Rare Super Mario 64 and Kirby Bowl 64 prototype footage emerges

Rare footage of Super Mario 64 and Kirby Bowl 64 prototypes has emerged, giving Nintendo history fans another delicious look at what might have been. The footage comes from Spaceworld, also known as Shoshinkai 1995, and shows early versions of games that sat at very different points in Nintendo’s future.

Super Mario 64 obviously became one of the most important 3D games ever made, but the prototype details are still fascinating: bigger chest hitboxes, different fish behavior in Whomp’s Fortress, cannon changes and altered environments. Kirby Bowl 64 is the more mysterious part because it was canceled, leaving fans with only fragments of what HAL Laboratory and Nintendo were exploring.

Reports describe gameplay reminiscent of Kirby’s Dream Course, with another mode that sounds closer to what would later become Kirby Air Ride. Prototype footage like this is not just trivia. It shows the messy, experimental middle stage where Nintendo’s biggest ideas were still becoming themselves.

Source: Nintendo Everything - https://nintendoeverything.com/rare-footage-emerges-of-super-mario-64-kirby-bowl-64-prototypes/