Is The Nintendo 64 Overrated?

[A Link In Time]

The N64 brought me into gaming and is rightfully acclaimed as one of the better consoles from any company. The system ushered in the era of the 3D gaming but it wasn't without its bumps along the way. The Big N's fatal error was the failure to switch to discs embracing the lower memory, more expensive cartridge format. The Playstation brand emerged from Nintendo's efforts to improve the SNES and subsequently surpassed Nintendo's commercial successes. While Ninty's franchises consistently remain the highest grossing exclusives, the N64 launched an era of low hardware sales which plagued it, the Cube, and the GBA.

With few exceptions, Nintendo and Rare created the AAA titles defining the N64. Problem is they were too few and far between. After Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, the system encountered a dearth of titles for several months. With only two launch games to support it, interest predictably waned quickly. 1997, 1998, and 1999 were all great years but by the time late 2000 rolled around Banjo Tooie and Majora's Mask were the only titles to look forward to-not a full four years into the systems life span.

I love the N64 and replay its classics periodically but I feel as though many a gamer reflects too nostalgically and optimistically upon the box's life. It began a downward period that the company only now is slowly recuperating from. Is the Nintendo 64 overrated? Do you believe the Nintendo 64 deserves its praise for the advancements it conferred upon the industry?

 

[Ventus]

The Nintendo 64 deserves its praise for innovation, and if not that, at least presenting whatever innovations it claims to have in a tangible, realistic manner. Achievements such as a fully realized 3D realm, Z-Targeting, context-sensitive actions in a 3D adventure game, etc are very deserving of praise and the N64 should be immortalized into the Gaming Hall of Fame.

Am I biased? Hell yes. I got OoT, MM and SM64 out of the N64. Do I realize the N64 had a lot of failure left and right? Yup! Cartridges typically lead to financial problems.

EDIT: N64 is overrated even in spite of that.

 

[JuicieJ]

Maybe a little bit. But it deserves the praise it gets, so it's not like we're talking about the GameCube.

 

[Ugea]

the main reasons why Nintendo used Cartridge over CD, was because they were afraid of piracy, and at that time CD games can be pirated.
The N64 at its golden hayday was the perfect multiplayer console with 4 controller ports and games that had 4 way split screen without a multi-tap. this blew my mind cause i never seen anny thing like this before. 3D console gaming was new at the time so games like mario and zelda was 1st seen in 3D something the fans never experienced before, a new way of playing a game, to go wherever you want. it brought back a failed Idea analog controls, after the Atari 5200's broken analog stick people stucked with the D pad, the N64 brought back this idea and made it work, so now its everywhere.
I loved my N64, and with a library of 300+ games it all depends an what you had and experienced. so yes the N64 does Deserve the praise it gets

EDIT: the memory cards did sucked, mine kept geting erased or curuped, luckly most of the games i had saved its data in the cartages

 

[MW7]

Am I biased? Hell yes. I got OoT, MM and SM64 out of the N64. Do I realize the N64 had a lot of failure left and right? Yup! Cartridges typically lead to financial problems.

That's what I was thinking. Within a significant portion of the Zeldadungeon population the N64 is going to be overrated because it was at its peak in our childhoods- perfectly timed to blow us away with its majesty. But still it was awesome IMO due to the extremely high quality of a few of the games. I mean Goldeneye and Super Mario 64 were some of the most revolutionary games ever, and Ocarina of Time is quintessential Zelda. Plus for me it had several other games that aren't quite as historically significant but are among my favorite games of all time- Majora's Mask, Banjo Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 to name a few.

So to answer your questions- yes it is overrated because it definitely marked the beginning of Nintendo's struggles. We tend to be overly forgiving of that fact because as gamers we focus on the incredible games that were for the N64. However, video games are a business, and the N64 era contained huge missteps that cost Nintendo dearly. The N64 deserves lots of praise, but not as much as it receives.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I know you sophisticated gamer-types don't judge quality buy sales, but Nintendo does (that whole run a company to make money thing). The N64 sold 17 million less units than the SNES had done the previous generation and nearly seventy million less than the PS1. While there are some shining stars in there (the vast majority 1st party and Rare efforts), I feel it was inferior in overall breadth of quality to the SNES.

