23rd April 2012, 3:42 PM
(This post was last modified: 25th April 2012, 6:46 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
A Black Falcon Wrote:Banjo-Kazooie - This game is one of the all-time classic 3d platformers, and it is indeed a great game. It isn't my favorite Rare 3d platformer, but it is a great one that deserves most of the praise it has recieved. The graphics are quite good, the game is well designed in both general game design and levels, and there's a lot to do. I do dislike how you have to re-collect notes and such each time you go into a level unless you get all of them, though. You can be in a level without a power you'll need to get all 100 notes, but you don't know it and start collecting them... only to realize some time later you wasted your time and will need to do it again later. It's quite annoying. Other than that though, this game is pretty good. Rare's first 3d platformer is still a great game. Like all of Rare's 3d platformers, BK has a lot of content and will take a good while to finish. It is also on XBox 360 Live Arcade, but I haven't played that version so I can't compare them. One player, on cart saving.
The 360 version changed a few graphics, mainly "updating" the Rare logo (which is now still out of date, so I really hope they don't "update" it to their current abomination). The gameplay changes include better camera controls, proper implementation of "Stop and Swop", and changing note collection to be just like later games, all notes collected are permanent this time around. You listed it as an annoyance, so that solves it. I however would have appreciated "ghost" notes I could collect again and again, chiefly for the purpose of a "get them all in one go" run on each stage. There's certain ways stages need to be played in order to do that which were really challenging.
Quote:Banjo-Tooie - The sequel to the previous game, bigger and better than the first one in most respects. Tooie is a pretty good game. It doesn't repeat the first game's problems, and has some pretty cool levels too. It's not as original as the first game, though, and some people dislike the multiple characters you now have. I don't mind that, but I did find it kind of annoying at some points and haven't finished the game, despite owning it for many years (since 2002, precisely). The game has some framerate problems -- they simply tried too much for the unenhanced N64, I really wish that this game had had Expansion Pak support, I think it needed it. Some parts have some bad framerate drops. Still, the game is great overall. Like the first game it is also on XBox 360 Live Arcade, but I haven't played those versions so I can't compare them. Four player (battle mode and minigames for multiplayer), oncart saving.
As above, all Nintendo owned imagery was removed. Controls were changed in the same way as before, and stop and swop was properly implemented, and greatly expanded on to boot. In fact, between the two games, there's actually connectivity between them and Nuts & Bolts, but as yet no port of the GBA game (or, as I imagine, a 3D remake ala RE: Chain of Memories) so no interlocking there.
Quote:Blast Corps - Blast Corps is an early N64 Rare game. The game is both original and brilliant, and, despite the many incredible games that Rare made for the system, still stands as one of their best. The graphics are poor, first gen work, but the incredibly fun gameplay makes up for it. In Blast Corps, you have to destroy all the buildings that are in the way of a runaway nuclear missile carrier which cannot stop. If it hits anything, it explodes. You control a variety of different vehicles in your destructive work. The game is essentially an action/puzzle game, and figuring out the fastest and best way to beat each level is both a lot of fun and very challenging. There are medals, and you unlock bonus stages, and the ability to try for platinum medals, if you manage to get all the gold medals. Good luck there, the difficulty is crazy. In addition to the destroying, there are also occasional bonus stages where you do other stuff such as flying around with a jetpack-like thing, and some racing levels where you do some top down racing. It's a great, great game. Controller pak or internal save. One player. Note that the game will give an error message ("foreign object detected in controller pak port" or something) if you have a rumble pak plugged in, and you cannot access the internal save unless you do NOT have a controller pak plugged into controller one. Also, if the space is available, the game will automatically make four 10-14 page notes on your memory card to save onto. How nice. So, before playing Blast Corps, make sure to remove anything from your controller's accessory port! One player.
In retrospect, original games popped up a lot more often back then. Granted, Nintendo still tries new things every now and then, and Sony and MS seem to have put some money into supporting "unique" startups, but without a big name backing them, too many developers have to pick some variation of "retro" art style to get a game made these days. Heck even Inafune ended up having to go retro for two Megaman games just to get them made. It's a big shame Rare didn't do much bug testing on basic accessory compatibility though. Also, the graphics, even by N64 standards, aren't much to look at, so it's a good thing you're zoomed out and above the whole game. Still, fun and unique experience. Boom.
