I have beaten more than between 800 and 850 "retro" games by this board's definition. But I could never get into SM64.

For the longest time I thought I couldn't get into it because I didn't have a single pad with good enough analog stick to use for emulation. Recently I finally got one, and indeed that made SMB64 much better.

I still hated the game and dropped it after a few levels. There is no art direction, they just took some stock textures and slapped them randomly with no regards for art direction, and the controls feel unnatural and overcomplicated which is emphasised by how the game needs to put a thousand help signs just to explain them. It's funny people pretend like this game is a masterclass and that it influenced millions when I don't see anything like SM64 in another platformer.

That's the power of Mario and that's real scary indeed.