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When Super Mario 64 was released on the N64 back in 1996, it was considered a landmark title, acting as a blueprint for many developers on how to approach 3D movement inside their games.
Tetsuya Nomura, for instance, recently called it "the game that truly shaped my current guiding principle" of being able to move freely in 3D, and he isn't alone in heaping praise on the title, with Banjo Kazooie's Gregg Mayles and the Spyro designer Michael John also being among those who considered it a game-changer for the industry.
In a newly translated 1996 interview with Shigeru Miyamoto from Shmupulations, however, originally published shortly after the game was released, we get to hear a slightly different perspective: that of the Japanese musician and game developer Kenji Eno, who believed the game failed to live up to the promise of its original Shoshinkai demo.
This interview, according to Shmupulations, was conducted for Kenji Eno's Crosstalks series and was published in a special edition of Game Hihyou titled The Book of Kenji Eno, and sees the D and Enemy Zero developer taking Miyamoto to task, asking him some slightly more pointed questions than you'd typically see from the adoring game press.
In the interview, which we won't post in full (seriously, go read the original Shmupulations post!), Eno admits his love for the Mario series, claiming to have left his Famicom on "for so long playing Super Mario Bros. 3 that the console would overheat," but suggests he hasn't "been able to get into Mario 64" and his wife hasn't either. He posits why this is, before criticising the tight structure of the game and its realism, which he felt was the antithetical to "loose, free atmosphere" of the original demo.
"When I first tried Mario 64 at the Shoshinkai show, I felt this incredible sense of freedom in its world," Eno told Miyamoto. "You could get carried away by a bird, run through a field of flowers and be startled by butterflies, plunge down a waterfall, or fly through the sky. It felt like you could just mess around aimlessly, and anyone who wanted to dive deeper could master it.
"But with the final retail version, I felt like I had suddenly joined a really strict after-school sports club. I found myself unable to get into the mindset of meticulously reading every signpost or trying to collect dozens of stars. To me, Mario 64 was supposed to be about a very loose, free atmosphere. When I first saw Super Mario Bros., it blew my mind. There was this moustachioed middle-aged guy, pipes, mountains, sky, ground, and blocks. I was a Namco fan who preferred Pac-Man, so it was completely unexpected."
He compared the game to "a yonkoma (four-panel comic) strip suddenly turned into a gritty graphic novel," and asked if Miyamoto had any thoughts on that.
In response, Miyamoto, to his credit, didn't reject this analysis outright, but tried to understand Eno's view, suggesting, "What you're saying is that the boundary between Mario and Zelda has started to disappear."
He continued by saying this probably occurred due to Mario and Zelda being in development at the same time, leading the team at Nintendo to move away "from having a specific vision of what we wanted to create," instead, wanting to jam in every single idea that seemed interesting." As he puts it, "In trying to create a coherent, unbroken 3D world within that space, we inevitably ended up with parts of the game that left less room for free, open-ended play," something he ended up feeling conflicted about.
"In an ideal world," Miyamoto said, "I'd want to make things more lighthearted and open. So you're right, the Shoshinkai version held more potential in that regard. However, I believe the retail version has a better level of polish. After all, there are also players who want a proper sense of tension alongside a moderate amount of freedom. I’ve got both of those sides in me: the urge to just play freely and the desire for actual tension."
"And while I'm not carrying the cross of Nintendo on my back, I am conscious of the need to reach a larger audience than before. So I completely understand what you're saying, but if we made the game that was too extreme in either direction, there's no guarantee we would mobilise millions of people. I think it's great in terms of future potential, but a game like Aquanaut's Holiday, for example, has high ambitions but falls short as a commercial product."
"Now, if you ask whether Nintendo should be satisfied as long as the commercial polish is high, I don't think so either. There are two kinds of games--well-made games and interesting games--and the public perception of Nintendo's games has gradually shifted from "interesting" to "well-made." We've ended up pouring a lot of our energy into that side of things. By completing Mario 64, we've proven we can make a solid 3D action game. Because of that, I think we can aim for something more interesting next time."
It's remarkable to see two creators just talking shop like this, and even more amazing to hear both Eno and Miyamoto express regrets about a game that is almost considered too important and prestigious to criticise nowadays.
We wholeheartedly recommend reading the rest of the interview, which includes Miyamoto discussing Eno's thoughts on Mario 64's camera, his attempts to create a better jump than Mario's, and his personal request for The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.