November 21st, 2004. Against all common sense, Nintendo decides to release the successor to the Game Boy Advance a mere three years after that portable’s launch. Even though they initially considered it to be a “third pillar” in their gaming strategy, there was no doubt that the Nintendo DS was going to eventually replace the GBA in no time. Arriving alongside it was the system’s killer app at launch. Nintendo wanted to prove this new portable was the real deal, a powerhouse capable of the unthinkable. Super Mario 64 DS, an enhanced remake of one of the most important games of all time, available on a portable.

I vividly remember a lot of magazines criticising Super Mario 64 DS once it finally released. They were indeed right. The original Super Mario 64 was the game that popularized using an analog stick as a way to move your character, so releasing a remake on a system with a D-pad felt pointless, to say the least. Controlling the game was indeed extremely cumbersome, especially back when the hunk of junk that was the original DS was the only way you could play that game in the first place.

I agree with these reviews nowadays. But I have to be honest with you on another thing. Super Mario 64 DS might be worse than the original, sure. But I kinda prefer it over the classic.

You start off playing as Yoshi in Super Mario 64 DS. That was a bold as hell decision back in 2004.

It’s not that Super Mario 64 is bad, or that Super Mario 64 DS is an underrated masterpiece (underrated, sure… masterpiece, maybe not). There’s just so much charm and variety in Super Mario 64 DS, almost as if this was the sequel to 64 we’ve all been clamoring. The sheer amount of additional content crammed into what was already a beefy boy of a game is something worth respecting. There were also some stupidly bold design choices, such as starting the game off with only Yoshi as an unlockable playable character.

It’s really jarring at first. Not only do you have to get a hold of the admittedly confusing controls (you have to hold down Y in order to run, and punch/lick with A), but you’re not even playing as not-Chris Pratt in what’s possibly his most acclaimed game of all time, at least at first. Subversion of expectations? Maybe. It only takes eight stars for you to unlock the room where you can save Mario from that Goomba king first seen in Paper Mario, so that’s not a big deal. It takes just four more stars to fight Bowser for the first time, and then it’s smooth sailing from there onwards. Not long after that, you can save Luigi from King Boo, and you can recruit Wario in the latter half of the game.

The brand new stages, such as this homage to Super Mario Sunshine, are Super Mario 64 DS’ higlights.

Luigi, just like in any other Mario game, jumps higher. Wario, as expected, is slow, but his attacks pack a heavier punch. They are the ones who can wield the Invisible and Metal caps, respectively, with Mario now also being able to inflate himself like in Super Mario World. You can wield caps in order to transform into each other during a level, but that’s the core jist of the experience: depending on the star inside a level, you might need to play as a different character.

It’s not a reinvention of the wheel. It’s just a slight addition on top of what was already great. Well, besides the bad controls, that is. Each level has a brand new eighth star, and there are 15 additional secret stars to boot, with some of them being featured in brand new mini-levels, such as the Battle Fort, or the Sunshine Isles, a small homage to Super Mario Sunshine, complete with the Delfino Plaza theme song being played on the back.

So long, [REDACTED] Bowser!

If you have never owned a Nintendo DS in your life, you may be looking at these pictures and be thinking to yourself: Super Mario 64 DS looks terrible. The thing is that the system, whilst technically more powerful than the Nintendo 64, did not feature anti-aliasing, making every game look sharper and blockier, more akin to a PS1 title than the smooth pixels seen in N64 games. Super Mario 64 DS actually ran surprisingly well at the time, with improved character models, animations, and framerates. It wasn’t just a mere portable conversion, it was indeed an improved remake. It was also easier to save and quit a game, as well as easier to figure out where the hell you were in a level, thanks to the map display on the system’s bottom screen.

One of the coolest things about Super Mario 64 DS was the fact the Super Mario 64 part of it was just half of what the cartridge offered in terms of content. The Rec Room, which was a library of dozens upon dozens of minigames, was probably the best showcase of the Nintendo DS’ capabilities at launch. You started off with just eight games, needing to unlock more by capturing bunnies scattered throughout Peach’s castle, and a good chunk of them were bangers. And then there was that stupid “she loves me, she loves me not” minigame featuring Yoshi.

Super Mario 64 DS’ casino minigames literally taught me how to play poker and Mahjong. The family-friendly gateway drug to gambling.

The Rec Room minigames masterfully took advantage of the the secondary screen. You had to roll a snowball down a track. You had to sort Bob-Ombs into separate groups. Hell, all of Luigi’s minigames were casino-themed; I literally learned how to play poker thanks to it. Yep, Nintendo introduced me to gambling. For the family, right Nintendo? In any case, that was the perfect, and I do literally mean perfect companion piece to a portable Super Mario 64. Whenever I was too tired of trying to wall jump in succession in order to get that one star in Cool Cool Mountain with a freaking D-pad, I could relieve my stress playing some poker or baby’s first Mahjong.

Super Mario 64 DS may not have been “better” than Super Mario 64, but it is indeed “more” than Super Mario 64, if that makes any sense. For a kid back in 2004, having a Nintendo 64 classic on the palm of your hand, with more content than the original, and a crapton of amazing minigames on the side, was more than enough to make me ignore the admittedly terrible controls I had to put up with. Two decades later, it bizarrely holds up. I can easily affirm it’s one of my favorite remakes of all time, even if it’s far from perfect… hell, possibly not even better than the game it was supposed to be an improvement of.