Quote:Castlevania - The first 3d Castlevania game, this game has a pretty bad reputation. While I will agree that the early N64 graphics don't look that good (the graphics definitely are the worst thing about this game), the gameplay is better than the graphics. However, the improved version below makes this game outdated for all but its most hardcore fans. I will describe the game, but considering that LoD is pretty much the same thing but better, there's not much reason to get this. On its own though, Castlevania is a fairly impressive achievement in some ways. First, as should be expected from Konami, the music is fantastic. In addition, the levels are large and well designed. Castlevania for the N64 has elements of 3d platforming, 3d action, and adventure gaming in it, and the platforming and adventure elements are done especially well. As an action game it's probably not above average, but the game's focus is elsewhere so that's fine, in my opinion. I love the adventure game elements, this game has a great sense of suspense sometimes and the puzzles in the game are often challenging and fun. The game follows multiple routes with the two characters, who share some levels but each play some the other character doesn't. The little girl (mage) character is way better than the guy with the whip, because his weapon is short range while she can shoot far, which is a huge help in a 3d game. There are multiple endings too, depending on how long you took to finish it. The platforming controls are pretty good -- your character will grab onto any platform edge you get anywhere near while jumping, so absolute precision is, thankfully, not necessary. Overall, flawed but good. One player, controller pak (9 blocks) to save. The Japanese version has on-cart saving, but like all Konami N64 games it was removed from the Western releases because Konami are cheap and annoying, apparently.
Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness - I got this game in the mid '00s not expecting much, because of how much bad things I'd heard over the years about the N64 Castlevanias, but I was very pleasantly surprised, and I think this is a pretty good game. LoD is an improved version of the above title. Essentially, it is everything Castlevania for the N64 is, and more. It has better graphics, more stages, more playable characters, some level design changes, and more. The expansion pak support is an optional Hi Res mode; the framerate is lower, but the graphics look great. The graphics are improved over the first version even in low res mode, but high res is particulalry good looking. Many people dislike the slow framerate of hi res mode, but I think it's fine and always play LoD in high res. The new stages are great too. I love the new first level, on the ships; it's a better intro stage than that dark forest the original starts with (and that is level 2 this time), I think. Great boss too. The new characters change the game's progression. In LoD, first you play as Cornell. Cornell is a werewolf and is incredibly powerful; few bosses will be much of a challenge for wolf mode Cornell, so save your red gems for boss battles and then just destroy the bosses. :) This lets you focus on what's best about the game, the platforming and puzzles. Cornell is pretty cool, he's my favorite character in this game. This mode has only one ending and no time limit, and you go through all of the stages in the game. After you beat the game with Cornell, you unlock a second character. This guy has a time limit and has to find five children hiding in a certain set of stages you play through before time runs out. Do that and you unlock the original two characters from the first version, and can play through their two modes, much like the first game but with some minor changes here and there, so it won't be exactly the same experience, just similar. One player only, controller pak (~18 blocks) to save. The Japanese version has on-cart saving, but like all Konami N64 games it was removed from the Western releases because Konami are cheap and annoying.
I should pick the latter of these up at some point. Hearing about it sounds like a very weird case of a game practically being released as a beta and then eventually releasing a "finished" version. Wish that would happen to Star Fox Adventures. That game looks better than a lot of Wii games but was otherwise very disappointing.
Quote:Conker's Bad Fur Day - Rare's last N64 3d platformer, Conker's Bad Fur Day was long in development but worth the wait. Conker has impressive graphics, though it does have some framerate issues like Banjo-Tooie likely because it doesn't use the expansion pak. It also has great platformer gameplay, with the usual good Rare level design. This game is less about collecting than Rare's other 3d platformers; the game does have some, you are collecting items, but it's more straightforward than Rare's other 3d platformers. This game is streamlined versus the previous ones. I'm not so sure the change was a good one, I like the other three more overall, but it does make for something different and is a pretty good game as well. What Conker is best known for, however, of course, is its mature theme. This game's M rating is well earned. The game has a later Xbox remake, but while the graphics on the Xbox are better, the game is actually censored more on that platform -- many swears that are unbeeped on the N64 (the game is fully voiced) are censored on the Xbox. The game is full of dark, British humor and just crazy situations, perhaps most famously the Great Mighty Poo. Normally I am not one for poop jokes, but that whole bossfight, with an opera-singing giant poo monster fighting against Conker, who you defeat by throwing giant toilet paper rolls at it, was pretty awesome stuff. Not everyone is going to like the adult nature of the game, and this is not a game for kids, but it's a very good game all 3d platformer fans should try. Thanks to the lesser censorship the N64 probably has the better version, though it won't be cheap. Four player multiplayer (various modes, many of them shooter-style; the XBox version has different multiplayer content, so the two are not the same in that regard), on-cart saving.
