I still find the N64 to be i huge disappointment. Coming off from the Super Nintendo (Arguably the best system ever made) The N64 failed to live up as a successor in pretty much every way. I mean if it still had it's original name Nintendo "Ultra" 64, it would seem even more obvious. The first party games weren't as strong, The controller was revolutionary but sadly not good (Bad build quality, terrible layout) The video quality was terrible. 50hz PAL games in Europe went from being an annoyance during the Super Nintendo era to being downright unplayable thanks to the already crap framerates that most N64 games suffer from. Also thanks Nintendo for making the PAL N64 capable of composite video only. Seriously it's practically required to import NTSC system and the games, to get any enjoyment from this system.
Cartridges did their best to hinder the potential of the system which was undoubtedly more powerful than the competition and the cost of the bridges this decision burned with many third party developers for this system and the future ones to follow was a ginormous fuck up on Nintendo's part. (Probably the biggest one ever) Nintendo consoles went from being the place you go to play first and third party games to being a place were you wait several months for first party games to release and hope that they don't disappoint and some of them really did like Mario Kart 64, Majora's Mask, Smash Bros, Kirby 64, Yoshi's Story.
I guess i wouldn't mind this much as i do if Mario 64 did not blow me completely out of the water when it came out. It seemed like the system was going to live up to the hype but nah, it jumped the shark immediately after i finished Mario 64. Nothing else on the system came even close. OOT was great but not nearly as good as a Link to the Past or Link's awakening for that matter. I love Paper Mario but that is mostly for the ground work it layed out for it's sequel. comparing it to Mario RPG it was undoubtedly worse. Oh and man the lack of a Metroid game was just....disappointing, to say the least.
You can't talk about this system without mentioning Rare and i guess they did help somewhat to mitigate the long software droughts but i just wish most of their games were better. It really seems like this studio was more about quantity than quality. We got one B tier Mario 64 clone (Kazooie) and two other slogs that wish they were even half as good as Kazooie was. (Tooie, DK64) Conker was a a unique and charming game but it's so mechanically simple that i got bored of it about half way through. Jet Force Gemini was terrible and the best i can say about Diddy Kong Racing is that it's at-least not Mario Kart 64.
Goldeneye was great but it's a bit tragic that a more complete and fully fleshed out "GoldenEye" was released on the N64 and only sold a fraction of what Goldeneye did. Perfect Dark did everything GoldenEye did except in a much better and more fleshed out way but sadly nobody remembers it because it came out so late into the systems life-cycle that i question why it was not just made for the ground up for Next Gen Consoles instead. Still It's Rares most ambitious game but the fact that it was GoldenEye that influenced future FPS games on consoles and not Perfect Dark is a sad thing for all of us.
Despite having some highlights i can't help but still think of this system as a Mario 64 machine. I don't think that's a good thing in the slightest. With pretty much every other Nintendo console (Except Wii U) i always think of several games at once when the name is of it is mentioned but with the N64 it's just Mario 64 and nothing else and i just find that kind of depressing. It had so much potential and had Nintendo done everything right with this system i have no doubt in my mind that future Nintendo consoles from this point onward would have been better and more successful financially as well but because they did not i can't help but feel immense disappointment when thinking about the N64.
Edit: How do i move the thread to the gaming section? Accidental mistake on my part, sorry about that.
Cartridges did their best to hinder the potential of the system which was undoubtedly more powerful than the competition and the cost of the bridges this decision burned with many third party developers for this system and the future ones to follow was a ginormous fuck up on Nintendo's part. (Probably the biggest one ever) Nintendo consoles went from being the place you go to play first and third party games to being a place were you wait several months for first party games to release and hope that they don't disappoint and some of them really did like Mario Kart 64, Majora's Mask, Smash Bros, Kirby 64, Yoshi's Story.
I guess i wouldn't mind this much as i do if Mario 64 did not blow me completely out of the water when it came out. It seemed like the system was going to live up to the hype but nah, it jumped the shark immediately after i finished Mario 64. Nothing else on the system came even close. OOT was great but not nearly as good as a Link to the Past or Link's awakening for that matter. I love Paper Mario but that is mostly for the ground work it layed out for it's sequel. comparing it to Mario RPG it was undoubtedly worse. Oh and man the lack of a Metroid game was just....disappointing, to say the least.
You can't talk about this system without mentioning Rare and i guess they did help somewhat to mitigate the long software droughts but i just wish most of their games were better. It really seems like this studio was more about quantity than quality. We got one B tier Mario 64 clone (Kazooie) and two other slogs that wish they were even half as good as Kazooie was. (Tooie, DK64) Conker was a a unique and charming game but it's so mechanically simple that i got bored of it about half way through. Jet Force Gemini was terrible and the best i can say about Diddy Kong Racing is that it's at-least not Mario Kart 64.
Goldeneye was great but it's a bit tragic that a more complete and fully fleshed out "GoldenEye" was released on the N64 and only sold a fraction of what Goldeneye did. Perfect Dark did everything GoldenEye did except in a much better and more fleshed out way but sadly nobody remembers it because it came out so late into the systems life-cycle that i question why it was not just made for the ground up for Next Gen Consoles instead. Still It's Rares most ambitious game but the fact that it was GoldenEye that influenced future FPS games on consoles and not Perfect Dark is a sad thing for all of us.
Despite having some highlights i can't help but still think of this system as a Mario 64 machine. I don't think that's a good thing in the slightest. With pretty much every other Nintendo console (Except Wii U) i always think of several games at once when the name is of it is mentioned but with the N64 it's just Mario 64 and nothing else and i just find that kind of depressing. It had so much potential and had Nintendo done everything right with this system i have no doubt in my mind that future Nintendo consoles from this point onward would have been better and more successful financially as well but because they did not i can't help but feel immense disappointment when thinking about the N64.
Edit: How do i move the thread to the gaming section? Accidental mistake on my part, sorry about that.
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