Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone, Issue 14 (Patreon)

Welcome, everyone, to the 14th issue of Supper Mario Broth: Special Zone. 

Today, we are going to examine two sets of Super Mario 64 course renders, used as maps in two guides, and hypothesize why they are so similar, yet different.

Mystery of the Matching Maps

In September 1996, alongside Super Mario 64's release in North America, Nintendo Power released the official guide for the game. It contained maps of the game's courses in the form of screenshots taken from afar, likely using one of two methods: either some sort of software to move the camera freely in-game (very common today but certainly much less so in 1996, and only available to the development team and other authorized staff); or renders of the courses taken not in-game, but inside the developers' level editor. As you will see below, the images could be either, and there are no unambiguous clues as to which they really are.

In November of that same year, Issue 30 of EGM2 released. EGM2, standing for "Electronic Gaming Monthly Squared" (yet still commonly written as "EGM2" instead of "EGM²"), was a spin-off of the popular North American Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine with a focus on non-review material such as guides. EGM2 ran from 1994 to 1998. 

In that issue, a lengthy guide to Super Mario 64 took up many pages. The guide also used maps of the courses, which look extremely similar to the ones from Nintendo Power while also being completely different. Allow me to demonstrate:

This is Nintendo Power's map of Bob-omb Battlefield. 

This is EGM2's map. Note how the perspective and lines are all the exact same, but the objects and textures are completely different. 

Now, this is purely conjecture on my part, but I believe that EGM2 simply took the maps from the Nintendo Power guide and traced over them, creating their own. I am not an expert on the legality of such matters, but I trust that large publishers such as Sendai Publishing, the creators of EGM2, would run this by their legal team and that this falls under some form of fair use. 

Still, I think it is interesting to compare the maps and to see what kind of changes were undertaken by the tracers in order to increase the readability or utility of the map. Note how the Nintendo Power map, due to using in-game textures, sometimes has the textures obscure the polygonal shape of objects; this is rectified in the EGM2 version by virtue of not having any textures at all. 

This hill on the left of the map is a good example. While the Nintendo Power hill is true to the game, the EGM2 one is more useful as a map since it shows the hill's slopes instead of letting it appear as a vague dark shape that could have just as easily been a pit.

In addition, the fact that these details are filled out without them being visible in the original images leads me to believe that instead of simply tracing the maps, EGM2 actually went to the courses and looked at the geometry to improve them, meaning that their maps are also valuable in their own way.

Let us now take a look at all the other pairs of maps.

This is Whomp's Fortress from Nintendo Power.

This is from EGM2.

It is still impossible for me to say if the Nintendo Power images were taken in-game or in an editor. On one hand, the lighting is exactly the same as it would be in-game, while presumably an editor would have either no lighting or adjustable lighting. On the other hand, some objects that should be in the screenshot if it was taken in-game are missing, like some of the enemies, and Mario himself. It is impossible, for example, to take a screenshot of Whomp's Fortress from that angle that has the Piranha Plants and Thwomps loaded, but not the many coins in that level. It is likely the images are heavily edited if they are taken in-game, but then the question arises how the edits could keep the textures intact. 

On a side note, I personally find the addition of the subtle water effect to the shallow pool in the EGM2 version advantageous since the in-game water in the Nintendo Power version does not look like water at all from that perspective.

Jolly Roger Bay from Nintendo Power.

Same from EGM2.

The latter's emphasis on the water, marking it as blue, is very helpful in determining where it begins or ends, as in the Nintendo Power version, especially on the left side of the map, there is simply no indication for it. To a casual observer not familiar with Super Mario 64, the Nintendo Power map would not even appear to have any water at all, instead seemingly depicting a sinkhole.

Nintendo Power's Cool, Cool Mountain.

EGM2's Cool, Cool Mountain. There are few differences here except for one tree being missing from EGM2's map on the left side.

Here is a special case:

Nintendo Power's Big Boo's Haunt map has scenes of each of the rooms separately. This was evidently too much for EGM2 to trace, so they decided to do something completely original instead:

An overhead view map that is not based on any render. Note that the sizes of the objects in this map are much less accurate due to it being drawn without reference (see the giant piano in the bottom right). As a map, however, this is reasonably useful (although it does not include the outside of the mansion).

