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Saturn or N64?

Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.

I liked the art direction in BK. Obviously it was a bit blocky, but I felt they did the best they could with what they had. And I found it a fun game to play.
 
•Super Mario 64
•Mario Kart 64
•Paper Mario
•Ocarina of Time
•Majora's Mask
•F-Zero X
•Super Smash Bros.
•Pokemon Snap
•Goldeneye
•Banjo Kazooie
•Bomberman 64
•Diddy Kong Racing

-Star Fox 64
-Mario Party 2
-etc...
 
Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.
lol nailed it. Playing Banjo Kazooie is about as fun as cleaning your room.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.

Nope.

The greatness of Banjo-Kazooie comes from exploring all those worlds and finding new things. There was awe at every corner. It's not about mindless action.

Not to mention the writing, music, graphics, art design, etc.
 
Parents rented a Sega Saturn from Blockbuster for my 9th birthday. I remember playing Daytona USA and Virtua Fighter...possibly Virtua Cop or Bug! as well. I honestly don't remember much about the experience, which I find depressing because I remember my first experience with the Sega Genesis, 3DO, N64, Dreamcast, and basically every system I've ever played. I think I was more intrigued by the fact that the system's media format was CD which is something I hadn't really seen at the time. I was still used to playing cartridge based systems and games on PC with floppies. Looking back at the library of games now though, I think I'd really enjoy having a Saturn. I did have an N64 though and I loved every minute of it. Mario 64, Wave Race, Blast Corps, GoldenEye 007, Mischief Makers, Diddy Kong Racing, Pilotwings 64, Mission Impossible, Aerofighters Assualt, Conker's Bad Fur Day...there were so many fun games for that system!
 
Nintendo 64 edges it in my opinion.

Anyone buying one now should get the NTSC model though, so you can use the N64/Gamecube s-video cable on it (sold separately but very cheap).
 
LuFel said:
-Star Fox 64
-Mario Party 2
Shit, knew I was missing something major. Though I grew to hate the Mario Party games, but at the time they were fun.

EDIT: Also while I'll admit by the end of Rare's run on the N64 nearly all their platformers besides Conker's Bad Fur Day were collectathons to some degree, I honestly feel overall Banjo-Kazooie was a funner game than Mario 64. Even if it owes its existence to that game, I felt focusing more on huge, detailed-for-the-time worlds you explored which opened up even further after repeat play through (since you didn't have every move available from the get go) suited those early 3D platforming games better than Mario's mixture of exploration and pure-platforming, even though that's still a fun game and would eventually evolve into Galaxy which is definitely a better game than both BK and SM64.

DK64 was definitely shit though. It's like they had a few rejected worlds left over from BK so they just multiplied the amount you had to collect by 5 and made everything less about exploration and more about 'Collect X of this, go to point A then point B then point C then back to Point A and play this irrelevant minigame which breaks whatever flow the rest of this game). It's every flaw of SM64 and BK exaggerated beyond belief under the idea 'more is better' and it's the only Nintendo-era Rare game I flat out hate.
 
the saturn caters to my tastes much better than the n64. the saturn's arcade style games are my favorites. outside of a very few titles (mostly ones made by nintendo, surprise surprise), i rarely feel the desire to play the n64.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.

Opinion invalid, as you've obviously never played the game.

BK was fucking amazing, it wasn't all about platforming, it was about exploration. It was a great collectathon because the game was so well designed that you wanted to find every nook and cranny. And the music was fucking amazing. Grant Kirkhope at his best.

I'd like to play some more Saturn games, but like someone said earlier in the thread, I can't really name more than 5 games I'd like to try. Is this a good idea of all the good games? I'm not interested in RPGs, or arcade shoot em up games.
 
Owned both, easy win for n64. So many AMAZING games from Ocarina of Time, to Majoras Mask, to Mario 64, Starfox, Jet Force Gemini, Mario RPG, Goldeneye, Donkey Kong, Banjo Kazooie, Harvest Moon, etc.. etc... the list is seemingly endless.
 
Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.
You must have it confused for DK64. The levels don't look similar at all, and I'd like to see you complete some of the later levels on one life. It's not the most difficult thing ever, but it's no slouch. The first few levels are somewhat mediocre difficulty-wise (for obvious reasons), but the aesthetics are remarkable and keep things interesting. They in no way look the same.

Also, there seem to be a lot of people here who are only intimately familiar with the library of one of these two consoles. The N64 actually had a lot more than just Nintendo/Rare, just like the Saturn had a lot more than just arcade ports. I'd say the number of quality games in each library is close.
 
Out of curiosity, what platformers did the Saturn have? All I've ever seen from it is Super Tempo (which looks amazing but I'll probably never get the chance to play it) and I guess if it counts Bug! and Clockwork Knight.
 
Astrosanity said:
Out of curiosity, what platformers did the Saturn have? All I've ever seen from it is Super Tempo (which looks amazing but I'll probably never get the chance to play it) and I guess if it counts Bug! and Clockwork Knight.

Astal, Rayman, Croc, Pandemonium, Three Dirty Dwarves, Mr. Bones, NiGHTS, Keio Flying Squadron 2...

And the amazing Guardian Heroes, if you'd count that as a platformer.
 
N64 for the 4 player greatness and the integral Nintendo exclusives. This made it a good companion for the Playstation, which covered every genre the Saturn had and then some. Maybe it would have been different if I'd owned a Saturn back then, but digging through the Saturn library years later, as fun as its been, none of the games feel like they can hold up to the best Playstation classics and certainly none of them came close to duplicating the multi-player Goldeneye/Perfect Dark/Mario Kart 64 experience.
 
Astrosanity said:
Out of curiosity, what platformers did the Saturn have?

On top of the ones mentioned above, there's also Assault Suits Leynos 2, Mizubaku Daibouken, Metal Slug, Silhouette Mirage, Elevator Action Returns, Megaman 8, Mega Man X3, Mega Man X4, Shin Shinobi Den... A bunch of action-platformers. The best kind of platformer!
 
Tain said:
On top of the ones mentioned above, there's also Assault Suits Leynos 2, Mizubaku Daibouken, Metal Slug, Silhouette Mirage, Elevator Action Returns, Megaman 8, Mega Man X3, Mega Man X4, Shin Shinobi Den... A bunch of action-platformers. The best kind of platformer!
Was avoiding multi-platform titles when I made my N64 list like Rayman 1&2 and Mega Man since more often then not I just wound up playing them on a Playstation or a PC, but completely forgot about Metal Slug. Probably the first example in this thread of a game where as a kid in the 90's I'd of probably been really interested in the Saturn if I knew it had a good console port of Metal Slug (instead of barely knowing it existed... Odd since I was *this* close to buying a Dreamcast before SEGA pulled out of the console business).

Slightly off topic, but does anybody know if the Metal Slug anthology for the Wii is a good port of those games? Or is it like all these Capcom fighting games where you'd be better off just seeking out a Saturn?
 
33th7ip.jpg
 
As a previous owner of both I'd really have to give the nod to...ugh. Y'see, both had some really good standouts in genres that the other lacked.
On one hand you've got Mario 64, Mariokart, Zelda OoT, WWF, and Goldeneye.
On the other you have Guardian Heroes, Capcom Fighting games, Virtua Cops, Shining the Holy Ark, Baku Baku Animal, and Panzer Dragoon.

I'd prefer Mario 64 over anything on the Saturn, but Saturn had far MORE good games. I guess it comes down to which console would I rather play now if it were my only available system, in which case I'd take Saturn.
Sorry Mario.
 
Boerseun said:
Anyone buying one now should get the NTSC model though, so you can use the N64/Gamecube s-video cable on it (sold separately but very cheap).
I thought PAL models worked with the S-video cable as well? Weirdly enough the only N64s to work with RGB are the first models of US and Japanese ones and even then it requires modifications to work.

