Armorines - All N64 Games

[nekunando]

I enjoyed TG Rally 2 back at the time but the feeling of 'deja-vu' was definitely noticeable then, too 😅

It was cool to have a random track generator available in the game but it did mean the overall track design suffered.

As for damage, I'm not entirely sure the blame is on you! I also struggled to make it through races without stuff happening, especially later on, and it certainly didn't always feel like my fault!

Driving over railway tracks at speed? You deserve to puncture your tire! Taking a superb corner and having the tire blow anyway? Hmm.. not so sure on that one!

I haven't played it for years but I'd guess it feels dodgy enough in 2024..

I always preferred the first game but if they could both somehow come to Nintendo Switch Online that would be great 😁

[Cube]

Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate
 

• NA release: 7th December 1999
• PAL release: 28th February 2000
• JP release: N/A
• Developer: Saffire
• Publisher: Titus
• N64 Magazine Score: 81%

In 1999, two Xena games were released. The PlayStation got a hack-n-slash adventure, while the N64 got a fighting game. The plot of this game is easily what you’d expect: there’s a powerful object, and random characters have to compete for it. This means that Xena (or your character of choice) will have to slice her way through friends in order to win the object.

One small touch with the characters is that when Xena faces Gabrielle, Gabrielle is renamed as “Hope” (who is Gabrielle’s half-demon evil daughter that magically aged and looks exactly like Gabrielle), but none of Xena’s other friends get the same treatment. It’s also strange that this also happens when playing as Gabrielle – you’ll just be renamed when you fight Xena.

The Talisman of Fate is a fairly simple fighting game. This isn’t a bad thing, though, and manages to turn this game into something quite enjoyable. Instead of trying to be a deep fighting game, it instead focuses on speed and excitement, giving you jump and duck buttons for more movement options. It does mean that button mashing works quite well, but it works really well for a tie-in game that will likely have a more casual audience.

The game’s biggest weakness is lack of modes, although still not as lacking as some N64 fighting games. One thing that they did attempt to do was create a 4-player mode, but changing target (pressing A) is a bit clunky. It’s a nice try, even if it doesn’t fully work.

Xena is a decent fighting game, which makes it one of the better fighting games on N64.

Fun

Quote

Which leaves Xena in the hands of its multiplayer, which, thanks to the balanced firhing, finely-tuned controls and smooth graphics, works a treat. Human opponents are much tougher to beat than their CPU counterparts – mainly because a friend will immediately find ways to dodge your repertoire of computer-thrashing combos – and the limited moves make for fights where real skill is needed to find chinks in your opponent’s armour. The wealth of bass-heavy crunching sounds effect also helps to make bouts satisfyingly meaty.

Mark Green, N64 Magazine #36

Remake or Remaster?

How about a collection of Xena (and Hercules) games? Nothing special, just a re-release of the games.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Xena: Warrior Princess: The Talisman of Fate

[Cube]

Custom Robo
 

• JP release: 8th December 1999
• PAL release: N/A
• NA release: N/A
• Developer: Noise
• Publisher: Nintendo
• N64 Magazine Score: 83%

Every now and then, a game I would have never expected to like will surprise me, making me very glad that I’m doing these playthroughs. I always dismissed Custom Robo as the kind of JRPG that I don’t like, and magazines that reviewed it made a lot of comparisons to Pokémon. However, I ended up loving Custom Robo, and would absolutely love for Pokémon to try this style of combat.

Custom Robo was only released in Japan, as well as its sequel and the GBA game – it wasn’t until the fourth game, on GameCube, that the series made its way elsewhere (and only the most recent game on DS was released in Europe). Luckily, there’s a decent fan translation to play the game in English.

The main story is mostly what you’d expect – walking around a 2D environment, speaking to other people to battle. However, Custom Robo’s story is very linear, with no side quests or exploration, so each playthrough will be fairly similar. The story is a simple story about a young boy who gets a Custom Robo – a tiny robot designed to take part in friendly battles – competing in tournaments within his town (which handily is home to the main Custom Robo tournament).

There are some additional stories, and the characters you meet along the way are interesting, so there’s a lot of charm here. The main greatness of Custom Robo, however, is the battles.

In Custom Robo, you control your tiny robot in holographic arenas. The robos are fast and nimble, and you automatically face your opponent at all times, which means you can focus on manoeuvring and dodging.

Your abilities include your gun, your “pods” which launch a kind of homing missile, and a bomb that you automatically aim where your opponent is (although you can manually adjust it to account for them moving). You also have a high jump, and can perform a few dodges in mid-air, there’s a lot of options at your disposal, but with extremely simple controls.

The arenas themselves are also important. Hiding behind obstacles and popping out or jumping up to shoot, getting high ground, circling around moving obstacles or dangerous areas to impact your opponent. The arenas start off simple and get more imaginative as you go on – with the best being the “unofficial” ones your encounter along your journey.

