Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack: N64 & SEGA Mega Drive (& GBA!!)

[Helmsly]

 

[darksnowman]

20 hours ago, Happenstance said:

I didn't realise they had a Nintendo spin off forum...that sounds like my worst nightmare 😆

I had no idea about that either however I did find myself there a while back when I was doing some general web searching for Nintendo-related news. It looked to be deader than a dead thing from deadland so I never made an effort to find it again.

Funny to read that resetera's iron fist rules with the mission statement of ensuring everything is all sunshine and rainbows because I remember it being a place where everything is nitpicked to hell and back and nothing is ever good enough. Could be my rosetinted glasses but I liked on NeoGAF that there seemed to be good, lengthy and knowledgeable discussions on RPGs to read through (I'd nothing to contribute with those boffins). I didn't see that transfer over.  Would be nice if we had the activity of those sites but not if it comes at the cost of sickening everyone's enjoyment of everything.

19 hours ago, Dcubed said:

18 hours ago, Dcubed said:

Screw Discord though, it’s an unholy cacophony of messy, impossible to follow rabble.  How anyone can follow a conversation on that thing is beyond me! Gimme a good forum (like N-Europe ) any day!

What're you buttering us up for, eh? 

It's cool that people like @Glen-i and @Mokong have a tool like Discord since Nintendo is still miles off the pace with in-game/on-console communication functionality. It's just unfortunate that it seems to be that some have stayed all-in on the forum while others have gone all-in on Discord (for whatever reasons that may be). It's weird because way back when we'd a chat room (pure chaos) and we had each other on MSN Messenger and forum activity didn't suffer. The main site even had different people commenting on articles compared to those of us discussing gaming news on the forum. Some might say that forums are a thing of the past--and I wouldn't necessarily dispute that; everything moves on eventually--though from my experience, Discord doesn't strike me as modern or user-friendly which is probably the part I struggle to get my head around most: why ditch an old-fashioned forum for a chat thing that has a steep learning curve?  Is it because there's a Discord app and everyone loves apps nowadays?  Tbh, I sort of feel like I got the Discord style of things out of my system more years ago than I'd care to admit. We've all only got 24 hours every day (not everyone is footloose and fancy-free like H-o-T!), and for me personally, I see Discord as something that's to be used as sparingly as possible and only as a last resort. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.  

5 hours ago, Helmsly said:

 

These are coming too thick and fast--I wasn't finished shooting Pokémon yet.

[Dcubed]

It's not done yet!

[Glen-i]

As if they were going to end on a random drop of Pokémon Puzzle League.

Speaking of, I've mentioned before how dreadful I am at these kind of puzzle games? Well, here's proof.

Yes, I lost to Gary, the first Gary, on Easy. I owned the original game on the N64!

[Hero-of-Time]

Man, playing Pokemon Puzzle League really took me back. Seeing the characters from the early series and hearing the songs was nostalgic bliss.

Anyway, all badges obtained and the credits have rolled.

Spoiler

I started on easy, then went through normal and finally finished it on hard. It wasn't too bad and it doesn't really get too difficult until you reach the Elite trainers. You have to be crazy fast and try to keep on top of any blocks that head your way. It's always best to keep going no matter how hopeless it looks because a single chain can completely change the course of the match. As seen here.

Oh, and I didn't bother using my N64 controller after all. The wait to use it continues...

[Glen-i]

Ah, but you're not done yet.

The proper final boss can only be fought on V. Hard or S. Hard.

It's bloody impossible!

[Hero-of-Time]

4 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Ah, but you're not done yet.

The proper final boss can only be fought on V. Hard or S. Hard.

It's bloody impossible!

Credits have rolled. That's good enough for me. Besides, I refuse to listen to someone who struggles with Gary on easy mode.  

[Ike]

On 15/07/2022 at 9:50 AM, darksnowman said:

Funny to read that resetera's iron fist rules with the mission statement of ensuring everything is all sunshine and rainbows because I remember it being a place where everything is nitpicked to hell and back and nothing is ever good enough

I thought they were too busy looking for reasons to be offended than play video games.

Anyways, I don't think discord killed the forums, it's more that the site has lost visibility. Google "kirby and the forgotten land uk review" and NE is on the 7th page. You may as well not even be on Google at that point.

On 15/07/2022 at 8:44 PM, Hero-of-Time said:

Man, playing Pokemon Puzzle League really took me back. Seeing the characters from the early series and hearing the songs was nostalgic bliss.

The songs are kinda weird, it's like they couldn't afford the license so they use the first 30 seconds then change the song a bit so they won't have to pay royalties. The frequent re-used sound bites are a bit annoying as well "I'm gonna win!" "I feel giddy!". Shut up!

Still fun game, I beat it on hard and I think that's enough. I liked the GBC game more.

[Glen-i]

50 minutes ago, Ike said:

The songs are kinda weird, it's like they couldn't afford the license so they use the first 30 seconds then change the song a bit so they won't have to pay royalties. The frequent re-used sound bites are a bit annoying as well "I'm gonna win!" "I feel giddy!". Shut up!

Still fun game, I beat it on hard and I think that's enough. I liked the GBC game more.

Well, that's the thing, Nintendo owned the majority of Pokémon back then, they'd totally use the songs if they could.

Key word there being "could".

