The N64 has aged the most poorly out of the consoles we still look back on as successes

[gbpxl]

1. The controller - Everyone reading this knows the problem with the analog getting worn due easily especially with Mario Party. If you find a secondhand OEM controller with a stiff stick, immediately grab it because most of the sticks you find will be flaccid and as a result the dead zone will be much greater

2. small library - just shy of 300 games means that there are about 50-100 games that are worth playing to this day. I mean not many people are still playing Hercules (non-Disney) or the Hot Wheels game. And when you consider how many of those 300 games are sports titles, that really whittles down the amount of games that are still fun to play

3. outputs - RF, composite, and s-video without modding them. S-video is very comparable to RGB but even with the sharpness maxed out it still has that hazy look just due to the inherent nature of the game design.

4. cartridges that still relied on battery save - many of the third party titles relied on either internal batteries or the memory pak which also required coin batteries. and we all know that those batteries dont last forever. fortunately most of the first party games didnt require them thank God but this isnt an issue for systems whose games relied on solid state memory like PS2, Gamecube, or even just passwords.

5. camera angles - this was always the number one complaint with N64 games. constantly fighting with the camera was annoying and this was most evident with Super Mario 64.

6. lack of RPGs - Not really that its related to how well the console has aged but this has always been a problem for the system. besides Paper Mario there arent any good RPGs. Quest 64 and Aidyn Chronicles are mediocre at best and dumpster fires of a game at worst.

7. FPSs - I know ive said this before but after Halo, its hard for me to go back to the goofy controls of these games and the aiming system

For me the racing games and platform games have aged well in addition to the Pokemon games, wrestling games, and all the 1st party titles but everything else is very hit or miss for me.

[Aussie2B]

Don't agree at all. To begin with, I don't believe in the concept of games, or their systems, "aging" (outside of the components literally getting older). The N64 and its library are exactly the same today as when it all launched, no better no worse. Any flaws they have now have always been there. But on top of that, the N64 is still my third favorite system, after the SNES and NES. It's also still the only system I've ever got on launch day, and despite that, my launch controller still works well, as well as some of the used controllers I've picked up over the years. It is prone to wear, but as long as you don't grind your stick in circles and otherwise treat it gently, it can stay in good shape. The smaller library makes the system more fun to collect for, in my opinion, and I think there's more than enough good games in the library. Despite its smaller size, I think most people don't explore the library enough and miss out on lots of great games, even among N64 fans. A lot of people don't try much beyond the Nintendo and Rare games. Me, my top two faves are Wonder Project J2 and Goemon's Great Adventure. I have no problem with the output options. I'm fine with s-video. Anybody who wants more can mod, which they'd have to with many systems as old or older than the N64, as it was the norm to not support better than RF, composite, or s-video straight out of the box with 80s and 90s systems. There are only 12 games in the entire US N64 library that use batteries. All other US carts that save to the cart use EEPROM or FlashRAM for saving, and you don't really have to worry about those kinds of memory dying. It does suck that the controller pak uses a battery, though. Personally, I think Super Mario 64 has an excellent camera and don't understand those who complain about it, unless they have no idea they're expected to manually adjust it to their wants. There's only one spot in the entire game where I can't get a satisfactory view no matter how I adjust it. N64 is lacking in RPGs, but so are a lot of other lauded systems (like the Dreamcast, or at least its US library), and many other systems are lacking in other various genres too. Yet people seem to hold the lack of RPGs on N64 against it more than they hold the lack of any genre against any other system. That all said, there are more good RPGs than Paper Mario. Just within the US library, there's Ogre Battle 64, and depending on what you consider an RPG, some would count Harvest Moon 64. Same goes for Mega Man 64 and Gauntlet Legends. Hybrid Heaven has its fans too. The Japanese library offers more RPGs. Some are real stinkers, in my opinion, like Onegai Monsters, but others are very solid entries in classic franchises, like the roguelike Fuurai no Shiren 2 and the strategy RPG Super Robot Taisen 64. The PS1 was definitely the better buy for RPG fans, but even with RPGs being my favorite genre back then and still one of my favorites, I still enjoyed the N64 plenty because, if you can enjoy a variety of genres, the N64 has a lot to offer.

[gbpxl]

What I mean when I say hasnt aged well is that at the time, its all we had. you see games made today that emulate the look and controls of SNES and NES games but you dont see games being made today that look and control like N64 games. unless you can give me an example

[goldenband]

I probably enjoy the N64 more now than I did then, because now I can better anticipate which games will make me feel physically ill.

When it comes to giving me simulation sickness, the N64 is by far the worst offender of any console. When my brother had his N64 back in the day, it took me a while to figure out why I felt overheated, headachy, and nauseated after playing games like Banjo-Kazooie and GoldenEye for more than 15 minutes or so.