Astrosanity said:
Slightly off topic, but does anybody know if the Metal Slug anthology for the Wii is a good port of those games? Or is it like all these Capcom fighting games where you'd be better off just seeking out a Saturn?
Unless its a Japanese version there is no classic controller supporting meaning some button is either on waggle or you're stuck using the analogue stick on the Gamecube to move.

That said it does have more games than the Saturn has (but is it really the best ones? I thought the general view was the series is missable after 3)
 
saturn as its just games that you will never ever see again on any other platform

due to the wacky architecture

for me personally its the n64 though

mainly due to ocarina, mario 64, paper mario, ogre 64, 1080, wave race, golden eye to mention a few games
 
Astrosanity said:
Slightly off topic, but does anybody know if the Metal Slug anthology for the Wii is a good port of those games? Or is it like all these Capcom fighting games where you'd be better off just seeking out a Saturn?

Seek out a Japanese Saturn just to play Metal Slug? Save your money, the Wii Anthology is fine. Or you could download the original for a few bucks on PSN, and MS3 on XBLA.
 
Both systems where kinda depressing if you only owned 1 Playsation felt like Disney World while the others where kinda in dark times. Zelda was depressing game to play in 98 along with FZero. But I'd pick the Saturn Burning Rangers,Internet,MegaMix,WSB98 built in OS and memory, 4 MB cart. N64 was just weird to own alot of the games where great but dark.
 
N64 had a lot of revolutionary games for its time. Before there was Xbox Live there was "4-player" madness going on in college dorm rooms and peoples basements / livingrooms thanks to the Nintendo 64.

Snowboard Kids. WCW No Mercy. Perfect Dark. F-Zero X. Mario Party. Goldeneye 007. Mario Kart. Diddy Kong Racing. BattleTanx. Turok: Rage Wars. Etc.

It also might have the best Nintendo-developed games ever. Wave Race 64. 1080 Snowboarding. The Zeldas. Super Mario 64. Pilotwings 64. Star Fox 64. F-Zero X.

I loved that system.
 
Saturn for Panzer Dragoon games, Guardian Heroes, Virtua Cop and a slew of awesome side scrollers and 2D beat em ups. Oh and some cult titles like fighting Vipers and Virtua On.

Saturn is a godly console.
 
Tough choice. I'd probably go with the N64 for the Nintendo/Rare games and a few exclusives like SF Rush, but if you want fighters, RPGs, shooters, arcade games or 2D games then Saturn is the clear choice.
 
Anth0ny said:
Opinion invalid, as you've obviously never played the game.

BK was fucking amazing, it wasn't all about platforming, it was about exploration. It was a great collectathon because the game was so well designed that you wanted to find every nook and cranny. And the music was fucking amazing. Grant Kirkhope at his best.

I'd like to play some more Saturn games, but like someone said earlier in the thread, I can't really name more than 5 games I'd like to try. Is this a good idea of all the good games? I'm not interested in RPGs, or arcade shoot em up games.

You have a Pokemon sprite avatar. What.

And I don't understand how anyone can claim that only hipsters like the Saturn. A hipster is basically a trendy. In other words, they'd turn their nose up at the Saturn, and be staunchly pro-Playstation instead.

Not enough Paper Mario nods here from the N64 side makes me sad. It's one of the few games from that era that hasn't aged a wrinkle. Eat it, Game Informer.
 
I can't really decide, first-party desperation about the new kid on the block brought us some unforgettable stuff for both consoles.
 
i never understood why people said n64 was the most technically superior among the n64/psx/saturn generation. now i understand it, but at the time i thought it was such a ridiculous thing to say.

i always thought n64 was a blurry hot mess. in the end, games like tobal 2 and wipeout xl were superior to anything on n64, regardless of raw hardware specs.

even the am2-developed saturn games looked better than the n64 stuff imo: virtua fighter 2, sega rally, figthing vipers, etc

n64's texturing / memory issues really held it back.
 
