Speaking of Lakitu he is the most trash camera guy ever! As I play this game as an adult my biggest complaint is the camera angles.. I find myself saying if only the camera was pointed this way I wouldn’t fall off the damn board.
you know? wet-dry world is one of my favorite levels in the game, not only for it's atmosphere, but because everything seems like you could do anything there
Back when I was a child, I used to have this surreal dream about the wet-dry level underground town and I was there walking around feeling empty and creeped out
The interesting thing is that I never was really creeped out that much playing this game even at a young age. But I definitely remember always having that feeling of uneasiness or eeriness especially in levels like big boo's mansion, hazy maze cave, shifting sand lands, and the bowser levels.
Yeah same here. I was never creeped out by Mario 64 the same way I was with Resident Evil games, but I too always felt some uneasiness or eeriness while playing the game, but couldn't put it into words as a child. Videos like this really capture the mindset though. We were used to Mario games always having so much going on each each level we never really got any down time. It was always a brought colored level with music and enemies everywhere.
This video just confirms everything I felt about this game all these years. It does have and ominous and eerie feel to it. One of the reasons why I love it yet feel unsettled by it at the same time.
Try playing it while tripping on LSD. I dropped 2 hits of potent liquid while coming down off a dissociative, and started playing the game from the beginning when the acid kicked in. Best trip ever, the graphics compliment your visuals, and everything else in the game trips you out in such a way that it’s obvious Nintendo intended for people to play it while tripping on a psychedelic.
2:47 I personally love the feel of the water levels. I never found them creepy when I played the game recently for the first time. I think it’s either the fact that I would always vacation by an ocean with my extended family (I would also play Mario games with my cousins so I associate the ocean with good memories) and that I SCUBA dive, so I know what to expect in water.
I couldn’t have been the only one to have wondered what was beyond the giant mountains/hills boarding each stage. I think I must have spent hours continuously climbing up only to slide back down trying to figure that out.
Yeah skyboxes have always fascinated me, like what else is out there you know. The galaxy games have really weird skyboxes sometimes and it's kind of terrifying looking at them in this seemingly infinite space. Weird stuff.
I remember as a kid by the time I got to Dorrie I was so spooked and used to everything trying to kill me I couldn't believe Dorrie was actually "Friendly" as the sign said. And then the instructions to pound its back to get it to lower its head, every step of the way of getting that star using Dorrie I kept expecting it to suddenly start attacking me somehow. From the moment I saw it, to when I got close, to when I got on its back, to when I stood on its head. I felt if I stood on its head too long eventually it'd at least shake me off but no... It's kinda like when you're expecting a jump scare in a horror game and it just doesn't come in the place you expect it, thats my experience with Dorrie as a kid
It's weird that half the gaming channels on RUclips suddenly became convinced Mario 64 is a creepy game, all seemingly at the same time. Did you guys have a meeting, or what? I must have played a thousand hours of this game over the years and I don't get it.
The way I see it, it all started with the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" thing back in 2020, which popularized icebergs. Since then, I've been seeing videos centered around this theme of "Mario 64 is scary" left and right on RUclips. Ngl tho, those first Greenio videos creeped me out in a way no one has done in years, lol
Some of the levels creeped me out as a kid like the boo stage with the carnival music, the stage with the water monster because of the creepy music. Even super mario world had some unsettling moments but i agree, people just jumping on the bandwagon.
The staircase makes use of an effect known as rising Shepard tone (which is also canonically Bill Cipher's favorite 'song' to listen to) that makes it sound like the tone keeps getting higher when in reality it keeps looping.
That's actually really interesting. Had knowledge of that effect (Didn't know it was referred to as Rising Shepard Tone) and didn't even realized they utilized it during the staircase sequence. Makes the whole occurrence even eerier!
@@PixelsAfterDark Not to mention the mechanic of how those stairs work is just that Mario gets instantly warped backwards over and over again and it just repeats, giving the illusion of endlessly going up. Certainly mirrors what the Rising Shepard Tone does with sound and thus makes it an appropriate mechanic for a staircase that seems endless but isn't.
I'm a little surprised you didn't include the giant fish from Tiny Huge Island in this video. That thing terrified me to the point I wouldn't go upstairs for fear of accidentally entering that painting. On a lesser note, the hellish, laughing fireball painting for Lethal Lava Land was just as scary to me when I was younger. On one more note, Wet Dry World does strike an eerie chord with me, too. Half in part of the bizarre, depressing tone of the level, but also because of a horrific dream I had from being in the town. My nightmare was that everytime you raised the water, people who were locked in the houses would drown, break down the front door, and swim after you as zombies.
What scared me the most was when my beloved cousin was shot and killed, he beat a lot of levels for me before his death. When he died, I inserted my game into the N64 and all of my progress was gone. I never really wanted to beat the game again after that. Not only was I hurt but I was frightened.
I have reoccurring dreams/nightmares about this game. They usually involve encountering Bowser at random moments in the castle. I'm pretty sure it stems from the feelings this game's emptiness gave me as a kid, which you explained perfectly.
@@JTguitarlessons I wasn't aware you could control what dreams you had at night. Guess I'll just go get a life and that will cure the repeating nightmares I have involving a random spooky mall I haven't been in since I was 8.
The most scary thing I remember was the ghost mission when The piano starts to attack out of nowhere. This got me almost a heart attack and I was scared even after a bit. MAN crazy childhood
@@minniessh no i believe he is there at all times cuz hes the camera but only renders in certain scenes like the mirror room. so hes is there but on a technical level he isnt as thatd be to much for the game to handle for something you cant ever see as he is the camera kinda like how Navi could be but isnt.
Speaking of Lakitu he is the most trash camera guy ever! As I play this game as an adult my biggest complaint is the camera angles.. I find myself saying if only the camera was pointed this way I wouldn’t fall off the damn board.
I was like 7 when I played this game for the very first time. Growing up I always wondered why this game felt so unsettling and kinda does to an extent to this day. This definitely explains a lot.
When I was younger, nothing really scared me, I enjoyed this game, not even the chain chomp got me, it was that piano that really scared me for a while.
