That water, however
I don’t think I can accurately estimate how many times I’ve played Mario 64. Whether it’s the original hardware, the DS or various collections / Virtual Console assets, every level is burned in my head. But not quite like that.
In the video provocatively named “I bought a $ 1500 GPU (an RTX 3090) to play Super Mario 64 with RTX,” YouTuber Dario shows Mario 64 with ray tracing. Now this video featuring Wet-Dry World is a bit old, but it represents a project in progress that could eventually see the light of day.
No matter how much time you spend trying to keep the classics down, it’s a losing battle. People will love these games forever, and I have to say it’s great to see the game’s beautiful level designs have been preserved a million times over.
Of course, the community is very polarized in terms of how much the ray tracing effects actually add to the game. It’s a bit more advanced than many other mod projects over the years (which have the look of Mario 64), but it looks great. A wide variety of projects is never a bad thing.
[Thanks Chris!]
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