…except for Weird Mario Places. I don’t think we’ve ever dedicated ourselves to talking about locations within Mario’s great wide wacky world, but today is the day we change that! That’s right, we’re headed to…
Wet-Dry World! This place has been the talk of the town as of late, and it’s easy to see why… It’s all so… surreal! People describe it as having a “negative emotional aura,” and I have to definitely agree with that statement… though what is it, specifically, that makes Wet-Dry World like that? it’s hard to look at Wet-Dry World without something feeling weirdly off… let’s take a deep dive to figure out some of the possible reasons why!
An important part of Wet-Dry World’s negative emotional aura, I feel, comes from its aesthetic. While most Mario locations are bright, poppy, and fun, Wet-Dry World is a notable exception. The stage is largely drabby shades of blue, gray, and brown, and it’s not like the music is the most jolly music to jaunt around to, either. Even just from screenshots, it’s pretty easy to tell that something feels weirdly wrong about Wet-Dry World, compared to nearly every other location Mario’s been to. Even places like New Donk City, thoroughly grounded in realism, seem to have more “fun” aesthetics than Wet-Dry World!
But while Wet-Dry World focuses itself to dull, realistic “urban landscape” colors, that doesn’t necessarily mean the location itself is grounded in any sort of realism. While the “downtown” area looks almost exactly what you’d expect a primitive N64-era cityscape to look like, the “uptown” area is precisely the opposite, going for the Super Mario 64 level design favorite: “abstract shapes put together in a way that represent the concept of a level more than any sort of level itself!” Ahhhh, the old classic.
Heck, even the skybox so perfectly represents the clash between abstraction and realism! It’s genuinely a picture of an actual town in Spain, but the filters and background applied to it give the impression that it’s all underwater, which adds further to Wet-Dry World’s surrealism: everywhere you look around you, there’s these strange realistic buildings, but look up, and you’re underwater. But not actually, because despite everything, you’re still walking on dry land! Unless you go for a swim, in which case you are underwater underwater.
And it might just be me, but even Wet-Dry World’s base concept feels weirdly off-kilter. I feel like a lot of the late-game worlds in Super Mario 64 sort of have this thing where they don’t feel completely “real,” like Tall Tall Mountain and Tiny-Huge Island, but at least those feel like the kinds of CONCEPTS you’d see in Mario games! Heck, they even seem to be based on the athletic levels and Land of the Giants, respectively! But Wet-Dry World is based on the concept of wetness. I don’t know exactly how to explain it – it’s not like a beach world, or a lake world, it’s a world based on the concept of “wet” and something about that just feels like it doesn’t really belong in the world of Super Mario. Granted, Mario’s world is so huge that really anything is fair game at this point, but I guess it’s Wet-Dry World’s presence in a mainline Mario game that makes it feel more strange than usual.
And while the gimmick of a world where you can change the water level DOES seem right for Mario, they decide to go and make that weird too, by having it activated by these weird crystals instead, apparently called Crystal Taps!
Wet-Dry World is such a weird, weird place. It feels almost… unnatural in a way. I guess it doesn’t help that despite resembling a town, it’s devoid of any actual life, and most of the enemies are notably mechanical ones, such as Chuckyas, Heave-Hos, Amps, and Keronpa Balls which don’t even work because they’re placed so low on the stage that they’re never not underwater. The only enemies that look natural at all are Skeeters, a type of bug. They’re featured in the stage’s painting!
Yeah, that sure is the first thing I’d paint to show someone what Wet-Dry World is like. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of Skeeters there! I’d probably just pay attention to like, the entire city down there first. Interestingly, this painting has a unique gimmick, where how high you jump into it influences the water level when you enter the stage! But once you’re in, what is there to do in Wet-Dry World? Well, how about trying astral projection?
While the “astral projection” glitch can be performed in a few places in Super Mario 64, can you really think of a better place to do it than Wet-Dry World? I mean, Wet-Dry World feels like the kind of place you’d astral project in. As you can see in this video, which is kind of low-quality, but in a way that only makes it more fitting, buddy up with your Chuckya Chum, and separate Mario’s soul from his body like never before!
In conclusion, Wet-Dry World is a weird, weird place. There’s really just a lot about it to point out, and chances are, I missed quite a bit, myself. Really, Mario 64 in general is a weird game, quite possibly the most “off” feeling of the main Mario series, maybe only beaten by Super Mario Bros. 2, but probably ahead of the Land games, which at least feel like traditional Mario platformers. Super Mario 64, being the genre-defining game it is, will always hold a point as being revolutionary to video games, even if half of the courses feel kind of like developer test areas.
Really, the primitive nature of Mario 64 seems to play into Wet-Dry World’s weirdness somewhat, it’s hard to imagine today a level being designed with the abstract geometry seen here, though I’d love to see a modern Mario game try to recapture its unique aesthetic, whether it’s in an HD remake, or even a Mario Kart track or something (because hey, Tick-Tock Clock got the treatment). Would it even be possible? Or is Wet-Dry World something that can only exist on the N64?
Either way, Wet-Dry World will leave a lasting impact on all of us… as the place seen in that weird Super Mario 64 milk commercial.
