A Defense of Mario 64's Camera
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2022
- It's actually cool, you gotta believe me!
LOTR passage read by @RichterOvertime
You can find SM64 Plus here: www.mfgg.net/?act=resdb¶m...
(You will still need a ROM of Mario 64 from elsewhere, no piracy involved.)
Discord: / discord
Twitter: / purplecolonelyt - Ігри
"Seriously, how did they never consider a second analog stick"
Because it took a really, really long time for developers to figure out, even after SM64, that camera controls were almost if not just as important as basic control over your main character in 3D games, let alone that analog sticks were also good for camera controls; even several early-to-mid PS2 titles didn't use the right analog stick for the camera, including the first couple of GTA games (it was only used to switch to a not-so-useful static first person perspective). And let's face it, the only reason dual-analog controllers became a thing was because of Sony's strategy of copying Nintendo's most recent controller ideas but making it double (two pairs of shoulder buttons instead of one, two analog sticks instead of one, two rumble motors instead of one, etc.). They had no idea what they could use the second analog stick for for games that weren't flight simulators, they mostly just wanted to boost sales by playing basic "more = better" marketing strategies. Also what's wrong with switching hand positions with the N64 controller? It's not like any game (to my knowledge) forced you to do that mid-game. I think it's kind of clever for a time where they didn't figure out a better controller design yet.
Speaking of pre-SM64 3D games, my favorite one in terms of cleverly managing camera controls and perspective has to be Jumping Flash. It's a cartoony FPS that mostly controls like other contemporary games of the genre like Doom, but has a lot of emphasis on platforming on vertically-oriented levels. What they did to not disorient the player was let you double jump, and when you jumped a second time the camera would pan down to let you see your own shadow (and the whole terrain below you) as you are landing. It also let you hold a button that made the main character stop moving so you could use the D-Pad to aim more presicely instead. For a time where tank controls were the defaul for everything and you had to use a digital gamepad yes or yes, I don't think it gets any better than that.
Saw the quote, didn't expect the entire essay
*precisely
*default
Man, your non-Half-Life stuff deserves way more attention...
at the time being 68 people agree with you and i am one of those people
The production of this video was 90% arguing over how many Lakitus follow Mario around and 10% yelling over the N64 controller design
Overall, lot's of shouting
Yes, I would do it again
*design
*lots (plural non-possessive)
lot's = singular possessive (or a contraction of "lot is/has")
Apostrophes are for contractions or possessive nouns, not for pluralizing.
*shouting.
*again.
You gave me a miniature heart attack at the end bro i was wearing headphones and started hearing the knocking and thought i was getting robbed
That's the power of the panner feature on Premiere Pro :)
Ok, buT Now deFenD 64's thrEe hAndEd cOntroLleR
It was made for vortigaunts
"The N64 controller is a piece of shit, one of those pitiful little things that are born in hospitals from time to time. They feed it, and keep it warm, but they don't put it on the machines, and it dies."
-Civvie 11
I would have never thought about the camera like this. It really opens my eyes to the genius of the first 3d platformer
The combined Half-Life and Mario 64 content feels a very appropriate match, given Gabe's previously documented adoration of Mario 64. Good vid, always nice to see non-HL vids on this channel
He also took inspiration from Doom.
As cringy as it sounds, your videos are always my “comfort videos”
Same, haha.
I feel like the biggest complaint is that the camera isn't allowed to clip into the level geometry, so you can only look towards or along a wall but not away from said wall. The other is how the angle can be fixed in certain areas, I understand this is to be cinematic but given the analogue controls it makes certain narrow walkways very dangerous because you can't look them straight on.
