Mario is on his way to peach's castle, for some "cake" if you know what I mean, when bowser decides to cake-block mario and take over the castle! he then takes the power stars used to power the castle and hides them in magic paintings. you must collect as many as you can while warping to strange lands in paintings in order to save the princess and reclaim the cake you deserve!

So! Mario's first 3D adventure! he is of his standard fare, with the ability to jump and run like he did in any other platformer, but in this game he has access to a plethora of skills to pay the bills. First off would be the ground pound, where he flips in the air, and then uses his fat ass to murder whatever's under him. Next would be his ability to triple jump, and long jump, the long jump is done by crouching and jumping at the same time while moving, to extend the length of his jump. the triple jump is used to access high areas, and can be quicklly done by flicking the analog stick in the opposite direction while jumping.
Mario can also preform a wall jump. these moves are essential to gameplay, and are all accessible from the start, which really is quite nice and gives you plenty of time to master each move.

The caps on the other hand, like the wing cap and metal cap, are extremely situational, and not even remotely useful as the fire flower and other staples of the franchise, sadly they're the only power ups in the game, and they are only used once or twice in the whole game. all in all the power ups are lacking, and the gameplay is simple compared to the previous instalments.

Mario 64 has a total of 120 power stars, spanning 15 levels, and 15 stars hidden in the castle and bowser levels. there may be a lot of power stars, but there's only 15 actual levels to critique, which, by a numbers standpoint, is a massive downgrade compared to it's predecessors. Mario 3 had a total of 90 levels, and Mario World had 96 exits to find across 72 levels. Each level is held to a certain theme, you have the "green hill" known as bomb omb battle field, the water level/pirate level known as jolly roger bay, the fire level, the sky level, the ghost level, they're all open world, and you can complete any star in any order so long as you know what you're doing, something certain OTHER mario titles should learn from (looking at you Sunshine.) All in all the open world aspect does solve the problems of the small amount of levels this game has, but the fact you need to see each level 6 TIMES in order to 100% the game is a little annoying, and stale. 

Alright, The enemy palette is quite diverse in 64, but said enemies are restricted to certain worlds, but the Mini bosses of each world make up for it quite easily, each mini boss only takes 2-3 hits, but each one has a little gimmick, like King bomb-omb needs to be thrown, while the Whomp king needs to be ground-pounded to death. The bowser fights are piss easy, and really a complete joke save for the final encounter, because you can just get to his tail before he even has a chance to get back up after being thrown 2 feet, you can just do that until he hits a spike ball and takes damage. all in all the enemy cast is diverse, and interesting, but it completely pails in comparison to 3, and World.

this is the era where we were just learning how to 3D in the gaming industry, so there's a little leeway with the graphics, they efficiently get the message they want to get across, but the models are extremely polygonal, and simple.
Sound on the other hand is perfect, the sound chip in the n64 sings a golden tune in Mario 64, with music like Bomb Omb Battlefield, you can't NOT tap your feet to the rhythm as you play, The only real downside is that the extremely ambient tunes in certain levels are forgettable, like Jolly Roger Bay's theme.

An overall score of 6/10, the game is solid, and quite fun once you get things down, but the game is stale, you only have 15 different motifs in the game. and each one is limited to one level. the game gets stale quick, and should be played in moderation. IF you want to play 64. the music is good, but the graphics are that of the awkward PSX days. While this game WAS a technological breakthrough, and fun to just speed run once in a while, I'd just say emulate it rather than shell out the $ for it.