2:13 I just realized why Saints of Virtue was always so friggin creepy. All those echoing footsteps in empty areas is so unsettling, nevermind the giant floating laser heads.
As a kid, Bowser’s laugh in the death scene was always creepy, and so were the stairs by virtue of their apparent infinity, unnerving music, and the never-ending manifestation of Bowser paintings. It’s my favorite Mario game. Bowser really felt like a proper villain, and the threats in the game were less childish. Virtually every other Mario game feels so artificial by comparison. This game is innocent, but also more subliminally unsettling. An example is the color scheme employed in this game when juxtaposed to that of other Mario games - it is more dreamlike, and oftentimes, gritty. The other Mario games are just colorful. The game cannot quite be described as hell-like, or heaven-like for that matter; it’s more akin to limbo/the purgatory. It’s melancholic.
I got the game around 24.5 years ago (I paused and went "what the fuck" out loud right now) at the age of 6. I love it with all my heart, from the first time I got 120 Stars to the subsequent playthroughs throughout the 2000s, it's of my all-time favorites. This might sound strange but the more foreboding/creepy elements are my favorite part of the atmosphere. I love the idea of the unknown and creepy:from the interior slide room in Tall, Tall Mountain, and permanently warping to places like the volcano and the pyramid, to things like the entirety of Big Boo's Haunt which honestly is terrific atmosphere-wise, I can honestly thank the developers. Wet-Dry World is incredible and my favorite world in the game; I've always wanted to go there to the point of playing around it for hours as a kid. And then there were things in the game that made me thankful they were there. The Secret Aquarium was one of my favorite places as a kid. Beautiful and mysterious, the atmosphere really helped capture the idea of Mario being in this world he wasn't familiar with. And then there were things like the snowman blowing of Mario's cap, or Klepto taking it. Obviously these things have no basis on Mario's capabilities but I always avoided them at all costs. It was a good balance between loving different things and panicking whenever things like that were close.
Pixels I can’t explain in words how much I LOVE your videos. Not only these are some of my favorite Nintendo games but I love the hidden messages/pictures that you reveal in your videos, and yes I liked and subscribed.Keep up the good work!
For some reason, the secret mountain slide always scared me, specially because for the most of the course there were happy moons and stars, but that one part of the skull always scared me as a kid that I would always tell my sister to beat it
When I was a kid, I never noticed this game was creepy. Back then there were no other 3D games to compare it to. But now that there is a generation of games to compare it to, it does seem creepy looking back. Probably because of the blockiness and emptiness.
I used to stand beside the walls in the castle and go into zoom view or whatever view that is and look through the walls at the darkness beyond them, always made me feel eerie as I was only 7 or 8 at the time.
I used to stare off into the skyboxes of the levels as kid (especially the city background of wet-dry world) & it always gave me this indescribable feeling.
Mario 64 is where I discovered my fear not just of deep water but aquatic predators in video games. Still to this day I feel it. (Far cry 3 was a nightmare with the sharks and the completionist in me needing all collectibles.) also wet dry world I like to think of as Hyrule in the wind waker time line when it’s flooded. The abandoned town’s windows, doors and buildings are reminiscent of hyrules buildings style.. but that’s just me and how I headcanon it.
As a kid, my parents bought me my first Nintendo 64 and I remember playing this game and having so much fun as an adult now that I see this video it is a creepy situation
Strange, i played the hell out of this game, never felt scared… i do remember getting somewhat startled by the Eel that came out of the wall the first time, and that was just about it.
I still remember the only 2 stages that literally traumatized me as a kid were the haunted mansion, and that hell/lava like dimension. Not to mention the music...
Very interesting! To add a couple of my own personal fears of the game: 1. The first time going into the basement and seeing the painting of lethal lava land in the distance! 2. I have a fear of 2d sprites in 3d worlds! I find it so creepy that 2d objects are always looking directly at me, no matter what, like they’ll suddenly spring to life and attack my character or latch onto the camera, like protozoid slimers (duke 3d) or facehuggers in alien trilogy! In the case of sm64, I can’t shake that dread from the trees and the pokeys!
I never felt the “negative emotional aura” of WDW but understand the feeling. The level is a strange environment, but I enjoyed it. Every star has you head in a different direction. I played this game for the first time at age 8, and the eel, the giant fish, and the BitDW trap door scared me as a kid.
It's the town in Yemen, it's been matched up and the buildings are a section of that town in Yemen copy-pasted (hence why there's duplicate buildings). But I believe that temple-like thing at the top is from somewhere else, one thing I saw said it's from Cairo, Egypt, but I'm not sure. Casares, Spain, is just a similar-looking town, but it doesn't actually having anything really matching up, whereas the place in Yemen literally has a 1-to-1 correspondence with the group of several buildings in WDW that was copied to fill the town.
Incredible video brother. I always felt this way about this game and never had anyone to talk this over with! Thank you for helping me find "closure". Respect
Thank you! Not too much of a numbers person. I just love hearing back from the community and so far the comments are beyond the expectations I had for a first video :)
@@PixelsAfterDark That's what makes these videos so entertaining to watch! You don't care about churning out garbage you care about your videos and treat them as art. So much respect and hope the channel grows so you can do this full time!
I always thought that the lack of characters in this game was what made it unique. But I've come to realize that the maps and worlds are the characters
Exactly. Because every time you don't have enough Stars to open doors, Bowser will laugh, meaning he's ALWAYS watching Mario's every move. Hell, Bowser even laughs if Mario dies.
Honestly when i was a kid the only thing that frightened me was water levels especially the eel in jolly roger. When i found it swimming outside the boat the first time! Also the nessy like monster in the lake in the cave however later i liked him because he was helpful and not harmeful. Strangely unlike many testimonies i find on the internet, i never felt anxious about wet dry world since there were no fish or see monsters there. And thanks. Now i found that i have Thalassophobia ! :D
I played this when I was seven years old, but what creeped me out the most was the cake ending scene, where if you look behind the star, you can start to see a face looking right back at you. And oh boy, that made me not want to sleep.