Sir Ilpalazzo said:
This topic is kind of making me interested in the Saturn's library. It's too bad it's so inaccessible.

Yep. I want to get one, but fuck - It'd cost a fortune to get all the games I want.
 
I did an internal check of my dream n64 and SAT libraries and the total came in at 26-22 in favor of the Saturn. That was without taking shmups into account so its actually a bigger gap than that.

That being said I still have fonder memories of the N64 since I really only played a few 2d fighters on the SAT until I got into the rest of the import scene later on.

I agree with the Banjo Kazooie hate. I despised the game and the horrible direction 3d platformers went because of it. It doesn't help that the game over sapped any interest I had in beating the game. Hot witch + ugly bear > normal looking cartoon bear + ugly witch
 
Chacranajxy said:
Banjo Kazooie was a collecathon where every level looked exactly the goddamn same, and it took forever to get anywhere. And it just wasn't exciting. There was no skill involved in the platforming -- it was basically a non-stop endurance run to see how far you could get before turning the system off and doing something fun.

First of all that's major exaggeration. Second of all, god forbid a game asks you to collect something. Collecting was extremely fun in Banjo Kazooie, so many brilliant ideas in that game. Stone cold classic.
 
Barkley's Justice said:
even the am2-developed saturn games looked better than the n64 stuff imo: virtua fighter 2, sega rally, figthing vipers, etc
The models in those games were blockier than most N64 games, the textures are unfiltered, pixelated messes. There is no contest. Though they are nice looking games.

AbsoluteZero said:
I remember hearing this song when I downloaded the christmas theme for Sonic Adventure.

It's a bit depressing we'll never have access to those goodies ever again.
You can burn a disc that will put the DLC for any Dreamcast game onto the VMU.
 
Saturn was great, I had a PS1 too, but I bought the Saturn first and was very LTTP with PS1.

N64 never appealed, Nintendo's own first party games have never been a system seller for me, and it was a toy-like, ugly looking machine, awkward controller and ugly games. I've since bought some of the N64 games on virtual console/DS ports etc, and none of them have really held up for me.
 
The funny thing is this post is basically exactly what GAF was like in 1998.

All we need is someone stealing some Saturn games...
 
The N64 was terrible - but I say this as someone who received one from a friend in 2006 and had been a PlayStation only gamer up until then. The main issues:

- The unconventional design of the controller, in which half of it went to waste, really put me off just playing games. The few games which did use all of it, such as Doom 64, were impossible to control. Also my analog stick was really loose, so that probably affected things.
- Cartridges, and their subsequent large cardboard boxes, took up more storage space than CDs and had the problem of the sticker peeling off. They also made the games lower quality - audio was often really muffled due to compression and music was usually MIDI to keep within the storage limitations imposed. I remember it also made games up to £65 when new.
- The image quality was terrible. Very murky with some absolutely horrible analog connections. Framerate issues were also abound - it was like playing things in slow motion compared to PlayStation.
- The system was ugly. I hate systems that try to build themselves up into some sort of unique looking monolith. I prefer just a nondescript, sleek looking box that I can hide in a corner. I disliked the way the cartridge stuck up in the air (a NES style tray would have been preferable).
- All in all, the games had their quirky appeal, but nothing really had the same sort of grand cinematic excellence that you got on PlayStation with Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy VIII.
 
I NEED SCISSORS said:
The N64 was terrible - but I say this as someone who received one from a friend in 2006 and had been a PlayStation only gamer up until then. The main issues:

- The unconventional design of the controller, in which half of it went to waste, really put me off just playing games. The few games which did use all of it, such as Doom 64, were impossible to control. Also my analog stick was really loose, so that probably affected things.
The controller's analog stick is its only real weakness. That is an issue, but get a replacement stick or good controller and it's great. It's designed so that you either use the dpad or stick, not both; that's fine, you don't need both at once. Nintendo did clearly think more games would use the dpad than did when they designed it, but still it was a great design. With controllers that have either two prongs, with the dpad and stick next to eachother, one or the other of them is going to be a little easier to use than the other; with the N64 both are in the perfect place, when you hold it with the left hand on that prong and the right on the buttons.

