Alice in Cardland 64 - All N64 Games

[Cube]

Mission: Impossible

• JP release: 14th July 1998
• NA release: 27th October 1998
• PAL release: 6th November 1998
• Developer: Nintendo
• Publisher: Nintendo
• N64 Magazine Score: 91%

Being a movie tie-in to an action spy film gives Mission Impossible a lot to live up to, as it was always going to be compared to GoldenEye. Like GoldenEye, Mission Impossible had origins on the SNES before being made for the Nintendo 64 instead, as well as offering objective-based gameplay, this time from a third person perspective.

The first mission impossible takes a lot of goes to get used to how the game works, form movement and the camera (in the first level, it’s a very high camera, but you can change it to behind Ethan Hunt, who is not based on Tom Cruise). You have to find a certain guard, knock him out and use the face maker to use his image as a disguise – it feels a lot like an early Hitman game.

After the “cold open” levels, you the need to rescue some fellow agents and recover a list form an embassy. The stating level is great, although very much trial and error, as you are undercover and have to lure people to the correct places. It’s a very strong start to the game. There is only one correct way to do things, but it creates the Hitman film really well for its age.

Then the game suddenly becomes a strange corridor-based shooter as you blow up crates and jump over pits of acid. It feels completely at odds with the previous levels and just comes across as padding.

Thankfully the following level is much more like the Embassy level, and I was even able to mess things up and fix them without failing the mission, which is a nice touch. If there were more levels like this in the game, it would be great, but unfortunately, this is the last proper mission in this style. There’s a few small touches of stuff like this throughout, but unfortunately no levels that feel like living areas.

Instead, the rest of the game is some linear corridors, a lot of shooting (with really terrible aiming) and some platforming sections with floating platforms. The friendly AI that follows you is also terrible and makes Natalya look like AI by comparison. On one level, Candice claimed she was fine, before walking right to a guard looking at her, saying “he snuck up on me” and getting shot.

While the rest of the levels aren’t great, there is a surprising amount of variety as missions feel quite different. There’s one where you use spray pain to block cameras, one in and then on top of a train (which look quite impressive for the N64), a sniper mission, the famous laser scene from the film and navigating a tunnel by jumping on trucks.

There are a lot of frustrating aspects. Sometimes you’ll try punching a guard, but they’ll automatically arrest you – but that only happens on some levels and even then it doesn’t happen all the time. The game is also very picky about what you do, so you’ll often try something only to fail the mission.

After a very strong start, Mission Impossible loses its footing, although even then it’s still mostly a decent game from that point onwards.

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The actual ideas behind the game are fantastic. Spraying blue paint across CCTV cameras, dodging searchlights, knocking people out in the bogs and disguising yourself as them, picking up clues from conversations, working out which gadgets go with which situations, Mission, at heart, does actually feel like a spy sim. It’s just that the executions is so lacklustre, it’s hard to see the positives.

- Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #19

Remake or remaster?

With some refined gameplay mechanics, a remastered version could be a lot of fun.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Mission Impossible

[Cube]

Super Robot Spirits
 

• JP release: 17th July 1998
• NA release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Banpresto
• Publisher: Banpresto
• N64 Magazine Score: 58%

A fighting game featuring giant mechs from various anime – although to my uncultured mind, this is a Megazord fighting game. In the story mode, each “episode” has some story before each fight, which is a nice touch.

Unfortunately, this is another dull beat-’em-up. The large mechs don’t really move like large objects, more like people moving in slow motion. The really poor levels also don’t make them come across as large machines, either, so the impact of fighting with giant mechs is just completely lost. The fighting itself is very generic as well, with a few moves and not much else. There is a hover mechanic, but it doesn’t amount to much.

This just seems like it was quickly put together to cash in on the various anime shows included in it.

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There are plenty of options, such as a time attack and survival mode, and a couple of secret characters to find, but no amount of window dressing can disguise the fact that this is very average, and a waste of a fantastic license.

- Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #20

Remake or remaster?

This doesn’t need much attention – although the concept done well in a new game would be great to see.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Super Battle Robots

[Cube]

Rakugakids

• JP release: 23rd July 1998
• PAL release: 4th December 1998
• NA release: N/A
• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• N64 Magazine Score: 80%

Rakugakids is odd in that it came out in Japan and Europe – but not North America. It’s a 1-on-1 fighting game where magic crayons have brought the creations of children to life. This created a fun cast of inventive characters – showing Clayfighter that something fun can be done with its concept – these fighters even change shape as they perform moves.