I think it's worth correcting matters about the XBox version. There is more censorship in it, but only the first time around. After beating the game, an option is unlocked to disable all the censorship, so the second time is less censored than the N64 version. Further, in what I consider something kinda funny since the 360 ports of other Rare N64 games were very minimalist in their improvements, the graphics in the XBox version were truly overhauled to take full advantage of the console. This was done by Rare as it was when MS first bought it, when they were working on Star Fox Adventures. As a result, the game looks absolutely amazing and is one of the XBox's best looking games with the same fur and grass rendering techniques used in SFA. Along the way, they added some more movie references, like converting a castle into a Van Helsing parody. At the same time, it's a good thing the game is funny on it's own, because movie references can only get you so far and less far as the movies become more and more dated (the big failing of the "Scary Movie" movies and spinoffs as well as, in my opinion, Robot Chicken). They also added some elements as well as taking away a few, mainly balancing difficulty throughout. Some dialog was changed, mainly for the sake of comedy, and there's a few other unexpected surprises. Also, yes, the multiplayer is completely different. It's a shame they didn't include the original multiplayer on top of it, but that's how it is. Fortunately the game supports system link, as Live support for original XBox games is gone. All in all, the XBox version really is a great version on its own, and considering how hard it is to find a cheap copy of the N64 game, a perfectly valid way to go. For the collector of fine Rare games, I recommend getting both.
Quote:Diddy Kong Racing - Rare's first attempt at a Mario Kart clone, DKR is a great game in its own right. The game's fully polygonal, unlike MK64, and has an extensive, challenging single player mode. Indeed, when I played this game back in 1999-2000, I found it TOO challenging -- I could never beat the first Wizpig battle at the end of the game, it's just insanely, insanely hard. There are a lot of tracks, a battle mode, decently good multiplayer, three vehicle types, andm ore. I love the planes, they're a lot of fun to fly around with. Overall, I think that Mario Kart 64, though much shorter, is a little bit better game. Even so, DKR is a fantastic, must-play title. There is a DS version, though it has a few changes; I haven't played it myself though. Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving.
Rare did for kart racing what they did for platforming. Mario Kart may have single player modes, but for anyone who's played this game, it's clear that they barely "count" compared to the full fledged adventure and story of Diddy Kong Racing. The single player design is lightyears beyond MK and course design is top notch in a way that I consider matching MK64's setup. That said, in terms of basic mechanics Mario Kart 64 wins, and as a result that's the one I always played with friends. Modern Mario Kart games like the latest 3DS still haven't come close to this game's single player design.
Quote:Donkey Kong 64 - Unlike many people, I love this game. Indeed, DK64 is my favorite of the Rare 3d platformers on the N64. I got this game shortly after it came out in late 1999, and absolutely loved it. I played the game steadily through until I beat the game with every single golden bananna and got the best ending. DK64 has fantastic graphics, great level designs, a lot of variety, a huge number of things to do, a bunch of different fun minigames, unlockable versions of two classic games (Rare's Jetpack and Nintendo's Donkey Kong), and more. THere are five playable characters, and you do have to revisit each of the eight levels with each character, but you do different things with each one, so it works -- you're not just doing the same thing over and over, you're exploring new areas and doing new things with each character. Everything you collect with each character saves, so there's no repeat play required, unlike BK. The levels, characters, gameplay, graphics, music, bosses... everying about this game is just fantastic and among the best on the system. Four player multiplayer (battle mode; it's okay but kind of average), on-cart saving. Expansion pak required.
I too loved this game. Time has tempered that opinion, but I still stand by my opinion that this game was vastly underrated. I should add that as time went on, the biggest problem I've found isn't the need to switch characters so much as the general "feeling" in a level of being "incomplete". So many areas in a level are cordoned off no matter who you are. If they had to go with multiple characters, there were better ways to pull it off. It probably would have been best if levels were designed around a simple mechanic of being able to switch characters on a whim. Other complaints revolve around the need to collect SO much stuff just to "see the ending", but generally in these games that's the last thing I actually want to see. I had no problem with all that stuff in the game I had to find.
