Topic: How is the Gamecube NSO so far?

Let’s not forget that realistic looking games from all sixth generation consoles don’t hold up as well as they could since everything else does it better.

But yeah, I’d do questionable things for more GameCube games, but I’d also want proper Prime 2 and 3 remasters on Switch 1/2. I tried playing Prime Remastered with classic controls and a GameCube controller, and it was rough.

@BonzoBanana
I have no experience with Dolphin/GCN emulation on PC, but purely based on modern console emulation, vs the real hardware, software paired with a CRT, you can't even compare it purely based on lag and the prestine blur-free sub or 1ms persistence of CRT motion clarity. It puts QD-OLED/OLED TV's to complete shame unless you're running games at 120fps. 120fps cuts down 50% of OLED motion blur, so you're half way there, but there's still 50% of the blur eating up the display.

I can' speak for NS2 either. Still dont' have one, but I've heard in handheld mode it's LCD/LED display has a notably slower motion response time than NS1 OLED's display, and that right there would drive me batty. I don't game in handheld, but my niece's NS1 OLED has such a wonderul picture. Zero black crush unlike LG's WOLED TV's of today, it has a little less motion blur surprisingly, it gets bright enough and colors look RGB-like, and have plenty of volume. The picture looks phenomenal and is dialed in to perfection, minus the lack of CRT motion. Problem is, it's still just a 7" display, and i need 55 or 65". That's where glossy QD-OLED(Samsung's 2025 S90F) comes into play.

But for GCN. As little interest that i have in replaying it at this point, if i had more space and was willing to put the money in, I'd grab a 32" 2006 Sony WEGA CRT off Market Place, use component cables, grab a memory card or two, 4 official wired controllers, an actual GCN and the actual discs.

There's a real lack of apprecation on my end whenever i see older games being displayed on modern TV's, no matter how good the CRT Filters are that are being applied, including the true blacks & high brightness of QD-OLED, the motion just can't compete against CRT, or that instantaneous button responsonse from a lag free CRT. With OLED, it looks artificial.

I hate being binded to a subcription service/monthly fee with a slow drip release schedual. The only way I could properly enjoy NSO is if I were playing it on a CRT TV. lol that would shave off 10ms of latency vs an OLED TV(So then you're left with NSO emulation latency only, and controller lag) and I'd get that true CRT 'look' and perfect motion. This was the exact case on my end during the Wii + VC era, when i gamed on my awesome 32" 4:3/FullScreen Sony WEGA(Plus component cables) which i bought brand new at my local bestbuy in 2006. Best way to experience Wii games hands down, and it was the final SD console ever too. Audio is also just as imporant as the picture. If you can get away with a great 5.1/5.2 Surround system, then a high end pair of headphones with a Dac/Amp should be your last resort.

heck, even something like Sennheiser's latest HD555(Open Back) can's will give you fantastic audio for the money. Paired with something like a Fosi ZH3 DAC.

reading that i just heard cash register noises in my head. you gotta keep in mind how unattainable that is for most, especially since we're still dealing with high prices for a lot of gcn games

@squiddu-real
Gotta do what I did: Find a big ol' CRT somebody put on the curb for free lol

Then grab a GameCube for roughly a hundred bucks depending on condition, a couple games for about 50 (just the discs; CiB is insane), and you're off to the races.

I play path of radiance on NSO GC from time to time.

It's not my fave game or even my fave fire emblem, but the gameplay loop is simple and satisfying enough.

@ElRoberico “ Let’s not forget that realistic looking games from all sixth generation consoles don’t hold up as well as they could”

False, they look amazing on Dolphin

Okay I agree now, we need some more GC games, there isn't enough.

I can't argue against how embarrassingly slow the releases are, but they could still release zero other games other than the two still confirmed and I could easily get 100+ hours just out of the games there, and they're basically all worth putting a decent amount of time into (even if Pokemon Colosseum is a go to example of a game that disappointed me, thank you hyperbolic previews implying this game could in any way have been "dark" or "have story depth at all"). These are basically all games hardcore Nintendo fans should play, a lot of which most of them haven't, and at least half are legitimately and obviously great. (and the absolute worst ones are decent)

@kkslider5552000 I don't think I've ever seen anyone say Colosseum has "story depth", it doesn't. Neither does XD for that matter. The dark elements are overrated too. The only "dark" elements they have are Colosseum's protagonist being an evil team member turned good for reasons that are never specified (and aside from a few passing mentions here and there, they do absolutely nothing with it and usually just ignore that detail and treat him like a normal protagonist), the evil team basically abusing Pokemon into aggressive fighting machines but it's not specified how (only that they "close the door to the Pokemon's heart" whatever that means), and many of the game's settings being on the grittier side (and even then, they toned this down a bit in XD). This duology is far from being an M rated mindfreak, it's just better about this relative to the main series games.

