Princess Toadstool, also known as Peach, has invited Mario to come to the castle, having told him that there would be cake. However, when Mario gets to the castle, he is instead greeted by Bowser, who has once again kidnapped Peach. He has also stolen the castle's 120 Power Stars and hid them inside paintings around the castle that are portals to other worlds, kickstarting Mario's quest to stop Bowser's ambitions.

Though not the first 3D platformer, Super Mario 64, released in 1996 for the Nintendo 64 (Japan on June 23, September 29 for North America, March 1, 1997 in Europe and Australia, and November 17, 2003 in China), is heralded as one giant leap from 2D gaming to 3D gaming, and its influence on the platforming genre—from the greatly fleshed out Hub World to its nonlinear gameplay—has been felt ever since (leading to the creation of the Collect-a-Thon Platformer Sub-Genre). Notably for the Super Mario Bros. series, this game places a heavier emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving than most games in the series. It is the last finished console game directed by series creator Shigeru Miyamoto, who was also tapped to direct a sequel to the game, but an incredibly long period of Development Hell burned him out from the position, and after the title was cancelled, he quietly stepped down from the director's chair for good.^note He would later make an exception to direct the first Mario mobile game, Super Mario Run, in order to "be able to translate that Nintendo hardware experience into the smart devices". It's also notably the first mainline Mario platformer with Charles Martinet voicing the title character (but not the first Mario game overall with him in the role—that was Mario Teaches Typing 2).

The game was re-released in 1998 as a charter member of the N64 Player's Choice Million Seller Club, along with Mario Kart 64, Wave Race 64, Star Fox 64, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire, Cruis'n USA, and Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. Along with Mario Kart 64, it would be re-released again a year and a half later, alongside Player's Choice newcomer Turok 2: Seeds of Evil.

Super Mario 64 was later remade to usher in Nintendo's first portable 3D system as Super Mario 64 DS in November 2004 (December 2004 in Japan; February 2005 in Australia; March 2005 in Europe; June 2007 in China; July 2007 in South Korea). This version brings the total star count up to 150 from the original game's 120, shifts some of the original stars around (while removing others^note Specifically replacing those stars which were simply placed at a point in the level with no further context.), adds a few new levels and bosses, includes multiplayer, and has three additional playable characters (Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario). In September 2020, the original Nintendo 64 version would get an Updated Re-release on Nintendo Switch as a part of Super Mario 3D All-Stars as part of the 35th anniversary of Super Mario Bros.

The game is followed by Super Mario Sunshine in the 3D Mario game series.

"Dear Mario: Please come to the castle. I have some tropes for you."

• 15 Puzzle: Such a puzzle appears in Lethal Lava Land. It solves and scrambles itself, though; the challenge is collecting red coins atop the puzzle. Whenever it reaches the solution, coins pop out of all the panels. The puzzle is the only thing standing between Mario and hot molten lava, so the moving vacancy acts as a mobile hazard.
• 100% Completion:
  • Getting all 120 stars opens the cannon in the courtyard, which lets you get on top of the castle and talk to Yoshi, who gives you 100 lives, alters your triple jump (which makes you immune to fall damage) and super-sizes the penguin you race on Cool Cool Mountain.
  • Since Yoshi is an Ascended Extra in the DS version, 3 1-Ups and one of Luigi's rabbits can be found up there instead, and Luigi's jumping ability essentially negates any benefit an enhanced triple jump would have as a reward, so that feature is absent as well.
• Abandoned Mine: Hazy Maze Cave appears to be set in one. A small section of the course is even called that.
• Absurdly Long Stairway: There's a looping staircase leading to the final stage, with accompanying music that keeps going up as you did. You can climb it forever if you don't have enough stars, but the staircase itself is not actually very big (the game accomplishes this by seamlessly warping Mario back down a few steps when passing a certain point^note This is made clearer by the map screen in the DS remake showing the character icon resetting back on the map - meaning the bottom of the stairs is always right behind you; however, going fast enough via a series of backward long jumps can scale the "infinite" staircase without any problems so long as you bypass the invisible zone.).
• Absurdly Short Level:
  • All three of the Cap courses are very short levels, the Tower of the Wing Cap in particular, as it only consists of a large platform and coins floating in the air, which can be collected for a star in mere seconds by a reasonably skilled player.
  • The Secret Slide level is very short, basically being a straight line to a Power Star. In fact, the game subtly encourages a player to finish it as quickly as possible, as doing so will earn the player a secret second star.
  • The aquarium sub-level in the room housing Jolly Roger Bay's painting is likewise very brief, only consisting of a very small course where you just swim for 8 red coins.
• Action Bomb: Upon running near the Bob-ombs or picking them up, their fuse goes off and you have a limited time before they blow up.
• Adaptational Wimp: The Koopa Troopas, who'd normally charge towards Mario in other 3D platformer games, end up doing the exact opposite in 64, where they run away from Mario instead. With stomping on them giving a blue coin, worth five normal coins in the game, this makes them similar to Moneybags where chasing after them gives a huge reward.
• Added Alliterative Appeal:
  • Bob-omb Battlefield; Dire, Dire Docks; Lethal Lava Land; Rainbow Ride; Shifting Sand Land.
  • This applies to all the level names in the German version of the game; examples include Atlantis Aquaria (Atlantis Aquarium = Wet-Dry World) and Piratenbucht Panik (Pirate Bay Panic = Jolly Roger Bay). Therefore, some of them sound very weird to outright nonsensical, like Bibberberg Bob (Shivering Mountain Bob = Cool, Cool Mountain), Frostbeulen Frust (Frostbite Frustration = Snowman's Land), Fliegenpilz Fiasko (Fly Agaric Mess = Tall, Tall Mountain) or Wobiwaba Wüste (Wobiwaba Desert = Shifting Sand Land; the first word doesn't mean anything).
• Air-Aided Acrobatics: Various levels in the game (but Tiny-Huge Island most notably) have a number of updrafts that spontaneously activate when you're over them, which will allow you to make a jump or, perhaps, save your life from a Bottomless Pit.
• Airborne Mook: The Fly Guys from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island make their return, first appearing in Shifting Sand Land and breathe fire at Mario while swooping down at him. On a side note, Mario is now being able to fight them compared to his days as an infant in that game, as well as Yoshi's New Island and Yoshi's Island DS.
• Alternate Album Cover: The Japanese release of the soundtrack album depicts the game's Japanese box art, with some of the accompanying logos changed to reflect the fact that it's a music CD rather than a Nintendo 64 cartridge. The North American release of the soundtrack, meanwhile, depicts renders of Mario posing, punching, kicking, and swinging Bowser around. Furthermore, the German release repurposes a render depicting Metal Mario standing in Hazy Maze Cave.
• American Kirby Is Hardcore:
  • The Japanese cartridge label looks rather pleasant and friendly, with Wing Mario flying towards you. The international cartridge labels, on the other hand, feature more action-oriented artwork depicting Mario dodging Bowser's fire breath.
  • In the Japanese version, the painting for Jolly Roger Bay is depicted as underwater with bubbles.^note This painting originally appeared in earlier demo builds and was used to access Dire, Dire Docks, which in the final game is accessed via a water-like wall in the same room as Bowser in the Fire Sea. The international releases replace the bubbles with a haunting sunken ship.
  • The Japanese version has six Attract Mode demos that showcase Mario platforming around the various locales the player can visit on their adventure. In the international versions, a seventh demo is added that precedes all the prior ones, showing Mario's first fight against Bowser in the Dark World.
• Ancient Tomb: The pyramid in Shifting Sand Land has a tomb that is home to the level's boss, Eyerok.
• Antepiece:
  • The Princess's Secret Slide is the first of no less than three slides in the game, the other two on Cool, Cool Mountain and Tall Tall Mountain, and has numerous safety-features to train the player for later.
    • The Princess's slide offers the first of over a dozen secret stars, indicating that there are other in the castle outside of the main levels.
    • The first slide has guard-rails that allow the player time to get used to sliding before presenting them with an unguarded series of terraces to see if they can stay in the center without falling off. The latter two slides in the game have no guard-rails and lots of sharp turns, while the Princess's slide only has one.
    • The first slide features the first Bottomless Pits in the game, but if Mario falls in during the middle stretch, the game won't cost you a life but just send you back to the Hub Level (most secret star courses have this feature). Falling into bottomless pits in later levels and the other two slides will kill you, however.
    • The first slide encourages repeat attempts both by offering easy One Ups^note One is in the middle of the course that the player must race to catch and a second is given if the player collects fifty coins before obtaining a star and by challenging you to reach the end in under twenty-one seconds for a second secret star. All that practice at high-speed sliding will doubtless come in handy later when the Cool, Cool Mountain slide requires Mario to race against the Big Penguin.
  • The Tower of the Wing Cap and The Secret Aquarium likewise prep you for the task of practicing flying and swimming, respectively, two aspects of the game with fairly high learning curves, by placing you in obstacle- and enemy-free environments where your only goal is to acquire Red Coins, which you can replay at any time, and the former doesn't penalize you for failing. Likewise, the Cavern of the Metal Cap and Vanish Cap Under The Moat missions are set in environments where you can freely test the abilities of the Metal Cap and Vanish Cap, since going out of the cavern or falling out of the level in both won't penalize you either.
  • The game prepares you for the Final Boss from the start of the first level.
    • Players who experiment with punching and kicking may first try them on the near harmless Goombas and have them Punched Across the Room, but trying to punch a Bob-Omb will instead result in Mario picking it up, and he must throw it to get rid of it. As it happens, "pick up and throw" is also how to defeat the Big Bob-Omb, Warm-Up Boss of Bob-omb Battlefield.
    • When thrown enough times, the Big Bob-omb admits defeat and hints Bowser must be fought the same way by describing Mario, "[taking] King Bowser by the tail," a hint Bowser reinforces at the start of his own battle. Picking up and throwing Bowser is more elaborate, however, since Mario must build up momentum by spinning him.
    • King Bob-omb must be thrown at a specific target: the arena itself; throwing him out of bounds will just cause him to jump back in. Bowser likewise must not be thrown out of bounds, but at a specific target: the bombs surrounding the arena.
    • Bowser's first Boss Battle features a stable arena with lots of room and only a few attacks. His second and final battles feature more dangerous attack patterns and a deadlier arena—the arena of the Final Boss in particular starts collapsing after two successful throws, forcing Mario to make a desperate third and final throw from a disadvantaged position.
    • The Big Bob-omb must be picked up from behind and thrown three times, the first example of (most) bosses being defeated three times. Bowser's first two battles only require him to be damaged once, allowing the player to get used to the general mechanics of the fight and to do it again under pressure, before requiring a full three hits for the Final Boss.
  • Whomp's Fortress has three of these:
    • First, a series of moving walls (Bomps) that just push you off the first ledge of the level's main route and onto the nearby ground, which is a warmup for the moving platforms above a bottomless pit straight ahead.
    • Just after that, you'll find a small bridge that collapses as soon as you run across it, positioned at a height that isn't particularly dangerous for Mario (and getting back up there to retry takes merely seconds). It's a low-risk challenge on its own that you can skip via a thin ledge nearby, but it preps you for a similar collapsing bridge in Big Boo's Haunt, which is even smaller, locked in a tricky camera angle, and on top of that, sends you straight into the basement if you fall off it, forcing you to backtrack all the way back upstairs.
    • Finally, you encounter Whomps shortly before you fight the Whomp King, which show his attack pattern, although they are much smaller and easier to dodge than him, and only take one hit to kill.
  • There are a couple of races the game prepares the player for by having them get to the goal in advance of the race.
    • The player must have already reached the top of the mountain in Bob-omb Battlefield to get the first star before they can challenge Koopa the Quick to race there for the second. Racing Koopa the Quick in the comparatively mild region of Bob-omb Battlefield also anticipates the rematch on the deadlier Tiny-Huge Island against a much faster Koopa.
    • Cool, Cool Mountain's first star is earned by reaching the end of the slide, which gives the player some practice for the third star, which is earned by Mario beating the Big Penguin in a race down the same slide. It even offers an easy-mode for players unprepared for all the sharp turns, with a secret tunnel (indicated by coins) that offers a quick way to the end and a free 1-Up for extra tries. There's an even more challenging version available after getting all the stars in the game—the Big Penguin (now an even bigger Penguin) will challenge Mario to a race as the Post-Final Boss.
  • Lethal Lava Land introduces the Bully species, gruff little balls of horned fury who can't actually harm you when they charge you and knock you around, but they can knock you into the deadly lava (which, incidentally, is the only thing that will kill them). Mario will find a large number of them across the level before he can fight their King Mook, the Big Bully, for the first star. To get the second star, Mario must seek out a group of three bullies hanging out on the far side of the level and defeat both them and the Big Bully that follows all together. Later in the game, Snowman's Land hosts the Chill Bully, an Underground Monkey King Mook of the species which must be fought on its own platform of slippery ice suspended over a pool of frigid water that's just as painful as the lava.
• Anti-Frustration Features: Given it was one of the earliest 3D games, and thus had to accommodate newcomers not familiar with its then-revolutionary mechanics, the game has a very relaxed learning curve, and quite a few generous features to make the game fairly easy and accessible for players:
  • The players are allowed to progress through the game at their own pace and go after most of a level's stars in any desired order, if one particular star is proving too difficult to get in a level. Because a few of the game's stars are tricky or just plain cryptic to find, the game allows you beat it with just 70 minimum, with the other 50 being completely optional. The game occasionally gives you hints about stars or the existence of the magic caps.
  • The castle hub world (and some of the levels) are generously filled with tutorial signs, which cover every general aspect of the gameplay— and aside from a handful of text boxes at the start and at other sporadic points, the game never forces the player to do a tutorial, instead allowing them to play around and get accustomed to the game's controls and flow on their own time.
  • As long as you're not moving, airborne, or swimming in a level, the game will allow you to pause and quit back to the hub. Some parts of the game (namely, the secret areas of the castle) won't cost you a life if you lose at them.
