cause of so much childhood trauma across the globe.
You walk into this room and nothing seems off. It’s kinda beautiful in a way. Moonlight reflects off this alluring piano. The camera frames the room in a way where you’re drawn to it. You wanna see what the deal with this piano is. But once you get too close, the game jumpscares you with the clashing piano notes and the chomping lid with sharp teeth.
It’s one of those moments that catches you so off guard, you never forget it.
(Interlude)
We’re just arriving at Jolly Roger Bay.
Before I say anything about the location itself, I just need to address this stage’s music. I’ll be honest here, a video game’s soundtrack is one of the last things I pay attention to in a game. I’m usually a gameplay first kinda guy. But the music in this stage is just… it’s perfection.
This is THE soothing video game track. It’s Stickerbush Symphony tier.
There’s just something about it that’s calming. All the other tracks you’ve heard from stages on the Castle’s first floor are upbeat and bright. They’re fitting for a cheerful adventure.
But this track is tranquil. Calm.
I went to a YouTube upload of the song to listen to it a bit while writing this, and I started reading some of the comments. So many people are talking about days long gone. Sitting in front of a CRT while playing with their little brother. Remembering lost loved ones. Thinking of simpler times.
To a lot of people, this song is a key that unlocks deep senses of nostalgia within.
Below the surface of the waters, you’ll find a tunnel. Go through and you discover a little cave.
I talked about this in my tour of Final Fantasy VII, but I’m a sucker for sandy caves. Much in a similar way to a cave I talked about in that video, this cave feels untouched by humanity. It’s sealed away from whatever forces constructed the tower in Whomp’s Fortress or the houses on Cool Cool Mountain. All that’s here is a couple goombas and these weird pillars. This is a spot completely isolated from the rest of the world.
(Intermission)
I think it’s time we return to the mystery… of Super Mario 64
I talked earlier about how the game primes you to look for anomalies. You’re always on the lookout for a special thing to ground pound on or a wall to jump through. You keep your eyes open for any peculiar spot that might house a secret star or area.
And no spot is more peculiar, than Wet Dry World’s downtown.
This area feels completely different from every other. There’s a wide variety of locations in the game ranging from grassy plains, to sandy deserts, to lava covered landscapes, but this stands out among all of them.
It feels like a ghost town. There are a couple enemies in here, but there’s no humans or Toads anywhere. I know Skeeters didn’t live in these homes, so who did? Where did they go?
I had similar thoughts in other places, like with the house in Rainbow Ride, but this is a whole dang town!
This looks like a village out of Ocarina of Time, not Mario 64. I swear I’ve seen this exact door in that game.
This is my mysterious area of Super Mario 64. If I was a kid when this came out, I’d be trying all kinds of tactics to find some secrets in this area. It feels like a spot that should house something. It’s practically crying out to me to find some way to enter these mysterious buildings or discover what’s under this pyramid.
It’s only with age that I realized there’s nothing actually hiding in this uncanny town. People would have discovered all the secrets this many years later.
But looking around here, taking in the music, my mind’s left to wander to a simpler time. Where my imagination wasn’t constrained by any logical structure. I was free to imagine all kinds of secrets hidden within a mysterious video game.
(Interlude)
If you wanna explore another peaceful AND mysterious world, check out my tour of Final Fantasy VII. I brought it up when talking about the cave in Jolly Roger Bay earlier. It’s definitely a video worth checking out. I don’t go into spoilers, so people who haven’t played before are welcome.
I hope to see you on the next Video Game World Tours.