When I was a kid, I never found this game scary or horrifying. But I once had a nightmare of that bowser painting which made me stop playing this game which is the most dumbest ways to quit a game. But I’ve grown up and super mario 64 to me now is just unnerving because just imagine exploring an empty castle with no one around, while trapped inside paintings and with no music in the background.
The carnival music in the mansion TERRIFIED me when i was replaying the game some months ago, carnivals are one of my biggest fears, principally the music
This video really captures the feelings this game gives me, I never liked playing it, I like the game it is a good game but something just feels really off about it. Peach's castle always made feel uneasy despite being such a pretty place and there's something about the water levels that makes that emptiness feel somehow tragic, for some reason. It's weird that for someone who adores horror games, this is the game that "scares" me
The empty room concept is a reason why portal 1 unsettles me slightly….i mean like, turn off the captions, mute all audio but sound effects like walking and gun sounds and boom. Scariest thing you’ll ever play
The real answer is: Ambience, music, and SFX. Also, older games' graphical limitations left more to the imagination. And while there are some creepy components, that is not the overall experience. I would call it "immersive." And I suppose immersion in an unrealistic videogame could give you an unsettling feeling. That's why when you were a kid and you played these graphically limited games, you had vivid dreams of them with you inside. Many n64 give off the same vibe: Banjo Kazooie, Bomberman Hero, Glover, Legend of Zelda And Ps1 games like: Medal of Honor Underground, Gex, FF7
Is it just me? I remember playing hazy maze cave level as a kid and went to the area of the blue sea dragon. And i remember i was swimming infront of it and it ate mario (like the cheap cheaps would do in the tiny huge world) i remember the dragon lowering its long neck fast and eating mario and mario gets kicked out the level like he usually does when he dies
You know what's interesting. I don't remember that specifically but there is a a handful of memories that I I have of Mario 64 that are just no where to be seen in the game. I was sure that there was a star to be obtained in the courtyard, and a secret star in the mirror room. The mind has a funny way of morphing memories
@@paraparappa6561 oh? So its prolly just me. I remember it happening vividly and ever since i never swam next to their face. Maybe it means the whole "m64 is personalized" actually is true??
One major thing about Wet Dry World that is kind of unsettling is the fact that it has the Music of Hazy Maze Cave while the other two Water Levels at least share the same relaxing music. It just feels wrong entering a Level in which the category and theme don't fit. 🤔
I will admit it took me years to complete Super Mario 64 because of Hazy Maze Cave. I was literally terrified of that toxic maze specifically the sniffit enemies lurking down there. Sure they appeared in Super Mario Bros 2 alongside Shy Guys but these enemies have a more unsettling appearance. Their faces look like gas masks from the World War which is probably why they can survive down there. Not only that but they're also in a Boo Guy form meaning these enemies may have passed away and were revived by Bowser's dark magic to forever wander around the Toxic Maze to shoot down any trespassers.
I like it when things appear friendly on the surface, but has cryptid, creepy undertones. Creepypastas like sonic .exe fail to capture this atmosphere because that’s just pointless gore with a sonic skin slapped over it.
So is everyone just gonna ignore this fact?: The L is real while the sign is just a reused texture from Zelda, but Luigi's textures were found in old files.
@@jimberry5318 maybe the universe's are connected (if you're about to mention smash Bros it's a separate universe with different rules so that's not a connection) But that's just a theory. A GAME THEORY, thanks for watching
@@astepbehind982 no in ocarina of time when you go to the castle for the first time and Zelda is still a kid you look through the window in the castle and they have paintings of other characters
The giant eel and the man-eating piano are unsettling, but I largely wasn’t creeped out by Mario 64. Bowser attacked the castle, so of course it’s not going to be the most welcoming place afterwards. It’s actually a bit surprising that the castle doesn’t have any battle damage.
This is exactly how I felt about this game when I was a kid. The thing is that I really liked that creepy unsettling feeling. This is an amazing video😱🤯🙌
when i remember this game or see any footage, it makes me feel unsettled. i could point the finger on the water levels and something about them (and the fear of drowning in them) making me be scared of swimming sequences in video games until now, but never why the game as a whole made me feel unsettled. this feeling makes me want to play it again just to see if it was because i was young, but it genuinely felt eerie despite being so colorful. thanks for making this video and pinpointing why.
4:06 Around 2016 was the 1st time I got scared by a bowser painting, that time was the 1st time I saw a BLJ ever. It scared me because it was done at the endless staircase and the painting at the top made it scary Even though it scared me in 2016 It didn’t haunt me until mid 2019, it was so bad I had to stop playing the game and speedrunning, just because of that painting To this day it still haunts my dreams But way way less than before
As a kid, swimming down to get that eel to come out was always so unsettling for me. Had never really played a 3D game quite like it and going that deep and with how dark it is down there. I always kinda wanted to just get out as soon as possible lol.
Mario and Luigi are the most shielded minded characters in gaming next to Kirby, Samus, and Link. because of how much horrifying things they go through without us realizing
Honestly, Super Mario 64 stand-alone is scary itself. Old models try to make things look...unsuspicious. It freaked me out when Bowser laughed at the beginning when you enter the castle for the first time. I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched after that. The loneliness of the castle is also scary. I know its an old game, in fact 3d games were still new, so its hard to make it not that bad, but still. You cannot deny that *SOMETHING* in the game freaked you out a bit when you were little. Edit: The Peach painting turning into Bowser also scared me a lot, I screamed a bit and hid under the couches blankets when I watched my mom play it.
As a member of Gen Z, I can confirm that they aren’t. I played Super Mario 64 for the first time in 2021, and I was on edge the entire time. Its environments are extremely uncanny, especially compared to other games available at the time. Keep in mind Tomb Raider was released the same year, so it’s not a generational issue. I think there are a variety of factors that caused Super Mario 64 to end up as it did. Nintendo was new to 3D and if I recall correctly the N64 suffered multiple delays, the development of SM64 was rushed, and let’s be honest the design team wasn’t sober. SM64 feels like no other game, not from Nintendo, not from the Mario series, not even from the N64. It stands out like a sore thumb Considering you probably played it when it was new, you were probably too busy being overwhelmed by the capabilities of the N64 to notice or care, which is absolutely fine, we all would be. But now that 3D games have been around for so long, people tend to look back at earlier experiments and see flaws that wouldn’t be cared about in the 90s. Hindsight is 20/20 after all
What’s frightening is Lakitu is actually recording all of Mario’s actions.. including the often times grim outcomes. He can’t put his camera down and give Mario a hand once in a while? I guess the eternal frown face on Lakitu says it all
Mario wasn't alone. Lakitu, the camera guy, followed him around the whole time.
