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The N64 (lemmy.world)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I am probably going to get hate for this, but I don't think too highly of this console.

Sure, some of the games at the time were astonishing and well regarded classics, but man oh man do I dislike the controller, it just feels so... alien to hold you know?

Another thing too, the cartridge format whilst snappy, suffered from making too many cutbacks compared to the disc format of PS1 and Saturn which gave you pretty much the full scoop.

I am sure Nintnedo had their reasons at the time, but to me it was almost like it was a death by a thousand cuts scenario, a really powerful machine let down by not using what is literally the next gen medium at the time.

Let me know your thoughts, it is fine to disagree as the console is well respected with both nostalgia and entertainment, I'm just an outlier here.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

What was terrible on the other hand was that the console lacked internal storage and many games would require you to purchase an additional memory pack (which slotted into the controller). That wasn't just a technical deficiency but felt very anti consumer.

I never had many n64 games but I only remember one actually needing the external memory pak. Most first-party games could just save to the cartridge, it's only a few third parties that cheaped out and didn't implement that. Meanwhile the PS1 was memory cards only.

Also I don't think any console had internal storage until the Xbox which introduced a hard disk while the GameCube and PS2 were still using memory cards!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

Ok, now that you mention it: I think the difference is that (at least in my region) the PlayStation was sold with a memory card included. Standalone memory cards for it were cheap. N64 came without a memory pack and they were more expensive.

IIRC PS also had a more granular slot size (eg gran turismo takes up 1 slot while final fantasy takes up 3 slots) while on the N64 it was large and fixed (each game takes up one large slot even if that slot doesn't use up all the data).

In hindsight that has me wondering why they didn't go for dynamic slot size 🤔. Maybe because a save file could grow over time and they wanted to ensure that you could always overwrite/update?