Quote:F-Zero X - F-Zero X, the long-awaited sequel to the great SNES classic F-Zero, is a truly exceptional game and another one of my favorite racing games ever. I generally find it very hard to decide between F-Zero, F-Zero X, and F-Zero GX, but all three games are so outstanding that it doesn't really matter. F-Zero X does have a very simple visual style -- unlike most racing games that generation this game has a 100% smooth 60fps framerate, so the visuals are simple -- but the style does work, and the smooth gameplay means that any mistakes are your fault, not the game's. The game has a lot of tracks, even more cars, a random track mode that sets you up against randomly designed courses, and a stiff but beatable difficulty level. It's really exceptionally designed all around -- it's hard, but not F-Zero GX hard. I think X has the best difficulty balance of the three games, though while losing again and again to one of those racers that love to always stay just ahead of you you might not think so. :) But yeah, overall, fantastic. The music's okay to good too, though the machine-like "3-2-1-Go" voice is kind of weird. There's also a roulette option, in multiplayer, to let dead players mess with the ones still living... I think it adds a fun challenge to the game, I'd like to see more things like it in racing games. It is unfortunate that even two player multiplayer mode has only four total vehicles though -- Wipeout 64 for instance has a full field in 2-player mode, and only cuts it to four with 3 or 4 players. It hurts the 2 player mode, versus Wipeout. Still, overall, this is a fantastic game. Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving.
While I enjoyed F-Zero on the SNES, a true 3D sequel is what I needed to really love the game. The only disappointment is that they never did release the 64DD in America so I never got to use the custom track maker. Further, they never gave us that ability in later F-Zero games.
Quote:Jet Force Gemini - Jet Force Gemini is another Rare classic for the N64. Most people probably already know it, but it's a third person platform/shooter, with three playable characters, different routes for each character, and a good mix of shooting and platform action. The graphics are good as you expect from Rare, and the game's fantastic. About the only negative of note is that the game gets quite tough later on, and the final collection quest is unreasonably broad and annoying -- imagine if you had to get every single star before you could fight the final Bowser in Mario 64, for example. That's basically what JFG does. Yeah, it was Rare's love for collection quests going a little too far... apart from that, though JFG is an outstanding, must-play game. One of the system's best! Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving.
The biggest problem with JFG's collection quest for me wasn't that I had to get so much. It was that I had to comb over so much territory I'd already gone over with very little that was new to find all those things. Add in character switching JUST to get through a gate after passing through the SAME areas once again and it got old. I don't mind collecting, but give me something new to see while doing it. Also, give me a hint that "this will be on the test". I'd have started getting Tribals sooner if I knew they actually were recorded as saved.
Quote:Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards - Kirby 64 is Nintendo's second try at a sidescrolling platformer on the N64, and it's a good one. I do think the game is somewhat disappointing -- I was hoping that this game would be as great as Kirby 2 for the Game Boy, but it just isn't -- but still, it is a good, nice-looking game with some nice features. Kirby 64's best feature, expanded on from the "powers plus friends" combinations of Kirbies 2 and 3, is power combination. Kirby doesn't use friends for power combinations here; instead, Kirby can have two powers at once, and your ability will change depending on which two you possess. You have more than twice the number of combinations you did in Kirby 2, as a result. It works well and really adds something to the game. The game looks like a Kirby game, and plays a lot like Kirby 3, except with polygonal graphics. It's that Kirby 3-style gameplay that is the problem, though -- much like that previous game, Kirby 64 is a slow paced game. Kirby really seems to trudge along, and the good pacing of the three 8-bit Kirby platformers, or Super Star, is missing here. That hurts the game. I also disliked how most minibosses don't move -- they just stand still and attack you with something, which is kind of boring. It was fun that Kirby teams up with some other characters in this game, though, including Dedede, but unfortunately, the two player co-op modes that both of the SNES Kirby platformers had are missing here -- this is one player only in the main game. In addition, the amount of collecting has been substantially ramped up. Instead of six or so shards to find, like in Kirby 2. this game has over a hundred. As usual in Kirby platformers finishing the game is easy, but this collection quest is much more difficult -- some shards require specific power combinations not available in the stages they are in, so you'll need to get through several levels with the right power, without losing it, to get those. It adds challenge, but is annoying at times as well. The game's multiplayer mode consists of three somewhat Mario Party-esque minigames. One, the apple collection one, is somewhat boring, but the other two are fantastic. Hundred Yard Hop is very simple but ridiculously addictive fun in multiplayer, and the tile-dropping game is good as well. Overall, Kirby 64 is a decently fun game, but the slow gameplay, dpad-only controls (I know it's a sidescroller, but I wanted analog controls, like Goemon's Great Adventure has), and shard-collection frustration dragged it down. GGA is the better game overall, though I do love two of the minigames, and like the game. Four player multiplayer (three minigames only, main game is single player), on-cart saving.
