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Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

100 coins on rainbow ride was one of the ones that gave me more.trouble than I remember this time, those timed blue coins are hard. I remembered the clock being the hardest, but I think it was rainbow ride.

I'm on to Sunshine now, but the non reversed controls are taking some getting used to

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Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

SO LONG, GAY BOWSER

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Fungah! posted:

SO LONG, GAY BOWSER



say hi to Yoshi for me.

mycophobia
May 7, 2008

Fungah! posted:

SO LONG, GAY BOWSER



noice.

still loving galaxy 2, up to 170 stars now. when I'm done with that I'm gonna start a new file on Odyssey and actually get everything this time. i love mario

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

Is there a 100 coin star in every level?

mycophobia
May 7, 2008
in 64? in each of the main 15 courses, yes

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

a lot of them you can tell they kind of counted how many coins were in the level and threw in a blue coin block that just makes a line of them, lol

rainbow ride is tricky because it seems like you have loads of them but it's easy to get stranded somewhere. the first time, I got to the house in the sky with 98 coins and got stuck :(

Fiend Matador
Feb 19, 2011

iirc you can get back to the red coin maze from the house but its an extremely scary jump. im doing the tick tock clock 100 coin challenge right now and every jump fills me with dread

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

mycophobia posted:

in 64? in each of the main 15 courses, yes

Knowing that means cool cool mountain for sure now

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

Me trying to do anything in that level

Knuc U Kinte
Aug 17, 2004

I’m clearing every level as I go in Mario odyssey wearing the level appropriate clothes and I’m loving every minute of it.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Knuc U Kinte posted:

I’m clearing every level as I go in Mario odyssey wearing the level appropriate clothes and I’m loving every minute of it.

it's the best way to play imo

Knuc U Kinte
Aug 17, 2004

Doing the antonio banderas noises at my TV when the camera pans around the odyssey, showing off the new sticker I earned.

Skylark
Apr 27, 2007



︵‿୨🤍୧‿︵
༶⋆˙⊹。⋆ʚ🦢ɞ ✩ ˛˚.
Been going thru some shid but I will never give up.

My journey resumed with the collection of 3 more 100-coin stars, finishing up the levels I have played.

Dire, Dire Docks🦈 - Hardest part of this one was swimming without getting sucked into the various black holes underwater that can suck you in and kill you.. The whirlpools were obvious, but I didn't realize the black underwater hole from which the submarine canonically arrives(?) also sucks you into it for some reason, killing you instantly if you allow it to do so. That got me... Other than that it was just kinda tedious, it seemed like I had to collect pretty much every coin on this level to hit 100. Another frustrating aspect for me was that I thought a couple times that I had looked everywhere, but there are some coins around the surface of the water in both areas of the course -- the first room doesn't have any land around the water where you start, but there is a little line of coins down the rock slope near the surface; and, in the second area where the sub goes, there are some coins around the dock. My issue with both sets of coins like these is that Mario 64's draw distance is pretty limited, so you have to get kinda close for them to appear. So I definitely recommend just like swimming/walking around the perimeter of the water's surface in both sections of Dire, Dire Docks, and see if you don't get any coins popping in 🙂
As an adult, it's rly easy to see how unnecessary and padded this level is lol. I can see why it would be somebody's least-favorite, although I think riding the little poles around is fun, and as a kid I thought that combining two of the power caps was the coolest thing ever.

Snowman's Land🌨 - To my surprise, I actually found this considerably easier than the much-early snow level Cool, Cool Mountain. Like Lethal Lava Land, this is another level with a koopa shell, but it's not as essential to the 100-coin journey. Still, I think it's wise to head straight for the shell and make sure you get a good run out of it, because as far as I know, you only have a couple of chances to get up to where the shell spawns (via those flower enemies), and there are several red coins up there, as well as a couple down in the starting area of the level under the Bully that are quite hard to get without a shell and escape w your life. Other than that it's not so bad.. You just cover the fairly compact level, and clean up w tons of coins in that igloo.
I would say that Snowman's Land is, at best, mid, as Mario 64 Courses go. The big snowman is kind of cute, and I like the 3d ice maze.

🌄Tall, Tall Mountain🐒 - All about the slide... As others in this thread have emphasized, sliding first is key!!!

