I think he gets this request every single day lol. A rom of the original with all of his performance improvements to get faster framerate on original hardware would be a top tier rom hack. One of those that a lot of people just default to whenever they want to play the original.
@@jimbobcheezeburger2020in the first video about framerate improvements on his next roomhack if i remember correctly he said hed publish all of the changes and such in a patch after hes done with the roomhack
The only change I dissagree for sure is removing "big fall damage" animations. Yes, it's a little annoying that it takes so long for Mario to get up, but it just gives that charm of realism & Mario feeling more human I suppose.
Super Mario 64's physics were kinda flawed in some aspects, but they have their own charm that makes me feel great when controlling Mario around. With these changes, for some reason not only the charm remains untouched, but it even improves it removing the more annoying aspects of it! I absolutely love this :D
I agree, Mario's movements are so flawed that the movement tech that comes with it makes it feel seemless. I used to play mario 64 constantly 5-7 years ago.
I don’t like the gradual decline in wallkick speed after touching the wall. Because to get the max distance from the wallkick you still have to have frame perfect input plus max speed before kicking the wall. It might be better to have a window where he keeps his momentum and after that he looses it just like the original (but make the window longer than one frame) maybe also have some visual indicator of this mechanic. Alternatively you could also have a plateau of a few frames after hitting the wall where he keeps the momentum and then have it gradually decline. Another idea would be to not link the momentum you get out of the wallkick to the momentum he had before the wallkick at all. And make the post-wallkick momentum purely about how fast you kick the wall after touching it. Preferably also with a plateau of a few frames where you get max momentum. This might make things more consistent and easy to control but could also make it less fun.
@@MirrorHall_Clay true that it would be more ‘realistic’, but it goes against the precedent of other Mario games that have such a feature, like the down action of the propeller suit in many of the more recent 2D Mario’s. Since humans can’t fly with just their arms, I feel going with what people expect is more valuable than what is technically realistic.
I feel like only the removal of the super fall damage animation would makes me sad because when it happens, it's when you fail big time and even expect to die so it can really be a funny moment especially for beginners ( or playing, looking at them ) so it's cool to see an animation that emphize that instead of immediately moving on. Those are very incredible changes other than that ! I agree that what the community wants is not necessarily more difficult hack and i hope that when your main hack is being released ( i can't wait to play it btw) it can be easy for other developper to take all your modification to develop their hack from it ! And well, let's be honest, with a coyote jump added, kaizo hack can now makes jumps where they are mandatory ! Difficulty can always be there !
Same, I feel like it's unnecessary since very rarely will someone fall from that high, and it absolutely emphasizes that you just screwed up. I say it should stay.
Agreed, I think that landing animation is a good way to reward playing well. Fall carelessly from a great height, and Mario will not only recieve a lot of damage, but you'll also have to sit throught his small animation of him suffering from your actions. But, know some tricks and you'll be able to not only avoid taking damage but also keep moving swiftly.
Making the character respond better to your will is always a good idea. It does make the current levels you have easier, but you can just ramp the difficulty to make for it and still get a better experience because the player will feel it's his fault rather than the controls.
@@tonyhakston536 In my experience, even rage games will usually at least try to make the controls and (if applicable) physics solid, because difficulty derived from messing either of those up is just plain unpleasant all-around, rather than giving it the frustrating-but-addicting sort of difficulty that people play rage games for. Even games like QWOP, that do rely on intentionally-bad gameplay, have to strike a balance to extract the "this is bullshit but I can do it" feeling from the very form of difficulty that most easily brings with it a "this is bullshit and I don't even feel accomplished for any progress I make" feeling instead.
I think the swimming in the original mario 64 was pretty intuitive, and it's especially good the way that it works in galaxy, having a button to go deeper underwater with the Z button I don't have many arguments besides saying it feels nice, and perhaps having the original swimming plus that action would feel better but yeah
The 360 degree swimming in Mario 64 is one of my favorite things about the game, and I miss it dearly in Odyssey. I know some people find the swimming levels slow and boring, but to me they're like a therapeutic break between the manic frenzy of some of the other levels. It's a product of it's time, but the freedom to just explore a 3D space at a calm pace like that is really comforting.
The swimming mechanic felt like magic when the game was released, keeping that similar vibe might bestow a little bit of that original 1996 feeling of awe for new or younger players. It's not clunky, it's buoyant.
Yea the controls of N64 mario swiming is one the best systems I have counterend. Maybe allow for a continous A pres, but no a for up and b for down pls
@@Merrinen the Nintendo 64 was actually comparatively advanced hardware, part of the issue with third party support (in addition to the cartridge storage medium and the miniscule texture cache) was that it was a bit tough to code for. Obviously Nintendo's own devs were masters of their hardware, but even then Super Mario 64 got delayed numerous times - and the N64 along with it - until Nintendo could tweak it to their high standards. @JP Hataraki Nintendo makes cutting edge technologies, just in different ways. Rather than pushing technical specs, they push ideas. The DS and Wii were revolutionary gaming technologies, and the concept of the Switch has obviously been massively successful despite the dated chipset.
@@jphataraki6764 thats because nintendo figured out that graphics wasnt as important for sales as they thought Which is why the wii was only 14% faster From the gamecube while the gamecube was was so much faster than the N64 than real time lighting was possible.
The only change you talked about that I think I'd want you to reconsider is the way swimming works, but at the same time if you've designed your water levels with those controls in mind idk if switch back would cause issues. Maybe you could have "classic swim controls" as an option, and if you're willing maybe also tweak the classic style controls to make swimming straight up or straight down easier to do. Might also help to change how accelerating works so that mashing A gives you the same speed as perfect rhythmic presses. Either way I'm sure the new controls are good even if I have a slight preference for the original.
yeah i prefer the original swimming too, i just found in testing that these were better for playtesters that are somewhat new to mario 64. the levels in this game rarely have huge bodies of water like in sm64 - usually you only really care about your horizontal movement in those little ponds i have. for that reason i find these fit the game's design im making better.
@@KazeN64 Yeah i think thats the key there, the new controls are a downgrade for jolly rodger bay but a big upgrade for something like tinyhuge where the full old controls in these relative puddles of water, just don't make sense.
Big fan of the auto quick turn. That was a mechanic that always frustrated me even as a kid. At the same time it is kinda cool how even that mechanic is used in speedrunning (cannonless).
18:57 True, but I remember hearing in an interview that it was an intentional design decision to make returning to the surface heal you. Reducing two meters into one meter is definitely very in line with Mario's design philosophy. Drowning instantly after entering water is definitely very dumb though.
I actually like the full-3D swimming - I think its only real flaw is that it's a little annoying to ascend or descend *directly* up or down, but I don't think it's worth getting rid of the three-dimensional swim controls entirely. If I were to try altering the swim controls, I think I'd actually first try keeping the full-3D swim but adding ascend/descend buttons?
I do love all of the changes! The only one I disagree big time is in the swimming. I really prefer full 3D swimming, aiming yourself and swim in every unconventional angle that you want, I think is intuitive since this is the way regular swimming kind of works, with you picking a direction and propelling yourself with your feet and hands. I really don't like the kind of pseudo 2D swimming in which you change your altitude with a set of buttons and otherwise you move with the stick two-dimensionally, I hated it in Kingdom hearts, and there it was more necessary because of all the 2D fighting you have to do. But really in a 3D exploration game I want to move as freely as possible. I guess I just need to test how yours work to really get a feel for it. In any case you maybe could put some options in a menu to let people choose what they want. But only in the ones that really change the gameplay in a significant way. The rest of the changes are brilliant, I really like that you are making all the inputs more lenient and consistent with small corrections. Mario 64 is great, but unless you are a speed runner, everyone experience some amount of yank eventually
Agree! I vastly prefer 64's swimming to the later games. The only issue with the original swimming was that jumping out of the water sometimes felt inconsistent. But I think that could be fixed by doing something like Z+A always leaps up?
Mario isn't using the 50 menus and buttons which leads to it being annoying in Kingdom Hearts. The 2D style allows for water to be more then an pool of empty space but when you have to aim and point levels have to have that empty space so you can aim, point, and go to it. Almost all swimming in SM64 is just empty slow space and this remains true in a lot of point and swim games. Movement is slow and clunky so everything is slow and clunky. Speed it up and you can create a smoother experience.
Amazing optimization, friend. The only issue I have is, like you said, with the swimming. Not because it isn't "good" or that it is "bad" but because it feels like it doesn't belong in the original Mario 64. It was a design choice, not a limitation of the hardware. It would be like inverting the looking controls, or inverting the A and B buttons. Not wrong per se, but a deliberate departure from the original design decisions and a change to the core game-play that we all remember.
All of this looks great, but I'm not a fan of the dramatic change in swimming controls. Could there be an option in the menu to change between the new, Odyssey-style swimming and the original style?
