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[Trilobit]

This thread was a lot more heated than I anticipated when clicking on it.

N64 mostly defined the way free roaming 3D will work with Mario 64. Tomb Raider's controls are too stiff and limited, even pre-defined. It feels like a 3D Prince of Persia. Mario 64 on the other hand really feels like a 3D Mario, with a much higher freedom of movement, smoother and more precise controls, etc. I know Nintendo didn't invent analog controls but they were the first who did them right for a free roaming 3D world.

Then you had things like WaveRace (which i still don't think has been bettered), Zelda with it's big landscapes (at the time) standardizing the way you lock at enemies in a 3D world, Goldeneye making all sorts of innovations for console FPS games and inventing dual analog controls for the genre (even though very few noticed), etc.

N64 wasn't the first 3D console obviously but some of it's games improved and standardized a lot of things for 3D games.

I'm amazed by how much Nintendo got right from the start. OoT doesn't just control excellently, it also tells its story wonderfully and depicts a rich and atmospheric world. SM64 nails the controls with an incredibly advanced moveset, maybe the most advanced of the Mario games, and stellar platform challenges. MK64 provides great challenge from the NPCs, but also a terrific incorporation of multiplayer modes. I still remember how perfect it felt to hold the z-button and then launching a shell at some unsuspecting friend in battle mode. Not to mention the variety in level design.

It's honestly baffling thinking about it. They just knocked it out of the park time and time again in their first foray into 3D.

 

[nkarafo]

It's honestly baffling thinking about it. They just knocked it out of the park time and time again in their first foray into 3D.

That's true. Almost every attempt of going from 2D to 3D was very successful.

Super Mario 64? Nailed it.
Pilotwings 64? Nailed it.
Starfox 64? Nailed it.
Legend of Zelda? Nailed it. Twice.
F-Zero X? Nailed it.

They also succeeded at making original N64 titles:

Wave Race 64
1080 Snowboarding
Paper Mario
Super Smash Bros.
Animal Crossing

My only objections are Mario Kart 64 and Yoshi's Story.

I was never a huge fan of Mario Kart 64 personally and IMO, it was surpassed pretty quickly by Diddy Kong Racing. Also, later Mario Kart games are undoubtedly better in every way (except for the music in some instances). While with other games like Zelda or Mario it's still arguable. IMO, F-Zero X is better than GX and i don't think anyone disagrees Starfox 64 hasn't been bettered by later entries or even similar 3D rail shooters.

Yoshi's Story is.... fine. It's also extremely beautiful to look at. But Yoshi's Island is on another level. It's almost as if Nintendo became so good at designing 3D games that they forgot how to make 2D ones.

And i guess they were too busy making all these great games, they didn't have time to make a 3D Metroid game. Prime was great on GC but i would love to see what Nintendo themselves could do on N64, given how good all the other games turned out.

 

[PurePlatinum]

Gotta be Perfect Dark right?

 

[Redneckerz]

You speak as if your opinion is accurate.

The N64 was NOT impressive, relative to where technology was already heading at the time (3D).

The N64 was impressive to Nintendo gamers, that only stayed in their ecosystem.

That's the honest truth.

Literally did transform and lighting before the PC space but sure.

You and Nevermind (Why is that honk not axed?) clearly arent aged 30 or later because you never did witness that generation.

Console War Honks in full effect.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

There was a racing game called Top Gear Overdrive that looked excellent. Our boy wonder Ezra Dreisbach (of Lobotomy Trilogy fame) was the coder behind that title, and his brilliant skills are on full display.

Beetle Adventure Racing was always a personal favorite. I loved the multiple pathways on each course and varying environments. Wasn't there a dinosaur somewhere, or am I thinking of something else? Anyway, I loved how nicely this one looked.

Conker's Bad Fur Day always looked wonderful to my eyes, the pinnacle of Rare's 3D platforming, at least visually. The gameplay took a backseat to the story, a trend that would explode in the future, but at least here the jokes are really funny. I still think the "Great and Mighty Poo" song number is riotously hilarious.

Nintendo 64 has some genuine strengths, like the z-buffer and perspective correction that provide the supremely stable 3D polygon worlds (wheras PlayStation and Saturn often struggled with stumbling around drunk to varying degrees). On the downside, the cartridge format and the severe hardware bottlenecks resulted in very simplistic art designs: simple polygon environments, watered-down texture mapping, extremely chunky character designs. And so it all comes down to the skills of the artists, and your own personal nostalgia. If you played Goldeneye, Zelda or F-Zero to death, you'll love those. But I suspect that, by this point in time, N64 has become one of those "you had to be there" things.

PS: Don't wish to start any console wars, but Panzer Dragoon Zwei absolutely stomps Starfox 64 to pieces. They're both great videogames, but it's not a close contest.

 

[Drell]

Nintendo 64 has some genuine strengths, like the z-buffer and perspective correction that provide the supremely stable 3D polygon worlds (wheras PlayStation and Saturn often struggled with stumbling around drunk to varying degrees). On the downside, the cartridge format and the severe hardware bottlenecks resulted in very simplistic art designs: simple polygon environments, watered-down texture mapping, extremely chunky character designs. And so it all comes down to the skills of the artists, and your own personal nostalgia. If you played Goldeneye, Zelda or F-Zero to death, you'll love those. But I suspect that, by this point in time, N64 has become one of those "you had to be there" things.

Choosing these tiny and expensive 8 MB cartridge (in 96) should be part of the hall of shame of the video game decisions ever made by a big company such as Nintendo.

 

[Lionel Richie]

Conker's Bad Fur Day always looked wonderful to my eyes, the pinnacle of Rare's 3D platforming, at least visually. The gameplay took a backseat to the story, a trend that would explode in the future, but at least here the jokes are really funny. I still think the "Great and Mighty Poo" song number is riotously hilarious.

I don't really agree here about the gameplay taking a backseat to the story, I remember replaying CBFD when Rare Replay came out and marvelling at how ahead of its time it was on a lot of shit you do in the game. Granted, I don't remember what my keen observations were lol so it wasn't probably anything groundbreaking, but I do remember feeling like oh yeah this kind of game would get perfected in the following generation.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

Conker's Bad Fur Day used a 64MB cartridge, and ~45MB of that is estimated to be the audio. Insane.

 

[Daniel Thomas MacInnes]

Choosing these tiny and expensive 8 MB cartridge (in 96) should be part of the hall of shame of the video game decisions ever made by a big company such as Nintendo.

Three reasons why Nintendo 64 used cartridges instead of discs:

1. Using CD-ROM would have meant paying royalties to Sony. Obviously, Nintendo was not about to do that--Yamauchi-san would never allow that in a million years.

2. The use of a disc drive would have raised the cost of the hardware, and it was absolutely critical that Nintendo 64 could meet that $149 mass market price point without taking losses (Nintendo always sold hardware at a profit). That's why the N64 motherboard is stripped down to the bone, like Matt Damon's rocket capsule in The Martian. Such are the challenges when going against a $60 billion electronics giant.

3. Nintendo made their money manufacturing cartridges. That was their real business model (note how they returned to carts with the Switch). Sticking to that storage format meant a reliable income stream at a time when Sony was smashing the videogame industry apart like Godzilla on a bender.