Tato posted:

don't make the same mistake on tall tall mountain slide fellas. slide safe, slide first
:hai: There are parts on this slide where you are required to have a decent amount of speed to get over a couple of humps, lest you fall off and lose everything, so it can take a couple of tries. Fortunately if you die, you can re-enter the level at the beginning of the slide, so it's best to not actually allow Mario to get to the end of the slide until you've gotten a decent run. After racking up >50 coins on the slide, it's not too bad climbing up the mountain for the rest. I skipped a couple of the red coins on those littler mushrooms because if you miss, you die lol, and I was getting pretty nervous by the time it was over. Ultimately tho, not so bad. :zoro: I always liked Tall Tall Mountain as a kid, it just feels like a fun jungle playground, and I like the big mushrooms. I find them very inviting to jump on.

I am starting 2 feel like the end is in sight... The last Course on Floor 3 is Tiny-Huge Island, which tbh I remember as my least favorite Mario 64 level, but I guess that's maybe just bc it kinda overwhelmed my little brain as a kid. It's been fun reevaluating the levels, so perhaps my opinion on Tiny-Huge Island will change, as my opinions on many of the underground levels has improved as I became slightly less scared of poison gas, noticeably less scared of lava, and significantly less scared of sand, respectively, in my adulthood.

And then it will be time for Floor 4, with its most intimidating Courses, as well as the second wing cap red coin bonus stage, and red coin star on Rainbow Bowser. Perhaps it is naive of me, but I don't feel particularly scared of Tick-Tock Clock; I value straightforwardness and horizontal compactness in a Mario level, and although I know it's full of high-risk platforming, it doesn't frighten me as much as it likely should, in all logic. I am much, much more scared of Rainbow Ride, which I remember being about as spread out as a Mario level could possibly be, and probably a great deal less interconnected than Nintendo would ever make an open-ended Mario platforming stage now. As for the Bowser red coins: every Bowser red-coin stage scares me, by virtue of its association with Bowser, whom I fear greatly. As a child, I wrote this stars off completely, thinking that I would never have the courage to go through with them -- getting through each stage was scary enough. Even on this Super Mario 64 playthrough -- the first of my 30s -- I confess that the red coin stars on the two Bowser levels I have already played did stress me out a bit, and my anxiety over the final Bowser star is not inconsiderable. I plan to stream later tonight and hope, with some apprehension, that I can at least enter the three remaining Courses, and hope that I have not missed any stars so far, and wonder which Power Star will be my 120th.

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absolutely anything
Dec 28, 2006

~As for dreams, she has enough and more to spare~
i finished getting all the stars last nite and tiny-huge + rainbow ride were still my least favorite levels... but who knows

Skylark
Apr 27, 2007



︵‿୨🤍୧‿︵
༶⋆˙⊹。⋆ʚ🦢ɞ ✩ ˛˚.
Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!

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trying to jack off
Dec 31, 2007

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



lol

Knuc U Kinte
Aug 17, 2004

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



Holy poo poo congrats.

Bolverkur
Aug 9, 2012

Skylark posted:

As for the Bowser red coins: every Bowser red-coin stage scares me, by virtue of its association with Bowser, whom I fear greatly. As a child, I wrote this stars off completely, thinking that I would never have the courage to go through with them -- getting through each stage was scary enough. Even on this Super Mario 64 playthrough -- the first of my 30s -- I confess that the red coin stars on the two Bowser levels I have already played did stress me out a bit, and my anxiety over the final Bowser star is not inconsiderable.

I replayed the last Bowser stage so often that I actually found it harder to clear the second one. Its layout wasn't stamped into my brain and it was so frustrating with him teleporting around. Godspeed, gamer.

I'm now on Sunshine and have gotten used to the different feel of the controls and how Mario moves. Makes me wonder which 3D Mario games are the most similar in that regard (don't say Galaxy and Galaxy 2). Maybe Galaxy and Odyssey? I remember when picking up Odyssey it didn't feel like I needed any adjusting to it. It always felt 100% natural and smooth. It's such an amazing game and having all these different games on the same system is incredible.

Thank you, Nintendo.

EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

Got all the stars on Cool Cool Moinatin, feels good. Thought 100 coins would be harder but hadn’t realised the level had more than 100 so after the long slide I had like 79. Gonna try max stars in the first world now too then move on to the third one

absolutely anything
Dec 28, 2006

~As for dreams, she has enough and more to spare~

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



proud to be apart of history like this

scary ghost dog
Aug 5, 2007

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



sam silverscuttlebug is a treasure

Pablo Nergigante
Apr 16, 2002

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



drat... ‘grats Skylark

elf help book
Aug 5, 2004

Though the battle might be endless, I will never give up

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!


Arrhythmia
Jul 22, 2011

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!


Fungah!
Apr 30, 2011

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!


Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

the hardest part of the mountain stage for me was when i accidentally grabbed the monkey while trying to find the pink cannon bomb and had to spend 20 minutes getting my hat back. i don't know why it was so much harder than the monkey you need to catch for the star.

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

mario sunshine is harder than i remember. i hate petey piranha.

Spoderman
Aug 2, 2004

Bicyclops posted:

mario sunshine is harder than i remember. i hate petey piranha.

petey piranha is basically a Rare character who snuck into a nintendo game. he does not belong in the world of super mario.

Nostradingus
Jul 13, 2009

110 stars in SM64 now. Still have to do all 7 in Rainbow Ride, 100 coins in the clock, and two secret stars. I quit playing calmly and rationally last night when I got to the top of the clock with 97 coins, started descending again to find what I missed, and got yeeted into the abyss by the spatula dude

In Training
Jun 28, 2008

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



Lol

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

Spoderman posted:

petey piranha is basically a Rare character who snuck into a nintendo game. he does not belong in the world of super mario.

i was doing the shine where he flies around the stage last night and i think you need to spray water in his mouth more times than you need to tickle king k. rool's toes in donkey kong 64. i had remembered him as a wimpy mario galaxy boss and now i'm dealing with having to switch to hyrule warriors because my wife is "sick of hearing me complain about the hosed up plant." what the gently caress.

sleater-cummy
Dec 28, 2005

smile :]

Skylark posted:

Omg, super flattering!! 😊 "Tiny-"Huge thanks to Sam Silverscuttlebug at NYT for the write-up!



wow. well deserved

sleater-cummy
Dec 28, 2005

smile :]
i'm up to 81 stars in mario galaxy, and i'm running out of new places to go to, so i assume that eventually something happens to let me get new stars in all the old levels, but it hasn't happened yet. still getting motion sick on a lot of the boss fights. super annoying but that's how it goes. i can't imagine playing this game with a wiimote i bet it was so obnoxious

Bicyclops
Aug 27, 2004

my 2 year old woke up while I was finishing the petey star so I let him play a little Mario Sunshine, and he immediately made Mario do a backflip, and he was running Mario around delfino island, jumping and going through alleyways like he knew what he was doing, so I thought maybe I'd just let him play it for his screen time today. then he found the shoulder button that turns on the map and just stared vacantly as he turned it on and off. when I asked if he wanted to make Mario move he said "no, I need the dark." I guess he's better at Zelda.

Skylark
Apr 27, 2007



︵‿୨🤍୧‿︵
༶⋆˙⊹。⋆ʚ🦢ɞ ✩ ˛˚.
...And now, the conclusion.

🤏Tiny-Huge Island🐛 - Im going to keep it 100... This was my least-favorite Course in Super Mario 64 as a child, and it remains so as an adult. I think I've been able to keep a fairly open mind && try to view each Course with a 'new set of eyes', but honestly I might even hate this one more now than I used to as a kid. The concept is fine, and the forced-perspective hallway entrances are cool. But omg this level is so annoying in the worst way. Everything just feels loving annoying or unfair lol. Traversing even the shortest distances is annoying asf. Random, jagged level geometry / walls, black holes that sometimes go places and sometimes don't, arbitrarily-placed warp pipes, strong gusts of wind whose boundaries and properties are not entirely clear, enemies who are like 1% of your size can knock you several feet off a cliff to your doom just by touching you. Oh, and the theme is just "grass and dirt", again. But the worst thing about it, going back to gameplay, is that the level is basically a big tall square that you climb up or down in a spiral type of pattern, and the camera gives you very little control, and there are a lot of places where you are rounding a corner of the level and the camera does this automated wild swing around, anticipating showing you somewhere you might be headed; but because a lot of this level involves precise walking on narrow platforms and compensating for strong gusts of wind, it's super easy to get thrown off by an abrupt + dramatic camera move and fall to your death. This Course really pissed me off lmfao. Even getting just the normal stars. By the time I got to 100 coins I was hell of raging... The main thing about 100 coins on here is that, when you're small compared to Goombas, if you attack them with a Ground Pound they drop a blue coin. Other than that, you basically just have to go everywhere, bc the coins are spread thin all over the place. So the strat is basically, maybe go to the red coin area first because its really easy to die in there, and get those, and the like 2 blue coins it gives you there. But then again, it's easy to die randomly everywhere. gently caress this level. Lol