I really enjoyed Kirby 64. Heck, it was a game I won in this very forum's old contest. That said, it isn't nearly as good as my personal favorite, Super Star. As you point out, Kirby moves slower, but that's something I can deal with. There's also the matter of Kirby's limited flying, and how to "compliment" that restriction, they built all the levels much flatter. I enjoyed the crystal hunt, but the game itself just wasn't quite as well polished. Add to that the lack of "hats" and even Kirby's "look" wasn't quite right. A great game with an inventive mechanic (note that to "make" that mechanic, they just cut out a large number of Kirby's traditional moves, most of them ended up being wrapped into combo abilities), but there are better Kirby games.
Quote:The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time - It's the best console game ever made. What more do you really need to say? OoT is as close to flawless as it gets. One player, on-cart saving.
Calling this the "best console game ever made" really stretches things for me. I have a hard time agreeing with that considering the vast bredth of games dismissed in a single sentence. Further, as I've collected more and more old PC and console games, I've found the distinction means very little to me. It was an incredible game that manages to stand up pretty well these days, and it invented a number of mechanics that have shaped how 3D games are made, but "best"? I still go back to Link to the Past and Link's Awakening, and have a hard time deciding which of those Zelda games is my favorite. I play Super Mario Bros. 3 at least once a year all the way through, and still consider it one of the best Mario games, competing POSSIBLY with Yoshi's Island and Mario World, but edging out ahead to me. As inventive as OOT was, the simple fact of the matter is I've had opportunity lately to watch younger gamers play some of these games for the first time. These kids had Ocarina of Time 3DS on one side and more recent Zelda games like Wind Waker, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword on the other, and most of them said that they had a lot more fun with those latter games. Does that mean that Ocarina of Time is WORSE than Twilight Princess? Well, I'm not going to say that. I personally prefer OOT, but it does mean that yes, the Zelda series has made some strides in controls and overall "feel" of moving around since the N64 days, and that's what kids noticed. No, they weren't complaining about the graphics. They didn't just put it down 5 minutes in because it looked bad. They put it down partway through the second dungeon because they wanted to play more Skyward Sword. Admittedly, Skyward Sword to me is probably the game I'd place closest to taking the throne from OOT as my personal favorite 3D Zelda, but my point is our past can cloud us to certain things that fresher eyes can see. I wouldn't dismiss the opinions of kids so soon either. After all, we were all young when we first decided games like Mario were "awesome", and that kid is the one we're summoning up when we "remember" the games as being "awesome".
Quote:The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask - Majora's Mask, the sequel to OoT, is a somewhat controversial game, and rightfully so. While on the one hand it's regarded as one of the most original Zelda games, which it is, it also has some design decisions which can be hard to like. Back when I got this after it came out, I wasn't sure what kind of score it deserved, it's so good in some ways but so annoying in others. The problem is, the core of its uniqueness is also its biggest problem. The game runs on a time system, so you only have a certain amount of time before the moon crashes and it's game over. So, all of your actions are on the clock. No time to take your time and explore here. You do eventually find a song that doubles the amount of time you have, and it's absolutely vital, but still, time is an everpresent issue. For instance, if you run out of time in a dungeon, you'll have to go back to the start and start the whole thing over. I don't think I should even have to say how awful that is. Also, after you beat each dungeon, it changes the world -- so beating the ice dungeon melts a lot of the snow in that area, etc. The problem is, these changes reset when you go back in time, so if you want to see it without snow, you'll have go to through the dungeon AGAIN and beat the boss again too! Why would they do it that way? It's annoying! Similarly, when you reset time you lose all consumable items, so you'll need to get arrows, sticks, etc. all over again. Some stuff can be stored in the bank in town, but you can't always get back there, and you can't store everything. All of the repeat elements that I had to redo over and over got annoying. In addition, there are only four dungeons, an extremely small number for a Zelda game. Some are good, like the Stone Tower temple, but others are mediocre, like the water temple, and there are far too few of them. The combat in this game is easier overall than OoT, too, and you can get white-rimmed hearts (halves damage) midgame, instead of only at the very end like in OoT. So yeah, combat-wise this game is easier, and dungeon-wise it is half as long. The main balancing factor against those is that the game has many sidequests, which are kept track of in your quest book, and many of these are pretty difficult. This is where much of the challenge in the game comes from, and plenty of the fun as well. Also, it is pretty cool that each character follows a path through the three days you keep repeating, so stores are only open during the day, the postman makes his rounds, etc. It's cool stuff for a Zelda game. In addition, while the overworld is smaller than OoT's (which I did find disappointing), there is a LOT more stuff in it, so you'll probably spend more time in the overworld overall -- there's more to do. That's great. So, overall, MM is a mixed bag, with some great elements, like the living town and more detailed world, and some beautiful areas, like Ikana Canyon, but also a lot of frustration and questionable design elements. SOme people consider this one of their favorite Zelda games, but I've always had a much more mixed view of the game. One player, on-cart saving. Expansion Pak required.
