A Super Mario 64 fan has managed to recreate Minecraft into the Nintendo 64 game that was released 15 years prior – and it's possible to play it on an actual N64.
Despite being almost 30 years old, Super Mario 64 still has one of the most enduring fan bases of any game. It's one of the biggest speedrunning games of all time, and despite being one of the first ever made, I'd argue it's still the best 3D platformer ever made (or at least the best Mario game). Fans are still so involved with it that this past week, they discovered a hidden sound effect in the game that requires the console to be on for 14 months straight.
And as it turns out, some fans love Mario 64 so much that they're porting other games into it, as seen by Mario 64 hacker Arthurtilly, who has ported Minecraft to the game with the building and world generation system ripped straight from it. Arthurtilly posts a video to their YouTube channel showing it off, saying, "This is a showcase of a Minecraft voxel engine I developed completely within the SM64 engine and can run on a real Nintendo 64 console. It uses multithreading to be able to seamlessly generate terrain and meshes over multiple frames without causing any lag."
In the video, we can see 64-bit Mario running around a land made up of squares, with the ability to destroy and place blocks at the push of a button (it's instant, much like in creative mode). But alongside that, the video shows off multiple biomes based on the tilesets of the original game, including the very cute detail that the music changes depending on the biome (so, Bob-Omb Battlefield for grass, Dire Dire Docks for underwater, and so on). Currently, Mario seems to be only able to drop block and slab pieces, so the full breadth of Minecraft isn't available yet, but there's still enough to get creative with.
However, what may seem like a cool tech demo is actually a full-blown project for Arthurtilly, who says in the video's description that they are working on more features like flowing water and lava, a proper lighting system with a day/night cycle, terrain features such as trees and vegetation "to make the world more lively," and even an inventory system. At the moment, Arthurtilly hasn't released the mod, but it's certainly something to keep your eyes on.
If you ask me, Mario 64 is the cream of the crop, but you should check out our list of the best N64 games of all time to see where it lands.
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