Author's Note

Set in the expanding AU (alternate universe) known as The Critique Universe, alongside stories featuring RWBY (based on Nostalgia Critic), Athena Cykes (based on Angry Video Game Nerd), Maka Albarn (based on Angry Joe) and Cameron MacCloud (based on Phelous), this spinoff story is based on Nitro Rad's game reviews of platformers, indies and horror games.

The story focuses on Cowboy Bebop character Faye Valentine, Samurai Champloo character Fuu Kasumi, and Noragami character Iki Hiyori, as the three close relatives review said platformer, indie and horror games of popular and recent times, either good, bad, or underrated. Since this takes place in The Critique Universe AU, the story takes place in Singapore at an luxurious home where the trio reside known as Secret Garden, the first set of stories taken place before the events of the second season in RWBY's story. As always, I DON'T OWN ANYTHING including the content, characters and reviews, just my own personal story idea. This story has no need to harrass or do anything harsh, only intended for enjoyment and fair use. Enjoy!

P.S.: I just realized I have been misspelling Fuu's surname Kasumi with Kasami in my RWBY Critique Universe story... My apologies for the typo.


In this first review of the story, Fave Valentine, Fuu Kasumi and Iki Hiyori take on the king of all platformer games, the one 3D platformer that started it all and the huge Nintendo success at the time, Super Mario 64.

Faye Valentine, Fuu Kasumi and Iki Hiyori's Platformer Review of Super Mario 64 (Part 1)

SINGAPORE

It was a beautiful day in the island city-state of Singapore.

23-year-old Faye Valentine, 15-year-old Fuu Kasami and 16-year-old Iki Hiyori live in a type of luxurious home in Singapore (which Faye had paid for since she works as a casino dealer at the Marina Bay Sands resort and also recently won a toto lottery of fifteen million Singaporean dollars).

The home was quaint as it usually is, like with the other residential homes in the island city-state. It was two stories high, had a lush backyard, and the house's design looked stunning with a lot of space, including two bathrooms, a single bedroom, a guest room, living room, kitchen, basement, rooftop view, and especially a game room.

In the game room, that was where the three close relatives Faye Valentine, Fuu Kasumi and Iki Hiyori were reviewing a video game classic from the 90's.

"There are games that set standards, create genres, and move the industry forward.", Faye Valentine introduced, "You know, sometimes a game comes out and everybody looks at it and thinks 'Oh man, we've been doing this all wrong...', this is how it's done. When 3D games first started being a thing, there were a lot of problems. People didn't quite know how to make a game in 3D and because of that, this generation had a lot of figuring things out. It makes no wonder why a lot of games had a pretty poor transition of 3D, it didn't matter if you were a bangin' developer because the third dimension... Man, it was a whole new world. But then Nintendo comes along and just nails it."

Fuu Kasumi stated next, "Nintendo is one of the very few companies that built their empire of making 2D games and had their very first go at 3D be so good, it laid down the rules on how you make a 3D game.", before she, Faye and Iki prepared while Fuu said, "You all know what it is...", before putting out the cartridge of the most famous Nintendo 64 game itself, "Super Mario 64! It's widely regarded as one of the most important games of all time, if not the most fun on the system and by Nintendo in general. And that's because it was the very first game that ever had full 360 analog control in conjunction with a fully-controllable camera system and no matter what the angle, you would simply push the stick in the direction you wanted to go."

"We mean, it sounds simple even today, but I've heard back then, it was a huge difference. Having full control over the character being a separate entity from full control being over the camera was one of early 3D's biggest problems. That's why so many early games either used tank controls or had fixed camera angles that were beyond the player's control.", Iki Hiyori remarked, "In fact, Michel Ancel, the creator of Rayman, stated that Ubisoft originally wanted him to make Rayman 2 a tank-controlled game because that was the standard at the time if the player got to control the camera. But this man looked at Mario 64 and thought 'No... This right here, this is the new standard.', so he decided to go for it, even if it was intimidating to achieve that sort of full-on control at the time."

