Nintendo 64 15th anniversary -- What are your N64 memories?

[randomhero24]

Blind buying Excitebike 64 and absolutley loving it. I think i played that game at least 4 hours a day for months.
It was lucky too even get a release in Australia, a lot of Nintendo Sports games did not.

[cam555]

Anyone have the Monster brand S video cable for Gamecube???? looking to buy one.

[redtornado]

Playing Star Wars Rebel Assault and loving it.

[DuranFanWI]

Originally Posted by cam555

Anyone have the Monster brand S video cable for Gamecube???? looking to buy one.

If you have a backwards-compatible Wii that plays GC games, definitely grab a component cable for it, you will definitely notice the difference! They're reasonably priced on Amazon.

[Tekka]

This thread needs more HappyConsoleGamer and Robman.

SUPER MARIO 64 MEMORIES! - YouTube

[Dynamo of Eternia]

I actually remember the day that I got my N64 quite well.

I got it at launch, I was 16 at the time. I had reserved it at Babbage's at the local mall along with Super Mario 64.

I had money saved up from the previous Christmas and my Bday (which is shortly after Christmas in early January) for it.

I remember hearing different rumors about when the release date would be (this was before the internet was a common household thing), so I kept anticipating it. Some rumors were spring, but as usual, it ended up having a fall release date.


The day it got released, My mom took me to the mall along with my baby sister (she was just born in early December 1995). She had other shopping to do as well, but I got to Babbage's and got my system and game.

I had plans to go over to a friend's house that afternoon, so the first time the system even got used was at his place. I brought it over and we hooked it up. We probably spent a good 10 to 15 minutes just moving Mario around in a circle with the analog stick, memorized by the ability to do so.

It was a very memorable first experience. It's hard to believe that this was more than half of my life ago already!
It really doesn't feel like it should be!


All of that said, great as that first experience was, and while Mario 64 was a good game overall, I do feel that it was largely over rated.


Super Mario 3 was still remains by all-time favorite Mario game (though World is a strong contender). While the move to a 3D environment opened up a lot of possibilities, given how new the tech was at the time, it was also felt restrictive in a number of ways.

The "cast" felt really scaled back, especially on the enemy front. Gone were the Koopa kids. The enemies, while present, felt sparse compared to previous installments. While it was nice being able to explore the various stages, some of which had a lot of discover, with each stage having multiple stars to collect, in many instances it required the player to retread a lot of the same ground just to accomplish a slightly different goal. This felt a bit like a step backwards to me to SMB3 and SMW which had several worlds with many separate, different stages to go through.

The power ups also felt sparse (though in all fairness they were significantly reduced going from SMB3 to SMW as well). The lack of a fire flower kind of stunk, too.

By no means am I trying to crap all over the game. It definitely has it's pluses, but I just felt that despite the impressive aspects of the (then) new technology, the game was lacking in a decent amount of respects.

Oddly, even though the enemy factor didn't change much, I did feel that the Nintendo DS version of the game, which added in Yoshi, Luigi, and Wario as playable characters, added a nice element to it. The game felt a bit more populated and a bit more robust to me with this change. By no means was it a night and day difference, but it did add a little something to it that helped it feel not quite as lacking as the original version.

[TotoroDragon]

I really enjoyed the library of titles on the N64,I was lucky to be just out of school & working at the time & along with the original PSX it was the first time i had all the classic titles for the said consoles.

I also enjoyed importing Virtual Pro Wrestling 64 & VPW 2

I just wish they would have done VPW 3 with the No Mercy Update.

I still have my 2 N64's and there's nothing like WM 2000,WCW Revenge now a days.It's always a pleasure to get them out,they truly are timeless!


F-Zero,Lylat Wars,Golden Eye,Blast corps,Banjo the list go's on Great console!

[Mavrick]

Heavily modified Nintendo 64. Switchless, remote, backlit, RGB N64 mod. - YouTube

[Scarface32]

Originally Posted by Mavrick

Heavily modified Nintendo 64. Switchless, remote, backlit, RGB N64 mod. - YouTube

I don't like it. I would have kept the 4-port look, it now has an uneven look with just one port on the far left like that.

[Mavrick]

Yeah, I was more intrigued by the remote on/off and the RGB box.

[Wingman1977]

This is the 1st console I ever heard of having hardware shortages at launch (I bought mine from EB games at the Manhattan mall 2 weeks after launch, but I could have picked it up much earlier from a mom and pop store at launch, but the only had Pilot wings and you had to have bought a game with the console from them).

