Development lasted nearly three years: about one year on design and twenty months on production, starting with designing the virtual camera system. As Mario, the player collects Power Stars to unlock enough of Princess Peach's castle to get to Bowser and rescue Princess Peach.ĭirector Shigeru Miyamoto conceived a 3D Super Mario game during the production of Star Fox (1993). In the game, Bowser, the primary antagonist of the Super Mario franchise, invades Princess Peach's castle and hides the castle's sources of protection, the Power Stars, in many different worlds inside magical paintings. It is the first Super Mario game to feature 3D gameplay, combining traditional Super Mario gameplay, visual style, and characters in a large open world. It was released in Japan and North America in 1996 and PAL regions in 1997. Super Mario 64 is a platform game developed and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 64.