Yeah, this is something that always stuck out to me about sunshine, how the really cool and fun airplane joystick style swim controls were swapped out for controls that are very simple but really arent fun and don't respect momentum like the rest of mario gameplay does. IDK if odyssey has made a noticable improvement to these controls vs sunshine but yeah not a fan of that
@@ugoboom The fact that Galaxy went right back to Mario 64's style of swimming says enough about what Sunshine's swimming was like to control. As for Odyssey, only reason it's different from 64/Galaxy is because it's built and modified directly off 3D World's movement and thus inherits 3D World's swimming almost one-to-one, which itself was merely trying to replicate the swimming of the 2D Mario games that's existed since Mario 1. Which ironically people often call dated itself.
I really liked all of the changes that were made, but how the breath meter looks makes it feel out of place and not mario-like in it's style. I think that the breath meter from the fan game super mario 63, fits in more into the game with its style
Big fall damage is one of my favorite things in Mario 64. Nothing is as immersive as getting squished for a few seconds or falling off your feet after a big enough fall. It's what really makes you appreciate how vertical a specific level can be compared to other falls you've experienced in earlier levels. Otherwise I think these are a lot of logical updates to the game, even if I don't think they're necessarily needed.
I would disagree that big fall damage is miserable by itself. Maybe if it's a result of something that you have now fixed it's miserable because it's not feedback for skill expression. But big fall damage and getting stunned is feedback saying that you messed up big. If moving Mario around quickly is skateboarding, small fall damage is like falling off the skateboard and big fall damage is like doinking your head on the stairs. It seems to me that having the possibility of bigger consequence makes your actions feel more impactful.
Falling usually comes with a loss of progress as well. A longer fall means it'll take even longer to climb back up to where you were, so I think that impact would still be felt even without any fall damage. Extra damage is just insult to injury.
He could've just made it so upon going below the water surface, you get a full health bit's worth of oxygen timer before losing your first bit of health. Would've prevented the instant death without changing that gameplay mechanic.
@@neehgurg2111 it's unique and quirky. This is a Mario game - health isn't a serious gameplay mechanic like it is in Zelda - nothing is serious in Mario.
I love all of these except for the swimming ones. i liked the way swimming was, and the healthbar thing (although yeah, very silly indeed) was something that had charm to it. Something would be worth changing regarding swimming is how inconsistent getting out of a body of water is. Sometimes you jump and it's fine, other times you are stuck in the water like it's maple syrup.
Puishment is also satisfying. Big fall damage is such a cool animation that it sucks it was removed. Also, the walljump was difficult because the stages used to be simpler, so better execution provided far great yields. I wish that that we could at least have an option in the options menu to toggle walljumps vs wallclings for players that like the execution challenge.
@@blueyosh43 you know you can just ignore this hack if you are so allergic to controls and mechanics that are friendly to first time or non experienced players There's literally countless other hacks out there for you to try that retain tge vanilla 64 feel or are even more punishing to the player for making a single mistake
@@luckybeast1234 God forbid people discuss game design, especially on a "widely regarded masterpiece game ACTUALLY isn't as good as you think" clickbait type video.
@@blueyosh43 I don't think making overly sarcastic remarks count as discussion but I guess everyone has a different idea of that Agree on the clickbait thing tho The title and thumbnail could have been something else without relying on that stuff
fall damage in general is something the series moved away from because it's not that fun for 3D level exploration in a Mario game. you're already punished by having to climb back up to wherever you were, and for quickly descending, the fact that you can neutralize it with a kick or ground pound makes you wonder why it's there in the first place.
Great video! As a game designer myself, I’ve always said that the difficulty in a game should not come from controls not doing what you want, but rather the controls should be your metaphorical toolbox for overcoming the game’s obstacles.
Okay final comment. Sometimes when doing wall kicks, it feels like it just doesn't work where I think it should. Like Mario doesn't enter the wall kick preparation animation at all, He just goes "oomph" and falls way too often. Could be worth looking into.
The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
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The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
I don't know how well-known this is but Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the N64 had a coyote timer, back in 1997. Pretty forward looking decision on that game's devs' part imo.
Personally I'd just have a modified swim system, giving mario an underwater ground pound, do something to the exiting water mechanics, and increasing the speed overall.
It looks and feels really awkward with Mario having the same animation when doing the spin falling faster thing. Mario should do a little drill spin animation when holding z while spinning like how ground pounding after spin jumping works in odyssey. Otherwise it's perfect!
I love both the original and your improved control scheme. I don't know how feasible it is, but think it would be cool to have an option in the menu to swap between "Classic" and "New" controls!
Not sure I agree with your frame 1 wallkick fix. Making the speed vary depending on when it's pressed could make it feel inconsistent. There's not much visual feedback, so a casual player might not realize that the timing has an effect. This could lead to situations where a casual player tries to wallkick up onto a platform, does it with late timing and barely doesn't make it, and then assumes that the wallkick can't reach at all. Even if they decide to try again and make it that time, it would still probably leave them confused as to why it only works sometimes. Then from a speedrunning perspective, this could make precise wallkick setups harder. If you're trying to wallkick and land in a very specific spot to set up a second jump, or just land on a very narrow platform, the inputs required to do so could still be frame perfect, since pressing a frame early or too late will end up giving you a different result. I think a better fix would be to either remove the wallkick variance entirely, so wallkicks always result in the same speed, or widen the 1 frame wallkick window to something more doable, but still hard like 2 or 3 frames. It would be especially cool if you added some particle effect or sound effect for a perfect wallkick to tell the player that they did it successfully.
I absolutely love the Z to descend faster while spinning change, however I think the animation is a little wonky in the clips you showed. Could you perhaps make Mario's spin animation faster like some of the newer games when you do this move? I think it would help sell the idea of drilling into the ground a lot better.
I know the bigger point of discussion has been the swimming controls, but I feel like the wall changes would kill a ton of speedrun tricks (not to mention TAS tricks - which I realize is likely not a priority here - from what I can tell this and other changes presented here would kill ABC), which I think is not worth preventing accidentally ending up OOB, something I don't remember ever really happening to me in this game anyways.
As someone who's been playing this game since I was born pretty much and is super in touch with the movement, I don't really disagree with any of these changes...probably. I'll see when I mess around with them for myself. But I really like how much you don't want to change the overall feel of the game but rather make minor adjustments where you can. Because tricks like frame perfect wall kicks and so on feel as good as they do because you know how difficult it is to pull off. But whether or not something should be that difficult in the first place is worthy for debate. Very curious to mess around with this, great work as always < 3
Ok, using Odyssey's swimming controls is a massive mistake for Super Mario 64. The fact of the matter is, SM64's water levels have significant amounts of verticality and were designed around having full 3D swimming. Odyssey's swimming controls may be _supposedly_ easier to pick up (more on that after I finish this first point) but they don't mesh with the level design and would take away a lot of the dynamic feel of SM64's water levels. As for the claim that Odyssey's swimming controls are more intuitive... not really. In both cases it's a deviation from the conventional surface controls, so you have to relearn them anyway. One thing to consider is how much you have to think about the swimming controls. Odyssey's are, in effect, based on cardinal directions relative to the camera. So to go a specific direction you have think about which control to use. Whereas SM64's are point-and-shoot - you aim Mario where you want to go and then tap or press and hold the A button to swim.
I hope I get a flash cart for my N64 soon. I have had my N64 longer than other consoles in my collection that I already have ways to unofficially play games on. You produce the c9ntent the top my list for trying. Quite Amazing what you've done and continue to do.
I really like the changes. I've been reading comments and a lot of people don't seem to like the swimming changes but I personally love them. It has always seemed so wrong to me that in the original game you have to push up the stick to move forwards but in the water you go down doing the same input. The only change I don't agree with is the wall slide. I've always liked that wall kicks have to be kinda precise.
What would be cool is a demo of a single stage that we all know and love and the ability to turn the changes on and off. Nothing quite like experiencing the changes first hand when you can compare them back to back.
I love all of these changes! The only thing ringing in the back of my mind is how a speedkick/punch would be affected by some of these changes. Granted a punch is pretty situational for it's usefulness but the speedkicks are fairly integral to high-level sm64 speedrunning.
This is not a criticism but one the hardest things to do with ROM hacks is to balance "better" mechanics with player expectations. I don't know how I'll feel about any of these changes before I play a game with them, but I will say a big reason I play SM64 ROM hacks is because as "flawed" as the physics are, I enjoy them, and moreover, am used to them. Thus even if a change ends up being "better", there will likely be some who don't like it since they aren't really looking for different.
i make all these changes while keeping in mind the player's existing muscle memory. the idea here is that if you do the same intentional inputs as before, you'll get the same output so hopefully you wouldn't even be able to tell unless you messed up (and then the game gives you your intended movement anyway)
I agree with pretty much all of these except for the swimming changes and possibly the breath changes? but mostly the swimming changes. I LOVE how mario 64 and banjo handle swimming, and modern games instead going for "a is up, b is down" kinda annoys me
Also, fundamentally changing the swimming controls is kind of.. I don't know. To me, it would feel off not pressing the A button to move forward, and timing its presses right to get the maximum speed. It feels like going up and down would feel better, but moving forward would be worse, unless I'm perceiving things wrong. That's the only change I'm not like, completely sold on. I just think it's a very questionable decision. edit: Nevermind! I see your reasoning now. If you aren't going to have levels like Jolly Roger Bay, then the newer swimming controls would indeed work better. Original's are still better, just not for the levels you're making. Still though, how is accelerating at maximum speed going to work? Would you just.. Tap the joystick up every second?
