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

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25 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

I still have this awful feeling that releases are gonna dry up as soon as Mario Golf gets released…

It literally says otherwise in the above trailer.

Now of course, how many more there will be is a complete unknown. Could be one game, for all we know.

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26 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Yup and it's gonna be this gem of a game.

And just like that, I hope it dies after Mario Golf...

Edited by Glen-i

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I like that you posted both boxarts as that gives it some Expansion Pack authenticity. :laughing: 

There's always Turok, Pod Racer, Shadowman, Doom 64... 

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9 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

 There's always Turok, Pod Racer, Shadowman, Doom 64... 

See, the problem there is that those are third party titles, and a lot of them are not keen on putting their games on NSO.

Doom 64 is pretty much at 0% chance of happening, because they'd much rather just sell the port instead.

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44 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

I like that you posted both boxarts as that gives it some Expansion Pack authenticity. :laughing: 

At least the US version box gives the impression that the game is garbage. Us EU players got suckered in with a decent looking anime style drawing. I know that's partly why I bought it. :blush:

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3 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

At least the US version box gives the impression that the game is garbage. Us EU players got suckered in with a decent looking anime style drawing. I know that's partly why I bought it. :blush:

I gave it a rent, expecting to be able to share the good news of an N64 RPG on the playground come Monday morning. Needless to say, I kept schtum. I knew better after how poorly it went when I tried to shoehorn Snobo Kids into the conversation when they were talking about the snowboarding bit in FF VII. :woops: 

Good job Ocarina of Time was right around the corner. :grin: 

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1 hour ago, darksnowman said:

I gave it a rent, expecting to be able to share the good news of an N64 RPG on the playground come Monday morning. Needless to say, I kept schtum. I knew better after how poorly it went when I tried to shoehorn Snobo Kids into the conversation when they were talking about the snowboarding bit in FF VII. :woops: 

It was a dark era for Nintendo only gamers who were fans of JRPGs. The N64 was insanely lacking in this department. The PSOne had a stupid amount and seemed to pick up where the SNES had left off. Even the Saturn had better offerings than the N64. Crazy.

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Just downloaded the new Mega Drive games to find they didn't even give Alien Soldier a box art. Yeah, it didn't get a physical release in the US but it did over here. Which brings me to my other negative point, why are we lumbered with US box arts for all these services? It's lazy as hell just copy and pasting the same boxes for all the Western world. It annoyed me on the mini consoles, annoys me on the NES/SNES/N64 services but it REALLY annoys me with the Sega stuff. The consoles weren't even named the same! You fire it up and see Mega Drive but then you are greeted with a sea of red with Genesis plastered all over the place. 

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4 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

It was a dark era for Nintendo only gamers who were fans of JRPGs. The N64 was insanely lacking in this department. The PSOne had a stupid amount and seemed to pick up where the SNES had left off. Even the Saturn had better offerings than the N64. Crazy.

And then the GameCube brought it back with what... four? I think I'm still compensating for those years and playing catchup with that genre to this day. :blush: 

13 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

Just downloaded the new Mega Drive games to find they didn't even give Alien Soldier a box art. Yeah, it didn't get a physical release in the US but it did over here. Which brings me to my other negative point, why are we lumbered with US box arts for all these services? It's lazy as hell just copy and pasting the same boxes for all the Western world. It annoyed me on the mini consoles, annoys me on the NES/SNES/N64 services but it REALLY annoys me with the Sega stuff. The consoles weren't even named the same! You fire it up and see Mega Drive but then you are greeted with a sea of red with Genesis plastered all over the place. 

