this post was submitted on 25 Jan 2025
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Bringing Super Mario 64 to the GBA: A Technical Demonstration of GBA's Capabilities

Someone is trying to bring the classic Super Mario 64 from the Nintendo 64 to the Game Boy Advance (GBA), and it looks incredibly impressive given the hardware constraints.

The Project and Its Progress

The modder, Joshua Barretto, explains that the GBA is significantly slower than the N64 and lacks native support for floating-point numbers, which makes his task even more challenging. However, he has managed to implement a basic physics and collision system along with a fully 3D camera, texture-mapping, and transparency support.

In a recent update, Barretto introduced Mario models into the game. You can now switch between characters such as Yoshi, Luigi, and Larry using pause and select on the GBA. The environments have also seen a significant upgrade with additional graphical details and new mechanics from the N64 original like swimming, sliding, enemies, and stars.


What do you think about this project? How do you think it will compare with Nintendo's official port on the DS?

top 11 comments
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[–] BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

I follow this guy since day 1.

Of Nintendo had him back in 2000, we would definitely have gotten a SM64 GBA version

[–] Alexstarfire@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago

Honestly, impressive as hell. It's obviously not done but it looks far better than I thought could be managed on a GBA even as-is.

[–] sv1sjp@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days ago (4 children)
[–] Threeme2189@sh.itjust.works 24 points 2 days ago

Why the fuck not?

[–] AI_toothbrush@lemmy.zip 18 points 2 days ago

As ive said before, because. A lot of things happen just because they can happen. Also, the dev probably enjoys making it and its also good to get reminders sometimes of how inefficient modern software usally is.

[–] ComradeMiao@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 2 days ago

This is how I imagine a post scarcity world. Humans doing things simple because they can and want to explore the challenges, not just to survive.

[–] TokenEffort@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

So preoccupied with whether they could that they didn't stop to think that they should

Also a sense of pride and accomplishment

[–] hexagonwin@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 1 day ago

Ooh finally I'll be able to play SM64 on my Gameboy Micro :D

[–] sirpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Was it not released on the Ds already? I vaguely remember playing it in middle school.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago (1 children)

The point here is the challenge

[–] sirpuppy@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 days ago

Ah I understand now. That makes more sense lol