A fan developer does something that seems impossible: porting Super Mario 64 for Game Boy Advance. So far, their progress has been impressive.
Developed and published by Nintendo in 1996 for the N64, Super Mario 64 remains a milestone in video game history. Sure, it’s not the first 3D game ever created, but it popularized many features and mechanics that still exist in state-of-the-art games. It was groundbreaking and relied heavily on the then newly released N64 and its advanced (for the time) hardware. And now this iconic platformer has been squeezed onto the much weaker Game Boy Advance.
As he noticed Nintendo Life, programmer and modder Joshua Barrett is rebuilding SM64 for Game Boy Advance. Initially, Barretto wanted to port the original N64 game to the GBA, but this proved unfeasible for a number of reasons. Instead, the modder rewrites the game to run efficiently on the GBA. A recent movie shows how much progress the creator of the project has made.
That alone is impressive, but it’s even more amazing when you see how much progress Barretto has made in a low period of time. Back at the beginning of Maythe developer showed a red triangle that slowly moves blurrily SM64-similar level. Now Barretto has Mario jumping and running around a world that looks much more similar Super Mario 64.
What’s even weirder is that, according to Barretto, this is a purpose-built version Super Mario 64 you will be able to play on a real GBA. In fact, there’s already a video of someone having fun with it an early version of Barretto’s work on GBA hardware.
So what’s next? Barretto wants to add more features with SM64 to this home port. Ultimately, the plan is to make this bare-bones port available online, though it will lack any official Nintendo assets avoid dynamic publisher lawyers. And we will finally be able to play Super Mario 64 on the GBA, which is something I’ve never wanted to do but am excited to try one day.
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