  • Certain levels' sub-areas that are troublesome to reach can be re-accessed immediately if you happen to die in them. Entering back into the same level portal will start you already inside the sublevel, saving you from having to re-enter the area by going through the outside sections of the levels first. This includes the volcano in Lethal Lava Land, the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land, the slide in Tall Tall Mountain and all Bowser fights (where you respawn in front of the arena entry).
  • In the case of the final Bowser fight, there is a 1-Up located in the area just outside the entry pipe (albeit the 1-Up is hidden behind a pillar), which will respawn if you die to Bowser and then enter the level again. This ensures that, as long as you keep collecting the 1-Up, you'll never game over at the final boss fight, as you always regain the life you just lost.
  • If you collect a 100-coin star in any level, grabbing it will not send you out of the level, and it will allow you to save your progress on the spot, retaining the star even if you die soon afterward.
  • The game teleports you out of a level as soon as you grab any other star and refills your health, including with stars you'd already gotten previously. This allows players a chance to quickly access another star or reset the level without dying for a shot at a specific challenge that they messed up on, such as the aforementioned 100 coin challenge.
  • 1-Ups in the game are plentiful and easy to acquire, such as the hidden 1-Ups on the castle grounds which reset each time you go inside the castle, or the fact that getting 50, 100, or 150 coins in both a normal or secret level (e.g., the slide) will always get you an extra life upon beating it.
  • The number of easily-accessible 1-Ups in a level seems proportional to its difficulty. Tall Tall Mountain, for example, which is surrounded on all sides by a bottomless pit, has one right behind Mario's entry point, and Tiny-Huge Island, which has a similar design and several tricky platforming sections, has 1-Ups right by the start of both the Tiny and the Huge sides. Since you'll likely be losing a lot of lives on these levels, the 1-Ups help keep the number stable.
  • Any reasonably deep body of water in the game, be it the lake of Jolly Roger Bay or the small pool at the top of the big Tiny-Huge Island, will quickly refill your health if Mario jumps in and stays at the surface – this is a consequence of the underwater air and health meters being the same. Coins, which are extremely plentiful, will also refill your health, as do the occasional floating heart, which refills your health if you run through it quickly enough.
  • The game has several generous ways to keep you from getting hurt from a high fall; if you fall from too great a height, diving forward or ground pounding just before you hit the ground will keep Mario from getting hurt. Cool, Cool Mountain, Shifting Sand Land, and Snowman's Land have ground mostly made of soft snow and sand, so you usually won't take damage from a high fall in them (you'll just get stuck in the ground for a few seconds and pop out). Shooting yourself out of a cannon will make Mario immune to fall damage as well (unless you bump into a wall and start falling normally— then you're in trouble). The Wing Cap will protect you from fall damage if you're in flight, and even if you aren't, you can hold the A button to flap its wings, which will slow down your fall enough to protect Mario.
  • The Bully enemies need to be knocked into lava to be killed, spitting out a coin. To keep you from having to lava dive each time this happens, the coin is programmed to spit out and arc toward you. So long as you're not too high up (which can be a problem in the volcano in Lethal Lava Land), the coin will almost always land safely on a platform for you to collect.
  • If you collect a Star that's in midair (i.e. a 100-coin star spawned after collecting some midair coins), it will still count as collected even if you fall into a Bottomless Pit while grabbing it.
  • The draw distance for Red Coins is much farther than normal coins, allowing the player to spot them from a distance.
  • Mario normally needs to be running to execute a triple jump. Since the Wing Cap requires that you do a triple jump to fly, wearing it lets you triple jump from a standstill.
• Aquatic Mook: The game marks the debut of three aquatic enemies in the Mario series:
  • A cousin of Boss Bass^note Big Cheep Cheep, the Cheep Chomp (originally the sunglasses-wearing Bubba), appears in Tiny-Huge Island, though strangely not in the Underwater Levels (Jolly Roger's Lagoon, Dire Dire Docks, Wet-Dry World). They're large enough to be capable of eating Mario (and any other playable character in the game's remake) in one bite, as well as its reappearances in games such as New Super Mario Bros., New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and even when Mario was an infant (though the strategy guides of the latter call it Boss Bass due to sharing their model).
  • The Maw-Ray (originally called Unagi) is a massive red moray eel that typically guards a specific part of Jolly Roger's Bay until Mario finds a way to get it out.
  • Finally, there's the shark-like Sushi, of which two specimens lurk the starter area of Dire Dire Docks; they are surprisingly docile, as they don't focus on attacking Mario.
• Armless Biped: MIPS the Rabbit has no arms or paws, only two big feet. The DS remake redesigns the rabbit(s) so they now have paws.
• Artifact Title: This is the first mainline Super Mario game to not feature the Mushrooms that caused Mario to grow in size, which is why all its predecessors on NES, SNES and GB used the Super Mario moniker in their names. Presumably, it was just kept for consistency purposes as well as Rule of Cool.^note He would regain that ability ten years later in New Super Mario Bros., making the name make sense again.
• Artificial Stupidity: It's possible to trick Yoshi's AI into making him walk off the castle roof, as proven here by pannenkoek2012. On occasion, Goombas and Bob-ombs will walk or run off a cliff to their deaths, be it from chasing Mario or their own volition.
• Artistic License – Geology: The dry ocean cave in Jolly Roger Bay would be impossible in real life due to the way sunken caves work.
• Artistic License – Marine Biology: The manta ray in Dire Dire Docks has a barbed stinger at the end of its tail. Mantas are known for lacking stingers.
• Artistic License – Physics:
  • Mario must have incredible upper body strength, because even in mid fall, he can spit in the face of inertia by triggering a ground pound, which completely halts his momentum, and negates any damage he would have received from the fall.
  • When sliding, Mario can lean forward to speed up and lie back to slow down. It would work the opposite way in real life.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: Mario becomes this to his enemies when he enters the tiny version of Tiny-Huge Island.
• Backtracking: The game is designed so you rarely have to do this, as the majority of the worlds can be completed in one go if you know what you're doing. The only bits that force you to backtrack to a previous level are stars that need the Cap Blocks activated to get them (you can acquire all three of them very early into the game, and even some of those challenges can be beaten without them).
• Badass Normal: Aside from the Caps, Mario is armed only with his acrobatic skills (and a couple improbable ones like the Ground Pound) in worlds filled with many hostile, magical creatures.
• Bandit Mook: Klepto the Condor in Shifting Sands Land and Tiny-Huge Island steals Mario's hat. Mario takes more damage until he gets his hat back or leaves the level.
• Battle Theme Music: The game has only three themes: A general track for regular bosses (enemies like Big Boo and Chill Bully avert the trope), and two for Bowser (with the second being an Ominous Pipe Organ remix of his usual theme for the final battle).
• Berserk Button: Wiggler has two: getting him and his place all wet, and stomping on him.
  Wiggler: [after stomping him the first time] I can't take this anymore! First you get me all wet, then you stomp on me! Now I'm really, really, REALLY mad! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!
  [you stomp on him again]
  Wiggler: Hey! Knock it off! That's the second time you've nailed me. Now you're asking for it, linguine breath!
• Big Boo's Haunt: A world in the game is the Trope Namer, which is framed as a tiny haunted house in a birdcage which Mario shrinks down to enter. It's one of the scarier ghost levels in the Mario franchise thanks to its oppressive droning music, the Mr. I eyeball enemies, haunted objects flying at you, and the infamous Mad Piano that springs to life with a chomping lid full of sharp teeth.
• Big Creepy-Crawlies: The Scuttle Bugs, who infest the upper regions of Hazy Maze Cave and the outside of Big Boo's Haunt. The Skeeters in Wet-Dry World also count.
• Bigger on the Inside:
  • A more discreet example, but the inside of the castle is clearly much bigger and taller than it is on the outside. A showcase on how much bigger the inside areas are in comparison to the actual castle.
  • The igloo in Snowman's Land, which on the outside is half Mario's height, and he has to crawl to get in.
  • The entirety of Big Boo's Haunt is contained within a birdcage.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The fourth star of Tiny-Huge island is called "Five itty bitty secrets". For whatever reason, the German version didn't translate the word itty-bitty at all, making the title essentially incomprehensible: "Löse die 5 Itty Bitty-Rätsel!"^note Solve the five [gibberish]-puzzles!
• Bond Villain Stupidity: Toad believes Bowser forgot to seal the door leading to Bob-omb Battlefield, but as the remake proves, the Koopa King in fact left it unsealed deliberately, hoping Mario would get himself blown up, or worse. Of course, he never counted on Mario gaining new abilities since that time he and his brother Luigi blew his Koopa Clown Car out of the air...
• Bonsai Forest: Either that or they've been just recently grown, because all of the trees in the game are the same height (about three times Mario's height) and spread very far apart.
• Bonus Feature Failure:
  • In Jolly Roger Bay and Dire, Dire Docks, there is one collectable Koopa shell each, hidden inside a clam. Grabbing it makes you swim faster and more precise... for around five seconds, before it disappears.
  • As a reward for completing the game 100%, the cannon outside the castle will unlock, giving you access to the castle's roof. Up there, you meet Yoshi, who will give you 100 lives if you talk to him. 100 lives that you have no use for, since you have completed the game. Made especially obvious by the lives being delivered by Yoshi, who you can't ride and who disappears right after. You also get a special triple jump, which replaces the standard third jump with a sparkly somersault that makes you invincible while flipping and protects you from fall damage. This is also pretty useless, as there are very few instances in the game where being invincible during a high jump would come in handy, you already have several ways of stopping fall damage, and the new triple jump can't be chained into a Wall Jump, making it a downgrade from the default in some cases.
• Bookends: This game begins with Peach sending a letter to Mario, saying she baked a cake for him. At the end, after being rescued by the plumber, she decides to bake for him another cake.
• Books That Bite: There are some called Bookends in Big Boo's Haunt that fly out of the shelves and open up, revealing their giant teeth before flying at you.
• Boss-Arena Idiocy: Bowser's arena comes with bombs for you to toss him into. Missing and just tossing him out of the ring, however, only results in him leaping right back. In fact, he usually punishes you for doing it with a special move like tipping the arena, or sending shockwaves throughout the arena. He learns his lesson in the third battle, strategically collapsing the platforms so all the bombs are suspended in mid-air. You really have to know how to time your spin to land those hits. He is also noticeably buffed up, and it takes three hits instead of one to take him out.
• Boss Arena Urgency: In the final battle with Bowser, after you score two hits on him, he smashes the platform, turning it into a smaller star-shaped one that makes aiming more difficult due to the greater distance from the mines. Before this point, flinging him off the platform but missing the bombs around the edge will result in Bowser simply leaping back up, which can knock off one of the pieces that would otherwise fall after the two hits.
• Boss Battle: The game has a few boss fights scattered throughout it. Many of these encounters double as a Puzzle Boss.
  • Big Bob-omb in Bob-omb Battlefield. You defeat him by simply picking him up and chucking him on his butt three times.
  • The Whomp King in Whomp's Fortress. You defeat him by tricking him into falling on his face, letting you ground pound his back. Repeat three times.
  • Big Boo in Big Boo's Haunt. You have to trick him into becoming visible behind you, and then kick or slam him three times. You also fight him three times in the course.
  • Lethal Lava Land has two Big Bullies to fight. Both of them are invincible to Mario's attacks, so you have to force them into the lava to defeat them.
  • Eyerok in Shifting Sand Land. You have to attack the eyes in the palm of his hands three times each to beat him.
  • The Chill Bully in Snowman's Land, which is just an ice themed palette swap of the Big Bully in Lethal Lava Land.
  • Tiny-Huge Island has the Wiggler living inside the huge islands mountain. He's the most straightforward boss fight, since you just jump on his head three times to beat him.
  • And then there's the three Bowser boss fights outside of the main levels to top it off.
• Boss Corridor:
  • Each of the three Bowser courses are in rooms that are shaped like a hallway (the hall with the second Bowser course also has the entrance to Dire, Dire Docks, and you need to collect the first Star from that course to enter the Bowser course; the final hallway is the "Endless Stairs" mentioned above; you need 70 Stars to reach the end of the hall and the entrance to the final area of the game without the glitch).
  • Once you open the top of the Shifting Sand Land pyramid, you land in an elevator takes you down to a small passage that leads to Eyerok, the temple guardian, and the Star it guards.
• Bragging Rights Reward: Two, when you collect all 120 Power Stars:
  • On the roof of Peach's Castle, Yoshi gives you 100 lives and an upgraded Triple Jump.
  • In Cool, Cool Mountain, the Big Penguin that challenges you to a race has become a lot fatter (due to being out of shape), making him harder to defeat. There's no extra reward for beating him again, however.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • After getting all the Stars, Bowser will tell Mario to keep that Control Stick/Touch Screen smoking!
  • If you didn't get that many stars, Bowser will instead go gather his troops to watch the ending together.
  • Yoshi, who you can find at the top of the castle if you get 120 stars and use the castle grounds cannon to get up there, will give you a message directly from the Super Mario 64 development team.
• Busman's Holiday: Mario thinks he's just at Peach's Castle for some cake, at least until some Lakitu with a camera talks to him as if he knows he's going on an adventure. Turns out Bowser took it over and sealed everyone inside paintings.
• The Cake Is a Lie: Defied. Peach sent a letter to Mario stating that she baked a cake for him. At the end, it's suggested that Peach didn't even make one. Either Bowser trapped her in the castle before she could bake it, or this could be a result of something being Lost in Translation—in the Japanese original, Peach says she's waiting for Mario to arrive before baking a cake.
• Chasing Your Tail: Used in the first boss battle in the game against Big Bob-omb as a Final Boss Preview, where you have to get behind the boss and pick him up for throwing. You have to perform this same technique on Chuckyas that you meet when you reach the final third of the game. Played literally in the Bowser levels, where you have to grab Bowser's tail and swing him into a bomb.
• Chekhov's Volcano: The one in Lethal Lava Land erupts routinely. Until you go inside.
• Clam Trap: Clams can be found in Jolly Roger Bay, often with coins in their mouths. If Mario is in the clam when its shell shuts, he'll be knocked aside and take damage.
