It’s a better game than the final release – the retail version is superior in every gameplay sense. But as a time capsule, it’s fascinating.
On May 15, 1996, a seismic shift occurred in the video game industry. At the Los Angeles Convention Center, Shigeru Miyamoto stepped onto the E3 stage, held aloft a strange, new gray controller with a yellow joystick, and changed 3D gaming forever. The game was Super Mario 64 . But the version the public played on those showroom floors was not the final cartridge that would ship five months later. super mario 64 e3 1996 rom updated
...then the is a time machine. It is a messy, broken, beautiful fossil of a moment when Miyamoto convinced the world that Mario belonged in three dimensions. It’s a better game than the final release