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[RetroGamingUK]

I pretty much avoided PSX because of how lousy low res the 3D looked. The filtering and AA that the N64 had made things much better.

That the N64 was the last console (until this gen) with good load times was a bonus.

It just hides all the blocky pixelated textures that blighted PS1 and Saturn games., it was amazing to see when the console launched (in Japan this was before Voodoo 1 GPUs). The only other places you'd see texture filtering in games was Sega's Model 2 games like Virtua Fighter 2 and Daytona USA.

I'm currently playing GoldenEye and compared to FPS games on PS1 and Saturn it's so refreshing not to see a blocky mess when viewing something up close…

(photos taken from my TV)

…and how about this chain link fence…

 

[Sportler]

I think this is a game where the N64 version is clearly graphically superior to the PS1 version. I much prefer the music of the Playstation version though and I think the voice acting had its charm.

To be honest, the PS1 version doesn't look much worse, even though it wasn't made by the original developer. PS1 also has fewer levels, shorter levels, and fewer collectibles.

 

[TNT Sheep]

To be honest, the PS1 version doesn't look much worse, even though it wasn't made by the original developer. PS1 also has fewer levels, shorter levels, and fewer collectibles.

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The character models look a lot better on the N64 for one.

I prefer the PS1 version to the DS version at least, as it still has some interesting level changes and exclusive content. Like the exclusive boss "Ninjaws" and unlockable level of the 2d beta version of Rayman 2.

 

[Sportler]

Well, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The character models look a lot better on the N64 for one.

I prefer the PS1 version to the DS version at least, as it still has some interesting level changes and exclusive content. Like the exclusive boss "Ninjaws" and unlockable level of the 2d beta version of Rayman 2.

What does the exclusive content have to do with the PS1 version still offering less content? A lot was cut from the base game. Probably due to time constraints. And it shows that it was neglected. Yes, character models are more detailed and the resolution is better. I see better colors and textures on the PS1.

 

[TNT Sheep]

What does the exclusive content have to do with the PS1 version still offering less content? A lot was cut from the base game.

It means there is still merit in playing the game if you are interested in examining the differences. It's not a DS situation where it's the same game but worse.

Yes a lot was cut from the base game, but this only further proves the point that the N64 version is graphically superior.

 

[TNT Sheep]

Probably due to time constraints. And it shows that it was neglected.

Could be. If a DS version exists perhaps the PS1 could have offered something similar?

 

[Sportler]

Could be. If a DS version exists perhaps the PS1 could have offered something similar?

I haven't looked into the DS version. I'm not really interested in that system. All I can tell is that the DS version is more like the N64 version. The PS1, by the way, was developed by Ubisoft Shanghai.

 

[Drell]

That discussion about filtered vs unfiltered made me remember how disappointed I was about the first DS graphics, that and its fisher price toy quality sound chip. The only Nintendo console I never bought...

 

[TNT Sheep]

That discussion about filtered vs unfiltered made me remember how disappointed I was about the first DS graphics, that and its fisher price toy quality sound chip. The only Nintendo console I never bought...

The promise of Zelda and Pokemon was all I needed back in the day, but I was always jealous of people with a PSP. Very impressive handheld for its time.

In any case my two cents. Back in the day I would have preferred the filtered look. Nowadays I feel like as a whole the better textures and framerates of PS1 games aged better.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

That discussion about filtered vs unfiltered made me remember how disappointed I was about the first DS graphics, that and its fisher price toy quality sound chip. The only Nintendo console I never bought...

For me DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U were the Dark Ages of Nintendo. After GameCube I just went off Nintendo for a decade.

Switch was the Renaissance era.

With Xbox dead and PlayStation floundering Nintendo could dominate with Switch 2… Nintendo's colonial era where Microsoft (and to al lesser extent) Sony join its empire by porting games.

 

[Drell]

For me DS, Wii, 3DS and Wii U were the Dark Ages of Nintendo. After GameCube I just went off Nintendo for a decade.

Switch was the Renaissance era.

