Comment by dfxm12
12 hours ago
99% of the game is concerned with [Mario's movement]. most of Miyamoto’s time is spent on that, and the movement of the camera.
I had to put down too many early 3D action games because of clunky controls and not being able to see what was going on. Maybe horror games (like resident evil) could get away with awkward cameras in the service of jump scares, but it's frustrating when you have to make a jump and the camera, and thus the controls, don't cooperate with you.
Miyamoto's talent has always been in his relentless technical execution and polish. Particularly with the move to 3D, every modern platformer and adventure game owes its basic camera and control to Mario 64. Every modern action game owes its lock-on system (the ability to target individual enemies and move/strafe in relation to the target) to the Z-targeting system from Zelda: OoT.
Late Mark Haigh-Hutchinson wrote a great book about real time game cameras "Real Time Cameras: A Guide for Game Designers and Developers". Anyone interested in the topic ought to check it out.
In hindsight, the movement in the early Tomb Raider games was really awkward. It didn't feel very human... it felt like an endless loop of rotating a circular tray then putting your foot on the gas.
It’s been a little while, but I remember Mario 64 having way better camera than many games, even for a while
The level design helped a lot with the camera. Subsequent games (doing 3d) tried to make more realistically sized spaces where there wasn’t a 6ft area clear behind the character at all times and tied themselves in knots trying to make it work (rather than re-designing levels).
Mario64’s camera was a wonderful piece of design.
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… cameras being the main issue of its successor, Mario Sunshine, make Mario 64 even better on this department.
The dedicated buttons to move the camera position were a revelation.
Yeah it was light-years better than other games at the time of its release. Even now it’s very playable even though it’s not “fully modern”.