Another interesting element is that when robos recover from being knocked down, they have a brief invincibility period where they can fire – preventing anyone from being permanently trapped in the combo, and letting them go on the offensive.

What I especially love about Custom Robo is the lack of levelling up or grinding. Every robo’s health is 1000HP, with different body types (which you unfortunately don’t get to use in the main story) having their own abilities. What you do collect as you go on, however, is different weapons.

But there’s no “best” weapon. Your main gun, for example, fires in different ways. There’s a powerful magnum that does a ton of damage, but fires in a straight line and is quite slow. There are some homing weapons that aren’t as strong and aren’t useful if you need to defend yourself as they take a while to hit. My favourite weapon wasn’t particularly strong, but fired in an arc and could hit over walls.

The bombs and pods are equally varied, with some relentless but slow pods, or fast ones that require a quick dodge to avoid. Some weapons also hit next to an opponent, with you planning on them dodging or moving around.

Because of all this, everything feels balanced in a wonderful way, and you’ll encounter opponents that will force you to rethink your strategy. In a single battle, one combination may have an advantage, but there will be other combos that will in turn have an advantage over it. However, it’s never hopeless, sometimes you have to rethink your strategy and use what you’ve picked in a different way.

As an example, I favoured a weapon where I could do a short hop near a wall, and hit an opponent behind another wall. Then, I encountered an opponent that had bombs and pods that exploded above my head, which I kept jumping into. I had to go for a more hit-and-run approach to win the fight. It’s nice that you can outright see the advantages, instead of it just being numbers.

The setup for each match is also worth mentioning. When you carry them around, your Custom Robo is in a little cube. At the start of each match, you aim a little cannon to try and land in a section of the arena you want, while also reacting to where your opponent is landing on.

Your robo, in cube form, is then fired out. Each side has an icon to show the orientation of your robo, with a face signifying the top, and feet showing the bottom. You have a bit of control over your robo to try and land right side up, as this means your robo will be able to start quicker – with robos landing on their head starting stuck in the ground, and having to wiggle to make a start.

The combat in Custom Robo was something that I never got tired of doing. It avoids everything I personally dislike about combat in a lot of JRPGs, and I really like how customisation works in it. In the story mode, you get drip fed these parts as you progress, letting you experiment a bit on your journey, and at the start of each battle, you can pick your setup and try it out before starting the fight.

There are some other modes, though, such as a challenge mode and free battle (which supports multiplayer). These let you pick different robot bodies for even more possible combinations. I do wish the story itself was a bit more free form, but that’s only a mild issue with how much I enjoyed playing the game.

Fave

Quote

A tremendously quirky game, obviously inspired by Pokémon. Building robots and making them fight has never been such fun.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #41

Remake or remaster?

It still plays extremely well. A collection of the five Custom Robo games with official translations for the first three would be amazing.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play Custom Robo

[Jonnas]

I remember being fascinated by the Custom Robo trophy in Melee, and being very curious about the upcoming Gamecube game.

I'm not sure if this kind of game would've been for me... but then again, it was the age of Pokémon and Medabots, I'm sure I'd have a blast. This franchise would've been fire if it released in the west with better timing.

[Hero-of-Time]

6 hours ago, Jonnas said:

I remember being fascinated by the Custom Robo trophy in Melee, and being very curious about the upcoming Gamecube game.

I imported the Gamecube Custom Robo game for the very same reason. Seen the trophy in Smash, was intrigued about the franchise and so bought the game.

[Cube]

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness
 

• NA release: 8th December 1999
• JP release: 25th December 1999
• PAL release: 3rd March 2000
• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• N64 Magazine Score: 75%

Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is a bit of an odd game. It’s sort of a new game, but also isn’t. In a way, this is an attempt at re-doing Castlevania 64, listening to feedback from that release, and addressing it without creating a full sequel.

The levels feel a lot more simplified, less routes to get lost in, and it’s generally a more linear experience. There are also save points everywhere, and the game lets you move the camera, albeit using the D-pad, which is a bit awkward on the N64 controller.

But there is a ton of new stuff as well. At the start, you can only select a new character called Cornell, although there is a variant of the Konami code (only discovered in April 2024) to unlock all characters. His story is set 8 years before the first Castlevania 64.

Once you complete his story, you can play the original two campaigns, Carrie and Reinhardt, who have re-worked versions of their original campaigns, along with another new character called Harry, who has a shorter game that you need to complete in fewer than 7 in-game days.

Because the original game cut me off before the end of the game, due to playing on easy (which, thankfully, no longer stops you from playing the full game), I really didn’t realise how many levels at the end of the game focused much more on platforming, and Cornell’s journey even more so. The second half of his game feels completely different from the first, and the game’s wonky jumping and grabbing edges is one of the issues that hasn’t been addressed. The first game focused on combat and puzzles, while the first time playing this will be mainly platform-based.

If you’re going to play a version of Castlevania 64, it may as well be this one.