Pokémon Puzzle League is on a massive N64 cartridge, the biggest one available, if I'm remembering right. But that was still quite small compared to the discs that you'd see on PlayStation. Almost all that space is used on the couple of FMV's and voice clips. The actual soundtrack suffered as a result, giving the game those super budget MIDI tracks.

It was almost certainly a mix of Pokémon suddenly exploding in popularity (PPL is a reskin of Panel De Pon 64, after all) and trying to capitalise on the wow factor of voice acting in games. It didn't matter how repetitive it was, any voice acting was basically a huge benefit to a game in the 90's.

[Ashley]

14 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

It didn't matter how repetitive it was, any voice acting was basically a huge benefit to a game in the 90's.

Hi I'm Daisy!

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, Ashley said:

Hi I'm Daisy!

2008 was definitely long after the voice acting honeymoon period ended.

To this day, I'm legit surprised that Ash has only ever appeared in 2 Pokémon games. It's surprising how separated the anime and games are.

[Ike]

3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

Well, that's the thing, Nintendo owned the majority of Pokémon back then, they'd totally use the songs if they could.

I know, that's what makes it funnier.

[Ashley]

52 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

2008 was definitely long after the voice acting honeymoon period ended.

To this day, I'm legit surprised that Ash has only ever appeared in 2 Pokémon games. It's surprising how separated the anime and games are.

Yes but "Hi I'm Daisy" is the peak of barks.

[darksnowman]

19 hours ago, Ike said:

I thought they were too busy looking for reasons to be offended than play video games.

Anyways, I don't think discord killed the forums, it's more that the site has lost visibility. Google "kirby and the forgotten land uk review" and NE is on the 7th page. You may as well not even be on Google at that point.

They'd be offended to hear you think that way.

That's a good point. When I'm looking for Nintendo news N-E never comes up.  

[Julius]

MAXIMUM POWERRRRRR!

Wave Race 64 arrives next on the service this Friday (19th August):

 

Edited August 16, 2022 by Julius

[WackerJr]

It had to come at some point, but I’m still very pleased to see this added.  Another decent addition to the NSO catalogue.

[Dcubed]

Saw this online...

Handy venn diagram of what N64 games have and haven't previously been re-released.  Should give you some idea of what to expect over the coming months.

Edited August 16, 2022 by Dcubed

[Glen-i]

Harvest Moon 64 jumps out at me in that above diagram. How likely is that these days? Hell, is it even possible?

[nekunando]

Did someone say Wave Race..?

[V. Amoleo]

On 16/08/2022 at 2:36 PM, Glen-i said:

Harvest Moon 64 jumps out at me in that above diagram. How likely is that these days? Hell, is it even possible?

Harvest Moon 64 was released on the Wii U VC in 2017, which I believe is well after the disputes over the name.  So maaaybe?

I think we're less likely to get any of the Square Enix games as they've had zero presence on NSO so far.  Cruisin' USA might have Midway issues?  Bomberman surprises me though because Konami have been prolific on NSO.  All the others on the diagram are just a matter of time.

[Josh64]

I hadn't played the N64 app too much as most games I had played to death on N64 or Wii VC but the last month or so I have been loving it. 

Pokémon Puzzle League was an absolute blast! I played through all difficulties and while Very Hard almost killed me (and my thumbs) it was worth it for the 

Spoiler

Extra boss battle and scenes! I was genuinely surprised to see First Movie Mewtwo appear, now I'm wondering how close it released to the movie or if it was even a loose tie-in? 
 

 

 

I kinda wish I had this on N64 as I was a sucker for cutscenes and voice acting in games back then, it would have really blown me away.

I'd be interested to know how this game looks on a CRT because textures are always the N64s low point and being an all 2D game this looks like the worst NSO game graphically by far, everything is so crusty and pixelated lol. Some parts genuinely seem lower resolution than SNES games. But whatever, I still had a blast!

 

I never owned Wave Race before either and it's really really fun. I especially love the music and graphics but just grappling with the controls when being hit with waves is great fun. The only gripe I have is that the FPS can be a real pain to deal with sometimes when making quick turns - It could have really benefitted with an FPS bump but I don't know how possible that would be/how tied in to the frames per second certain aspects are. I know MS/Rare improved the FPS for Tooie but that caused some problems with audio not being the right length in cutscenes etc. 

 

[Hero-of-Time]

New games coming to the service are:

• Pokemon Stadium
• Pokemon Stadium 2
• Mario Party
• Mario Party 2
• Mario Party 3
• Goldeneye (with online play)
• Pilotwings
• 1080 Snowboarding
• Excitbike 64

Some will be in 2022 and others in 2023. Fantastic line up. 

Edited September 13, 2022 by Hero-of-Time

[Glen-i]

Damn, most of those are games that never made it to Virtual Console!

The Pokémon Stadiums are mostly pointless without Game Boy compatibility, though. Rental Pokémon are miserably crap.

[Hero-of-Time]

Just now, Glen-i said:

Damn, most of those are games that never made it to Virtual Console!

The Pokémon Stadiums are mostly pointless without Game Boy compatibility, though. Rental Pokémon are miserably crap.

Yeah, I was hoping GB games were going to get announced alongside this, as well as a link up feature, but sadly it wasn't to be.

[Glen-i]

19 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yeah, I was hoping GB games were going to get announced alongside this, as well as a link up feature, but sadly it wasn't to be.

Well, they are coming in 2023, there's still hope for that to start in a future announcement.