Nowadays I can avoid those games (or play them under circumstances I can handle), and stick with the ones that I can enjoy. Pre-eminent among those is Gauntlet Legends, for which the N64 release is definitely the best of the console ports. Pilotwings 64 was also really fun.

I've also gotten some measure of enjoyment from BattleTanx, Chopper Attack, South Park, Tigger's Honey Hunt (yes!), Worms Armageddon (janky port though), and the Japanese-exclusive Bomberman 64 game. And the N64's tennis library actually has the best batting average of its generation, since 2 of its 3 tennis games are quite decent, and unlike the Saturn and PS1 (whose US-released tennis games all stink to varying degrees), at least one of those decent games (Mario Tennis) was actually released in the US.

Still, every time I play a N64 game I have to weigh it against the risk of feeling for about an hour afterward like I've taken poison. And for that reason I really haven't bothered with the majority of the flagship titles like Mario 64, the Zelda games, and so forth. I feel as though I should play them someday, but the look of them doesn't appeal to me, and comparable offerings on the PS1 seem to work better for me: I played through Croc! with no trouble.

Anyway, I do think the N64 is the least interesting of the three dominant consoles from that era. It just doesn't have the depth of library, i.e. the interesting/weird stuff, that the PS1 and Saturn have. And while I enjoy picking up and playing cheap, trashy games as much as anyone, there's something a little easier to take about shovelware on a small CD vs. a big cart with a big box, and in any event not much on the N64 is cheap anymore.

[Aussie2B]

Rare's N64 games in general can be pretty rough for people who get motion sick. I mean, the 5th gen wasn't great in terms of frame rates in general, but Rare would often opt for a choppier frame rate in order to have bigger, more complex areas in their games. Zelda you can play on 3DS, which has a much better frame rate.

What I mean when I say hasnt aged well is that at the time, its all we had. you see games made today that emulate the look and controls of SNES and NES games but you dont see games being made today that look and control like N64 games. unless you can give me an example

I know what you and other people mean by games aging, but I still don't believe in the concept. Not having anything else doesn't make the game or system any better. If someone gets wrapped up in the hype of cutting-edge technology and then that luster wears away when it's no longer cutting-edge, then that's a matter of the person's perspective changing, not a reflection of the quality of the product of lack thereof. A game never changes unless it's patched. Bad games were bad from day one, and good games were good from day one.

The closest I can come to relating is that I remember when I first saw Ocarina of Time I thought to myself that I couldn't imagine video game graphics getting more realistic than that. Obviously time proved game graphics could get a lot more realistic. But that didn't affect my opinion on OoT's graphics. I don't think it looks any worse now. It looks exactly the same as it did back then, and I still think it's a very visually impressive game. What's visually impressive to me is relative to the capabilities of the hardware.

As for modern games emulating the visuals of old systems, there's more nostalgia among the gaming populace for 8-bit and 16-bit gaming, and it's also a lot easier to develop a game in that style versus a 3D game. Indie developers usually have limited resources and experience. But there are some indies that resemble early 3D games, like Back in 1995, Proteus, and Race the Sun. And there's Minecraft of course.

[AdamAnt316]

By and large, I'd say the N64 hardware has aged fairly well. The cartridges are very sturdy, and you don't have to deal with moving parts in the media department as you would with an optical drive-based console. I don't remember having too many major issues with the joysticks on our N64 controllers, though I don't think we played Mario Party too much, if at all. I've long figured that it'd be possible to use a GameCube controller with an N64, and thanks to this adapter, it is. I've long considered GC controllers to be much more logical in layout, considering that the D-pad wing on the N64 joypad rarely got used in games beyond offering seldom-used extra buttons in some of them. Strangely, the company making the above-linked GC-to-N64 adapter also offers the reverse, so there's that.
-Adam

[Gameguy]

Don't agree at all. To begin with, I don't believe in the concept of games, or their systems, "aging" (outside of the components literally getting older). The N64 and its library are exactly the same today as when it all launched, no better no worse.

The N64 library is exactly the same today as it was at launch? I'm pretty sure they developed and released games after the system launched.

People buy a system at launch because the hardware looks impressive and they hope it's a good investment for future game releases. Sometimes the games people hope for don't end up coming out, mostly with consoles that died early and have few releases like the Virtual Boy. You don't really get to judge the quality of a systems' overall library until after it's completely discontinued. I'll just say that there's a very good reason why the PS1 outsold the N64 by a very large margin.

Personally I agree with you about aging as I remember when the N64 came out and I never liked it, I just wanted to go back to my Genesis as it had a usable controller and the games didn't look hideous. Later N64 games improved graphics wise but graphics alone aren't enough for me as I just don't like the way that most N64 games control.