'minimizing the input output barrier' is minimizing surprise. i don't know what it is about never again casually being primed into the controls as if that is not such a rich place. you can decide on arbitrary stuff like coyote time but it is a short term gain that comes with a long term cost in 'skill expression' also known as going outside (sensory deprivation)
I feel like the only change that wasn't really needed was to remove the longer fall damage animation. It felt...well, natural for you to see and feel that it *really* did hurt. And it gives another reason to avoid fall damage, which isn't too hard to begin with. Other than this nitpick, I really like the changes.
If, theoretically, you do ever release a plain "optimized" Super Mario 64 with just your bugfixes and optimizations but the same old content, I hope that you only include the first 2 categories of fixes. It's true that some of the improvements would objectively make the game better, but there is a certain charm to some of the antiquated design choices that you just don't see nowadays. The wall cling and slide down before you jump feels great for example. It's super forgiving and grants you a great deal more precision in how you wall jump. But part of me likes how this game requires a more precise approach to the wall jump before you do it rather than being able to just initiate a wall slide and then figure out when to jump off afterwards
amazing work. I did not like the reduction on fall damage and its animation tho. It reduces the punishment from your mistakes, and by a lot (since falling is the mistake you make the most on a mario game). I think this single change, by itself, could make the game feel to easy
Not only was Mario 64 one of the first 3D platformers, but it was also a launch title for the N64. It was a brand new genre, on brand new hardware. Of course it's not great. They were just making it up as they went along.
Personally if I was making a hack I'd try making dive be "B in midair" and making kick be "B while holding A". The latter is already how you can perform the kick on the ground, so it feels intuitive to me for that to be the way you do it in midair. That said your solution is good too, since it's built around what people already tend to do to solve the inconsistency. Aside from that the only thing I'm not sure about, and just sorta need to play for myself, is the swimming you mentioned. When you say it works like Odyssey, do you mean it works like Mario's swimming, or Cheep Cheep's swimming? I'm pretty sure you described it more like the latter but I just wanna be sure.
I can't wait to play your mod. I'd also be interested to see your engine improvements ported to the original engine but from my understanding it sounds like your changes will really excel in a 'brand new' game so honestly your mod excites me much more.
I honestly love the big fall damage splat. It's hilarious to watch Mario just totally splay out. It's also hilarious when he falls off like seven things because he's locked in tumble. It would be sad to see it go.
@@blueyosh43 “Jokes on you, I'm a sadist and enjoy seeing Mario in pain.” - By the Sadists Or “I enjoy being punished, give us 1 HP please!” - By the Masochists. Take your pick, really.
@@blueyosh43 Maybe I am just a masochist, but it makes games more exciting for me when I know there are consequences for making a mistake. This single change would make Bowser in the Sky less punishing because sometimes if you fall off, you tumble all the way down to the bottom and most likely die from fall damage. but if you become actionable the moment you land, you could just jump away from the ledge or ledgegrab or something.
Damn. That statement about games like this not being based on whether or not you can press the button at the right time has gotta be controversial. but I agree. I think this is why most modern platformers introduced some kinds of buffers like the "coyote timer" you mentioned. It can invent new 1 frame tricks with bad level design (a jump that is only possible if you press it exactly at the last frame before you'd start falling and using the extra distance gained to be able to make it) but I'd rather have that happen than the inverse where you need to make a precise series of jumps and oops you were 1 frame too late so now you just fall. I think the decision making aspect is more important for most games than 1 frame execution windows. Even fighting games started to move away from needing 1 frame inputs and focused more on letting people execute tough combos more easily because the fun part of most fighting games is outplaying your opponent in a neutral state, not worrying about whether or not you're going to drop your combo once you actually land the clean hit.
I think I like all changes from a casual gaming point of view, apart from only one. Some of the ideas on how to fix certain stuff without throwing an anvil at the players used to the game are so clever, like I really like how firsty wallkicks are fixed. The only thing I didnt like was removing big fall damage, it doesn't happen often and when it does it means you suck, have 5 seconds to rethink your decisions.
I rarely comment on things but I just want to say that I greatly enjoy your videos. You put so much time and consideration into the choices you make and present it in such a clear, concise, and entertaining manner. Your tone is respectful, giving viewers a well-informed perspective without making them feel as though they are being spoken to condescendingly. Your visuals and casual memes makes this feel so accessible and fun!! Thank you for sharing and I look forward to whatever you’re working on next!!
I love the work and dedication you have to this game. Most of these are obvious improvements: invisible ceilings, missed inputs, etc. Regarding the jump kick vs dive: I've always had the idea that it would be cool that the jump kick vs dive worked like it does on the ground. On the ground, no matter how fast Mario moves you can go neutral and press B and he will do the punch. If you could be schmooving in the air and go neutral to do a kick to get that little bit more distance in a jump I think it could open up some cool movement options. A couple things I'm iffy on are things like swimming controls, perhaps that could be an option? Also the new wall collision makes it technically a better game and makes more sense, but could be overall less fun for speedrunning if there were no wall clips. Just to be sure, with the new wall kick momentum change, could we still do something like owl-less now that 2nd, 3rd, etc frame wallkicks retain more speed? Overall though this work is insanely good and we all appreciate what you do for the game!
He did add that change with the kicks, only you have to hold back for a brief period. Holding neutral in midair would feel really unnatural if you ask me to be honest.
@@DarkStarCoreX Yeah, he did mention that he did make it easier to get a kick. However he said it's if you hold back, and if your speed is below 38 (He said this at 15:25). This would mean if you get a lot of speed (like 50+ speed) and then jump, but you see you need a little more distance to make it - then you would still get a dive instead of a kick when holding back. I only say holding neutral because that would be consistent with the way it works now on the ground (with fast speed: holding direction = dive, holding neutral = attack/strike) which is what we already do on the ground to grab things quickly, like the bomb in bomb clip for example.
@@SwiftHobo Fair point, but I think my main problem is that it will be heavily exploited, because you could find a way to built up a ton of speed (i.e. diving down a slope or better yet, a blj) then go neutral to kick and skip the entire stage, especially because your horizontal momentum translates into vertical momentum. I guess an easy solution is to have it work exactly like it works on the ground, meaning that you have to hold neutral for an exact amount of frames or you dive, or lose all your speed. This negates the issue of casuals skipping an entire challenge, but also adds speedrun potential. To be honest that's probably how you meant it and I just read it wrong, because the way I read it is you can just hold neutral and you have an extremely big window to hold forward again, and the only punishment is losing a bit speed from holding neutral.
Also to answer your question about owlless working: no, it likely would not, as for owlless you need a 1st or 2nd frame wallkick, however it's unlikely that there'll be a star which can be skipped by performing the same movement as owlless.
These are mostly great changes, well done! The one I'm most hesitant about is being able to roll out of a belly slide on a downward slope (29), but I can understand why you'd want to change this. I usually try to avoid belly slides in general for this very reason.
I remember screensharing SM64 hacks in call with a friend of mine, whose never really played or seen the game before, and at some point after watching he asked how I'm doing the dive vs. kicking in the air. I then took the next 6 minutes or so explaining how exactly it's determined whether you'll dive or kick, to which he simply replied "...Jesus Christ. Just make it an extra button or something!" Which is to say, THANK YOU for implementing these more noticeable QOL features alongside the more nitty-gritty ones. It really helps for those of us who'd rather have a directly fun experience than one that requires 6 minutes of explanation on how to dive/kick.
@@blueyosh43 i guess the way i phrased it did make it seem that way, but those minutes were moreso a discussion than just me ranting about specifics, to be fair. he was curious and asked questions, which i gave him (at least i think) pretty solid answers for
one request, if possible: put some very well guarded secret, like banjo-kazooie's frozen key, something the player can't reach right now, but many months later you tell how to do it with a series of 'sidequests' that leads to the secret being achieved. i would be awesome!
I don't know if SM64 _really_ needs Cayote time tbh It's nice to have yes but part of the game design of 3D Mario in general is the "close enough" level design where you wont really need to make any super precise jumps that require a few more frames to make a movement
I can't wait to play your SM64 rework on real hardware. The exact same game but with all these improvements, so amazing. It would be neat if a debug menu is possible where we could turn on/off these different improvements, but there are so many this would probably be too much work. I'm happily waiting to replay this game for the first time in over 20 years once you finish, it's gonna be so fun!