With Xbox dead and PlayStation floundering Nintendo could dominate with Switch 2… Nintendo's colonial era where Microsoft (and to al lesser extent) Sony join its empire by porting games.

For me 3DS and Wii U were already their renaissance. 3DS finally attained an okayish graphic quality (although very low rez), and that glassless 3D, even though it was just a gimmick in the end, was something more ambitious than waggling a Wiimote to some last gen graphics shovelware or touching 32 bits quality games with worst than SNES sound output quality. Devs finally refined their usage of touch controls to use it as a tool for better gameplay instead of whole shovelwares designed full around gimmicky touch controls, that along with a clever usage of a gyroscope and the circle pad and to me Nintendo was finally out of their casual bubble and back to gaming business.

 

[JCK75]

The amount of fun and experiences I had in the N64 era will never be topped.. but that said, it was the puberty of gaming.. and man, it was ugly in retrospect

 

[tkscz]

I think this is a game where the N64 version is clearly graphically superior to the PS1 version. I much prefer the music of the Playstation version though and I think the voice acting had its charm.

I believe Rayman 2 was made specifically for the N64 first, then ported to the PS1

 

[nkarafo]

…and how about this chain link fence…

Try this:

Throw the modem gadget on a wall (the one you stick on a monitor to complete a mission) and then zoom on it with the Sniper rifle.

That thing gave me such an impression back then. It's like you are seeing the full, unseen details of a small object with a microscope. Even in modern games such tiny objects don't have such texture detail up close because they don't need to. But in Goldeneye they do, because the devs knew you would inspect them with the Sniper Rifle zoom, lol

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Arguably the best looking sports game, NBA Courtside 2

Player models (and faces in particular) aren't a million miles away from NBA 2K on Dreamcast with jersey textures being the main giveaway.

 

[nkarafo]

Arguably the best looking sports game, NBA Courtside 2

Player models (and faces in particular) aren't a million miles away from NBA 2K on Dreamcast)

looks like a pretty bit upgrade over the original.

 

[powder]

I feel this way about the original Virtua Fighter. No one cares about style from limitations anymore. Jusant is as close as we've gotten since.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Equivalents on PlayStation and Saturn (Saturn looking horrendous again as per most comparisons)

NBA Live 99 (PS1)

NBA Action 98 (Saturn)

 

[Gamer79]

I was a huge N64 fan and was one of the first in my area to get one. I even paid 79.99 back in 1997 for Shadows of the empire.

Turok dinosaur hunter was one of the first 3D games that really flexed the N64's muscle. With that said, the graphics overall were back then and even now, ugly.

The lack Of AA gives everything an odd shape, fog was used to hide draw distances, due to compression many textures also were a blurry mess. They were Fugly back then and even worse when upscaling to modern resolution TV's.

 

[Midway-AGNC-]

Is this a time warp or something? Brining me back to my playground days on debating N64 vs PSX.

I was a Nintendo fan boy back then, and would argue all the time how N64 was better. But as an adult, I see how this is a ridiculous and silly argument.

Both machines have strengths and weaknesses. In some ways N64 excels over PSX. It handled 3D better (for the most part), loading times were not an issue, its texture filtering limited jaggies and so forth. PSX excels over N64 through other ways. For me, most notably was the sound/music. PSX's additional storage space and better sound processor enabled it to have way better music. I never forget playing a demo of MediEvil that blew away because of the soundtrack. Now the sound may not have been great, but in the demo at that Baggages, it sounded better than what I have heard on my N64. PSX handled pre-rendered backgrounds a lot better and also FMVs due to its storage.

So looking at 3D games, N64, IMO usually wins, especially when they are games that are not attempting to use pre-rendered backgrounds for the textures. On PSX though, as soon as you get into those pre-rendered BG games, like Resident Evil games, PSX really shines brighter than N64. But looking at 3D platformer like games, N64 usually wins (example Crash Bandicoot vs Mario 64).

At this stage, why are we even debating this? Why not just celebrate these games and what they were able to accomplish at this time? Both machines were great, IMO. Who cares which one had better graphics in the year of 2025?

