What went wrong with Project Mario 128: Nintendo’s ‘lost’ sequel

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Despite being one of the most popular games ever to be released, Super Mario 64 never got a sequel. Super Mario 64 is arguably the most ground-breaking Mario game in the franchise so it’s always been surprising that it wasn’t directly followed up. Not only does it set the standard for 3D gameplay, but it introduces many Mario concepts we know and love. Perhaps most importantly, the DS version was the first to make characters other than Mario playable (Yoshi, Luigi and Wario).

But a sequel was actually planned for Super Mario 64 – it even had a name. So what happened to Nintendo’s ‘lost’ sibling to one of its most popular games?

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After releasing Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64 and then again on the DS, Nintendo intended on making a sequel for Super Mario 64, and was going to call it Super Mario 64-2 (not, as many of us hoped, Super Mario 65 – sorry). Development started in 1997 under codename ‘Mario 128’, when Nintendo was busy with the release of The Legend of Zelda. It was planned for Nintendo’s next big console release – the 64DD and therein lay the problem. That console never got off the ground due to a lack of commercial interest, and with it went Super Mario 64-2.

So what was the game going to include? Well, Shigeru Miyamoto said at the time that it was to take advantage of the new tech found in the 64DD, and allow Mario and Luigi to be playable at the same time.

“We’re in the middle of preparing Mario 64-2 for release on the 64DD,” he said. “I’d like to take advantage of the 64DD’s ability to store information. As of now, Luigi’s also a full part of the game, but we haven’t started thinking about 2-player gameplay with Mario and Luigi yet. We’ll tackle that once we’ve got the system ironed out – we’ve figured out the processing power issues, so we could do it if we tried.”

Of course, Nintendo continued aspirations for the project after the failure of the 64DD, considering it for release on the GameCube in 2000 (which, incidentally, has the best Nintendo logo ever). But another huge title was in development at the time – Super Mario Sunshine – and this game ended up including many of the elements that would have been used in Mario 64-D.

Other ideas for Project Mario 128 were considered (such as having 128 tiny Mario players) but ultimately Nintendo moved away from the idea and the direct sequel to Mario 64 was lost forever. Many see Sunshine as the sequel, but purists would say it is more of a spin-off than a direct sequel.

If you’d like to explore some Mario remakes, see this Super Mario World Unreal Engine remake that is one of the best fan projects we’ve ever covered. And here are some more retro game remakes to enjoy, from Zelda to Sonic the Hedgehog.