I don’t see many posts here about the N64 and it doesn’t look like there is an N64 community on lemmy.world It’s the console I have the most nostalgia for and I have over 130 games in my collection. I’m currently playing a ROM hack called SM64: Beyond the Cursed Mirror. It has some pretty challenging platforming but it is fun.
The ‘64 was my first console and remains one of my all time favorites. My love for it is definitely coupled with the final days of analogue tv and the end of my childhood but man—what a great system.
Always love me some N64. Unfortunately, it hasn’t aged as well as some of the other retro consoles since the dips in framerate was pretty common for that machine even back when it was new. In comparison, the SNES still outputs a clean 60fps, as it was more of a priority back then.
Orcarina of Time just rocked my world back then. I think I had the gold cartridge that had the original Fire Temple music and symbol on the mirror shield.
Low framerates, extremely close draw distances, and odd controller make it less appealing to most retro gaming fans that don’t have nostalgia for the system. That’s not to say you shouldn’t go ham on some Buck Bumble or Doom 64, but it does explain why it’s not as active as some other platforms.
So many games for n64 feel like fever dreams to me. Mystical Ninja was where it was at. Also Hey Pikachu…. Conker… Zelda… goldeneye… banjo kazooie…
Love me some N64
I have tried playing banjo kazooie again with the Switch emulator and that game is hard
Did you ever play Glover? When I think “weird n64 games” I think Glover.
Oh wow yes! That unlocked a memory
Space Station Silicon Valley
Ooh, never heard of this one, but I know what I’m doing after work now.
NO ODDJOB! Slappers or throwing knives only. Perfect Dark no railgun.
My first ‘WTF is this controller’ layout but it just worked and could take abuse.
Banjo-Kazooie and Ocarina of Time are games I had that I think have aged well and that I still play occasionally. I also enjoy watching speedruns of them.
Played a lot of Mario Kart as a kid, but I don’t think the “feel” is as good as the more modern versions.
I have so many fond memories of playing Superman 64 (and it’s multiplayer) and wave race with my dad.
I miss him so much.
I like seeing fond memories and Superman 64 in the same sentence. It feels like an oxymoron, but I totally get it. Even the worst games become great memories with great people.
Yeah the game as a whole was absolutely terrible but I could fly around and used my imagination. So many epic battles. But the main part of my memories is playing the multiplayer with my dad. It was really basic (just vehicles and dropping mines) but we laughed and yelled. I miss him a lot.
I love N64, it was one of the first console’s I bought with my own money, still play it today. I actually played F-Zero this afternoon.
Anyone else remember Quest 64?
Ive had that sitting in my roms folder for years, but never gotten around to it. Do you think its a game that’s more propped up on nostalgia or do you think it hold up well enough today?
Quest 64 wasn’t considered good in its own time; not sure what people would think of it today. I think it was very elementary, “baby’s first RPG” type of stuff, if I remember right, and that certainly didn’t bode well against games like FF7.
Honestly, probably mostly nostalgia and the fact that there weren’t many RPGs of that style on the N64. I remember some fun stuff but also very rough around the edges.
It’s a 6/10. Nostalgia holds it aloft. I gave it a brief revisit and was totally unmotivated quite quickly.
Mario Kart 64 is still my favorite of the series.
Honestly, it was the perfect mix of random party and skill. I don’t think any Mario Kart since has captured that balance. It’s my favorite one, too!
It’s a been a good past year for N64. We got PC native versions of Super Mario 64 and Ocarina of Time; Majora’s Mask and Paper Mario in the works later on. Playing SM64 cooperatively works so much better than I thought it would 👍
I’m just not ready to call the N64 ‘retro’. I mowed lawns for months to buy that thing.
Based on the meaning of “retro” when the N64 came out (stuff from the 70s was considered retro in the 90s), it is. But in the almost 30 years since it came out, the meaning of retro might have changed.
Relative and absolute time frames are a bit of a bitch. Like the modern age has come and gone (ok, this isn’t exactly agreed on, either the modern age ended with WWII or we’re in the late modern age right now, but it started back in 1500 and things have changed a bit since then) but we still use “modern” to refer to current things, even when talking about an information age replacement of an earlier modern age product.
Should “retro” refer to <current year> - <range of retro years>, or should it refer to a specific time and a new name be given to the timeframe 90s kids are nostalgic about? My own mind thinks of things from like the 50s to the 80s when it sees “retro”.
N64 like a lot of the Nintendo consoles had none of the games on the competitors, but often vica versa as well.
Smash Brothers of course started there
Custom Robo started there (only in Japan though)
You got all the rare games that were only on it. Mario Kart and Diddy Kong racing were there.
Mystical Ninjas Starring Goemon and Goemon’s Great Adventure were the last 2 Ganbare Goemon games released in the west (and they’re two of the most fun as well)
WWF No Mercy is one of the best wrestling games for actually playing the game and not watching sims.
It had everything except the big name titles that basically won the era, unfortunately.
Wave Race, both Zelda games and Perfect Dark were my most played games for sure. Perfect Dark was awesome with bots if you had the expansion pack.
We were a Wave Race and Diddy Kong Racing household. Everyone use to fight over who got to be the pink racer because she was “faster.” I don’t think any of us actually confirmed that.
Goldeneye was the best fps game I’d played up to that point, especially for same room multiplayer. Like it was one of those games that was head and shoulders above the rest at the time and really stood out.
Then Perfect Dark came along and made Goldeneye almost unplayable because it was just better in every way.
Though all of this was while game devs were still figuring out controls for FPS games. I think Halo was the one that figured it out decently for controllers. Nintendo still had Metroid Prime in its future during the N64 era, which is an interesting game in that I consider it one of the best out there but the controls were awful.