The main reason to play those games (or at least now that the main series is on console) is for the novelty of catching other trainers' Pokemon. That (and maybe the animations and models being subtly better) is the primary advantage Colosseum/XD have over the main series, it's pretty much the same or even worse in other ways. Still worth playing, but it's not going to blow you away as being vastly superior for those who are unsatisfied with the quality of recent Pokemon games (you're probably waiting to see if WiWa is any good for that).

I can say I was fairly convinced from previews I was going to get something at least resembling a more traditional JRPG tier amount of story depth and comparatively darker themes.

Only behind Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts previews trying to convince me that despite the vehicle focus it totally has a similar appeal to the old games in terms of previews I read actively making my experience with the actual game more disappointing.

@kkslider5552000 Did anyone actually say that or did you see gameplay footage and make that assumption? Because that kind of misleading marketing certainly happens. Anyone else remember the infamous "ThIs Is NoT tHe AlOLa YoU kNoW" trailer for Pokemon Ultra Sun/Ultra Moon when they cherry picked the 10% of the game that was actually new and made it seem like a completely different adventure from SM?

@Bolt_Strike I'm at least somewhat certain about Pokemon Colosseum being from the written word of previews on sites and/or Nintendo Power, I can basically promise you that people tried to sell me on Nuts and Bolts being like the old Banjo games before release.

The latter especially I never thought was like that from the footage at all, and it was only people talking about it in previews that got my hopes up and it is only people talking about it that got me to buy it.

@kkslider5552000 Interesting. So that is another instance of false advertising. Not surprising. Again, there's several instances of this happening.

This is why its bad to deceive people about the appeal of your game, especially if you raise expectations that won't be matched at all by the game. I liked XD more and the main reason was that I knew what it was and could take it for what it is, instead of going into it expecting the darker version of a Pokemon RPG and instead getting another Team Rocket plot with less of the other things Pokemon games are known for.

@rallydefault
It just never felt right to me playing Dreamcast, Gamecube or Wii on a CRT that's smaller than 32"(FullScreen). 27" is perfect for Nes, Tgfx, Snes, Genesis, Neogeo, Saturn, PS1 & N64, but once you get to the sixth generation of consoles, 32" is manditory imo. Including Component cables for the Wii. They're much more affordable than GCN's, and the Wii is technically also a GCN, so you're set if console authenticity doesn't matter to you.

And i had no idea about even S-Video, until I was around 21 in 2006 during the tail end of the GCN generation. I remember hitting up my local MicroPlay, buying a high end S-Video cable after hearing about the difference in quality on some internet forum, and then comparing it between standard composite, on my 32" 2006 WEGA Trinitron CRT, with games like F-Zero GX & Resident Evil 4. I couldn't believe the difference. The level of clarity/sharpness was night and day, and there was no more color bleeding. Component obviously takes it a step further but the difference isn't quite as drastic as going from composite to S-video. Component offers better color, brightness, shadow detail & black levels.

And for those looking to get multple retro SD consoles hooked up to their CRT's. You might want to get a Gcomp. Supposedly it's the best current solution. It's a premium Video Switcher that allows you to connect 8 different consoles using either composite or component. Adds zero latency and there's no degredation to image quality. You can even pair two together and get up to 16 consoles connected. Retro mad men need only apply.

https://castlemaniagames.com/products/gretrostuff-automatic-8...

@WaveBoy
I have to check my CRT to see how big it is. It's pretty big lol

I have a switcher, but it's just a two-way for my NES and SNES because those are the only home consoles I collect for. Works awesome is definitely worth it.

@rallydefault
NES, SNES & Genesis(it's gotta be Model 1, with brand new Retro-Bit replica 6-button controllers) are the only Retro consoles that I'm still heavily interested in.

Saturn, PS1, N64, Dreamcast, GameCube & Wii(etc), not nearly as much. Besides, most 3D/polygon based PS1, SAT & N64 games have aged worse than a can of 1992 Crystal Pepsi. It's the 2D 32-bit sprite based stuff that still stands the test of time, be it Mega Man X4, Rayman, Astal and more.

I still need to rebuy another NES. I decided to take apart my last one to instal a new Pin connector. That didn't go over too well. Botch job. lol

On eBay, you can buy bundles where the original Pin connector has been renewed/cleaned, the motherboard is polished, the lock out chips been disabled to eliminate blinking. My only gripe with the NES, is that you can never seem to find any with it's originalt light bright grey finish intact. The grey always looks off due to the chemical agent in the plastic being decades old. I have an NES Mini/Classic Edition as a reference for how the grey is originally supposed to look, so.