18:09 is a great idea, reminds me of how A Hat in Time has an extra effect for dive cancels if you do it within the window that grants the maximum possible speed.
Kaze! Not sure if you've addressed this in the past, but one area I've seen new players get frustrated is with Mario's wall-collision head-bonk animation. It's interesting that if you keep the stick engaged, Mario will hit a wall and enter "wall-hug" mode, while letting up on the stick just before hitting will cause a "head bonk." I'd lean toward taking the bonk out entirely, or at least shortening the bonk animation, as it's frustrating in a similar way to the landing-from-a-great-height animation. While we're at it, maybe shorten the stuck-in-snow animation too.
@@DarkStarCoreX Well aware! I'm saying, even moreso. Though just shortening the default animation would be enough. My suggestions were more for people who are younger and didn't grow up with early 3D games.
I'm going to contend #19. Personally I find that Mario swims in 64 in a much more realistic/intuitive way. If I'm in the water, and want to go up, I need to angle myself up and push forward. Hitting an Up button feels like there's a way to cause your body to just... ascend when swimming and that just doesn't happen. Admittedly I think something like 3DLand/World benefits from the less intuitive controls because those swimming sections are so quick and reaction-based, as well as freeing up for a ground-pound. But if you're not changing anything else about Mario 64's big open immersive non-combative pools, I feel like changing the controls away from that immersion is a mistake. Aside from that these are some _very_ impressive and dedicated changes, and I'm excited to try them out for myself!
One thing you should be considering is that every map in game design is supposed to be designed with the control scheme in mind. If the controls are going to be changed that (lets say, in a vacuum) feel better, the maps should accordingly be redesigned with that scheme in mind. This might be the correct decision for Kaze's game, but you probably shouldnt be playing the original sm64 maps with that new scheme as it's not designed for it.
Ok, so I grew up with SMDS64, and I could never go and play the original as well as DS cause there was no wall slide for wall kicks, so I am unbelievably happy that you added that feature in.
Wall slides make wall kicks too versatile imo. Wall kicks were always something you had to plan out in sm64, and giving the player the ability to just slide down the wall to correct for whatever mistake they made feels too lenient.
Every change here is great but I think larger fall damage punish frames is kind of iconic. Also your hack look sick I know Simple Flips is excited but trust me Kaze I am too - you should also make a mario chaos with your fixes :D
A lot of these fixes seem great! I think the only two I feel iffy on are the swimming controls and the wall slide. A lot of people have already mentioned the swimming, so I’ll leave it at that. As for the wall slide…it’s more minor but something I feel is incredibly satisfying to master. The short frame window is very doable with some practice, even for newer players. I think both of these changes would be a non-issue if you made a toggle for them in the menu! I realize that this would mean that you then couldn’t design a level with either control scheme in mind, but it would still be the best decision imo
Some of these oddities were things I didn't even actively notice anymore, but them getting fixed is a very good thing in my opinion and I don't think there was anything I'd actively disagree with. I do think the downward acelleration for the spinning jump could be upgraded to some kind of semi-groundpound, maybe with the downside of not being able to cancel it once you started, similar to how such situations are handled in newer Mario games. Glossing over the comments, the new water physics seem to be the most controversial change. I think they are great, as long as the level design compliments them. I don't think they would work in vanilla SM64 without any changes though. That being said, if you want to make a demo, it would be great to have a place to test the water physics too, even if it's just a simple box filled with water. On other thing in regards to that, even if it has nothing to do with the physics themselves, is the design of the air meter. It does what it has to do, but I think a radial design, similar to the meters in Super Mario Galaxy would not only look better, but also take up less screen estate than this long bar.
"This would've been easily fixed if someone had just taken the time to note it..." Bro it's cool that you're making this, but it's also really easy to say these errors could've been easily avoided decades after the game is developed and released. Especially since Miyamoto's team was 1. Developing the N64 hardware, 2. Developing SM64 and 3. Developing Ocarina of Time - all at once, on a crunched Nintendo schedule night after night.
You health meter *was* your oxygen meter. I don't like having that seperate meter honestly. It's not an objective improvement just a different method of design and I feel that's too different from the original..
I wonder if someday Kaze will release a SM64 version with every possible improvement he can make to it...
I think he gets this request every single day lol. A rom of the original with all of his performance improvements to get faster framerate on original hardware would be a top tier rom hack. One of those that a lot of people just default to whenever they want to play the original.
@@diegog1853 He said he would later I think
@@WalnutOW when
@@jimbobcheezeburger2020 he said it would be a lot of work but that he would open source his changes so other people could do it
@@jimbobcheezeburger2020in the first video about framerate improvements on his next roomhack if i remember correctly
he said hed publish all of the changes and such in a patch after hes done with the roomhack
One thing that is massively underrated about Kaze is how good he is at user research and understanding how other people use the games he’s working on.
Yeah, he games it out in his head and he understands what is intuitive.
I wonder what a game journalist would think of his romhacks?
@@halcyonacoustic7366 nah the opposite, he tests with real people, iterates, gets things wrong and redoes them
@@runed0s86 I'm a game journalist, I want to pay this guy my salary
don't you just hate it when you're gaming and you find some bad nath formulas?
if you didn't get it, there's a typo in the beginning of the video
Or bad frane windows
@@kaiser9321 lol me when I don't press the a button within the frane window
Every day.
@@chaotickreg7024 r/woooosh moment
The only change I dissagree for sure is removing "big fall damage" animations. Yes, it's a little annoying that it takes so long for Mario to get up, but it just gives that charm of realism & Mario feeling more human I suppose.
Yeah dont get why this is removed organic mass would squash down if it fell far enough but marios strong as shit and just stretches back up
I think the big fall damage animation looks really funny and I would miss it if it was removed
I think pressing B to do the breakdance or A to do the jumping roll to get out of it early would be a nicer change to it
It's also a time-waster. A completely unnecessary detail that gets in the way of your movement.
Playing video games in general are time-wasters too...
Super Mario 64's physics were kinda flawed in some aspects, but they have their own charm that makes me feel great when controlling Mario around. With these changes, for some reason not only the charm remains untouched, but it even improves it removing the more annoying aspects of it! I absolutely love this :D
I agree, Mario's movements are so flawed that the movement tech that comes with it makes it feel seemless. I used to play mario 64 constantly 5-7 years ago.
Changing the swimming physics is foolish however, akin to having go up / go down buttons while flying
I don’t like the gradual decline in wallkick speed after touching the wall. Because to get the max distance from the wallkick you still have to have frame perfect input plus max speed before kicking the wall. It might be better to have a window where he keeps his momentum and after that he looses it just like the original (but make the window longer than one frame) maybe also have some visual indicator of this mechanic.
Alternatively you could also have a plateau of a few frames after hitting the wall where he keeps the momentum and then have it gradually decline.
Another idea would be to not link the momentum you get out of the wallkick to the momentum he had before the wallkick at all. And make the post-wallkick momentum purely about how fast you kick the wall after touching it. Preferably also with a plateau of a few frames where you get max momentum. This might make things more consistent and easy to control but could also make it less fun.
Of course we can't compare it to today's games !
@@eljackso Why'd you stop?
Minor suggestion: while doing the fast fall with Z that you added while in the aerial twirl state, have Mario rotate a bit faster.
It would also be a nice addition to have him raise his arms slightly.
Tbh, that makes more sense for a slow-fall (which already exists in mario 64, and does look like that)
@@MirrorHall_Clay true that it would be more ‘realistic’, but it goes against the precedent of other Mario games that have such a feature, like the down action of the propeller suit in many of the more recent 2D Mario’s. Since humans can’t fly with just their arms, I feel going with what people expect is more valuable than what is technically realistic.
and pull his arms into his body
The speed change when falling fast is also a little abrupt. Maybe you could animate into the faster falling speed
I feel like only the removal of the super fall damage animation would makes me sad because when it happens, it's when you fail big time and even expect to die so it can really be a funny moment especially for beginners ( or playing, looking at them ) so it's cool to see an animation that emphize that instead of immediately moving on. Those are very incredible changes other than that ! I agree that what the community wants is not necessarily more difficult hack and i hope that when your main hack is being released ( i can't wait to play it btw) it can be easy for other developper to take all your modification to develop their hack from it !
And well, let's be honest, with a coyote jump added, kaizo hack can now makes jumps where they are mandatory ! Difficulty can always be there !
Same, I feel like it's unnecessary since very rarely will someone fall from that high, and it absolutely emphasizes that you just screwed up. I say it should stay.
Agreed, I think that landing animation is a good way to reward playing well. Fall carelessly from a great height, and Mario will not only recieve a lot of damage, but you'll also have to sit throught his small animation of him suffering from your actions. But, know some tricks and you'll be able to not only avoid taking damage but also keep moving swiftly.
best of both worlds solution: make it cancelable, players wanting to move fast will instinctively mash out of it
@@playcube4564 Good idea, actually
Agree, I like the big fall damage, it's as u said often at moments where u cheat death and u though ut would die but instead get a laugh
Making the character respond better to your will is always a good idea. It does make the current levels you have easier, but you can just ramp the difficulty to make for it and still get a better experience because the player will feel it's his fault rather than the controls.
