mereel

First YouTube channel I’ve ever been remotely tempted to subscribe to.

Waverace looks and plays great. Is there any console better than the N64? I think not.

Hmm. I’ve seen the movie. That tracks…

I agree that this feature would be great to have on the Switch, but it’s just not feasible due to the size of the games these days. It would take ages to transfer enough of the game to the other Switch to be playable.

Download Play on the DS was a rockin’ feature for its time, though.

I have them all. I never miss a T99 tournament weekend, and that means never.

Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles

This game is wack. I remember counting down the days waiting for this to drop on the GameCube way back in the day. Boy was I disappointed when I finally got my hands on it.
The levels were too big, and many of the challenges asked the player to do things that the game’s control simply weren’t able to accurately perform.

SM64 on the other hand was a master stroke. Nintendo practically nailed 3D platforming on their first try. Likewise, Mario Galaxy was near flawless. But this mess, nah. I still played through it again on the Mario 3D All-Stars package, but it’s a dog nonetheless.

I love a good Nintendo puzzler. Bring it on!

Unless I’m reading that tweet incorrectly, the switch demo is not coming on the 28th like the other consoles. No ETA for Switch.

@Kevember My thoughts exactly. Keep this guy away from me out there on the roads.

I tried the earlier demo and was shocked at how badly it looked and played. But I gave the full finished game a try with this NSO trial. Wow is it a different experience!
Sure the cut-scene moments are a bit low-framerate. But otherwise the whole experience is nice and fluid. The gameplay options are endless. I have to think this is a top-tier baseball sim port even if there were other choices on Switch. It’s cool having “real” pro sports ports on a Nintendo console after decades without.

Maybe Jeff Grubb just speculating since his “sources” and predictions didn’t come to fruition.

Having JUST played through the Wii version this weekend, I eagerly tried the Switch demo. The Switch version is passable, certainly fun and lovely to look at. But the framerate is terribly inconsistent which results in little “hiccups” or stutters continuously, at least in docked mode. Compare to the Wii version which is 480p of course but also is a silky smooth dream to play.

This is another routine sloppy/rushed port situation. Perhaps it can be patched. Back when Switch ports performed admirably (which was a clear objective for many years by 3rd party devs) it was an easy pick to go for the Switch version, because you were gotta portable version included! But with recent low-effort ports like this, the choice is admittedly not as clear.

@Luke937 I’m there with you. I bought 4 N64 controllers for this very use case. However, even now there are plenty of 4 player NSO games. Mario Golf and Mario Tennis are great. Mario Kart, F-Zero X and Starfox 64 all have excellent 4 player modes. Dr. Mario 64 is a blast with 4 players, totally underrated. Pokémon Puzzle League will support 2 players. I think even Winback has a 4-player mode, and Sin & Punishment has a co-op mode. So there are plenty of multiplayer options, and they work great online. We play 4 person Dr. Mario with online friends regularly.

Though I agree with your sentiment that Mario Party and Smash 64 are sorely missed at this point.

Happier with Pokémon Puzzle League honestly

Dual GamePads is not a good idea. The point of the Wii U was asymmetric multiplayer. Nintendo builds game consoles around new types of gameplay. This is the company philosophy.

For the Wii U, that new gameplay concept meant that one player gets his own screen, while the other players watch the TV and use traditional controllers. This is the core concept, and it is a strong one. Nintendo Land showed how fun and unique this idea was.

Perhaps had it released during the Switch (current) era where indie games could have fueled that creativity and risk taking, something like the Wii U could have been successful. As it was, AAA 3rd parties looked at it and were not willing to take the financial risk to develop unique software that could take advantage of that core concept of asymmetric multiplayer.

Cool! But I guess this means we won’t be getting an announcement for the next “batch” of N64 games covering the next six months or so. Now we just get the true drip-feed, never knowing if another game is coming or not.

Let’s get these Rareware N64 classics on NSO. Come on Microsoft. Xbox players don’t care about these games, but they are still special to us old Nintendo fans.

How does Genesis get Mega Man when NES nor SNES apps do? What’s up with that CAPCOM?!

I’ve heard this game is great. $39.99 for the physical seems like a good deal. Any disagreement let me hear it.

I tried this game and yes it was ugly but was more fun than I expected. The “battle” mechanics were not well implemented I felt. But the core sports action is fun. If you like Rocket League, give it a shot.

@LillianC14 I thought about this too. I guess this proves that Ubisoft, the company, pronounces its name as “YOO-be-soft”, thus making “A YOO-be-soft Game” grammatically correct.

Doesn’t look like WarioWare at all to me. Maybe reminds me of the NES Remix concept a bit though.

Firmware now ready for E3 direct

Cool trailer! I’ve never heard of this before today. And it gets a physical version too…
It’s multi platform though so I’ll see how compromised the experience is on Switch before deciding.

