Super Mario 64 was key to the early success of and anticipation for the Nintendo 64. Lee Hutchinson, a former Babbage's employee, notes how the game was spurred by a feverish video game press, and how the success of the game defied the rule that a wide variety of launch games was necessary for broad appeal. Eventually, the Nintendo 64 lost much of its market share to Sony's PlayStation, partly due to its cartridge and controller design decisions, which were reportedly implemented by Miyamoto for Super Mario 64. In 2012, Super Mario 64 was among the 80 entries in the Smithsonian American Art Museum's The Art of Video Games exhibit.
Super Mario 64 set many precedents for 3D platformers as one of the most influential video games.[105][121][123][124] The game is known for its nonlinear, open freedom, which has been acclaimed by video game developers and journalists. 1Up.com wrote about its central hub world, which provides a safe tutorial and a level selector, and is now a staple of the 3D platformer genre.[121] As the genre evolved, many of the series's conventions were rethought drastically, placing emphasis on exploration over traditional platform jumping, or "hop and bop" action. Though some disputed its quality, others argued that it established an entirely new genre for the series.[125] Its mission-based level design inspired game designers such as GoldenEye 007 (1997) producer and director Martin Hollis and the development team of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater.[126][127] Dan Houser, a prominent figure in the development of the Grand Theft Auto series, stated, "Anyone who makes 3D games who says they've not borrowed something from Mario or Zelda [of the Nintendo 64] is lying".[128] Square Enix has stated that a coincidental meeting with Disney employees resulted in the creation of the Kingdom Hearts series, inspired by Super Mario 64's use of 3D environments and exploration.[129] Chris Sutherland, who served as the lead designer for Banjo-Kazooie, agreed that Super Mario 64 set the benchmark for 3D platformers and claimed that any other game in the genre on the Nintendo 64 would inevitably be compared with Super Mario 64.[54]
Super Mario 64 introduced a free-floating camera that can be controlled independently of the character.[123] To increase freedom of exploration and fluid control in a 3D world, Super Mario 64 designers created a dynamic virtual video camera that turns and accelerates according to the character's actions.[130] This camera system became the standard for 3D platformers. Nintendo Power praised the game's camera movements along with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time's addition of the lock-on camera and concluded that the two games were trailblazers for the 3D era.[131] PC Magazine's K. Thor Jensen considers Super Mario 64 to be the first truly realized 3D platformer with the integration of camera control into its core gameplay, which he called the medium's true evolutionary leap.[132]
Super Mario 64's use of the analog stick was novel, offering more precise and wide-ranging character movements than the digital D-pads of other consoles. At the time, 3D games generally only allowed the player to either control the character in relation to a fixed camera angle or in relation to the character's perspective. Super Mario 64's controls, in contrast, are fully analog and interpret a 360-degree range of motion into navigation through a 3D space relative to the camera. The analog stick allows for precise control over subtleties such as running speed.[133] In 2005, Electronic Gaming Monthly ranked Super Mario 64 the most important game since they began publication in 1989, stating that, while there were 3D games before it, "Nintendo's was the first to get the control scheme right".[134]
In July 2021, a pristine, sealed copy of Super Mario 64 was auctioned for $1,560,000, the largest amount ever paid for a video game.[135][136] Heritage Auctions's video games specialist said, "It seems impossible to overstate the importance of this title, not only to the history of Mario and Nintendo but to video games as a whole".[137]
A sequel was planned for the disk drive add-on, under the codename Super Mario 128.[138] In July 1996, Nintendo insiders stated that Miyamoto was assembling a team consisting mostly of developers who had worked on Super Mario 64.[139] Miyamoto affirmed that work on the sequel had only commenced at the time of the E3 1997 convention.[140] The project was canceled due to its lack of progress and the commercial failure of the Nintendo 64 Disk Drive.[141][142]
