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What was the best looking/sounding game on the N64?
- Thread starter katkombat
- Start date
Not OOT. Just Majora's.
Star Falcon
Member
Turok 2, Rogue Squadron, Majora's Mask, Perfect Dark all come to mind. Games that took advantage of the expansion pack.
Sound-wise, anything by Rare. Grant Kirkhope, Graeme Norgate, Robin Beanland, Dave Wise and the rest of the gang made some unforgettable audio for the N64 games.
Sound-wise, anything by Rare. Grant Kirkhope, Graeme Norgate, Robin Beanland, Dave Wise and the rest of the gang made some unforgettable audio for the N64 games.
DonMigs85
Member
Surely it was also used for the fancy colored lighting and large worlds?
Here in PAL land the Zelda games ran at a max of 16FPS due to the 50hz, I'm not 100% sure its true but it is the common belief.
Around 17fps max, yeah.
Coreda
Member
It was revealed in the Conker's BFD directors commentary that the only reason DK64 required an expansion was because of a random bug in the 4MB version that would crash the game. The expansion 'fixed' it, so they had to lose money and ship it with one.
nkarafo
Member
Star Wars Battle for Naboo is like Rogue Squadron with some amazing drawing distance added which was impressive for the consoles at the time to say the least.
World Driver Championship is one the best looking racing games of the generation with no pop up, very detailed backgrounds and smooth frame rate.
Conker's Bad Fur Day is probably the best looking N64 game overall (dat conker shadow effect) but i never played it on a real N64 so i don't know how inferior it looks compared to an emulator.
Shadowman was a very impressive port and one of the very few games that didn't suffer frame rate loss if you enabled hi-rez mode.
Turok 2 doesn't count. It looks superb in still screenshots but the frame rate is horrible.
For sound, i'm not sure. I think Banjo-Kazooie was the best aural experience overall with its huge, high quality dynamic soundtrack and rich sound effects.
World Driver Championship is one the best looking racing games of the generation with no pop up, very detailed backgrounds and smooth frame rate.
Conker's Bad Fur Day is probably the best looking N64 game overall (dat conker shadow effect) but i never played it on a real N64 so i don't know how inferior it looks compared to an emulator.
Shadowman was a very impressive port and one of the very few games that didn't suffer frame rate loss if you enabled hi-rez mode.
Turok 2 doesn't count. It looks superb in still screenshots but the frame rate is horrible.
For sound, i'm not sure. I think Banjo-Kazooie was the best aural experience overall with its huge, high quality dynamic soundtrack and rich sound effects.
Let's not forget that it had full voice acting for every line of dialogue, and that Conker himself had full lip-syncing.
The amount of pure work gone into that cartridge is nothing short of a work of art.
NinjaBoiX
Member
It looks nice, but it's debatable how technically accomplished it is.
The aircraft are all low poly by nature, Tie Fighters, X wings and such, and the background is generally just a static sky box.
So when you put it like that, 20 or so extremely low poly models floating around in front to a static image, it's maybe not quite so impressive.
It's a good looking game, don't get me wrong. But when you break it down, it's not exactly Crysis.
That might be why they made it mandatory but that doesn't mean the game isn't actually using the extra RAM while it's running, or that it would have looked the same without it..
nkarafo
Member
Actually non of them.
Conker's real time shadow could be cast on vertical walls as well (like in modern games) and it could also change shape and stretch it self depending on the shape of the surfaces.
Both Zeldas only had a generic shadow effect (not even Link's full shadow) that could only rotate on the floor. DKC 64 had a similar shadow that was still a blob, it was still stuck on the floor surface and couldn't be cast on walls. But it could be stretched and change shape.
DonMigs85
Member
Diddy Kong Racing also had an undulating shadow underneath the plane that changed depending on the surface.
Coreda
Member
It was impressive even back when I played it on my Trinitron. Many games looked good on a CRT though, it's when they're played in emulation that they show their true quality, whether good or bad.
True, it would have utilized the extra memory. I remember the character smoothness and lighting in particular was top notch.
nkarafo
Member
Yes but, if i remember correctly, it wasn't the plane's actual shadow, it was a prop acting like a shadow. All planes used the same prop.
The only games that used an actual, real time shadow of the 3D model (or at least that i know of) was Conker, Jet Force Gemini and 1080 Snowboarding. Jet force Gemini's shadows were almost as good, but not quite as good as Conker's and could also be cast on some walls (not all for some reason). 1080 also had a proper shadow effect that the 3D model casts but it was also buggy and unpredictable.
I don't remember any other games that had actual real time shadows, can someone add some info?
Princess Viola
Member
I thought Perfect Dark looks pretty boss.
