To Hate a Great Game

Most people loved super Mario 64. I personally hated it. I don't know why. I guess it might be because Hotel Mario made me lose all hope in the franchise until Super Mario Galaxy's release for the Wii. And,at the time, I was just way too picky with the franchise. But, recently I decided to play the game again. To see if I was missing something. And now I think I know why I hated the game.

Prequel.txt
I looked around the internet for a good emulator for a while. Not long after I started looking I found a decent N64 emulator. I downloaded a ROM for Super mario 64. And as soon as the ROM finished downloading, I was ready to reanalyze the game. Oddly,the folder containing the ROM also held a txt file within it. It was titled Prequel.txt. I opened the txt  file. This is what it contained. "Did you know that Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door is actually a prequel to Super Mario 64? Just something to keep in mind as you play." My first thought was how can that be. Thousand-Year door is a spinoff like Super Mario Kart for example. Super Mario 64 is part of the main series, like Super Mario World for example. It weirded me out, as it seemed very random. I exited the txt file and loaded up the ROM.

The Game
I started the game and it started normally. Well, I assume it was normal. I had forgotten about most everything within the game. The first while of the game was very boring. There was a painting. I jumped into it. I did some awkward-feeling platforming. Confronted a medeocre boss. I just didn't get it. But as i played, the game improved. However, in the middle of a stage I can't remember the name of, I began to despise Mario as a person. Why? I honestly couldn't tell you at the time. But later it became clear. At the final fight with bowser, everything started to make sense. At the beginning, bowser's script was different. Here is what he said. " Mario, you used to be a hero. I don't know what happened. But I will not let you release this demon for your own selfish purposes. It must be contained." This was obviously strange. The fight was normal. But at the end of the fight, a screenshot of a fight with the Shadow Queen from from Thousand-Year door appeared and stayed burned onto the screen. I turned the computer off and went to bed. But I was too busy thinking what happened through to sleep.

After a few weeks of thinking, I puzzled it out. After defeat, The Shadow Queen repossesed Peach and tried to keep it a secret from the Mushroom Kingdom. After a while, both Mario and Bowser found out. Mario didn't care, even though The Shadow Queen was a direct threat to the world. Bowser came to the conclusion that The Shadow Queen must be contained. So he kidnapped Peach. But Mario didn,t care that it wasn't really Peach it was rescuing. He was acting selfishly and was just not acting like the mario we all know and love for reasons I still can't figure out. But, in reality, Mario was the true antagonist of Super Mario 64.