The OP was trying to celebrate how he feels the N64 games look great today. Why are we debating PSX vs N64 like we are kids again? Sure we can disagree if these games still look great today. I personally feel SNES games held up overall better than most N64 games. There are a handful of N64 games that still look great today IMO, but even the ones that did not age well in the looks department, can still be fun to play.

Not everything has to be a debate ya'll.

You're right that a lot of this feels like playground nostalgia debates, but the thing is — a lot of the loudest voices dragging this back up clearly didn't live through that era or didn't follow games when they actually released. What they're repeating now is a distorted, meme-driven narrative that only really took hold in the 2010s, when it became trendy to antagonize the N64/PS1 generation as "ugly" or "unplayable."

The problem is, this kind of take spreads. Both older gamers and younger ones get influenced by it, and what are basically just personal opinions or narrow points of view start being pushed as some kind of absolute, unquestionable truth. That's herd mentality 101, and it dominates social media today. Instead of talking about what those games achieved — the groundbreaking designs, the tech feats, the creativity — people waste energy parroting the same shallow "lol blurry textures" lines and turning every thread into a console war flashback. It kills the chance for a more constructive discussion, where we could actually celebrate or critique those games with real context.

At the end of the day, yeah, both consoles had strengths and weaknesses. But the modern "hot takes" reduce an entire generation of innovation to memes, and that's just not giving the era the credit it deserves.

 

[Parazels]

Arguably the best looking sports game, NBA Courtside 2

Player models (and faces in particular) aren't a million miles away from NBA 2K on Dreamcast with jersey textures being the main giveaway.

I noticed that NBA games always have looked phenomenal since the 5th gen, literally a generation ahead of the other games on their platforms.

 

[cireza]

Equivalents on PlayStation and Saturn (Saturn looking horrendous again as per most comparisons)

Your N64 game was released at the end of 1999, we had already moved on Dreamcast. NBA Action 98 is late 1997 game, it was a pretty good one for the Saturn.

If you want to make a fair comparison, compare games that were released at the same time, not with 2 years of difference.

NBA 2K on Dreamcast released at the same time as your N64 game.

 

[nkarafo]

Well, this was released in 1997

640 x 480, stable frame rate, more 3D models on the field including non-players.

IMO, that's the best looking sports game in that generation.

NBA 2K on Dreamcast released at the same time as your N64 game.

Yeah but it was released on a 6th gen console that nobody ever doubted if is more powerful than the N64.

 

[6502]

Fifa 98 rttwc night and day between n64 and psx (skip to 5 mins in).

 

[cireza]

Yeah but it was released on a 6th gen console that nobody ever doubted if is more powerful than the N64

Well yes, this is actually a fair comparison and what people could chose from back then, while the Saturn game was 2 years older.

The same logic applies to the N64, it was released later than the Saturn, it was meant to be more powerful right ? What really matters is not the hardware but the time of release of the game because these consoles were being better exploited as time passed.

At any given time developers put all their efforts in whatever the hardware they choose to work on. But when the focus shifted on another console, then obviously the previous one was not going to get anything incredible anymore. Saturn was pretty much done at the end of 1997, with a few ambitious (and excellent games) making it in 1998. But overall, focus had shifted to Dreamcast as the console was released in 1998 in Japan. If Dreamcast had been a 2000 console, then developers would have leveraged even more the Saturn capabilities and tried to make more impressive games. But maybe that was impossible ? Thus the move to Dreamcast.

To summarize : games should be compared by release date, not by hardware.

 

[CircleOfFire]

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

The people in here retconning their young-self experiences by implying that they played through the entire 5th gen constantly thinking "man, this looks SO BAD" are hilarious, really

Yep people, you begged your parents to buy you a N64 after seeing the pics in ads and maybe even the games running at Toys R Us because you thought those games looked like shit. And then you played Turok for so many hours, and every single minute you were regretting that the game didn't look better.

I swear some of you will say you were so envious of your schoolmate who had a NeoGeo and secretly hoped he'd trade it for your N64 with Turok, so you could finally get rid of those shitty graphics

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Well yes, this is actually a fair comparison and what people could chose from back then, while the Saturn game was 2 years older.

