Super Mario 64 is unquestionably one of the most groundbreaking games ever made. It revolutionized 3D gameplay and analog control, rewriting the rules of 3D game design and reintroducing the world to its plump, Italian hero. Mario’s newfound agility and precise handling made for a game where it was fun just to move around – climb the trees, swim in the water, jump real high. While this sense of wonder is no longer present today – the game’s innovations have become so ubiquitous as to be undetectable – the game is just as fun to play now as it was when the Nintendo 64 first launched. Super Mario 64 DS manages to faithfully reproduce the N64’s flagship title on a handheld console, and includes a wealth of new content to boot. While this portable version doesn’t control as well as the original, the new levels, bosses, and gameplay features still firmly establish it as the definitive version of the game.

In making the jump to 3D, Super Mario 64 reimagined series conventions in an entirely new light, coming up with clever solutions to transform tried-and-true 2D gameplay elements into something that worked well in three dimensions. The overarching worlds that thematically bound stages together in earlier Mario titles, for example, became massive levels that offered a variety of objectives within their wide boundaries. The non-linear elements of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World remained, as these objectives could be completed in any order, each one rewarding you with power stars which in turn opened up additional levels. Objectives ranged from series mainstays such as boss battles and dangerous platforming aerobatics to newer challenges like foot races with friendly NPCs and collection-based scavenger hunts. Regardless of the means, however, the end was always a few minutes away, and these bite-size challenges work perfectly on a portable platform like the DS.

As just a straight port, Super Mario 64 DS would be an impressive feat in itself. All of the original content remains intact, with a few slight tweaks here and there, and surprisingly, this DS iteration also incorporates a great deal of new content. The total star count has increased to 150 from 120. Each level now includes a new star, earned through a new mechanic that has you collecting five silver stars – often beating them out of an enemy’s grip – in order to make a power star appear. Additionally, the game also sports a handful of new levels, though each is significantly smaller and far less intricately designed or interesting than the game’s original fifteen. Each new level, however, also includes a new boss fight. Each boss battle is an exhilarating matchup against a super-sized Mario enemy and offers a nice change of pace from the game’s samey Bowser encounters. Best of all, Super Mario 64 DS features significantly better graphics than the original, with clean, detailed textures replacing the Nintendo 64’s muddy, undefined blurs of color. The textures used on the character models are especially impressive, providing additional depth beyond their simple polygonal structures.

In addition to Mario himself, Super Mario 64 DS also introduces three new playable characters: Luigi, Wario, and Yoshi. You actually begin the game as Yoshi, introduced in a nice Easter egg for anyone who obtained all 120 stars in the original, who must first save Mario in order to unlock him as a playable character. Luigi and Wario are then unlocked later. Each character has their own unique attributes and abilities; Luigi, for example, can float through the air with a spinning helicopter jump while Wario can use his brawn to smash through large objects. Mario’s original abilities have also been divvied up among the newcomers: Mario keeps his patented winged cap, allowing him to soar through the skies, but the vanish cap is now in the hands of Luigi and Wario now holds the metal cap. Oh, and now Yoshi can breath fire.

Thankfully, the game doesn’t force you to micromanage your character selection or constantly switch between character on the fly. In fact, you can only swap between characters in a new room on the first floor of Peach’s Castle. Because of this, most of the game’s puzzles don’t require you to use specific characters to overcome specific obstacles, and when they do, the game is usually kind enough to provide you with a character-transforming hat that allows you to play as the required character until you exit the level (or take a pounding from an enemy). You can therefore spend most of your time playing as the character you like most, and because each one of them moves and jumps differently, you’ll definitely find yourself favoring one of them over the others. Though, realistically, this character swapping mechanic only convolutes puzzles Mario could originally overcome by himself, it does help to add some additional challenge and depth to stars that were previously too easy to obtain.

Unfortunately, the game’s controls add much frustration and unintended difficulty to the experience, which is particularly damning given the original Super Mario 64’s high watermark for 3D analog control. Ay, there’s the rub. Despite throwing a multitude of different control schemes at you, none of them works as a suitable substitute for the analog Nintendo 64 controller, which should come as little surprise given the thing was designed from the ground up specifically for Super Mario 64. The control schemes really boil down to one of three options, none of them ideal. The first, and most useful option, maps your character’s movement to the DS’ D-pad, requiring you hold down one of the face buttons in order to run. This option isn’t particularly precise (though it does offer a sort of nostalgic comfort) and leads to frustrating deaths from misaligned jumps and unwelcome bursts of speed. The second and third options both involve using the DS’ lower touchscreen as a stand-in for an analog joystick, either by using the system’s stylus or strapping the poorly designed “analog nub” to your thumb. While both of these options provide true analog control, they are ergonomic nightmares unsuitable for extended play sessions. Regardless of your control scheme, unfortunately, Super Mario 64 DS simply doesn’t control as precisely as the original, but, thankfully, this only becomes a real problem when you reach the platforming-heavy later levels.

The game also includes a few dozen minigames that are only superfluously tied to the main game. By capturing rabbits loose in the halls of Princess Peach’s castle, you can unlock minigames that make heavy use of the DS’ touchscreen. While there’s little incentive to play them outside of beating your own high scores, there’s enough of them, and they’re each suitably simple and addicting, to act as a substantial distraction. Some are certainly better than others, including a Space Invaders-inspired sling shot game that has you flinging bombs as parachuting enemies. If nothing else, these minigames act as an interesting precursor to the sort of casual-friendly minigame collections that would become so popular on the Wii. Additionally, the game also includes a multiplayer beat-em-up mode, the inclusion of which feels like an after thought. Here, you collect stars and attack your enemies to steal their stars. Honestly, there isn’t much to it, and it isn’t worth investigating except as a curiosity.

Serious control issues aside, the large quantity of new stuff packed into Super Mario 64 DS makes it worth checking out for any Mario diehards. Even if you’ve never played the plumber’s first 3D outing, however, this DS version is the better of the two. The new playable characters, stars to collect, and minigames append plenty of welcome new content to an already massive game. The graphics are vastly improved over the first-generation Nintendo 64 title, regardless of how good you thought it looked at the time, and while it may not be the fresh, eye-opening experience it was in 1996, Super Mario 64 is still an excellent 3D platformer and one of the strongest games in one of gaming’s strongest series.