The hair looks like mush, and compared to the artwork, there are only two nubs compared to four nubs in the back of the hair. Compare this to later models, where the hat is more horizontal and the space between the hat and the hair is more consistent (but not perfect). Mario's hat slants sharply downward, leaving little room for the skull and hair and probably magically compressing them. To emulate joint bending, the model is broken into segments, like pieces of armor or insects with their stiff exoskeletons. Joints simply don't exist probably due to rigging limitations at the time. The model is imposed of very simplistic shapes, almost resembling primitives (the first models you make in a modeling program simple spheres and cubes/rectangular prisms and other shapes). I don't know if it's an error with ripping the model or if the model is always like this. Even if you adjust the imported model to be more in the center line, the feet, particularly the left foot, appears to be still a little out of line and not even aligned with the ground plane.
The ripped mesh doesn't appear to be perfectly symmetrical. What's shown here is not a clean mesh, likely the result of triangulation so games can render the models properly.
This is exceptionally low-poly for today's standards (in ZBrush for instance, a program for sculpting and creating intricate details on models like cloth and wrinkles in the skin, it's normal for models to exceed one million polys, how far we've come), but how does it measure up to contemporary N64 models? I guess we'll find out later. Without the hair, there are around 752 triangles. According to 3DS Max, there are 838 faces, hair included. This is the most familiar old Mario model. The first two images, renders of Mario, removes that problem, but I like to show the wireframe for illustrative purposes. The image of Mario with both textures and mesh makeup (the one facing diagonally) is rendered with flat lighting since, for some reason, removing the tiling, which is necessary for the eyes and hat insignia to display correctly, changes the lighting of the polygons that have disabled tiling. I may or may not run out of steam half-way through so please bear with me. It would be nice if I were to look at other characters too, but right now, I'm focused on Mario, and this is really a spur-of-the-moment thing. Just make sure you provide the source correctly.
If you have the urge to upload the renders to the wiki, feel free to do so. You can comment if you want, but I hope this thread is interesting and I hope I don't bore anyone too much with modeling jargon. Most of the models will probably come from models resource and the modeling program used is Maya 2014 or 3DS Max 2010. I'll also provide pictures of models myself. I probably won't include every single model, but mainly the ones I like and/or think are important. I'm going to show my own thoughts and opinions and they'll probably mirror the video at points but I'd rather this be standalone. Also, the models in the video aren't consistently triangulated, so we see quads and even n-gons (faces with more than four vertices) on those models. Hey, I thought I should just make a thread as a response to a good video analysis of Mario's models throughout history, though I think the video misses out on some key points including textures and also misses out on some models.