The development team placed a great amount of attention, time, and effort on getting Mario's movements right. One of the programmers of Super Mario 64, Giles Goddard, explained that these few linear elements survived to force players into Bowser's lair rather than to encourage exploration.

Although the majority of Super Mario 64 would end up featuring the free-roaming design, elements of the original fixed path concept would remain in certain parts of the game, particularly in the three Bowser encounters. The original concept involved the game having fixed path much like an isometric type game (similar to Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars), before the choice was made to settle on a free-roaming 3D design. Miyamoto and the other designers were initially unsure of which direction the game should take months were spent selecting a camera view and layout that would be appropriate. Nintendo started making the game with the creation of the characters and camera system. On his Twitter Dylan Cuthbert stated that there was never a Super Mario FX game ever made, and that 'Super Mario FX' was the internal code name of the FX chip. Miyamoto came up with most of the ideas during the era of the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES) and thought about using the Super FX chip to make it a SNES game, but decided to build it for the Nintendo 64 due to the SNES's technical limitations. Super Mario 64 was made in less than two years, but it was reported that Shigeru Miyamoto had thought about a 3D Mario game, called Super Mario FX, five years before, while working on Star Fox. Mario can also leave the castle and explore the small courtyard.

Each locked door leads to more levels and challenges. One world requires two stars, for instance. The player can get each of the stars by completing each of the achievements per level. There are 120 of them scattered among 15 maps and some secret maps. The player can unlock doors by collecting stars. The main area of the game is Peach's castle. To defeat Bowser and rescue Peach, Mario enters each world by jumping through paintings hanging from a wall. As Mario arrives, he learns that Bowser took over the castle and kidnapped Peach. Princess Peach makes a special cake and invites Mario to her castle in the Mushroom Kingdom. Many fans and critics think that it is one of the best video games ever made. The game was the first in the Mario series that used 3D graphics.

Super Mario 64 is a 1996 video game created by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.

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