My dad always told me that the world was black and white when he was young. I did not think for a long time to question it – after all, every ounce of historical evidence we had from the 1950s and before was also in black and white. Unfortunately, I grew up realizing that my dad would pull my leg, like all dads would not do. Yet I would never have imagined the past as sepia-toned in the past, not even if I looked through colored photos and videos from bygone eras.
I think, if I ever had children, I would try to tell them that the third dimension was invented in 1996 by Shigeru Miyamoto. Super Mario 64 was one of my first games, and it blew my little mind: Mario could walk in almost any direction, and you could even swing the camera around him like some kind of video game Spielberg. Sure, Mario’s first 3D adventure was not the first 3D game – although there is debate about exactly which game has that title, so I’ll just say it was some time in the early 90’s – but this was the first time many people experienced the brand new Z-axis in a video game.
Back then, 3D was so new that even the developers did not quite know what to do with it. The idea of a camera that can control the player is so ubiquitous these days that we barely register it, but in Super Mario 64 it was not just a passive player view – it was Lakitu, the villain-turned-cameraman (and down and then holder of starting lights) of the Mario series. It was a charming addition to enlighten players in this new idea of a camera following the character, but – I’m honest – I’m glad we got rid of it so quickly. There was always something creepy about being followed everywhere by a turtle with a camera.
But the best moment of Super Mario 64, for my money, was only made possible by the addition of a new axle: the secret air level that was there could only be obtained by looking at the ceiling.
For most of the 1990s, when game news spread through the dual powers of magazines and rumors, the playground was the place to be. One kid would promise that his uncle-who-for-Nintendo job heard about a new Zelda game where you could play as Epona; another one would swear he read in a magazine that if you press START three hundred and fifty-two times, you can unlock Luigi in Pokémon Red and Blue.
It was hard to separate facts from fiction, and even harder than the only way to confirm these rumors was to own the game and repeat the exact terms – maybe you just pressed START two hundred and fifty times? You lost some sort of score in the middle.
The Super Mario 64 trick of standing and looking up at the entrance of Peach’s Castle was easy to try, and immediately worked and tied it down as one of the greatest secrets of all time. In fact, it was so timeless and memorable that it entered both Super Mario Sunshine – where the trick is used to gain access to the Noki Bay – and Super Mario Odyssey, where you enter Peach’s Castle and look at the sky, a Power Moon. The latter example is one of the things that everyone immediately try, as soon as they discover Peach’s Castle in the game – and the fact that it works is like a shock of nostalgia that also brings us back to the first time it worked.
That secret airplane itself is not particularly memorable, except to let Mario fly in full 3D, but there is no moment that reveals the new dimension, just as the brilliant realizes that you can watch for the first time on. Nintendo has always been amazing at the unexpected time – I’ll almost write about the piece with the card in the Phantom Hourglass almost sometime (if you know, you know) – and there’s a reason there were so many rumors surrounding their games.
We already knew as kids that Nintendo’s games were full of secrets, surprises and hidden tricks. From Warp Whistles and the average Wave Race commentator to Chris Houlihan’s Zelda Room, many of these tricks were accidentally found by us as children, or the result of experimentation, and the answer to the question “I wonder what happens when I do it …? “
The fact that Nintendo has always encouraged that question shows that they are still children in the best way possible. Rewarding curiosity is one of the ways their games provide us with such joy, and why people still find small details in Breath of the Wild four years after its release.
If you excuse me now, I have to stare at the sun in case it opens up a new plane to which I can fly.