The same logic applies to the N64, it was released later than the Saturn, it was meant to be more powerful right ? What really matters is not the hardware but the time of release of the game because these consoles were being better exploited as time passed.

At any given time developers put all their efforts in whatever the hardware they choose to work on. But when the focus shifted on another console, then obviously the previous one was not going to get anything incredible anymore. Saturn was pretty much done at the end of 1997, with a few ambitious (and excellent games) making it in 1998. But overall, focus had shifted to Dreamcast as the console was released in 1998 in Japan. If Dreamcast had been a 2000 console, then developers would have leveraged even more the Saturn capabilities and tried to make more impressive games. But maybe that was impossible ? Thus the move to Dreamcast.

To summarize : games should be compared by release date, not by hardware.

Saturn was intended to last for 5 at least years in the west, had it not been such a disaster the successor (Dreamcast) wouldn't have been needed until mid-late 2000.

In the UK Sega disappeared from the market in July 1998 and wouldn't return until October 1999.

Saturn was meant to compete with N64, it failed to do so.

Dreamcast was meant to compete with GameCube, it failed to do so.

The rate at which Sega launched and dropped hardware between 1993 and 2001 is astonishing.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Fifa 98 rttwc night and day between n64 and psx (skip to 5 mins in).

The rain is just a flat layer of sprits on top (or in front of) the 3D on pitch action. The fog effect on N64 creates an illusion of depth here, whether intentional or not.

Again, another game with a rough looking Saturn version. It may as well be running on MegaDrive for all we know.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Speaking of football titles, this blew my mind in 1997

It looked like Virtua Striker in the home. Thankfully (unlike Virtua Striker) it was amazing to play too.

 

[cireza]

Saturn was intended to last for 5 at least years in the west, had it not been such a disaster the successor (Dreamcast) wouldn't have been needed until mid-late 2000.

In the UK Sega disappeared from the market in July 1998 and wouldn't return until October 1999.

Saturn was meant to compete with N64, it failed to do so.

Dreamcast was meant to compete with GameCube, it failed to do so.

The rate at which Sega launched and dropped hardware between 1993 and 2001 is astonishing.

Okay and ? Your comparison between a late 1999 game and a late 1997 game remains disingenuous. Late 1999, people buying games had the choice between your NBA game on N64 and the one on the Dreamcast. That's how the real world works. Comparing games ignoring their release date and only taking into account the console makes very little sense, you are doing this in retrospect but it is just not own history unfolded. Otherwise early MegaDrive games would look exactly like the 1995 ones. Everybody knows it is not the case, thus the pointless comparison.

The Saturn ended competing with the N64 but was not "meant to". It is a product of its time that faced the competition that was around at that time, just like every console. Same for the Dreamcast. It would have ended competing against the Gamecube, and if it was not a failure and SEGA had made another console, it would have also competed, for a time, against the Gamecube. Just like the PS1 and N64 competed against the Dreamcast until the PS2 and Gamecube were released. Common sense.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

Okay and ? Your comparison between a late 1999 game and a late 1997 game remains disingenuous. Late 1999, people buying games had the choice between your NBA game on N64 and the one on the Dreamcast. That's how the real world works. Comparing games ignoring their release date and only taking into account the console makes very little sense, you are doing this in retrospect but it is just not own history unfolded. Otherwise early MegaDrive games would look exactly like the 1995 ones.

Were comparing generational hardware here, and have been throughout the thread.

But move the goalposts as you always do.

 

[cireza]

Were comparing generational hardware here, and have been throughout the thread.

So MegaDrive and Super Nintendo are a generation apart then ? Because they have the same period between their initial releases (1988 and 1990) than N64 and Dreamcast (1996 and 1998).

You are the one moving the goalposts bro with your disingenuous comparisons

But fine, carry on.

 

[RetroGamingUK]

So MegaDrive and Super Nintendo are a generation apart then ? Because they have the same period between their initial releases (1988 and 1990) than N64 and Dreamcast (1996 and 1998).

You are the one moving the goalposts bro with your disingenuous comparisons

But fine, carry on.

