Blogging While Paused

Well, I’d have had my suspicions if you told me this eight years ago, but I’d probably have believed you anyway: I’m actually MORE disgusted with the games they’re putting out now than the ones they came up with back then. Bright colors, smooth graphics, streaming media that plays orchestrated music, in-depth stories—it all just looks so unnecessary to me. I’ll never be swayed from my opinion that the older the game, the better it is (except of course that Donkey Kong is probably the best one of all time). Space Invaders and Jetpac are old favorites, and Sabre Wulf is about as high tech as this old monkey cares to get. However, even I have to admit that some of the old N64 games were better than this new generation that uses controls no scientist could figure out.

I’m going to name what I believe are the best five N64 games out there, and what some of you might think are the best five ever. Now I’m aware there’s a number of those awful and confusing shooting games that are supposed to make you feel like you’re seeing it through your “hero’s” eyes, but luckily for me the opinions on those are so scattered it’s not worth trying to name one. The N64 was also incongruously short-changed when it came to role-playing games, which also were supposed to make you feel like you were whatever character you were playing, and none of them were any good anyway, so there aren’t any nominations there. And of course, there was no Metroid game, so that’s definitely not going to come back to bother me. Now I’m still going with the older the game the better, so that leaves us with this list of five: Super Mario 64, Star Fox 64, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Banjo-Kazooie, and Donkey Kong 64 (not necessarily in that order). Nothing quite like this set has come before or since.

Now before I continue, let me attempt to quell the rioters out there. You say there were sequels to these games? Not the same sequels that were originally planned. Ever heard of the Disk Drive? Went over like a lead balloon in Japan and was never released in the U.S. Worst mistake they ever made. Ah, but more on that in a minute. You say these games aren’t perfect? Well, no one ever accused them of it! A game’s only as good as the folks who program it. So, all you want, you can say to yourself, “You should be able to save!”, “Cranky should have kept his rocking chair!”, and “Luigi should be easier to find!” (Star Fox 64, Donkey Kong 64, and Banjo-Kazooie, respectively). I’m betting you’re still pretty satisfied with these games. “Oh, Cranky! Craaanky! What about Super Smash Brothers?” It has a sequel that most folks like better, and possibly another one coming out in February. …What’s that you say? Oh. Apparently due to some bubble-gum related incident, it’s coming out in March. At any rate, it might be the best N64 game ever, but it’s been trumped and not many folks play it as often as these ones.

But anyway, my list stands with those five mediocre games as the best this old new system has to offer. Now then, let me give you your opinion and tell you exactly what it is you like about these games so much. Super Mario 64 was the first game of its kind, and they must have done something right, because even if you’ve finished it with all those stars, you can just start it up, play, and have fun. I’d bet it’s because the levels are very large, but also easy to navigate quickly. Because of this, you don’t need an objective always in front of you. You can just make it up and play. Any game that captures this aspect means virtually endless hours of play. Banjo-Kazooie had a similar play style, although when you got the collectable things, you couldn’t set them back up. Still, it was just quick-paced enough that you could start over whenever you wanted. Plus, they built cheats right in, so you don’t have to pull out some third party piece of hardware when you get stuck! And the board game at the end was marvelous, revolutionary even! Donkey Kong 64 falls in this category too, although the levels were perhaps a touch more confined when it comes to navigation. Still, we gave you so much to find, so many critters to bash, so many mini-games, and even an appearance from me AND a Donkey Kong arcade game, you can’t help but love it. You could also earn cheats here, not by finding everything, but just by finding all those fairies. Unfortunately I broke my system trying to install that expansion thing they gave you with it. Very annoying.

Star Fox 64 and Zelda are in their own categories, I suppose. Let’s start with the easy one. Star Fox 64 defined replay value. The instruction book told you what you need to do to unlock harder paths, but your first time through you probably weren’t good enough to do it. Even so, you were able to finish the game, weren’t you? As you get better, the challenges become easier, and soon enough you’re setting up your own confusing matrix of stages you’ll be visiting. Plus, you get to bill the fella who hired you at the end. And they don’t expect you to read anything—they read it all for you!

So… Zelda, huh? Well, I’ll tell you this: as far as advertising VS delivery goes, this is the only Zelda game they’ve done right. Sure, they announced working on it two years early, but they didn’t really start advertising it until one year before its release. After this one it’s always three years in advance, so long you’ve lost interest by the time it comes out, and then it doesn’t have all the thrill of the original. What made Ocarina of Time so good? It couldn’t have been the fairy… Sure wasn’t the owl… Let’s see here—dungeons, easy to navigate world maps, side quests, mini-bosses, gear that tends to be used in only one or two places, a story (sort of), the fact that you could go anywhere you wanted again—hmm, this all looks like standard stuff. Wait, could it be? Yes! This game didn’t follow these standards, it set them! Not only that, but it made playing through all of it fun! Of course it had its own quirks, too. Surely you’ve all seen giant versions of those sand worm things, but how about a giant nighttime skeleton kid? Or a giant crow? They’re in there. The one thing I will complain about is I nearly doubled my age trying to get all those gold spiders (which turned out not to be a rip-off after all!).

Now let me ask you this: Wouldn’t you be excited if you heard—now or back then—that Super Mario 64 II was in the works? Or another Zelda like that one? That’s what the Disk Drive was going to accomplish. It would attach to the bottom, and you would put a game in the N64 and another cartridge (different shape) in the Disk Drive. The result would be a new game using the first one as a sort of basis. That means all the old worlds are there, but anything could be changed about them, and all kinds of new ones could be there too. If my studies are correct, they’d be able to release these just 2 years after the original, instead of going crazy, redesigning the entire thing, and releasing their “sequel” five years later. Two years is enough time for you to finish the game, get excited about the advertising, and get “all revved up” to play it when it comes out.

They actually finished the Zelda sequel, but never released it. That is, not until that “Master Quest” bonus disc thing. And not on the U.S. version. You heard me: somewhere right now, a little Japanese kid is pointing at the U.S. on a map and laughing his head off playing the real Master Quest. What kind of changes might there be? They didn’t tell me. But looking at the evidence, I’d say you get that Triforce, melt that frozen kingdom, go on some kind of mask side quest, and… something to do with Arwings.

Banjo-Tooie was going to be a Disk Drive game too. The version they finally settled on doesn’t quite make use of the super secret collectables of Banjo-Kazooie the way the original would have, but overall it’s not terribly disappointing. A Disk Drive version would mean you could go to the old worlds, collect the things, do new stuff, then go to the new part of the game and use the things. The sequel that exists is perhaps not as much fun as the original, but it does deserve an honorable mention here.

Those old games are looking pretty appealing right now, huh?

Join me next week, when I visit the top five Super Nintendo games!