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I'm not even exaggerating when I say this is the greatest romhack ever created. I honestly find it hard to believe it's possible for this to exist even after playing through the entire thing multiple times. If this was a real Nintendo 64 game, it would've been a smash hit that sold millions. It's good enough to have been made by Nintendo themselves, but most of it was made by a single romhacker. I daresay it's even better than the real Super Mario 64.

The levels are extremely creative, taking place in a world made entirely of candy, a monster's stomach, inside a computer, on a giant work desk with spilled coffee as lava, and so much more. Nintendo could really take notes from this instead of just putting Mario in grassy fields and sandy deserts nonstop.

Even if most of the music isn't original to this game, the pickings are excellent and mesh perfectly with the Super Mario 64 sound font. They even help to give the game sort of an underlying dark atmosphere even if it isn't a dark game. It's an interesting feeling because this game is so bright, colorful, fun, and doesn't have a dark story, but yet a certain vibe makes it feel little darker and more mature than most Nintendo games. It kind of reminds me of Donkey Kong Country 2 in that way. This in combination with the rare blatant instances of somewhat dark or mature things, such as when a Bob-Omb mentions that his friends got trapped in a cave, and you later find their decaying bodies lying off to the side when you break in, or when Mario visits a primitive village that's obsessed with religion and practices witch-burning, makes the game feel like it's grown up with us, while still being friendly enough for a kid who can't grasp all the details and nuances to not get the same vibe.

The gameplay is also excellent. There are a couple boring/frustrating stars, but that goes for most Mario games. I love that just about every mission involves custom code in some way, but not to the point of straying too far from the base mechanics we've grown to love from the vanilla game. The sheer dedication that went into making this possible deserves praise on its own, given that this was made years before the decomp, so every bit of custom code had to be done in assembly. Over 100,000 lines of assembly at that. It should be noted that this game isn't 100% technically sound, but given the limitations of custom coding Super Mario 64 back then, it's hard to criticize.

I just wish this game worked on real hardware. I know it has to be possible despite what many people say since Banjo-Tooie ran on the Nintendo 64. Perhaps if it had all the optimizations from the console version of Super Mario 64 Sapphire, along with frameskip, it could run at at least playable speeds. I would easily pay $50 to own a cartridge of this game to play on my Nintendo 64, and cherish it as one of the top pieces of my collection.

You deserve a reward for creating this game. Nintendo is really missing out by not hiring you and making this part of the Mario canon. It is a criminally under-recognized game simply because it's a romhack, and should be played by everyone, not just fans of Super Mario 64, or even just fans of Nintendo. Super Mario 64 Last Impact defies all logic on what a mere romhack should be limited to and I am more excited for the sequel than I am for every official game currently being developed combined.

10/10 stars - A perfect game if there ever was one.