I do see the point you make, the camera is trying so show you what it wants without compromising game play, but that's just it, it *does* compromise game play in a few minor areas. And this is a lot more noticeable than the subtle cinematography throughout, it's what players are gonna remember
I really appreciate this video. So many parts of Mario 64 are called out as having "aged poorly" but I always strongly disagree. This is the one game that I feel like revisiting as an adult has only made me love more. Every part of it is so meticulously crafted. The camera in this game is unorthodox for sure, but it's not bad. Once you see what it's trying to do, it's really, really good, and I wouldn't have it any other way (sole exception is that one plank in Wet Dry World, getting an angle on that sucks until you remember the Mario Cam exists).
To everyone who complains of the camera forgets the concept of modern fps controls didn't exist and were even considered weird and out of place (Read reviews of Aliens vs Marines PS1). The idea of two joy sticks was bizarre and unnecessary.
I found Bowser's Fury difficult to get into and I think it's for this reason. The camera wasn't given the same triggers as 64, Odyssey, etc, so there was a much greater emphasis on manual camera control. It made navigation feel a little clunkier.
Bowser's Fury definitely feels more like a proof of concept than an actual game. I bet the next Mario game will have a refined version of the Bowser's Fury style mixed with Odyssey's formula, taking the best elements of both and making something new.
I know the Switch can't handle running a game as ambitious as that at a level of performance and detail that is expected of the Mario series (that's why Bowser's Fury is just a lake full of obstacle courses) so they're saving the full idea for the next piece of hardware.
I thought I was crazy for thinking the camera wasn't that bad, amazing video!
ah, the video that introduced me to the purplecolonel.
I believe the n64 controller was designed by a Vortigaunt
"How did they never consider a second stick"
Because one stick was already a fair bit of trouble to deal with. When i first got my analogue pad, i was entirely confused about directions and couldn't make my character run straight forward. It was a DualShock-like pad for PC that i kept for a very long time and that was surprisingly high quality, really nicely built.
I had a flight stick before, a QuickShot II i think, that was actually pretty easy. In contrast to that, i just couldn't understand the direction my thumb is pushing in for the thumb stick, it just didn't make sense in my brain. I could sort of get a grasp of directions when i was looking at my thumb instead of at the game, but this defeats the purpose doesn't it, and the moment i looked up i would no longer know where my thumb is pointing.
Rescue came with the Dreamcast pad, which has a force modulation system where it eases up on the spring return force when you're down the 8 principal directions, giving you a directional force hint. This is done by a giant return spring that runs on the periphery of the stick subassembly and a swash plate connected to spring preload plate. Gamecube has a cheaper and also sort of valid solution with the octagonal external gate.
It was unreasonable for hardware designers to expect that most people would be able to manage TWO sticks. And it was new and somewhat expensive hardware.
Another fun fact about Dreamcast is that the pad wire protocol foresees the second stick and also two extra face buttons C and Z and another button of unknown purpose. They were apparently thinking of introducing the second stick later if and when the games ever figure out what to do with it. Playstation 1 games weren't using the second stick at the time at all.
Only now are we comparing Mario 64 with Resident Evil.
Gaming in the Clinton years was ahead of its time.
George Wood was parallel universes ahead of everyone else
*its (possessive pronoun)
it's = contraction of "it is" or "it has"
All contractions have apostrophes. Possessive pronouns never do.
@@alvallac2171 ah yeah, true. i fixed it
lakitu works for the NSA
Woah, your non-HL content is pretty fucking good. Always keep pushing that diverse content threshold, man. May the algorithm bless you.
Great vid!
amazing video. got me to appreciate my favorite Mario game in a new way :)
by the way, I actually used the fixed camera a lot in my last playthrough! often just for the fun of letting Mario get far away from it, creating an interesting distance from the action, before letting it zip across the level to get back in place, or to appreciate the ways it would rotate to face Mario and reframe the level in interesting ways
It was actually pretty useful a few times though! I got stuck in Wiggler's boss room during my 100-coin run, not realizing you couldn't leave, and spent a long time trying to get enough height to just barely land on the platform under the hole you drop through, and keeping the camera fixed to the side while I triple jumped from a side-on perspective made it easier to judge my exact distance from the platform. Of course, in the end, I found out there's no loading trigger in the hole, but the fixed camera was still a big help getting up there
one other thing I wanna point out is that I think a lot of the camera angles are meant to align pathways with the corners of the N64 control stick's octagonal gate, so that you can easily run down things like bridges. not only is the camera angle of the bob-omb-battlefield bridge visually interesting, framing upcoming destinations, but it also enables you to confidently run across the bridge without needing to adjust your angle
although, it's been years since I last touched an N64 controller, so uhhhhh....! I'm not 100% sure this is actually true
Poor Lakitu, always catching Flak. He’s just a beginner in the field of Photography.
