It's been almost a decade since Super Mario 64 first came out on the old Nintendo 64. It was an important game for Mario's career, and I'm sure none of you need to hear an introduction for a game this well-known.

Considering Nintendo's remake fetish, it's not surprising that Super Mario 64 got remade for Nintendo's new portable gimmick- I mean, system. Aptly named Super Mario 64 DS, it not only brings new playable characters, but a whopping 30 new Stars, upping the number from 120 to 150, and countless other minor changes.

That being said, most gamers have played Super Mario 64 by now. Do the various changes warrant a purchase? Read on, read on. This Review is on a 1-10 scale.

Story: 5

The story is basically identical to Mario 64's, but there are some minor changes to incorporate the new characters into the picture. Mario gets invited to Peach's castle for some cake right when Bowser decides to carry out one of his infamous kidnappings. Even though only Mario gets invited, Luigi and Wario tag along. Seriously guys, the cake's for MARIO! No shame whatsoever!

Anyways, all three of them get captured, and then it's up to Yoshi to save them. (Great, just what we needed. Bye-bye cake.)

The story's certainly not winning any awards, it's bland and just kind of tacked on. But still, who needs a good reason to go on a Koopa-stomping spree? No one!

Graphics: 9

This being my first DS game, I'm pretty impressed with the graphics. Who would've thought a game like this could be played on a portable system? The graphics are even improved from the old 64 version! I can't compare it to other DS games at this time, but it definitely looks good. Still, if you look at stuff closely, you can see what looks like... individual sprites?

Sound: 9

This game brings back the music from Super Mario 64. Even though several stages have the same music, which makes it seem like it lacks variety, most of it is very good. There are a great number of nice and memorable tunes, classics like the underwater theme, the Wing Cap theme, Metal theme, or Bowser's theme. All very well done, with the added benefit of nostalgia. A great musical moment that stands out in my mind is the underwater theme in Dire Dire Docks; you're swimming, and when you get out of the water, a drum beat is added to the theme. I thought that was pretty nice.

Controls: 6

Remember those death-defying feats you could do with the greatest of ease back on the 64? Triple-Jumping perfectly on a 3-inch plank? Triple-Jumping on an enemy, bouncing and stomping another, then landing on a small platform but instinctively performing a side-somersault just as you land and then landing back on the platform because you would have skidded off the edge?

Yeah. You're not doing that here. Or at least, not as easily. Super Mario 64 wasn't made for the touch-pad, and it shows. Controlling Mario is a lot harder than with the good old analog stick. Suddenly you'll be failing jumps you could do easily on the 64. Even walking on a thin plank is hard, because keeping your finger steady on a smooth screen is harder than just keeping a stick steady. Basically, the controls aren't as tight and intuitive as they were ten years ago. After much playing, I did eventually "master" the touch-pad, but I never achieved the special kind of confidence the N64 analog stick gave me.

And then there's the other way to play the game: with the D-Pad. Except using the D-Pad in this game is like being crippled. There's no way to make tight turns or precise jumps. Did I mention you have to keep a button held to run? Who EVER walks in a game like this? If anything, you should have to hold the button to walk, not to run.  Seriously, it's so much worse than the touch-pad that it almost doesn't even deserve mentioning.

And then there's the camera. I vaguely remember it being generally uncooperative on the original version, and for the most part, it's pretty much the same here. By far the most annoying moment for the camera is when you're surfing on the Koopa shell and you try to change the camera angle. A lot of times, it'll lock in place (at a bad angle) and make a very annoying noise. And of course, you'll have no idea where you're going and crash into something.

I make it sound like the controls are god-awful, but they're actually ok. It's just a huge step-down from SM64, and if you've played it, you'll notice the difference immediately.

Difficulty: 3

Maybe I'm just really good, but this game isn't very hard for me. However, they obviously made the game even easier. It looks like they put more coins into the stages, making the 100-coin Stars easier to acquire. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as dying and losing all your coins when you were only a few short was sometimes very annoying. The addition of a new power-up, the Balloon Mario thingy from SMW, placed in oftentimes very convenient places, negates some hard jumps that you had to master in the original. Not only that, but now, every single thing is detailed in the DS's bottom screen. The Star you need to get? It's there. The location of the 8 red coins in every course? Check. The five Silver Stars? Yep. Of course, all these things are balanced out by the added difficulty presented by the controls.

