49 replies to this topic

[z28in82]

Well I'm sorry if I come across baised but I have not cared for Nintendo since the SNES days. I hated the N64 and if it weren't for games like SOTE I'd have never gotten one. I refuse to buy a cube cause there is like a total of 3 games that appeal to me(sorry I'm well above the 13 and under target audience) So I loved everything 2D big N put out but they lost a loyal fan when they tried 3D and didn't do it well IMHO.

Thanks

[kisrael]

z28in82 said:

Well I'm sorry if I come across baised but I have not cared for Nintendo since the SNES days. I hated the N64 and if it weren't for games like SOTE I'd have never gotten one. I refuse to buy a cube cause there is like a total of 3 games that appeal to me(sorry I'm well above the 13 and under target audience) So I loved everything 2D big N put out but they lost a loyal fan when they tried 3D and didn't do it well IMHO.

"tried 3D and didn't do it well". Yeesh. Super Mario 64 was the game that pretty much established the genre, and still stands up very well. Zelda on that system is an undoubted masterpiece. (and Smash Bros, which is also brilliant, is a 2D game that just happens to use polygons anyway) What, you really expected them to even survive in the 90s sticking to their "2D roots"? That's what the Game Boys are for.

Shrug. Your loss. I've gotten a lot more mileage out of my gamecube than my PS2, that's for sure. Monkey Ball 1+2, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, Mario, Zelda, etc, not to mention the way so many more games support 4 players at once.

And that "under 13 target" line is just dumb.

[Bivotar]

I picked up SOTE cheap at the local game store. I had heard poor reviews so didn't expect much. I was surprised when I plugged the game in and fired it up. I thought "this isn't so bad" and was actually enjoying myself.

Suddenly the graphics started freaking out and I started smelling smoke! The cart was burning up on me!! I turned everything off an pulled out the cart. PEE-YEW, did it stink!! Luckily it didn't fry my N64.

I never replaced the game after that.

[Jasoco]

Hehe.. that is pretty funny actually. Glad it didn't ruin anything or catch the house on fire, but this is the first time I've heard of a cartridge burning up like that.

[King Atari]

kisrael said:

z28in82 said:

Well I'm sorry if I come across baised but I have not cared for Nintendo since the SNES days. I hated the N64 and if it weren't for games like SOTE I'd have never gotten one. I refuse to buy a cube cause there is like a total of 3 games that appeal to me(sorry I'm well above the 13 and under target audience) So I loved everything 2D big N put out but they lost a loyal fan when they tried 3D and didn't do it well IMHO.

"tried 3D and didn't do it well". Yeesh. Super Mario 64 was the game that pretty much established the genre, and still stands up very well. Zelda on that system is an undoubted masterpiece. (and Smash Bros, which is also brilliant, is a 2D game that just happens to use polygons anyway) What, you really expected them to even survive in the 90s sticking to their "2D roots"? That's what the Game Boys are for.

Shrug. Your loss. I've gotten a lot more mileage out of my gamecube than my PS2, that's for sure. Monkey Ball 1+2, Smash Bros, Metroid Prime, Mario, Zelda, etc, not to mention the way so many more games support 4 players at once.

And that "under 13 target" line is just dumb.

Right on! Couldn't have said it any better than that!

[liquid_sky]

SNK is still around kickin it 2d.. so your argument is no longer a standing one

[NE146]

z28in82 said:

(sorry I'm well above the 13 and under target audience) So I loved everything 2D big N put out but they lost a loyal fan when they tried 3D and didn't do it well IMHO.

Hmmm. Maybe I got the demographics backwards because I'm 34 and the Cube is very successfully marketed to me

How did Nintendo "try" 3D? As far as I can remember, Mario was the first 3D adventure of it's kind and set the standard!

[kisrael]

liquid_sky said:

SNK is still around kickin it 2d.. so your argument is no longer a standing one

SNK is much more of a niche market than Nintendo.

NeoGeo, while very cool and still kind of around, was not really a player in the mid to late-90s console wars. And (I don't know a ton about this) isn't SNK mostly just Capcom vs. SNK-like fighters and, I dunno, Metal Slug?

If the N64 had been only 2D games, or even if its primary first party releases were 2D, would be accused of even more "living in the past" (off of the established franchises) even more than they are.

I mean wasn't that the Saturn in a nutshell? Great 2D, suck at 3?