I've said it before but I loved this game and part of what made it great WAS the deadly time limit. Our opinions are simply different on this, and I accept that. However, I should correct some things here. No, you don't need to beat the "entire" dungeon over again, just the boss. Once you beat a dungeon, a warp point is made teleporting you right to the end. It bears noting this in your review, as well as the fact that pretty much any thing that needs doing in the game nets you some sort of item that alllows you to skip to the next part next time you reset the clock. It's true that until you get to those points, you do need to do things over, but there's plenty of stuff one can make happen again and again much quicker the second time around. That said, losing arrows and the like on reset is something they never should have done. That didn't add a thing to the experience. I know it's just a disagreement of taste on one level, but as I've said before I can't help but feel you just stopped too soon when you reset. The biggest advice to make the game fly by I can give isn't even the reverse song of time. It's that you shouldn't reverse time until you complete whatever section you are in and get SOMETHING out of it, be it a quest item, a heart container, a mask or a song. If you play it that way, you should never find yourself needing to repeat some huge thing. Anyway, I personally loved all 4 of the vast dungeons in the game, but then again I always stuck around until I beat the dungeon. The first time through, I only ran out of time in one of them, the last of them, and even then I had gotten far enough to get the mirror shield which meant I barely had to repeat anything there and could continue off into the rest of that dungeon.
Quote:Mario Kart 64 - Mario Kart 64 is, in my opinion, still the game that all other kart racing games should be compared to. A substantial improvement over the SNES Mario Kart game, Mario Kart 64 is an exceptional masterpiece of game design. The tracks are all fantastic, the graphics are good enough, and the fun, particularly in multiplayer, is about as good as it gets. About the only flaw here is that the single player game won't take all that long to finish. Even so, it is a lot of fun while it lasts. Only the DS and Wii Mario Kart games rival this title's greatness, within the series. Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving. Ghost saves are controller pak only, 121 pages per ghost.
I loved this game, and for the same reason I loved F-Zero X. Their SNES incarnations felt like they were trying to do more than they could with Mode 7 and the N64 versions seem to "realize" the vision far better than the SNES ever could. It's why I never bothered with the GBA versions of either series. I hear they were actually pretty decent, but honestly it would have felt like taking a big step backwards to me. That said, I actually felt the Wii version was underwhelming and consider the Gamecube version to be superior. The DS version was nice, but I've decided the 3DS game is probably my current favorite. I recommend trying it if you haven't as they manage to work in all sorts of mechanics from across the series, including reintroducing the "hop" from the N64 game and the speed up coins from the SNES/GBA games.
Quote:Mega Man 64 - This is a very, very (three years later) late port of Mega Man Legends from the PS1. It's a solid, but unenhanced, port. All of the voice acting is still here, which is nice, but the failure to give the game true analog controls -- instead, the analog stick controls Mega Man as if it was a d-pad -- is a pretty serious letdown. This game released in 2001, over 3 years after the PS1 release... there's NO excuse for not giving the game analog controls, none! Apart from that though, the graphics at least do benefit from the N64's hardware features, and the game's the same. It's not very Mega Man like, and has little in common with the great platformer games, but on its own it's a decently fun game. I didn't go into this expecting very much, but while it definitely has its issues -- the controls, not being very Mega Man like in gameplay, not getting powers from bosses, etc -- as a standalone title it was more fun than I expected. One player, on-cart saving.