Speaking of Lakitu he is the most trash camera guy ever! As I play this game as an adult my biggest complaint is the camera angles.. I find myself saying if only the camera was pointed this way I wouldn’t fall off the damn board.
@@checkenginelight1950 R button + C-Down = better camera ;)
@@aguadetamarindo1947 I’m going to try that as soon as I get off work today. Thanks in advance for the advice!
I played on 3DS so I didn’t have to worry ab things like this💀
@@checkenginelight1950 fax
The scariest thing in this game was the "Bowsers Message"sound and the laugh. It scared me as child.
you know? wet-dry world is one of my favorite levels in the game, not only for it's atmosphere, but because everything seems like you could do anything there
Finally, someone who agrees with me
@@strangesphereoidcreature me too
Same
@@strangesphereoidcreature now you got 2 likes
Super meat boy best game
Back when I was a child, I used to have this surreal dream about the wet-dry level underground town and I was there walking around feeling empty and creeped out
epstein island
@@mrbigbankuchiface_3352 bro 💀
Black men
Sure you did.
The interesting thing is that I never was really creeped out that much playing this game even at a young age. But I definitely remember always having that feeling of uneasiness or eeriness especially in levels like big boo's mansion, hazy maze cave, shifting sand lands, and the bowser levels.
Same here
Yeah same here. I was never creeped out by Mario 64 the same way I was with Resident Evil games, but I too always felt some uneasiness or eeriness while playing the game, but couldn't put it into words as a child. Videos like this really capture the mindset though. We were used to Mario games always having so much going on each each level we never really got any down time. It was always a brought colored level with music and enemies everywhere.
Oh yeah
Shifting sand land was my fave zone as a kid.
I was never scared I just felt scared and tense
The only thing that just rubs me wrong is the endless stairs. It's literally unexplainable
And the spinning room in the secret boo level
They put a teleport right at the middle-top of the stairs to send them back down the staircase, and it doesn’t work if the player has 80 stars.
Have you even actually played the game? It becomes unlocked and no longer endless after you achieve a number of stars.
@@oofbrazil3528you mean 70?
@@NikoKuehne I wasn’t sure if it was 70 or 80, thank you for correcting me
This video just confirms everything I felt about this game all these years. It does have and ominous and eerie feel to it. One of the reasons why I love it yet feel unsettled by it at the same time.
AYO
Try playing it while tripping on LSD. I dropped 2 hits of potent liquid while coming down off a dissociative, and started playing the game from the beginning when the acid kicked in. Best trip ever, the graphics compliment your visuals, and everything else in the game trips you out in such a way that it’s obvious Nintendo intended for people to play it while tripping on a psychedelic.
@@anotheraccountididntneedto7222 Man that would have been soemthing
@@ALEN1ful Yeah, people really need to try it, it works with shrooms as well.
BRO SAME HERE
2:47 I personally love the feel of the water levels. I never found them creepy when I played the game recently for the first time. I think it’s either the fact that I would always vacation by an ocean with my extended family (I would also play Mario games with my cousins so I associate the ocean with good memories) and that I SCUBA dive, so I know what to expect in water.
Besides the Eel swimming. Jolly Rogers Bay is so relaxing.
"Mario 64 seems like a dream"
Damn that actually got me
It genuinely does. I adored this game as a kid, but it always felt so _off_ in a not-quite-scary way.
frfr
@@drawingdragon this
No lie when I beat it i thought it was a dream the next day
*It isn’t a dream, it isn’t a nightmare, it’s hell*
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What's the music in the video
hey can I ask whats the background song's name your using now
What's the music
Broo dude your near 1mill views
JuhuhkMarioExE😱
I couldn’t have been the only one to have wondered what was beyond the giant mountains/hills boarding each stage. I think I must have spent hours continuously climbing up only to slide back down trying to figure that out.
Yeah skyboxes have always fascinated me, like what else is out there you know. The galaxy games have really weird skyboxes sometimes and it's kind of terrifying looking at them in this seemingly infinite space. Weird stuff.
In super mario 64 DS i always wanted to know what is that island in the distance.
@@nolanhartsoe remember the hell valley sky trees, makes me wonder what creatures the game is hiding behind them
True
@Mittens but we mean the stuff we haven’t seen the other places in the world it can’t be just a few things
I remember as a kid by the time I got to Dorrie I was so spooked and used to everything trying to kill me I couldn't believe Dorrie was actually "Friendly" as the sign said. And then the instructions to pound its back to get it to lower its head, every step of the way of getting that star using Dorrie I kept expecting it to suddenly start attacking me somehow. From the moment I saw it, to when I got close, to when I got on its back, to when I stood on its head. I felt if I stood on its head too long eventually it'd at least shake me off but no... It's kinda like when you're expecting a jump scare in a horror game and it just doesn't come in the place you expect it, thats my experience with Dorrie as a kid
It's weird that half the gaming channels on RUclips suddenly became convinced Mario 64 is a creepy game, all seemingly at the same time. Did you guys have a meeting, or what? I must have played a thousand hours of this game over the years and I don't get it.
Well said, I agree
The way I see it, it all started with the "every copy of mario 64 is personalized" thing back in 2020, which popularized icebergs. Since then, I've been seeing videos centered around this theme of "Mario 64 is scary" left and right on RUclips. Ngl tho, those first Greenio videos creeped me out in a way no one has done in years, lol
It is just bandwagoning. Mario 64 would only be scary to people with some kind of mental illness.
Some of the levels creeped me out as a kid like the boo stage with the carnival music, the stage with the water monster because of the creepy music. Even super mario world had some unsettling moments but i agree, people just jumping on the bandwagon.