Anyway, I think the argument stands. But SNK is an interesting counterpoint.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

kisrael said:

If the N64 had been only 2D games, or even if its primary first party releases were 2D, would be accused of even more "living in the past" (off of the established franchises) even more than they are.

Sorry to interrupt this with a really(!) serious question: Could the N64 even do a 2D game? I mean technically? So far every N64 game I've seen was actually happening in a more or less foggy 3D bubble...

Greetings,
Manuel

[liquid_sky]

the neogeo has more than just fighters, although that is the major genera that snk sticks to. the neogeo has shooters, baseball stars 2 (best baseball game ever ) the metal slug series, neo turf masters (great golf) some classic puzzle games (bust-a-move/puzzle bobble, magical drop), and my fave sidescrolling beatemup, sengoku 3.

[kisrael]

Cybergoth said:

Sorry to interrupt this with a really(!) serious question: Could the N64 even do a 2D game? I mean technically? So far every N64 game I've seen was actually happening in a more or less foggy 3D bubble...

foggy 3D bubble, whatever. It sure beat 98% of the stuff on PSX...
Anyway, I've played Bangai-O for DC, and while I hear the N64 version isn't quite as polished, it would be pushing a TON of sprites around screen...so that's many sprites, I can't think of a game with big sprites off the top of my head.

[z28in82]

Well I guess I am outvoted here, oh well.

I never cared for alot of the early 3-D games but that is my preference and I got many more quality hours out of my PSX so to each their own.

RE N64 doing a 2-D games Gauntlet Legends was a great 2-d games and I'll admit much better than the PSX version

RE cubes age demo, to me I see alot of rehashes of old games that I played as a kid. But once again this is coming froma guy who still watches G1 Transformers and He-Man cartoons on a daily basis. So to you

[Cybergoth]

Hi there

kisrael said:

Cybergoth said:

Sorry to interrupt this with a really(!) serious question: Could the N64 even do a 2D game? I mean technically? So far every N64 game I've seen was actually happening in a more or less foggy 3D bubble...

foggy 3D bubble, whatever. It sure beat 98% of the stuff on PSX...
Anyway, I've played Bangai-O for DC, and while I hear the N64 version isn't quite as polished, it would be pushing a TON of sprites around screen...so that's many sprites, I can't think of a game with big sprites off the top of my head.

Uhm... could you please pause the childish "my system is holier than yours" mode for a moment? I never heard about a game called Bangai-O nor do I care about its number/size of sprites.

All I wanted to know was wether the N64 can do a proper 2D bitmapped screen without any 3D rendering or not.

Greetings,
Manuel

[Jasoco]

Of course it could. If anyone had wanted to take advantage of it. I can't remember any 2D games that actually came out on the N64. Seems at that time every "2D" game coming out was actally "3 1/2-D" like Yoshi's Story and Mischief Makers. They used a 2D look but 3D graphics.

But no game in the US at least that I can remember was an actual "True" 2D game. As in games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, etc. Maybe in Japan, but everyone was all into this newfangled "3D Experience" and no one wanted to make a 2D game anymore.

Though, now that I think of it didn't Midway release an Arcade compilation on the N64?

[kisrael]

Jasoco said:

Of course it could. If anyone had wanted to take advantage of it. I can't remember any 2D games that actually came out on the N64. Seems at that time every "2D" game coming out was actally "3 1/2-D" like Yoshi's Story and Mischief Makers. They used a 2D look but 3D graphics.

But no game in the US at least that I can remember was an actual "True" 2D game. As in games like Mario Brothers, Donkey Kong, etc. Maybe in Japan, but everyone was all into this newfangled "3D Experience" and no one wanted to make a 2D game anymore.

Though, now that I think of it didn't Midway release an Arcade compilation on the N64?

In Japan there was Bangai-O.
Were the Rampage remakes 2D or 2 1/2 D?

And then some puzzle games, mostly remakes:
New Tetris, Pokemon Puzzle League, Dr. Mario.

[King Atari]

Quote

Though, now that I think of it didn't Midway release an Arcade compilation on the N64?

Yes, and Funco/Gamestop overprices it all of the time .

[Jasoco]

kisrael said:

In Japan there was Bangai-O.
Were the Rampage remakes 2D or 2 1/2 D?

And then some puzzle games, mostly remakes:
New Tetris, Pokemon Puzzle League, Dr. Mario.

They were the same 2 1/2D as Mischief and Yoshi.