[Aussie2B]

"When it all launched", as in, having various launch dates, whenever they respectively were, not that they were all launched simultaneously, together.

You're projecting as to why people buy systems. Not all people who buy a system at launch do so as an investment. Personally, I don't understand that mindset because you can just as well wait until when and if the games you want to play are already out and possibly get a better deal or better rendition of the hardware by then. No matter when I buy a system, it's because it already has a game (or multiple games) I want to play immediately. I bought a N64 at launch not because of nebulous future games that could've been canceled or never even started (like people who bought a N64 for Earthbound 64 or because they assumed it would get Final Fantasy games) but because I wanted to play Super Mario 64 right away. That game alone was enough to convince me to buy the system. I also wanted Pilotwings 64, the other launch day release, though I didn't buy a copy until a couple weeks or so later, after I had some time with Super Mario 64 (and I ended up not liking Pilotwings 64 much). If something very bizarre happened and there were never any other N64 releases after those two, or absolutely none that interested me, sure, that would've been unfortunate, but it still would've been worth it for Super Mario 64, which I've put tons of time into and replayed many times over. So even then, it was about what was currently available to me, not "investing" in the future.

[kupomogli]

What I mean when I say hasnt aged well is that at the time, its all we had. you see games made today that emulate the look and controls of SNES and NES games but you dont see games being made today that look and control like N64 games. unless you can give me an example

Combustion

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIm925adXyY

I personally don't care about graphics for the most part. To me, it's all about the gameplay, gameplay progression, and balance of the game. You can have a great storyline and great gameplay and that's welcome, but if the game doesn't have good progression, then it's an issue with the game imo.

Nightmare Creatures N64 version is the best version because Ignatius doesn't have any hit detection issues like he does in the PS1 and WCW Revenge and WWE Wrestlemania 2000 and No Mercy are some of the best wrestling games ever played right next to the Smackdown series up to Here Comes the Pain. However, the N64 did have a lot of games that weren't so good and that I didn't really care for. The camera on many of the games were very poorly done where coincidentally, games on the PS1 didn't really have this problem(for the most part.,) despite very few games developed using dual analog since it originally never came with the feature.

Good games are all that matters and I'll take a game that looks and plays like Nightmare Creatures over The Witcher 3 any day. The Witcher 3 is good, but for the purpose of the message I'm getting across, Nightmare Creatures is better.

[YoshiM]

I should never read these threads before going to bed...

Annnyway: complaing about the N64 controller is like complaining about the Atari VCS joystick. How can you play with that now? One button, a stick that takes some effort to get movement...these are not my words but those of my kids. My sticks are in great shape but it does take more effort than what the modern gamer is used to. My 3 year old can use an N64 controller and successfully move Mario around. Playing Pac-Man or Frogger on 2600 is a struggle.

To me the N64 controller is tied with the 360 controller as the "best" controller released. The pistol style grip of the 64 automatically felt natural to me, like shaking a friend's hand. Holding the outer "spokes" for 2D style games or titles that worked best with the D-Pad was also comfortable. The only real problem was that Nintendo designed the controller more toward 3D gaming, so popular genres like 2D fighters andcthe like didn't seem to port as well. But man...we had racing games.

As for graphics-yeah the early 3D can be rough on eyes used to the more modern visuals. However, Playstation ain't all it's cracked up to be. And Saturn? Weelll..... Jaguar is more"Sicky-Sore" than Sixty Four in that department.

Titles- that's always subjective. Sure many will rattle if the Rare titles, Nintendo's, Midway's, etc. No different than Playatation. What do peopke talk about most? Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Castlevania:SOTN, Silent Hill, Gran Turismo. Take the ratio of great games on PS and then on N64 and I have a feeling they would be similar. I will agree RPGs were wanting on N64 but then again from what I played on PS...I'd rather play than watch cut scenes.

FPS games...while subjective I'll take Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Doom 64 (even with the motion on that game pushing my guts to yarp-factor 9) over Medal of Honor, Rainbow Six and the like. Goldeneye with four players-never got old.

[§ Gideon §]

A year or so ago, I reintroduced the 64 to some family and friends--and not by choice, either. Long story short: After culling a masterful selection of multiplayer titles and fielding a dozen or so questions, I set the party guests loose--and they refused to put down the very first game.

That game was Diddy Kong Racing.

I have little doubt they would have played all night, too, if it weren't for someone's annoying kid pouting about not being able to play Fortnight (a good game in its own right but a pox for parties).

[gbpxl]

DKR was the best racing game on the system. it was like a combination between Mario Kart 64 and Donkey Kong 64

[kupomogli]

Titles- that's always subjective. Sure many will rattle if the Rare titles, Nintendo's, Midway's, etc. No different than Playatation. What do peopke talk about most? Final Fantasy, Metal Gear, Castlevania:SOTN, Silent Hill, Gran Turismo. Take the ratio of great games on PS and then on N64 and I have a feeling they would be similar. I will agree RPGs were wanting on N64 but then again from what I played on PS...I'd rather play than watch cut scenes.