@@lavosdream5809LOL! what the heck was creepy about smw??
Pixels After Dark, Wow, this made my day brighter! Thank you!
The staircase makes use of an effect known as rising Shepard tone (which is also canonically Bill Cipher's favorite 'song' to listen to) that makes it sound like the tone keeps getting higher when in reality it keeps looping.
That's actually really interesting. Had knowledge of that effect (Didn't know it was referred to as Rising Shepard Tone) and didn't even realized they utilized it during the staircase sequence. Makes the whole occurrence even eerier!
What does Bill Cipher have to do with this?
@@parker-boy98 The Reddit AMA for Bill explained that he liked to listen to rising Shepard tone for fun.
@@PixelsAfterDark Not to mention the mechanic of how those stairs work is just that Mario gets instantly warped backwards over and over again and it just repeats, giving the illusion of endlessly going up. Certainly mirrors what the Rising Shepard Tone does with sound and thus makes it an appropriate mechanic for a staircase that seems endless but isn't.
@@grace7919 they mean why did you bring him up.
Timestamps
0:58 Factor 1 Emptiness
2:20 Unsettling Moments
2:47 Factor 2 Water Stages
4:05 Unsettling Moments
4:25 Factor 3- L is Real Effect
5:49 Unsettling Moments
6:10 Factor 4 Bottomless Voids
7:22 Unsettling Moments
None a single misserable comment
I'm a little surprised you didn't include the giant fish from Tiny Huge Island in this video. That thing terrified me to the point I wouldn't go upstairs for fear of accidentally entering that painting.
On a lesser note, the hellish, laughing fireball painting for Lethal Lava Land was just as scary to me when I was younger.
On one more note, Wet Dry World does strike an eerie chord with me, too. Half in part of the bizarre, depressing tone of the level, but also because of a horrific dream I had from being in the town. My nightmare was that everytime you raised the water, people who were locked in the houses would drown, break down the front door, and swim after you as zombies.
Now that's terrifying!
God that reminds me of the zombie mario clones that would chase you in that I_HATE_YOU.exe mario creepy pasta
What scared me the most was when my beloved cousin was shot and killed, he beat a lot of levels for me before his death.
When he died, I inserted my game into the N64 and all of my progress was gone.
I never really wanted to beat the game again after that.
Not only was I hurt but I was frightened.
im sorry for your loss
that must have been tough
@@BioAlpha5 Thank you xx I appreciate that so much. He was a good human taken away unnecessarily.
What do you want me to say about this because I’m not saying I’m sorry for your loss I’m just gonna say too bad
@@BioAlpha5 well no shit their cousin died
You dont really have to say anything@@CresterLol
I have reoccurring dreams/nightmares about this game. They usually involve encountering Bowser at random moments in the castle. I'm pretty sure it stems from the feelings this game's emptiness gave me as a kid, which you explained perfectly.
1 day i has a dream about wet dry world... but it was not creepy it was like a normal dream but not creepy...
Those are some neckbeard dreams, you need a life dude
@@JTguitarlessons I wasn't aware you could control what dreams you had at night. Guess I'll just go get a life and that will cure the repeating nightmares I have involving a random spooky mall I haven't been in since I was 8.
Me too I had a dream where I was going to the big boos haunt mission on my way there I had to fight bowser in the hallway
@@JTguitarlessons wow did it take you 5 days to come up with that?
The most scary thing I remember was the ghost mission when The piano starts to attack out of nowhere. This got me almost a heart attack and I was scared even after a bit. MAN crazy childhood
Someone is there with you, Lakitu documents everything that happens in Super Mario 64 as he is the camera.
Yes, but you only see him at the beginning and in the mirrors room, most of the time you forget he is actually there.
@@tekmogm5979 i thought he was ONLY in the mirrors room???
@@minniessh no i believe he is there at all times cuz hes the camera but only renders in certain scenes like the mirror room.
so hes is there but on a technical level he isnt as thatd be to much for the game to handle for something you cant ever see as
he is the camera
kinda like how Navi could be but isnt.
Speaking of Lakitu he is the most trash camera guy ever! As I play this game as an adult my biggest complaint is the camera angles.. I find myself saying if only the camera was pointed this way I wouldn’t fall off the damn board.
@@minniesshthere’s an icon of him with his camera in the bottom right corner throughout the game, he’s there all the time
9:47 what the hell is that black shadow😰
Where
Like smth dissapear at right down corner?
That’s those little things that shoot fire
I was like 7 when I played this game for the very first time. Growing up I always wondered why this game felt so unsettling and kinda does to an extent to this day. This definitely explains a lot.
You pretty much nailed it dude. SM64 to this day is a masterpiece of liminal space and kenopsia. Great video.
When I was younger, nothing really scared me, I enjoyed this game, not even the chain chomp got me, it was that piano that really scared me for a while.
Damn that son of a bitch always scares me
Chomp no the eel hell yeah.
I love how such a fun and non scary game can give you these type of moments
2:13 I just realized why Saints of Virtue was always so friggin creepy. All those echoing footsteps in empty areas is so unsettling, nevermind the giant floating laser heads.
As a kid, Bowser’s laugh in the death scene was always creepy, and so were the stairs by virtue of their apparent infinity, unnerving music, and the never-ending manifestation of Bowser paintings.
It’s my favorite Mario game. Bowser really felt like a proper villain, and the threats in the game were less childish. Virtually every other Mario game feels so artificial by comparison. This game is innocent, but also more subliminally unsettling. An example is the color scheme employed in this game when juxtaposed to that of other Mario games - it is more dreamlike, and oftentimes, gritty. The other Mario games are just colorful.
The game cannot quite be described as hell-like, or heaven-like for that matter; it’s more akin to limbo/the purgatory. It’s melancholic.
I think it’s eerie because you’re alone In this huge world with only the music. I was always weirded out by Wet-Dry World for that reason.
