JP release: 2nd December 1998
Developer: Nintendo, Datt, Fuji, Tokyo Electron
Publisher: Tokyo Electron
Original Name: Mario no Photopi
Mario’s Photo Studio (or Mario no Photopi) is a photo editing software for the N64 that was exclusive to Japan. It used a special cartridge that had slots to insert SecureMedia cards, which were presumably popular with digital camera in Japan at the time. In terms of emulation, there’s no way to load photos in to the game without the actual physical cartridge (even using an EverDrive on real hardware), however a modified version has been made that lets you test out the features without opening images.
The main part is editor. Here you can load images and manipulate them. You can add different layers, draw and add some renders of characters from Super Mario 64. Some of the menus also use sprites from Yoshi’s Story. Another feature lets you create a slideshow, and another saves your creations in a format to use in Fuji prating machines found in stores.
There’s a minigame that cuts up an image into squares and you have to put it back together by clicking two to swap them. However, it’s not as simple as it initially looks as swapping two will also flip them, so you have to get them in the right place and the right orientation. You can use the title screen image or (if you have the actual cartridge) load your own photo in to the game.
Mario’s Photo Studio is fairly basic software, built around the editing of photos to make fun postcards rather than an artist’s tool (the 64DD games are for that). If you wanted to do some basic things to photos and didn’t own a PC, this would have provided that service.
Adventurous artists can use the software to create ‘original postcards’, add text (Japanese and English), and then take it along to any FDI photostore (Fuji) to run off exclusive colour prints.
- Max Everingham, N64 Magazine #20
This is just an interesting novelty.
Official Ways to get the game
There is no official way to get Mario’s Photo Studio
