Cube

WWF No Mercy NA release: 17th November 2000 PAL release: 15th December 2000 JP release: N/A Developer: Asmik Ace, AKI Publisher: THQ N64 Magazine Score: 92% The crown jewel of wrestling games, built upon a series of games across the N64’s lifetime. The gameplay style was started in WCW vs. nWo: World Tour, while WWF WrestleMania 2000 brought the atmosphere that came with the WWF licence. The gameplay was made to be much smoother in Virtual Pro Wrestling 2, and now all that is combined in WWF No Mercy. One thing that is testament to how great the game was considered to be, was a nasty bug the game had – it would randomly delete everything stored on the cartridge. Despite this, the game was still loved and is fondly remembered. A later revision fixed the issue, but also removed blood from the game. The core wrestling was great, Create-A-Wrestler improved even more, and there was a ton of modes. One mode not many people know about is a secret championship. If you complete the Game Boy Color version of WWF No Mercy and import the character into the N64 game, The Rock will introduce you as a new superstar. HHH is extremely worried about this, and his wife comes up with a plan to make a fool of you by forcing you to fight other superstars before you can face him. There’s a lot of insults and swearing, and it’s all text based (no voices), but it’s a fun mode. One slight catch: The GBC version of No Mercy never came out. You need to use codes to access this extra campaign. WWF No Mercy is a great wrestling game with a ton of modes and features, and is the culmination of a lot of work throughout the entire lifespan of the N64. Great Remake or remaster? The developers of current wrestling games need to look at No Mercy and figure out what made it special. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get WWF No Mercy.

Any way I can cheese the combat systems is great for me. Battles are starting to grate on me now, especially the random ones, so I am considering using cheats to make things easier for (my mind is utterly awful at the tactics these games require - even friendly ones like Paper Mario). Another issue is that I can only set the weapon colour properly from the inventory menu (where you can see the name), I have issues seeing a few of them during battles. I also already used a cheat for one particular section because of a mistake I made earlier on in the game.

Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits: Volume 1 NA release: 14th November 2000 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Digital Eclipse Publisher: Midway N64 Magazine Score: 71% The second retro compilation on Nintendo 64, this time for Midway’s classic arcade games, which generally aren’t as well remembered as the likes of Namco’s. The menu is much nicer than Namco Museum 64, and gives you a look at the arcade machines, but is still fairly bland. The only extra feature is a short and simple quiz about the games. There’s six in this compilation, with a lot of overlay with Williams Arcade’s Greatest Hits on the SNES. Defender Use the tiny map at the top to dart back and forth, to blow up aliens before they capture civilians. It feels a bit too small on N64, so it can be difficult to see things. Robotron 2048 The N64 had its own really good Robotron game, now here’s the original twin-stick shooter. It plays quite well, even if the screen gets very busy. Root Beer Tapper I had no idea that this non-alcoholic version of Tapper existed. Patrons will enter the bar on the left, and you have to quickly fill glasses and slide them down. Simple, but probably the most playable game in this collection. Joust Use a bird and a stick to stab your foes, however, you have to be extremely precise – another example of a game designed for someone’s face to be right next to an arcade screen. Spy Hunter Shoot your way through cars in this Bond-inspired game. It does show how quickly arcade graphics evolved. I kept blowing up civilians without realising they were civilians. Sinistar I’d never heard of this one before. It’s like an easy to control Asteroids with enemies, and extremely hard to see due to how scaled down everything feels. ___ If you specifically wanted these games on N64, they’re fine, although they don’t translate as well to a TV screen (especially with the N64’s resolution) compared to the games in Namco’s collection. Poor Remake or remaster? We definitely need a new Midway collection, if licensing allows (which, considering none are on Arcade Archives yet, seems unlikely). The last is 2012’s Midway Arcade Origins, which at least is backwards compatible on Xbox One/Series, but never got a PC version. I did have a fever dream where Tapper still appeared in some imaginary Wreck-It Ralph sequel about the internet. Official ways to get the game. There’s no official way to get Midway’s Greatest Arcade Hits: Volume 1