• Clockworks Area: Tick Tock Clock is full of moving gears, clock hands, pendulums, and treadmills, and the speed of the moving parts and platforms depends on what time on the quickly-ticking castle clock you're closest to when you jump into the clock face level entrance—12:00 is completely static, 3:00 is slow, 6:00 is erratic and wildly fluctuating speed with irregular timing, and 9:00 is very fast.
• Collect-a-Thon Platformer: The prototypical example—and as such contains an Unbuilt Trope or two—the idea of exploring an area to collect Plot Coupons as your main goal, as opposed to just reaching the end of an obstacle course of a level, can more or less be traced back to this game.
• Colossus Climb: That giant snowman in Snowman's Land? He's alive! Although the only thing he actually does is blow you off of the platform in front of his face, and you don't find out he's sentient until you reach the platform.
  Big Snowman: Hey! Who's there? What's climbing on me? Is it an ice ant? A snow flea? Whatever it is, it's bugging me! I think I'll blow it away!
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: ! Blocks come in four different colours. Yellow blocks will contain either Coins, a Power Star, a 1-Up Mushroom, or a Koopa Shell. Red blocks contain a Wing Cap, blue blocks contain a Vanish Cap, and green blocks contain a Metal Cap. The latter three will only appear after they've been activated by pressing the corresponding ! Switch, similar to the Switch Palaces from Super Mario World.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard:
  • No matter what shortcuts you take on the slide in Cool, Cool Mountain (which can include skipping three-quarters of it), the Penguin will catch you up within a few seconds. He also tries to shove you off the edge. THEN he has the audacity to call YOU a cheater.
  • Koopa the Quick is unaffected by winds during his second race with you. This means that if you reach the windy sections of the course and you're behind him, you've already lost. If you've only got a small lead, then the winds will quickly eliminate it, though it's possible to get in front of him and have him push you all the way to the finish line.
• Continuing Is Painful: Fail to get the 8-red-coin stars in either the 'Wing Mario Over the Rainbow' or 'Cavern of the Metal Cap' stages, and you're booted out of not just the hub-world, but straight outside Peach's Castle right into the moat.
• Continuity Nod: There are several nods to previous Mario games:
  • A few of the staple Mario tunes make a comeback; the title screen theme is the original theme song for Super Mario Bros.. The underground theme from that game makes a return as the theme for Hazy Maze Cave, the Green Switch Block stage, the Pyramid in Shifting Sand Land, the Igloo in Snowman's Land, Wet-Dry World, and the inside of Tiny-Huge Island. And the Cap music is an arrangement of the classic Super Star theme, or more specifically the Yoshi's Island variant of the theme. A rearrangement of the ending theme for the first game is used during the game's ending.
  • The Power Stars are visually inspired by the Super Star power-ups from the older games.
  • The Item Blocks, though much less common, will occasionally give you a few coins and 1-ups like the old games.
  • The mural of the Castle Lobby is an ode to Grass Land from Super Mario Bros. 3.
  • Likewise, Tiny-Huge Island is basically a 3D Giant Land from Super Mario Bros. 3.
  • Big Boo's Haunt is based off of the Ghost Houses from Super Mario World.
  • The Cap Switches are identical in look and purpose to the Block Switches from Super Mario World as well.
  • The 8 Red Coins are carried over from Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.
  • Some of the "2D" art seen in various places, such as the Boo portraits in the ghost house and the sliding Bowser portrait in Lethal Lava Land are promotional artwork illustrations from previous Mario games.
  • The pillars that precede the final Bowser fight depict a battle between Mario and Bowser, using their sprites from Super Mario Bros.
  • Upon meeting Yoshi on top of the castle's room, he's overjoyed to see Mario after so long since their last adventure.
• Corridor Cubbyhole Run: There's a segment of this kind in the pyramid of Shifting Sand Land (it has some crushing enemies called Grindels), and an easier version in Bob-omb Battlefield while climbing the hill (metallic balls roll downward).
• Cowardly Mooks:
  • The Koopa Troopas don't particularly seem excited to deal with Mario and his friends, running away when he comes near.
  • The Moneybags also try to hop away once discovered.
  • Cap-wearing Goombas in the DS remake alternate between chasing your character and running away from them.
• Cranium Ride: In Snowman's Land, Mario can ride across the bridge on the giant penguin's head to avoid being blown off. However, it may or may not work, so the player can also walk beside the penguin as it blocks the wind.
• Credits Montage: Notable as some of the stages showcased change depending on your progress towards getting 120 Stars. You can also look around in it if you plug in a second controller.
• Creepy Changing Portrait: The entrance to the first Bowser stage has a portrait of Princess Peach at the end of a long hallway. However, as you approach it, the picture slowly changes into Bowser's image right before you fall through a trap door into the stage proper.
• Creepy Circus Music: Big Boo's merry-go-round.
• Cumulonemesis: High up Tall Tall Moutain hides the Fwoosh, a sentient cloud that waits for Mario to get past him only to blow strong gusts of wind at the unfortunate plumber to send him over the cliffside. In the remake, Yoshi can swallow it, but it grants no coins and can't be turned into an egg.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: The Chill Bully if you exploit a invokedGood Bad Bug which makes you slide forward indefinitely, allowing you to whomp him without being knocked back.
• Cutting the Knot: The game's flexible nature allows you to beat many of the challenges without having to use the most obvious path or method, though these aren't necessarily efficient exploits all the time. For example, many of the stars that you are supposed to use cannon firing for can be worked around if you have the skill or just a lot of time and patience.
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!: In the 3D All Stars re-release, the controls are slightly modified to be accustomed for Switch such as A/X or B/Y functioning as the N64's A/B. When the game was added to Nintendo Switch Online, the controls are set to be identical to N64's with X/Y being the C-stick directions and A/B matching the original buttons to make Mario jump and punch.
• Dead Character Walking:
  • You can have this if a cheat code for floating is used, and Mario dies, as long as the death animation is not completed before the float is used again.
  • There's also a non-cheating method involving having your death blow knock you into a cannon. You can launch out of the cannon and won't die unless you touch the ground (grabbing onto a tree also counts as touching the ground). If you're wearing the Wing Cap, you can even fly around as a zombie!
• Deadly Gas: The haze of Hazy Maze Cave decreases your health if you go under it.
• Death Mountain: Tall, Tall Mountain, which is full of enemies and a wind cloud that is exclusive to this level.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: When Mario loses all of his health, it just throws him outside of a painting and he has to play the level again, with no other consequences aside from losing a 1-up. Lethal Lava Land and Shifting Sand Land are even generous enough to put you right back inside their sub-level if you lost a life inside them and you select those levels again right away (although subverted if you're trying to get 100 coins, as it resets that counter). The Bowser levels also put you back just outside the entrance to his arenas if you lose a fight against him. Getting a Game Over subverts this by kicking you back to the title screen, but even then, it doesn't take long to get back to where you were (unless you got a Game Over on a Bowser fight, in which case, have fun going through the entire Bowser level again).
• Demoted to Extra: Yoshi appears only in a cameo on top of the castle once the player has obtained 120 stars. Luigi doesn't even get that much, being Put on a Bus entirely.
• The Determinator: If you steal a Koopa's shell and ride on it and avoid killing the Koopa, it will go out of its way to try and chase you, even if you slide all the way up the mountain in Tiny-Huge Island (the Koopa isn't programmed to follow the slope physics Mario is bound to, so it can chase right after you unfettered)—unfortunately for it, it can't jump and if it does dive into Mario, it'll be killed instantly.
• Developer's Foresight:
  • If Mario gets a star and exits a level without his hat, a special animation will play where he will briefly look for his hat and then shrug off its disappearance.
  • If Mario grabs a crazy block, but it gets obstructed by an enemy that keeps it from bouncing (i.e. a Bob-omb), the block will vanish in a puff and leave you no coins.
  • Glitching your way out of level boundaries will result in instant death for Mario.
  • Attempting to jump and dive within the presence of the baby penguins in Cool, Cool Mountain will cause said baby penguin to imitate Mario.
  • After delivering the baby penguin to its mother in Cool, Cool Mountain, if you were to pick up the baby penguin again, the mother will chase you with a displeased look on her face.
  • If you grab the basement key and try to use it on the upstairs door, you get a special message acknowledging it:
    This key doesn't fit! Maybe it's for the basement...
  • Although it's impossible without glitches (and in some levels impossible even with them), if the player obtains 1000 or more coins in a single level, the number of coins will be capped at 999, except in the Japanese version of the game (where a typo in the code results in your lives being set to 999 instead).
  • Most enemies and objects that are never normally found underwater have odd behavior when forced underwater (usually standing still and floating to the surface), but Monty Moles specifically will try to swim if forced underwater via hacking or other methods. Emphasis on try, since they still float to the surface.
• Dizzy Spinning Vulnerability: Inverted. Mr I. is a giant eyeball that will become dizzy and die if Mario runs a complete circle around it.
• Double-Edged Buff: The Metal Cap temporarily turns Mario into Metal Mario, turning him invincible but making him unable to jump as good or swim at all, and making him sink faster in quicksand.
• Down the Drain: Wet-Dry World, which partly takes place in a flooded city.
• Dub Name Change:
  • While not the first English game to call the princess by her Japanese name Peach instead of Toadstool (Yoshi's Safari being the first), it is certainly the most iconic, notably easing players into the transition by using both names in the intro.
  • Most of the course names were changed in the English version, even though some were in English already (such as Dire, Dire Docks, which was originally "Water Land"). The only ones that remained the same were Snowman's Land and Tick Tock Clock. Interestingly, while "Rainbow Cruise" was renamed Rainbow Ride, the Super Smash Bros. Melee stage based upon it uses the original name.
  • Minor example, but the coins (including the colored ones) are referred to as "Star Coins" (and "Color Star Coins") in the Japanese version.
• Dub Personality Change: The German translation took some interesting liberties with some character's personalities and motivations.
  • The Whomp King's motivation was completely changed. Instead of complaining that nobody appreciates his work and wanting to smash Mario as punishment, he claims that he is merely angry and has back pain. Therefore, he isn't actually defeated, but rather Mario "cures" him from his back pain, and the Whomp King gives Mario the star out of gratitude. This was changed in the remake and other appearances of Whomp's Fortress.
  • The penguin mother in Cool Cool Mountain, if you bring her the wrong baby. In the English version, she is also concerned for the other baby, simply stating that the baby doesn't look like her and their parents must be worried too. In the German version, she instead says something like "What should I do with this brat? My baby is way cuter! Get him out of here!"
  • The small Boos in Big Boo's Haunt qualify as well. In the English version, they taunt Mario and ask whether he can get out of the villa alive. In the German version, they are a lot whinier instead, crying out that they will "tell their big brother" so that he will beat up Mario in their stead.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference:
  • The Cheep Chomp in Tiny-Huge Island has sunglasses in the original compared to how it would later look like Boss Bass/Big Cheep in the DS remake before its definitive look from New Super Mario Bros. onwards.
  • Dorrie's design is much more monster-like than in later games, and he lacks his signature goggles. His modern design would be introduced in the DS remake.
  • The Tox Box has a very industrial-esque design, with spraypainted faces, riveted metal sides, and caution tape marking its safe hole. Starting with Super Mario Galaxy they'd change to a more Thwomp-like design, with carved stone faces and pronounced eyebrows.
  • This game marks the first 3D appearance of Thwomps — and here they're blue cuboids with flat sides, rather than the spiky-edged rectangles of most 2D Mario games or the cylindrical look of Super Mario Kart. This would be their defining look until later games reverted them back to spiky-edged rectangles.
  • Bomps (here known as "Moving Bars") are either pairs of cartoon eyes attached to moving walls in Whomp's Fortress, or the faceless pegs from Tick Tock Clock. They got a Tox Box-like redesign to make them resemble Thwomps starting with Super Mario Galaxy.
  • The Scuttlebugs in this game have spherical bodies made with marbled red-and-yellow perlin noise, thin stick-like arms, and exaggeratedly bulging eyes. Later games starting with New Super Mario Bros. changed them to have a striped yellow-and-dark-purple bodies with thicker arms and smaller eyes.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Since it's the first Mario 3D platformer, this was a given.
  • The game is, to date, the only 3D game where the oxygen meter (for swimming) and the health meter are one and same. All future games would either have it as a separate meter or allow Mario to stay underwater indefinitely ala the 2D side-scroller titles. As a result of this, Mario can fully restore his health simply by jumping into water and coming up for air.
  • The game was more non-linear. While a certain amount of stars are needed to access the game's later courses, and while you could select a particular star to pursue within the courses, the game would generally not actively prevent you from going after other stars. Selecting certain stars would sometimes make changes to the world that makes a star accessible or inaccessible, but you could otherwise get most of the stars in a course in any order. Starting with Super Mario Sunshine, whatever mission was picked had to be done, and could not be bypassed (save for the occasional courses with secret stars in them). It would take until Super Mario Odyssey, 21 years after Super Mario 64, for a 3D Mario game to do this again. In addition, the star missions in Mario 64 lack introductory cutscenes, which renders their locations less obvious (bar, at times, the missions' titles).
  • The 100-coin star could be collected without having to leave the level, meaning you could get the 100-coin star and another star in the same run. In Super Mario Sunshine, you had to leave after collecting the 100-coin Shine Sprite, as it would end the level the same way a regular star/shine mission would. The Galaxy games make the 100-coin star an actual mission and used purple coins instead of the yellow ones used in 64 and Sunshine.
  • Mario does not have a companion join him in this game, unlike Sunshine (F.L.U.D.D.), Galaxy (Luma), Odyssey (Cappy), or Bowser's Fury (Bowser Jr.). Because of this, his main attack methods are simply punching or diving. Likewise, some of Mario's moves from this game are missing in later ones, most notably the ability to punch and other physical attacks on command. In later 3D games, Mario's only base attack is a Goomba Stomp without the aid of a companion in his moveset or a power-up drawn from the 2D games.