I heard they rearranged some things in the dungeons, but otherwise it's a straight port. I actually loved the two Megaman Legends games. It was a lot different from a normal Megaman game, chiefly in that it was an adventure game more like Zelda than a straight action game. That's kinda why I liked it. It's true that you have to get Roll to assemble your weapons instead of getting them from a boss, but otherwise I still felt like Megaman. There were a lot of fun things to do in the first one, with all sorts of mini-games and a collection quest to fill up a museum. Oddly, one of the "Team Rocket" type pseudo villians ended up getting her own game in "Misadventures of Tron Bonne", which I may check out at some point but I understand it's a very different sort of game. Honestly I'm not sure why she got so popular with a spinoff and a character in some of Capcom's fighting games considering her limited roll, but she did tend to make up a lot of the boss fights, so there's that. I also thought the light hearted tone was a fun diversion from the always-serious tone of the Megaman X series. It was interesting to see Megaman Juno make things a LOT more desperate really quick near the end of the game. The controls were tight and the enemies were well designed. While "puzzles" in Zelda-style games never seem to be nearly as well done as Zelda itself, I still say this was a very fun go at it. Megaman Legends 2 makes up for the control issues by using the analog sticks. I really was disappointed with the cancellation of Legends 3D...
This game started Capcom's really regretful retcon of Megaman's "normal" identity. At some point the US offices basically said "replace all instances of "rockman" with "megaman" and translators started applying that to all instances of "Rock" as his name period. So, instead of calling him "Rock" throughout the game, he's "Megaman" the entire time from start to finish, even unto the point where Grampa tells the story of naming the baby he found "Megaman", which just sounds awkward. Continue on to the remake of Megaman 1 where Megaman's original name is now "Mega" instead of "Rock". Yep, "Mega and Roll". Considering how well the story of Rock becoming the hero Megaman worked when it was first revealed in Megaman 4, the change in translation really came off as awkward.
One thing of note. Difficulty level was really weird in this game, in a way I haven't seen before or since. You didn't get "hard" or "easy" at first. You had to beat "normal" to get "hard" (which does happen sometimes), but in a really weird twist, you actually had to beat hard mode to unlock easy mode. That's frankly really bizarre. In easy mode, aside from getting money and health a lot easier, you also start with the "Omega" part for Megaman's buster, giving it perfect scores in all stats and essentually feeling like you are rapid firing fully charged mega buster shots. So going through easy mode was a cinch compared to hard, but at the same time, if someone has a completed "easy mode" file, know that that's the mark of true completion, apparently, because they had to go through "hard" to get there.
Quote:Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon - The first N64 Goemon game was also the first Goemeon game Konami released in the West in years. Yes, after skipping the last three SNES games, and the PSX ones, Konami finally bought the series here again on the N64. MNSG is a 3d action-RPG-platform game with a large open world, and it's a lot of fun. The graphics are simple and it looks very first gen, but then again it is from 1997, so it is first gen. The game also has some control issues -- this is a 3d game, but doesn't has OoT style lockon because that hadn't been invented yet (this is a year before OoT after all), so you're stuck with difficulty actually hitting your enemies, far too often. Hitting them in 3d can be tricky sometimes. However, the game is great even so. The large world is fun to explore, and there's plenty to find as well. It makes the game feel somewhat Zelda-ish, and this is before OoT, too! If you can look past the visuals and get used to the controls, MNSG reveals itself to be a great adventure, lots of fun from beginning to end. I do wish the game lasted a bit longer, but still, it's fantastic fun while it lasts. The overworlds, dungeons, Impact sections (complete with Japanese-language intro song!), bosses, and everything else have lots of character and are fun to explore through. So yeah, overall the game has a few issues, but it's a good game on the whole. One player, controller pak saving (16 pages). This one also did require controller paks in Japan, I believe.
I enjoyed this game. I got it along with Quest 64 (ugh) during the N64 days and this was the clear winner. It didn't come close to Zelda, but it was fun in it's own right and had such an insane feel to the whole thing that I couldn't help but enjoy it. I mean you're a crazy faced kid using a smoking pipe as a weapon with hair as big as himself together with a fat effeminate guy, a ninja girl, and some sort of Pinocchio guy in ancient Japan saving the world from Opera singing aliens and along the way you ride in a pop song spouting actor who's also a GIANT ROBOT. The game makes NO sense and I love it.