Super Mario 64 successors include Super Mario Sunshine for the GameCube and Super Mario Galaxy for the Wii, building on its core design of power-ups and its 3D, open-ended gameplay.[143][144] Super Mario Galaxy 2 includes a remake of Super Mario 64's Whomp's Fortress level called Throwback Galaxy.[145] Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World are departures from the open-ended design, instead focused on platforming reminiscent of 2D games.[146]
The Nintendo Switch game Super Mario Odyssey returns to Super Mario 64's open design;[147] it includes numerous references to the latter. The 'Mario 64 Suit' and 'Mario 64 Cap', which change Mario's appearance to his in Super Mario 64, can be purchased after completing the main storyline. Additionally, Mario can travel to the Mushroom Kingdom, which includes Princess Peach's Castle and its courtyard. The Kingdom's Power Moons resemble Super Mario 64's Power Stars.[148][149]
Rumors spread rapidly after the game's release. The most popular was a pervasive rumor that Luigi existed as an unlockable character. In 1996, IGN offered a prize of $100 if a player could find Luigi,[150] to no avail.[151] Fueling the rumor was a very blurry message on a statue in the courtyard of Princess Peach's Castle, thought to say "L is real 2401".[152] This was disproved in 1998, when a fan received a letter from Nintendo that the programmers included the text as a joke and it was not supposed to say anything.[152] In July 2020, 24 years and 1 month after the initial release of Super Mario 64, unused assets for Luigi from the scrapped multiplayer mode were discovered in the game's development files, in an event known as the Nintendo Gigaleak.[153]
Satirical conspiracy theories about the game became popular in 2020, and were grouped into the "Super Mario 64 iceberg", an Internet meme of an iceberg, with the less likely theories representing places closer to the bottom of the "ocean".[154] One popular rumor involves a "Wario Apparition", based on an E3 1996 presentation with Charles Martinet voicing a disembodied Wario head. Some fans believed that the Wario head remained in some copies of the game. Conspiracy theorists also spread the rumor that "every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized", claiming that certain bizarre phenomena existed in only certain copies of the game.[154][155][156]
In the years since the game's release, players have used glitches to reach previously unreachable parts of the game, including, in 2014, a coin not meant to be collected.[157] Speedrun techniques include the Lakitu skip, a glitch that disables a dialog box explaining camera movement; the Bob-omb clip, which uses a glitch in a Bob-omb's explosion animation to clip through walls; and the backwards long jump glitch, which involves the player performing a repetitive move, the "backwards long jump", allowing Mario to reach very high speed values and has numerous applications in speedrunning;[158] the latter was patched in the 1997 "Shindō" re-release (Rumble Pak version). The Super Mario 3D All-Stars re-release also patched this as it was based on the Shindō version.[159] In 2013, YouTuber Vinesauce posted a compilation of various corruptions of the game, replicated with a program named naughty.[160][161] Another YouTuber, Pannenkoek2012, creates highly technical and analytical videos of Super Mario 64 glitches and mechanics, which have been covered many times by the video game press.[162][163][164] The game has also inspired challenges that attempt to beat it with certain restrictions, such as not being able to press the A button, requiring deep understanding about the game's mechanics and bugs.[165][166] In May 2024, a player named Marbler managed to beat the entire game without pressing the A button.[167]
Super Mario 64 has led to the creation of fan-made remakes, modifications and ROM hacks:
In 2019, fans decompiled the original ROM image into C source code, allowing Super Mario 64 to be natively ported to any system. The next year, fans released a Windows port with support for widescreen displays and 4K resolution.[188] Nintendo enlisted a law firm to remove videos of the port and its listings from websites.[189] The port would allow for more graphical mods and forks, such as Render96, which implemented the original high-resolution source textures and created new character models and environments resembling those seen in the game's CG renders,[190] and Super Mario 64 Plus, a fork of the Windows port featuring a new permanent death option, bug fixes, and an improved camera system.[191] Fans created ports for several more platforms, including the Nintendo 3DS,[192] PlayStation 2, PlayStation Vita, Dreamcast, and Android.[193]