User blog:WikiSchm2000/The MarioMario54321 Review Marathon - Part 47

'''My Awesome Super Mario Galaxy 64 Texture Pack! (March 9th, 2008) [Runtime: 5:42]'''

Prelude:

So, after celebrating the 50th video special before the Three Musketeers of Missing MM videos became a thing, what did MM decide to do next? Well, considering that he was a gigantic Super Mario Galaxy fan, he decided to make a video inspired by that game. And since he had no footage for the Wii to actually record Super Mario Galaxy footage, he just decided to do the next best thing: import it into Super Mario 64! So, this video showcases him recreating the textures of Super Mario 64 to look more like Super Mario Galaxy.

That’s right, we’re getting our very first complete MM54321 retexture overhaul of the game! Perhaps one of the most defining characteristics of MM videos is his tendency to retexture the game using Rice’s Texture Plugin and make stories about them. And though we’ll eventually get to those stories later, for now we simply have one video showcasing a part of his first full overhaul. I’m glad he chose Super Mario Galaxy first since personally that’s one of my all-time favorite games. It’s the game that got me into Mario in the first place, so it has a special place in my heart. Though with that said, how does this texture pack look?

See this video first before reading on to get your own properly informed opinion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-hiWopW9yo&list=PLNPi6H0sXYaCHQG4Br4q5yZJp8uxhid2B&index=47

The Main Video:

Fair warning, I’m only going to do a few screenshots, so to get the full experience you’ll need to watch the video for yourself. To start off with, we have a slightly changed logo where we have a more asteroid-textured “Super Mario” than before, fitting in with the game’s aesthetic. We’re also immediately treated to Super Mario Galaxy music, of course, but to be honest we’d be getting that music in a ton of other videos anyways so it’s not too special for MM standards.

We then get a starting screen with “Super Mario Galaxy 64” in the background, complete with a launch star cursor! Okay, the white text on the light blue background is a bit awkward and simplistic, and it kind of clashes heavily with the style of the game this is inspired from. But I have to give some respect for the launch star cursor, that’s a really cool attention to detail there. We also have a select file screen with the Super Mario Galaxy box art as the loading file art, which is also cool. I do wish there wasn’t so much time spent on this ‘pick a file screen’, though, since we could see a bit more of the texture pack that way.

Launching into a new file, we get to finally see some of the game. There are some things that have remained unchanged, like the Princess, Lakitu and some of the castle details such as the stained glass window. Just about everything else though is retextured to look more realistic, such as the grass, water, and trees, while some other parts have undergone notable changes. The pipe texture looks far more metallic and less pastel than before, the rock walls have a lot more detail to them, and both the star counter and Mario’s life counter have been edited to look smoother. Also, I’ll lovingly point out that they even changed the texture of the signs to reference those talking signs from Super Mario Galaxy! That’s such a cool detail!

Just about the only gripe I have with these textures is that the life meter doesn’t make sense. It’s the Super Mario Sunshine health bar, which doesn’t really make sense for Galaxy’s style. The regular Super Mario 64 health bar textures would have worked better honestly. Also, the night star sky is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, it’s extremely simplistic in design and looks like something I could make on MS paint. On the other hand, it definitely succeeds in making the player feel like they’re in a different world from the Mushroom Kingdom. The sky has been so constantly day blue that anything else as the sky box just looks alien to us, and the textures here are just minimal enough to not detract too much from the aesthetic.

Going into the castle, we see that quite a bit of the textures such as the floors and bricks have been made more realistic, which is nice. Also, the cloud walls have been replaced with starry night walls, which while again looks like it could be done in MS paint, also makes us feel like we’re in a galaxy-type world. It helps that there’s giant suns to block out the repetitiveness and a grassy ground on the bottom to give a sense of space. I can’t defend the giant doors that have an MS paint star, though. Nor can I defend this portrait that MM makes for Bob-omb Battlefield:

Like, really MM, this is the best that you could do? I guess his ultimate weakness is drawing characters or any object with eyes on them, because when it comes to just about anything else he seems rather solid. Also this drawing is so bad that I’m actually going to count it as King Bob-omb abuse. Poor King Bob-omb, he can’t even be drawn without being abused. King Bob-omb Abuse Counter: 3.

Speaking of King Bob-omb abuse, the rest of this video is basically going up to him and defeating him. King Bob-omb Abuse Counter: 4. We do see some more textures along the way, but there’s very few of them to comment on. So, instead, I’ll just do a montage of the highlights. Enjoy!





After encountering all of that, we get up to King Bob-omb. I like that MM starts the pre-battle music right when Mario gets close and uses what I considered back in the day to be the best SMG boss track for King Bob-omb’s fight, mainly because of authenticity and personal bias. After King Bob-omb’s defeat, we have the natural Super Mario Galaxy victory jingle. And then the video ends. It’s a bit sad that we only had one star shown to us, but considering that’s the first star of the game to get, I’m fine with that being a stopping point. Plus, the ten minute restriction was still a thing, so MM wasn’t going to get away with uploading the whole game.

Well, I must say that this was ironically one of the best MarioMario54231 videos yet. Without a story to delve into, there was nothing to criticize in regards to the characters. The point of the video was to showcase some textures, and it did its job rather well. Granted there’s quite a few hiccups, but for a first texture pack in 2008 this is actually pretty good. It’s not quite as good as, say, Mario’s Raceway Takeover Part 3 which I still consider peak MM, but it almost comes close.

The Extra Bonus Stuff:

Okay since no one talked in this, I’m going to just list the characters instead of counting lines since there are none:

Mario (Finally, Mario acted like Mario for once.)

Peach (She physically appeared for once…yay?)

Lakitu (Not even alternate texture packs will stop him from filming.)

Phil Board and all the other Phil Boards (Yes he counts as a character, and yes all the other boards count as him.)

King Bob-omb (Not even alternate texture packs based on Super Mario Galaxy will stop him from being abused.)

Total Lines - 0

Biggest Chad: Phil Board - Mario came so close to winning this by virtue of finally acting like Mario, but due to Phil Board causing genocide of all the other signs and replacing them with clones of himself, he gets this award.

Biggest Loser: King Bob-omb - Getting destroyed by Mario is one thing, but getting absolutely obliterated by a painting is another.

Favorite Quote: “HEY It’s me! Phil Board!” - Phil Board #1 (A rather clever reference to Super Mario Galaxy)

We’re launching straight back into story-based videos next time, though it’s not a very long video.