Something similar happens with Hazy Maze Cave:

Nintendo Power's map is very confusing due to the three-dimensionality of the course and the necessity of some of the passages to overlap each other. In some cases it is hard to tell what is above what. The starting point seems to be touching Dorrie's lake despite being very far away from it due to the perspective. This is just my subjective opinion, but I think that despite looking impressive, this is not very useful as a map.

EGM2's map is vastly simplified, not even bothering to draw the Hazy Maze in 3D and omitting Dorrie's lake entirely; but this results in something that can actually be used to navigate the course without confusion. 

Back to the traces. This is Nintendo Power's Lethal Lava Land.

And EGM2's. The trace's brightening of the lava helps distinguish the platforms, but note how it entirely omits the Bowser puzzle and replaces it with a vague orange square. The fire actually being added to the fire spitters is a very thoughtful touch missing from the original.

Nintendo Power's Shifting Sand Land.

EGM2's Shifting Sand Land. Almost nothing is missing except, oddly, the very prominent palm tree near the oasis on the left side - however, the lack of delineation between normal sand and quicksand, visible in Nintendo Power's map, makes this inferior for navigation.

Nintendo Power's Dire, Dire Docks. It is odd to me why they would choose a top-down perspective on such a tall course where vertical positioning is important; apparently, so too thought the EGM2 editors and made another original map:

This one seems, to me, like hardly an attempt at providing a map at all. It may be more useful than the Nintendo Power one in terms of giving an impression of the course's verticality, but entirely inaccurate in all other aspects. It is strange that this was likely made by the same person who created the other original maps that are in fact useful.

Nintendo Power's Snowman's Land.

EGM2's Snowman's Land. It is interesting how much more empty the trace looks despite containing nearly the same lines merely through the exclusion of shadows and textures. In the case of this course, I would say both maps are hardly useful as the snow makes it exceedingly difficult to tell the elevation of the geometry and thus what part can be accessed from where. For example, both maps make it look like it would be trivial to go around the frozen lake in the top left, whereas in-game, it must be crossed via a Spindrift, and the walls that prevent you from walking around are not visible here.

Nintendo Power's Wet-Dry World.

EGM2's Wet-Dry World. Another rather accurate trace, although for some reason missing the biggest floating platform in the middle of the course, to the right of the single yellow arrow sign on the wall.

Nintendo Power's Tall, Tall Mountain.

EGM2's Tall, Tall Mountain. There is not much to say about the trace but the Nintendo Power one has an indication that it may not be taken in-game, with the ! Block above the mushroom field on the right of the map being much larger than it would possibly appear as in-game. Of course, this too could be an edit.

Nintendo Power's Tiny-Huge Island.

EGM2's Tiny-Huge Island. Here, the trace does suffer from oversimplification, such as omitting the small door near the starting area, but I must commend the distorted shadows caused by the rippling of the water surface, an artistic touch not possible with the original render.

Due to the verticality of Tick Tock Clock, I have put the maps side-by-side, Nintendo Power on the left and EGM2 on the right. EGM2 does make a helpful artistic decision to give the platforms more contrasting colors to better discern them, but suffers entirely from not making some of the walls transparent as Nintendo Power does. The big grey wall in the middle of the map hides an entire section relevant to one of the Power Stars.

Finally, here is Rainbow Ride.

Nintendo Power's render was apparently given to them in a resolution that was too low, as this render is looking particularly pixelated. The lack of the in-game background also suggests this was taken in an editor; however, the entire image feels as though it was taken in a different manner from the others, so it is still possible the others were taken in-game.

EGM's trace benefits from being made in a vector drawing software and is not pixelated at all. Unfortunately, the page layout designer decided to overlay the map onto a screenshot, making it very hard to use that section as a map. Still, I believe this one may be the case of the EGM2 version being the most improved simply due to lack of pixelation.

In the end, both approaches shown by the publications have had their advantages and disadvantages. I hope this has been able to provide some insight into what effect small differences can have on maps in guides like these.

This concludes today's issue. Thank you very much for reading.