Remember when you first caught a glimpse of Super Mario 64 running on the Nintendo DS and how utterly mindblowing it was at the time? It’s easy to forget just how far handheld gaming has come in the years since, but seeing one of the greatest platformers of all time come to life on such a humble piece of hardware was truly something else.
Fast-forward to the present day, and one coder by the name of Joshua Barretto is going another step further with a custom rewrite of Super Mario 64 running on the Game Boy Advance. At the time of writing, the project is still ongoing, so there’s no doubt much improvement still to be made, but Barretto has managed to implement iconic levels from the game along with traversal moves like the long jump and backflip.
The latest video is a massive improvement to the initial post from early May in which Mario was nothing more than a mere triangle. Now, he’s instantly recognisable and, dare we say, kinda cute! We should note, of course, that the footage shown doesn’t necessary look “good” in the most obvious sense of the world, but this is nevertheless a remarkable achievement.
Only time will tell if Barretto plans to release the game as a homebrew application. For now, we’ll be keeping a close eye on the game’s progression.
