A popular internet joke upon the release of Super Mario 64 was "What happened to Super Mario 4 through 63?" If one is to calculate every Mario game released before Super Mario 64, including outliers such as ports and titles not released on Nintendo hardware like Mario Teaches Typing, the game would be the 113th title on the series. However, if you were to only count games released on non-devoted Nintendo hardware and remove ports, the title would be, very anti-climactically, the 63rd Mario game.

The first-ever footage of Luigi as a playable character in Super Mario 64 was discovered through an old VHS tape in 2023. The footage was captured by a Japanese broadcaster recording footage of Nintendo's 1995 Space World trade show in Japan for a TV program covering the event. Despite this, the footage of Luigi is not actually the primary focus of the clip and as such can barely be seen at all. The video shows Luigi falling back down after performing a spin-jump in what appears to be a red and white test area.