It has a really lovely visual style, and some neat touches like shadows and a stage that features a mirror. The fighting itself it a ton of fun, and I’m not someone that enjoys the genre. There are a lot of moves for each characters – the moves reminded me of Super Smash Bros in a way.

The presentation and how much fun it is to play – even the movement and jumping feels extremely fluid – makes this one of the N64’s standout fighting games, which is a nice change for a platform littered with poor examples.

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The way fighting works has obviously been carefully thought out, and belies Rakuga Kid’s image as a novelty title.

- Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine 22

Remake or remaster?

A crisper looking version of Rakugakids would be lovely to see.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Rakugakids.

[Cube]

Super B-Daman: Battle Phoenix 64

• JP release: 24th July 1998
• PAL release: N/A
• NA release: N/A
• Developer: Hudson
• Publisher: Hudson
• N64 Magazine Score: 23%

B-Daman is a series of toys that are little figures that shoot marbles, with the original ones being based on Bomberman before expanding a lot, eventually spawning its own manga series, Super B-Daman. The video game, Battle Phoenix 64 is a minigame collection with 10 minigames.

You control your selected B-Daman and most games involve shooting, with a few basic shooting galleries. One fun one involves a bursting a balloon on spikes, but you need to reveal the panels underneath first. Unfortunately, the aiming on all of them are fairly poor. Some have you moving a target on screen and is very slow, and others have you aiming a row of dots and is not precise.

With only 10 minigames (some you need to unlock in singleplayer before you can play in multiplayer), they all get tiresome very quickly, especially as a few of them last too long for how simple they are.

It’s not an atrocious game, there just isn’t much to it.

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Having played Battle Phoenix for far far too long (and for much longer than it deserved), I popped outside, and shook my fist at the sky. I then returned to my room, moved my N64 and TV into the wardrobe, climbed inside, and closed the door firmly behind me. When someone comes to remove the Battle Phoenix cart with sterilised tongs, I’ll consider coming back out again…

- James Price, N64 Magazine #20

Remake or remaster?

This doesn’t deserve any special treatment.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Super B-Daman: Battle Phoenix 64

[Cube]

F-1 World Grand Prix

• NA release: 27th July 1998
• PAL release: 14th September 1998
• JP release: 18th December 1998
• Developer: Paradigm
• Publisher: Video System
• N64 Magazine Score: 93%

In my review of GT64, I touched upon how racing simulation games have aged much worse than more arcade-style ones. F-1 World Grand Prix seems to be a clearer example of that as, while GT64 was always a poor game, F-1 World Gran Prix got great review scores – unfortunately, can’t get into it.

Compared to F1 Pole Position, this is a much, much nicer looking game. The tracks have detail that you can see at a distance, with a good amount of detail of the world beyond the track. There’s still some pop-in, but it’s more for finer details, so you can see the track itself with no issue. There are some options for realism and assists, plus adjusting the amount of tracks.

One great feature is the challenge mode, which pits you in specific situations based on real races. You have to perform in a similar way (or better) than what the actual professionals did, doing things like taking advantage of other cars using the pit stop, maintaining a lead with a broken gearbox and blocking a rival so that your teammate can win.

Sadly, I just couldn’t get used to the driving, with or without assists. I’m not a fan of first person view and in third person, the camera kept tiring to “help” by twisting into turns, which completely threw me off every time it happened as I kept thinking that I was properly aligned (as the camera was looking down the track) while my car was off to the side – of course, it could just be that I’m also a terrible driver.

Even with that, I can see the effort put into the game and that it was probably a great experience when it came out.

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Unsurprisingly, given the graphics behind it, the game plays extraordinarily well too. The handling is realistically ticklish, and almost certainly designed with an analogue steering wheel in mind. There are superb touches as well, like double tapping the throttle button to ‘floor’ the accelerator and double tapping the brake to lock the wheels. Why’s that useful? If you’ve ever seen an F1 driver fling their car through a 180° to right it on the spot after a spin, then you’ll know.

- James Ashton, N64 Magazine #20

Remake or remaster?

Newer F1 games are more refined.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get F-1 World Grand Prix

[Dcubed]

Fun fact, this is the only other game that Dan Hess ever scored after he did Pilotwings 64's soundtrack.  And while the soundtrack isn't as memorable as in Nintendo's title, it still has a few choice cuts that show that the guy had some real talent and range to him...