🕰Tick Tock Clock⚙ - The difficulty of this level is infamous, but honestly I think it's a blast. The challenge on the last 2 levels feels much more fair to me than it does on Tiny-Huge Island. I died a lot but had fun.. It's always so epic when you fall from a platforming moment but manage to salvage things and land somewhere lower down. 100 Coins was, naturally, super hard. I did it with the clock pointed at 12, stopping the mechanical components completely. There's one part in the clock where the only way up is a platform that raises and lowers, but when things are stopped, you have to wall-kick up to the higher platform, and it's impossible to actually get the platform you're wall-kicking to in frame on the camera, so you kind of have to line it up and just try to make it. Super intense but it feels amazing when you do it... There is one frustrating camera oddity that killed me a few times, where the blue coin switch is, which is a MUST for 100 coins. The way it works is, first you hit the switch, then you turn around and walk across a very narrow ledge to a platform with a lot of blue coins on it, which of course disappear when the timer runs out. But, when youre walking over there after hitting the switch, the camera does the same thing i was complaining about from Tiny-Huge Island that happens there all the time, where at a certain point on the bridge the camera automatically whips around super fast , which killed me and brought out the gamer rage lol. And for some reason, one time, I inexplicably collided against something invisible in the air and died. Thankfully, it was an isolated incident!
I think Tick Tock CLock is a great level, it was such a fun adventure, and very satisfying to complete.. Idk why I feel this way but I need to mention that the area at the very very top of the clock, with the Thwomp , is so drat epic.. It looks so cool and impressive. Legendary stuff.
I would also like to give a quick shoutout to the Mario Kart adaptation of Tick Tock Clock, which first appeared in Mario Kart DS and was remade in Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U and Switch. I really like that level too.

🌈Rainbow Ride☁ - A very, very dangerous level, naturally. I have to say, I feel like i freaking killed it on Rainbow Ride. I was quite overwhelmed by this level as a kid, because everything felt so spread out, and it felt too confusing to figure out which rainbow path went where. That is actually not really the case at all lol, it's super easy to figure out what's what by simply taking a second to look around and using my powerful adult brain. :viggo: 100-Coins strategy is to grab the coins at the beginning, and once you get to the central hub area, head straight to the maze and go for the blue coins. After that it's just a matter of systematically picking up coins around the map, and taking your time & being careful. I did not do the blue coins first, because, like a bawss, it only took me 2 tries to get the notoriously-difficult Rainbow Ride 100 Coins Power Star, and my death from try 1 was just me falling off the carpet at the very beginning of the level. My chat chose for me to do the Rainbow Ride 100 Coins first out of my final 5 stars (last 3 Courses 100 coins + Rainbow Wing Cap 8 Red Coins + Rainbow Bowser 8 Red Coins), and I'm so glad they did --this accomplishment gave me a great deal of confidence, which helped carry me through my difficulties in the aforementioned Courses, which I ended up doing in reverse order.
It's hard for me to rate Rainbow Ride objectively. Like Cloud Cuckoo Land from Banjo-Tooie, I feel like it has a pleasant sky vibe, but the level itself is kind of just a hodgepodge of random ideas that dont necessarily have anything to do with each other, but are challenging by virtue of being in the sky, so there is little room for error. In my opinion, the classiest option for the final stage of a videogame is to have it be pleasant in theme (not decorated in a way that is scary or stressful), but challenging and epic-feeling in some way, in scope or grandeur -- to bring up Banjo again, I'm a big fan of Click Clock Wood, the beautiful final level from Banjo Kazooie. Thematically, I think a pretty rainbow sky level is a great choice to end Mario 64, but I would be lying if I said this level was super impressive on the whole, and would probably put it in the bottom half of my Courses tier list. A lot of it is random crap, such as yet another vertical "maze" where the red coins are, and a few sections that are literally just grey platforms. The flying ship is I guess kinda famous, and there is a Smash level based upon it, but imo the most striking image from this Course is the big house. I love its aesthetic, especially with the overlapping rainbow paths going through it.. Things like this about the game, that suggest a presence a life that is in fact absent, are fascinating to the imagination of a little kid playing it. The underwater town in Wet-Dry World with its un-open-able doors, and the beautiful house in Rainbow Ride suggest something that isn't there, and something I wanted a lot more of, playing Mario 64 as a child. But honestly, if there was just a little npc in these places that said a line of dialogue, maybe that would actually be less cool.. Maybe the stuff we imagined is better. Even as an adult, I still feel that sense of mystery now...