I haven't opened the Mega Drive NSO yet but that sounds sloppy if you can't expand the list to let you choose between NTSC and PAL (accessible in settings on the left menu bar in the N64 app). Disappointing to hear about that kind of lack of attention to detail rearing its head. :hmm: 

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2 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

I haven't opened the Mega Drive NSO yet but that sounds sloppy if you can't expand the list to let you choose between NTSC and PAL (accessible in settings on the left menu bar in the N64 app). Disappointing to hear about that kind of lack of attention to detail rearing its head. :hmm: 

Nah, the option isn't there for the Sega stuff. Just a bunch of game screen options. :( 

4 minutes ago, darksnowman said:

And then the GameCube brought it back with what... four? I think I'm still compensating for those years and playing catchup with that genre to this day. :blush: 

Yeah but two of them were Skies of Arcadia and Baten Kaitos. :heart:

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I bought this expansion after Mario Karts additional tracks were included with it. Seemed like a no brainer, as I wanted to get this anyway for a number of games. 

The one I was looking forward to most? Mario Tennis! 

I've always been a huge fan of the series, harking all the way back to this game which I got for my birthday one year as a kid. 

Well, I haven't played it since those days and it's utterly remarkable how solid the mechanics of this game are. When you play Mario Kart 64, the series had very clearly improved beyond recognition in terms of handling etc whereas with Tennis, they've actually dumbed it down to be a shell of its former self. 

I HATE these stupid trick shots, party games and gimmicks in tennis games. I just want basic, solid tennis and Mario Tennis is great at this. The amount of serves that go out or into the net if you don't hit them 'properly', and same with groundstrokes, feels right. In the latest Switch tennis game, you cannot miss a serve. To my knowledge anyway. And I've clocked over 350 hours on that game so. Same with ground strokes.  You can't hit a shot out unless you're pulled wide and the character is too far out the court to make the shot and it'll drift long / wide. 

Its actually a little bit sad. I knew the games had become watered down in favour of racket breaking and power shots (utter shit mechanics btw) but it's pretty stark how much worse they've made these games over the years. 

Still, i'm having great fun with this because you actually have to work for points and be a little bit tactical, although by the time you get to the Star Cup it's almost like playing against a wall lol. 

Looking forward to playing more N64 games and reliving my youth! 

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Yeah, I mentioned the same thing a page or two back, @Aneres11. It's amazing how spot on Camelot got it on their first try with a 3D Mario Tennis game. Every entry since has gotten worse. 

The original game just let the pure tennis gameplay do the talking and once gimmicks started to come into the series the whole thing went downhill.

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Totally agree, @Aneres11. I also remember the day I got Mario Tennis 64--walked up to get it from Game the Saturday morning after release. Isn't it so nice to have tennis with powerups be in a separate mode! Only got the NSO Expansion Pack about three weeks ago myself and Mario Tennis is what I've been playing on it. Don't think I'd played it since the university days fifteen odd years ago (I say that because a friend borrowed it and never returned it after uni ended... :nono: ...so I've had an empty box for it all this time :weep: ) and it's been so easy to get back into. All characters starred so far! Give me a shout if you ever fancy a game online.

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1 hour ago, darksnowman said:

Totally agree, @Aneres11. I also remember the day I got Mario Tennis 64--walked up to get it from Game the Saturday morning after release. Isn't it so nice to have tennis with powerups be in a separate mode! Only got the NSO Expansion Pack about three weeks ago myself and Mario Tennis is what I've been playing on it. Don't think I'd played it since the university days fifteen odd years ago (I say that because a friend borrowed it and never returned it after uni ended... :nono: ...so I've had an empty box for it all this time :weep: ) and it's been so easy to get back into. All characters starred so far! Give me a shout if you ever fancy a game online.

What?! You can play it online?! As if! Didn't know that :blush:.

Yesss always up for online! 

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11 minutes ago, Aneres11 said:

What?! You can play it online?! As if! Didn't know that :blush:.

Yesss always up for online! 

Yeah, just go all the way to the left when selecting a game, and you'll see "Play Online"

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15 hours ago, Aneres11 said:

What?! You can play it online?! As if! Didn't know that :blush:.

Yesss always up for online! 

Absolutely. Nintendo is with the times don't you know. :santa:

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Finished a few games from the service over the past week or so.