Yes! Something not many people understand is that difficulty doesn't just have a quantity to it but also a quality.
Difficulty isn't fun if it's just getting the character to move properly that's difficult.
@@renakunisaki except when that is the entire point of the game, but that doesn’t really apply to SM64.
@@tonyhakston536 In my experience, even rage games will usually at least try to make the controls and (if applicable) physics solid, because difficulty derived from messing either of those up is just plain unpleasant all-around, rather than giving it the frustrating-but-addicting sort of difficulty that people play rage games for. Even games like QWOP, that do rely on intentionally-bad gameplay, have to strike a balance to extract the "this is bullshit but I can do it" feeling from the very form of difficulty that most easily brings with it a "this is bullshit and I don't even feel accomplished for any progress I make" feeling instead.
exactly, artificial difficulty like that is simply not fun
I think the swimming in the original mario 64 was pretty intuitive, and it's especially good the way that it works in galaxy, having a button to go deeper underwater with the Z button
I don't have many arguments besides saying it feels nice, and perhaps having the original swimming plus that action would feel better but yeah
The 360 degree swimming in Mario 64 is one of my favorite things about the game, and I miss it dearly in Odyssey. I know some people find the swimming levels slow and boring, but to me they're like a therapeutic break between the manic frenzy of some of the other levels. It's a product of it's time, but the freedom to just explore a 3D space at a calm pace like that is really comforting.
The swimming mechanic felt like magic when the game was released, keeping that similar vibe might bestow a little bit of that original 1996 feeling of awe for new or younger players. It's not clunky, it's buoyant.
I actually like the water levels too, all of them, my favorite is jolly roger bay, that and the one with the skeleton shark
Yea the controls of N64 mario swiming is one the best systems I have counterend. Maybe allow for a continous A pres, but no a for up and b for down pls
100%! I find Odyssey's swimming controls extremely unintuitive.
If you change the swimming controls I'll pirate your game lol
For a 1996 game you gotta admit Super Mario 64 was ahead of its time
To this day Nintendo does games of the future on hardware of the past.
@MerriNet shame they gave up after the GameCube though
@@Merrinen the Nintendo 64 was actually comparatively advanced hardware, part of the issue with third party support (in addition to the cartridge storage medium and the miniscule texture cache) was that it was a bit tough to code for. Obviously Nintendo's own devs were masters of their hardware, but even then Super Mario 64 got delayed numerous times - and the N64 along with it - until Nintendo could tweak it to their high standards.
@JP Hataraki Nintendo makes cutting edge technologies, just in different ways. Rather than pushing technical specs, they push ideas. The DS and Wii were revolutionary gaming technologies, and the concept of the Switch has obviously been massively successful despite the dated chipset.
@@jphataraki6764 thats because nintendo figured out that graphics wasnt as important for sales as they thought
Which is why the wii was only 14% faster
From the gamecube while the gamecube was was so much faster than the N64 than real time lighting was possible.
June 1996
the time of two of the greatest 3D games
Super Mario 64 and Quake
The only change you talked about that I think I'd want you to reconsider is the way swimming works, but at the same time if you've designed your water levels with those controls in mind idk if switch back would cause issues. Maybe you could have "classic swim controls" as an option, and if you're willing maybe also tweak the classic style controls to make swimming straight up or straight down easier to do. Might also help to change how accelerating works so that mashing A gives you the same speed as perfect rhythmic presses. Either way I'm sure the new controls are good even if I have a slight preference for the original.
yeah i prefer the original swimming too, i just found in testing that these were better for playtesters that are somewhat new to mario 64.
the levels in this game rarely have huge bodies of water like in sm64 - usually you only really care about your horizontal movement in those little ponds i have. for that reason i find these fit the game's design im making better.
@@KazeN64 Yeah i think thats the key there, the new controls are a downgrade for jolly rodger bay but a big upgrade for something like tinyhuge where the full old controls in these relative puddles of water, just don't make sense.
What if the game had separate swimming and diving controls?
@@nyanpasu64 Joystick movement for surface, and traditional for submerged?
@Bootleg_Jones if you want first hand experience with the new controls you should try Luci's Levitation :)
This guy knows more about SM64 than the developers who made it
As a professional developer, I can barely remember what I coded last week, much less three decades ago. Deadlines are a bitch...
no he doesnt
@@terminus8497he absolutely does
@@Maodjrodnd thanks for clarifying
@@terminus8497Today, everyone was wholesome. Good job, all.
Big fan of the auto quick turn. That was a mechanic that always frustrated me even as a kid. At the same time it is kinda cool how even that mechanic is used in speedrunning (cannonless).
It also finds its use in blindfolded speedruns of the game
18:57 True, but I remember hearing in an interview that it was an intentional design decision to make returning to the surface heal you. Reducing two meters into one meter is definitely very in line with Mario's design philosophy. Drowning instantly after entering water is definitely very dumb though.
I actually like the full-3D swimming - I think its only real flaw is that it's a little annoying to ascend or descend *directly* up or down, but I don't think it's worth getting rid of the three-dimensional swim controls entirely. If I were to try altering the swim controls, I think I'd actually first try keeping the full-3D swim but adding ascend/descend buttons?
Same, that's the kind of controls I'm most used to actually.
This looks really good. I think personally that the swimming should remain unchanged, but I do think you are right, I just like 64 swimming lol.
12:44 The half-circle after landing was my biggest gripe with SM64. Glad to see it addressed
I do love all of the changes!
The only one I disagree big time is in the swimming. I really prefer full 3D swimming, aiming yourself and swim in every unconventional angle that you want, I think is intuitive since this is the way regular swimming kind of works, with you picking a direction and propelling yourself with your feet and hands. I really don't like the kind of pseudo 2D swimming in which you change your altitude with a set of buttons and otherwise you move with the stick two-dimensionally, I hated it in Kingdom hearts, and there it was more necessary because of all the 2D fighting you have to do. But really in a 3D exploration game I want to move as freely as possible.
I guess I just need to test how yours work to really get a feel for it. In any case you maybe could put some options in a menu to let people choose what they want. But only in the ones that really change the gameplay in a significant way. The rest of the changes are brilliant, I really like that you are making all the inputs more lenient and consistent with small corrections. Mario 64 is great, but unless you are a speed runner, everyone experience some amount of yank eventually
Agree! I vastly prefer 64's swimming to the later games. The only issue with the original swimming was that jumping out of the water sometimes felt inconsistent. But I think that could be fixed by doing something like Z+A always leaps up?
Mario isn't using the 50 menus and buttons which leads to it being annoying in Kingdom Hearts.
The 2D style allows for water to be more then an pool of empty space but when you have to aim and point levels have to have that empty space so you can aim, point, and go to it. Almost all swimming in SM64 is just empty slow space and this remains true in a lot of point and swim games. Movement is slow and clunky so everything is slow and clunky. Speed it up and you can create a smoother experience.
I like SM64's swimming controls better than Galaxy's.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 but thats level design fault, not control fault.
Amazing optimization, friend. The only issue I have is, like you said, with the swimming. Not because it isn't "good" or that it is "bad" but because it feels like it doesn't belong in the original Mario 64. It was a design choice, not a limitation of the hardware. It would be like inverting the looking controls, or inverting the A and B buttons. Not wrong per se, but a deliberate departure from the original design decisions and a change to the core game-play that we all remember.
All of this looks great, but I'm not a fan of the dramatic change in swimming controls. Could there be an option in the menu to change between the new, Odyssey-style swimming and the original style?
Yeah, this is something that always stuck out to me about sunshine, how the really cool and fun airplane joystick style swim controls were swapped out for controls that are very simple but really arent fun and don't respect momentum like the rest of mario gameplay does.
IDK if odyssey has made a noticable improvement to these controls vs sunshine but yeah not a fan of that
@@ugoboom Odyssey's doesn't feel nearly as clunky as Sunshine's at least.
Both replies are true. In the end, stay with SM64s swimming but with small tweaks/ enhancements
lol i just left this same comment then saw yours. gonna go delete mine now.
@@ugoboom The fact that Galaxy went right back to Mario 64's style of swimming says enough about what Sunshine's swimming was like to control. As for Odyssey, only reason it's different from 64/Galaxy is because it's built and modified directly off 3D World's movement and thus inherits 3D World's swimming almost one-to-one, which itself was merely trying to replicate the swimming of the 2D Mario games that's existed since Mario 1. Which ironically people often call dated itself.
