Topic: The N64 Thread

I really hope that Banjo in Smash is a step towards a new Banjo game. This year not only Banjo was revealed as a Smash character in an epic way but also the Banjo-Kazooie games (and the other Rare games) have been enhanced for Xbox One X.

Microsoft allowed Nintendo to release Donkey Kong 64 with Jetpac on Wii U. Rare was developing a Goldeneye 007 remaster for Xbox 360 and Nintendo complained and stopped it. They say that Nintendo's publishing rights for Goldeneye 007 expired in 2017 and now a Goldeneye 007 remaster or remake would just require an agreement between Rare and MGM.

Now that Nintendo seems to be a bit friendlier I wonder if they'd work with Microsoft to make a remake of Diddy Kong Racing for Xbox and Switch. Rare made the DS version with Nintendo characters (the monkeys) but I mean a real remake or remaster with polished visuals and sound and without DS gimmicks. Diddy Kong Racing is the best mascots racer ever made in my opinion, I can't call it a karts racer since it includes planes and hovercrafts.

I could see Switch getting a truncated Rare Replay (that is, everything up to Microsoft's acquisition of Rare), with maybe Diddy Kong Racing as a bonus, Switch-exclusive. Xbox won't lose its exclusives, and dual Switch /Xbox gamers would be more likely to double-dip.

That said, I want a fully remade DKR more than anything in the world right now (that or Banjo).

On the topic, anyone other than me hoping for more remakes along the lines of N-Sane Trilogy, Reignited Trilogy, Link's Awakening, etc? I think these are underutilised by Nintendo currently. I'd love to see a dual release of Ocarina of Time and Majoras Mask with the 3DS assets upscaled to HD on the Switch.

@Buizel I don't think that Diddy Kong Racing would be Switch-exclusive, there is no reason for that if Microsoft owns some characters. If we are talking about more N64 games, Super Mario 64 really needs a remake as I think it's better than Odyssey in terms of gameplay and level design. Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask on 3DS look great in 3D but HD versions for Switch would be awesome.

Super Mario 64 is one of my favorite games of all time.
I'd love it if they ported it to the Switch with the DS extra content.

The N64 was an interesting console. Owned it but only had a couple of mainstream games. I'm not sure if it is overrated or underrated....perhaps both?

To explain, it has a lot of great games and underappreciated gems but nothing that is unmatched elsewhere. It's really the beginning of the concept of our modern consoles.

@NorseGamerTommy Me too. I like the bonus content that the DS version offers, but I don't like the controls on it that much, even if I play it on the 3DS. An HD version on the Switch would be glorious

@RedderRugfish Yes, that was true, thus my point that it was the making of the modern console which are all 4 players today. Ironically, we are getting less and less local multiplayer games and most of them suck as third-parties are racing to create single-player AAA experience that sell on console platforms....which is kind of sad.

That's why I didn't know how to classify it.

The N64 was amazing but from a technological standpoint, it has been surpassed in every way unlike the SNES which still stand the test of time. Mode 7 games like Starfox, Pilotwings, Chrono Trigger are legendary even to this day.

The N64's library was a hit and a miss like most AAA libraries of today and that era was, in fact, the beginning of the AAA experiences that we've come to love. It did multiplayer well...probably too well and really lagged behind in other era but gave rise to the FPS and sports genre.

@RedderRugfish Most of them are built into games these days like how CoD and FIFA works.

@RedderRugfish Did you change your nickname? I have some four players games on Xbox One, some are 360 games but others are new like Team Sonic Racing. For some reason online has won versus offline multiplayer but offline multiplayer will always be better unless you play online with friends and use headset but if you play without headset and with random people online gaming can be sh*t. This is because now we don't communicate as much as before and we live kind of isolated, sadly.

Nintendo 64 focused a lot in 4P games because it was the first popular console to have four controller ports and because it was offline but I don't agree with @SNES64DD because there were also epic 1P games like Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask and lots of games had an epic 1P mode and also an awesome multiplayer mode like Goldeneye 007. Rare made the best games and also provided the much needed variety for one and for four players.