  • The game has a much lonelier and somewhat more oppressive atmosphere than later 3D platformers in the series, much of it owing to 64's status as a Tech-Demo Game released early in the N64's life. Friendly NPCs are few and far between, and many stages have none at all—most other characters you'll run into are enemies, of which only a handful have any dialogue. Luigi also has absolutely no appearance whatsoever, where in later 3D games (and RPGs) he would at least have a token appearance as an NPC if he wasn't playable^note Sunshine is an exception to this, with the implication that Luigi is taking a break after the events of Luigi's Mansion. The level designs are smaller and less open (Peach's castle is rather cramped, and a stage claimed to be a "bay" is fully enclosed by rock walls), and they tend to be more serious and down-to-earth in design compared to the wacky cartoon lands of later games; Big Boo's Haunt is notable for playing its horror elements dead straight, as opposed to later games which usually rely on Defanged Horrors.
  • The stained glass window on Peach's Castle depicting the princess herself has become a staple of the iconic castle. In this game, however, it's heavily implied that Peach herself is trapped in the stained glass by showing her emerging from it in the ending rather than just having her likeness being part of it (though it still remains on the window anyway).
  • 64 is one of only two 3D Mario games that contains fall damage, the other being the followup game, Super Mario Sunshine. This would be dropped in every succeeding game.
  • The game features pegs that can be ground-pounded into the ground...but doing so offers no rewards, and you're supposed to run circles around them, like with some enemies, to make coins pop out. From Super Mario Sunshine and 64 DS onward, pounding pegs down is a rewarded action and is the only way to get items from them, and the mechanic of running tight circles around enemies or objects to achieve a result never showed up again.
  • In the English localization, the star "Wall Kicks Will Work" displays some terminology that didn't stick around. While 64 introduced Mario's move of propelling from a wall in midair to ascend vertical wall segments, the name of the move would be firmly cemented in games and in the fan lexicon later on as the Wall Jump, with the term "wall kick" not being used in the future.
  • Some text in the game imply that Mario himself gets stronger the more Power Stars he collects, which comes off as an Informed Attribute since Super Mario platforming games never have any sort of permanent upgrades. At the very least, he is using more star power to unlock doors. Later games make it clear he is fueling either a ship or some other monument with the stars.
• Easter Egg:
  • In Bowser in the Sky, the pillars near the pipe depict Mario fighting Bowser if you look closely.
  • Jumping at the edge of any body of water (including the basement) will sometimes cause a fish to jump out of the water.
  • When going to the mission "Big Penguin Race" after getting 120 power stars, the racing penguin will appear very fat, and is harder as a result. Winning this race is just a Bragging Rights Reward, as the racing penguin does not give Mario anything after winning.
    Big Penguin: Mario! What's up, pal? I haven't been on the slide lately, so I'm out of shape. Still, I'm always up for a good race, especially against an old sleddin' buddy.
  • In the Japanese Shindou Pak Taiou Version (an update that includes the changes to the international version and a few other bug fixes; this version is what's used as the basis for the 3D All-Stars release), pressing Z on the "Press Start" screen fills the background with images of Mario's face.
  • Your first trip through Bob-omb Battlefield has you encounter two Big Steelies in a dirt hole. Later stars have a third Big Steely in the hole, implied by a piece of in-game dialogue from a Bob-omb Buddy to be the remains of the Big Bob-omb (this was removed in the DS version, which only has two Big Steelies regardless of which star you're playing).
    Bob-omb Buddy: Thank you, Mario! The Big Bob-omb is nothing but a big dud now!
• Easy Level Trick: The third star of Shifting Sand Land requires traversing through the pyramid inside to reach the top. If you instead enter from the top after standing on the four pillars, the platform descending will be close enough to reach it, requiring a timed jump.
• Emergent Gameplay: The open-ended nature of the game's structure has made it very interesting to speedrunners, since it allows them to devise and test alternative routes and methods of getting through them, intended or not, through the game. This is undoubtably a reason why the game is still widely popular, with bugs still being discovered that allow for new challenges or Sequence Breaking tricks.
• Endless Corridor: If you don't have enough stars to face Bowser in the final battle, you'll be doomed to walk up forever; there is a bug, however, where you can reach the end of the stairs without enough stars if you can boost Mario's speed high enough. Strangely enough, no matter how far up you go, walking back down is always a very short trip.
• Eternal Engine: Tick Tock Clock takes place inside of a clock, with a lot of machinery such as gears and pendulums. You can change and even stop the speed of the gears depending on what time the clock is at when you jump in.
• Everything's Better with Rainbows: Inverted, as Rainbow Ride and Mario Over the Rainbow are the hardest levels in the game. Bowser also gets something of a bizarre rainbow colored filter on his character model when fought in Bowser in the Sky.
• Exact Words: A sign in Hazy Maze Cave states that wearing the Metal Cap will prevent damage from fire and enemies, and remove the need to breathe (making you immune to drowning and toxic gases). Metal Mario can still die to Falling Damage, which is not mentioned on this sign, contradicting the message when you press the Metal Cap switch, which states that Metal Mario is invincible.
• Excited Title! Two-Part Episode Name!: There's a star named "Express Elevator—Hurry Up!". Though it's played a little more straight in its Japanese name, "Hurry Up! Elevator Inside the Net".
• Excuse Plot: Peach has been kidnapped again and Bowser has stolen the castle's magic stars. Go after him!
• Faceless Eye: The Mr. I enemies that Mario meets starting with Big Boo's Haunt have no faces and are just giant, floating eyeballs.
• Fake Difficulty: The then-impressive, now-horribly-outdated camera controls often cause invokedEvent-Obscuring Camera moments that makes platforming much more difficult than it would be normally. The camera often just refuses to control how you want it to and constantly screws itself, causing frequent depth perception issues, making it difficult to discern where to jump to, and the camera suddenly reorienting itself will cause you to move/jump in a direction you didn't intend, potentially off whatever platform you were on and off into your death. Tick Tock Clock is especially notorious for how much it breaks the camera.
• Fake Longevity: Every time you find a power star (with the exception of the 100-coin stars), you are booted out of the level back to the hub world. This can be either a blessing or a curse depending on the level design.
• Falling Damage: Unusual for a Mario game. Whenever Mario falls from too great a height, he loses health; four hit points at the most. However, ground pounding or diving shortly before impact (and only before that, never from any higher) negates this completely. Notably, even Metal Mario can die this way.
• Feet-First Introduction: Bowser gets one in all three of his fights.
• Fetch Quest: The Li'l Penguin Lost mission in Cool, Cool Mountain requires Mario finding a baby penguin and bringing it back to the mother.
• Fictional Painting: Most of the paintings in Princess Peach's castle are entrances to worlds in Mushroom Kingdom, where Mario has to recover the stars and save the princess from Bowser.
• Fish Eyes: At one point on the title screen, Mario very briefly goes like this when looking at two tiny stars at once.
• Flame Spewer Obstacle: There are flame emitters in some areas, acting as a hazard.
• Flipping Helpless: Whenever Mario or his friends defeat him by throwing him into a bomb, Bowser lands on his shell and groans in exhaustion in the original version, and helplessly flaps his arms and legs in the DS version. Bowser realizes there's nothing else he can do and promptly escapes while leaving behind a special key or the Giant Star.
• Floating Continent:
  • Whomp's Fortress, Cool Cool Mountain, Tall Tall Mountain, and Tiny Huge Island all appear to be floating, and it is possible to fall off into the endless abyss. There's also the random floating island in Bob-omb Battlefield.
  • The levels all have a definite end; for instance, Shifting Sand Land is actually an island floating above the Egyptian desert (hence the distant pyramids), and outside the birdcage in Big Boo's Haunt.
• Flying Books: A few violent ones show up in Big Boo's Haunt, called Bookends.
• Follow the White Rabbit: There are two instances where you must chase and catch a rabbit in order to obtain two of the power stars. The rabbit in question even mentions that he's late. In the DS remake, there are multiple rabbits running about the castle colored like the character who must catch them who give out keys to the game room; and one of the stars is found by capturing all seven randomly-appearing white rabbits.
• Forced Perspective: The room where Tiny-Huge Island can be accessed has three hallways with the Goomba painting at the end of each. Looking down into the hallways, one would think they're identical; however, only the front hallway is normal-sized (and its painting cannot be entered), with the left only being a few steps long and its small painting taking you to the tiny version of the level, and the right hallway being several long-jumps in length, with a gigantic painting taking you to the huge version.
• Franchise Codifier: Making its debut on (and being the launch title for) Nintendo's first foray into three-dimensional hardware, the game introduced full 3D environments and created the Collect-a-Thon Platformer Sub-Genre, which has primarily defined the 3D portion of the franchise. Standing in for level goals are Plot Coupons whose collection marks their missions as complete, and standing in for a world map is a Hub Level that grants access to all general levels as well as certain hidden bonus levels. And save for Sunshine, it also became common to face Bowser more than once over the course of the adventure. Finally, while this wasn't the first time Charles Martinet voiced Mario, it did establish him as Mario's voice in all video games to come until his retirement in 2023.
• Freelook Button: Zooming in enough on the C^ button does this.
• Free Rotating Camera: Using the C buttons does the rotation & zoom. This game has been certified as the Trope Maker.
• Frigid Water Is Harmless: Averted. Swimming in the water in Snowman's Land will quickly drain your power meter, even if you're above water.
• Futile Hand Reach: Mario does one if he is laying on his back as he dies.
• Fuzzball Spider: The Scuttlebug enemy is depicted as just a sphere with eyes, pincers, and four thin legs on it. All later games, including the DS remake, depict it as more similar to actual spiders.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Due to being an early 3D game and having numerous glitches and design oversights, there are many ways to mess up the game:
  • It's actually possible to crash the game just by messing around with the file select screen.
  • In Bob-omb Battlefield, if you sandwich Mario underneath the level's first bridge and a cork block, the game will crash.
  • For some reason, Big Boo's Haunt has a glitch in the room that lets you fall down to the basement that causes the game to crash if you're up against a wall and fall in a certain way.
  • If you are unfortunate enough to fill the 100 coins on one of the two slide side-areas (Cool Cool Mountain and Tall Tall Mountain), the star will spawn above your head as usual, but you cannot grab it due to the sliding downwards movement. And once you exit the side area and return, the star will be gone, forcing you to leave the level and collect the 100 coins all over again. Better start with the slide before you do anything else.
  • In Tall, Tall Mountain, if you let the Monty Moles throw too many pebbles with Mario standing nearby, the game will run out of memory and crash. This is due to a design oversight—pebbles deactivate when they are more than 4000 units away from Mario. Hence, a deactivated pebble won't hit the ground and unload, but instead just remain invisible and unmoving in midair. So by having Monty Moles continually throw pebbles off the edge, the pebbles will keep loading into object slots but never unload. Since the game only has 240 object slots give-or-take, eventually all the slots become occupied and the game crashes.
  • Due to some oddities in collision, grabbing a star in the exact wrong place can softlock the game by getting Mario stuck in an endless ledge-grab. In practice, this only occurs with 100-coin stars, which spawn just above Mario's head when he collects enough coins—this bug may have been a factor in Super Mario Sunshine changing 100-coin Shine Sprites to spawn in a predetermined position.
  • Due to a bug with floor collision detection, the fireplace in Rainbow Ride blocks passage infinitely above it, even outside the house. Sliding into this invisible "chimney" will get Mario inescapably stuck, as the game will think he's in a ceiling, and none of the actions he can take while sliding will let him move out of it—and you can't exit the course while sliding, either.
• Gangplank Galleon: Jolly Roger Bay is a water level that takes place on a sea shore and has a ship, though it's far calmer than most examples of this trope, as the pirates have long since left.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Snufit is a ghostly cousin of the Snifits which still wear their gas masks even after dying. They appear in Hazy Maze Cave and the Metal Cap course.
• Ghost Ship: The sunken ship in Jolly Roger Bay.
• Giant Mook: The Big Goombas make their return, appearing in Tiny-Huge Island's "Huge" side, and fight the same way as Goombas, but if Ground Pounded, they yield a Blue Coin compared to a Coin if defeated by a stomp. In addition, the game also introduces the Big Fire Piranha Plants, which also appear in Tiny-Huge Island's "Huge" side and the Big Bullies, which appear in Lethal Lava Land as 2 boss fights.
• Go for the Eye: Eyerok's weak spot is when his stone hands open their eyes.
• Goomba Stomp: Per Mario tradition, you can beat most enemies by jumping on them, but you have the option of punching or kicking them instead (and throwing them on occasion, too). The Goomba Springboard does not work in this game (unless you Long Jump onto an enemy, but it's not very useful), but the triple jump move would have made it superfluous anyway.
• Gotta Catch Them All:
  • The Power Stars. You only need 70 of them to face the final boss, but collecting all 120 of them does give you a reward for doing so.
  • It's also the Trope Codifier for the "collect-a-thon" game. The British game developer Rare would later embrace this to massive levels, as seen in Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64. Unlike those games, there are only four things total to collect (Power Stars for health, Coins, Red Coins, and the three Caps), and only the Stars are mandatory. All of the Red and 100 Coin Stars, as well as the caps and their stars, can be skipped if you desire. It's even possible, if difficult, to beat the game without grabbing any coins.
• Graceful Loser: Surprisingly, Bowser; following his final defeat, he invites his troops to watch the ending with him.
• Gratuitous Italian: In the French version, "Ciao bello!" is spoken twice, once at the very start of the game, and once by Big Boo in a line of deleted dialogue.
• Green Hill Zone: Bob-omb Battlefield is a grassy plain which has no bottomless pits, nor any water in which Mario can drown.
• Ground Pound: This is the first game in which Mario himself has this ability (previously, Yoshi had it in Yoshi's Island and Wario had it in Wario Land).
• Guerrilla Boulders: In Bob-omb Battlefield, you travel up a spiral mountain which giant boulders constantly roll down. When you reach the top of the mountain, you see that the boulders are coming out of its side... but not with any explanation or way to stop it.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • While this game is pretty good about making the stars relatively intuitive to find, the second star on the slide bonus course is only vaguely hinted at on a sign near the start ("If you slide really fast, you'll win the Star!"), and even then it could well be mistaken as just a bit of throwaway text about the first star on that course. Combined with the fact that the best way to meet the time required to spawn the star is to do a flying leap to skip half the course makes it that much worse.
