personal hot take the n64 was garbo even if it had some good games
just... that controller was horrid. I found it utterly unusable no matter what I did.
and cartridges were probably a cost saving measure in terms of development and construction and also part of ninty's ethos which I'm sure they still had at the time of using "obsolete" or "out-dated" components but in such a way as to compete with the more bleeding edge tech by just being reliable and good, but... eeeehhhhhhh.....
the cart's weren't any cheaper for the consumer,... and again that damn controller holy fuck. I hated the N64 controller so much. There were loads of games on it I wanted to play like so damn many but... that controller was just... nope. couldn't do it. could not get my head or hands around that damn batarang.
I actually feel pretty bad for the Sega Saturn. It was a nice looking console, the pads were good and its 2d hardware was like, best in the business at the time.... but 3d? Yyyyyyyyyiiikeeessss... Sega really scrimped on that.
Now, I know that actually the Saturn had just as much "lifespan" as the other consoles in that gen, so it wasn't that the Dreamcast came out "too fast", but it definitely felt that way, and I think that perception really hurt it, even if the Dreamcast really was great.
@Nine the n64 had the opposite problem; they really skimped on 2d processing capabilities. The n64 has extremely limited texture ram, so you can't load up spritesheets or anything.
@Nine as we recall there were only two 2d games on the n64 and one of them was actually 3d made to look 2d
@Felthry oh heck that is stuff I didn't know. I had an inkling it had some major limitations but I thought that was mostly around the available space on the cartridge.
@Nine Nah, it's the console itself. it's geared very heavily towards 3d graphics, with only very limited 2d capability used for things like UI elements and stuff like the bob-ombs in super mario 64
it just doesn't have the capability to do detailed animated sprites
@Felthry aw no. that's a shame. I guess they were figuring that "eh, 2d's a dinosaur, let's get as much 3d hardware as we can into this thing!" whereas sega went "pff 3d is a gimmick let's focus on being hte best 2d hardware ever"
@Nine sony struck a good balance, meanwhile, and is probably the winner of that generation
the ps1 can do pretty good 3d, about on par with the n64, and pretty good 2d about on par with the snes (no experience with the saturn to compare), so you got blockbuster games in both 3d like Final Fantasy VII and 2d like Symphony of the Night
@Nine oh, the Saturn had no native 3D capability because they didn't have time to develop it. it just has 2D, twice. it can generate enough scaled sprites to look like 3D but it has no 3D hardware of any sort
@kyra oh my gosh it's worse than I thought... Poor Saturn :( no wonder Panzer dragoon looked like ass.
@Nine wipeout did come out on n64 didn't it
@pup_hime I think one version of it did yeah, but it was two years later, and a direct sequel to 2097. it DID have local multiplayer tho which... fuck yes, i wish 2097 had that. :<
@Nine the N64 was significantly more powerful in terms of raw component specs but all the components were connected up such that they had to take turns accessing a single bank of memory which badly damaged the systems ability to do anything well
@Nine a third party PlayStation style controller for the N64 would've been incredible.
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun god yes.
god. fucking. .. YES. shit. fuck. yes absolutely. But it would have to have the dualshock style sticks on it too. (realtalk the original PS1 non analogue pads were also garbage as hell holy balls they were so bad ARgghhghghg but they were at least usable, to a degree. Thank goodness for dualshocks, y'know.)
@Nine I think that in period context the likely stick setup would've been N64 style stick in the middle still, but a modern controller like that would have the stick be on the left or the right
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun Oh yeah the C-stick was from the GC wasn't it? Before it was C buttons instead, four of them. forgot about that.
@Nine tangentially related, I've got a SNES DualShock hybrid controller called the 8bitdo SN30 Pro and it's just as amazing as you'd expect from a combination of an SNES and DualShock controller
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun I ALSO have that controller. it's ...
god it's a thing of beauty?? The button presses are SO NICE?! It's a little awkward to hold for long periods of time especially with games like Daemon X Machina, but god it's fun and good and looks great (and it works with my Switch, my PC, and my Laptop and theoretically my phone as well but that just... feels weird and I have no stand for my phone to be able to use it at the same time)
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun I think I got the SF30 Pro though because heck i love the the coloured buttons.
@Nine I actually found it really easy to hold for extended gaming sessions, I played I think it was Dragon Quest XI for 5 hours or something using it. It's a real nice quality controller and the buttons are just great.
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun Oh yeah, it's great for games like that! But Daemon X Machina is very handcrampy after a while due to needing to make a lot of movements in quick succession and holding shoulder buttons for extended periods of time as well.
@Nine ah, I don't really play games that need me to make a lot of quick inputs. I could see that being crampy.
@InTheLandOfTheRisingSun @Nine personally I've never had a problem with the N64 gamepad (the sticks wear out awfully fast though), but there was this Hori one that's very popular because of its traditional form factor
also Retrofighters released an Xbox-style controller
though they both don't allow my preferred control scheme for shooters which is d-pad and analog stick
and don't get me wrong I love cartridge systems I love how they feel and sound going in but dang those were pricy friggin things. My little brother had a PS1 at the time and... heck that had wipeout 2097 like how can n64 compete with that??
sure it had 64 bit but... honestly it didn't look much prettier than the 32bit PS1.
...at least it wasn't the saturn tho. poor thing :/