An awesome thing about this sesh, the final leg of my Super Mario 64 2020 journey, is that it was all on video. Picking up where I left off in my last post, and getting all the remaining stars, beating Bowser, enjoying the amazing chill credits, meeting Yoshi, and beating the Fat PEnguin. 🐧🏁 I feel such satisfaction as a gamer. I started a bit of Mario Sunshine tonight; super excited to continue with that!! 🌞

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American McGay
Feb 28, 2010

by sebmojo
:cheerdoge:

Skylark
Apr 27, 2007



︵‿୨🤍୧‿︵
༶⋆˙⊹。⋆ʚ🦢ɞ ✩ ˛˚.

Favorite to least favorite. They are ranked by my overall sense of fun of the course, which includes the vibe, gameplay, and amount of intriguing mystery. From my adult perspective. Lets freaking go.

      ⬇Best Level⬇
👻5 Big Boo's Haunt🎠
🏝8 Shifting Sand Land🏜️
🧱11 Wet-Dry World🏘
⚠6 Hazy Maze Cave☢
⚓3 Jolly Roger Bay💧
🐧4 Cool, Cool Mountain⛄
🕰14 Tick Tock Clock⚙
💣1 Bob-Omb Battlefield🟩
🔥7 Lethal Lava Land🌋
🌄12 Tall, Tall Mountain🐒
🌈15 Rainbow Ride☁
🗼2 Whomp's Fortress🌳
☃10 Snowman's Land🌨
⛵9 Dire, Dire Docks🦈
🤏13 Tiny-Huge Island🐛
      ⬆Worst Level⬆

Tier Lister's Thoughts: Wow.. 100%ing Super Mario 64 once again was an indescribable journey. But the ranking of its fifteen Courses, was in itself a small journey, requiring roughly ten minutes of mental exercise. I will admit my list is very highly skewed by level's aesthetics/vibes/themes; for example, Whomp's Fortress has pretty solid gameplay throughout, from what I remember, and no stars that feel wack or tacked on. Its aesthetic is even alright.. But idk, it doesnt really stand out to me in the way that other levels do, and after all this is a great game with many great Courses on offer.
The most shocking thing to me, if I were to show this list to my child gamer self, would be how high the basement levels consistently rank. They scared me sooo freaking bad as a lil kid. I think that Shifting Sand Land is so beautiful, now. The lovely bright colors, the pretty little oasis, the awesome Pyramid that contains several mysteries. Mysteries win big overall: Wet-Dry World's cryptic underwater town and Hazy Maze Cave's Dory chamber give them huge boosts. Tbh I feel like a bit of a hypocrite that I was gassing up Tick Tock Clock and Rainbow Ride so much and they look not that high on the list. But the competition is fierce in the top half.. Tiny-Huge island is literally the only Course that I would actually say i dislike lol. Tiny-Huge Island, if you're reading this... Watch tf out.

Arrhythmia
Jul 22, 2011
Very cool, thank you skylark. Are you gonna do writeups for Sunshine as well?

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EmmyOk
Aug 11, 2013

I don’t like cool cool mountain that much bbut cause of all the parts where you can slide that aren’t the slidey slides

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