  • The game gives you no hint that running around tall wooden stumps five times will spawn five extra coins for you, which is crucial for getting the 100 coin stars. You'd think you're supposed to ground-pound them, and you can, but it gives you nothing. The closest thing is a sign in the large part of Tiny-Huge Island, but it's located on a very small island that isn't easy to reach, and the sign itself only gives an oblique hint; it discusses the player getting dizzy from running around the post and the sign deflects responsibility for such an event. The DS remake allows you to just get the coins by ground-pounding as well, which has followed in later games as the main and often only way to interact with stumps or pegs and get items from them.
  • Whomp's Fortress, an otherwise straightforward level, has a very well-hidden star that, unless you're aware of it ahead of time, can only be found by trial and error. It's hidden in a breakable piece at the tip of a thin brick wall that you have to launch Mario into via cannon—and it looks no different than any other piece of scenery in the level. While the name of the star's goal is "Blast Away the Wall", finding out which wall to blast at, and which specific part, is completely left to the player to find out.
  • The secret star inside the pyramid of Shifting Sand Land. Even when you know where to find the five secrets to reveal it, it's still tricky due to the quicksand that stunts your jumping, and the others are on small floating platforms that are very easy to fall off or miss.
  • The Tower of the Wing Cap. The entrance is hidden in the castle hall and your only hint towards its existence is the spotlight in the middle of the room. Unlike other levels, you don't enter it by jumping in, but by zooming in with the camera and looking up.
  • Hazy Maze Cave has two notoriously vague Star titles. The first, "Metal Head Mario Can Move!," doesn't give any indication as to what you're supposed to do beyond putting on a Metal Cap, and those are found at nearly every point in the level, including right at the start. You're supposed to use it to activate an underwater switch in Dorrie's cavern, but it's possible to completely miss that switch while exploring the cave for the first time. The second, "Watch for Rolling Rocks," tells you that the Star is hidden somewhere in the corridor where you find giant boulders—but there aren't clues as to what you're meant to do or where it might be. You're meant to Wall Kick near the door to the Underground Lake and discover a hidden platform above you, but the camera seems designed to ensure that you don't notice that platform unless you're already looking for it.
  • "Wall Kicks Will Work" from Cool, Cool Mountain doesn't tell you where those Wall Kicks are going to work. It's possible to figure it out by process of elimination—as it's the last Star, the only area left to explore is at the very bottom of the mountain—but even then it's a stretch.
  • "Five Itty Bitty Secrets" in Tiny-Huge Island, which requires Mario to walk over five specific spots on the island, which aren't marked or hinted at in any way. You just have to wander around aimlessly and hope you stumble upon them.
  • A recurring game mechanic is warp points, where standing still in certain spots in certain levels fades Mario out and he reappears somewhere else in the open map. These warps aren't necessary at any point, but the game still does a poor job of alerting the player to them, and there are no unique signifiers of where a warp point is should a player explore a level in search of them.
  • Good luck finding Tall Tall Mountain or Shifting Sand Land on your own.
• Hammered into the Ground: Whenever Mario falls from a great height into sand or snow, he'll get buried halfway and has to pull himself out.
• Hard Levels, Easy Bosses: The levels aren't exactly difficult, but with the exception of the final Bowser fight, the boss fights are all very simplistic and borderline Zero Effort Bosses, whereas the levels can have some legitimately tricky platforming and it's fairly easy to die in most levels.
• Harmless Enemy: Koopa Troopas are completely incapable of damaging Mario in this game. Micro/Mini Goombas will also not damage him, but their death could also push him off a cliff.
• Hat of Flight: The Wing Cap grants you flight.
• Heal It with Water: Mario's health meter is also his Oxygen Meter. If Mario is low on health, he can jump into a body of water and rise to the surface to refill his health meter to its full extent.
• Healthy Green, Harmful Red: Mario's life meter is indicated as a pie chart-like circle, segmented into 4 quadrants or 8 fractions: sky blue for full (4/4), then light green for 3/4, yellow for 1/2, and red for 1/4.
• Helpful Mook: Koopa Troopas. They can't even hurt Mario, in fact they run away from him, and you can ride their shell after defeating them. They make Goombas look like super soldiers.
• Hidden in Plain Sight:
  • Princess Peach's hiding place is visible as soon as you start the game, though you can't access it. She's trapped in the castle's stained-glass window.
  • This trope is used throughout several courses in the game. Often, you'll seen a tantalizing Star just out of reach: Bob-omb Battlefield has one right behind Chain Chomp's gate, there's one floating on a small island in Whomp's Fortress, Hazy Maze Cave has one visible through an impassable wall and another on a high platform...nine times out of ten, the trick is figuring out how to get to the Star in the first place.
• Hitbox Dissonance: The game has very strange usage of hitboxes regarding objects, NPCs and enemies.
  • Mario's hitbox is actually a cylinder which is slightly smaller than his body and extends slightly above and below him.
  • Wiggler's hitbox is a squat cylinder that only covers half of his body and head.
  • Klepto's hitbox is far larger than his body would give you the impression of—like with Wiggler, it's a large cylinder, only it extends way out from his body and doesn't even cover his head at all.
  • Pokey's hitboxes reach up to the bottom of their heads rather than the top as one would expect.
  • The hitbox for coins are very wide compared to their actual size, making it much easier to grab them on the ground, though this can become an issue when flying because it doesn't extend anywhere above or below the coins.
  • The big penguin's hitboxes is a very thin cylinder, much smaller than their character models.
  • Amps oddly have their hitbox located below their model, meaning they can fry Mario even when he's crouching below them, but Mario can jump right above or through them just fine.
  • The bombs in the Bowser fights have shockingly tiny hitboxes, being located in the dead center of each one.
  • The Bowser Keys hitbox is located right at the bottom of the key model.
  • Chain Chomp's character model is likewise much smaller than its imposingly large body.
  • The hitboxes for Eyerok's hands are interesting because they change between large or thin cubes depending on the state of their action.
  • Unagi's hitboxes only stick to the center of where its body would be if it wasn't moving, and doesn't extend to the parts that are in motion.
  • Rainbow Ride's magic carpets have completely flat hitboxes—the animation of it rippling is just for show and doesn't affect Mario at all.
  • Big Boo's hitbox is much wider than its size (and shrinks and grows depending on its current state), jutting far out from its body. This allows Mario to hurt it without even directly touching it. Oddly, the top part of it isn't covered by the hitbox.
  • Bullet Bill's hitbox is very tiny, allowing Mario to jump right through it if the timing is right.
  • The underwater rings in the game (such as the ones left behind by a Manta Ray in Dire, Dire Docks) have their hitboxes located in the center of the rings and are quite small—it's possible to go through it and still not count as passing through if you don't touch the hitbox.
  • Cap Switches have a large cube shaped hitbox that extends far out from their model.
  • The pillars near the "Shoot to the Wild Blue" star have misaligned hitboxes, allowing Mario to clip through one side of them while being unable to get near the other side of them.
• Hub Level: Princess Peach's Castle and the surrounding grounds, which is often cited as the Trope Codifier. Not only can you access all 15 main worlds from the castle's interior, but the castle itself also has 15 stars of its own, some of which involve navigating through bonus levels.
• Huge Rider, Tiny Mount: Mario and Hoot the owl who carries him around at Whomp's Fortress.
• Human Cannonball: Various levels contain cannons that Mario can be shot out of. This is actually the game that introduced travelling by cannon to the Mario series, which would quickly become a series staple.
• Human Hammer-Throw: Mario's way of fighting Bowser.
• Hypocrite: If one uses a cannon or the Wing Cap against Koopa the Quick, he'll refuse to give them his star, saying that they cheated... yet he himself isn't opposed to cheating. However, he won't complain about the player using the warps.
• Idle Animation:
  • Mario goes to sleep and eventually dreams about pasta. The latter is only in the North American, European and Australian versions.
  • In snow courses (and Wing Mario Over the Rainbow for whatever reason), he shivers and rubs his hands together.
  • Mario and some other characters can blink while idling or moving. The game uses five different methods to determine this, ranging from fixed timers to randomized ones. This results in quirks like Mario and Peach specifically blinking in alternated times, Koopa the Quick blinking the most often of all characters and all penguins blinking simultaneously even if the game is paused.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Some course names in the German version are these. Literally translated: Pirate Bay Panic (Jolly Roger Bay), Frostbite Frustration (Snowman's Land), Fly Agaric Fiasco (Tall Tall Mountain), and Tick Tock Trauma (Tick Tock Clock).
• Illusory Wall: The portal to Shifting Sand Land appears to be a brick wall at first glance.
• Instant Armor: The metal cap/green block gives Mario (Wario in the DS remake) a metal skin that makes them heavy, but also damage-resistant.
• Instructive Level Design: The castle grounds are designed to show you almost all of the basics of the game and let you practice them in a safe environment. In fact, the opening cutscene specifically draws attention to the underwater door and grate in the castle moat, immediately tipping you off that there's going to be branching paths and secrets in this game.
• Interactive Start Up: On the start menu, the player can stretch Mario's face around. This was intended to help new players get used to using the Nintendo 64's controller.
• In-Universe Camera: The Lakitu Bros., controlled with the C buttons. This Camera Crew created a Camera Screw.
• Invincibility Power-Up:
  • Both the Metal and Vanish Cap make Mario immune to damage (except for high falls). The Metal Cap has an added bonus of keeping Mario from drowning underwater.
  • Riding a Koopa Shell will also make you invincible, even protecting you from high falls. Its only weakness is walls—bopping face-first into any, no matter what speed you're going, will destroy it (but riding alongside a wall, such as the narrow wooden ledge in Tiny-Huge Island, will be OK if you move slowly and carefully).
• Invincible Minor Minion:
  • The Water Bombs in Bob-omb Battlefield. They are hurled from the sky, chase you around for two jumps and then dissipate. You have no means of directly harming them though.
  • The Mr. Blizzard snowmen in Cool, Cool, Mountain and Snowman's Land can be defeated by running tight circles around them and making them dizzy, but there are two specific Mr. Blizzards in Cool, Cool Mountain programmed with entirely separate behavior. While most pop out of the snow and rotate on their point to throw snowballs at you, the unusual two in Cool, Cool Mountain are mobile, and the only thing they do is hop across a thin suspended bridge where you can't pass them and have to let them jump over you to cross the bridge. The hopping Mr. Blizzards offer no way of defeating them at all. The DS remake makes Yoshi's eggs, Yoshi's fire breath, and Wario's punch able to dispatch them, but Mario still has no way to beat them.
  • The flame throwers, the tiny black balls that spit fire at you (which look like Flame Chomps in 64 DS).
  • The Heave Ho enemies, a rare enemy that only appears in Wet-Dry World and Tick Tock Clock. They can't directly harm Mario unless you let them hurl him high into the air, but they're completely invincible to Mario's attacks.
  • Bubba (Cheep Chomp in the remake), a giant Cheep-Cheep that only shows up in the large section of Tiny-Huge Island. While he moves slowly, he can kill you instantly if he swallows you, and it's absolutely impossible to kill him.
  • The infamous "Mystery Goomba" in Bowser in the Sky, a Goomba that accidentally spawns out of bounds on the level's death barrier (Goombas are programmed to appear in groups of three, and the platform they're on is just too narrow, making one of them spawn off of it). The Goomba is absolutely impossible to reach or kill, even with hacking or every glitch exploitation and TAS trick in the book. Even the legendary Mario 64 player pannenkoek2012 hasn't been able to find a way to reach it.
• Invisible Wall:
  • Trying to leave the boundaries of the levels will cause Mario to seemingly hit invisible walls that halt his step. There is even a sign calling the "invisible walls" out by name in Bob-omb Battlefield. The game's manual gives the in-universe explanation that the "walls" are the borders of the magical paintings containing the worlds.
  • At the entrance to Bowser in the Dark World, even if you expect the Trap Door coming, there's an invisible wall to make you fall in it anyway, restricting you from getting to the other side.
  • Due to a handful of recurring bugs, there are myriad invisible walls scattered throughout the game that aren't supposed to exist.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: In the manual introduction, Mario remarks this when he enters the castle just before Bowser reveals himself.
• It's the Journey That Counts: The way Mario pauses and looks up at the sky in the end before going back into the castle with Peach and two Toads seems to imply this.
• I Was Told There Would Be Cake: Mario's entire motivation for coming to the castle in the first place. You get the cake in the end as thanks.
• Jolly Roger: The third course in the game is called "Jolly Roger Bay" and is set in a large lake with a sunken ship. There is also a box with the image of the flag.
• Jump Physics: The game takes the original Mario jump physics and logically transitions them into the third dimension—Mario can still do his standard jump and hold his momentum as he moves in air or lands on the ground (allowing him to wall jump and do flips, in addition to his triple jump) and you still have some control of his movement as he's in mid-air. Curiously, Mario has a startling amount of control over his Long Jump, allowing him to keep going backwards without losing momentum if he uses it over and over (which in turn allows the famous "Backwards Long Jump" glitch to work). Mario takes fall damage when he falls from a certain height now, but you can negate the damaging momentum by doing a ground pound in mid-air (although this sacrifices whatever air control you had at the moment).
• Jump Scare:
  • The hallway leading to Bowser in the Dark World features a portrait at the end of Peach, with an expression that grows increasingly frightened as you approach. At the last moment, the portrait changes to one of Bowser and you get dumped into a Trap Door with no warning.
  • The Mad Piano in Big Boo's Haunt is stationary until the player walks close to it, at which point it will suddenly start chasing them with the piano keys thudding loudly.
• Justified Tutorial: Other than a few boxes of text at the start, the player is never forced to do a tutorial. Fortunately, the castle grounds and hub allow you to play around and get accustomed to the game's controls. There are also many (completely optional) signs scattered around them to give advice on the mechanics of the game.