@RubyCarbuncle well, as indicated, I dedicated my entire evening to playing retro Mario Strikers, meaning GC and Wii versions. Some observations:
Yes the GC stadiums are essentially skins. Only the Wii version has the awesome stadiums. Honestly the “customized” single stadium in the Switch version is better than the GC Strikers offerings. Also…
GC strikers had 8 captains. Yes, eight. There is also a robot unlockable character, but it’s lame. The Wii version… 9 captains with 3 unlockable ones.. So a lot of folks may be having rose-tinted glasses on the roster.
Also… I hate the Wii remote controls on Charged. GameCube version had better controls. Let’s be glad we’re back in an era of buttons and sticks with no waggle and compromised controls.

But… the GameCube version, with its 8-month dev cycle feels very barebones. After an hour of play it feels like you’ve seen it all. The Switch version is far deeper with more systems and nuance typically found in sim sports games. I think MSBL will provide far more longevity than either of the previous entries.

I miss the unique “stadiums” of the old games though… Maybe I’ll fire up Super Mario Strikers (GC) to get my jam on.

@Silly_G interesting. Thanks for the detailed reply. Of course, this will all become a bit sad and disappointing 25 years from now when the update servers are long gone, and we try to fire up old Switch game cards only to learn we only have access to the broken “1.0” version of all these games. Unless we lucked out and got an updated reprint cartridge instead - assuming the game even got a reprint run. Many don’t. It’s all going to be very confusing. How is the retro scene even going to work for the games of this era?

@Axecon you know, I couldn’t put my finger on it but I knew something was missing from this game compared to previous entries. You’re right, it’s the stadiums. What a major downgrade compared to previous Strikers games if all the play fields are different skins of this stadium.

@Silly_G I agree with everything you said, with the exception of the last paragraph. Does Nintendo print new “versions” of existing cartridges later on with patches included? This would be a megaton piece of news to me as a collector of physical media. Please cite evidence if this is true.

Cool! I can get back to playing through this one.

Good news on the upcoming fix. I was throughly enjoying this until encountering the bug twice in a few minutes of play, so I shelved it until a fix appears. Hoping it comes quickly.

@betterman @SteveSnowmn Same here. I love F-Zero X but was sorely disappointed to find that it ran very sub-par, not only compared to the original but also compared with prior Wii and Wii U emulation attempts. Not sure what’s wrong under the hood, but I sure hope Nintendo focuses on it. F-Zero X was one of the top 5 games I was wanting to play on NSO Expansion Pack, but for now… it’s on hold.

It is a great game. I could never get past about halfway though.

Steam Deck doesn’t have the hottest (relatively new) Nintendo games, so what good is it really? (Kidding… sort of)
Obviously the hardware is superior, but even then not entirely. My OLED screen crushes the Steam Deck display. And the joy-cons are removeable for 2-player tabletop experiences, or to quickly swap for new controllers in the event that a stick or button is damaged. Steam Deck can’t do that. Battery life is another win for the Switch. Plus the Switch can dock to a TV, out of the box.

Steam Deck tries to be everything to everyone. I’m glad it exists but Switch is so much better in every practical sense.

Well I’ve purchased five Switch consoles since release for myself and kids, so I’m doing my part!

Looks good to me. Hyper Strikes only count for 2 points instead of potentially — what was it — 6 goals (!) in Mario Strikers Charged? 8 players in a match — awesome. Lots of online focus — awesome. I am a little concerned about ranking up players by earning upgrades. So after a few months, if I jump into the game will I be facing off against fully upgraded players who are objectively faster and stronger? That seems unfair. Possibly that’s an even more unfair for couch gameplay.

Still, the game looks fun and has some new ideas.

@KayFiOS You’re not going to like hearing this, but the N64 controllers were back in stock today for what I believe is the first time since October 2021. I have been checking in at least once per day since October. Today I did a spit-take when I visited the store and saw they were in stock. Quickly purchased a pair and it appears as of this writing, they are out of stock again. I don’t know why Nintendo won’t do a pre-order system for these in-demand items. I am happy to finally have mine ordered, but I definitely feel your pain.

@RubyCarbuncle Thank you. Nailed it. Once patches became available for games, it was all downhill from there. Today’s packaged games are so far removed from being a finished product it’s not even funny.

The repercussions of this loss will surely be earth-shattering for NOA.

Isn’t the NEX netcode the news we wanted to hear?

Starfox Adventures was abysmal. It had some flashy graphical effects for the time, but otherwise was disappointing in every appreciable way.

After having played it for a few hours all those many years ago, I remember thinking “Rareware has lost their way. They are no longer a good dev.” Sure enough, Nintendo let them go not long afterwards.

Clearly that was the right call on Nintendo’s part. Although it hurts to have lost so many great IPs that came from the N64 era.

Maybe M$ will buy Ubi and therefore own the next Mario + Rabbids game!

Finally an argument for pre-purchase of a digital game.

Worst-kept secret in video games right now

Remastered: Now with loads of new microtransactions.

I hope they continue adding DLC packs as value-adds. I own many switch games, but I do not buy DLC, on principle. I like the NSO Expansion Pass though, so allowing me access to these DLC packs ends up being a big bonus.

I love love love this stuff. There’s no way I ever would have known about nor played any of these games were not for this service. Please keep these genesis games coming, as I am experiencing them for the first time!