My biggest grievance against Nintendo (and was at the time) was sticking with the cartridge. The existence of the aborted 64DD shows they knew they had made a mistake. A lot of people I knew growing up who had been fervent Nintendo supporters walked away from the company entirely. Yeah, the loading times on those old 2X CDRoms were a pain, but the payoff was the PS2, one of the best consoles ever made.

Don't get me wrong, Mario 64, OoT, Goldeneye, etc were landmark games. Having them on CD would have kept Big N at the front of the console market instead of relegated to 3rd place by GCN and a First Party / PS2 port box by Wii.

 

[Ronin]

No...

My background is different than most. I never got to purchase any new Nintendo 64 games, so I can't say that I remember their prices; instead I had older siblings that amassed a sizable collection of great titles over the years. If I remember correctly, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and Star Fox 64 were among the first games I was able to play. Majora's Mask and Donkey Kong 64 came in later on, and they eventually came to be my in my Top 3 (the third is very difficult to place). Because of that astronomical lineup from the N64's days, I'm not enraptured by it through nostalgia, but the childhood memories that were inspired by them.

The cartridges versus the disc transition is an interesting scenario, though. As the case may be, we have to remember that Nintendo's gaming consoles were born with cartridges, whereas Sony's legacy (to my knowledge) began with the PlayStation 1. It took Nintendo, what, a decade to snag on to distributing their games in discs? Yet the N64 subsisted exceptionally on its stellar titles as the Big N switched over to 3D gaming experiences, and revolutionized gaming in several ways. Thusly, considering all that it accomplished, I don't think this factor brought it down drastically, even if at all.

 

[illmatic]

It depends on what you mean by overrated. It's definitely not the greatest console ever, and not even the best Nintendo console (that's the SNES in my opinion).

But it was still a turning point in console gaming. It popularized the analog stick, force feedback with the Rumble Pack, 4-player games, and more. With its games it made 3D games and FPS shooters on consoles popular. It also made OoT possible, widely considered the greatest game of all-time and one of the most influential.

Insisting on using cartridges instead of discs was it's biggest mistake, and a big reason why many third party developers are no longer developing for Nintendo. Mainly Squaresoft, who switched from Nintendo to Sony and released its biggest games on the PlayStation. It made FMV impossible on the N64. This also had advantages though, like no load times and no need for memory cards.

I had both an N64 and PS during their primes, and liked my N64 a lot better.

It was Nintendo's last great system, and did a lot for the industry, so I wouldn't call it overrated.

 

[ShadowDiety]

FANBOY ALERT

I think it deserves all the praise it gets. Not even in this day and age I see one flaw in it, let alone for its time. Just a perfect console.

 

[DarkestLink]

I think the N64 is underrated. All of the classic games were great. SM64 was great. OoT was great. MM was great. Mario Kart 64 was great. Paper Mario was great. The Mario Party titles were great. Rare was at their peak. In the GC, we had disappointments like SMS and tWW. The MP series died. And in the Wii had had SMG and SMG 2 (which I thought were substandard), MP series is still dead. Super Paper Mario was a disappointment. Mario Kart Wii was a bigger disappointment

 

[Cfrock]

I don't think the N64 was over-rated. Almost all of its exclusives are remembered as genre defining classics to this day and the games that appeared on that system advanced gaming more than any other, particularly in areas such as platforming, third-person adventure and first-person shooting. Whatever technical limitations it had compared with the Playstation aside, it's the games that determine a console's legacy and the N64 has one of the strongest there is.

While Ninty's franchises consistently remain the highest grossing exclusives, the N64 launched an era of low hardware sales which plagued it, the Cube, and the GBA.

What? The GBA sold in amazing numbers. The only things to outsell it have been the Playstation and the PS2, the DS and the original Gameboy. While technically Nintendo's lowest selling handheld, 81+ million worldwide sales is far from failure. It sold more than the GameCube and Xbox combined in that generation.

