Mips

@nessisonett Ahh I was wondering what was going on with the mouth, I didn’t know the PS4 could do that! Mystery solved, thanks

That’s extraordinary, the water surface looks amazing. I’d like to see it fleshed out further & extended to the rest of the game..

@nessisonett Hey Nessisonett, can I ask where your profile photo’s from & what your username means? Just out of interest.

@Would_you_kindly Yes totally agree - I think it’s every bit as good as 1

@Vasilios Good to hear, it was a fantastic game for sure.

Much as I love all Mario games, I feel MG 1&2 were the last truly stellar games of the series with that sense of pure wonder that only Nintendo can produce. Miyamoto & team have been carefully handing over the reigns to the younger generation at Nintendo for a good few years now. I just hope they can manage to retain that pure magic that the company’s known for.

@Aurumonado Definitely! Trust me the guys who say that stuff end up going the wrong route. I can say that because unfortunately I did. I have some of the best hardware you can get - 10 or so CRTs including the fabled BVM 20E1E (the best 15khz CRT ever made), the NEC XV29 plus and Loewe E3001 chassis , probably the best consumer shadow mask CRT. I have new/low use 25, 21 and 14” consumer Trinitrons all connected VIA RGB. All my consoles are RGB modded and/or have the latest HDMI mods. Seriously, going this route is an obsession and robs you of the simple joy of just enjoying the games. You’ll see so many people professing the ‘superiority’ of this and that solution, be it CRT or HDMI/Frameister/Mister/OSSC. It all seems exciting and interesting, but please take it from me that people get obsessed more with the hardware than with the games and waste so much of their limited time on this earth. I regrettably took that path, but at least I can tell you the way to avoid that but still have great quality without getting caught up. If you like composite, that’s great, go with that. Just know that there’s two things that’ll make a solid difference with your retro consoles that requires virtually no effort - and will be just as good as all the complicated crap everyone throws at you. One is a new or hardly used consumer CRT. Pro monitors (BVMs/PVMs) look very sharp, but nothing like the games looked back in the day. The strong scan lines are a modern obsession and won’t give you that retro feeling. The low-use thing is because most CRTs have been used a lot, so the picture goes dim and soft. New/low use ones are vibrant and have a clean image. And yes, aim for a smaller 22” Sony trinitron. If you’re happy with your current CRT with composite & it looks fine, that might be your answer though. The cheapest, simplest upgrade would be a decent s-video cable. But decent consumer CRT plus S-video will destroy any high end digital solution. I have the UltraHDMI which is supposedly the best HDMI solution and it pales in comparison. Whether HDMI or CRT, these days people seem to favour either the heavily blocky or heavily scanlined looks - neither of which looks anything like what we were looking at back in the day.

@Aurumonado As you say, TVs in the USA don’t support RGB - that doesn’t matter though - s-video is a great quality signal & is supported by your N64 without modding, and your CRTs support it too. It’s ‘technically’ not as good as RGB, but as long as your TV’s small enough (22” or under), it’ll look just as good and loads better than the HDMI solutions. If you can, try and get a CRT that hasn’t been used much. I would say the most important thing is don’t fall down the rabbit hole like me & believe all the crap that you need to spend loads on professional CRT monitors like BVM/PVMs etc. In fact a normal household CRT looks better with the N64 as the pro monitors accentuate the N64’s flaws. The most important thing is to get one unused or low use - say it’s been only used in a guest room etc. If you can get one at 22” or under, you’ll have better video quality with s-video that HDMI solutions will ever get. Good luck, I hope you find one

@michellelynn0976 Yessss thank you! I skipped over the latter part but great to know it’s worth getting. I’ll probably ignore the main game as I’ve played it. 41/2 hours isn’t a lot for £60 but it’s just enough - i just can’t miss out on 3D Mario.

@horizoniki Don’t listen to the deniers - what you’re saying has truth to it. I’ve had 1000s of emulated old games in the past & ended up never wanting to play them. But now I have them all on official cartridges/discs, they all have great individual value. Same with modern pirated stuff - for some reason, pirated games lose some intrinsic quality. Plus how can you profess to love Nintendo and at the same time steal from them? I feel that homebrew is fine, but the people who produce the software should actively block users from using pirated games.

I’ll keep from watching it. For some reason Nintendo life have always been avid supporters of piracy but I’m against it. I feel if you really love Nintendo & what they do, you’d want to support them.

@nessisonett I agree! Thank god I finished my retro collection a few years ago - it’s worth a fortune now.TBH I’m happy to pass on PM, too many games to play.

I’ve never got into this series but keep hearing that thousand year door is the best. I’m thinking I should buy this for my GameCube..

EDIT: Has anyone seen what this game is going for??? £120 used, minimum!

Maybe I’m an outlier, but this game didn’t click with me - perhaps I’ll go back and give it a retry. Either way, I feel it’s a game uniquely suited to a very small screen - not sure how that’d translate to switch, especially in docked mode.

@kirbygirl I love that!

@Wavey84 The GT60 has 23ms which isn’t too bad - and yes I never use BFI on my LG, it looks way too dim. I love modern gaming on the set though - I’m much less picky than I thought I’d be.