[Vic George 2K3]

I liked SOTE better than all the 2D run-and-jump platform interpretations of the Star Wars movies, which to me never really seemed adequate or appropriate for conveying the action thereof.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

kisrael said:

And then some puzzle games, mostly remakes:
New Tetris, Pokemon Puzzle League, Dr. Mario.

Hm... hard to tell wether this is real 2D or 3D that looks like 2D. I'd almost bet that the 3D hardware was cheated to produce someting that looked like 2D

Is anything more complex available in 2D than Tetris, something like SNES Castlevania or Zelda for example?

I really think such games weren't produced, because the N64 simply couldn't do them...

Greetings,
Manuel

[kisrael]

Cybergoth said:

Hm... hard to tell wether this is real 2D or 3D that looks like 2D. I'd almost bet that the 3D hardware was cheated to produce someting that looked like 2D

I doubt it, just because you'd see parallax effects.
And if so, who cares? 2D is 2D!

Quote

Is anything more complex available in 2D than Tetris, something like SNES Castlevania or Zelda for example?

I really think such games weren't produced, because the N64 simply couldn't do them...

ONE LAST TIME:
unfortunately, import only and relatively obscure, but Bangai-O proves you wrong. The N64 could do 2D great.

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

kisrael said:

unfortunately, import only and relatively obscure, but Bangai-O proves you wrong. The N64 could do 2D great.

This:
is obviously done by by a 3D card, no matter how 2D the gameplay feels...

Greetings,
Manuel

[kisrael]

Cybergoth said:

Hi there!

kisrael said:

unfortunately, import only and relatively obscure, but Bangai-O proves you wrong. The N64 could do 2D great.

This:
is obviously done by by a 3D card, no matter how 2D the gameplay feels...

A. I'm not entirely discounting the possibility it was via a 3D card, but if it was, so what? If it LOOKS 2D, (with absolutely flat camera angles, and always the same animations of the characters) it IS 2D. This shot might seem to be more 3D looking, partially because the way it was shrunk from original size emphasizes the 2D lighting effect of the explosions and the missile trails. But that's just a matter of making both gradually go from lighter to darker. Nothing rendered 3D about it.

B. Judging by the DC version...IT'S NOT A FRICKIN' 3D ENGINE MAKING THIS GAME. If all those hundreds of highly detailed characters and literally thousands of explosions were 3D, I really doubt it would be easier to render the game in 3D.

C. Your claim was that it couldn't do something with sprites like Castlevania, and this greatly outdoes Castlevania.

I think this is a DC screenshot anyway. And believe me when I say, I KNOW the DC version, wrote a FAQ on GameFAQs (and CJayC, the guy who runs the site, has another FAQ listing the differences between the N64 and DC versions) from long programming and gaming experience, it uses small hand drawn sprites.

The only thing "3D" about this game is a cheap parallax effect, that far background scrolls more slowly than the foreground. And the SNES was doing that effect no problem. And it rotates some simple enemy sprites, but strictly in 2D....hell, it doesn't even use the Mode-7 like effects like the SNES or GBA.

[kisrael]

Ah, just realized why I couldn't find the N64 version on GameFAQs, it's name there is "Bangaioh" - http://gamefaqs.com/...data/24874.html

Plus it pointed to this review
http://www.gamespot....ioh/review.html
and these screenshots
http://www.gamespot....creenindex.html

You can most easily tell the N64 screenshots because the health bar at the top is divided into segments, the DC version had a single bar (which is odd, since it still went down in segments, and the N64 looks cooler)

Unfortunatley the screenshots seem to be just of the early levels, so the screens aren't really full up of enemies. But http://www.gamespot....ns.html?page=12 shows you how this is clearly a TILE and SPRITE based game...just very well done coloring of the sprites, so stuff like those green fireballs seem to have a sense of depth.

Sorry if you were just joking around before, but it really poked me into wanting to make as convncing a case as possible...

[Cybergoth]

Hi there!

Never mind. I meanwhile found proof for my theory in a N64 programming tutorial.

Quote

The N64 displays 2D images using the same process it uses to display polygons. In reality, 2D images are just polygons with texture data pasted on them.

Greetings,
Manuel

[kisrael]

Cybergoth said:

Never mind. I meanwhile found proof for my theory in a N64 programming tutorial.

Quote

The N64 displays 2D images using the same process it uses to display polygons. In reality, 2D images are just polygons with texture data pasted on them.

Well, that weakens my argument a bit, but not too too much; there's still NO angle effects going on in terms of a camera, and it's clearly using whatever system to make tiles and sprites, even if they're painted onto 1D polygons