2D Potential of the N64

[RyaNtheSlayA]

3D acceleration on PC at the time was okay at least. (Glide ftw)

[ZeroAX]

3D acceleration on PC at the time was okay at least. (Glide ftw)

that looks amazing compared to the PS1 version. heck, I'd play that game NOW. It seems fun and the graphics don't make my eyes bleed.

[AppleQueso]

I remember being excited for Mischief Makers when it was coming out. I wanted to see what glorious 2D could be done on Nintendo's newest, most powerful console. Honestly I was pretty disappointed.

Today I understand why of course, the N64 just wasn't made for those type of games in mind.

I'll take blurry textures over that weird pixelated warping thing that the Ps1 does with textures any day.

They're both pretty awful. The 5th gen has aged terribly unless it's the one you grew up with and have nostalgic fondness for the early 3D look. Can't say that I do personally.

The 'blurriness' of the N64 is vastly overstated I think. The playstation's twitchy warpy texture problem was pretty much everywhere.

As for how they've aged, I think it depends on the game. Personally I think something like Banjo Kazooie or the Crash Bandicoot games look pretty okay still. Stuff like Perfect Dark or Metal Gear Solid have not aged well visually at all.

2D stuff obviously still looks good.

There's not a whole ton of comparable Psx/N64 ports, but I think Mega Man Legends makes a solid enough comparison:


These might've been sourced from an emulator, which might skew comparisons a bit, but I think it's a fairly good representation.

I guess it's possibly just a matter of personal taste, but N64 always seemed like it handled 3D a lot more smoothly than the Ps1 (and Saturn, for that matter). Blurry textures? Sure, but at least the geometry was stable.

[harper]

There's not a whole ton of comparable Psx/N64 ports, but I think Mega Man Legends makes a solid enough comparison:

I think Resident Evil 2 is another good example, my first time playing it was on the N64. When I finally got it on the Playstation I noticed right off the bat that it wasn't as smooth as the N64 version. My eyes kind of got used to it so it wasn't a huge deal, but it was definitely noticeable at first.

[sevin0seven]

There's not a whole ton of comparable Psx/N64 ports, but I think Mega Man Legends makes a solid enough comparison:

I think Resident Evil 2 is another good example, my first time playing it was on the N64. When I finally got it on the Playstation I noticed right off the bat that it wasn't as smooth as the N64 version. My eyes kind of got used to it so it wasn't a huge deal, but it was definitely noticeable at first.

the FMV on RE2 on N64 wasn't bad either...and no loading times makes it a better version.

[MyNameIsVince]

wooow....wooooooow. That was a stupid design choice. Is that why when I played the PS1 port of Megaman X3 (on the Megaman X collection) something seemed wrong compared to the snes version I had played on an emulator?

And ok you are making a great point, but for example Final Fantasy could have so many beautiful detailed backgrounds (let's not consider the space gobbeling FMVs for a minute) thanks to having so much space. That's more what I had in mind...

No, it was a market driven design choice. Nowadays we are so used to game systems that can do anything the designers want, where the amount of time and money put into a project is the only real limiting factor on the end result.

Back in the day, machines had to be built to produce the type of games platform holders thought their consumers were after. Sony thought that 3D was the future and built a machine for that. It did not need a lot of visual ram because it was just showing the gamer a 'picture' of the polygons it drew and you, the gamer, are the one that makes that picture make sense.

Nintendo thought the same but banked on gamers hating load times more than they ended up actually hating them.

Sega wasn't sure what to think so they hedged their bet with the Saturn and put in a 3D and 2D processor. It created for the Saturn a great legacy but it crippled it at the market place and made development hard.

But when you look at those three systems, in most cases only the Saturn is doing true 2D, drawing sprites and compiling multiple sprites to generate scenery, characters, and effects. The N64 and PSX just used clever work arounds.

You're right. It was market driven, because by the early to mid 90s, everybody wanted 3D gaming, hence that generation was mostly driven by 3D gaming, but because it was the first generation of mainstream games having 3D graphics (I don't count the previous generation because the consoles that were trying for 3D games then were bit players and didn't dominate like the SNES and Genesis), it was still very primitive. Hence why a lot of it on all 3 systems at that time haven't aged as well today.

As for the Sega Saturn doing both 3D and 2D, I thought what happened was that the people creating the Saturn wanted it to be just a 2D machine but then the higher ups at Sega saw what Sony was doing with the Playstation and demanded them to put in a 3D engine, hence the 2 processors.

Of course it probably would have helped Sega had the Saturn been released in the fall/winter of 1995 as opposed to the surprise May of 1995 launch, since it would have given them more time to make the 3D engine better I suppose.

[CD AGES]

It didn't age terribly if you like 2D stuff and own a Saturn. The PS1, despite a lot of ignorance in this thread, has a lot of nice 2D games as well. It's not as capable as the Saturn, but developers did use some brilliant techniques to get some very nice 2D stuff on the system. Just look at the PS1 versions of Symphony of the Night or Street Fighter Alpha 3.

Well said! Gundam Battle Assault series is another good example of sprite based games that looks wonderful on the PS1.

the FMV on RE2 on N64 wasn't bad either...and no loading times makes it a better version of the two

Fixed it for ya! Dreamcast FTW

Honestly the N64 could not do 2D justice... no where near as good the other 2 competing platforms that were graced with plenty of 2D titles regardless of ones limitations of one platfroms ability over the other. The cartridge based media hurt any chances of the N64 doing right by the standards established in 2D sprite work of that time. Just look at MK Trilogy on all 3 platfroms. The worst version is on the N64 by far! with the PS1 version being the best (To Saturn's defense though, Midway got two attempts on the PS1 port as the 1st release had issues )

[AppleQueso]

As for the Sega Saturn doing both 3D and 2D, I thought what happened was that the people creating the Saturn wanted it to be just a 2D machine but then the higher ups at Sega saw what Sony was doing with the Playstation and demanded them to put in a 3D engine, hence the 2 processors.

I've always found the fact that Sega wanted a 2D machine and didn't see the 3D boom coming to be kinda fascinating, considering they were one of the companies that really started the whole thing with Virtua Fighter and whatnot.

[Flake]

I've always found the fact that Sega wanted a 2D machine and didn't see the 3D boom coming to be kinda fascinating, considering they were one of the companies that really started the whole thing with Virtua Fighter and whatnot.

I think they expected both forms to co-exist. Thinking back to those days, I remember being really surprised when the whole gaming world embraced 3D as hard as it did. It was like 2D was thrown out overnight.

Sega was trying really hard to be the industry leader in terms of technology but it just wasn't clear what the market was going to want. The Sega CD, 32X, and Saturn were all born of the same gameplan: Bring the best technology to the market before the competition does. Bold risk but it didn't pan out and left the company in a bad spot.

Sony was equally bold with their insistence on 3D games. They even forbade major 3rd party companies from publishing 2D games until they realized that Sega would get an exclusive that way. Sony just happened to have bet right. Then they doubled down and repeated that with DVD technology in the PS2. That strategy has not worked quite so well this time around.

As for Nintendo, the N64 was that one rare time that their whole 'wait and see' approach to technology did not pan out but Nintendo's real issues were with their management self-destructing more than anything else.

[BlackDS]

There's not a whole ton of comparable Psx/N64 ports, but I think Mega Man Legends makes a solid enough comparison:

Wow that ps1 version looks horrible