Fair point

My point stands though, the Saturn was shit at 3D and was a huge mistake that cost Sega dearly.

Baffling when Sega were knocking it out of the park with 3D arcade games.

 

[Ozzie666]

Fair point

My point stands though, the Saturn was shit at 3D and was a huge mistake that cost Sega dearly.

Baffling when Sega were knocking it out of the park with 3D arcade games.

Just watched a video about the Saturn. Supposedly the main designer admitted he chose the wrong arcade hardware to base Saturn off, might have been system 32. The designer said he wished he had used model 1 to simplify the gpu and development. He knew the system 32 relied on too much sprite and 2D techniques.

 

[Alexios]

The designer said he wished he had used model 1 to simplify the gpu and development.

Yeah, the bashing the very competent port of Virtua Fighter on Saturn got, ending up with the "apology" of (a fully textured) Remix, shows us things would have gone so much better if only they had a Model 1-like that couldn't even have textured 3D (even if it would have pushed some more/more stable polygons, not that they could have crammed all that power and tech in a modestly priced console). Where do people come up with that stuff? Oh I heard this in some god forsaken youtube video that I may even be misremembering, I should totally repeat that as plausible information to all!

That thing would still not use triangles, lack transparencies and other stuff that ended up being the norm by more popular systems/technologies that made Saturn as it was the odd one out and for all we know also end up without the 2D hardware it owes many of its ace games (3D ones too) to

Anyway gonna let folks get back to posting blown up screenshots of random youtube vids to make other systems look bad/prop up the 64 in a thread celebrating the latter that apparently can't exist without getting ridiculed by most reading its title without making it all about bashing the former.

​

 

[MrJangles]

Speaking of football titles, this blew my mind in 1997

It looked like Virtua Striker in the home. Thankfully (unlike Virtua Striker) it was amazing to play too.

At the time 2 player ISS64 was the most fun me and my brother ever had playing videogames. Carnage!

 

[Team Andromeda]

Just watched a video about the Saturn. Supposedly the main designer admitted he chose the wrong arcade hardware to base Saturn off, might have been system 32. The designer said he wished he had used model 1 to simplify the gpu and development. He knew the system 32 relied on too much sprite and 2D techniques.

YouTube said so, so it must be true .

Actually, the Saturn shares a lot with Model 1 in terms of using Multi CPU's, quads and having no support for 3D transparences (same goes for Model 2 as well)

What cost the Saturn wasn't its hardware which was very powerful and not 'that' far off the PS1 but the muppets at Sega America wasting SEGA resources on the 32X... Trying to keep the oversaturated and declining 16-bit market going in 1995 and the fatal mistake of not realising that people who grew up on the 8-bit and 16-bit system were turning into adults with disposable income and completely bored of the same left to right scrolling 2D games who were ready to move on and had the money to do so

Thanks for nothing Tom Kalinske, you lying prick

 

[Redneckerz]

Fair point

My point stands though, the Saturn was shit at 3D and was a huge mistake that cost Sega dearly.

Baffling when Sega were knocking it out of the park with 3D arcade games.

Yet homebrew tells me the Saturn is pretty amazing at it. Its just that in the 90s timeframe and having to work with two processors and two VDP's, not many knew how to extract its full potential.

Saturn is basically a PS3 in that regard.

 

[roosnam1980]

fifa 98 on saturn isnt bad at all , framerate is better than the ps1 version

 

[nkarafo]

To summarize : games should be compared by release date, not by hardware.

But there isn't such rule.

The reason we compare PS1/Saturn/N64 in this topic is because there are doubts about which one is more powerful by many posters. Me and you may agree the N64 is more powerful than the SAT/PS1 and/or it's games look better/are more advanced but others seem to disagree, hence the game comparisons.

If we start comparing the Dreamcast with any of these consoles, there will be no discussion. Just an echo chamber of people agreeing the Dreamcast is more powerful and it's games look better. Because nobody argues about that, there is no point in such comparison.