Thank you for this video. I really like 64's camera, though it isn't perfect. I tried SM64Plus analog camera, but it didn't work for me, I thought it lacked something. Now I understand what it lacked, it's not cinematic!
You gotta keep making these
Spider-Man is still the coolest guy
Came here from Soup's video. Good stuff!
I'm only now realising Mario 64 has a "soft" locked camera, and it's pretty amazing how the devs let you nudge it around while it elastically floats its way back to where they intended, that's some math right there.
Good stuff 👍
Wait whats Richter Overdrive doing in this video!? Haha
I found your channel by searching for a review of the Zelda handheld, and suddenly another UA-camr who I thought was completeIy unrelated is in your vid! That's awesome! I'm excited to keep up with your content!
0:35 Christ, I always forget how the controller looks because it is horrific. It genuinely looks like the games are meant to be played with the D-pad like 3D games on the DS, just with the issue that not all games are compatible with it and thus have to be played with the console's middle finger instead.
What I have to give it is that I think the idea of C-buttons is actually pretty cool because it allows for more precision over an omnidirectional stick in some siturations(One has not had the real retrogaming experience until one accidentially used the wrong item in Zelda using modern controllers)
You know what? You convinced me!
You’re supposed to defend the camera
Fantastic video, more views needed
Yo, cool video. I might actually give the game a chance now, i'm a little too young to have played it back then.
Unrelated, but Mario 64 looks *so* good in HD.
You're right, I did want to click on this video, like you politely asked in the Half-life Uplink video.
I never got around to playing mario 64, i should try it sometime i guess
9:50 Kind of a mute point because most games with closed off environment to this day unload areas. You normally rarely notice it because the camera zooms in to avoid going through walls which the free cam here doesn't do.
*moot (different meaning and pronunciation)
mute = no sound
OK, you got me.
I found the switch port of Mario 64 to be very lacking; mostly in features. I thought the camera should have been completely changed to a free controlling one.
But this video actually made me change my mind on that complaint. Kudos.
I don't understand why people complained about this, it's just a port, it was only ever meant to be a port, not a complete remastering.
@@n646n 'Just a port'.
OK; so I can see you have Quake guy in your pfp. Imagine the Quake remaster didn't come out and instead they ported Quake to the switch. Which would be fine right? Quake ported to everything is always a great time.
But wait... Bethesda left the game in 4:3 aspect ratio and 640x480 resolution. The game has no 'free mouse look' (remember, the original Quake had no 'mouse look'. You had to enable it in the console command). The game runs at 15 - 30 fps (the kind of framerates expected at the time).
Imagine if Quake on the Switch ran and played like the 'original' simply because it was a 'port'..
Quake was ported to everything when the source code was released. It runs on the Playstation Vita in wide-screen for God's sake.
Porting something doesn't mean you have to 'remaster' it and change how it felt. But it does mean you have to take advantage of what you are porting it to and modern expectations. Mario 64 running at 4:3 on the Switch is embarrassing when the game is entirely 3D. 4:3 is a totally artifical limit. Modders have had Mario 64 in wide-screen for years and they removed the LOD (level of detail) elements years ago (which are embarrassingly still in the Switch port.)
I didn't want a remaster of Mario 64 but I did want some fucking effort put into it. I mean fuck, Mario 64 on the DS had more effort put into it and that was a port to a less powerful handheld console!