• King Mook:
  • Every boss that isn't Eyerok, Wiggler, or Bowser.
  • And Wiggler is a mook in other Mario games, and only isn't one here because you're tiny when you face him.
  • Big Boo's Haunt has four King Mooks holding stars out of the seven in that world (three Big Boos in increasingly difficult terrain, and a giant Mr. I that requires the invisibility cap to reach). The remake even adds to this already impressive number by adding in King Boo in a new section.
• Lava Surfing: Mario can use a Koopa Shell to surf on lava.
• Law of 100: Grabbing 100 coins nets you a Star! Also, after collecting one of the six main stars, an extra life is awarded for every 50, 100, and 150 coins collected.
• Lethal Lava Land: Trope Namer. Also applies to the second Bowser course, Bowser In The Fire Sea, which is at the end of the section of the castle where you can enter Lethal Lava Land.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: The Game Over music consists of a section from the Bob-Omb Battlefield theme that deflates before stopping entirely. Then the title music starts back up again.
• Level in the Clouds: Rainbow Ride and a couple of bonus levels. Much of Rainbow Ride can be accessed while boarding a flying carpet railroaded by a rainbow, though Mario still has to keep an eye on any obstacles the carpet is approaching. The first sky bonus level is notable for enabling the use of the Wing Cap in the other levels in the game, while the second is infamous for forcing Mario to trek all the way back up through the castle if he falls down (instead of simply making him lose a life, putting him right outside the course).
• Level of Tedious Enemies:
  • Lethal Lava Land features a level filled with lava. Platforming isn't too difficult on its own, and there are coins a-plenty to heal up from damage, but it would be a lot easier if the Bully enemies weren't trying to shove Mario into said lava, draining 3/8 of his health bar and sending him scurrying around with his butt on fire.
  • Wet-Dry World is a level featuring multiple levels that has Mario raise and lower the water level depending on several crystals he can touch. The level is filled with Amps and Keronpa Balls to zone the player away from things, but also with Chuckyas and Heave-Hos, whose job it is to fling Mario all over the place if he gets grabbed or stays still. The Heave-Hos are actually somewhat required for level traversal, but the Chuckyas will do their best to erase whatever progress Mario has made by flinging him away from the land and into the water whenever they can.
• Levels Take Flight: Rainbow Ride, an assortment of odd floating structures way up high. Much of the level involves riding on the set paths of magic carpets, struggling not to fall from hitting the obstacles in the way.
• Lone Wolf Boss: The Wiggler in Tiny-Huge Island. He doesn't seem to be affiliated with Bowser, only being driven mad by the Power Star he acquired by chance. Once Mario beats some sense into him, he calms down, gives Mario the star, and heads off.
• Macro Zone: The Huge version of Tiny-Huge Island.
• Magic Carpet: Many areas of the Rainbow Ride stage are accessed by riding flying carpets that are railed via rainbows. During the transport, Mario has to jump onto obstacles and dodge flames, as both can potentially make him fall down.
• The Many Deaths of You: Losing all of your health, getting sucked into quicksand in Shifting Sand Land, getting caught in the whirlpool in the first room of Dire, Dire Docks, or getting devoured by Cheep Chomp in Tiny-Huge Island will lead to Bowser laughing at you, while falling into a Bottomless Pit will simply have Mario screaming before being forced out of the level with one less life.
• Marathon Level: "Tick Tock Clock" and "Rainbow Ride" are the longest levels in the entire game—the former for just how tall and elaborate it is, the latter because it has three long branching routes that command precision platforming, and your main means of getting around is using very sluggish flying carpets.
• The Maze: Hazy Maze Cave, naturally (although the maze is only a small portion of the overall level).
• Meaningless Lives: When you die normally, you're sent back into the castle right outside of the level's entry point (and are sent back outside the Castle if you die in the Castle itself). Running out of lives will instead send you back to the intro Mario screen, where then starting your file back up just starts you outside the Castle as usual with no progress lost, unless for some reason you haven't been saving the game when you make progress. So overall, running out of lives is just a slight inconvenience, as you can get right back to the level you were at within a minute without anything being lost. The exceptions to this are when a level has a sub-level within it, such as the pyramid in Shifting Sand Land, and the Bowser fights within the Bowser levels; dying within a sub-level and then immediately reentering the level will have you start at the sub-level's entrance, saving you time in getting back there, or in the case of dying in a Bowser fight, you get booted to outside the pipe to his fight instead of back into the castle. In these cases, getting a Game Over would provide more punishment as you would need to replay through the respective level to get back to the sub-level or Bowser fight, but this is still barely more of an inconvenience in most cases.
  
  1-Ups are additionally very plentiful in general and easy to farm, so the average player isn't in danger of getting Game Overs most of the time to begin with. Also of note, in the final Bowser fight, there's a 1-Up very close to the fight's entrance pipe and it will spawn back there each time you die, so in what will likely be the only challenging boss fight for most players and where getting a Game Over would suck as it would entail having to replay all of the final Bowser level, you effectively have infinite lives anyway to never get a Game Over.
• Mellow Mantas: The manta ray in Dire, Dire Docks is completely harmless and even beneficial. It leaves behind a trail of bubble-rings, and if you swim through five of them in a row, you get a Power Star.
• Mercury's Wings: Mario's wing cap, which allows him to fly. It also allows him to slow his descent during a fall if you hold A.
• Mega Maelstrom: The underwater whirlpool in Dire, Dire Docks is a One-Hit Kill if Mario strays too close. One of the Power Stars actually requires Mario to venture near it. There are several treasure chests near the whirlpool, and the last one is placed dangerously close to the vortex.
• Mini-Boss: The opponents that guard Stars but neither have any pre-battle dialogue nor use the main boss music (or any dedicated music for that matter): Big Boo, Big Mr. I, Big Bully and Chill Bully.
• Mischief-Making Monkey: The Ukikis from Yoshi's Island make their return in this game, appearing in Tall Tall Mountain where they can steal Mario's hat, though one will unlock a cage that holds a Power Star inside after being caught.
• Missile Lock-On: In some levels with butterflies, letting certain ones touch or land on Mario will transform it into a 1-Up Mushroom, while a few others may actually turn into black orbs and follow Mario slowly, exploding on contact.
• Mr. Exposition: The Toads scattered throughout the castle serve as this. The first one you meet in the lobby gives you the rundown of Bowser taking over the castle and kidnapping Peach, scattering the Power Stars throughout the painting worlds and sealing off all but one door.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Sure, it's to some degree awesome, but are all those camera angles and the exciting fanfare really needed when Mario gets a key?
• Mutually Exclusive Power-Ups:
  • You can't combine the Wing Cap and the Metal Cap, although the combination is just unused.
  • You can also combine the Wing Cap and Koopa Shell (which allows you to glide to the Bob-omb Battlefield island), but not the other way around—the Item Blocks won't pop open if you're riding a shell.
• My Rules Are Not Your Rules: Lampshaded during the battle against King Bob-omb. If you try throwing him off the mountain, he'll jump right back up and complain that throwing the king out of the ring is against the rules. However, you're not the king, so he's allowed to throw you out.
  Big Bob-omb: You must fight with honor! It is against the rules to throw the king out of the ring!
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: This game introduces the Bob-omb Buddies, a red sub-species of Bob-omb at war with the villainous black Bob-ombs and their leader (whose war is the premise of the first world, Bob-omb Battlefield); they're quite willing to help Mario on his way with hints and permission to use their cannons to get around. The Buddies would go on to reappear throughout the N64 era in Mario Tennis and the Mario Party series, but since then they've only been seen in a certain Nostalgia Level in Super Mario Galaxy 2.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Mario's love of pasta is referenced twice in the game. This character trait first appeared in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!.
  • The name of MIPS the Rabbit is an in-joke named after the Nintendo 64 CPU.
  • One for Unix aficionados: the main menu is based heavily on an SGI demo program called Buttonfly, which came with the Onyx supercomputers used to develop this game.
• Never Say "Die": Probably one of the first Nintendo games to avert this.
  Big Boo: Ghosts...don't...DIE! Can you get out of here...alive?
• Night of the Living Mooks: Boos are very frequent in the trope-naming level Big Boo's Haunt, and so are creepy eyes called Mr. I that always look at Mario (their King Mook is a larger-than-usual specimen known as Big Mr. I). Interestingly, though the game also introduces Snufits (ghostly versions of the Snifits from Super Mario Bros. 2 that also resemble Boo Guys from Yoshi's Island), they don't appear here but in the next level (Hazy Maze Cave).
• No Fair Cheating: In the races with Koopa the Quick, as well as Cool, Cool Mountain's Big Penguin Race, using shortcuts disqualifies you from getting the star for that mission, as well as a stern talking-to from the other race participant. The Big Penguin Race checks how long you're in the air when you jump, and if you're in the air for more than two seconds, you're disqualified. Koopa the Quick however only checks if you use any of the cannons during the race, not any of the secret warps or the Wing Cap.
• No Fourth Wall: It certainly seems like it what with all of the references to the game itself and the bosses telling you how to kill them.
• No Sidepaths, No Exploration, No Freedom: The three Bowser levels have very linear pathways compared to the rest of the open-world game, with only small side areas occasionally popping up in them.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Dorrie stands out as a realistically-designed plesiosaur in an otherwise cartoony game.
• Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits:
  • The pits in Tower of the Wing Cap, Vanish Cap Under the Moat, and Wing Mario Over the Rainbow simply send you to another area: the first floor lobby, the pool next to the castle waterfall, and the pond by the castle cannon, respectively. In addition, falling through Big Boo's Haunt simply just sends you to the merry-go-round in the basement.
  • In the DS version, the pits in Big Boo Battle don't hurt you and only warp you back to the start of the level.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: This was the first Mario game outside the Donkey Kong games in which falling from too great a height could cause damage even if you landed on solid ground. However, you can avoid taking damage if you Ground Pound right before you hit the ground. If you get all 120 stars and meet Yoshi, he'll upgrade your triple jump so that Mario can avoid taking damage from a fall when he's flipping through the air.
• Not the Intended Use: The Long Jump is supposed to be used to simply allow players to clear long gaps or travel a bit faster, but inquisitive players eventually discovered a major design oversight in the move—that Mario has no speed cap when moving backwards, meaning a skilled player repeatedly using the Long Jump while moving it backwards in the right environment allows one to build up ludicrous amounts of speed, letting them pass through levels much quicker and clip through barriers like doors or the Endless Stairs. Thus, discovering and then exploiting this technique allowed speedrunners to break the game wide open as it allows for a variety of Sequence Breaking tricks, right down to being able to complete the game without so much as collecting a single star.
• Nothing Is Scarier: The endless staircase prior to the final level; the darkness of the staircase beyond combined with the music gives an unsettling feeling. The music disappears when you enter the staircase with the required 70 stars, however, keeping the normal castle music instead at that point.
• Notice This:
  • When you first enter Bob-omb Battlefield, the camera angle is set up in such a way that instantly makes the nearby mountain where King Bob-omb stands the shot's focal point, catching the players eye and giving them an immediate idea as to where to go.
  • The game calls to attention the locations of the Vanishing Cap and the Wing Cap courses—the former in the opening cutscene, and the latter via an impossible to miss pillar of light that appears in the lobby after you collect 10 Stars.
  • The Red Coins are specifically coded to always be visible from a far distance, making it much far easier to notice them than the regular coins.
• Obvious Rule Patch: In order to exit a level, you have to be standing still on solid ground (or treading water), preventing you from getting out of losing a life from falling into a pit, drowning or running into an enemy or hazard at low health. This would be carried over in future games as well.
• Ominous Pipe Organ: The Final Bowser music is composed of one playing ominous music. Quite fitting for final boss music.
• One-Hit Kill: Several; the center of the swirling quicksand pools, the borders of the level (if you somehow get past the invisible walls), the bottom of the outside of the pyramid, and the sand under the Tox Box maze in Shifting Sand Land pull you under with no effort. There's also a whirlpool in the entry area of Dire, Dire Docks, and Big Bubba can swallow you whole in the huge side of Tiny-Huge Island. And of course, falling into a bottomless pit.
• Opening the Sandbox: The more Power Stars you obtain, the more levels you can access. When you start the game, you can only enter Bob-omb Battlefield, but getting 1 star lets you enter Whomps Fortress and the Secret Slide. Two more stars lets you play in two more courses. Getting 8 stars and beating Bowser gives you the key to the basement, and this is where the game really starts opening up, since you get four new courses to explore (with four more stars unlocking another course, Big Boo's Haunt) and can begin searching for the three cap switches. Getting 30 stars and beating Bowser again lets you go upstairs and play four more courses, and getting 50 grants you access to the last two stages before the Endless Stairs.
• Ordinary Drowning Skills: The first game in the Mario franchise where water isn't breathable or instantly fatal. Mario gradually loses health underwater, and to keep from dying, you either need to surface periodically or replenish your life meter with coins or air bubbles. Future 3D Mario games would handle this in a similar fashion, though they have a separate air meter—there are no separate air and health meters in this game, with air and health using the same meter. Thus, you can heal yourself by diving into water and surfacing. Don't try this in Snowman's Land, though; the water you can swim in by the ice jet will in fact hurt you even if your head is above the water (and will sap your health twice as fast at that), and the water below the bully's platform is in fact so cold falling into it is the same as falling into lava.
• "Pachelbel's Canon" Progression: The third section of the credits song is built on this progression.
• Pain-Powered Leap: Falling into lava will launch Mario into the air; this does damage, and can lead to a Cycle of Hurting in the worst case scenario, but the leap can be controlled and used as a means to reach platforms.
• Painting the Medium: The Mad Piano's room in Big Boo's Haunt is shaped like a piano lid, made much clearer by the map in DS.
• "Pan Up to the Sky" Ending: Just before the credits in the ending, this is used as Mario walks into the castle with Peach.
• Pass Through the Rings: Required for a handful of Stars.
