So I gave Mario 64 another try over the weekend...

As many of you may know, I'm not a fan of Mario 64. I personally think the game is over rated and boring. But this weekend I decided to give it another try. And to be perfectly honest, I still find it to be a pretty bland game. But one thing really stuck out at me as I was playing it. The Camera system in this game is abysmal. I'm constantly trying to move it around to desperately get a better angle to see where I want to move to and I still can't seem to make jumps or move where I want to move. The big issues seem to be with depth and the way controls change when you change the camera. For example there are times I try to jump over a sleeping flower only to land in front of it and get killed. Or there are times I try to jump onto a moving platform only to miss it completely and fall to my death. Just about every time I miss a jump it almost always has to do with the Camera System not showing me a good enough angle for me to judge the way I jump.

I finally got so frustrated that I turned the game off. This got me thinking about the Sonic Adventure games. In comparison to Mario 64, Sonic Adventure's Camera System is a gift from god. It does a pretty good job keeping up with Sonic throughout his levels and showing you what you need to see and the game controls very well. While there are a handful of areas where the camera has issues, for the most part it holds up well. Rarely throughout a level do I find myself completely stopping because I have to mess with the camera in hopes of seeing where I need to go. And very rarely has the camera caused me to die.

So I guess the point I'm getting at here is why does Mario 64 almost never get any flack for it's god awful camera system while Sonic Adventure seems to get bashed unmercifully for it's substantially better Camera System? It just seems to baffle me. Am I the only one who has trouble with Mario 64's Camera system? My view at this point has become that anyone who praises Mario 64 has no right to complain about Sonic Adventure's camera system.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

So I guess the point I'm getting at here is why does Mario 64 almost never get any flack for it's god awful camera system [...] Am I the only one who has trouble with Mario 64's Camera system?

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Well...

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Originally Posted by Video Game Critic

The main problem with Mario 64 is no mystery to those who have played it: The awkward camera system. Even with five buttons controlling the camera, it's frustratingly hard to get a decent angle much of the time, and some of the platform jumping is far more difficult than it should be.

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(He gives Sonic Adventure an A- and Super Mario 64 a B+, BTW.)

Super Mario 64 was the first to give you control over the camera, and the ability to run around anywhere in 3D. It was the first, and that is why it gets a pass for the shitty camera system.

Sonic Adventure came out after the Gexs, Blastos, Banjos, and Crashes of that era. It had to be refined. Even though rocketing through stages as Sonic was fun, getting stuck and glitching out was too common.

I've never cared for it either. However, I can appreciate its technical achievements for a launch title on a new console, but it's just not any fun to me. I prefer my platformers 2D and sidescrolling. And I agree that the camera system is screwy, but it was a first for its time, so I can let that slide. I just don't know why they thought anyone would want to worry about controlling a camera in a platformer. Fortunately for me several of this generation's platformers have finally gone back to the pre-N64 style which I love (Rayman Origins, New Super Mario).

i personally never had any problem with the camera
nothing that manual control couldnt fix to be honest

compared to the camera in sonic adventure the camera isn sonic adventure is absymal and rage inducing especually when it glitches and gets stuck behind something

Mario 64 is epic....seriously.

Haven't played the game in over 10 years, but I don't remember having issues with the controls or the camera. As stated before, it was the first or one of the first games of its type, and at the time, the game seemed pretty amazing to me.

As for Sonic Adventure, I never was a huge fan of that game (as much as I love Sonic and the Dreamcast).

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Originally Posted by KitsuneNight

i personally never had any problem with the camera
nothing that manual control couldnt fix to be honest

compared to the camera in sonic adventure the camera isn sonic adventure is absymal and rage inducing especually when it glitches and gets stuck behind something

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Try making a jump onto a moving platform in Mario 64 vs in Sonic Adventure. Sonic Adventure's camera gives you dynamic angles that give you better visual information to make those kind of jumps. Mario 64's Camera flat out doesn't. It's really bad in levels where there are a lot of walls or if you are on a ledge. The Camera angles just don't show the information you need and they are fixed camera angles.

And seriously, what the hell are all you people doing in Sonic Adventure to get the Camera to glitch out and get stuck behind things?

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Originally Posted by Drakon

Mario 64 is epic....seriously.

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No it's not. It's a boring 3D platformer with passable level design and a bad camera system.

its been literally years since i last played mario 64
but i dont recall having much trouble with it

last time i played sonic adventure was on the xbox
...that was not a pleasant experience
i fell through the floor

three times

Besides my Genesis, the N64 and Dreamcast are the only other consoles I have owned.

Part of my problem is that I just don't feel that the N64 has aged all that well. It was still part of an experimental phase that at the time was innovative, but is now simply headache-inducing. I find it impossible to play games like Goldeneye or Mario Kart 64 today, it is more of an effort than enjoyable.

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Originally Posted by KitsuneNight

its been literally years since i last played mario 64
but i dont recall having much trouble with it

last time i played sonic adventure was on the xbox
...that was not a pleasant experience
i fell through the floor

three times

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That has nothing to do with the camera. Not to mention the DX versions (Gamecube, XBLA, PSN, Steam, PC) have significantly more issues with falling through Geometry than the US Dreamcast version.

it has something to do with the camera
it got stuck behind a wall just before i fell through the sodding floor

the sonic adventure i played on the dreamcast is the pal version which ha sbeen a while but i remember the camera being floaty reacted poorly

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Originally Posted by KitsuneNight

it has something to do with the camera
it got stuck behind a wall just before i fell through the sodding floor

the sonic adventure i played on the dreamcast is the pal version which ha sbeen a while but i remember the camera being floaty reacted poolry

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The camera getting stuck is a coincidence. Falling through geometry has to do with collision detection. The Camera has no control over that. The only times I ever fell through geometry in Sonic Adventure was in Speed Highway on the Gamecube Port when I got the speed shoes and went too close to where the wall and floor intersected on the upper roads. I've had it happen once on the Dreamcast version in Ice Cap Zone, but I was screwing around with the homing attack and got stuck in a loop. Never have I had it happen through normal play on the Dreamcast.

Mario 64 has taken tons of flack for its camera. That is usually the first thing people knock. Then they say its overrated and not that innovative bringing up other 3d games of the era like Tomb Raider. Granted a lot of its success has to do with it being released at the right place and time and being the other game worth playing for months on the N64. It was like a storm had hit. It is what it is, an early 3D game and they were still experimenting. I personally enjoy it but it can be hard not to be annoyed by some of the fans, like many other games, bands, movies TV shows etc.

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Originally Posted by TrekkiesUnite118

It's a boring 3D platformer with passable level design and a bad camera system.

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It was a brand new standard for the 3D platformer in 1996. With a hub world and enough dynamic level design to have multiple missions & hidden stars within the same, aesthetically different stages and areas. You're comparing it to Sonic Adventure a game that came out on superior hardware, 2 and a half years later, and well after the genre exploded with refinements & expectations.

Why not compare Sonic Adventure to something like Banjo-Kazooie too? SA's implementation of the hub world concept is shit. Sonic is also floaty and flies all over the place. It's fine for being in the stages though. The later release of Rayman 2 was the best platformer you could get on the Dreamcast. SA was only a big deal because it was Sonic brought to 3D, despite being a buggy and shitty mess of a game.