3:39 meanwhile subnautica players: 💀
This deserves much more views than it has right now
Haha thank you! Had a blast putting the video together and it super refreshing to see many enjoying it too
@@PixelsAfterDark definitely man and with people playing the 3d all stars that never played the original or the ds version should come and watch this
Jjj
@@PixelsAfterDarku never played super mario 64? You tryna ruined my childhood nostalgia 😢
That thumbnail kept me up at night for a good amount of time 😅
Because Mario sees into your soul.
its funny how in the giga leak luigi was confirmed to be planned to be in the game. the leak happened 24 years and 1 month after the game came out.
Just that 2401 makes me question if it was a coincidence or intentional.
@@theh9632 intentional 99% sure
L WAS REAL 2401!
@@theh9632 No, it was DESTINY!
@@thedoglovinggamer5825 holy shart you're right
I got the game around 24.5 years ago (I paused and went "what the fuck" out loud right now) at the age of 6. I love it with all my heart, from the first time I got 120 Stars to the subsequent playthroughs throughout the 2000s, it's of my all-time favorites. This might sound strange but the more foreboding/creepy elements are my favorite part of the atmosphere. I love the idea of the unknown and creepy:from the interior slide room in Tall, Tall Mountain, and permanently warping to places like the volcano and the pyramid, to things like the entirety of Big Boo's Haunt which honestly is terrific atmosphere-wise, I can honestly thank the developers. Wet-Dry World is incredible and my favorite world in the game; I've always wanted to go there to the point of playing around it for hours as a kid.
And then there were things in the game that made me thankful they were there. The Secret Aquarium was one of my favorite places as a kid. Beautiful and mysterious, the atmosphere really helped capture the idea of Mario being in this world he wasn't familiar with. And then there were things like the snowman blowing of Mario's cap, or Klepto taking it. Obviously these things have no basis on Mario's capabilities but I always avoided them at all costs. It was a good balance between loving different things and panicking whenever things like that were close.
You should have talked about the fact that it was confirmed 24 YEARS AND 01 MONTH (2401) later that Luigi was supposed to be playable
what does 2401 mean
@@kazamito7953 24 years and 1 month later. It's also the numbers on Luigi's grave.
@@sansbob ah yes,i already did research on it but thanks
Luigi is playable? Maybe it’s only on ds🤷🏻♂️
@@sansbob Wait luigi died?
Wet-Dry world was terrifying for another reason; that damn wind up toy looking thing that flung you behind it if it caught you.
He just wanted to be buddies. 😂
Pixels I can’t explain in words how much I LOVE your videos. Not only these are some of my favorite Nintendo games but I love the hidden messages/pictures that you reveal in your videos, and yes I liked and subscribed.Keep up the good work!
For some reason, the secret mountain slide always scared me, specially because for the most of the course there were happy moons and stars, but that one part of the skull always scared me as a kid that I would always tell my sister to beat it
Mario 64 actually has 4 water levels. Jolly roger bay, dire dire docks, wet-dry world and the secret aquarium.
1:44 "and...... What? I'm on RUclips?" Got me dying💀💀💀💀💀💀
Dorrie isn't unsettling, just adorable.
Yes
Especially in the DS version
Hi mario
@@SpaceFighter2004fax
When I was a kid, I never noticed this game was creepy. Back then there were no other 3D games to compare it to. But now that there is a generation of games to compare it to, it does seem creepy looking back. Probably because of the blockiness and emptiness.
OK! I'm glad I'm not the only one who was creeped tf out by this game as a kid LOL
Especially the eel for me ! One the scariest experience of i had as a kid
@@sebozz2046 yes!!
I used to stand beside the walls in the castle and go into zoom view or whatever view that is and look through the walls at the darkness beyond them, always made me feel eerie as I was only 7 or 8 at the time.
Nah I loved this game even though I played the ds version it’s still a very cool game but this vid ruined it
@@sebozz2046 yeah.
I used to stare off into the skyboxes of the levels as kid (especially the city background of wet-dry world) & it always gave me this indescribable feeling.
Mario 64 is where I discovered my fear not just of deep water but aquatic predators in video games. Still to this day I feel it. (Far cry 3 was a nightmare with the sharks and the completionist in me needing all collectibles.) also wet dry world I like to think of as Hyrule in the wind waker time line when it’s flooded. The abandoned town’s windows, doors and buildings are reminiscent of hyrules buildings style.. but that’s just me and how I headcanon it.
While I never played Mario 64 myself I know exactly what you are talking about
You should play subnautica :)
@@nyclurker603He will shit his pants.....
As a kid, my parents bought me my first Nintendo 64 and I remember playing this game and having so much fun as an adult now that I see this video it is a creepy situation
Strange, i played the hell out of this game, never felt scared… i do remember getting somewhat startled by the Eel that came out of the wall the first time, and that was just about it.
I know right? I dont understand why people get startled by 'emptiness' in games. If anything, i get scared by things that are supposed to be scary
Dude this game is horrifying The bosses are so scary and Did you see the demons 💀
@@noeltlalka6476 its like gmod, you feel like in these levels something is watching you from above or anywhere
@@Blue_Shift421 it's the lakitu lol. He follows you everywhere. In that mirror room, you can see him following you.
@@maddawg5016 wait till you discover bloodborne
This game and it's spooky vibes have a special place in my heart.
I still remember the only 2 stages that literally traumatized me as a kid were the haunted mansion, and that hell/lava like dimension. Not to mention the music...
Those Bullies in Lethal Lava Land weren't playing with you. 😂
Very interesting! To add a couple of my own personal fears of the game:
1. The first time going into the basement and seeing the painting of lethal lava land in the distance!
2. I have a fear of 2d sprites in 3d worlds! I find it so creepy that 2d objects are always looking directly at me, no matter what, like they’ll suddenly spring to life and attack my character or latch onto the camera, like protozoid slimers (duke 3d) or facehuggers in alien trilogy! In the case of sm64, I can’t shake that dread from the trees and the pokeys!
Can’t say I feel that way about the trees, but the pokey is fucking terrifying. The eyes and “hide the pain” smile don’t do him any favors.
What about the laughing Bowser after you failed a mission or 'died' ...I hated that as a kid
Or if the door was locked and you tried to open it
I never felt the “negative emotional aura” of WDW but understand the feeling. The level is a strange environment, but I enjoyed it. Every star has you head in a different direction.