[Steelmaker]

Ahhh the N64. I have so many memories of this console and the anticipation building up to it!

After the enormous success of the SNES, anticipation for Nintendo's next console was at a fever pitch! I remember gaming magazines showing off ridiculous images that were produced by Silicone Graphics workstations and suggesting that N64 games could look like that (though they never came close)! I also remember early images of Final Fantasy 64 being shown that were supposedly running on N64 hardware.

Then Nintendo announces their decision to stick with the cartridge format instead of CD-ROM and it essentially cost them Squaresoft support(and ultimately why I thought it cost them the war, especially in Japan).

Then there was the famous delay announcement that would push the N64 to come out a year after the Sega Saturn and Sony Playstation!

So the N64 finally launches in September of 96 with TWO games, Mario 64 and Pilot Wings. I remember how amazing it felt, moving Mario around in a 3D space! I was completely charmed by the whole presentation! I also remember Wave Race 64 coming out a couple of weeks later and it being completely amazing! The water physics in that game felt so great and frankly, I cannot believe Nintendo hasn't tried to capitalize on that franchise more.

Here is my list of the top N64 games...

Mario 64
Waverace
Goldeneye 007
Zelda Ocarina of Time
Zelda Majoras Mask
Star Fox 64
Mario Kart 64
Banjo Kazooie
Smash Brothers 64
Pokémon Stadium
F Zero X
Doom 64
Perfect Dark
Conquer's Bad Fur Day
Jet Force Gemini
Donkey Kong 64
Mario Golf
Paper Mario
Diddy Kong Racing
Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire
Star Wars: Rogue Squadron
Turok The Dinosaur Hunter
Blast Corp
Kirby 64 and the Crystal Shards
Yoshi's Story
Mario Party 2
Harvest Moon

Some oddly missing Nintendo IP's on N64... Punch Out, Metroid, Kid Icarus, Mario RPG, Excite Bike, etc.

In a lot of ways, the N64 reminds me of the Wii U. A fantastic console with a limited library mostly made up of 1st party software that took forever between releases.

After the NES and SNES, the N64 was the first Nintendo console I owned that had been relegated to "companion console" status instead of my primary console. I will always be a fan of Nintendo and their games, but I can never see myself having one of their consoles as my primary gaming console ever again.

[Steelmaker]

Just as a trip down memory lane. Here were some of the early screenshots of Final Fantasy 64 before Squaresoft switched development over to the PS1.

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

Just as a trip down memory lane. Here were some of the early screenshots of Final Fantasy 64 before Squaresoft switched development over to the PS1.

Not bad looking considering the era. Too bad the 64 just couldn't handle a game that size.

[AeroK]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

[Show spoiler]Just as a trip down memory lane. Here were some of the early screenshots of Final Fantasy 64 before Squaresoft switched development over to the PS1.

That game has always been the great "what if" for me regarding the N64 and also Earthbound.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

Not bad looking considering the era. Too bad the 64 just couldn't handle a game that size.

It could have handled it if Nintendo hadn't have been so stubborn and insisted on keeping expensive limited memory carts.

Were Advantages like the faster load times etc more important than say the cost of the carts? A CD based game cost $1 to produce vs $15+/- for an N64 Game Pak. That cost was passed on to us with some games coming in at over $80 vs CD based games that were usually under $50.

There's a lot of history in the whole Squre/Nintendo FFVII saga. It's an interesting read. http://www.lostlevels.org/200510/

Here's a video of the game, a tech demo using FFVI character models on N64

Final Fantasy Tech Demo N64 - YouTube

slightly better quality

[N64] Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game ~ SGI demo [WS] - YouTube

[ChadFL]

Originally Posted by Mavrick

It could have handled it if Nintendo hadn't have been so stubborn and insisted on keeping expensive limited memory carts.

Were Advantages like the faster load times etc more important than say the cost of the carts? A CD based game cost $1 to produce vs $15+/- for an N64 Game Pak. That cost was passed on to us with some games coming in at over $80 vs CD based games that were usually under $50.