Spoiler

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Nothing much to say about Alien Soldier other than it's a very average game and not an enjoyable experience. A lot of Treasure games are easy to get to grips with and you are instantly in control of what's going on. I found this to be a little fiddly in comparison. As I was playing this I was thinking about the past games from Treasure that i've played and realised they are a pretty average developer. There's only Guardian Heroes which I would class as a top tier game.

As for Super Fantasy Zone, I really enjoyed playing this. I think my first exposure to Opa-Opa was in Phantasy Star Online thanks to the MAG system but I never played through one of these games fully. I've dabbled with one of them in Yakuza 0 but i've not started and finished the game.

What a fun little game this is. Despite the cartoony look, the game is surprisingly challenging. The core premise of just flying right and left, taking down enemies and then destroying a boss is pretty simple on paper but it proved to be pretty hectic at times. There is also a little bit of strategy involved when it comes to your loadouts. Between each of the levels you need to buy gear for your ship. New weapons and speed boosts are on offer and they can  make or break how well you do on a level. I kept buying the best speed boosts only to find I couldn't actually handle the speed and ended up crashing into things. :D 

Yeah, colourful, quirky and very fun game.

Spoiler

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It took way longer than I wanted but I finally beat the game. This turned out to be a massive slog. When the game first came on to the Switch's service I made quick progress, getting through the first two dungeons in a very short space of time but as the game went on my progress slowed to a crawl. I found the latter half of the game to be a massive chore to play, mainly due to how much mask switching needed to happen. The final dungeon and it's lead up took the cake, with you needing to switch masks and play tunes all the time. Surely there must have been a better way to leave all of those statues on the ground?

I also wasn't a fan of collecting all the masks. Some of the sidequests took ages to complete and the Couple's Mask wins the prize for most annoying, especially when you have to do a lot of that quest twice just to get another mask. When playing the game for the first time that whole sidequest can be seen as quite unique and interesting but playing the game again ( no idea how many times i've played it ) I just didn't care for what was happening at all.

It's weird. This is the first time i've felt this way about Majora's Mask. The game still has a fantastic atmosphere and amazing setting but the constant back and forth between the menus really rubbed me the wrong way this time through the game. It's not all bad. Here's a clip of me being impatient, not wanting to switch to the Lens of Truth and bow to kill the enemies and then ultimately paying the price. I become a human tennis ball.

 

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Now there's a post I wish I could have reacted to with every emote. :laughing: Opted for giving it a heart as by the time I read through the Majora's Mask section it became apparent that's what you're lacking.

On a more serious note, I replayed OoT 3D a year ago and whilst I'm looking forward to running through it again sometime on the big screen via NSO, going back to bringing up the menu to swap items (iron boots...!) could be a flow stopper. I never got MM 3D so I can only imagine how much the touch screen menu would have streamlined mask swapping. It can't have been easy to go back to the N64 original in that respect.

Putting everything together to get the Couple's Mask for the first time felt to me like I was cracking some kind of code. Great experience whether it holds up today or not. :heh: 

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Wonder if they’ll eventually do an SP version with the GBC Transfer Pak content unlocked…

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2 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

Wonder if they’ll eventually do an SP version with the GBC Transfer Pak content unlocked…

How would that even work? The GBC character stats are crazy customisable.

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3 hours ago, Glen-i said:

How would that even work? The GBC character stats are crazy customisable.

They just give you a couple of pre-made save files with fully decked out custom characters in each stat.

Mario Tennis would have all the GBC courts unlocked as well.

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14 minutes ago, Dcubed said:

They just give you a couple of pre-made save files with fully decked out custom characters in each stat.

Mario Tennis would have all the GBC courts unlocked as well.

See, Mario Tennis at least makes sense, but I wouldn't be satisfied unless Kid is my ideal setup of straight shooting, perfect meet point, average shot height, and somehow still driving further then Wario!

Anyway, it's a moot point, because that would make SP versions actually cool, and we can't have that.

Maple is already pretty broken, so I don't mind settling.

EDIT: Also, how weird is it that DK and Bowser are there on the box art, but they're two of the final four unlockable characters? (The one's that not even multiplayer lets you play as straight away)

Edited by Glen-i

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