Summary
Hard to believe, but almost 30 years after its release, people are still making discoveries aboutSuper Mario 64. Mainly because those discoveries require you to leave aNintendo 64running for four years for someone to actually discover them.
YouTuber Kaze Emanuarshared some of their new Super Mario 64 discoveries this week, all of which require a level of dedication to find them, or forgetfulness to stumble upon them by accident. One of them not only explains why you may’t choose a star right away on each level’s star select screen, but also demonstrates what happens if you leave the game on that screen for more than two years.
Super Mario 64’s code dictates that a star cannot be chosen on the star select screen for 12 frames. That’s why you are unable to smoothly jump into a painting and choose a star right away. You have to wait for those 12 frames to have passed. However, if you stay on that screen longer, the timer that tracks those frames keeps counting up.
There’s A Counter Clocking Your Star Screen Frames
That Doesn’t Stop Counting If You Hang Around
That won’t affect or break the game in any way most of the time. You are free to select a star whenever you like after the 12 frames have elapsed, blissfully unaware that the timer has continued. However, what Kaze points out is that games, especially older ones, can’t comprehend the concept of infinity. That counter needs a limit, and its limit is two billion.
While most video game counters like these are capped, Super Mario 64’s star select screen frame counter is not. That means, once it hits two billion, the counter rapidly drops back to zero and then deep into minus numbers, all the way to negative two billion. Once it hits that incredibly low number, it starts counting up again. That means rather than the standard 12 frames, you will be left waiting for it to count back up to zero, and that process will take two years and three months.
All of that means between counting to two billion and then counting from minus two billion to zero, the whole process will take four and a half years. Almost certainly something no one has ever experienced, and even Kaze themselves hasn’t tested it in the field. They needed to delve into Super Mario 64’s code and force the issue to make the discovery. If you have an original copy of Super Mario 64 and a N64 to play it on handy, get it set up and let us know what happened in the comments four and a half years from now.