Faye discussed, "In fact, the highers-up at Ubisoft even told Ancel he was crazy for it. And in the end, they were absolutely right. Tank controls were a thing of the past. We mean, play any 3D game nowadays and even still, this is the standard. The things Super Mario 64 did for the industry are unparalleled and because of that, I guess it really is one of the most important games in history. But as it remains a piece of history, it still is a product of its time.", as she grabs several platforming games as an example, "Look, we've played B-grade platformer after B-grade platformer, but it's very fun and unique to check out and play games from the big boys themselves known as Nintendo, but we think the time has come to review this game. Actually, it's been a while since the three of us played this game to completion, so why don't we get a closer look and see if this game still really holds up and review this masterpiece?", asking this to her fellow two close relatives.

"Sure!", Fuu and Iki happily said.

Faye nods happily as she places the cartridge in the Nintendo 64 console, booting it up as the three are greeted to see the Super Mario 64 logo with Mario's voice being heard saying 'It's-a me, Mario!'.

As this happened, the purple-haired girl got goosebumps from this in delight, "Ah, there it is. The first time we've ever got the pleasure of hearing the legendary Charles Martinet's voice in a main series Mario game, beisdes the Mario Teaches Typing games he debuts in."

"Mario's head...", mentioned Fuu, "Who could forget about this? At the time, this was actually mind-blowing, like saying 'Look how detailed we can get a thing to look on the N64!' Of course, you can only get it this detailed when it's the only thing on the screen, but it was really cool how you can tug on Mario's face and mold them in those stupid-looking-but-still-hilarious-looking shapes. Of course, this was only done to prove that this is in fact running in real time, but oh boy... We feel like we must've spent hours having fun with Mario's face! We know many players back in the day would pull his mustache out to look like he was wearing sunglasses. I did it, my two relatives did it, we all did it.", continuing, "Let's check out the menu screen.", as they pressed start to look at the select file screen.

Iki spectated, "Oh my gosh, we forgot how good a file select screen this game has... We love the texture there, as if we're looking at the side of a question mark block from the Mario games. Maybe inside one of them, we don't know... But regardlessly, it's super cool, and the music though, we could listen to that for an hour like the lofi playlists when studying, sleeping or going about our things.", reminiscencing this before cutting to the chase, "Anyways, let's start a new game.", the three girls watching the intro scene afterwards and seeing Peach's invitation, "Peach invites Mario, a cake is waiting for him, yadda yadda yadda, you know the story, and hey!", then seeing Mario emerge from his pipe in the start of the game, "There he is! There's Mario! Our man, in 3D for the very first time, if not beautiful too."

"So, you've probably heard that a billion people talk about this open area is a very smart design choice because it allows the player to grow accustomed to the controls and, yeah, you get the idea.", Faye Valentine told, "It really does deserve all the credit it gets, it was a really good design choice. Having you start in a wide-open area where you can familiarize yourself with the controls, but it's not just about figuring out what all of the buttons do, it's moreso about figuring out how Mario interacts with his environment. You know, this is the first time that you would have been in a 3D space, so you got to figure out how Mario responds to all of this. He got to learn how swimming works, how climbing works, wall-jumping, grabbing onto ledges, how Mario responds to a hill and how he slides down, how the physics and gravity feel... Everything you need to test all of these different things is available, right here in this opening area. You need a few practice swings before you can hit a homerun."

Fuu Kasumi continues, "For a lot of people, including the three of us, this was the first 3D game of its kind for them. So having a room where the player has enough room to familiarize themselves with each different aspect of the game's mechanics before actually needing to know how any of it works to make any real progress, it really is genius game design. It's also really funny how they didn't expect people to really grasp the idea of an in-game camera either so they tried to make it as literal as possible telling you that Lakitu was the cameraman, and you can control how he set up the shot as if the C button were controlling a character rather than this nameless ideological mechanic that nobody really understood yet. These are all things we take for granted now, things that don't need explaining because they've been around forever, but it's impressive how creative Nintendo would get in trying to explain something so new."