• Permanently Missable Content: Bowser's Sub permanently vanishes once you obtain the key from Bowser In The Fire Sea for the first time, and you need to use the floating poles from then on if you want to get its star again. This is a mild example of the trope because you need to collect the original star from the sub to even enter Bowser In The Fire Sea.
• Pick-up Hierarchy:
  • Primary: Keys, Power Stars.
  • Secondary: Red Coins (8 for a Power Star). Silver Stars (5 for a Power Star, DS-only), 1-Up Mushrooms.
  • Tertiary: Coins (100 for a Power Star).
  • Extra: Cap Switches.
• Placeholder Repeat Collectible: Power Stars that have already been collected by the player will be replaced by translucent blue stars the next time they are found. These blue stars can still be collected, and although they do not add to the player's Power Star count, they allow the player to save the game like regular Power Stars. Like the regular ones, collecting one will also cause Mario to exit the level automatically (except for the ones in Peach's Castle and the ones obtained by finding 100 coins in a level).
• Player Nudge: Because the Caps are needed to get all of the Power Stars and a novice player is probably unaware they even exist at first, the game will occasionally drop hints to seek them out after completing a level and/or getting enough Stars, whether by the odd signpost near the cap blocks or by messages you get after collecting a certain amount of stars. If that isn't enough, the game specifically calls attention where you can find at least two of them; the opening specifically highlights the inexplicable door in the Castle's moat and the pit that leads to the Vanishing Cap course, and after collecting 12 stars, a mysterious light will appear from the ceiling in the castle lobby, prompting a curious player to look up into it and instantly get transported to the Wing Cap course.
• Plot Hole: The are two Stars that have you race against Koopa the Quick: one in Bob-omb Battlefield, the other in Tiny-Huge Island. The game expects you to do the Bob-omb Battlefield race first, but you can bypass it entirely. The game does not take this possibility into consideration, so not only is the name of the star mission in Tiny-Huge Island (Rematch with Koopa the Quick) a bit misleading, but when you meet up with Koopa the Quick in that level, he'll still talk about how he lost the previous race against you and wants a rematch, despite the fact that said race never took place. This is likely just a lack of foresight on the developers' part, if anything.
• Polar Penguins: This game introduces talking penguins to the franchise. They're found as friendly NPCs in both of the Slippy-Slidey Ice World levels, Cool, Cool Mountain and Snowman's Land.
• Portal Picture: Most worlds' are entered by jumping into their paintings.
• Power-Up Letdown:
  • Whereas the Wing Cap is very handy (if tricky to use), and the Metal Cap is quite practical in several circumstances, the Vanish Cap is really only useful in very specialized circumstances, namely to get through the occasional thin wall. It does leave you briefly invincible, but that's about the extent of its usefulness, and even then it usually appears in worlds with few enemies around, so even that use of it is moot.
  • The Koopa shells you can ride on land are fun and even useful to use, but the underwater Koopa shells you can occasionally find in the water levels (i.e. Jolly Roger Bay, Dire Dire Docks) not so much. It's hard to grab due to some buggy collision detection, and all it does is let you move a little faster underwater for a few seconds before it vanishes.
  • At the end of the game, when you get all 120 stars and launch yourself up to the castle, you'll find Yoshi, who congratulates you, give you 100 free lives, and then adds a slight bounce and twinkle to the triple jump. The extra lives are superflous since you've already beaten the entire game, but the upgraded triple jump does protect you from high falls.
  • An in-universe example: Koopa the Quick claims that he bought the new "Koopa Mach 1 shoes" after his defeat at Bob-Omb Battlefield to get the decisive advantage in Tiny-Huge Island, but he loses to Mario again regardless.
• Pressure Plate: There are switches Mario can step or slam on that will open doors or activate something nearby. Most of them stay locked, but some of them, like the stair switches in the Bowser levels, are timed.
• Pushy Mooks:
  • Bullies do nothing but charge at Mario and shove him around, possibly into a nearby pool of lava.
  • Chuckyas, a non-explosive Bob-omb variant, pick Mario up and throw him in a random direction. King Bob-omb does the same, but he actually can harm you via fall damage if he manages to pitch you off the summit.
  • The Heave-Ho enemy has a dustpan in the front that flings Mario if he steps on it.
• Put on a Bus: Series regular Luigi is completely absent from the game, not even getting the Demoted to Extra treatment of Yoshi.
• Puzzle Boss: In the Bowser fights, Bowser is completely immune to your attacks, so you have to grab him by his tail and throw him into bombs lining the arena. The bombs serve no purpose other than to hurt him, since he can't (or won't) throw you into the bombs himself, and you frankly have to be suicidal to run into them.
• Quicksand Sucks: It does so at different rates in Shifting Sand Land, ranging from very slowly to instant death. Which one you get depends on where it is (the swirling sand pits pull you down at a medium speed unless you venture into the center, which kills you immediately; there's also some different colored sand in certain parts of the level and the sand in the pyramid is slow; the quicksand around the border of the course, surrounding the pyramid, and under the metal block maze is instantly fatal and has to be treated as a bottomless pit).
• Racing Minigame: Koopa the Quick wants to race you! As does Big Penguin.
• Railroading:
  • Downplayed. You need 12 stars to open all the courses on the first floor and get the caps—but after you beat Bowser in the Dark World, the game pretty much gives you free rein on where to go. The only other obstacles are the key to the second floor and the Star Doors. But you don't even have to complete every level to get to Bowser—it's possible to even skip a lot of the stars from both the castle basement and top floors if you're just settling for a 70 star run. Heck, you can reach Bowser in the Fire Sea while hardly setting foot downstairs if you're persistent enough with the early levels, with one star in Dire, Dire Docks blocking your path to it. You can complete the game without ever going to the second and third floor levels by getting every star in the foyer and basement (there are 74 in total there).
  • Some of the levels have mild railroading in them. For example, in Bob-omb Battlefield, you absolutely have to get the first star in order to race Koopa the Quick and unlock the cannons, which you need to get the star on the Island in the Sky (though in practice, it's possible to reach it with a very skilled long jump), plus the red coin on it and the rings of floating coins nearby that are needed for the 100 coin star (the highest amount of coins you can get without reaching the island is 94 to 99, depending on whether a regular Koopa shows up or if you long jump to the island). You technically need to backtrack there again once you have the Wing Cap to beat Mario Wings To The Sky, but that can be bypassed by using the cannon. It is possible to get the Chain Chomp star first, though.
• Rascally Rabbit: MIPS, the rabbit who has two Power Stars and will run off rather than give them to Mario.
• Reality Warper: Bowser uses the stolen Stars "to create his own world in the paintings and walls" (according to Toad), each Star Door room to him contains a different physic-bending defense, and he can Teleport in his second fight.
• Rearrange the Song:
  • All of the classic Mario themes are given an update.
  • The new stage music for Bob-omb Battlefield, Cool, Cool Mountain, and the Secret Slide areas (among others) are all rearrangements of the same tune. These three variations make up the majority of the game's music, though a few have their own completely unique tracks.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Bowser delivers one to Mario just before their final confrontation.
• Regional Bonus: A very subtle example, but when the game was released outside of Japan, new voice clips and sound effects were added in, including a voice-over by Peach in the opening sequence and a more menacing sound for Chain Chomp. All of these small additions (except for when Mario says "So long, King-a Bowser!" when he throws him far) would eventually be re-added into a Japan-exclusive re-release with rumble pak support.
• Respawning Enemies: Certain enemies (Piranha Plants and Bob-ombs, for example) respawn after you move away so they're offscreen and wait for a few seconds. You only get items from them the first time, but select enemies and items respawn.
• Returning The Lost Child: Tuxie is a baby penguin found at the top of Cool, Cool Mountain. Mario has to return her to her mother for a Power Star.
• Rhymes on a Dime: From the official French translation, as seen on the European cartridge:
  Mon très cher Mario:
  Viens vite au château,
  je t'ai préparé un
  délicieux gâteau...
  À bientôt,
  Princesse Toadstool
• Ring-Out Boss: Bully enemies can't actually harm you, but can only knock you around... into the lava. The Big Bully runs on this same principle (as does the Chill Bully, but he trades the lava-ringed arena for an ice platform above a pool of what may be liquid nitrogen). Not with the Big Bob-omb, however: "It is against the royal rules to throw the King out of the Ring!" He tries to ring you out, though, and his ring is the peak of a mountain. Have a nice fall!
• Rooftop Confrontation: The third and last fight against Big Boo in Big Boo's Haunt takes place in the balcony of the Ghost House. Upon winning, Mario (or whoever is being played as in the remake) has to climb to the roof to grab the Star.
• Rule of Seven: Each of the painting worlds has seven Power Stars, including the 100-Coin Star.
• Rule of Three:
  • Three times you can score an extra life after beating any world with 50 coins, with the bonus stacking up until 150 coins.
  • Nearly every Boss Battle in the game is won when Mario damages the boss three times.
  • Bowser's battles are concluded with only one successful hit, but he has three whole battles and the third one is not only the Final Boss but requires him to be damaged three times, and the arena collapses after the first two hits, making the third the hardest.
  • There are three big slides in the game.
  • Mario has three possible Power-Up caps: the Wing Cap, the Vanish Cap, and the Metal Cap. Each cap has a secret switch that Mario must find and press.
  • Mario has a three-attack combo, two punches and a kick, and can jump three times in sequence, each greater than the last—the third jump is necessary for Mario to start flying from a standing position while wearing the Wing Cap. After getting all one hundred and twenty stars, Mario's third jump will be enhanced.
  • Three secret stars of the castle are with three Toads, and near courses whose number is a multiple of three: Hazy Maze Cave (Course 6), Tall, Tall Mountain (Course 12), and Rainbow Ride (Course 15).
• Rump Roast: Happens to Mario when he falls in lava and touches blowing fire.
• Sand Is Water: The pyramid in Shifting Sand Land features sandfalls that aim towards the sandy floor, which is also a quicksand. One of these sandfalls also flows through a hovering canal where Mario can gather coins which unlock a Power Star upon being collected.
• Save the Princess: Like the plot of basically every other Mario game, Princess Toadstool (Peach) is kidnapped yet again.
• Secret Level: The castle has a few secret levels hidden in it, like the slide level or the wing cap level. Some levels themselves also have secret levels within them, like the metal cap level from Hazy Maze Cave.
• Sequence Breaking: Has its own page for it.
• Shifting Sand Land: The Trope Namer. Shifting Sand Land is full of sand, quicksand pits, and sandstorm-tornadoes. There's also a small oasis and a big pyramid in the course.
• Shock and Awe: The game marks the debut of round, electrified enemies known as Amps. Some of them only rotate, while others move in a circular pattern (and in later games, some move back and forth in a straight line). The Amps are the successors to the family of Sparks and Li'l Sparkies seen in Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario World respectively.
• Shout-Out:
  • MIPS the rabbit repeatedly says he's late to a date.
  • Several star names:
    • The Pit and the Pendulums
    • Somewhere Over the Rainbow
    • "Slip Slidin' Away"
  • In the German version, Tiny-Huge Island is called Gulliver Gumba. Gumba is the German translation for Goombas.
  • In the French version, before the rematch in Tiny-Huge Island, Koopa the Quick asks Mario if he's training for the Olympic Games, considering how fast he'd gotten.
  • The "circus" music that plays in the room for "Ride Big Boo's Merry-Go-Round" is lifted directly from the flea attack scene from The City of Lost Children.
• Signpost Tutorial: The game contains a number of literal signposts scattered throughout the Castle, and a few more in the levels themselves. They cover all of the basic moves and gameplay elements, but you can skip them if you want.
• Silly Simian: Ukkiki the monkey steals your hat with glee.
  Ukkiki: Ukkiki...Wakkiki...kee kee! Ha! I snagged it! It's mine! Heeheeheeee!
• Skybox: The game has somewhat recently gained notoriety over its skyboxes, due to their eerie and lonely vibes coinciding with the rise of liminal spaces, especially Wet Dry World.
• Sleepy Enemy: The Piranha Plants in Whomp's Fortress are asleep with a little lullaby playing should you approach them. If they wake up, the lullaby will stop playing and the Piranha Plants will chomp at Mario in retaliation, only falling back asleep once you back out a bit. They can only be defeated by sneaking up on them and punching them while asleep or skillfully jumping on them.
• Slide Attack: There's two. Pressing the attack button while running will cause Mario to dive and slide on the ground for a bit, being able the grab things and hit enemies this way. There's also a sliding kick, done by running, then crouching and pressing B quickly.
• Slide Level: There are three secret slides that can be accessed within certain areas where completing it gives you a power star. The one at Cool, Cool Mountain in particular requires you to race the big penguin for it, without using the shortcut, otherwise he won't give it to you if you win the race.
• Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness: The game is a level 4 (Major Interconnectivity) throughout, and comes near level 5 (Free-Roam) once all the levels are opened up.
• Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic: Mario 64 falls square on the Fantastic end of the scale. The game doesn't even try to be realistic in either design, tone, or physics, although the game does have a few internal rules in order to be playable. Friend and foe alike are bizarre and abstract in design. The entire castle has entire worlds resting inside of magic paintings or in hidden passages, and they too have odd, impossible elements of fantasy, such as floating islands or pipes that can make a world grow or shrink in a second. Killing an enemy just leaves behind a coin in their place. Mario can survive insanely high falls, and the most it does is take away half his health, and he can find hats that briefly make him fly, turn to metal or invisible (and in one part of the game, you can combine the latter two to do both). A Thwomp or other giant block will just squash Mario like a pancake and take away a snip of his health. Surfacing in water refills your health. Lava just burns Mario's butt and launches him high into the air. Mario losing all of his health just sends him flying out of a painting and instantly heals him upon throwing him out (at the cost of a 1-up). This, of course, is all what makes the game so much fun.
• Smash Mook:
  • Whomps, which are cousins of Thwomps, will try to smash Mario if he's in front of them instead of below.
  • The game introduces Bullies, enemies whose only attack consists of ramming Mario, hoping that he falls off the platform they're currently in.
• Soft Reboot: The game served as this for the Super Mario Bros. franchise, especially in the West, where it marks the point at which the Western canon (Mario being a plumber from Brooklyn, the name "Princess Toadstool", and so on) was brought into line with the Japanese canon.