You're missing a dozen series that people often praise when speaking about Playstation franchises. Crash Bandicoot/Crash Team Racing, Spyro, Tomb Raider, Street Fighter, Twisted Metal, Tekken, Need for Speed, Resident Evil, Mega Man X/Legends, Driver, WWE Smackdown, GTA, Ridge Racer, etc. That's 13 "great series(debatably") that are very popular on the PS1. This isn't just your niche popular great games, these are very well known and popular to more casual fans of the PS1.

Saying the N64 has an amount of great games that are comparable to the PS1? That's truly a joke if there ever was one. And this isn't crapping on the N64 to crap on it, as I've stated there are games I like on the N64 better than on PS1, but there's a reason that the PS1 sold as much as it did despite gaming not being the phenomenon it was back than as it is now.

For instance here's some other series that I like, Armored Core, King's Field/Shadow Tower, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Die Hard Trilogy(yes, series, there's a second one,) Wipeout, Parasite Eve, SaGa, etc, etc, etc, etc. You mentioned Doom 64. Not series, but there's a lot of games that take the Doom FPS style on PS1, games like Disruptor, Star Wars Dark Forces, Alien vs Predator, the list goes on. A massive amount of light gun games that are playable in one or two player. There's a crazy amount of games on the PS1 in a massive amount of genres that are good or even great and the N64 can't even scratch the surface of that number.

[gbpxl]

dont forget Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Oddworld, Legend of Dragoon, Jumping Flash, Motor Toon Grand Prix, Medievil... could probably keep going

[Aussie2B]

He said ratio, not amount. I think it's fair to say that smaller libraries often have similar, if not better, ratios of bad to good as bigger libraries. With more games and more success comes more shovelware as well. Let's take the figures in the opening post just as an example. If one agrees that there are 100 N64 games out of roughly 300 that are worth playing, then 1 out of 3 N64 games is worth playing. If one agrees there are 50 N64 games worth playing, then that's 1 out of 6. The US PS1 library is around 1200 games. Are there 200 US PS1 worth playing? Or even 400? Everybody has different opinions on what's good and what's bad, but I can easily picture, for many people, there isn't any better of a ratio on PS1. In pure numbers, I feel pretty confident there are more junky games on PS1 than N64, so it comes down to what percentage of the PS1 library they constitute.

I also agree with YoshiM that PS1 fans also tend to focus on the same games and franchises endlessly. So both libraries have good stuff that goes underappreciated. So the ratio of what's good and bad, talked about or ignored, may all be similar.

[WelcomeToTheNextLevel]

N64 aging poorly... I haven't really noticed it to age poorly. I feel like in terms of PERCENTAGE of good games, the N64 beats the PS1, and the stylized, cartoonish graphics employed on many of its best games hold up better than PS1 graphics that often tried to target realism. That being said, the absolute number of good PS1 games is easily twice that of good N64 games, due to the massive library.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't call the N64 or PS1 the console that aged the most poorly. I'd nominate the Atari 2600. It was used as a dumping ground for crappy games by fly by night publishers, which contributed to the video game crash. While there are some good games on the 2600, and its limited graphics/sound capabilities can't be held against it (it is, after all, over 40 year old technology), the ratio of good games to crap is far lower than on most post-Crash consoles.

[gbpxl]

N64 aging poorly... I haven't really noticed it to age poorly. I feel like in terms of PERCENTAGE of good games, the N64 beats the PS1, and the stylized, cartoonish graphics employed on many of its best games hold up better than PS1 graphics that often tried to target realism. That being said, the absolute number of good PS1 games is easily twice that of good N64 games, due to the massive library.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't call the N64 or PS1 the console that aged the most poorly. I'd nominate the Atari 2600. It was used as a dumping ground for crappy games by fly by night publishers, which contributed to the video game crash. While there are some good games on the 2600, and its limited graphics/sound capabilities can't be held against it (it is, after all, over 40 year old technology), the ratio of good games to crap is far lower than on most post-Crash consoles.

damn I didnt even think of the 2600. or any system older than NES for that matter. I suppose you could call the 2600 a success

[YoshiM]

Not sure if it's easily curated anywhere, but I might still have my N64 spreadsheet from the Digital Press Advance guide. I think I recall EGM scores when I was writing the section. PS1 might take some dighing.

[gbpxl]

Not sure if it's easily curated anywhere, but I might still have my N64 spreadsheet from the Digital Press Advance guide. I think I recall EGM scores when I was writing the section. PS1 might take some dighing.

I have every score for every N64 cartridge in a thread on this forum. PS1 as well