The Big Three Mario Games

Definitely NOT one of my usual blog posts, but I've gotten myself into a new hobby: Retro Gaming. 

I've recently started playing Mario 64 and Mario Sunshine cuz my girlfriend kept recommending it to me a whole bunch. Sunshine is honestly pretty awesome! Even for its age, the graphics are beautiful, especially so compared to the SM64, which was probably the very first of its kind for Nintendo.

Originally I have only ever played Super Mario Oddessey, which was the only extent of the open-world exploration Mario games. Once I had gotten into the older titles, I started to appreciate hidden items and puzzle sequences you'd need to discover to get a star or a shine sprite. 

Rediscovering control binds is also one of those situations where you feel as though you woke up with a new set of hands. SM64 was definitely like that for me, because everything I had learned in Oddessey was thrown out of the window. On top of that, they kinda just throw you into it anyways so... I guess that's the idea? Sunshine was easier because the camera wasn't as restrictive as the SM64 camera. Though both utilize a camera function where you have to stand still to look around, but cannot move. That also was a bit hard to learn as well.

 As I play these older Nintendo games, I realize how they gradually got a good handle on compressing textures in their games while also retaining a very beautiful visual style. Especially so at Noki Bay. The ocean looks seemingly endless, and the colors are very vibrant but almost entirely natural looking. 

 I'm glad I've started getting into the "Big Three" Mario games as of late, and so far you can tell which of the three I favor thus far. I have yet to start on Galaxy, but I'm trying to focus on the first two so I can get a good handle on comparing them as they become more advanced.

One of these days I'm gonna hop onto Galaxy and give it a try, though it looks a bit intimidating...

If any of you guys have any gaming suggestions on how I could improve my flow, please lmk in the comments! :3 I'd love to get better at it and appreciate it in full.