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The Official Nintendo 64 Thread!


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The Nintendo 64 is, despite it's flaws, one of the greatest systems ever made. It bridged the gap for Nintendo from 2D to 3D, and was the last cartridge based home console until the release of the Switch earlier this year. The "Fun Machine" was just that. A true four-player local multiplayer machine, it was the last bastion of the "pre-online" console world, where local play was the goal, the more friends the better.

 

Many would say the N64 graphics haven't aged well, that the games look "ugly." I disagree. It's no uglier than PS1 or Saturn in my book. Yes third party titles that were rushed and have minimal textures with maximum fogging don't look great these days, but many titles by Rare and Nintendo have really stood the test of time and look great to this day. Much has been happening with the N64 in recent years, including:

 

-Some homebrew and hack/port action

 

-RGB and HDMI modding for greater picture clarity and quality

 

-An excellent Everdrive with a built in NES emulator

 

-Custom system art, case modding, and LED modding

 

-New gamecube "ball" style joysticks to replace the aging and deteriorating stock sticks

 

The NES may have been my childhood system, but the N64 was my teen year "coming of age" system, and it will always hold a fond place in my heart as a result. For those of you that lived under a rock, here is a recap of 20 games that defined the system:

 

 

Where to pick up and N64 everdrive:

 

http://www.stoneagegamer.com/flash-carts/everdrive64-nintendo-64/cartridges/

 

RGB Mods: PM Yurkie on AA

 

HDMI Mods: https://www.facebook.com/mobiusstriptech/?pnref=lhc, Also: http://www.retrofixes.com/ with more challenging availability

 

Where to pick up the new Joysticks:

 

https://www.amazon.com/Redesigned-REPLACEMENT-Joystick-Controller-Thumbstick/dp/B009MRZAUC/ref=sr_1_3?s=videogames&ie=UTF8&qid=1500479935&sr=1-3&keywords=n64+joystick

 

Please post all your info, finds, memories, and news on the amazing N64 here.

 

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N64 was my college system, and two years in the middle where Sony used their media wing to make things very thin and difficult I still enjoyed what I could when it appeared, but also introduced me to the willingness to go multi-console and got a Turbo Duo, along with another benefit being a conversion of even more of a handheld gamer with GBC and NGPC when it arrived.

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Allow me to be 'that guy' on the video...I can tolerate the first party games being there, I guess, like Yoshi's Story or Pokemon Puzzle or Pilotwings, which didn't define the system for anyone I knew. They're first party core franchises, I get it.

 

But International Superstar Soccer 64? Starcraft???

 

And not ONE AKI wrestling game? Somebody deserves a powerbomb onto a table of broken N64 controllers....

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I bought an N64 just for Sin & Punishment and have never regretted that. Of course I've gotten a few other games as well, and there are more that I want now. It does have quite a few really good games.

 

I think it's one of the few systems that I'd do the RGB or HDMI mod to. I think the "ugly" graphics are at least partially a result of its really weak composite and RF output, which is just a blurry mess. That may be partially intentional to try to hide some of the graphical flaws, but there's no doubt that it looks a lot better overall with HDMI.

 

I've been thinking about buying a second bare unit to do the mod to. I have one of the green DK64 systems and I don't really want to mod that.

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I actually have that too (Sin & Punishment) but also a converter and Bangaioh! Oddly I found them like 3 years ago or so on ebay, some shoe salesman (that's all they had present and history on the account going back years) had it. They undervalued it so badly I paid maybe $100 at most for Bangaioh and then the S&P, converter and shipping were free. I was stunned I found the listing, never regretted it. Hated having to try them for years on crap emulators that didn't work right so it was just an apex of awesomeness when that arrived. I should get a few more JP titles.

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I should get a few more JP titles.

 

This guy (Chris I believe) is making 3D printed universal cart trays for N64's. I may have to snag one eventually as I plan to seek our S&P and a few other top Japanese titles as well.

 

https://www.facebook.com/mobiusstriptech/photos/a.228345014277037.1073741829.223606418084230/311414879303383/?type=3&theater

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Whoo! An N64 thread. :D

 

How'd your HDMIing turn out @travistouchdown?

