Super Mario 64

Super Mario 64 is a  platform game  developed and published by  Nintendo  for the  Nintendo 64 . It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and  PAL regions  in 1997. It is the first  Super Mario  game to feature  3D  gameplay, combining traditional  Super Mario  gameplay, visual style, and characters in a large open world. In the game,  Bowser , the primary antagonist of the  Super Mario  franchise, invades  Princess Peach 's castle and hides the castle's sources of protection, Power Stars, in many different worlds inside magical paintings. As  Mario , the player collects Power Stars to unlock enough of Princess Peach's castle to get to Bowser and rescue Princess Peach. Director  Shigeru Miyamoto  conceived a 3D  Super Mario  game during the production of  Star Fox  (1993). Development lasted nearly three years: about one year on design and twenty months on production, starting with designing the  virtual camera system . The team continued with illustrating the 3D character models—at the time a relatively unattempted task—and refining  sprite  movements. The sound effects were recorded by Yoji Inagaki and the score was composed by  Koji Kondo . Super Mario 64  was highly anticipated by video game journalists and audiences, boosted by advertising campaigns and showings at the 1996  E3  trade show. It received critical acclaim, with reviewers praising its ambition, visuals, and gameplay, though some criticized its virtual camera system. It is the  best-selling Nintendo 64 game , with nearly twelve million copies sold by 2015. Retrospectively,  Super Mario 64  has been considered one of the  greatest video games of all time . Numerous developers have cited it as an influence on  3D platform games , with its dynamic camera system and 360-degree  analog control  establishing a new archetype for the genre, much as  Super Mario Bros.  did for  side-scrolling  platform games. It was remade as  Super Mario 64 DS  for the  Nintendo DS  in 2004, and has been  ported  to other Nintendo consoles since. The game has attracted a cult following, spawning many fangames and  mods , a large  speedrunning  presence, enduring rumors surrounding game features, and challenges that attempt to beat the game with certain restrictions, such as  not being allowed to press the A button , requiring deep understanding about the game's mechanics and bugs