I really liked all of the changes that were made, but how the breath meter looks makes it feel out of place and not mario-like in it's style. I think that the breath meter from the fan game super mario 63, fits in more into the game with its style
Big fall damage is one of my favorite things in Mario 64. Nothing is as immersive as getting squished for a few seconds or falling off your feet after a big enough fall. It's what really makes you appreciate how vertical a specific level can be compared to other falls you've experienced in earlier levels. Otherwise I think these are a lot of logical updates to the game, even if I don't think they're necessarily needed.
I would disagree that big fall damage is miserable by itself. Maybe if it's a result of something that you have now fixed it's miserable because it's not feedback for skill expression. But big fall damage and getting stunned is feedback saying that you messed up big. If moving Mario around quickly is skateboarding, small fall damage is like falling off the skateboard and big fall damage is like doinking your head on the stairs. It seems to me that having the possibility of bigger consequence makes your actions feel more impactful.
Falling usually comes with a loss of progress as well. A longer fall means it'll take even longer to climb back up to where you were, so I think that impact would still be felt even without any fall damage. Extra damage is just insult to injury.
@@AbruptAvalanche Well it should punish the player for a skill issue lol
I liked the original water health system thing. A quick way to restore your health when there's no heart or coins around.
Kinda reminds me of Kid Icarus hot springs
Actually... I kinda agree. This is the only change I'm pretty iffy on.
He could've just made it so upon going below the water surface, you get a full health bit's worth of oxygen timer before losing your first bit of health.
Would've prevented the instant death without changing that gameplay mechanic.
No it's stupid and it's cheesy it needs to be gone.
@@neehgurg2111 it's unique and quirky. This is a Mario game - health isn't a serious gameplay mechanic like it is in Zelda - nothing is serious in Mario.
I love all of these except for the swimming ones. i liked the way swimming was, and the healthbar thing (although yeah, very silly indeed) was something that had charm to it. Something would be worth changing regarding swimming is how inconsistent getting out of a body of water is. Sometimes you jump and it's fine, other times you are stuck in the water like it's maple syrup.
cringe pfp
I can't believe Kaze made a whole video (inhale) **essay** on the physics of Mario 64 and why it's not great.
Puishment is also satisfying. Big fall damage is such a cool animation that it sucks it was removed. Also, the walljump was difficult because the stages used to be simpler, so better execution provided far great yields.
I wish that that we could at least have an option in the options menu to toggle walljumps vs wallclings for players that like the execution challenge.
But how will the people who aren't serious about video games and just started playing the game 2 minutes ago feel? Think of the casuals!1
@@blueyosh43 you know you can just ignore this hack if you are so allergic to controls and mechanics that are friendly to first time or non experienced players
There's literally countless other hacks out there for you to try that retain tge vanilla 64 feel or are even more punishing to the player for making a single mistake
@@luckybeast1234 God forbid people discuss game design, especially on a "widely regarded masterpiece game ACTUALLY isn't as good as you think" clickbait type video.
@@blueyosh43 I don't think making overly sarcastic remarks count as discussion but I guess everyone has a different idea of that
Agree on the clickbait thing tho
The title and thumbnail could have been something else without relying on that stuff
as an artist, i actually noticed the squash and stretch almost instantly! it looks awesome and gives off a very polished presentation, great work!
0:46 "it was the first 3D platformer ever"
I-Robot (1983): *Cries in a corner*
I, Robot wasn't a platformer.
But Jumping Flash! (1995) was.
Pretty cool but removing big fall damage seems unjustified
Isn't it only removing the animation?
@@renakunisaki It makes all fall damage 2 hit points
@@TPainWhatitDoI don't really mind that, considering you can get out of fall damage by just groundpounding/diving
fall damage in general is something the series moved away from because it's not that fun for 3D level exploration in a Mario game. you're already punished by having to climb back up to wherever you were, and for quickly descending, the fact that you can neutralize it with a kick or ground pound makes you wonder why it's there in the first place.
Great video! As a game designer myself, I’ve always said that the difficulty in a game should not come from controls not doing what you want, but rather the controls should be your metaphorical toolbox for overcoming the game’s obstacles.
my only suggestion would be to make the breath meter more like the heath meter; circular and depleting in pie chunks. it looks more fun that way :)
Like sunshine?
The only change I disagree with is removing the "big fall" impact. I think it added character.
Okay final comment.
Sometimes when doing wall kicks, it feels like it just doesn't work where I think it should. Like Mario doesn't enter the wall kick preparation animation at all, He just goes "oomph" and falls way too often. Could be worth looking into.
i mention that in the video! there is a specific bug that can cause this.
The slow half-circle turn around animation always bugged me a lot. I'm glad you included that fix.
I can't even count the number of times Mario has walked off a cliff and died due to that turn around motion.
yea that was one of the main movement differences i noticed when i played 64 after odyssey that made it feel dated, along w/ no wall sliding
The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
4:21 Good thank you for not removing first frame wallkicks.
To try everything Brilliant has to offer-free-for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/KazeEmanuar/ . The first 200 of you will get 20% off Brilliant’s annual premium subscription.
Coyote is pronounced like "Kayoutii"
Another cringe youtube opinion piece
The big fall damage animation is pretty funny though. Why not just make it cancellable after a while? What I mean is after a short while the player can walk or jump out of the animation so that they're not stuck for too long. And if you want to see mario fall on his butt like an idiot the player can just do nothing and the full animation will play. Everybody wins.
i'm sorry, but what does "Bad nath formulas" at 1:50 mean, and how does "nath" relate to physics?
I don't know how well-known this is but Turok: Dinosaur Hunter on the N64 had a coyote timer, back in 1997. Pretty forward looking decision on that game's devs' part imo.
Personally I'd just have a modified swim system, giving mario an underwater ground pound, do something to the exiting water mechanics, and increasing the speed overall.
Swimming as a zoron in majoras mask would be ideal imo
He already swims really fast if you know how to perfect swim though.
It looks and feels really awkward with Mario having the same animation when doing the spin falling faster thing. Mario should do a little drill spin animation when holding z while spinning like how ground pounding after spin jumping works in odyssey. Otherwise it's perfect!
I love both the original and your improved control scheme. I don't know how feasible it is, but think it would be cool to have an option in the menu to swap between "Classic" and "New" controls!
this is really intriguing and actually explains a lot of problems i have with mario 64
also 15:38 is just gold! i love that you used that clip!
Been following your project for some time now and am truly impressed that big-N didn't cease and desist it. Looking forward to playing your Demo!
oh i've gotten a C&D before
@@KazeN64 oh that makes more sense, just out of curiosity which middle finger did you raise in response to that?
@@taggy87if he raised a middle finger, hed no longer have it lol
You should make a fork of the decomp project with all the optimizations and improvements you came up with, basically a modernized version of the game.
Not sure I agree with your frame 1 wallkick fix. Making the speed vary depending on when it's pressed could make it feel inconsistent. There's not much visual feedback, so a casual player might not realize that the timing has an effect. This could lead to situations where a casual player tries to wallkick up onto a platform, does it with late timing and barely doesn't make it, and then assumes that the wallkick can't reach at all. Even if they decide to try again and make it that time, it would still probably leave them confused as to why it only works sometimes.
Then from a speedrunning perspective, this could make precise wallkick setups harder. If you're trying to wallkick and land in a very specific spot to set up a second jump, or just land on a very narrow platform, the inputs required to do so could still be frame perfect, since pressing a frame early or too late will end up giving you a different result.
I think a better fix would be to either remove the wallkick variance entirely, so wallkicks always result in the same speed, or widen the 1 frame wallkick window to something more doable, but still hard like 2 or 3 frames. It would be especially cool if you added some particle effect or sound effect for a perfect wallkick to tell the player that they did it successfully.
I agree, that would be a better change
I absolutely love the Z to descend faster while spinning change, however I think the animation is a little wonky in the clips you showed. Could you perhaps make Mario's spin animation faster like some of the newer games when you do this move? I think it would help sell the idea of drilling into the ground a lot better.
I know the bigger point of discussion has been the swimming controls, but I feel like the wall changes would kill a ton of speedrun tricks (not to mention TAS tricks - which I realize is likely not a priority here - from what I can tell this and other changes presented here would kill ABC), which I think is not worth preventing accidentally ending up OOB, something I don't remember ever really happening to me in this game anyways.
The wall slides are a huge bummer for me sadly.
As someone who's been playing this game since I was born pretty much and is super in touch with the movement, I don't really disagree with any of these changes...probably. I'll see when I mess around with them for myself. But I really like how much you don't want to change the overall feel of the game but rather make minor adjustments where you can. Because tricks like frame perfect wall kicks and so on feel as good as they do because you know how difficult it is to pull off. But whether or not something should be that difficult in the first place is worthy for debate. Very curious to mess around with this, great work as always < 3
Those were some really cool Nath formulas.
would be really cool if there was an official speedrun category with your fixes and improvements
An option to turn swimming back to original would be good
Ok, using Odyssey's swimming controls is a massive mistake for Super Mario 64. The fact of the matter is, SM64's water levels have significant amounts of verticality and were designed around having full 3D swimming. Odyssey's swimming controls may be _supposedly_ easier to pick up (more on that after I finish this first point) but they don't mesh with the level design and would take away a lot of the dynamic feel of SM64's water levels.