Quote:Perfect Dark - Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving. Expansion Pak enhanced, and required for the main game.
Another game I dove into for a long time when it came out. I even got the 360 remake. Goldeneye was the innovator, but this game perfected it, and as a result I consider it superior in about every way to Goldeneye, which is saying something. Unfortunately this game was released a little too late in the N64's lifetime to garner the sort of reputation that Goldeneye did, hence the "minimalist" remake where Goldeneye got the full treatment. I have little doubt it'd have taken off just as much if not more had the N64 been around a few years longer. The 360 version takes the time to fix the few flaws it had, such as frame rate issues and implementing a true online multiplayer experience. While the 360 version did update character models, there are some glitches in the cut scenes when someone's hands don't line up just right. Also, the mouths still aren't animated so the updated models are a little more jarring because of that. I'm not asking for the jaws to be rendered with their own polygons, but at least go the route of some early 3D games and make the mouth an animated texture. That worked pretty well in games like Mask of Eternity.
Quote:Super Mario 64 - One player, on-cart saving.While OOT and Prince of Persia Sands of Time were big parts in shaping modern 3D games, Mario 64 is arguably the first one to truly "get" what the shift meant. Early Crash Bandicoot and a small handful came close, but Mario 64 was the first to finally establish that, hey, 3D games could be genuine GAMES, worthy of admiration and truly fun. Previous abortions like Bubsy 3D and Prince of Persia 3D showed that no one really understood how the look, feel, control, and VIEW of a 3D game ought to be. It was a big stumbling period where the average review of a new 3D itteration of a platforming series generally ended with "this game should have stayed 2D". In fact, the stigma of a 3D conversion lasted a LONG time after those failed attempts up to and including fears of how Metroid Prime would turn out. As a result, a few hidden gems were avoided just because of it. Mario 64's biggest failing is that it still had a few rough edges of it's own. The game's camera was an amazing innovation, but by today's standards is pretty clunky, not even allowing full 360 spins and instead having "dead ends" in the spin that require spinning back around the other way to get to the angle you want at times. All the same, what it did, it did well enough to be a truly amazing game that paved the way for all of Rare's platformers.
Quote:Super Smash Bros. - Four player multiplayer, on-cart saving.Freakin' Smash Bros. N64 owners tended to have Goldeneye, Mario Kart, Mario Party, and THIS. Yes, even over Ocarina of Time and Mario 64, for the more "casual" multiplayer N64 owners, this got picked up really fast. No wonder. It's all of Nintendo's biggest stars together at last... to beat each other up. The original idea of a purely Mario cast just wouldn't have been as interesting. This game spawned one of Nintendo's most system selling series, with the later games dominating both Gamecube and Wii sales charts. Nowadays you mainly hear from Melee purists complaining about Brawl ruining everything, but back during Melee's rise the 64 purists complained about Melee. Heck, to this day I still find a 64 game purist dragging in an N64 to "put those youngins in their place" with "the only real Smash Bros.". Those peeps are simply amazing at this game. I still pop it in every now and then, as some of those level designs never had their like made in the newer versions.
Quote:Tetrisphere - Two player multiplayer, on-cart saving.
I got addicted to this game back during the N64 days. I've played a number of Tetris variants that mostly failed to capture the thunder of the original, but this one came close to me. The premise is simple: take block and move them around the surface of a sphere, matching them up to break apart sections until the core is revealed. To all those topologists out there, yes, this is actually mathematically impossible on the surface of an actual sphere, where you can't have squares of the same size across the entire surface that also all meet together perfectly along the edges. The game is actually a "cheat". What you are really doing is moving blocks along the surface of a toroid, or "donut" shape Along that sort of surface, lines perpendicular will still cross each other again but parallel lines never will, and so it really can be covered entirely with blocks of the same size meeting perfectly at their edges. To make it look like a "sphere", the game is rendered using a highly distorted "fisheye" effect, making the donut look like a sphere to the untrained eye, though one that appears "strange" in a way the uninformed could never put their finger on and generally summed up as "because it's digital". One could pick robot "characters" that basically determined the "stats" of your cursor, such as how fast it scrolled and how quickly it could "drag" blocks, or how many "levels" "up" the "sphere" it could "hop". That's a lot of "quote marks". I got obsessed with the game for a long while. I should play it again sometime to see how it holds up... "The New Tetris" wasn't nearly as "new" as this game.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)