Coreda
Member
Banjo-Tooie had 3D shadows, too. Conkers probably had the best that I can remember.
There was a time when I would have said Episode I Racer, until I saw it running in 640x480 on a PC and my jaw hit the floor.
I think overall I would have to give the crown to Perfect Dark. The expansion pack textures and Dolby Surround on my stereo system were untouchable at the time.
I think overall I would have to give the crown to Perfect Dark. The expansion pack textures and Dolby Surround on my stereo system were untouchable at the time.
Fox Mulder
Member
When I got back into Retro collecting, I pretty much got a n64 again for Conker. Didn't mind one bit paying $70 for it.
daninthemix
Member
I would say Banjo-Kazooie. Those worlds, those textures...
Had frame rate problems though just like every Rare game.
Had frame rate problems though just like every Rare game.
FinalSeven
Neo Member
Definitely this. I remember going from Ocarina to Majora's and being blown away with the upgraded character model for young Link. He actually had a shoulder-strap for his sword, and it was so cool back in the day. I like little stuff like that. It really adds to the experience, even though it's such a small detail.
GoddyofAus
Banned
What Rare did with Conker on a 64 bit console is, to this day, a technological marvel.
DieNgamers
Member
I would say that's the holy trinity of N64 graphics. I came into this thread expecting at least one person to mention Conker.
That game still looks really good thanks to a great art direction. All characters were some of the best looking on the system, too! You should add Banjo Tooie and Perfect Dark. Lot's of little details an effects in every corner.
DonMigs85
Member
I would say that's the holy trinity of N64 graphics. I came into this thread expecting at least one person to mention Conker.
The sheer scale of some environments and characters in DK64 and Banjo-Tooie was really incredible even for now. If the framerate and resolution of Tooie was bumped up it could even hang with some PS2 platformers IMO.
BigDaddyFatSack
Banned
FUCKING TUROK 2: SEEDS OF EVIL is definitely up there!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4iDBneTOWC0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TCslzBeYOA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36F867YFz0k
Goddamn son!!! they dont make FPS OSTs like this anymore
So good
Also
Looked awesome!
Yep. Fucking nailed it.
I remember first time seeing it in "Hi-rez" glory with 4mb expansion memory. It was the best looking console game at the time.
IrishNinja
Member
It was unreleased, but Eternal Darkness on the N64 looked pretty amazing:
never saw these shots before! so cool, kinda wish it'dve leaked somehow like RE 1.5 if it was somehow that far along
Senor Kami
Banned
Those emulated pics are like the most deceptive images of N64 games. Nothing ever looked even remotely that good. That Perfect Dark one looks better than the HD version on Xbox.
Anyways, my vote would be World Drive Championship with the RAM pak installed. Someone has a pic of it in this thread but it wasn't anywhere near that jaggie. At least not with the RAM pak. That pick makes it look like Gran Turismo and I remember playing it and thinking it looked light years better than GT.
That would be nice. I wouldn't mind a PC like system if there was only one update and one only came out like every 4-5 years.
Anyways, my vote would be World Drive Championship with the RAM pak installed. Someone has a pic of it in this thread but it wasn't anywhere near that jaggie. At least not with the RAM pak. That pick makes it look like Gran Turismo and I remember playing it and thinking it looked light years better than GT.
That would be nice. I wouldn't mind a PC like system if there was only one update and one only came out like every 4-5 years.
Just dropped $70 on Conker today...framerate is worse than I remembered but its a beautiful game for the system, no doubt.
<3 Rareware
once they dropped the 'ware' however...
ajim
Member
MY MAN!
Version 3.0
Member
The most gorgeous thing on the N64 is probably the title screen for Starcraft 64. I don't see a decent example on an internet image search. Maybe I'll grab my own later. It's jaw-dropping. When I first saw it, I had to pull out the RAM pack to see if it would downgrade. It doesn't (the game does use the RAM pack, though).
Best-looking game, in-game? My personal pick would be Doom 64 - it's incredible-looking, much more visually impressive than other versions of Doom, and runs perfectly, unlike so many framey N64 games.
Best-sounding? I'm no audiophile, so I'll defer to others. But almost any Rare game is probably a contender. Actually, their games are all contenders in the visual department, too.
Best-looking game, in-game? My personal pick would be Doom 64 - it's incredible-looking, much more visually impressive than other versions of Doom, and runs perfectly, unlike so many framey N64 games.
Best-sounding? I'm no audiophile, so I'll defer to others. But almost any Rare game is probably a contender. Actually, their games are all contenders in the visual department, too.
Dark Octave
Banned
Starfox 64 blew me away when I heard the full and very good sounding voice acting.
Also Goldeneye had the best music of any game on the N64.
Also Goldeneye had the best music of any game on the N64.