@kirbygirl Yes! Another reason to keep one around. I do agree - i love using original carts on original hardware - gives the gaming session a sense of occasion I just don’t get with emulators.

@Wavey84 I know what you mean, I want the game running perfectly as intended so I’m not interested in that stuff. And as you say, the perfect smooth motion clarity of CRT is wonderful. I also have an LG (CX) OLED buy still keep my Panasonic GT60 plasma for its perfect smooth rendering of 1080p with no blur.

@Wavey84 I’m totally with you on CRT - that’ll always be my favourite way to play. Bizarrely, though, in the last couple of years emulation has progressed to the point that with new techniques like run-ahead emulation combined with high refresh rate monitors, it’s now actually possible to emulate some systems with less overall latency than a console+CRT setup. On the pro melee scene they sometimes actually have to build in a fraction of delay to keep parity with the CRT setups.
I’ll always be happy with my CRTs though - perfectly fast enough for me.

@cleveland124 Well said

@bluedogrulez Good to see an N64 forever representative here - yes I agree. A good warning for people getting into this is not to fall down the rabbit hole too deeply. Just get a few of the games you love, a CRT or flat panel solution & enjoy. Get too obsessive & you’ll lose an element of simply enjoying in the games for their own sake.

@kingbk Yes, with no scorn or derision intended whatsoever, I would say that in your terms you’ve absolutely just described yourself as having arrested development . I don’t class it as such though - I have a wife, run a good business, have grown up kids, live in a nice countryside house as a result of years of property development. I also have a retro game & CRT collection. I stopped collecting years ago - it hardly takes up any of my time as I don’t game that much, but it’s nice to dip into the collection every now & then for nostalgia. Or just to have the occasional gaming evening with friends. Despite the stigma attached to adult gaming, I reckon as long as it’s not an addiction/problem, it’s fine to do what you makes you happy & not be overly concerned what other people think.

@karatekid1612 Love that game - enjoy!

@karatekid1612 Totally, they must be leaving so much money on the table.

@Deltath I agree, I don’t think it’s Nintendo’s fault either. I switched on the NES & SNES apps for the first tune in ages & was surprised at the amount of great games there. I personally prefer to own them physically so they don’t disappear one day but for the yearly subscription price I think it’s a good effort.

@GannonBanned Its cozy in there with low indirect lighting - feels arcadey. I love having mates down there with all the CRTs on with a game on each from all gens so people can turn to whatever they fancy playing.

@Purgatorium Definitely agree with this

@GannonBanned Haha! Does sound like one doesn’t it? I only have 8 or so really - all hooked up in a big semicircle with different consoles on each.

So true - I have a cellar full of CRTs set up with every retro game I’ve ever loved & I rarely play them

I’ve been planning to go to Japan with my daughter for years - going after covid. She’s 16 now & has loved Nintendo since age 3 when I played through ocarina of time with her on my lap. No question we’re going to Super Nintendo world!

@Ks123 nice one - I’m not too bothered about randoms & none of my friends play Nintendo games. Perhaps there’ll be some people on here that want to play.

@BenAV True, local is always best for me. Apparently N’s got new servers tho - I suppose it depends if the game is peer to peer or not?

I do think people here are right that the original game’s better in multiplayer. But doesn’t the fact that we now have online multiplayer elevate this rerelease a score point? I only played with a full set of people once & it was incredibly fun.

@GrailUK Love this! Great reply, 36/40 is a very nice score, can’t wait for this one..

@BloodNinja You're welcome.

@BloodNinja Bit touchy

The gameplay's very solid - lots of new stuff to learn.

@bimmy-lee The 13" CRT has to be the absolute best way to play the actual console in terms of image quality. People say the N64 looks bad these days - not if you have a 13" CRT!

@1UP_MARIO what a beautiful sight!

@1UP_MARIO Absolutely understandable 👍

@Yorumi Perfectly put - love that controller.

@1UP_MARIO I have the HDMI mod. Although it's not for everyone, I think the console looks much nicer on a small CRT than blown up on a big screen.

Another problem is that an N64 mini would require an FGPA that's much more sophisticated than the SNES/NES minis use. This may not be viable at a decent price point.

@Majora101 love this - I absolutely agree. In fact the way Nintendo and others blew us away with such simple graphics that enabled us to be so engrossed in their worlds with so few polygons at their disposal is a testament to that.

@IceEarthGuard agreed, I absolutely adore the N64 controller - it felt so fluid, comfortable and natural. I'm always baffled when people say it was awkward or unintuitive.

Wonderful article. Another problem is that 2D graphical elements don't scale as they're forever locked in 240p. It's just about acceptable on Wii/U virtual console but on a dedicated unit like an N64 mini it would look wierd. The game itself would have to run at 1080p but the 2D elements for all games would have to be meticulously recreated in high resolution which would take extra time and effort. It would be fantastic if they did so.

@bluedogrulez N64 forever!

@10-zx It sure is pretty wonderful 👍

@10-zx No no no - we need more 90's remakes!

@impurekind I'd love to see a remake of this as well, for sure! Although if you have the right CRT and an RGB connection, the game can still look pretty good. The gourard shading technique used to make the game helps with this, giving it a cleaner look than many N64 games.