Current Events > most powerful N64 games?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Basically any game with its own microcode, especially Rogue Squadron

Hybrid Heaven

Conker looked absolutely incredible for its time

I think conker is probably the best looking N64 game. But the following generation was such a jump that I don't think there's any N64 games you could mistake for GameCube games.

Superman 64

It's Conker and it isn't even close. That being said, RE2 N64 is a genuine miracle of optimization I don't think we've seen anything like in a long time.

As somebody who wasn't necessarily particularly impressed technically by any one game, since... Honestly, all N64 games impressed me, coming from somebody who grew up on NES, SNES/Genesis, and so on... One of the most "impressive" games to me was Harvest Moon 64. Not because it was visually impressive, but because it was a game that had such a long feeling gameplay loop. It felt like you could play that game forever, and new things would keep happening.

I understand today how simple it actually was to achieve such a thing, but back then, I loved it so much.

FurryPhilosifer posted...

I think conker is probably the best looking N64 game. But the following generation was such a jump that I don't think there's any N64 games you could mistake for GameCube games.

Closest you can get is probably something like Paper Mario, just because of the art style. Same deal with Wind Waker still looking great to this day.

VideoboysaysCube posted...

Closest you can get is probably something like Paper Mario, just because of the art style. Same deal with Wind Waker still looking great to this day.

What's crazy about Paper Mario is, when I was younger, I always thought TTYD LOOKED a lot better than PM 64, even if I couldn't explain it, since... The paper aesthetic feels so simple, and like something that easily translates over console generation.

But then the TTYD remake came out.

And the remake looks SO much better than the Gamecube original, that I now see... Yes, you absolutely could still improve how the game looked, and immensely so, even with said "simple" paper aesthetic. So now I get why I thought TTYD looked better, because it... Actually did.

Holy shit does the remake look beautiful.

DK64 required a memory expansion, so maybe that?

Though legend has it, that was actually just a glitch they couldn't iron out and it shouldn't have needed the extra memory.

I can't say much about Turok 3, but I do remember Turok 2 being a big deal for the few people who were took interest in performance on the console.

RetuenOfDevsman posted...

DK64 required a memory expansion, so maybe that?

Though legend has it, that was actually just a glitch they couldn't iron out and it shouldn't have needed the extra memory.

You're right. It literally only needed the expansion pack to prevent an otherwise game-breaking bug.

Marlow explains that a glitch would cause the game to randomly crash, but only when configured to work using the N64s standard 4MB memory setup. As Rare was unable to identify the cause of the crash, it was eventually forced to release the game with the Expansion Pak bundled-in for free.

That motion blur effect in MM and PD might put them at the top.

Also, since the Expansion Pak was brought up... I gotta give absolute props to my local video rental store, when I was a kid, Video Safari. They made sure you always got the Expansion Pak whenever you rented DK64. They'd lose pretty much every instruction manual, because people'd return their rentals without them... But they literally would not let you return DK64 without the Expansion Pak.

Probably Indiana Jones, but RIP any game that wasn't super popular amongst kids at the time.

WWF: No Mercy.

Conker's Bad Fur Day has deceptively good graphics. There are a lot of subtle effects you don't see in many N64 games and a lot of the character models and animations could pass for something you'd see in launch-era Dreamcast/PS2 games.

CRON posted...

Conker's Bad Fur Day has deceptively good graphics. There are a lot of subtle effects you don't see in many N64 games and a lot of the character models and animations could pass for something you'd see in launch-era Dreamcast/PS2 games.

Actually, speaking of Dreamcast/PS1-2 games... Ready 2 Rumble is underrated. They had to literally remove characters from the N64 version, in order to keep up the graphics, due to memory/space issues, but the game looked very good, and comparable to the other versions.

When it comes to Ready 2 Rumble and Ready 2 Rumble Round 2, the N64 version was the second best looking version.

It went PS2 (Round 2 only) > Dreamcast > N64 > PSX

The recent resurgence in interest in the N64 hardware has been incredibly interesting to see out on Youtube. There are people making use of modern tricks to push the hardware further than devs could at that time. Some cool stuff to see, out there!

-ZIO- posted...

The recent resurgence in interest in the N64 hardware has been incredibly interesting to see out on Youtube. There are people making use of modern tricks to push the hardware further than devs could at that time. Some cool stuff to see, out there!

Here's an interesting example of that, where they tricked the hardware into producing hi-res textures. You couldn't make a full game with this technique, but it's impressive nonetheless.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf036fO-ZUk

I love tech demos, man. The N64 is such a cool piece of tech.

Conker's Bad Fur Day. I am amazed how they got that game looking so good on the N64. The most amazing thing is they didn't even need the extra RAM from the expansion pack.

Tooorok 3. I liked 2 the most

Gotta be DK64 or Perfect Dark.

Visually though, Paper Mario was the best looking N64 game

Wait, what do you mean Resident Evil 2 was unleased? I own it.

-ZIO- posted...

The recent resurgence in interest in the N64 hardware has been incredibly interesting to see out on Youtube. There are people making use of modern tricks to push the hardware further than devs could at that time. Some cool stuff to see, out there!

the N64 was, on paper, a fair bit stronger than the PS1. The thing that really held the console back was the use of carts. If they had gone with discs, it would have ran circles around the PS1.