 

I love my N64 it's my most played 'retro' console. So many good games, I'd love to get mine HDMI'd as well. Developing for it with Lib Ultra or Lib Dragon isn't bad either. :) I've love to get time to dig into it more.

 

I agree about the AKI Wrestling games. No Mercy and Wrestlemania 2000 were killer! They were the party games around my house at the time.

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I actually have that too (Sin & Punishment) but also a converter and Bangaioh!

 

I have Bangaioh! for the Dreamcast but not the N64; from what I remember it's a very different game on both platforms, although looking at screenshots right now they look more similar than I remember. Anyway I'd love to have it on N64 too. I don't consider myself a collector of Treasure games but I do have the majority of them and they are one of the few developers for whom I'd pay over $100 for a single game. (I did that for Radiant Silvergun just recently, but technically you could say I paid even more for S&P since I bought the N64 mainly for that.)

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Fun, and another fun story. My first import Japanese game was the Zelda-style Goemon game. Back west there was this honest game shop that had rows of TVs where you could try stuff and back when it was out months before the US release the store had it. Couldn't read it then, but I played it for a time and was totally sold on the game from there. Day it came out on N64 I went and bought it. To me still the most fun Goemon game made.

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My memories of the 64 revolve mostly around my friend who had the console along with, of course, Goldeneye. We spent a whole lot of hours playing that. I do think the bad rep the 64 gets for graphics is, as mentioned earlier in this thread, more down to the video connection than the hardware. If you play some of these games emulated, for example, they don't have the fuzzy, squinty quality of the console. Of course hardware mods are now solving this problem.

 

Plus, F-Zero X is still one of the best racing games of all time for me personally.

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Unfortunately the N64 seems to be more likely to give me motion sickness (really simulation sickness) than any other console I've tried. No idea why -- maybe it's the Gaussian blur plus framerates that sometimes are on the low side -- but even games like Banjo-Kazooie have affected me.

 

Still, I've enjoyed quite a few games on it, like Gauntlet Legends (best port of the three console versions), Pilotwings 64 (addictive as hell!), and the Bomberman 64 fan-translation (totally different game from the US release). And even some lower-tier games like South Park, Chopper Attack and Tigger's Honey Hunt have been enjoyable.

 

It's also got two very decent tennis games, Mario Tennis and Centre Court Tennis, and only one bad tennis game (All-Star Tennis '99), so it's got one of the best batting averages for the sport of any console. :)

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Eh the classic N64 graphics bad argument, sorry but no. The issue wasn't being bad, but some people being a bit too pushy with the AA because they'd cut corners on wall/floor textures and go with something small, then stretch it wide and overly AA it to cover their tracks. Yet perfect example of it above, you look at Conker there and the detailing is fantastic right down to his independent facial movements which was fairly rare then in good detail as his eyes and mouth/tongue were not part of the same head model, and they had that fur texturing too. Rare did some crazy work, another being with Jetforce Gemini using bends & curves to get around some polygonal limits to make more rounded surfaces without eating up more triangles(polygons) on screen.

 

The system looked better than what the PS1/Saturn could do, when it was done right. But when corners were cut, then it was entirely debatable as the others didn't have any AA/smoothing so it just came down to lots of jaggies, speckling on triangle edges, and whatever details they slapped on each polygon and the effects really varied. A great company inside alone to track that ...look at how bad FF7 looks and how not bad the late FF9 appears in comparison on 3D models. N64 can have that same thing thrown at it, put old Bomberman64 up against Indiana Jones and it's quite telling there too.

 

I've had a varied N64 collection over the years really which currently sits at 25US, converter and +2 JP releases. I've definitely at some point owned probably 33-40+% of the library which really isn't bad because there were a lot of really crappy racers and sports titles I'd never touch among some other lowbrow ported(or not) filth from arcade or other systems that just were bad all around. If I ever put myself in a spot where I'd actively start buying old console games again I could see snapping up some N64 titles once more, though mostly stuff I had in the past that I feel aged well enough (Goemon Great Adventure, Star Wars Ep1 Racer, Gauntlet, Hydro Thunder, R2R Boxing even, Hexen(yes I liked it), Blast Corps, Bomberman 2nd Attack(if it was cheap), Resident Evil 2, and varying others. But given how things are, easily a N64 everdrive would be a better solution too.

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