Fun

Quote

It may sound like we’re being overly harsh on Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness, but it simply seems incredibly dated now, and, if truth be known, we’re very disappointed. It’s still a solid game – despite its faults – and can be heartily enjoyable games, but this ‘special edition’ should really have included more to warrant the £40 price tag. A year ago, when the first 64-bit version of Castlevania was release, the market was very different so this was a mite more impressive. In the meantime we’ve had Shadowman and Resident Evil 2 on release, both games that simply do their own respective things far better than this does. Ultimately, as a 3D adventure, Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness is looking a little dog-eared.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #38

Remake or remaster?

A remaster that improves upon this and also gives the option of playing Carrie and Reinhardt’s original levels would be nice.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness.

[Helmsly]

That's crazy, I had no idea this game was in part a remake of Castlevania 64. And to think it came out barely a year later too

[Jonnas]

Never played any of the 3D Castlevanias, but this one in particular intrigues me. Having a werewolf for a protagonist is attractive in itself, and atypical, even for this series.

Plus, Cornell was playable in Judgement (the most fun character to use in that game, imo), and he had a really cool theme song inspired by Legacy of Darkness:

 

[Dcubed]

I'd love to see M2 attempt a redo of this one.  They did some stellar work on Adventure Rebirth and Haunted Castle Revisited, but I get that 3D (or anything beyond the 16 bit era for that matter) isn't really within their wheelhouse...

[Cube]

Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.
 

• NA release: 9th December 1999
• PAL release: 17th December 1999
• JP release: N/A
• Developer: Acclaim London
• Publisher: Acclaim
• N64 Magazine Score: 76%

When Starship Troopers became a big hit, Acclaim wanted to cash in on its success. Instead of trying to work out a licensing deal, they looked at their comic catalogue and realised one of them was a sci-fi marine comic. The comic didn’t contain bug-like aliens, so they invented new ones for the game. Running on the same engine (and controls) as Turok 2, it seemed like a recipe for success.

But Acclaim didn’t seem to pay attention to why Starship Troopers was successful: personality. The film took some very dry source material and made it into something special. Armorines, on the other hand, is utterly devoid of personality.

The bugs in Armorines aren’t scary. They don’t react to gunshots like enemies in Turok and they don’t act in any smart kind of way. As a result, killing them isn’t satisfying, which is a major issue in an FPS game. There are different types, but it generally means that bigger ones need more shots to go down.

The weapons don’t help matters, either, as there’s nothing quite as fun as the weapons in the Turok games. Selecting weapons is also unintuitive. You hold A and move the control stick in a direction – the same as the great weapons wheel previously used in Turok games. Except there’s no weapons wheel. You press different directions to cycle to different groups of weapons, meaning you have to memorise the direction and order of the weapons. Not that it matters much, as you’re going to be using the default weapon – a shotgun if you pick the male character, or the much more useful machine gun if you pick the female character – most of the time anyway.

While the default gun certainly has advantages, such as having infinite ammo (as opposed to very limited ammo for other guns) and being good enough to handle most enemies, their main use isn’t for killing enemies. It’s for the ability to see.

Many areas of Armorines are extremely dark. Again, this doesn’t make the game scary, it just makes it hard to see. You can get IR goggles to see enemies clearer, but they don’t help a lot in navigating the confusing levels. So, most of the time you’ll be firing your gun just to have a light source, because your futuristic super special power armour doesn’t have a torch. This is the main reason why the machine gun is better than the shotgun.

It’s a shame, as Armorines had a very solid foundation and inspiration – the gameplay of Turok 2 was great, and the satire nature of Starship Troopers could potentially have worked well for a video game. Unfortunately, many aspects – such as the weapons, enemy AI, their reaction to being shot, and any personality – are downgrades, and it ends up being a game that is functionally fine, but is really dull.

Fine

Quote

Which makes the weaponary that much more disapointing, especially as there’s an obvious lack of Turok 2-style visual splendour. They do the job and they’re a splendidly varied bunch – form the oddness of the Staff of Ra to the baby bug-firing alien arm – it’s just that they’re almost completely devoid of spectacle. The rocket launcher, for example, produces a weedy-looking explosion, the Staff of Ra a mild blue shockwave, and the grenade launcher appears to fires peas. There’s no oomph, no performance, not enough meat on the bones.

Jes Bickham, N64 Magazine #37

Remake or remaster?

Despite its flaws, it would be nice to see this running on Nightdive’s Turok 2 engine. The darkness could be fixed, and more satisfying enemy AI and reactions could be added – they could even add a bit of personality with some new cutscenes and dialogue. I doubt that it would sell enough to make doing that profitable, but there’s a solid foundation to work from.

Official Ways to get the game

There’s no official way to play Armorines: Project S.W.A.R.M.

[Ashley]

58 minutes ago, Cube said:

especially as there’s an obvious lack of Turok 2-style visual splendour