Monopoly - All N64 Games

[Ashley]

21 hours ago, Cube said:

The one time I did get close to a fish, it felt entirely unresponsive. It doesn’t react to the lure, it just casually swims through it and attaches. Then it never seems to fight, there’s no pulling involved, the fish doesn’t jump out of the water, it just strangely glides towards the boat.

Sounds like you caught a fish with ennui 

Just a shame you weren't playing this... On Wii.

[Dcubed]

Speaking of the 64DD… did you know that Mario Party 2 was originally going to be a 64DD expansion pack disk for the original Mario Party? It’s true! The necessary hooks for the 64DD are even still there in the final retail version of Mario Party 1!

The fact that such a large chunk of its minigames are also just modified versions of minigames previously seen in Mario Party 1 (something that no other mainline Mario Party has done since), is another big telltale sign of this game originally being an expansion pack.

Ultimately though, I think that Mario Party 2 benefitted from being released as a standalone cartridge; because it meant that the game had more freedom to develop its own identity.  I doubt that we would’ve gotten the Item mechanic if it had remained a mere content expansion disk…

… and really, you can’t talk about Mario Party 2 without mentioning the Item mechanic, because it was one of the most important gameplay additions the series has ever seen.  It’s a simple concept, spread across the board are various shops and spaces that can potentially yield powerful items that allow you to strategise and either help yourself or screw over your frenemies.  Ranging from the venerable Mushroom (allowing you to roll two dice in one turn), to the all powerful Magic Lamp (which takes you straight to the Star Space), to the devilish Boo Bell (which summons Boo and allows you to steal coins or even stars from other players!).  It can’t be overstated how important an addition this was, as it completely changed the dynamic of the core board gameplay.

Unfortunately, Mario Party 2 hadn’t quite dialled in the Item mechanic fully quite yet, as you only get but a single item slot to work with… and no way of throwing away unwanted items.  This has the unfortunate side effect of making Skeleton Keys borderline completely useless, while the Plunder Chest becomes overwhelmingly stupid broken powerful; capable of shutting down the Item game entirely.  It wouldn’t be until its sequel, Mario Party 3, for the Item mechanic to reach its final form; granting a generous three slots for each player and a much vaster array of items at your disposal (some being amongst the best that the series ever saw; but that’s a discussion for another game later on).

The board selection is smaller this time than in the original Mario Party, but the designs are arguably stronger; with more branching paths and events that can shuffle coins and space placements around strategically.  The likes of Western Land and Horror Land remain fan favourites to this day (both being remade in Super Mario Party Jamboree and Mario Party Superstars respectively for a good reason), but the first game’s mean streak has been reduced somewhat.  No longer do 1 v 3 minigames result in the losing team having their coins stolen from them, while board events are typically less disastrous than before; and Single Player minigames have been exorcised entirely (probably for the best; as they did slow down the pace somewhat).  However, Mario Party 2 also introduced another staple mechanic that the rest of the series would adopt… Battle Minigames, a new subset of minigames that pools a set amount of coins from each player into a pot that gets divvied out depending on placement.  Naturally, the results of such a minigame can be utterly game changing for the winners and losers respectively; potentially ruining one person’s plans, while opening up many doors for another to run away with the game.

Single player options remain thin on the ground, but the Mini Game Coaster is a surprisingly enjoyable little endurance marathon of the full selection of 60 minigames played back to back.  It’s naturally very similar to the Mini Game Island mode from Mario Party 1, but the removal of the branching paths now requires mastery of every single one of those 60 minigames… even the ones you hate (I’m looking at YOU Mecha Marathon!).  Quite why future games after this ditched this endurance mode (with the sole exception of Mario Party: The Top 100) is beyond me.

But ultimately, that’s Mario Party 2 in a nutshell.  It’s expansion pack (not Pak!) origins belie some truly game changing additions to the series, making it a pretty important entry in the series canon.  But it does lose some of the more ornery elements of its progenitor; not necessarily a bad thing; but it does give this game a bit of a different flavour to the first Mario Party.  I’d argue that it’s a bit overrated amongst the mainline Mario Party titles (I blame the fact that it was the only Mario Party game that kept getting re-released on the various Virtual Console services, for whatever bizarre reason), but the importance of its additions can’t be denied; and its boards are all solidly designed.  It remains one of the better entries in the series to this day, and a must play for anyone looking for an endlessly replayable social nightmare of a multiplayer video game.