• So Near, Yet So Far: The doors that lead upstairs are right in the castle lobby, but can't be opened until you beat Bowser in the Fire Sea.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Bob-omb Battlefield is the happiest warzone ever.
• Soundtrack Lullaby: If you approach a sleeping Piranha Plant, the main soundtrack fades to a soft lullaby tune.
• Spinning Clock Hands: The hands on the Tick Tock Clock move a bit quickly at normal pace.
• Stairway to Heaven: The final staircase, if you try to climb it before you have the necessary amount of stars, goes up forever; you can't reach the top unless you take advantage of a invokedGood Bad Bug.
  Bowser: To open the door that leads to the "endless" stairs, you need 70 Stars. Bwa ha ha!
• Starter Villain: King Bob-Bomb is this in a way, being the first boss the player faces at the end of the first level accessible in the game and having the level dedicated to a war between his own Bob-Bombs and the friendly, pink ones. He's fairly non-threatening, and the way he's defeated could even be considered a simplified way of the way main villain Bowser is defeated (that is, being grabbed from behind and tossed).
• Stock Ness Monster: In the bottom lake of Hazy Maze Cave, there is a Loch Ness Monster-like creature called Dorrie. Fortunately, Dorrie is quite friendly and is more than willing to help Mario get onto the nearby ledges.
• Stock Sound Effects: Because of the enhanced audio capabilities of the Nintendo 64 compared to its predecessor, this is the first mainline Mario game to feature some, and many have become iconic staples of the era.
  • The deep, rocky grinding sound used for the rolling boulders in Hazy Maze Cave and the shifting walls in Whomp's Fortress is a classic stock rumbling stone effect used across dozens of 90s television shows and video games.
  • The cartoonish "boing" sound heard when Mario bounces off of mushrooms or certain objects is a classic Warner Bros.-style foley stock effect.
  • The heavy, guttural grunt emitted by Thwomps and Whomps when they slam into the ground is a heavily edited stock monster roar that was also used for the ReDeads in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
  • The sound of the Piranha Plants spitting fireballs is a standard stock "phut" explosion asset pulled from classic Hollywood Edge sound effect libraries.
• Suddenly Voiced:
  • Super Mario 64 is the first main-series Mario game to feature Charles Martinet as our hero. (The year before, he previously voiced the portly plumber in Mario's FUNdamentals. Rumors persist that he also voiced him in both editions of Mario Teaches Typing, but while Martinet did voice Mario in the second one, it was actually Ronald B. Ruben in the first one.) He first tried out a gruff Brooklyn-esque voice, similar to how Mark Graue had voiced Mario in Hotel Mario, but decided invokedit would be too scary for young children, so he instead adapted the familiar perma-falsetto that you would hear for the next 25 years.
  • Also, Peach speaks in the opening and ending and Bowser gains his distinctive laugh^note Which is actually a laugh Martinet recorded for Mario slowed down and played in reverse (though he won't actually speak until Super Mario Sunshine).
• Super Drowning Skills: To defeat the Chilly Bully in Snowman's Land, you have to knock him into the water where he promptly explodes and disappears within seconds. This also applies to Mario, as that water is sharp ice that is the same as lava, and air is sapped twice as fast in the water by the ice machine.
• Super Title 64 Advance: Along with the other launch game for the Nintendo 64, Pilotwings 64, this was one of the first two games to use the "64" ending.
• Technicolor Toxin: The haze in the Hazy Maze Cave is bright yellow.
• Temple of Doom: The inside of the Pyramid in Shifting Sand Land.
• Thanking the Viewer: As usual per Mario games, Mario gives his thanks after finishing the game. Yoshi would deliver one from "The Super Mario 64 Team" before giving Mario a hundred One Ups.
• Theme-and-Variations Soundtrack:
  • The main theme of the game can be heard in the soundtrack for Bob-omb Battlefield, the Princess's Secret Slide, Cool, Cool Mountain. The Princess's Secret Slide version can also be heard in most secret courses, races with Koopa the Quick, both other slides, Tick Tock Clock, and Rainbow Ride.
  • The Star Get theme and dying theme both share a Recurring Riff with Bob-omb Battlefield.
• Threatening Shark: They're called Sushis and they're found in Dire, Dire Docks.
• Three-Strike Combo: The basic right-left-kick combo might be the Trope Codifier for 3D games. Yah-Wah-Hoo!
• Tide Level: Wet-Dry World. There are multicolored devices interspersed throughout the level that raise/lower the water to their position when touched once.
• Too Dumb to Live: The Micro/Mini Goombas on Tiny-Huge Island. They recklessly charge headfirst into Mario, only to explode on contact—and they can't even harm Mario, just knock him off his feet for a moment. They can, however, potentially knock you to your death if you're near the edge of a cliff.
• Trope Codifier: This game set the standard for both the Video Game 3D Leap as well as the 3D Platform Game.
• Underwater Level:
  • Jolly Roger Bay is a pirate's cove with a huge lake of water to swim in. There's a giant sunken ship with an eel living in it.
  • Dire, Dire Docks has no land, aside from the sides of the Bowser sub area. Mario must swim and dodge sharks, manta rays, and whirlpools.
• Underground Level:
  • Hazy Maze Cave is entirely underground, set in an abandoned mine.
  • Cavern of the Metal Cap, which is accessed through an area in Hazy Maze Cave. It's a small side area thats located behind a waterfall near Peach's Castle.
  • Vanish Cap Under the Moat is set in an area directly below Peach's Castle.
  • The second half of Lethal Lava Land is set inside of the levels volcano, which goes deep below the levels sea of lava.
  • The second half of Shifting Sand Land is set in the pyramid, leading Mario underground at first before going up while Eyerok is settled deeper.
• Underground Monkey:
  • Unagi can be considered a water version of the Chain Chomp in its design (staring eyes and mandible) and its gameplay (an Invincible Minor Minion who must be tricked to get its Power Star).
  • The Chill Bully from Snowman's Land is an ice version of the Big Bully from Lethal Lava Land.
• Unending End Card: The game ends on a picture of a cake, with Mario and Peach on top. There's no way to leave this screen without resetting your N64. Averted in the DS remake, which takes you back to the title screen after the credits and end card.
• Unintentionally Unwinnable:
  • You have to be unlucky to accidentally softlock Mario via quirky collision-detection, but the easiest way to jam up the game through no fault of the gamer is to collect the 100-coin star on Tall, Tall Mountain over any cliff or chasm with updrafts. If Mario touches a star while in the air, he'll fall to the ground and victory pose as you're booted out of the level. But since the winds prevent the plumber from landing, he's now helplessly suspended in midair with no way to progress.
  • In both the Cool, Cool Mountain and Tall, Tall Mountain courses, if you're unlucky enough to spawn the 100 coin star while on the slide, backtracking to the top won't help; the star vanishes once the area reloads, meaning you have to replay the level and collect 100 coins, all over again to get it.
  • In Dire, Dire Docks, if you select the star "Pole-Jumping for Red Coins" before having beaten Bowser in the Fire Sea, Bowser's submarine will still be present and the poles will not, which makes it essentially impossible to actually collect all eight red coins.^note It's technically still possible with speedrun strats, but not feasible for the vast majority of players.
  • Similar to Cool, Cool Mountain above, if you spawn the 100 coin star while holding the chain-link grate that leads to the "A-Maze-Ing Emergency Exit" star in Hazy Maze Cave, it will spawn above the chain-link grate, and there is no way to get on top of it as an Invisible Wall prevents you from doing so, which means that you have to re-start the level all the way from the beginning and collect 100 coins again.
  • If Mario jumps into and destroys all the bombs in one of the Bowser battles before throwing Bowser into a bomb, it's impossible to defeat him. This can also happen by throwing Bowser into a bomb, then catching him in midair before he lands, which negates the damage done to him. Fixed in the DS remake – a bomb will appear at a random area if all of the bombs are destroyed.
• Unique Enemy:
  • In Bob-Omb Battlefield near the mountain top, there is a single Bob-Omb implied to be the operator of the Water Bomb cannon which behaves differently from any other in the game: It's stationary and doesn't attack Mario even when he stands right in front of him.
  • In Cool Cool Mountain, on the longest bridge, there are two Mr. Blizzard enemies who behave differently from the ones elsewhere in the game, as they hop back and forth across a bridge rather than pivoting in place and throwing snowballs at you. Also, since they cannot be run around, they cannot be defeated. In the remake, there are other ways to defeat Mr. Blizzards that will work on them.
  • This platforming adventure includes a killer piano in Big Boo's Haunt that attacks when you get near it and can't be killed.
  • Hazy Maze Cave is the only level to contain Swoopers.
  • Bubbas (large fish that will eat you) are only found in Tiny Huge Island, on the Huge Side.
  • The Tox Boxes, Pokeys, Grindels/Spindels, and Klepto the Condor only appear in Shifting Sand Land.
  • The shark Sushi and the only two Cheep Cheeps in the entire game appear in Dire Dire Docks at the very beginning, near the whirlpool.
  • There's a single Bullet Bill Shooter in the entire game, in Whomp's Fortress. And it only shows up from the second mission onwards.
  • Bomps, wall enemies that push Mario, are found exclusively in Whomp's Fortress. You can even skip them altogether.
  • Despite being the namesake of Whomp's Fortress, Whomps themselves are fairly rare, with the level itself having only two of them (not counting their leader, Whomp King). The one other Whomp in the game is found in a lonely platform in the last level.
  • Tall, Tall Mountain has the only Fwoosh in the game.
• Unnaturally Looping Location: If Mario has less than 70 Power Stars, the staircase leading up to the final Bowser battle will endlessly loop (and also plays a strange melody that seems to endlessly increase in pitch, known as a Shepard tone). It is possible to exploit a glitch to get Mario to move so quickly that he bypasses the loop altogether.
• Updated Re-release: There was a Japan-only re-release called the Shindou Pak Taiyou Version^TranslationRumble Pak Compatible Version that had rumble pak support, along with a few bug fixes and different voice clips.
• Variable Mix: The water and cave levels change the background instrumentation depending on what's going on or what area of the level you're in. For example, the underground music sounds spookier when you're in the area with Dorrie.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential:
  • You can throw both of the harmless baby penguins off the level. Like everyone else, they both get better (Tuxie respawns at the top of the mountain and the other baby penguin respawns on top of the cottage). But you're still a dick for doing it. When you take back the lost penguin that the mom is looking for after returning it, she walks towards you crossly.
  • Koopa Troopas run from you in this game, and don't even hurt you when they bump into you, but you can still kill them for a blue coin.
• Video Game Flight: The Wing Cap power, although Mario is technically gliding, not flying. This game even provides the image for that page.
• Violation of Common Sense:
  • You can save yourself from fall damage by doing a ground pound or a dive right before you land, even though both actions should technically accelerate your interaction with Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress. The in-game logic is presumably that it stops the fall and restarts it, thereby shortening the distance you actually do fall.
  • Despite what you'd initially think, it is possible to get the underwater Jet Stream Power Stars without the aid of the Metal Cap by exploiting a difficult to execute glitch by swimming directly on the side of the jet foam.
• Voiceover Letter: In the beginning, Peach reads aloud her letter to Mario.
• Walk, Don't Swim: With the Metal Cap, as Metal Mario is too heavy to swim. The tradeoff is that it allows you to grab stars from underwater vents that would otherwise blow Mario away.
• Wall Jump: Possibly the Trope Codifier. It likely was implemented after players began utilizing a glitch in the earlier 2D games, where Mario's foot accidentally goes partially into the wall, making it register as a floor. The action is made easier in the DS remake and later Mario games, as Mario will slide down the wall upon hitting it, giving the player more time to jump.
• Watch for Rolling Objects: Trope namer. There are sections where Mario has to dodge or jump over incoming boulders or metal balls.
• We Will Meet Again: Played with very interestingly here. In the game's earlier fights with Bowser, you see Bowser saying Mario will pay for this... later. In these cases, it seems so distant; however, by the time of each next fight with Bowser, it tends to feel like it happened a lot quicker than it seemed like it would at the end of each previous fight.
• What the Hell, Player?: In Cool, Cool Mountain, if the player picks up the baby penguin after having already reunited it with its mother, the mama penguin will actually get visibly angry and start chasing you in an attempt to get her baby back.
• Wingding Eyes: Mario's eyes get X's in them whenever he dies or gets burnt by fire.
• A Winner Is You: Your reward for getting all 120 stars? A thank you from the Mario 64 team and a few booby prize power ups. The ending is also completely unchanged aside from Bowser's last words being different.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The Wiggler you fight inside Tiny-Huge Island, due to the influence of a Power Star it acquired. Mario gives him a whoopin' and brings him back to his senses, surrendering the star to him in return.
  Wiggler: What to do, what to do? Huff... huff... it makes me so... MAD!!! Everything has been going wrong since I got this Star... It's so shiny, but it makes me feel... strange...
• Wrote the Book: One of the Toads in the castle says that "Bowser and his cronies wrote the book on bad."
• Years Too Early: If Koopa the Quick wins a race in the German version, he taunts Mario that even his great grandma is much faster than him, but he could probably catch up given a couple of years of training.
  Koopa the Quick: Hohoho, das war ja wohl nichts! Sogar meine Uroma Koopa ist wesentlich schneller als Du! Naja, mit zwei Jahren Training konntest Du's vielleicht schaffen. Bis dann...und tscuhß!^{Literal English translation}Hohoho, that was too easy! Even my Great Grandma Koopa is much faster than you! Well, with a couple of years of training, perhaps, you could make it. Until then... goodbye!
• You Are the Translated Foreign Word: A variation in Unagi the Eel, "unagi" being Japanese for "freshwater eel."
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: On a bigger scale, this is almost literally the case. Unlike the Trope Namer, the princess is within the castle, but the battle with Bowser you have access to once you have 8 stars is far from the last, leaving you to keep collecting stars in more levels and beat him twice over before you get to the actual end of the game.