In hindsight, N64 is my most played console ever. Mostly because when my parents divorced back in the day, we brought over our old N64 to his place and thus that was always the console there. So during most of the GCN and Wii eras, I was still playing N64 because it was always plugged in there. And I very slowly went through the games I had or bought used and beat a bunch of games I never would have otherwise. It's probably also why despite the many flaws most N64 games have, I have more of an attachment to it than maybe any other console. I think technically I played N64 at least a couple of times every year from 1998 - 2013, compared to GCN which I played when it was relevant and then a few times when our other consoles broke around 2009 and that's basically it.

i will also say i think im really good at dealing with bizarre and sometimes bad control schemes, to the point that i beat jet set radio on keyboard on pc, which is a terrible idea but i did it. so like when people complain about jet force gemini in hindsight, for example, it doesn't bother me apparently. great game, especially since when i was playing it, it was still the era of xbox 360, terrible 3rd person cover shooters, so anything that wasn't that felt great by comparison. cover obsessed shooters were the worst trend btw, lets never go back to that

@RedderRugfish You deserve a certain level of virtual punishment.

While I agree with this general sentiment (the SNES has some of the finest 2D games whereas most N64 games have been bettered over time imo)...I'm gonna have to disagree with Star Fox. That game had aged like milk whereas Lylat Wars is arguably still the best in the series m

@BlueOcean Well, I don't mean to say that there aren't great single player experiences. What I mean is that these experiences have been rivalled or arguably surpassed by later instalments in the series or just the idea of it in general. Like takes Mario 64 for example. Sunshine and Galaxy are considered classics alongside and arguably surpass 64 in many ways. Twilight Princess and the once-controversial Wind Waker also sits up there with Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask, who some argue are the "pinnacle" of 3D Zelda games.

Compared that to say the LEGENDARY 2D Zelda "A Link to the Past" which the aforementioned Zelda games draw inspiration from and you can see why I preferred to classify the SNES as more groundbreaking and less overrated.

Arguable.
Graphically, yes. You can say that it has with its jagged lines and strange blocky 3D which doesn't translate well but gameplay wise, I feel the original Starfox is still amazing.

Starfox 64 felt like a remake not a reinvention of the genre and Starfox has gone downhill from there.

Also even from a fake 3D standpoint the SNES does well. Pilotwings was epic and will never be rivalled. The original F-Zero started on top of hill and got only slightly better.

My game experience ever since I experienced half the Mode 7 games never really feel the same anymore. The standard was so high that I was almost out of gaming and move to new genres and whatnot so as to not be disappointed.

I agree 100% with this.

@RedderRugfish @BlueOcean Well my point on the SNES was that pretty much all games after drew from it. The GB and GBA had Zelda titles but the SNES ones set the formula for 20 years onwards. It also had the first "fake" 3D games making the N64 feel less innovative.
Link Awakening is actually quite controversial for example and many Zelda fans don't rate it all that highly. A lot of people including a few I know prefer Majora's Mask to Ocarina of Time.
F-Zero GX was amazing but if you played F-Zero X, when it first came out it feels less so and more a graphics boosts.

All these are opinions of course and arguably good points but my point is that the SNES bought with it both many firsts at a point at which it cannot be surpassed. EVERYTHING the N64 can do, the SNES basically could, including more than 2 players.

"Is Super Mario RPG objectively better than Superstar Saga or Paper Mario? Is Earthbound objectively better than Mother 3?"

Maybe. Maybe not. Some are. Some not.
But do the N64 have Seiken Densetsu 3 and Chrono Trigger? Or even Star Ocean and Tales of Phantasia?

When it comes to jRPGs, the SNES crushes the N64 in every way. When it comes to everything else, its still around to challenge it. Not to mention the inspiration that the SNES has given to both modern and old school gaming. That's the point I am getting at.

@RedderRugfish Which is why I said I don't know how to rate the N64.

That said, I stand by what I said.

The NES was an 8-bit system that didn't do 3D.
SNES was a 16-bit system that also did "fake" 3D.
N64 was a 64-bit system that did 3D.