While i do agree on the matter of dates, because of the advancements within each generation, i never saw anyone arguing about the other way around. Never saw a poster in any similar topic arguing we shouldn't compare newer Saturn games with early N64 games. Why is that? Is it possible the side who argues for the N64 is more confident about the capabilities of the console?

And don't forget the fact the Saturn was released 1.5 years earlier than the N64 so there was some time for devs to learn the system before they had the chance to do the same for the N64 so it should be fair to compare 1997 N64 titles to 1996 Saturn titles and so on. Also the Saturn was discontinued in 2000 in Japan, this means it should still be fair to compare 2001 N64 titles.

Personally though, i mostly use Banjo-Kazooie as the main comparison (which IMO is the best looking N64 game overall) and other games that i usually boast about like DOOM, Goldeneye, etc, were all released while the Saturn was still active in the west anyway.

 

[nkarafo]

Yet homebrew tells me the Saturn is pretty amazing at it.

Homebrew always brings impressive results but that also applies for other consoles.

And it's even more apparent on the N64, the Return to Yoshi's Island 2025 demo and Portal are the proof.

This may be a controversial opinion but i believe the N64 was even worse than the Saturn in the "how much it got squeezed" front. The N64 was just as oddly designed, if not more, than the Saturn and it was harder to develop for. And it had worse bottlenecks like the CPU was way too fast while the memory was way too slow (Kaze, the coder behind Return to Yoshi's Island, said he only recently managed to completely get rid of the slow memory bottleneck).

Because of this, the titles that actually take advantage of the hardware without tanking frame rates are very few. And the gap between those games and something like the Return to Yoshi's Island is bigger than the best looking released Saturn game VS Irreel, for instance.

In fact, i don't think Irreel looks that much more advanced. IMO, the official Quake game still looks more impressive, with more elaborate/complex maps. Irreel tries to show off larger environments without fog/pop/up but ends up looking more empty and the rooms more "boxy". So, i don't know.

There's not much going on for PS1 on that front since that console was already squeezed properly, was easier to develop for, had more devs working on it and lived a longer life.

 

[Celine]

Homebrew always brings impressive results but that also applies for other consoles.

And it's even more apparent on the N64, the Return to Yoshi's Island 2025 demo and Portal are the proof.

Return to Yoshi's Island is shaping up to become the most impressive (retro) homebrew game I've ever seen.
In time a small selection of homebrew games* (* a few finding a commercial outlet) produced for retro consoles are of such high quality and level of polish that they could easily pass for top level commercial releases (for example Rikki and Vikki for Atari 7800, Alwa's Awakening and Micro Mages for NES, Earthion and Xeno Crisis for Mega Drive, New Super Mario Land for SNES, Dragonyhm and Wicked Plague for GB/C, Goodboy Galaxy for GBA, Vengeance Hunters and Gunlord for Neo Geo) however all of them were 2D games.
Return to Yoshi's Island is the first time I got the same vibe of top notch quality seen for top of the line 2D homebrew games but for a 3D retro console (and game).

 

[yurinka]

Baffling thread you might think.

After all, many will say that this generation of consoles has aged like milk, that the graphics were blurry with low poly counts.

For me, this is all part of the charm.

I love the smoothed out look with bold and beautiful colours blending together, it's all very psychedelic.

Aliasing and rough textures are absolutely crushed by anti-aliasing, it all looks so un-game-like.

For me, I'd love to see Nintendo return to this style (albeit with higher resolution and more polygons).

So, what say you GAF?

Just nostalgia, with a few exceptions they look pretty bad. On the CRTs monitors we had back in the day looked even blurrier.

 

[nkarafo]

Return to Yoshi's Island is shaping up to become the most impressive (retro) homebrew game I've ever seen.
In time a small selection of homebrew games* (* a few finding a commercial outlet) produced for retro consoles are of such high quality and level of polish that they could easily pass for top level commercial releases (for example Alwa's Awakening and Micro Mages for NES, Earthion and Xeno Crisis for Mega Drive, New Super Mario Land for SNES, Dragonyhm and Wicked Plague for GB/C, Goodboy Galaxy for GBA, Vengeance Hunters and Gunlord for Neo Geo) however all of them were 2D games.
Return to Yoshi's Island is the first time I got the same vibe of top notch quality seen for top of the line 2D homebrew games but for a 3D retro console (and game).

