What was your reaction to seeing the beginning of Super Mario 64?

Never super liked Mario so I didn't care all that much.

I wanted to learn more about that cake

I don't remember! Do people normally remember these things?!

I saw it at Toys R Us and my little brain was enchanted. So was my brother's lol... We were like, what the hell are we looking at?

It looked like magic. It made the n64 look like a magical artifact.

The castle grounds is still the best opening to a game ever in my opinion. It was the perfect way of teaching you the (very new) controls at your own pace.

Just running around and jumping felt amazing.

Landmark game.

r_rose said:

I saw it at Toys R Us and my little brain was enchanted. So was my brother's lol... We were like, what the hell are we looking at?

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Same. Was blown away.

Toys R Us was definitely one of my favorite places as a kid in the 90's. Ah, great memories…

I wanted to see footage of Mario 64 in motion prior to the console's launch so I bought a VHS tape of footage of the 1996 E3 just to see all this stuff. It was great.

Prior to the 3D era I was totally fine just waiting to see the games when I bought/rented them.

For me the wonder was more about seeing and moving Mario in that space. I played Quake before Mario 64 so it didn't have the same wow factor of seeing a 3D game for the first time.

I still remember when my local Microplay imported a Japanese N64. The store owners took it home for themselves for a few days before they started renting it out but it arrived at the store and they set it up on the demo TV until close and I was in the store that day and my mind was blown. The month or so it took until it was my turn on the wait list to rent it felt like forever.

I was lucky enough to have a PS1 at launch and the magic of seeing 3d for the first time was completely lost on me. Never had much interest even after being a SNES/SMW kid.

I remember I was like, wow! But honestly what impressed me the most and I'll never forget it: Seeing Sonic Adventure in Toys R Us. That was absolutely mind blowing to me!

I was probably too late to the ball for it to real stand out as I had already graced 3D gaming on the PS1 by the time I saw it.

This was my intro to 3D Platforming Instead.

"This looks just like Banjo-Kazooie!"

I was 8.

I'd been playing pc games for a few years before that. I think I got share ware doom in probably 94 or 95 so gaming in a 3d space wasn't that new to me. Still an absolutely incredible game though

Astonished.

Think I saw it in toys r us or some place, and it really felt like the future — which I suppose it was.

I remember thinking "I could play this game forever!"

I went from NES to N64. To say I was floored would be an understatement.

Like most people who first saw it, it looked like actual wizardry to my child brain.

I lived at that Blockbuster that had the demo N64 up until I got one of my own for Christmas.

KillstealWolf said:

This was my intro to 3D Platforming Instead.

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I'm sorry.

DECK'ARD said:

The castle grounds is still the best opening to a game ever in my opinion. It was the perfect way of teaching you the (very new) controls at your own pace.

Just running around and jumping felt amazing.

Landmark game.

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Indeed. I first played it at a kiosk in a Toys "R" Us and it blew my mind. I immediately knew I had to have this game.

I was 15 and already had a PS1, and yet I was still absolutely blown away and knew that 3D gaming was forever changed.

I ran around that castle courtyard for a long time.

I was around 4 or 5 I think. Don't remember much but I remember staying on the title screen laughing at ways my cousin and me could stretch/morph Mario's face

A friend of mine in high school picked up a copy and an N64, and he and a few other friends he'd shown it to talked about it quite a bit. I was curious to see it for myself but never got around to it at the time. I wound up getting an N64 of my own about 5 years later, and I got a copy of Mario 64 when I did, so that was my first time actually seeing it. Because of the way that all worked out, I guess it was a little bit like excitement by osmosis, I didn't find it particularly awe-inspiring but also understood that it was.

I remember my neighbor saying: "you don't stomp goombas anymore, Mario now punches and kicks!". Soudned surreal until i saw it and my jaw dropped.

Torpedo Vegas said:

I'm sorry.

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Nah, Crash was fun, and it got me to eventually play Crash 2 which is still an all timer.

1 had to wait till N. Sane Trilogy before becoming great.

If there's anything to be sorry for, I finally got into Super Mario 64... with the DS version.

The D-Pad can only take you so far.

Toys R Us is where I saw it and I was simply amazed as an eight year old kid and I swear it was in some two player split screen mode, unless that was my imagination or it was some beta version

Torpedo Vegas said:

I'm sorry.

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Why? Crash Bandicoot was a great game.

It blew me away.
First tried it at a Toys R Us when then got a few demo units in right before launch.

I didn't like the analog stick at first though. It seemed weird and hard to use. Didn't take long to get used to it though.

Funnily enough I wasn't impressed at all when I first saw it. At the time it looked like a big step back with its crude polygonal presentation compared to the pristine and detailed pixel art I'd grown accustomed to as a kid with an SNES who frequented arcades in the 90's.