"We always loved the game's hub world, a castle full of paintings, with each of those paintings leading to a new course, and even for us and those people who were younger, we all were love with the idea.", fantasized Iki Hiyori, "A world existing within a painting? It's true that a picture tells a thousand words, right? That concept became a lot more interesting even to children when they realized that those words could be about Super Mario fighting Bob-ombs and collecting Power Stars. That's the name of the game there, collecting stars. And speaking of which, there are six stars in every stage, and each star is bolstered behind a mission title that gives you a hint at what you need to do, and that's what it really boils down into. You do a certain task here, you're rewarded for same thing with a Power Star there, you defeat a boss, reaching a certain area, collecting eight red coins, yadda yadda yadda, you know the drill."

Faye instructs, "After collecting more and more stars, you'll unlock more and more levels. The object in the end is to collect enough stars to unlock Bowser stages. It doesn't matter which stars you got or how many stars if you surpassed that limit, they're all of equal value, meaning it's possible to skip over objectives you don't like, or don't feel like doing in favor of ones you'd rather do instead. This is a structure that we've always praised in games. Ty the Tasmanian Tiger has it, Gex has it, and even newer games like Yooka-Laylee and A Hat in Time have it. The beauty of this formula is how it allows you to pick and choose what parts of the game you'd like to complete, making the experience as stress-free as possible. Mario 64 pulls it off better than any other game, though. We mean, hell, there's enough stars that you can finish the game without touching a single level on the second floor! So if you're thorough with the foyer and basement levels, that means no Tiny-Huge Island, no Tall Tall Mountain, no Tick Tock Clock, and no Rainbow Ride. If that's how you wanna go about it."

"But obviously, we three wanted to judge this game as a whole for our playthrough, so we nabbed all 120 stars anyway.", recounted Fuu, "However, for a casual playthrough, you only need 70, meaning there's an insane amount of wiggle room to skip over the stuff that you don't want to do. Before we talk about the level design, why don't we talk about how Mario controls? You may know Mario's got a pretty sizing moveset. Triple jump, long jump, backflip, dive, wall-kick, side-somersault... The amount of ways you can get Mario's body from point A to point B is absolutely brilliant. We mean, when you make a game that's all about getting yourself from one spot to another, you're gonna want to have as much variety in that as possible. That means you're gonna want as many ways to move yourself as you can jam on in there. But of course, there isn't variety in the jumps just for the sake of variety either. Every single one has an essential purpose that can make it more helpful than any of the other jumps, given the situation."

Iki demonstrates, "For example, you might not have the space for a triple jump, so you could side-somersault into a wall-kick. But maybe the wall is an angled right so you can try a backflip. The beauty of this is that there is not one given solution to any jump or obstacle. Instead, you got a bag of tricks that you can freely pull from to solve any scenario as you see fit, and with such a wide moveset, you can really master this game and cheese your way past some areas, like on Tall Tall Mountain where you're supposed to climb to the top, go in a wall and go down a big-ass slide...all the way down to the drop zone where you can get the Power Star. Or if you don't feel doing it, you can climb above the drop zone, side-somersault towards the cliff with enough forward momentum to make you fall off the ledge, dive into the cave, and presto! You'd get a Power Star, and you didn't do what you're supposed to do to go down to that specific drop zone because it's a cool and quick way."

"We never really realized just how useful the dive move is too; even for me, I was afraid of overshooting platforms with this dive, but being able to jump out of it so quickly really makes it easy to get a little extra distance out of every jump without the fear of knocking your dumb ass off the stage. Mario 64 is one of those beautiful games where you really feel like you're in total control of the character.", exampled Faye Valentine, "You have the means to propel Mario in any direction you want with any amount of momentum you want. And since the moveset is all momentum based, it creates a great toolkit to work with while keeping the game challenging. Any other game would just give the character a double jump, and while there have been tons of fantastic games that do use double jumping, we always kinda just saw it as a lazier alternative to what could be a much more interesting moveset. Being able to jump out of a falling animation and just cancel all of your momentum so you can line up the landing every single time... Well, where's the challenge in that? On that note, we are not hating on A Hat in Time because that game is very good We'll get to that someday since that game has pretty effortless and easy jumps which makes up for a lot of interesting mechanics and really fun and intriguing scenarios, yet I do admittedly wish the platforming challenges' difficulty were heightened."