What i liked about the 2025 demo in particular was the improvement on art direction. This is what most homebrew devs get wrong, you can have the most impressive engine and graphics but there's little point if they are hidden under ugly and amateur art direction.

The older demos of the same level looked kinda ugly, despite the superior engine underneath. But the newer demo looks so much better on that front. That gives me hope the rest of the game will look professionally made.

 

[Geometric-Crusher]

3D games from that gen were ugly, 2D aged better, the irony is that 2D games are abundant on the Saturn. Therefore, the Saturn is the only 5th gen console whose games still look gorgeous.

N64 fans take advantage of the fact that the Sega Saturn's 3D games were canceled ported to the Dreamcast, and those that remained on the system have a style that makes it nearly impossible to make a direct comparison between the two platforms, but some insights are possible.

Quake 1 on the Sega Saturn, despite its poor framerate, has textures and lighting effects that are superior to those achieved on the N64 version. I prefer the Sega Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D , in fact using sprites it's possible to compete with the N64 if it uses polygonal characters.

The N64's MK Trilogy lacks some characters and suffers from slowdown. This is the only truly 2D game on the system. In this particular aspect, the Saturn absolutely crushes the N64. Even advanced games like Ogre Battle pale in comparison to the Saturn's 2D games. Darkstalkers 3 is not a game you would see on that nintendo's console.

The N64 also loses out in 3D fighting games.

Honestly, Sega wasn't inspired back then, but if the PS1 managed to make 3D games like Spyro and Crash 3, which I've never seen anything similar to on the N64, the Saturn would at some point make an equally well-regarded game. N64 was the poorest 5th generation design imo.

 

[nkarafo]

Quake 1 on the Sega Saturn, despite its poor framerate, has textures and lighting effects that are superior to those achieved on the N64 version. I prefer the Sega Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D , in fact using sprites it's possible to compete with the N64 if it uses polygonal characters.

Quake 1 is one of the best looking games on the Saturn and in the top 3 most advanced, engine wise. Lobotomy's slavedriver engine did miracles on the Saturn. Same applies for Duke Nukem.

Quake 1 on the N64 is a mediocre port and an average FPS for N64 standards. Same applies for Duke Nukem 64.

This is why i never compared DOOM 64 to Saturn DOOM. It would be unfair to compare the best looking DOOM engine game at the time with one of the worst ports on the Saturn, to try and make a point. If you see my posts, i always try to compare the good looking games of each console, or at least the games people consider good looking or advanced.

The N64's MK Trilogy lacks some characters and suffers from slowdown. This is the only truly 2D game on the system.

No, MK Trilogy is not the ONLY trully 2D game on the N64, it's just the worst looking. And you once again use a bad looking N64 game/port to make a point. It's like trying to compare the best 3D platform visuals on the Saturn (Sonic Jam's 3D hub) with the worst on the N64, like Chameleon Twist for instance, when there are so many better examples to find on the N64. And then pretend the Saturn does better 3D platform visuals. How fair is that?

You completely ignore good looking 2D N64 games like Yoshi's Story, Mischief Makers and Bangai-o.

Having said that, i'm not going to pretend the N64 "beats" the Saturn in 2D when one console has like a dozen 2D games and the other 300+. But the reason there weren't many 2D N64 games is not a lack of ability to do so but more like the fact that it was a "3D machine" with hardware that benefits 3D more, plus 3D games were more marketable so there was no reason to push 2D games for it. The Saturn has a more 2D graphics oriented hardware and was also a big hit in Japan where 2D games were more accepted at the time so it made sense to push more 2D games.

Other than than, i believe the N64 was potentially a more capable 2D machine because of the faster CPU (which was the bottleneck in Neo-Geo), larger RAM (no need for RAM carts like the Saturn) and roms that can stream animation frames and sprites in real time and the main reason the Neo-Geo could beat the next generation of consoles in asset-heavy pixel art games. The only hold back was the small Rom size but the later 32MB/64MB carts had plenty of space for arcade perfect 2D games.