There's a lot of history in the whole Squre/Nintendo FFVII saga. It's an interesting read. http://www.lostlevels.org/200510/

Here's a video of the game, a tech demo using FFVI character models on N64

Final Fantasy Tech Demo N64 - YouTube

slightly better quality

[N64] Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game ~ SGI demo [WS] - YouTube

But was price really the main factor? A gamepak could hold juts 64 MB while a PS1 CD held 750 MB. It would have taken a ridiculous number of cartridges for the game to appear on the N64.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by ChadFL

But was price really the main factor? A gamepak could hold juts 64 MB while a PS1 CD held 750 MB. It would have taken a ridiculous number of cartridges for the game to appear on the N64.

Yeah that's another factor. If Nintendo had taken up CDROM things would have been different.

But Nintendo had more control sticking with carts, vs CD.

[42041]

Originally Posted by Steelmaker

Just as a trip down memory lane. Here were some of the early screenshots of Final Fantasy 64 before Squaresoft switched development over to the PS1.

Wow, didn't know that was ever in the offing. Thank god they switched...
IMO the N64 was a truly misbegotten console, though of course Nintendo's software developers always come to the rescue of their pathetic hardware.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by 42041

Wow, didn't know that was ever in the offing. Thank god they switched...
IMO the N64 was a truly misbegotten console, though of course Nintendo's software developers always come to the rescue of their pathetic hardware.

It wasn't actually ever in development for N64, it was never even called FF 64, that was just what fans/gaming media dubbed it back then.

The reality of the situation was that the technical demo was nothing more than an experiment by Square. An interview with Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, from the PlayStation Underground #2 demo CD, elaborates on this:

"In August of 95, one of the US's largest CG conventions, SIGGRAPH, was held in Los Angeles. At that time we were not sure what the next generation RPG game should look like, so as an experiment we created a CG based, game like, interactive demo to be presented at the show. It focused on battle scenes that were 100% real time and polygon based. This became the seed of Final Fantasy VII and it was then that we decided to make this a CG based game."

Sakaguchi goes on to describe why the game had to be released on CD-ROM media, leading to the reason that the game was released for the PlayStation and could not be released for the Nintendo 64.

"When we discussed designing the field scenes as illustrations or CG based, we came up with the idea to eliminate the connection between movies and the fields. Without using blackout at all, and maintaining quality at the same time, we would make the movie stop at one cut and make the characters move around on it. We tried to make it controllable even during the movies. As a result of using a lot of motion data + CG effects and in still images, it turned out to be a mega capacity game, and therefore we had to choose CD-ROM as our media. It other words, we became too aggressive, and got ourselves into trouble."

Although many fans continued to perpetuate the myth of a lost Final Fantasy 64 game, some of the same magazines that had led to the creation of the rumors sought to clarify the situation. In May of 1996, Volume 4, Issue 5 of Diehard GameFan Magazine contained one such follow-up:

"Ah, remember SQUARE's beautiful SIGGRAPH demo (GF Vol. 3, Iss. 10)? Though it wasn't the Nintendo64 game everyone assumed it to be, it still holds a valuable spot in FF history as the most direct ancestor of FF VII's battle system. Believe it or not, it's actually a pretty cool (and totally playable) little game. Instead of the usual menu system, you control your characters by drawing shapes (a star for magic, for example) with the mouse."

The interactive Final Fantasy technical demo displayed at the ACM SIGGRAPH 95 conference was not a prototype of an upcoming game, nor was it a demo that was being developed specifically for the Nintendo 64 or for the Sony PlayStation. It was simply a technical demo that was designed to show what Square envisioned the next generation of RPGs to be, and to familiarize Square's software developers with the basics of 3D engines.

One question does remain unanswered: What exactly is the actual title of the interactive technical demo?

The demo was never intended to be developed into a game, so the work-in-progress title of "Final Fantasy x" is not plausible. Since it was not intended to be a game and was not intended to be released on any console, both Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy 64 can be ruled out as possible titles. And while the title "Final Fantasy SGI Demo" describes a technical aspect of the demo, it was not the actual title.

The actual title of the interactive technical demo is Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game. Scans from Issue 20 of the Japanese magazine Family Computer, dated October 6, 1995, clearly show an image of the title screen. The title can also be seen while viewing the third of the three video files that can be found below, at about the one minute and eight second mark, although the bottom half of the title is not legible in the video.

Amongst all of the video game journalism and internet speculation about the origin of this demo, apparently no one got it right.

Even though Final Fantasy VI: The Interactive CG Game was not planned for release on any video game system, it is still a fully functional game. Perhaps some day it will be released to the public in some capacity, maybe even as a playable demo in a future Final Fantasy game, and fans of the series will truly get to appreciate it for themselves.