I am not even saying that people shouldn't be able to play in 4:3 as I feel some games lose their charm in wide-screen. But you should have the option!
I mean they gave Mario Sunshine wide-screen on the same fucking collection so they obviously knew people like it. They even added inverted camera options.
DOOM has been ported to everything and it's always been DOOM. The difference between people porting DOOM and Nintendo porting Mario 64 is that people who port DOOM obviously love DOOM.
Playing Mario 3D collection made me question whether Nintendo actually love their own games.
@@novelezra N64 games are just... wrong in wide-screen. The majority of the community thinks that, which is probably why they left it.
I'd be perfectly fine if they did everything you said, I really don't like the Quake remaster. I prefer playing games in the resolutions and framerates of the time using the hardware of the time, though I'd expect it to have a better framerate on Switch due to it only working on modern displays.
@@n646n Many MANY N64 games feel amazing in wide-screen. Have you played the Banjo Kazooie port to XBOX360? Or the Perfect Dark port? Perfect Dark on the 360 literally feels like how the game was meant to be played since the game was pushing the hardware so hard.
Don't get me wrong as well, I actually agree with you. I have a Bang and Olufsen MX4000, an N64 with a flashcard, Dreamcast with ODE and PS1 with a modchip.
I fucking adore playing the games how they were originally intended and the idea of playing PS1 games in wide-screen makes me sick. But you know why? Nostalgia.
Again, I am not saying they should have removed the things that you remember from the game but they should have at least brought it up to class with other ports on the same system. Otherwise why bother?
Imagine if they release this Metroid Prime trilogy that's rumored and it's in 4:3.
Would that be good? No.
2:33
richter jumpscare
i love m64 cause mario is elastic
So yay
I never paid attention to this, may be why I never truly needed the camera controls when i played with a shitty keyboard config as a kid, but suffered without them in most old rom hacks.
Oh yeah rom hacks are usually kind of hellish with this. I'm not sure if the camera operates on a node system or responds to level geometry in a certain way but there's a lot of old hacks that just require mario cam for the whole game
"For the water levels it's essential to ensure that the camera follows Mario in the way it does, otherwise the controls just break right down and become a pain to use."
Someone on Super Mario Galaxy's development team hated that statement.
Galaxy's (and by extension Galaxy 2's) underwater camera is genuinely the worst camera I've ever had to deal with in a video game.
Who thought that it would be a good idea to take away all the control the player gets of the camera!?
Spherical planets like bonefin galaxy are nearly impossible to navigate, as you constantly have to slowly and awkwardly adjust the camera with Mario's movements just for a few seconds of a helpful camera while swimming.
This turns Kingfin from a fine boss, to the hardest boss in the game (In my opinion) just because of the terrible camera controls.
MEHRIO BLJ'd into my heart
Wow, non HL content! Glad to see some diversity in topics!
The camera sucks!! ~~ Arin Hanson.
I'm Not gonna watch your Binding of Isaac video
I was more of a zelda guy, but i'll enjoy this anyway
My friend remember the bullsquid video that you made well I'm trying to make a mod that adds bullsquids to half life 2 half life alix and side episodes
2:40 *shadow
You should’ve defended the fictional aspects as they are good
If you want to start branching out from Half-Life, then I think making videos like this about other mid-to-late 90's games is definitely a good start.
Not a bad video, but no one ever had issues with the camera angles presented in the game. Of course they show important aspects of the level in an interesting fashion, much like a movie shot would. But that's not what people complain about. They complain about the fact that the camera often gets stuck on seemingly nothing at all, which messes with important jumps. That wooden bridge in Wet Dry World comes to mind, there's no way the camera couldn't move around, but just doesn't.
And you could argue that this is the type of camera the developers wanted in that specific instance, but then... why does it mess with the gameplay? If you want that specific shot, then why not restructure the level so it can't get stuck and/or that the player can see everything coming up perfectly? Because you can have both interesting, iconic shots AND a good camera in a game.