Real shame that he quit composing afterwards.  Real waste of some proper music talent.

Edited Tuesday at 01:55 PM by Dcubed

[Cube]

Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics

• NA release: 27th July 1998
• PAL release: 24th August 1998
• JP release: N/A
• Developer: T&E Soft
• Publisher: Nintendo
• N64 Magazine Score: 49%

This is essentially the Western release of Augusta Masters ’98, however the translation into English also came with an entirely different course in Hawaii (but still one course). I was expecting it to play the same as just an average golf game, but I ended up encountering so many problems.

I edited the first character by changing the name and appearance, the same as Augusta, yet somehow when I started the game, I was trying to tee off with a putter – it was my only club. I went into the editor and changed to change my selection (it’s impossible to tell what you have selected) and when I got to the green, I had no putter. I ended up sorting this ,but I still had no small range clubs (or a sand wedge), but had given up caring at that point.

The game really can’t decide how fast the shot bar moves, changing from painfully slow to impossibly fast. The accuracy of the shot also seems to be random, with the ball undershooting or overshooting. I managed to hit a perfect shot with the wind behind me, an the ball still didn’t approach the target.

Waialae Country Club was an incredibly frustrating experience and feels very broken. I really don’t understand how this happened considering I got on fine with Augusta, but I just hated this.

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It looks awful, for a start, with the digitised golfers bringing back memories of Pit Fighter. And its ugliness doesn’t stop there. The 2D crowds are laughable and the shabby graphics make playing shots needlessly difficult.

- Tim Weaver, N64 Magazine #21

Remake or remaster?

This game doesn’t need any special treatment.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Waialae Country Club: True Golf Classics

[jayseven]

@Cube its so weird, I was looking at N64 bundles on ebay and every single one had Mission Impossible included. Obv when it came out it had unfavourable reviews in comparison to Goldeneye, but I loved the train station level where people pulled out coffee from their suit jacket inner pocket as if it was a gunl Also it wasn't developed by nintendo btw.

[Cube]

Thanks to @Dcubed for letting me know this game exists, I can get them all in their right release months.

Eleven Beat World Tournament

• JP release: July 1998 (Arcade)
• PAL release: N/A
• N/A release: N/A
• Developer: Hudson
• Publisher: Seta
• N64 Magazine Score: N/A

In July 1998, the first arcade game on the Aleck 64 arcade cabinet. This cabinet was built by Seta using the Nintendo 64 as a basis – the only hardware difference is a bit of extra RAM. Technically, these games will boot up on a regular N64 (with a bit of soldering the ROM chip into a standard cartridge), but they won’t recognise a controller – a clever hacker, however, has alerted the games to run on N64 hardware, so I’ll be including these as these are official games running on N64-based hardware.

There were 11 games made using the Aleck 64 arcade cabinet, with a few more planned (a few prototypes have cropped up, but not being made publicly available), with two games (such as Star Soldier: Vanishing Earth) being ported to the N64 itself. One of the first games was Eleven Beat World Tournament.

This is an updated version of J.League Eleven Beat, featuring international teams. The gameplay is similar, but feels more refined, feeling smoother and more accurate. It’s a decent football game, if nothing special.

You can either enter a tournament where you’ll play against a few (rather difficult) CPU opponents using a credit each time you lose, or play a friendly match with a friend. Quite simple options, but exactly what is needed for an arcade game.

Remake or remaster?

Nothing special for this.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Eleven Beat World Tournament

[Cube]

Pokémon Stadium Zero

• JP release: 1st August 1998
• PAL release: N/A
• NA release: N/A
• Developer: Nintendo
• Publisher: Nintendo
• Original name: Pocket Monsters Stadium
• N64 Magazine Score: 85%

Pokémon Stadium Zero? No, that’s not the official name of the game, but I thought calling it that was the easiest way to differentiate from the Pokémon Stadium the rest of the world knows. The first Pokémon Stadium was exclusive to Japan, so when Pokémon Stadium 2 was localised, it became Pokémon Stadium.

One thing I do need to point out is that emulation is limited. On top of trying to sort out a compatible Japanese save file, emulators currently can’t fully emulate the Transfer Pak – the game can get data from it, but the portion of Pokémon Stadium that lets you play the Game Boy game within the N64 game doesn’t work. This isn’t an issue for the later Pokémon Stadium games, but in Zero, you need to “Report” using an additional menu added by the emulator to fully access the game.

