
While the 3DO hardware was certainly capable of rendering polygons, it's not typically remembered today as a 3D powerhouse.
Instead, its role in the history of gaming is often portrayed as a transitional piece of technology that bridged the gap between 16-bit sprite-based machines and more capable hardware such as the Sega Saturn, Sony PlayStation, and Nintendo 64.
Because of this, the idea of making the 1996 title Super Mario 64 for the 1994 Panasonic FZ-10 is understandably considered a bit of a bonkers proposition, not just because of the technical hurdles involved, but also due to the 3DO hardware's relatively niche appeal among homebrew developers and collectors.
Putting all that aside, however, it appears someone has taken up that ridiculous task, with the individual Eyepatch Entertainment (who sounds suspiciously like Ray Romano) sharing a look at a demo of a Mario 64-inspired homebrew running on the Panasonic FZ-10 and the Opera 3DO emulator.
As you'll notice, we haven't called this a port, and neither does Eyepatch Entertainment in his video. Instead, it's something slightly more complicated: a new 3D engine for the 3DO, featuring Mario 64's 3D geometry. Rather than controlling a 3D Mario model, players control a slightly "cursed" sprite-based version of the plumber, with the developer's goal being to see how close they can get to a functional version of Mario 64 on 3DO hardware.
"What you're seeing right now," Eyepatch Entertainment explains at the start of the video, "is a from-the-ground-up 3D engine for the 3DO... This is the Mario 64 geometry running on a 3DO. This shouldn't work. This doesn't really work, but you are seeing it kind of work... What I have working is inside castle, outside castle, Bob-omb Battlefield, the backyard, and up the stairs."
"I took inspiration from the GBA port; this is basically just homebrew and not a port. You can't call this a port. It's just importing the map data and trying to make a suitable Mario model that will run in 2D... You can't have a polygonal 3D Mario, so I just have an animated sprite here... and he basically just has tank controls... There's a jump button, and there's a stomp that spins him and dumps him."
As Eyepatch Entertainment readily admits, the demo is a bit of a "mess." There's no sound, the demo has a wildly inconsistent frame rate (from 1 FPS to 20, depending on the situation), and the level geometry sometimes fails. There are also many "rendering errors," which you can no doubt tell from the video. But on the bright side, according to Eyepatch Entertainment, it "doesn't crash", and "what's amazing" is that it is actually running on the 3DO hardware.
To go back to the question, Eyepatch Entertainment asked at the start of the video, "Can Mario 64 run on the 3DO?" Not exactly. But that won't stop them from trying, and we salute them for their effort — however silly it may appear.