Overall though, it's still pretty easy. I was never stuck on a single Star. The only thing that is actually kind of hard are the 100-coin challenges in some of the harder stages.

Characters: 10

As I said earlier, this game features four playable characters. The angry fans who missed Luigi back on the 64 can rejoice. He's playable here, as are Wario and Yoshi, if their respective fans are interested. You start out with Yoshi, but you quickly find the other characters and can play as any of them at any time. These characters aren't just visually different, either. They actually feel and control differently. Along with the new characters came changes to the power-ups. Mario is no longer able to become invisible or metal. Each power-up was given to a single character only. Mario has the new balloon power-up, Luigi has the invisible one, and Wario has the metal one. Some of the Stars were also changed slightly to force you into using different characters every now and then.

Then there's the classic baddies everyone loves, rounding up the characters section nicely.

Length: 7

I'm not so sure on this one. The length of SM64 was good, and this new version has 30 more Stars, so it should be even better, right? Thing is, the little screen at the bottom always tells you exactly where you need to go, while in the old version, you actually had to explore to find stuff. This hurts the length department badly, and makes me think it's shorter, when it technically isn't. I remembered almost everything, which made me breeze right through the game. However, if I hadn't, I can certainly see that it would have very decent length.

New Stuff: 4

Let's talk about the big one first, shall we? 30 whole new Stars. It sounds great, doesn't it? Normally you'd have to make four new courses to fit this many Stars into the game. However, if you really thought it was going to be like this, you need to turn your expectations down several notches. Basically, Nintendo decided to scrap creativity and just add one new Star in every stage. And it's not a creative new Star, either! It's one of two types:

1) A Star Switch. When pressed, it makes a Star appear a few meters away from you. Yep. 2) 5 Silver Stars strewn about the course, all their locations detailed on the bottom screen, which when collected, give you a Star. And some of these were downright pathetic. In Tick Tock Clock, I was expecting the stars to be in hard to reach places, and what did I find? I could just stand still, and some of them would literally come to me. Actually, all of them came to me, although only a few actually jumped right into me.

There's 15 stages, and a new Star was put into every one. The other 15 Stars were placed as Secret Stars in the castle. Mostly, it was just another Star added in some of the mini-stages.

The next big thing are the few all-new mini-stages they added in the castle which you have to pass to rescue the characters. Although these small courses aren't exactly elaborate, they're interesting enough, even if they only have two Stars each, like the other mini-courses in the game.

The other interesting bit is the addition of quite a few mini-games, which you unlock by catching some rabbits in the main game. These simple games use the stylus and touch screen, so they're pretty interesting, although only about half of them were good enough to catch my attention for more than a few seconds. They're pretty fun. for the first 15 minutes. Then you just want to move on.

Replayability: 5

After finding all the Stars, there's not much to do, there's nothing that'd really make you want to play the game again. But maybe that's just because I played the original so much? Maybe someone new to this game
would find it to have good replay value.

Fun Factor!: 7

Yes, it's fun. Even if the awkward controls are constantly nagging at you, and a few times get to the point of being annoying, the quality of this game still holds. It looks like a few problems can't kill a game when its foundation is this solid. The old magic is still there, the kind that makes you want to continue getting all those Stars and makes you feel like nothing can stop you, not even slightly unrefined controls.

Overall: 8

Once a great game, always a great game, right? Even if that phrase isn't necessarily true, you'll definitely need a lot to bring down a game of this caliber.

So, should you get it?

If you've never played Super Mario 64: Most definitely. If this is the case, this game isn't a remake in your eyes. It's just a great new game which you can enjoy fully. Right now would be a good time to experience Super Mario 64. However, if you are able to choose between getting this and the original version, and don't mind buying a used game... then the original would probably be a better way to go. Not only will you basically get the same game, you'll get it with better controls, and for a mere fraction of the price. If you don't like buying used games, the DS version would be better, since new Super Mario 64 cartridges are being sold at an exorbant price. If the price difference is negated, and in fact, reversed, the slight advantage the original holds is crushed.

If you've played Super Mario 64: Probably not. The changes and additions are frankly not quite good enough to warrant a purchase of the game. It's mostly the same thing you've already played, and you can play that at any time on your old 64 if you really want to, right? Not only that, the controls can actually irritate you when you compare it to the original's.

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