Fun Club Super Mario 64 doesn't get enough recognition for being a 2nd person game

[Joe]

We all know the 1st person and 3rd person perspectives in games.

A 1st person perspective is shown from the point of view of the main character:

A 3rd person perspective is an omniscient outside view of the main character:

But what about the oft-ignored in-between 2nd person perspective? That would realistically be described as the main character being seen from another, non-playable character's perspective. Here comes Super Mario 64:

Super Mario 64 is in fact, not a 3rd person perspective, as the view from which you control Mario is not via an unseen omniscient force. Rather, the whole game is being shown through the eyes, or the camera lens, of Lakitu. We are controlling Mario from a 2nd person perspective from Lakitu's point of view. Other Mario games don't contextualize the point of view in that way and can be classified as 3rd person, but Mario 64 stands alone. This is the true revolutionary gameplay that Super Mario 64 brought to the table, and it's time it gets the recognition it deserves for it.

 

[Party Sklar]

Joke aside this genuinely was an awesome idea to make the audience understand the concept of moving the camera, and to this day I think that everytime I play a TPS I unconsciously think of a little Lakitu flying behind my character.

 

[Supreme Overlord]

Back in college, I actually used Super Mario 64 and Baten Kaitos as examples of second-person gameplay.

 

[Shadow]

Love seeing him follow Mario in the mirror room, it's such a genius idea to teach people to get the concept of controlling the camera. There's few other games that I can think off that do something halfway similar. The Siren games being one of the only I can think of.

 

[Joe]

I also have to wonder if we would even be calling it a "camera" if Mario 64 didn't contextualize it as a literal camera.

 

[JazzPotatoes]

To this day, more games would benefit from contextualizing the camera in the way Mario 64 does. It's the one thing that regularly confuses newcomers to gaming, and giving some sort of contextual understanding of where the camera is and how it works does wonders for getting people to understand playing the game.

Insomniac had a similar idea with the health bar, of all things, in the Spyro games: Sparx the Dragonfly is your health bar, and his colour indicates your health.

 

[Stilt Village]

I wish there was a word for when games contextualize mechanics using a character. It's especially interesting in cases like this when those are new and unfamiliar things that are then taken for granted in every game since. Navi in Ocarina of Time is another example, every 3D Zelda has the lock-on but none of them have bothered to explain it with a fairy after the N64 because I suppose Nintendo just assumed people would get it now.

There's a level of intuitiveness and verisimilitude that you can gain from doing it, but you do run the risk of making something that's less convenient or easily parsed than a regular menu or UI element or whatever.

 

[Branduil]

I wish there was a word for when games contextualize mechanics using a character. It's especially interesting in cases like this when those are new and unfamiliar things that are then taken for granted in every game since. Navi in Ocarina of Time is another example, every 3D Zelda has the lock-on but none of them have bothered to explain it with a fairy after the N64 because I suppose Nintendo just assumed people would get it now.

There's a level of intuitiveness and verisimilitude that you can gain from doing it, but you do run the risk of making something that's less convenient or easily parsed than a regular menu or UI element or whatever.

"Diagetic" -(of sound in a film, television programme, etc.) occurring within the context of the story and able to be heard by the characters.

"Diagetic music" is a term for when the music of a film is part of the actual story and not just something the audience hears, so you could use the term "diagetic interface" to refer to UI elements which are part of the actual game world.

 

[Dcubed]

I also have to wonder if we would even be calling it a "camera" if Mario 64 didn't contextualize it as a literal camera.

Nah, we've been using the term "camera" for way longer than SM64; even with 2D scrolling sprite/raster based games (which obstenably have no concept of a "camera" at all). Much of the language of games has been stolen from film anyway (and from Pinball, but that's a bit more of an obscure connection in modern times).

 

[Enpsty]

I never understood why we named the camera behind the player as third person instead of second person.
I mean first person is self explanatory. But watching someone else from a different perspective is literally second person.

 

[JazzPotatoes]

I never understood why we named the camera behind the player as third person instead of second person.
I mean first person is self explanatory. But watching someone else from a different perspective is literally second person.

If you look at literary terms, perspective is as follows:

First Person: when the narrative is told from the perspective of the character ("I did this" "I did that")

Second Person: when the narrative is told from the perspective of a secondary perspective where the reader is assigned the main role ("You turn the corner" "You climb into the car")

Third person: when the narrative is told from the perspective of an omniscient narrator

When you translate that to games, it generally means the following:

First person: you play the game through the character's eyes

Second person: you play the game from the perspective of other secondary characters within the game (God of War 3 has a couple of memorable sequences where you do this)

Third person: you play the game with a separate camera framing your character, usually from behind and with a camera that has no contextual place in the game