However, without doing this, you can still access the Pokédex, which gives you all of the information and lets you view every single Pokémon in 3D (although, despite this, only 40 available in the battle mode). Other options lets you see lots of statistics on the Pokémon you have in the game, so it’s a great way of seeing your progress.

One other nice touch is that you can view where you can find Pokémon on a nice 3D map of Kanto. If you’re struggling to see the locations properly, you can bring up an overlay with the Game Boy map.

In the battle mode – which has free battle and tournament options, you get to choose your Pokémon (out of the 40 in the game) to battle. You can pick from compatible Pokémon in your current Game Boy party (I think you can select others after registering) or loan Pokémon from the game out of all the Pokémon available.

The battling works exactly the same as the Game Boy, although at the start of each fight, you select three Pokémon from your party to take part in that fight. It would have been great seeing your Pokémon not just on the big screen, but in 3D for the first time.

That said, this version of Pokémon Stadium is definitely more cumbersome and a bit more basic than what would later come, so I think the first experience of Pokémon Stadium outside of Japan was definitely better.

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The game cultivates an atmosphere of tangible excitement – considering that I’m roughly 20 years older than the intended target audience, yet still felt a shiver of pleasure as my PM trounced the CPU’s pitiful offering, I’d say that Nintendo have quite an achievement on their hands.

- Max Everingham, N64 Magazine #20

Remake or remaster?

A Pokémon Stadium that links to all the various Pokémon games playable on Switch would be a neat idea.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Pokémon Stadium Zero

[Dcubed]

I've got the cartridge of this game and I can totally see why it was skipped over for localisation.

It's basically a glorified demo/prototype, with only 40 Pokemon being useable and no real single player content of any kind.  Barebones doesn't even begin to describe it.

Supposedly this game was originally meant for the 64DD before being hastily ported to cartridge... which would certainly explain why this game is so utterly bereft of content and why it was supplanted by the Pokemon Stadium that we know here in the west so quickly (just 8 months after the release of the original game in Japan).

In fact, we can verify this is true, because if you play this game with a 64DD attached to your console, you get a special error message saying that the expected 64DD disk is missing!

FWIW, Mario Party 1 also has a similar error message...

I can only assume that our Pokemon Stadium 1 is basically the game that this was supposed to be, not unlike how Mario Tennis Aces was basically the finished version of Mario Tennis Ultra Smash.

It's a neat curio, but really, we didn't miss out on much here.  Its successor makes this game completely redundant.

Edited Friday at 09:16 AM by Dcubed

[Glen-i]

Was waiting for this to show up, I touched upon it (And all the other Pokémon N64 games) back in my Pokémon Spin-off topic. An interesting thing about this one was this.

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Most of them were Pokemon that were used in real-life tournaments plus a handful of others for balance. The trainers you could fight in the Tournament were based off of some of the teams used in those real-life tournaments. This had the unfortunate side effect of making the game really hard! Which is a common criticism of this.

Cool idea in theory, but yeah, pitting the general public against the best trainers of the time can't have been fun.

Edited Friday at 12:25 PM by Glen-i

[Cube]

Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls
 

• PAL release: 1st August 1998
• NA release: 27th August 1998
• JP release: 28th August 1998
• Developer: Iguana
• Publisher: Acclaim
• N64 Magazine Score: 56%

Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls is a very hideous game. It’s not that it’s low quality, there’s just something ugly about the entire design from it, from the design of the ball characters, the platforms of the world, the dirty-looking water and the blurry background. It’s all very unappealing, especially for a kind of game that would excel from a more adorable design.

The game is a 2D platformer racing game taking place on circular platform. you use a grappling hook to bring yourself up platforms, or perform large swinging moves. Sadly, the controls feels far too stiff and imprecise for a game like this, and the CPU opponents often don’t have the same issues (although every now and than, they’re extremely incompetent), so quite often you need a perfect run to win.

This is particularly evident in world 3 – which is too dark to see important details, such as metal portions of platforms (which you can’t jump or grapple through) – the CPU has zero problem with visibility here. The grapple can also be used to attack enemies and there are items you can collect – which also means these can be used against you, adding to the frustration.

The concept of Iggy’s Reckin’ Balls is a sound one, even if the rest of it isn’t. N+ took a similar concept of multiplayer 2D platforming and made it incredibly fun, and this can sometimes be fun in multiplayer as everyone has similar control issues, but the whole game is just so unattractive from a design standpoint that it detracts even more.