Got a bit further in the game. I'm starting to warm up to Vyse a bit more. He was a bit bratty to some random kid, but eventually said some rather inspiring stuff. Valua is a fascinating place, and they did a good job at showing the desperation of the lower city (even though it looks to be the same height as the upper city) and how the desperation can cause them to even celebrate the deaths of others. When I was told about a sewer section, I was dreading it. In RPGs (or pretty much any game), these are usually overly long, boring to look at and labyrinthine. To my surprise it was quite short and easy to navigate, and there was even a stunning bit of corridor where the floor had partly given away with the storm going off underneath. It looked great. I also reached a point where I had enough SP to launch a special attack at the start of each round, which resets every battle, which certainly helps with random encounters. While the coliseum bit was cool, what really impressed me was the train section. I didn't even know you could have set pieces like this in a turn-based RPG, being chased by someone while on top of a moving train. Definitely a wow moment. I also like how the events taking place are because of the element of surprise, do it doesn't give the feeling that you could actually take on the bad guys completely. And I still love making a save state to make the wrong choices, there are some great expressions. It also makes you appreciate Aika more that she's always willing to help others even if Vyse tries to give up - if you did decide to play and make Vyse a coward who can't make choices, Aika will still force him to carry on. After a short rest and learning about the true quest, I there was one thing bothering me. Captain Ahab. He had gotten his harpoon cannon, I can see him dropping everyone off (although it seems like a bad idea to go back home when you've just angered a powerful nation), but I was baffled as to how he was letting Vyse command his ship on an extravagant quest. Also, this game has some stunning views, it would look amazing with a full remake.

We're still waiting for the update to be finished, so a screenshot will have to do. I was just browsing BlueSky and noticed Bear McCreary talking about my review of his album.

Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 NA release: 13th November 2000 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Point of View Publisher: Midway N64 Magazine Score: 76% Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2 is a slight update on the previous games. The gameplay is mostly the same and the game is still full of bland stereotypes for characters. The big thing, though, is that not every character is a bland stereotype: there’s four special ones. This game also has two video game characters you can choose: the stars of Shaq Fu and Moonwalker: Shaquille O’Neal and Michael Jackson (they may be known for other things – Jackson was also involved in Sonic 3). Oh, and Bill and Hillary Clinton are also here. That’s really all there is of interest in this. It’s still a decent silly boxing game (although strangely you can’t just do a 1-on-1 fight of your choice), but not much has been done to enhance things. Fine Remake or remaster? Combine both into a single re-release. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to play Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2

In the spirit of the pledges, I'm going to do a more diary-like approach to talking about them once I reach them. I reached the first yesterday. Skies of Arcadia: Legends So, this is one of the games I've pledged to complete, as with the amount of GameCube games I will be moving on (or skipping to later parts if possible) if a game gets too tiresome or frustrating. I want to give this JRPG a chance. It has quite an action-packed opening to it, but also with plenty of mystery with the strange girl that was kidnapped. While I'm not a fan of turn based combat, I do like the speed of the one here, plus how characters actually move around to fight, without making it a clunky gameplay mechanic regarding moving. It seems relatively simple and easy to understand, with the menus moving at a great pace. If you want to all hit the default enemy with a regular attack, mashing A will set your commands very quickly. Upon reaching your home town, there's something nice about the little communities on floating islands, and I really like how the walls fade away for buildings, and that the insides are actually within the structure and not a separate load, it's all rather charming, unlike generic hero's journey protagonist. When I fist saw him in the into, I thought he was just an NPC (as he was in the lookout's nest). The rest of the cast and NPCs all seem suitably charming, and I really wish that Aika was the main character instead, as she's far more interesting. The first dungeon was simple, but also really nice. I liked the idea of needing to drain the water, and having to alter the level itself helps to make it feel a bit more like a Zelda dungeon than just wintering around and fighting enemies. I am already starting to get fed up with random battles, but I've read something that will help once I've learnt some powers: apparently most random encounters can be dealt with quicky with the special attacks and you can use Z to skip the lengthy attack animations. While what happens to hero boy's village is somewhat predictable, I do feel attached to everyone else to be invested in the story (although I thought it was very strange that he and Aika don't have a conversation upon your return. I like that you can fly your ship around and that - later on - you can stop to just roam around your ship as well. Randomly fighting monsters that appear on your deck is a bit odd, and the time between random encounters can be a bit short. One thing I do like is the concept of the swashbuckler rating, and that making choices and completing side quests will help out, although I guess I'll get to that when the game opens up more. I also enjoy the writing enough to make a save state so I can make the obvious wrong choice to see the reactions before making the right one. I like Captain Ahab, he has a great mix of soft heart in a cold skin and I like that you have to convince him by helping him with his obsession. The second village is also small but sweet, and the moonfish side quest helps to remind you about how....3D... the game is. Ship combat is something I did find confusing, but it does seem to help you out by recommending when to fire or defend. I've just reached the Valua city, with its impressive fortress. I love the setting of the game and most of the characters, and can cope with the combat so far, so I'm enjoying it a lot. Oh, and there's been some Skies of Arcadia related trademark filings recently.