The Big Boo's Haunt level demonstrates this well, they knew the limitations of the camera and structured the whole place around it perfectly. It's more Mario Galaxy than Mario 64 in that regard, with its static, cinematic angles. So they knew how to pull it off, but just didn't for certain aspects in the game.
What you did in the beginning of the video was explain WHY the camera sucked, that being that it was new grounds for developers. But that only explains it, it doesn't magically make it better. And likewise does it not matter for the game itself that it helped innovate the camera system of future games.
That being said, I don't even really think the camera in 64 is THAT bad. It's flawed, but functional. There are aspects in the game that have aged even worse, such as the overreliance on instant death pits and a life system, both of which discourage exploration. I still don't think it's brilliant and I prefer the DS version over it for that reason. Well, it's the superior version for many reasons, but that's besides the point.
P.S.: More non-Half-Life stuff please, you seem to have a clear passion for talking about these aspects and make interesting points. Also getting stuck on a single topic to talk about in videos sucks lol
Mario 64 DS is so fucking under rated.
Also, am I the only one who feels DS has better controls? Despite the lack of analogue controls, I can pull my jumps with better consistency, more accuracy, where in 64 original, seemingly easy jumps can be infuriatingly difficult, in DS, I feel more in control.
How do lives and bottomless pits discourage exploration?
@@kurtzahringer9750 i feel like making you play more carefully was the point. To be challenged. To say it has too many places to insta die is opinion and not objective.
@@blueyosh43 Moving at a snail's pace, sometimes taking 10-20 minutes to get a single star because you only want to do something a single time, versus a million quick times, is not challenging, it's just boring.
@@kurtzahringer9750 What version resets to 4 lives? I'm playing the OG version off of NSO+ and I don't lose my lives. I'm usually sitting at 90-100 lives. I got most of them trying to get the Tall Tall Mountain stars due to the sheer amount of easy to grab lives there.
i've never in muy life had problems with the camera in mario 64 i dont' know what people is talking about when they complain
*I've
*my
*Mario
*64. I
*don't
*people are
*complain.
i have never played it
The draw distance didn’t age poorly. Also the N64 controller isnt godawful
No
The premade camera angles in 64 are the best, it's when the camera stops being scripted that it becomes annoying.
Mario 3D World and Odyssey tho... these cool angled scroll pans, really fucking nice, looks really good, Cubric would be happy, but considering that Mario snapped between 45 and 90 degrees towards death and that if I reajust it now the lengh of the jump is fucked and he'll just die no matter what, fuck you game. If these cool camera shots didn't fucking twist the controls it'd be a lot better, peopke love to bitch at how shit Sonic is, and yes, Mario does have a better camera overal, something Sonic understood early, as early as Adventure 1, when you fuck with the camera in a major way to do some cool cinematic shot, script it so the controls do not follow, it's a straight path, Sonic will keep going in the same direction, keep the stick in the same spot, keep Sonic going where he was, but now that Mario got people to be used to have to react to cinematic shot with over correcting to avoid instant death, they bitch at Sonic for "throwing the player off course", except that they're trying to correct something that is already corrected, and bitching about Sonic and calling it bad, is more compelling than seeing that it's, for once, doing something Mario should.
I am officially the 485th viewer. overall, could've used more Luigi.
Hmfmrnfkke
Camerna
Bruh do one piece next
Марио64 камера хейтеры братья...
Neat, unlike the camera
Pls play more fnaf
twenty-first
Mario 64 is an objectively bad game and the only reason people remember it is because of the nostalgic factor as it didint innovate in any meaningful way
low quality bait, try harder next time
first
Make a video about how FNAF 2 is better than FNAF 1
IT IS NOT
@@liamblasko3164 it is
idiot
It’s not mixed up of any of that it doesn’t make the game less fun to play. Pc port sucks and Plus doesn’t have a phenomenal camera analog
immediately disliked before watching video
Ain't that deep bruh just play the game
Mario 64 DS is better
Great vid!