I eventually came around years later and recognized it for the masterpiece it was though.

It blew my mind. It was amazing.

But honestly? Seeing the whale scene in Sonic Adventure at a TRU in, like, early '99 blew me away even more and has had a more lasting impression on me decades later.

I basically came off an NES. Never owned a SNES. Briefly saw some games on stuff like the Sega Genesis and Turbo Grafx-16 but randomly saw a picture of Mario on a staircase or something in a Toys 'R' Us catalog and was immediately intrigued having been a huge fan of the NES mario games. Eventually started seeing commercials on tv for Super Mario 64 and was completely blown away. Eventually got to play the game at Toys 'R' Us and Wal-Marts and was utterly shocked with how incredible of an experience it was. Eventually got an N64 and that system was my childhood. I never loved a game system or any tech related product as much as I did that system. It was the biggest "amazement" moment I have ever had and it was never replicated again. Sure tech improved and what not but the shock of the N64 after being a huge Nintendo fan based on the NES was just such a huge experience for me. I was deep in with Nintendo during the N64 days. Played so many games, rented many, had the magazines, got hyped over those corny VHS promo tapes, scoured the interwebs for for news and videos for upcoming N64 games, lots of multi-player nights with friends. What an amazing experience!

OH MY FUCKING GODDDDDD

I was pretty young. I remember being mind blown but also being really bad. For some reason the most vivid memory I have from around launch is playing with my friends and switching off each life then getting frustrated that I didn't get to play very long lol.

I was young, around 8 or 9 but I remember thinking that the 3D would be really disorienting or difficult to control but that was immediately dismissed after trying the game at a friend's house. They really nailed the controls and camera in this game which I think was really important for convincing people of the potential of 3D games.

I was like "nice" and didn't buy the game until like 5 or 6 years later - becoming the last n64 game I bought 😂

Absolutely fucking incredible.

Now, bear in mind - my household was such that my parents told us that thunder was Mario and Bowser bowling in the sky, and loud crackles is when they bowled a strike

You can imagine that their later attempts to teach me their religion didn't exactly pan out

My friend and I used to ogle over the screenshots of Ultra 64 games (including Mario 64 and Final Fantasy 64) in Game Pro magazine during English class in Junior High.

I think the first time I actually saw it in motion was on Electric Playground or the other gaming show on Tech TV?

I didn't end up seeing Super Mario 64 until many years later. I was more thinking 'hey this is neat and quaint'

My introduction to 3D gaming was actually when my brother brought over his PS2 and showed me Dead or Alive 2. As a 5 year-old whose only real exposure to gaming was Super Mario World, Mario Kart, and other SNES games, this absolutely rocked my socks off. The detail on the models, the multi-level 3D environments, it was all so far beyond everything I'd ever seen up to that point.

Count me as one of the kids who witnessed the glory in Toys R Us.
It was absolute madness. You could just...run and interact with the world however you wanted to.
What even was that?

Seeing Dreamcast was the second (and last) time I was floored by graphics.
Don't remember what games, but I remember NBA 2k quite well. Nothing on the market was even close to that.

It was some magical shit, I saw it at a store and I knew I had to have it that Christmas, that's for sure.

Anime "Wow" sound effect

I was impressed that Mario leaned into his turns when he ran, and I loved the handstand he would do when climbing up to the top of trees. I also thought the metallic and ripple effect when jumping into paintings was great.

I thought it was pretty cool, but it wasn't the first 3D game I saw (it was 1996 and 3D games had been around for a little while) so it didn't have a huge "Wow!" effect on me personally. It did feel like a natural progression from 2D to 3D, though, and has aged far more gracefully than the vast majority of games from that era.

Meanwhile, 7-year-old me was blown away by the original SMB back in '87. It was so far beyond the Atari & Intellivision games I was accustomed to. Along with a couple of other NES titles, it was what got me to ask for an NES, which I finally got in Christmas of '88.

I was hyped AF for Mario 64. Like many here, my first time actually playing it was at a demo kiosk at Toys R Us, and it more than lived up to the hype. It really was mind blowing at the time.

I had already played Ocarina of Time and a bunch of PS1 games before I saw Mario 64 so I can't say it was anything special to me. I can imagine if it was your first 3D it would have been a big deal though.

was a rental so had to delete someone's game and Mario makes the most pained sound possible when the file is deleted so I felt bad

I saw it advertised during an episode of Australian kids game show A*mazing and had no concept of the N64 and assumed it was a SNES game. I was pretty impressed! Haha

My cousin bought the console with Mario and Pilotwings, which impressed me more at first. But then I started playing Mario 64 more and more, and it really clicked with me when my cousin got the console back and I had to come back to my Sega Genesis. Then I realized how impressive Mario really was.