Interceptor
Banned
I think wave race, for me it was the setting and i think by that time the most beautifull water.
Yep.
I also think it's one of the most attractive.
The visuals are perfectly balanced between framerate (which is reasonably solid for that era) and visual quality. The art style is designed to work with low resolution textures. They usually don't attempt to draw a lot of detail and rely more on colors and shading with simple textures.
I actually played some original Perfect Dark this morning and determined that the "high-res" mode isn't that at all. I always assumed they switched to some sort of interlaced 480i mode ala PS2 but that's not the case at all. The game still runs in 240p mode, actually, and only appears marginally cleaner. It almost seems like some sort of alternate rendering mode that produces a slightly cleaner image than normal. There certainly doesn't seem to be any significant increase in actual resolution, however.
I played a number of other games and was reminded just how poor the video output on the N64 actually was. Saturn and PlayStation may have suffered from limited 3D capabilities but they put out crystal clear RGB imagery (or s-video even). On something like an XRGB the image quality of those consoles rivals a direct feed image from an emulator. They are that sharp. The N64, though, suffers from severe image noise and artifacting. Dark areas are blurred out and detailed is destroyed. It's really quite awful and becomes especially obvious with darker games.
That said, they did a good job at keeping the "jaggies" at bay and it certainly has its own unique look, but the hardware simply doesn't produce a clean image. I don't think it's even all that suitable for 2D games as the resulting image is still much less sharp. Pixel art would be ruined by the hardware. Seems like some sort of technique implemented by Nintendo to smooth out visuals at the expense of clarity? All I know is that it makes the hardware even more fascinating to me and I really wonder just what's going on in there.
I played a number of other games and was reminded just how poor the video output on the N64 actually was. Saturn and PlayStation may have suffered from limited 3D capabilities but they put out crystal clear RGB imagery (or s-video even). On something like an XRGB the image quality of those consoles rivals a direct feed image from an emulator. They are that sharp. The N64, though, suffers from severe image noise and artifacting. Dark areas are blurred out and detailed is destroyed. It's really quite awful and becomes especially obvious with darker games.
That said, they did a good job at keeping the "jaggies" at bay and it certainly has its own unique look, but the hardware simply doesn't produce a clean image. I don't think it's even all that suitable for 2D games as the resulting image is still much less sharp. Pixel art would be ruined by the hardware. Seems like some sort of technique implemented by Nintendo to smooth out visuals at the expense of clarity? All I know is that it makes the hardware even more fascinating to me and I really wonder just what's going on in there.
SpacePirate Ridley
Member
Conker's Bad Fur Day without a doubt.
Was looking the other day the dev commentary in youtube for research and blimey, the work put on to that game so it looked and sounded do good is nothing sort of phenomenal. And all that without the memory expansion pack.
Was looking the other day the dev commentary in youtube for research and blimey, the work put on to that game so it looked and sounded do good is nothing sort of phenomenal. And all that without the memory expansion pack.
Conker's Bad Fur Day, of course. Majora's Mask also looked great, The World is Not Enough looked better than Perfect Dark, I thought, while maintaining a better frame rate. Most of the Rare games looked great, including one that hasn't been mentioned yet - Diddy Kong Racing.
Another unreleased game was Dinosaur Planet, in what was to be a very late Rare release. Videos exist of this game and it looked great, with very fluid animation. It's a shame that it ended up as Starfox Adventures and being yet another Rareware collect-a-thon, dragging down the Star Fox franchise and killing the Dinosaur Planet one before it could begin.
Another unreleased game was Dinosaur Planet, in what was to be a very late Rare release. Videos exist of this game and it looked great, with very fluid animation. It's a shame that it ended up as Starfox Adventures and being yet another Rareware collect-a-thon, dragging down the Star Fox franchise and killing the Dinosaur Planet one before it could begin.
littlebirdtoldme
Banned
Some time im wondering if the texture filtering was just poor video out.
n64 has some of the worst video out ever. It rivals original nes on an antenna cable.
And you can put me down on mario 64 as well.
SuperAngelo64
Banned
This thread needs way more Kirby 64
Sorcerer
Member
I don't know if I am easily impressed, but the music in the final battle of Shadows of the Empire I thought was amazing for a cartridge.
But then again Clay fighter for Snes had an actual song with lyrics for its theme if I recall.
And Star Ocean had actual spoken dialogue at least in the intro.
But then again Clay fighter for Snes had an actual song with lyrics for its theme if I recall.
And Star Ocean had actual spoken dialogue at least in the intro.
I'm not sure about that, really. The problems are the same even when using an N64 capable of RGB output. I don't think it's actually an issue with the video output so much as an internal rendering limitation.
