After watching this positive game review by forum member Edso, located here: MY NECK, MY BACK.... I've decided to revive me and Shock/Trigger's old game review business. Frankly, I'm going to tell you right now: this is a poo pooty port of an otherwise great game, and I'd like to apologize to any fans of the original, because this version does NOT do its N64 counterpart justice.
Overview: SM64D is basically an updated version of Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64. There, that's basically all you need to know.
Storyline: 6/10
Basically the same as Super Mario 64. Peach has baked a cake, but for some reason Bowser decides to take over her castle and rape her into submission, or something. Anyway, it's up to Mario to save her! Except Mario fails miserably, and has to call in his three friends, Luigi, Yoshi, and Wario (aren't they supposed to be enemies?). Anyway, they all get captured in paintings except for Yoshi, and it's up to the green dinosaur to save his "friends". Not much to add to the stereotypical "save the princess" storyline, but I guess it'll do.
Gameplay: 7/10
Oh, what the hell, it's the same SM64 only with two new characters and a few new goals. You get to run, jump, backflip, sideflip (a move that rapidly becomes impossible due to the DS's poo pooty controls, which will be discussed later), front flip...hell any kind of flip, and do a bunch of other poo poo to collect the Castle's Power Stars, which supposedly make Mario and his friends "stronger". At least we've moved up in the drug references: magic mushrooms to stardust.
Sound: 8/10
This is easily the best part of the game. All of your (more accurately described as "my") favorite songs from SM64 are included in this game. In fact, I don't think they even added any new tracks, which actually, in my book, is a plus, considering the original soundtrack did just fine.
Graphics: 7/10
Better than the N64, but barely. Later games for the DS have shown that SM64D could have looked a lot better if they had spent more time tweaking it. Graphics aren't really that important to me...
Controls: -1/10
I know, I'm not supposed to go into negatives, but this is easily some of the worst control I've ever seen in any game, ever. There's three configurations, and they all are incredibly frustrating to use. One just used the d-pad and the buttons, but it had a RUN BUTTON. If they had just fetching made it run by default instead of having me HOLD DOWN THE GODDAMN BUTTON FOR HALF THE GAME, i.e. make the run button a walk button, this game would have been really good, but NO! The other notable configuration uses some invention called the 'wrist strap', which tries to be a control stick and fails miserably. You attach some pad to your finger and try to control your character using the touch pad. This is somehow even worse than holding down a button the whole game. Any attempt to walk will be met with a useless half-run, and any attempt to run will have your thumb touching the edge of the touch pad. If the controls in this game had been just a little bit better, it would have been one of the best DS games, but it just ended up being a pile of diseased horse poo poo.
Replayability: 3/10
Uh, I guess you can replay it to get all the stars, but by the time you finish the game once you will be sick of the poo pooty controls and chuck it at a wall.
Conclusion: Eight out of twenty
I've beaten the original SM64 with all 120 stars, and I have to say that the original version, released some ten years ago, is superior to this one just for the Control Stick.