As for the claim that Odyssey's swimming controls are more intuitive... not really. In both cases it's a deviation from the conventional surface controls, so you have to relearn them anyway. One thing to consider is how much you have to think about the swimming controls. Odyssey's are, in effect, based on cardinal directions relative to the camera. So to go a specific direction you have think about which control to use. Whereas SM64's are point-and-shoot - you aim Mario where you want to go and then tap or press and hold the A button to swim.
I hope I get a flash cart for my N64 soon. I have had my N64 longer than other consoles in my collection that I already have ways to unofficially play games on. You produce the c9ntent the top my list for trying. Quite Amazing what you've done and continue to do.
Sheesh. I might have been having a stronk while typing that.
I really like the changes. I've been reading comments and a lot of people don't seem to like the swimming changes but I personally love them. It has always seemed so wrong to me that in the original game you have to push up the stick to move forwards but in the water you go down doing the same input.
The only change I don't agree with is the wall slide. I've always liked that wall kicks have to be kinda precise.
When is Kaze's Mario 64 project going to launch? I'm more excited for his levels than I think I have for most AAA games launching this year.
What would be cool is a demo of a single stage that we all know and love and the ability to turn the changes on and off. Nothing quite like experiencing the changes first hand when you can compare them back to back.
I love all of these changes! The only thing ringing in the back of my mind is how a speedkick/punch would be affected by some of these changes. Granted a punch is pretty situational for it's usefulness but the speedkicks are fairly integral to high-level sm64 speedrunning.
speedkicks still work perfectly fine. they are a lot easier to do perfectly now because of the 1 frame input buffer.
This is not a criticism but one the hardest things to do with ROM hacks is to balance "better" mechanics with player expectations. I don't know how I'll feel about any of these changes before I play a game with them, but I will say a big reason I play SM64 ROM hacks is because as "flawed" as the physics are, I enjoy them, and moreover, am used to them. Thus even if a change ends up being "better", there will likely be some who don't like it since they aren't really looking for different.
i make all these changes while keeping in mind the player's existing muscle memory. the idea here is that if you do the same intentional inputs as before, you'll get the same output so hopefully you wouldn't even be able to tell unless you messed up (and then the game gives you your intended movement anyway)
I agree with pretty much all of these except for the swimming changes and possibly the breath changes? but mostly the swimming changes. I LOVE how mario 64 and banjo handle swimming, and modern games instead going for "a is up, b is down" kinda annoys me
"...not as great as you think."
Considering my struggle in some levels when playing Mario 64, I never thought that.
Also, fundamentally changing the swimming controls is kind of.. I don't know. To me, it would feel off not pressing the A button to move forward, and timing its presses right to get the maximum speed. It feels like going up and down would feel better, but moving forward would be worse, unless I'm perceiving things wrong. That's the only change I'm not like, completely sold on. I just think it's a very questionable decision.
edit: Nevermind! I see your reasoning now. If you aren't going to have levels like Jolly Roger Bay, then the newer swimming controls would indeed work better. Original's are still better, just not for the levels you're making. Still though, how is accelerating at maximum speed going to work? Would you just.. Tap the joystick up every second?
'minimizing the input output barrier' is minimizing surprise. i don't know what it is about never again casually being primed into the controls as if that is not such a rich place. you can decide on arbitrary stuff like coyote time but it is a short term gain that comes with a long term cost in 'skill expression' also known as going outside (sensory deprivation)
I feel like the only change that wasn't really needed was to remove the longer fall damage animation. It felt...well, natural for you to see and feel that it *really* did hurt. And it gives another reason to avoid fall damage, which isn't too hard to begin with.
Other than this nitpick, I really like the changes.
That opinion makes no sense as when you rollout from a dive you cant take fall damage
If, theoretically, you do ever release a plain "optimized" Super Mario 64 with just your bugfixes and optimizations but the same old content, I hope that you only include the first 2 categories of fixes. It's true that some of the improvements would objectively make the game better, but there is a certain charm to some of the antiquated design choices that you just don't see nowadays. The wall cling and slide down before you jump feels great for example. It's super forgiving and grants you a great deal more precision in how you wall jump. But part of me likes how this game requires a more precise approach to the wall jump before you do it rather than being able to just initiate a wall slide and then figure out when to jump off afterwards
amazing work. I did not like the reduction on fall damage and its animation tho. It reduces the punishment from your mistakes, and by a lot (since falling is the mistake you make the most on a mario game).
I think this single change, by itself, could make the game feel to easy
Uh no sweetie, challenge is bad game design. We need constant serotonin. Wouldn't want to alienate the casuals!
Not only was Mario 64 one of the first 3D platformers, but it was also a launch title for the N64.
It was a brand new genre, on brand new hardware.
Of course it's not great. They were just making it up as they went along.
Personally if I was making a hack I'd try making dive be "B in midair" and making kick be "B while holding A". The latter is already how you can perform the kick on the ground, so it feels intuitive to me for that to be the way you do it in midair.
That said your solution is good too, since it's built around what people already tend to do to solve the inconsistency.
Aside from that the only thing I'm not sure about, and just sorta need to play for myself, is the swimming you mentioned.
When you say it works like Odyssey, do you mean it works like Mario's swimming, or Cheep Cheep's swimming? I'm pretty sure you described it more like the latter but I just wanna be sure.
This is the change I wanted to see as well
I can't wait to play your mod. I'd also be interested to see your engine improvements ported to the original engine but from my understanding it sounds like your changes will really excel in a 'brand new' game so honestly your mod excites me much more.
I honestly love the big fall damage splat. It's hilarious to watch Mario just totally splay out. It's also hilarious when he falls off like seven things because he's locked in tumble. It would be sad to see it go.
It's hilarious the first time, then frustrating every subsequent time. People do play games for different reasons!
B-but then the player's serotonin will go down! They must ALWAYS be in control and happy! BAD DESIGN!1
@@blueyosh43 “Jokes on you, I'm a sadist and enjoy seeing Mario in pain.” - By the Sadists
Or
“I enjoy being punished, give us 1 HP please!” - By the Masochists.
Take your pick, really.
@@blueyosh43 Maybe I am just a masochist, but it makes games more exciting for me when I know there are consequences for making a mistake. This single change would make Bowser in the Sky less punishing because sometimes if you fall off, you tumble all the way down to the bottom and most likely die from fall damage. but if you become actionable the moment you land, you could just jump away from the ledge or ledgegrab or something.
I was being sarcastic.
Damn. That statement about games like this not being based on whether or not you can press the button at the right time has gotta be controversial. but I agree.
I think this is why most modern platformers introduced some kinds of buffers like the "coyote timer" you mentioned. It can invent new 1 frame tricks with bad level design (a jump that is only possible if you press it exactly at the last frame before you'd start falling and using the extra distance gained to be able to make it) but I'd rather have that happen than the inverse where you need to make a precise series of jumps and oops you were 1 frame too late so now you just fall.
I think the decision making aspect is more important for most games than 1 frame execution windows. Even fighting games started to move away from needing 1 frame inputs and focused more on letting people execute tough combos more easily because the fun part of most fighting games is outplaying your opponent in a neutral state, not worrying about whether or not you're going to drop your combo once you actually land the clean hit.
that's grossly oversimplifying the appeal in fighting games
I think I like all changes from a casual gaming point of view, apart from only one. Some of the ideas on how to fix certain stuff without throwing an anvil at the players used to the game are so clever, like I really like how firsty wallkicks are fixed. The only thing I didnt like was removing big fall damage, it doesn't happen often and when it does it means you suck, have 5 seconds to rethink your decisions.
I rarely comment on things but I just want to say that I greatly enjoy your videos. You put so much time and consideration into the choices you make and present it in such a clear, concise, and entertaining manner. Your tone is respectful, giving viewers a well-informed perspective without making them feel as though they are being spoken to condescendingly. Your visuals and casual memes makes this feel so accessible and fun!! Thank you for sharing and I look forward to whatever you’re working on next!!
I think almost ALL of these are objective improvements. Great job!
This is is one of the only video game projects im currently excited for. Just rhe snippets of levels shown in this video look like so much fun.
I love the work and dedication you have to this game. Most of these are obvious improvements: invisible ceilings, missed inputs, etc. Regarding the jump kick vs dive: I've always had the idea that it would be cool that the jump kick vs dive worked like it does on the ground. On the ground, no matter how fast Mario moves you can go neutral and press B and he will do the punch. If you could be schmooving in the air and go neutral to do a kick to get that little bit more distance in a jump I think it could open up some cool movement options. A couple things I'm iffy on are things like swimming controls, perhaps that could be an option? Also the new wall collision makes it technically a better game and makes more sense, but could be overall less fun for speedrunning if there were no wall clips. Just to be sure, with the new wall kick momentum change, could we still do something like owl-less now that 2nd, 3rd, etc frame wallkicks retain more speed? Overall though this work is insanely good and we all appreciate what you do for the game!