The back end is still live, but it's essentially up to Nintendo if they wanted to so do. It's a shame they have the capability of making it easy for people to do but choose not to. They could even transfer from their end with the Wii.

Mickey’s Speedway USA NA release: 13th November 2000 PAL release: 1st December 2000 JP release: 21st January 2001 Developer: Rare Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 80% A Mario Kart clone with Mickey Mouse sounds like it will be a cheap cash in, but this was developed by Rare and published by Nintendo, so you should expect high quality. The end result is exactly a hybrid of that: a high quality cheap cash in. Rare took on the job to secure extra funding for future games (something that was the cause of Rare looking at a potential buyer), and while you can tell that they were keeping costs low, the Rare brilliance still shines through to make a decent kart racer. The biggest issue with Mickey’s Speedway USA is that there isn’t much to it. While Rare developed the brilliant Diddy Kong Racing, this is very clearly based on Mario Kart 64. There’s a hop and powerslide (with the slight difference that, instead of a boost, long powerslides make you spin out), the weapons are near-identical copies and come in very similar item boxes, and it has the same battle mode. The biggest difference are the Mickey rings you collect on the course – the first 10 will increase your speed, just like Super Mario Kart. The courses are loosely based on various locations in the USA, and are rather bland and unmemorable, as well as being very wide and open. The graphics look nice, even if the levels are sparse, with a nice mix of 2D and 3D making for detailed karts. There’s also a decent amount of voice lines, with Mickey and co. apologising to each other and acting shocked when an ineffective weapon makes contact. The core driving is well done, and the game is well made, it just seems that not many ideas went into it. Fun Remake or remaster? It would be good on a Mickey collection. It’s currently the only N64 game from Rare that has not been re-released in any way. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to play Mickey’s Speedway USA.

Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness NA release: 12th November 2000 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Namco, Mass Media Publisher: Namco N64 Magazine Score: 72% In trying to escape its arcade roots, the Pac-Man series tried multiple things: a puzzle game, a bizarre point & click adventure, shoving Pac-Man into a different 2D platformer made for another character, and, of course, a 3D platformer (and that’s not including the strange attempts at new arcade games). It’s rather strange, then, that it took Namco this long to build a more structured game based on the original gameplay: collecting dots in a maze. Maze Madness does expand upon this, though, by adding puzzles you need to solve to progress, primarily in the form of block puzzles. One thing that really annoyed me about these puzzles was the complete lack of discovery. When you encounter something new, a hologram of Professor Pac blocks the way to tell you exactly how it’s used. For complex mechanics, this is a necessity, but this is all simple stuff, and should be easy to figure out on your own. It may sound simple, but by being told exactly what to do, it just feels like you’re going through the motions. That feeling penetrates the whole game. The puzzles don’t get difficult, and the enemies are quite easy to deal with, with ample health provided if you do get hit. The biggest difficulty is in forcing yourself to put in the effort of trawling through the levels, collecting every single dot – with hundreds in every level. To progress, you need to collect stars under four conditions: getting a high score, finding all the hidden fruit, finding every single dot, and completing the level a second time in a separate time trial mode. Maze Madness isn’t bad, it just doesn’t have much challenge or excitement. The levels feel too long, and I think that cutting them up into separate levels would have helped immensely, due to having to find everything on your first playthrough (if you don’t end up missing something in an area you can’t return to) and completing it quickly on a second. Being able to quickly play a level would probably help with the more arcade style gameplay. As it stands, this game is just fine. Fine Remake or remaster? Maze Madness is worth putting on a collection of Pac-Man games, although Namco would probably need to replace the main character due to the strange licensing issues around Ms. Pac-Man. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to play Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness.

If BlueSky have any sense, they'd work with console manufacturers for supporting screenshots. Even an email option would be better than what is currently on offer for each platform. The Xbox app is almost there, but you have to download them individually. Also, hopefully the Switch 2 saves in better quality. I was really disappointed when I looked at my screenshot of Metroid Prime Remastered, it looked so nice on my TV.