But of course nobody would make those games on the N64 since very few would buy them. I still hope for a homebrew port of a 2D arcade someday.

the PS1 managed to make 3D games like Spyro and Crash 3, which I've never seen anything similar to on the N64

Banjo-Kazooie is way more advanced. Both PS1 games make big sacrifices to achieve their visuals, one is on-rails, the other relies on LOD to render it's big open areas.

Banjo has larger, more detailed free roaming 3D levels with more objects on screen. You know this because i have shown it plenty of times, but you choose to ignore it.

 

[cireza]

should be fair to compare 1997 N64 titles to 1996 Saturn titles

Not really ? Unless they are like a few months apart only.

Whatever head-start developers may have on the older hardware, is going to be compensated by the added power of the more recent hardware. The progress in terms of visuals and how elaborated games are is largely independent from hardware, it is more like a linear progress with a few bumps here and there. At least back then, we got bumps with the MegaDrive and Dreamcast, for example (the last time was with PS360). And obviously with the move to 3D for 3D games, but outside 3D, the SNES was definitely competing with PS1 and Saturn on 2D games in 1995/1996 and was certainly not ridiculous in any way, quite the opposite (and even managed to have Doom in 3D lol). And this was also the reality for costumers and in game magazines. As you turned pages, or went to a shop, you would see Clockwork Knight, Mystaria... and then on Nintendo's side, you would hear "yeah yeah the N64 is coming, some day... (France was 1997)" and in the meantime you get to play DB Hyper Dimension, Yoshi's Island, KI, DKC3, SFA2 and Terranigma. Which were all super awesome games for the SNES...

Thus you can easily make an argument that very late games on older consoles competed perfectly well with games of the same period on newer ones, and this, for every generation of console. This is how the Master System remained super relevant and had a "resurrection" after the MegaDrive was released. And this is why, as far as I am concerned, I don't care much about the hardware, and care exclusively about the time of release.

Because comparing games with 2 or more years that separate them makes little sense, so the entire lifespan ? Yeah no... You don't even need to pick two different consoles. Everybody sees clearly the HUGE difference between Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Final Fantasy VI. With current consoles and how little they push technology forward, it is certainly different.

That's how I see things, but I am not trying to enforce this point of view on anyone, of course.

 

[lakitu1982]

Try this:

Throw the modem gadget on a wall (the one you stick on a monitor to complete a mission) and then zoom on it with the Sniper rifle.

That thing gave me such an impression back then. It's like you are seeing the full, unseen details of a small object with a microscope. Even in modern games such tiny objects don't have such texture detail up close because they don't need to. But in Goldeneye they do, because the devs knew you would inspect them with the Sniper Rifle zoom, lol

Wow I'm so glad you posted this. I always used to use this as an example of the attention to detail and something the PS1 couldn't do. Happy you posted it, no one else has mentioned it that I've seen in all these years.

 

[nkarafo]

cireza

So you think it's unfair to compare a late N64 game with a late Saturn game (both with comparable hardware within the same generation), even though both consoles were in the market for the same amount of time and those games were products of the same experience on the hardware they run on, but you don't think it's unfair to compare a N64 game with a Dreamcast one, despite the Dreamcast being a next generation machine with a much larger gap in hardware tech?

Dunno, i think this is a weird take.

I mean, it does make sense if you just want to compare games regardless the hardware, like when you want to show how games evolved through the years, with no other context. But this isn't what this topic is about. This is specifically about the N64 hardware and all the comparisons that are brought up by other posters are specifically against the PS1 and Saturn hardware. So i don't know where the Dreamcast fits in this context.

If you want to compare the N64 with the Dreamcast, that's great but i don't think you will find anyone to argue with you. Obviously it's way more powerful than the N64 there's not a single person that would say otherwise. But apparently it's not as obvious when we talk about the N64 vs PS1/Saturn because the gap in hardware tech is smaller and there are plenty of people who say the PS1 is more capable and some will say the same for the Saturn (a couple in this very topic) thus these comparisons are being made.