Fuu Kasumi agreed, "Of course, A Hat in Time was very good.", continuing, "Anyway, Mario's moves are entirely executed from the ground with exception of the dive, but while the dive will get you more distance out of a jump, it does not guarantee a safe landing because it doesn't cancel your momentum. So instead of being able to just assure an accurate landing every time, you still need to develop the skill set to properly use all of these moves to your advantage. Does that make sense? Maybe, maybe not, people may disagree, but who knows? The point is, we would just rather a moveset more interesting. In Mario 64's case, it just feels so much more organic while a double jump can often times make a moveset simply feel robotic. Like you're just going through the motions to accomplish every single landing the same way each time instead of every jump being a feat in itself. And because of this, Mario 64 is one of the most satisfying and entertaining games on the planet to get good at, and that is why Mario 64 is also one of the most popular games to speedrun. But there are so many times when you do not have to do things as intended because of risky challenges like in Tall Tall Mountain, though sometimes we admit it is a little downright stupid of how easy it can be to skip segments with a long jump."

"Take an example right here in Wet-Dry World.", tested Iki Hiyori as she played through a level in the game, "You're supposed to use these moving blocks to get across but who in their right mind is going to waste their time doing something like this when you can just clear the whole gap with a long jump, simple as that? Easy.", before exiting the level and trying out another in a matter of a few minutes, "Same right here in Tick Tock Clock, we mean... You expect us to deal with all the moving clock pendulums? Nope. Not doing it. Long jump. Simple. End of level. Now this kind of freedom isn't totally abusable though, and that's why no one should be abusing any kind of freedom. We mean, there are moments when you can do this, but overall I don't think it really hurts the game's core integrity as a platformer. If you got to do something to get a star, chances are that you're probably gonna have to do it. You might be able to take some shortcuts here and there if you're good enough at the game, but don't expect to be doing any major skips unless you got some speedrunning levels of skill. I mean, we're all definitely good at the game, but we're definitely not panning anything quick if you know what we're talking about."

Faye continued, "Now while we do adore this game's wide moveset, the controls are definitely one of the more roughly-aged parts of this game.", holding up the N64 controller and testing the analog stick below the red button in the middle, "Firstly, this analog control stick. ...Wow. Before, it was a godsend in 1996, but now, it was a curse in the modern age. The N64's control stick, while plain and simple, it sucks. It does. Having the actual ball that rotates on it being so small and the stick not having a proper rubber coating for a comfortable grip, it can make some of the game's executing moves, most notably the side-somersault, at shore and a half.", before she pauses the game so she can discuss more at the moment, "Luckily and sadly it's not 1996, and we do have better options than the N64 controller now, like for example the Wii U version and possibly one for the Nintendo Switch too.", holding out the Wii U Pro controller, "Playing with the Pro controller felt so much better than using this...", looking at the N64 controller once again, "Well...not-too-bad controller. But even still, with a better controller, it didn't fix the issues entirely."

"Right.", Fuu agreed before continuing, "Smaller and more precise movements with Mario can be downright impossible sometimes. Like, as an example, I just wanted to read a sign in Tall Tall Mountain one time and I unknowningly and accidentally fell off the edge of the cliff!", groaning, "The level of accuracy just is not here at times in some of the levels, yet that's not a problem for the vast majority of the game. Nintendo, understanding their technical limitations, design levels with large platforms that did not require the total accuracy, and it works super well! But that only lasts until you get much further on into the game, like how a game can sometimes get more and more difficult the more you progress further throughout. It was mostly an issue for us during Tick Tock Clock for example. Sometimes something as easy as turning around was really difficult to do without falling off the ledges of those tiny little platforms!"

Iki discussed, "And this brings us to the level design. It's not as good as we remember it.", pausing the game for her, Faye and Fuu to take a break at the moment...

To be continued...