I played this game for the first time at age 8, and the eel, the giant fish, and the BitDW trap door scared me as a kid.
The background city in wet-dry world is a real city called Casares
EDIT: There's a debate on whether it is Casares Spain or Shibham Yemen
Yemen i guess as there is obviously a mosque in top of the city
It's the town in Yemen, it's been matched up and the buildings are a section of that town in Yemen copy-pasted (hence why there's duplicate buildings). But I believe that temple-like thing at the top is from somewhere else, one thing I saw said it's from Cairo, Egypt, but I'm not sure. Casares, Spain, is just a similar-looking town, but it doesn't actually having anything really matching up, whereas the place in Yemen literally has a 1-to-1 correspondence with the group of several buildings in WDW that was copied to fill the town.
@@legoboy7107 yeah, the temple is a mosque in cairo, egypt
Incredible video brother. I always felt this way about this game and never had anyone to talk this over with! Thank you for helping me find "closure". Respect
Great video man! so sad to see such a low amount of likes and subs for such a investing video.
Thank you! Not too much of a numbers person. I just love hearing back from the community and so far the comments are beyond the expectations I had for a first video :)
@@PixelsAfterDark That's what makes these videos so entertaining to watch! You don't care about churning out garbage you care about your videos and treat them as art. So much respect and hope the channel grows so you can do this full time!
This was scary about super Mario 64 you saw Luigi was being more scary than super Mario
@@PixelsAfterDark EXE
OP@
I like the "Mario 3 was actually a stage play the whole time" better
1:46 toad just broke the forth wall
What? Im on youtube?
I always thought that the lack of characters in this game was what made it unique.
But I've come to realize that the maps and worlds are the characters
I think the emptiness effect is only unsettling to those who grew up in cities or similar. I grew up where empty spaces are normal.
Indeed
@@TodijaIndeed
@@GRRRRR1111Indeed
I loved how the in-game Underground theme changed slightly when you approached something scary.
(e.g. the swimming dinosaur or the empty city)
0:58
Factor 1- Emptiness
Is like the back rooms you feel alone but you arent
Exactly. Because every time you don't have enough Stars to open doors, Bowser will laugh, meaning he's ALWAYS watching Mario's every move. Hell, Bowser even laughs if Mario dies.
If I played this game when I was a kid I would get trauma for the rest of my life.
Honestly when i was a kid the only thing that frightened me was water levels especially the eel in jolly roger. When i found it swimming outside the boat the first time! Also the nessy like monster in the lake in the cave however later i liked him because he was helpful and not harmeful. Strangely unlike many testimonies i find on the internet, i never felt anxious about wet dry world since there were no fish or see monsters there.
And thanks. Now i found that i have Thalassophobia ! :D
I played this when I was seven years old, but what creeped me out the most was the cake ending scene, where if you look behind the star, you can start to see a face looking right back at you. And oh boy, that made me not want to sleep.
Basically a foreshadowing of Bowser's return.
Hazy maze cave was probably the most unsettling, so empty and... Dark
When I was a kid, I never found this game scary or horrifying. But I once had a nightmare of that bowser painting which made me stop playing this game which is the most dumbest ways to quit a game. But I’ve grown up and super mario 64 to me now is just unnerving because just imagine exploring an empty castle with no one around, while trapped inside paintings and with no music in the background.
It's called being bold. Courage.
One time I was just chilling by the painting of cool cool mountain, and then I heard the koopa the quick stopwatch, and that made my heart stop.
Dang,im sorry for u Buddy :(
Lol that's crazy If true
I think, that the feeling of emptyness comes from the bright colours mixed with the realistic textures and the liveless eyes of the enemies
The carnival music in the mansion TERRIFIED me when i was replaying the game some months ago, carnivals are one of my biggest fears, principally the music
One Boo Painting spews fire while another Boo Painting releases Boos. Yeah... definitely a recipe for nightmares and disasters.
This video really captures the feelings this game gives me, I never liked playing it, I like the game it is a good game but something just feels really off about it. Peach's castle always made feel uneasy despite being such a pretty place and there's something about the water levels that makes that emptiness feel somehow tragic, for some reason. It's weird that for someone who adores horror games, this is the game that "scares" me
The empty room concept is a reason why portal 1 unsettles me slightly….i mean like, turn off the captions, mute all audio but sound effects like walking and gun sounds and boom. Scariest thing you’ll ever play
The real answer is: Ambience, music, and SFX. Also, older games' graphical limitations left more to the imagination. And while there are some creepy components, that is not the overall experience. I would call it "immersive." And I suppose immersion in an unrealistic videogame could give you an unsettling feeling. That's why when you were a kid and you played these graphically limited games, you had vivid dreams of them with you inside.
Many n64 give off the same vibe: Banjo Kazooie, Bomberman Hero, Glover, Legend of Zelda
And Ps1 games like: Medal of Honor Underground, Gex, FF7
Is it just me? I remember playing hazy maze cave level as a kid and went to the area of the blue sea dragon. And i remember i was swimming infront of it and it ate mario (like the cheap cheaps would do in the tiny huge world) i remember the dragon lowering its long neck fast and eating mario and mario gets kicked out the level like he usually does when he dies
You know what's interesting. I don't remember that specifically but there is a a handful of memories that I I have of Mario 64 that are just no where to be seen in the game. I was sure that there was a star to be obtained in the courtyard, and a secret star in the mirror room. The mind has a funny way of morphing memories
i tried this and mario just got pushed aside?
@@paraparappa6561 oh? So its prolly just me. I remember it happening vividly and ever since i never swam next to their face. Maybe it means the whole "m64 is personalized" actually is true??
@@basilmybeloved7170 yeah maybe. mine is just how it was intended, no creepy shit.
@@basilmybeloved7170 wait, im gonna explore mine and tell you anything i see
One major thing about Wet Dry World that is kind of unsettling is the fact that it has the Music of Hazy Maze Cave while the other two Water Levels at least share the same relaxing music. It just feels wrong entering a Level in which the category and theme don't fit. 🤔
I will admit it took me years to complete Super Mario 64 because of Hazy Maze Cave. I was literally terrified of that toxic maze specifically the sniffit enemies lurking down there. Sure they appeared in Super Mario Bros 2 alongside Shy Guys but these enemies have a more unsettling appearance. Their faces look like gas masks from the World War which is probably why they can survive down there. Not only that but they're also in a Boo Guy form meaning these enemies may have passed away and were revived by Bowser's dark magic to forever wander around the Toxic Maze to shoot down any trespassers.