[Glen-i]

10 hours ago, Cube said:

while some of the better games from the first game make a return

That can't be entirely true, because Bumper Balls is there.

An absolute waste of a minute that ends in a draw every time. Might as well just skip the minigame when that shows up and get back to the board.

Still, this is better than the first Mario Party. Items bring a lot to the game, even if the 1 item limit makes some items way too powerful. (Oh cool! A Magic Lamp, I'll just buy that and... Oh wait, one of my opponents has a plunder chest...)

A bit overrated though. The next one is miles better!

[Cube]

Viewpoint 2064 

• JP release: N/A
• NA release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Racdym
• Publisher: Sammy
• N64 Magazine Score: N/A

For starters, I do like how they used “2064” to mark this as an N64 name, it feels much more natural like that. I didn’t even notice what the game was doing with the name to start with.

Viewpoint 2064 is a sequel to the Neo Geo arcade game Viewpoint, a side scrolling shoot-’em-up, which notably had an isometric view instead of scrolling vertically or sideways. With a behind-the-ship 3D perspective, Viewpoint 2064 may look a bit like Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64), and even has a similar level progression where you end up on different routes, but it plays much more like a more traditional shmup.

For starters, you move in a 2D manner, moving left and right as the screen automatically scrolls forward at a set pace. You can move into the screen a little bit as well, but you can’t move up and down. The on-screen cursor is also initially confusing, as it does move up and down, but your guns don’t fire upwards. The cursor is more for the lock-on, which can target enemies that are “in the air” from your perspective.

Appropriately, Viewpoint also likes to play around with its viewpoint. Throughout the stages, there will be times where the camera changes to a different angle, usually for a section where you have to dodge obstacles. These sections can provide a bit of spectacle, as well as a nice change of pace. The game looks nice up close, but the draw distance is quite poor, with the game looking its best when you can see a background.

The game ended up getting cancelled due to “development difficulties”, however, this prototype seems very well made. It’s unfinished but very playable, with the main issue being that some levels have no enemies. Through the various routes, there are 15 stages in total. This seems like an interesting take on the shmup genre.

Fun

Should it be finished?

Give it better graphics and finish off the levels, and I think it would be an enjoyable game if released now.

[Dcubed]

Ooh! Didn’t know that Sammy ever got a sequel made for Viewpoint on the NeoGeo!

I wonder if this game was ever in development for the failed Hyper NeoGeo 64, before getting ported over to the N64 instead…

[Cube]

Monopoly
 

• NA release: 18th December 1999
• JP release: N/A
• PAL release: N/A
• Developer: Mind’s Eye Productions
• Publisher: Hasbro Interactive
• N64 Magazine Score: N/A

Monopoly is an atrocious board game. I’ve played many, many board games, and none are as horrible as Monopoly is. Most of the game is just autopilot – roll dice, move, do the obvious action (buy property/pay rent). The only actual choices are more involving trading, which is heavily dependant on who is playing.

This is simply an N64 version of that terrible board game, and this conversion of Monopoly into a video game is fairly mixed, so I’ll talk more about what this version does rather than the game itself.

Visually, it’s pleasant. Instead of just a board, it’s in a field with buildings representing the properties around it, with a day and night cycle to signify the endless nature of Monopoly. You can pick between the standard US board and the standard UK board (even though this game was never released outside the USA), but the style doesn’t change – it looks more British than anything, which makes sense, as the developers were British.

The pieces move around the board with some animations that start off nice, but grow tiresome very quickly, as it massively slows down the game. Even if you turn these off, the animation of your piece warping is still too long. It makes the game drag even more than usual.

Trading is also very confusing, with a very awkward menu that makes it a nuisance to sort anything else, far more hassle than trading in the physical board game. The CPU players will also refuse to trade, unless you want to massively overpay for stuff. This means that making sets is extremely unlikely to happen, making the game grow stagnant and grind to a halt, as players just circle the board, staying at the same level.

There are a few options to adjust gameplay, such as starting with properties. You can even turn on some awful house rules, such as putting money on free parking, which does nothing but drag out the miserable experience even longer.

Monopoly is an alright conversion of a dreadful board game.

Worst

Remake or remaster?

There are unfortunately many newer versions of Monopoly.

Official Ways to get the game

There is no official way to play the N64 version of Monopoly.

[Glen-i]

8 minutes ago, Cube said:

You can even turn on some awful house rules, such as putting money on free parking

Man, that house rule is an utter blight! It's so awful. And yet so many people swear by it!

Edited 7 hours ago by Glen-i