Someone Is Trying To Bring Super Mario 64 To The GBA
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Update: New video shows off the latest build of the game

Bringing Super Mario 64 to the GBA: A Technical Demonstration of GBA’s Capabilities

Someone is trying to bring the classic Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64 to the Game Boy Advance (GBA), and it looks incredibly impressive given the hardware constraints.

The Project and Its Progress

The modder, Joshua Barretto, explains that the GBA is significantly slower than the N64 and lacks native support for floating-point numbers, which makes his task even more challenging. However, he has managed to implement a basic physics and collision system along with a fully 3D camera, texture-mapping, and transparency support.

In a recent update, Barretto introduced Mario models into the game. You can now switch between characters such as Yoshi, Luigi, and Larry using pause and select on the GBA. The environments have also seen a significant upgrade with additional graphical details and new mechanics from the N64 original like swimming, sliding, enemies, and stars.

What do you think about this project? How do you think it will compare with Nintendo’s official port on the DS?

  • Alexstarfire@lemmy.worldEnglish
    7·
    4 days ago

    Honestly, impressive as hell. It’s obviously not done but it looks far better than I thought could be managed on a GBA even as-is.

    • AItoothbrush@lemmy.zipEnglish
      18·
      4 days ago

      As ive said before, because. A lot of things happen just because they can happen. Also, the dev probably enjoys making it and its also good to get reminders sometimes of how inefficient modern software usally is.

    • ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      6·
      4 days ago

      This is how I imagine a post scarcity world. Humans doing things simple because they can and want to explore the challenges, not just to survive.

    • Like the wind...English
      2·
      4 days ago

      So preoccupied with whether they could that they didn’t stop to think that they should

      Also a sense of pride and accomplishment

  • BudgetBanditEnglish
    4·
    3 days ago

    I follow this guy since day 1.

    Of Nintendo had him back in 2000, we would definitely have gotten a SM64 GBA version

    • mindbleachEnglish
      3·
      3 days ago

      “Mario Castle” was supposed to be a custom 3D entry, like how Link’s Awakening is not quite Link To The Past, but it never happened. Third parties were doing flat-triangle stuff since the system launched. I think Nintendo shied away from software rendering because it hurt battery life and didn’t show off what the hardware was good at.

      What’s weird is that this homebrew took so long. GBAdev.org had multiple ultranerds show off their 3D engines with Metal Gear Solid and Quake geometry. The ongoing joke was “do Half-Life!” Hell, OpenLara was halfway to finished, before this guy got started.