So going with that the SNES wins points on versatility. It also wins points on influential game-library.

If I had only had one system to choose I would pick the SNES.
The N64 is much like the NES to me. They both bought in a whole new world of gaming.
Going with what you've said, one could easily argue that the NES was just as influential as the SNES and thus the N64 and had games that were just as "groundbreaking" and influential.

Then every generation had the same thing.

What about the GameCube? How was it not innovative and influential?
It bought us Metroid Prime and Pikmin, Resident Evil, Phantasy Star Online and a lot more...

And then came the Wii which was also influential and innovative.
And the Wii U with the GamePad showed that games can still evolve and it was the precursor to the Switch.

And so on and so forth.

Every generation was innovative and influential in some regard but I would also argue that you only really get one or the other.

I would say the NES, N64, Wii, Switch are innovative hardware that bought on a new generation of games.

The SNES, GameCube, Wii U and no doubt the next Switch is probably more influential in terms of its game library, mastered what came before it and started to take a step towards the next generation of innovation.

It is a tick-tock strategy where one is innovative hardware that leads to influential software and vise versa.

Yes, I have played all those games and I think that this is not true. Nintendo 64 was the first Nintendo console that had proper 3D games. Super Mario 64 was innovative in many ways including gameplay and exploration, Goldeneye 007 redefined the shooter genre, F-Zero X used 3D circuits like a cylinder and so on. You say that Majora's Mask is some people's favourite Zelda game. It's one of my favourite games ever indeed, but what do you mean? Both games are Nintendo 64 games and the latter is highly innovative as a game but reuses the engine and some assets.

My opinion is exactly the opposite of yours, SNES was a refinement of NES with expanded possibilities and GameCube is a refinement of N64 with expanded possibilities.

EDIT: Your last comment makes even less sense to me.

@RedderRugfish I agree with everything that you wrote.

The Z-targetting system made dealing with enemies and a 3D camera much easier to the point that some games made many years later are a mess because they don't have it, the camera is totally manual or the Z-targetting is not consistent. Ocarina of Time had automatic jumps and Z-targetting cleverly implemented and even the camera was quite intelligent on its own. 21 years later, some games don't get the camera or the Z-targetting right.

@BlueOcean I think we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.

My point was that the SNES was more easily definable with a quality of library that was unmatched in the home console space for some time. It also influenced the PlayStation in that the PlayStation is really the continuation of the SNES line today.

The SNES didn't just refine what the NES did, it also bought it smaller hardware innovations that really pushed the envelope of what could be done with games and because of it, I wasn't all that impressed with the N64. I have both and in all the years, I don't see myself revisiting the N64 all that much...

I must be one of the few people in the world that didn't like Ocarina of Time all that much. I know it got a 10/10 but so did Breath of the Wild and Breath of the Wild has its own set of detractors, as well. The world of OoT didn't feel very lively despite its charming characters and msuic the artstyle came off a bit...I dunno what you call it but it seems a bit focus a little simple and with wide open space that just had something fleshed out.

For me, the N64 controller was somewhat a pain in the neck to use.

There are games that I still revisit on the SNES to this day most of them jRPGs which I love more than anything else.

Other games were utilitarian but also quite fun. Even Rare which you mentioned before started Donkey Kong Country on the SNES.

Call it what you will, a refinement or influential software, I personally prefer the GameCube to the N64 for games it simply did not have like Smash, Metroid Prime, Pikmin, Resident Evil, Phantasy Star Online and so on. Some of these are my favourite games/franchises of all time btw.

I felt that the second generation of hardware had more influential software then the first generation especially outside the house of Mario and for me, gaming IS about the games. The first generation was always about the hardware and a step in that direction.

Guys I need a professional advice. By professional I mean someone who know a lot about N64.

1. I look for PAL console since I am in Europe
2. I want to know what are the most common problems with the console? Is there heating problems (I do not think it has a fan).
3. Are there different models to consider? Best SKU?
4. Are there any noise factors to consider in the console?

Generally how to find the best N64 out there