He did add that change with the kicks, only you have to hold back for a brief period. Holding neutral in midair would feel really unnatural if you ask me to be honest.
@@DarkStarCoreX Yeah, he did mention that he did make it easier to get a kick. However he said it's if you hold back, and if your speed is below 38 (He said this at 15:25). This would mean if you get a lot of speed (like 50+ speed) and then jump, but you see you need a little more distance to make it - then you would still get a dive instead of a kick when holding back. I only say holding neutral because that would be consistent with the way it works now on the ground (with fast speed: holding direction = dive, holding neutral = attack/strike) which is what we already do on the ground to grab things quickly, like the bomb in bomb clip for example.
@@SwiftHobo Fair point, but I think my main problem is that it will be heavily exploited, because you could find a way to built up a ton of speed (i.e. diving down a slope or better yet, a blj) then go neutral to kick and skip the entire stage, especially because your horizontal momentum translates into vertical momentum. I guess an easy solution is to have it work exactly like it works on the ground, meaning that you have to hold neutral for an exact amount of frames or you dive, or lose all your speed. This negates the issue of casuals skipping an entire challenge, but also adds speedrun potential.
To be honest that's probably how you meant it and I just read it wrong, because the way I read it is you can just hold neutral and you have an extremely big window to hold forward again, and the only punishment is losing a bit speed from holding neutral.
Also to answer your question about owlless working: no, it likely would not, as for owlless you need a 1st or 2nd frame wallkick, however it's unlikely that there'll be a star which can be skipped by performing the same movement as owlless.
These are mostly great changes, well done! The one I'm most hesitant about is being able to roll out of a belly slide on a downward slope (29), but I can understand why you'd want to change this. I usually try to avoid belly slides in general for this very reason.
Love the passion you put into this, man. Keep up the good work!
I remember screensharing SM64 hacks in call with a friend of mine, whose never really played or seen the game before, and at some point after watching he asked how I'm doing the dive vs. kicking in the air.
I then took the next 6 minutes or so explaining how exactly it's determined whether you'll dive or kick, to which he simply replied "...Jesus Christ. Just make it an extra button or something!"
Which is to say, THANK YOU for implementing these more noticeable QOL features alongside the more nitty-gritty ones. It really helps for those of us who'd rather have a directly fun experience than one that requires 6 minutes of explanation on how to dive/kick.
Literally all you had to say was it depends on how fast you're going. Don't know why you had to overcomplicate it for him.
@@blueyosh43 i guess the way i phrased it did make it seem that way, but those minutes were moreso a discussion than just me ranting about specifics, to be fair.
he was curious and asked questions, which i gave him (at least i think) pretty solid answers for
one request, if possible: put some very well guarded secret, like banjo-kazooie's frozen key, something the player can't reach right now, but many months later you tell how to do it with a series of 'sidequests' that leads to the secret being achieved. i would be awesome!
I don't know if SM64 _really_ needs Cayote time tbh
It's nice to have yes but part of the game design of 3D Mario in general is the "close enough" level design where you wont really need to make any super precise jumps that require a few more frames to make a movement
newer mario games have a coyote timer too. mario odyssey's especially is so large that you can see it by just looking at footage normally.
I can't wait to play your SM64 rework on real hardware. The exact same game but with all these improvements, so amazing. It would be neat if a debug menu is possible where we could turn on/off these different improvements, but there are so many this would probably be too much work. I'm happily waiting to replay this game for the first time in over 20 years once you finish, it's gonna be so fun!
18:09 is a great idea, reminds me of how A Hat in Time has an extra effect for dive cancels if you do it within the window that grants the maximum possible speed.
Kaze! Not sure if you've addressed this in the past, but one area I've seen new players get frustrated is with Mario's wall-collision head-bonk animation. It's interesting that if you keep the stick engaged, Mario will hit a wall and enter "wall-hug" mode, while letting up on the stick just before hitting will cause a "head bonk."
I'd lean toward taking the bonk out entirely, or at least shortening the bonk animation, as it's frustrating in a similar way to the landing-from-a-great-height animation. While we're at it, maybe shorten the stuck-in-snow animation too.
So take all the soul out of the game. Great idea.
You do realise with the stuck-in-snow animation you can mash A to shorten it? It's very obvious so i'd be surprised if you didn't know that.
@@DarkStarCoreX only a person dumb enough to not realize that would suggest something as dumb as he did.
@@DarkStarCoreX Well aware! I'm saying, even moreso. Though just shortening the default animation would be enough. My suggestions were more for people who are younger and didn't grow up with early 3D games.
I freaking love what you’re doing to the game. This is why Mario 64 deserved to be decompiled. honestly, what an amazing community!
I'm going to contend #19. Personally I find that Mario swims in 64 in a much more realistic/intuitive way. If I'm in the water, and want to go up, I need to angle myself up and push forward. Hitting an Up button feels like there's a way to cause your body to just... ascend when swimming and that just doesn't happen.
Admittedly I think something like 3DLand/World benefits from the less intuitive controls because those swimming sections are so quick and reaction-based, as well as freeing up for a ground-pound. But if you're not changing anything else about Mario 64's big open immersive non-combative pools, I feel like changing the controls away from that immersion is a mistake.
Aside from that these are some _very_ impressive and dedicated changes, and I'm excited to try them out for myself!
One thing you should be considering is that every map in game design is supposed to be designed with the control scheme in mind. If the controls are going to be changed that (lets say, in a vacuum) feel better, the maps should accordingly be redesigned with that scheme in mind. This might be the correct decision for Kaze's game, but you probably shouldnt be playing the original sm64 maps with that new scheme as it's not designed for it.
Ok, so I grew up with SMDS64, and I could never go and play the original as well as DS cause there was no wall slide for wall kicks, so I am unbelievably happy that you added that feature in.
but 6 frames is a lot of time to press A
@@DarkStarCoreX Admittedly, yes, but when you aren't used it since every game has wall slide, its abnormal to me.
1:49
Ironic how you spelled it as "nath" instead of "math",
directly after talking bout oversights.
I think "fixing" Mario 64s slightly off physics at this point would be like straightening the leaning tower of Pisa.
Wall slides make wall kicks too versatile imo. Wall kicks were always something you had to plan out in sm64, and giving the player the ability to just slide down the wall to correct for whatever mistake they made feels too lenient.
Every change here is great but I think larger fall damage punish frames is kind of iconic. Also your hack look sick I know Simple Flips is excited but trust me Kaze I am too - you should also make a mario chaos with your fixes :D
I liked pretty much all the improvements you made, they all make sm64 feel more modern and updated!
"Walls are just rectangles that push Mario away" -Panen
It is good. A demo would be much appreciated. I've been wanting to try out all these improvements that you've made for some time.
A demo was made awhile ago and is still available, but a lot of changes have been made since.
A lot of these fixes seem great! I think the only two I feel iffy on are the swimming controls and the wall slide.
A lot of people have already mentioned the swimming, so I’ll leave it at that. As for the wall slide…it’s more minor but something I feel is incredibly satisfying to master. The short frame window is very doable with some practice, even for newer players.
I think both of these changes would be a non-issue if you made a toggle for them in the menu! I realize that this would mean that you then couldn’t design a level with either control scheme in mind, but it would still be the best decision imo
Some of these oddities were things I didn't even actively notice anymore, but them getting fixed is a very good thing in my opinion and I don't think there was anything I'd actively disagree with. I do think the downward acelleration for the spinning jump could be upgraded to some kind of semi-groundpound, maybe with the downside of not being able to cancel it once you started, similar to how such situations are handled in newer Mario games.
Glossing over the comments, the new water physics seem to be the most controversial change. I think they are great, as long as the level design compliments them. I don't think they would work in vanilla SM64 without any changes though. That being said, if you want to make a demo, it would be great to have a place to test the water physics too, even if it's just a simple box filled with water.
On other thing in regards to that, even if it has nothing to do with the physics themselves, is the design of the air meter. It does what it has to do, but I think a radial design, similar to the meters in Super Mario Galaxy would not only look better, but also take up less screen estate than this long bar.
You are so cool for making this open cource. All Mario 64 modders can make mods with super smooth controls now.
"This would've been easily fixed if someone had just taken the time to note it..." Bro it's cool that you're making this, but it's also really easy to say these errors could've been easily avoided decades after the game is developed and released. Especially since Miyamoto's team was 1. Developing the N64 hardware, 2. Developing SM64 and 3. Developing Ocarina of Time - all at once, on a crunched Nintendo schedule night after night.
You health meter *was* your oxygen meter. I don't like having that seperate meter honestly.
It's not an objective improvement just a different method of design and I feel that's too different from the original..