A bad N64 controller can indeed ruin wall kick attempts in SM64. It's still my favorite game for wall kicking, though. I guess it's because there were a lot more opportunities to skip past elaborate traps set by the programmers to just get to a star. For example, in Whomp's Fortress, one can simply wall jump to the "Into the Wild Blue" star. And then in Hazy Maze Cave, one can wall kick up to the red mesh instead of going through the Toxic Maze and everything. Then of course there are the long jump tricks, like wall jumping to the Secret Library star in Big Boo's Haunt, and long jumping from the tower to the caged island in Whomp's Fortress. What a fun game.
Does/did the long jump move appear in any other Mario game?