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Iggy’s isn’t a terrible game. It’s got plenty of nice ideas, and it borrows liberally from Mario Kart – which is no bad thing. It’s just totally lacking in personality and spark, two vital, ethereal components that can’t be copied from anywhere. You might like it, if you’re really desperate for something a little offbeat, but we think our copy will just be gathering dust from now on.

- Martin Kitts, N64 Magazine #19

Remake or remaster?

A new game with a similar concept would be good, but it needs to be designed from the ground up.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to buy Iggys’ Reckin’ Balls, but it available to rent via Nintendo Switch Online.

[Dcubed]

This game is a surprise little multiplayer gem.  I can't imagine it being much fun on your own, but it's a cracking little multiplayer platformer racer!

It's also drippin' with 90's 'tude, which just adds to the charm in my book.

Seriously! We had a great time with it when me @Glen-i, @BowserBasher and @S.C.G played it last week, and it's also been a hit with my other friends too.  Give it a shot if you've got the NSO Expansion Pack! I reckon you'll be pleasantly surprised, as there's nothing else quite like it 

In case you want an idea for how impressive it is, it has over 100 stages... despite being released on the smallest N64 cartridge possible (just a mere 32 mbit/4MB!), and even a fair amount of voice acting too! Iguana simply didn't miss back in the mid 90s, and it's not hard to see how this talent would eventually transition over to Retro Studios a few years later.

Edited yesterday at 12:35 AM by Dcubed

[Cube]

Alice in Cardland 64
 

• JP release: 7th August 1998
• NA release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Bottom Up
• Publisher: Bottom Up
• Original Name: 64 Trump Collection: Alice no Waku Waku Trump World
• N64 Magazine Score: 21%

The name “Alice in Cardland” is my attempt at a localised name for this game, the more literal translation is “64 Playng Collection: Alice’s Exciting Playing Card World”. The game is listed online as “64 Trump Collection: Alice no Waku Waku Trump World”, however “Trump” is essentially a Japanese slang term for playing card games (presumably based on “trump card”, used in some trick-taking games).

Alice in Cardland is a retelling of Alice in Wonderland where Alice has to win a card game to progress. The first one is Old Maid (played with a joker instead of a queen). The problem with card games like this: you are literally drawing random cards from opponents. There’s no skill. You can protect a card three times in a round, but that’s only useful if you’re losing and the CPU can do the same to you. You have to have the highest store in three rounds, so you just have to keep trying until you randomly win.

I decided to let Alice spend the rest of her life with the living furniture as you can just play the games separately. The regular card games consist of: Pairs, Old Maid, Sevens, Speed, Cheat/Doubt, Page One (a version of Uno using just playing cards), Daifugō (a Japanese card game where you have to get rid of your cards, a bit like a trick taking game) and Seven Bridge, although there are a few extra games as well.

I was intrigued when I saw poker, but it’s just a very basic Video Poker. Blackjack is also played in the same interface – it all seems like it was taken from another game and thrown into this for more content.

The same is also true of solitaire (Klondike and Freecell variants), which again seems like they’re from a completely different game. Rounding out all the games are a few “fortune telling” events and another Uno variant with slightly different rules.

Alice in Cardland isn’t terribly made, it all works and has a cute style. It’s more the concept of the game that fails. In multiplayer, it’s far less cumbersome to play all these games with a £1 pack of cards. The only advantage is you can play against the computer, but these games are just dull without the conversation and banter – not to mention how you facial expressions and bluffing turn games like Old Maid into an actual game and not just picking random cards.

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If, like us, you’ve always found yourself being repeatedly humiliated whenever a deck of cards is present, Trump World will offer you that self-same experience many times over. Card sharks are scuppered, too, because any attempt to read the poker face of a chair, or a mouse, is ultimately destined to fail.

- Mark Green, N64 Magazine #25

Remake or remaster?

A pack of playing cards is the only “remake” needed.

Official ways to get the game.

There is no official way to get Alice in Cardland

[EEVILMURRAY]

On 20/04/2024 at 11:07 PM, Cube said:

Rusty Bucket Bay is the penultimate level, with some very tough challenges. The water in this level drains your air much faster than previous levels, so even though there’s a lot of water, you only spend small stints in it. There’s lots of hidden rooms to find, with some fun and cute details hidden in them. The transformation in this level is also super adorable.

 

Say wah?

[Cube]

19 minutes ago, EEVILMURRAY said:

Say wah?

Bad editing from a rewrite, not sure where the last sentence was originally from.