The MP series died.

Metroid Prime died on the GameCube? I don't understand, considering it was created for the GameCube and was one of the console's biggest hits.

 

[JuicieJ]

Metroid Prime died on the GameCube? I don't understand, considering it was created for the GameCube and was one of the console's biggest hits.

MP = Mario Party. Saying Metroid Prime series died on the GCN wouldn't even make sense. The series is Metroid, not Metroid Prime, and Metroid Prime DEBUTED on the GCN.

 

[JuicieJ]

I certainly think it's overrated. I'm yet to play a game on there that I've wanted to return to and haven't actually touched mine in at least 3 years. Going solely from hardware too, the N64 wasn't at all new or powerful for it's time. It was still behind the market just as the Gamecube and Wii were, yet only the latter two ever seem to get criticised for it. Perhaps it's just my distaste of some of the 'revolutionary' games on the system that makes me see it in a less-than-golden light.

The N64 and GameCube weren't "behind" technologically. Both were superior to Sony's consoles in that regard. The PS1 had more storage space due to the use of discs, but it was still a 32 bit system, and the GameCube was more powerful than the PS2, even if only marginally.

 

[Hanyou]

Not only were the games on the system revolutionary, they were utterly fantastic, arguably the best of their respective series. Consider:

Super Mario 64
Pilotwings 64
Blast Corps
Mario Kart 64
Diddy Kong Racing
Starfox 64
Goldeneye
Banjo-Kazooie
Ocarina of Time
Yoshi's Story
Kirby 64
Harvest Moon 64
Pokemon Snap
Super Smash Bros.
Jet Force Gemini

I've only named one game per franchise. Those are all timeless and have provided me, at least, with hours of entertainment (with the exception of Pokemon Snap, only because it is very short). Their quality is incommensurable.

This isn't just about nostalgia. I have more reasons to be nostalgic about my Genesis, which helped turn me into a gamer and housed my favorite franchises for 3 and a half very long years (a year is longer when you're age 7-10). By the time the Nintendo 64 wrapped up, I was a teenager, so it's still a fairly recent memory for me. In spite of that, it is my favorite console.

The quality of any system always comes down to its games, and there's something special about the Nintendo 64's games. The worlds were all so well-constructed, the levels so beautifully designed, and the sense of scale so immense that they rivaled anything on the other consoles. The number of games hardly matters.

I know next to nothing about hardware, but I do have one question. While I understand that cartridges were a bad business decision, I'm wondering if the CD medium would have been good for the types of games the Nintendo 64 offered. It allowed for detailed textures on the Playstation, and the N64's paled in comparison, but apart from Metal Gear Solid, the 3D games on the Playstation (and Saturn, for that matter) lacked the scale and quality of the Nintendo 64's. Sorry, but Spyro doesn't come close to measuring up. I'd like to know if we would have seen Banjo-Kazooie's worlds or the entirety of Hyrule Field on the Nintendo 64, sacrificing nothing, if they had gone with CD-based media. While PCs could put out some impressive 3D games at that time, would it have been cost-effective for consoles without ridiculous loading times?

Whatever enabled developers at Nintendo and Rare to craft the worlds they did, no console, including even the Dreamcast, has so consistently amazed me since the N64. Harvest Moon 64, Ocarina of Time, and Super Mario 64 especially are games I keep revisiting without fail. I can't account for everyone else's experience, but I'm not sure it's even possible for the Nintendo 64 to be overrated.

 

[Spirit]

Playing my n64 now i wonder how i even managed to, it feels clunk and unresponsive as hell, but at the time.. man, at the time... those were the days.

I'm not gonna write a long drawn out post, and really nintendo are still around and are still loaded so i dont really mind what financial troubles the n64 started, to me it was the GC that gave them problems. But I'm a biased fangurl and i loved the games on it, SNES and N64 are my two favourite libraries on a console for software that nintendo has ever given is it overrated, probably but look at the software, look at what was on it, it deserves the praise, without it im sure gaming wouldnt be the same or as great.