Custom Robo V2 JP release: 10th November 2000 PAL release: N/A NA release: N/A Developer: Noise Publisher: Nintendo N64 Magazine Score: 84% The first Custom Robo surprised me with how much I loved it, and this keeps up the momentum by providing an enhanced experience and not one, but two new campaigns to play through. For this, I managed to find a beta English patch that has unfortunately been abandoned. It’s a big buggy, but the first campaign is fully translated (you just need to be careful about skipping text, as it can crash if you skip when the text box shakes), and the main issues don’t crop up until well into the second (where I switched to using Google Lens to translate the Japanese version). For the most part, it’s more of the same with a few improvements, but there’s one big change for singleplayer that helps massively. As you progress though the game, you’ll now unlock different robo designs to use. This wasn’t possible in the first game, so you could only try out the different models in challenge mode or multiplayer. This is a massive boost for singleplayer, as you can now alter how your robo moves – not just speed, but different kinds of jumps – as well as experiment with different attacks. Combined with the extra equipment added, it means a ton more customisation and variety to play around with. I also found the story itself more engaging, there’s a bigger mystery from the start, it delves even more into the ethics of Custom Robo, as criminals and the police now use weaponised versions, and the mental link between human and robo gets more exploited. There are some compelling characters (a few returning from the first game) and plenty of twists and turns. The one downside to the campaign is that there are even fewer opportunities to explore, as for most of the game you’re automatically walking to the next location. The game is still immensely good fun to play, but a little bit more freedom would be nice. The first campaign is a really good length, though, and the story kicks in a lot sooner than in the first game (which felt like an introduction for most of it). The enemies get tougher a lot faster, and seem more capable of pulling off combos and traps using the various weapons, bomb, and pods. You’ll have to work out each enemy’s plan quickly if you want to proceed, although this game is also much more generous with letting you save, which prevents the frustration of losing. Once you’ve gone though the dramatic story, the game isn’t over: there’s a second campaign to play. This is more focused on battles as you try to complete challenge rooms of 5-6 opponents. These challenges start introducing rules to force you to mix into different styles. The most common is “limited parts”, where you can only use each part in one battle, meaning you have to pick a completely different robo setup for each battle. Others include “rental parts”, where you can only use weapons provided, and sometimes you’ll fight groups of enemies with specific styles (such as long range or short range). There’s still some story here, as it’s about you getting ready for the Robo Cup (which now feels much more significant than in the first game), and some interesting events crop up, like a mysterious alternative version of you. The three campaigns from the two games have a really good difficulty curve, and forcing the player to adapt to new situations and experiment more is a great way to expand the game. This is a brilliant game. Fave Remake or remaster? A remastered (and officially translated) version of both games would be outstanding, especially if thy could expand the games a little – allow you to explore a bit with some additional side quests and dialogue, and these grand adventures would be wonderful. The graphics are still charming and it controls really smoothly, so it just needs a little spruce up. Nintendo are sitting on something amazing here. Official Ways to get the game There is no way to buy a new copy of Custom Robo V2, the only official way to play is to rent it via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pak in Japan.

Hopefully the full release of v4.7.20 will be soon so we can get proper integration for BlueSky. I'm on there and I'm reposting all my various All Sonic/Trek/Bond games stuff on there alongside the N64 ones: https://bsky.app/profile/djcube.co.uk And I occasionally post stuff on this account (including @S.C.G's recordings when I spot them): https://bsky.app/profile/n-europe.com I do like that you can use a domain (with verification) for your username. Edit: If anyone is interested, I added BlueSky (and Threads) as fields on your profile.

There's MLS ExtraTime 2002, made by Konami. It was on PS2, Xbox and GameCube.

Mia Hamm Soccer 64 NA release: 10th November 2000 PAL release: N/A JP release: N/A Developer: Silicon Dream, DC Studios Publisher: Southpeak N64 Magazine Score: N/A In a way, Mia Hamm Soccer 64 is a significant game, as it’s the first video game focused on women’s football – and possibly one of the first female-focused sports games that doesn’t involve skimpy clothing. Unfortunately, it was also just a cheap cash-in. When the US women’s team won the 1999 World Cup, Mia Hamm became an icon. Publishers Southpeak quickly got hold of an older football game (Michael Owen’s WLS 2000) and gave developer DC Studios twelve weeks to transform it into a women’s football game. The small amount of time to develop this game definitely shows, as the main thing they had to do – change the character models – does not come across well. It seems like they’ve just tried to distort the original models to try and emphasise their chests and butts, but the strange distortion makes them look more like a silly “alien mode” cheat code than women. The only hair options are also either short hair, or what can only be described as a “man bun”. If it wasn’t for the picture of Mia Hamm on the title screen, people could probably play this game without even knowing that it’s got women in it. The original game was just a ok-ish football game, and this is just the same game with even worse character models. Poor Remake or remaster? There are better football game, and women’s football is now part of whatever EA are calling FIFA now. Official Ways to get the game There is no official way to get Mia Hamm Soccer 64.