New player, feeling very discouraged :(
6 years ago
Texas, USA

I finally secured a system and picked up the game, and its destroying me. Like I feel like moving Mario isnt intuitive AT ALL and I'm struggling just to do basic things, I feel like even when I played this as a child it went better than this.

Does anyone have tips/activities for someone just starting out to familiarize themselves with movement? Other than "just run around in the courtyard"...Ive done that quite a bit, but it doesn't translate when you get into a level and start bonking your ass off lol. I've never felt so discouraged starting a game before :/ I feel like Im missing something. Any tips?

Ps Im sure this is something that's been asked a million times, but I just really wanted to ask bc man...I just had an hour long session and got nothing accomplished. I don't wanna get defeated and give up. Any tips/training methods would be much appreciated. I know all of what Mario can do, I just can't seem to ever know the right tool for the job. Always seem to be running too slow to dive, always diving into slopes when I need kicks, etc etc. So disheartening :(

Edited by the author 6 years ago
California, USA

Practice

Bit, Goffrey and 6 others like this
Texas, USA

Yes Conker obviously haha. I understand that going through the game itself will teach me stuff, however like I said it isn't coming naturally and I feel like I'm forming bad habits. Learning to do Stars in non-optimal ways and just barely scraping through. I was just curious if there were any tactics people here used to help them acclimate better.

Germany

How many good runs have you watched before?

If you look at the Top runners and see their movement you might think that you can just try doing the same and it will work with some practice, but remember: The people have put THOUSANDS of hours into the game. It's natural that when you are used to watching high-level runs you will be frustrated when you see that it doesn't work at all when you are the one playing. I myself do not run SM64 (at least not seriously) but I feel like this a lot when I watch WR runs of other games and then I see that copying that movement isn't easy at all even though I already am an experienced runner in that game.

Now some things you can do: There are a lot of guides for beginners (Some show a whole run with beginner routes and strats, others show individual tricks). I would also practice the individual levels, especially those where you really feel insecure about. If you feel like the strats are too hard, then do some easier ones. At the beginning it's better to go for the safe strat than risking a death. Also (please correct me if I'm wrong here) I would not focus too much on actual movement ("just run around in the courtyard" etc...) instead I would focus on getting good times at the individual stars. Good movement should come with enough practice and experience (Again, I don't really run this game but that's something I noticed at other games as well).

In general I wouldn't compare myself too much to others. Even if your runs are far away from WR it's important that you improve step by step. You should compare your runs against your own past runs. When you for example get a 4:00:00 time on your first 120 star run and then improve it by 20 seconds in the next run then that's perfectly fine because while you are still far away from the WR you have improved so you're on a good way.

Frolie, SoloQ and 2 others like this
New York, USA

Check out Simply's movement guide on youtube along with a 16 star beginner's guide. Try practicing any of the things suggested and you'll start to understand the game more. Under the guides section of this game's page there is a 120 star guide by toast that details the beginner, intermediate and expert ways to do every single star. (He also has a playlist on his youtube for every single star using the different methods that have inputs.) If you're playing on emulator using save states and trying something over and over again at whichever point of the course is giving you the most trouble is a good way to learn it.

ConkyJoe89 and Menstilo like this
Texas, USA

Thank you both for the input! I have checked out Simply's 2 movement guides and they're actually how I learned the basics of getting around, they're really good.

I'll follow your advice Goodle and check out Toast's 120 guide and go from there.

And @Menstilo, thanks friend. That's alot of solid advice, I should just be glad I have this game to occupy my time and have fun with it. I think you hit the nail on the head too...I spent way too much time watching amazing runs before picking the game up and now I feel discouraged it isn't going smoothly but I must remember it'll take time.

GoodleShoes and Menstilo like this
Northern Ireland

Learn the easier tricks at the start obviously. When I started I taught myself Pillarless and it was really hard as I was a beginner. What I recommend that you do is start doing 16 and 70 star runs and try teach yourself tricks like bomb clip, canonless, speed kicking etc... but for now GL :D

Menstilo likes this
Texas, USA

How is speed kicking useful? Like in what ways can it be utilized, and is it very often? I was told it's not really necessary for many things

New South Wales, Australia

Speed Kicks allow you to maintain the speed from a dive without actual diving. This is useful if you want to maintain speed over a short distance or do a fast triple jump.

New South Wales, Australia

Definitely should not be attempting speedkicks at this stage.

ConkyJoe89 likes this
Texas, USA

Hence why I said I was told they weren't really gonna be necessary for anything I should be needing to do haha. Thank God too, bc just basics are kicking my ass right now lol.

But actually, I figured something out. It isn't necessarily movement itself per se...its the damn camera changing. I'm not doing it when I need to and it hinders what Mario will/won't do. I don't notice when players change camera views, so it's difficult for me to replicate what I see.

Edit: Upon watching a short tutorial on speedkicks theyre actually something I already KIND OF do. I do the "quick-kick" to perform faster double jumps, and all a speedkick seems to be is either long jumping or jump diving, letting the stick go neutral, and then quick-kicking. So yea I guess I dont speedkick per se, but I do implement a part of it quite often already.

Edited by the author 6 years ago
Michigan, USA

I recently started learning a 70 star route, I found that playing through the game casually helped out a lot. It made movement feel less stiff and made the game more enjoyable during runs.

ConkyJoe89 likes this
Texas, USA

I think that's what I'm gonna do Ethan, I mapped out a 70-star route/outline and I'm just gonna get the Stars however I can (even if it's by running and normal jumping everywhere lol) and go from there. I think I was just getting in over my head. Still, I think it should be like mandatory for all new SM64 runners to view Simply's movement guides, those 2 vids have helped me out more than most anything else!

EthanRTA likes this
New York, USA

I would recommend 16 star to start off with as a new player but if you're not really interested in learning glitches like BLJ 70 is fine too it's just a LOT of learning (I haven't even started learning 70). To each his own.

Texas, USA

I was put off by 16-Star bc I can't do blj's :( I've never been able to do even one, and Idk wth I'm doing wrong. And since I don't have a pc right now I can't capture to show anyone what I'm doing. :/

Northern Ireland

bljs aren't that hard because it's really mainly on doing a rhythm. It's not really about pressing a really fast

Texas, USA

Figured them out today! I was letting go of Z like an idiot haha. Can clip through the 50-Star door consistently now. :)

GoodleShoes likes this
Germany

Lotta stuff has already been said and I agree, practice is extremely important, but "just playing" might not get you anywhere. If you struggle with doing certain strats, you should also try to understand what you're doing wrong, also even ask for help in the discord, good players always answer in there. What I mean is, just grinding stars will not always help, at least that's how I remember it being for me, instead of trying to figure out my mistakes, I just spammed runs and fucked up the same shit over and over.

dumpdome64 and ConkyJoe89 like this
Texas, USA

Asking questions in the discord has helped ALOT. Went from fucking up CLess a million tries in like 2 hrs to asking for help in the discord and BlueBob responded immediately and I got CLess first try after that. Haha

My main hurdle is still camera angles...I don't understand when to use them and it's affecting my ability to do practically all things :/

New York, USA

Just watch videos with inputs and copy what camera movement they use. Just think of it as part of the normal inputs.

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