@WaveBoy
I got suuuuuper lucky with my NES - it's an original that's been in my family the entire time, and it still works like a charm.

I got my current SNES from my local game store. It initially came with a wonky AC adapter, but I got a new one and it's worked solidly from that point.

Fingers crossed!

@WaveBoy

I'm not sure what is the best gamecube experience ever. It could be an original gamecube or wii or maybe wii u running homebrew paired to a CRT TV to get the full fat experience. Plasma's were also incredibly fast in pixel response but not CRT fast and I guess OLED televisions could be in theory but with only digital connections there is more processing. VGA is an analogue connection and that felt amazing with Dreamcast using a VGA cable on plasma. My guess the very best gamecube experience with minimum input lag would be an original wii or gamecube and CRT TV with wired gamecube controllers. That CRT would need to be simple straight through RGB scart, no HD or 100hz processing.

That would effectively have 0ms input lag however a fast pc and emulator on a fast monitor with wired controllers could be as low as 15ms total. Still a huge improvement on Switch 2 in portable mode which seems to have a minimum of 70ms input lag to the very worst which was 250ms for Skyrim Anniversary on first release but is now down to about 110ms. I could be remembering fondly but the Gamecube always felt like it had very low input lag even compared to its competitors of the time like ps2 and the original xbox. The PS2 had a rubbish MIPs processor I think which was a struggle for many games and it seems if you have a console with a strong GPU but weak CPU it often feels like you get more input lag. The original Xbox had a GPU of about 20 gflops compared to the 8 gflops of the Gamecube but the CPU was likely only 10-15% faster in real terms despite the Mhz difference so the Xbox needed more of its CPU performance to generate each frame. I just remember the gamecube offering higher frame rates with admittedly inferior graphics to the original xbox.

@rallydefault
Nice! But there's no way your NES has escaped from the dreaded pesky grey discoleration due to aging. I wish there was an easy fix or custom brand new replica top shell replacement, plus brand spankin' new NES replica controllers that actually nail the the original feel of the D-pad & buttons for once. But ya, no Super GameBoy, or Sega Genesis? Meanwhile, I've never cared for Master System, TGFX games are too expensive(Unless you scoop up a TGFX Everdrive), and I don't care to really dive back in to Sega CD or 32X, if we're strictly talking consoles that launched prior to the 32-bit era. Plus, if I wanted to i could always play GameGear games on the Analogue Pocket with a GG Adapter. As for Neogeo Pocket? couldn't care less. NeoGeo AES+ on the other hand is a maybe on my end.

But ya, even my GB days feel like they're nearly coming to an end. I'm almost over that distinct unique(yet inferior to NES) GB sound, the black & white, or monochrome pea soup green visuals, and other random colored fitlers, and the games generally just run worse than how they do on NES, combined with zoomed in aspect ratio's that can make stages feel more closed in and small. What also drives me up the wall with GB, is the experiences are far less memorable, because due to the lack of color it becomes much harder to remember or discern stages and environments. My GB memories are the epitome of fickle. Talk about a blur. lol

Either way, as much as I liked GB, be it the original in 89/90', Super GameBoy back in 94', then diving deeper in it's catalogue with GBA SP's GameBoy backwards Compatibility, during the same exact time in 2011 when i had 3DS, with the likes of Operation C and a few others than never initially debuted back on the 3DS's handheld Virtual Console, including simultaneously juggling mostly 3DS's VC. Yet i feel like I've pleayed nearly everything I've wanted to outside a small handful of titles, like Batman: The Video Game, Bionic Commando and maybe a couple of others.

Which remindes me, I kind of want to get either the Analogue Pocket(White) or ModRetro Chromatic - Bubblegum. AP has a larger screen, can play GBA games and also has a warmer color temp with better color saturation which i prefer, but the Chromatic supposedly feels more comfortable, has better buttons and doesn't have 1 frame/16ms of latency applied to each game.

And going back to the GBA SP to play GB/GBC games is completely pointless now thanks to the latest two options above. Ya, I'll probably wind up getting both. The AP is still probably better for playing GBA games than an aged DS Lite(display) too, and you don't have to deal with a GBA cart pocking out the bottom.
GBA SP '001' front light screen produces a dim image with terrible dull colors. The later GBA SP '101' and it's back lit display is much brighter and the colors are great, but it has a slower pixel response time than 001 which leads to noticeble motion ghosting. Both can kick NintenRocks as far as I'm concerned. Caffienation in check. Enjoy that rambling sea of text haha.