Good call on the Snifits. 👑
I like it when things appear friendly on the surface, but has cryptid, creepy undertones. Creepypastas like sonic .exe fail to capture this atmosphere because that’s just pointless gore with a sonic skin slapped over it.
So is everyone just gonna ignore this fact?:
The L is real while the sign is just a reused texture from Zelda, but Luigi's textures were found in old files.
There's actually paintings of mario ,luigi,peach and bowser in zelda ocarina of time in the castle windows
@@jimberry5318 maybe the universe's are connected (if you're about to mention smash Bros it's a separate universe with different rules so that's not a connection)
But that's just a theory.
A GAME THEORY, thanks for watching
@@astepbehind982 no in ocarina of time when you go to the castle for the first time and Zelda is still a kid you look through the window in the castle and they have paintings of other characters
Yeah it creeped me out as a kid too, the castle and game in general feels empty and abandoned even though that wasn’t the intention
Great video! I’d love to see more of that!
Thank you! Super passionate about games and horror so its great to see such positive feedback when combining the two
The giant eel and the man-eating piano are unsettling, but I largely wasn’t creeped out by Mario 64. Bowser attacked the castle, so of course it’s not going to be the most welcoming place afterwards. It’s actually a bit surprising that the castle doesn’t have any battle damage.
My question is why is there an underground village with no way out in wet-dry world?
This freaked me out the most in that stage when i was a kid. I remember getting stuck early on in there and hating the stage for it
Maybe thats the same reason why its empty. Maybe something, like for Example Bowser pressed the button for drown the way in and all people died.
This is exactly how I felt about this game when I was a kid. The thing is that I really liked that creepy unsettling feeling. This is an amazing video😱🤯🙌
I'm going!😱😱
2:53 HELP MY THALASOPHOBIA IS RISING NOOOOOOOOOOOO
Same💀
What’s that?
Fear of the ocean
when i remember this game or see any footage, it makes me feel unsettled. i could point the finger on the water levels and something about them (and the fear of drowning in them) making me be scared of swimming sequences in video games until now, but never why the game as a whole made me feel unsettled. this feeling makes me want to play it again just to see if it was because i was young, but it genuinely felt eerie despite being so colorful. thanks for making this video and pinpointing why.
4:06
Around 2016 was the 1st time I got scared by a bowser painting, that time was the 1st time I saw a BLJ ever. It scared me because it was done at the endless staircase and the painting at the top made it scary
Even though it scared me in 2016
It didn’t haunt me until mid 2019, it was so bad I had to stop playing the game and speedrunning, just because of that painting
To this day it still haunts my dreams
But way way less than before
That's just Bowser being a prick again. 😂
In all seriousness, get well soon.
@@transcendentsacredcourage I honestly forgot this comment existed lmao
It doesn’t haunt my dreams anymore
As a kid, swimming down to get that eel to come out was always so unsettling for me. Had never really played a 3D game quite like it and going that deep and with how dark it is down there. I always kinda wanted to just get out as soon as possible lol.
Til this day I'm still terrified of the eel and spider thingie
Nostalgia. Just nostalgia. I was lucky enough to play this as a kid and i loved it
Subnautica moment at 3:31
2:36 piano mimic
new symbol of avarice skin possibly😱
low poly games give me an eerie vibe-
idk why it's just a weird feeling i get when i play or watch someone play them
As a kid , I would be creeped out hearing Yoshis footsteps on the roof.
Mario and Luigi are the most shielded minded characters in gaming next to Kirby, Samus, and Link. because of how much horrifying things they go through without us realizing
They have infinite plot armor.
0:17 "Children's game"
tf
Honestly, Super Mario 64 stand-alone is scary itself. Old models try to make things look...unsuspicious. It freaked me out when Bowser laughed at the beginning when you enter the castle for the first time. I couldn't shake off the feeling that I was being watched after that. The loneliness of the castle is also scary. I know its an old game, in fact 3d games were still new, so its hard to make it not that bad, but still. You cannot deny that *SOMETHING* in the game freaked you out a bit when you were little.
Edit: The Peach painting turning into Bowser also scared me a lot, I screamed a bit and hid under the couches blankets when I watched my mom play it.
This game scared the shit out of me sometimes
You are making it seem way scarier than what it actually is 😂
As a member of Gen Z, I can confirm that they aren’t. I played Super Mario 64 for the first time in 2021, and I was on edge the entire time. Its environments are extremely uncanny, especially compared to other games available at the time. Keep in mind Tomb Raider was released the same year, so it’s not a generational issue. I think there are a variety of factors that caused Super Mario 64 to end up as it did. Nintendo was new to 3D and if I recall correctly the N64 suffered multiple delays, the development of SM64 was rushed, and let’s be honest the design team wasn’t sober. SM64 feels like no other game, not from Nintendo, not from the Mario series, not even from the N64. It stands out like a sore thumb
Considering you probably played it when it was new, you were probably too busy being overwhelmed by the capabilities of the N64 to notice or care, which is absolutely fine, we all would be. But now that 3D games have been around for so long, people tend to look back at earlier experiments and see flaws that wouldn’t be cared about in the 90s. Hindsight is 20/20 after all
u sound old
@@NoOne-fv6yh maybe I am. We all get there.
@@NoOne-fv6yh
You'll get old one day, too.
The game is not scary per say but it’s really uneasy and eerie
5:01 That's literaly a video i was about to watch, thanks for not making give that man even 1 view.
If lolfoxmaster is so good, why isn't there a lolfoxmaster 2?
What’s frightening is Lakitu is actually recording all of Mario’s actions.. including the often times grim outcomes. He can’t put his camera down and give Mario a hand once in a while? I guess the eternal frown face on Lakitu says it all
This creeps me out 0:27