- Cartridges, and their subsequent large cardboard boxes, took up more storage space than CDs and had the problem of the sticker peeling off. They also made the games lower quality - audio was often really muffled due to compression and music was usually MIDI to keep within the storage limitations imposed. I remember it also made games up to £65 when new.
Cartridge stickers don't often peel off unless you really treat them terribly. Carts are MUCH more durable than CDs and are much harder to break. Carts allow for immediate access to all game data, making for much shorter or no load times and larger areas without streaming (you don't need to only do what you can load in RAM). I think Nintendo did the right thing sticking with carts, they are better in more ways than they are worse in my opinion.

- The image quality was terrible. Very murky with some absolutely horrible analog connections. Framerate issues were also abound - it was like playing things in slow motion compared to PlayStation.
The image quality was far superior to Playstation or Saturn image quality thanks to perspective correction, z-buffering, anti-aliasing, filtering, and more. It did have blurry textures, but the jaggies, texture warping, etc. that the other consoles have (PSX particularly, for texture warping) are much, much bigger issues. The N64 was much faster than Saturn or PSX, but didn't push lots more polygons; instead a lot of that power was used in the much improved image quality, so that fewer polygons were needed (on PSX for instance polygons often had to be overlapped, I believe, to hide the awful polygon edges; on N64 that isn't an issue thanks to its hardware so you could use fewer polys.)

The N64 did have low texture resolutions in many games, thanks to the small texture cache, but I think the much improved quality of the 3d makes it well worth it in comparison to most games on the other systems...

As for framerates, it is true that some games that pushed the system did have questionable framerates. I don't think they made games unplayable, though, and N64 framerates were much better than early 3d framerates were (Super FX games for example...). Also in many games the worst framerates are with an expansion pak and High Res mode turned on; often this is a switch and the player can choose low or high resolution, choosing between a better framerate or better graphics.

- The system was ugly. I hate systems that try to build themselves up into some sort of unique looking monolith. I prefer just a nondescript, sleek looking box that I can hide in a corner. I disliked the way the cartridge stuck up in the air (a NES style tray would have been preferable).
It's the original model Playstation that's horribly ugly, I think that the N64 is beautiful, one of the best looking consoles ever.

Also, the NES's cart tray, as cool as it looks, was a horrible design idea because of how unreliable it makes the system. If you're going to use carts, make the most out of their advantages and have a direct cartridge connection -- having carts but then using internal moving parts that can break sacrifices one of the medium's advantages, that of the greater durability (to both system and cartridge) that they bring.

- All in all, the games had their quirky appeal, but nothing really had the same sort of grand cinematic excellence that you got on PlayStation with Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy VIII.
Now that, of course, is entirely opinion. In my opinion, sure the Playstation had more cinematic experiences, but the N64 had better games. :)
 
_dementia said:
This was good too.

It was OK. I didn't really like it, but I have four of them. So there you go.

I NEED SCISSORS said:
The N64 was terrible - but I say this as someone who received one from a friend in 2006 and had been a PlayStation only gamer up until then. The main issues:

- The unconventional design of the controller, in which half of it went to waste, really put me off just playing games. The few games which did use all of it, such as Doom 64, were impossible to control. Also my analog stick was really loose, so that probably affected things.
- Cartridges, and their subsequent large cardboard boxes, took up more storage space than CDs and had the problem of the sticker peeling off. They also made the games lower quality - audio was often really muffled due to compression and music was usually MIDI to keep within the storage limitations imposed. I remember it also made games up to £65 when new.
- The image quality was terrible. Very murky with some absolutely horrible analog connections. Framerate issues were also abound - it was like playing things in slow motion compared to PlayStation.
- The system was ugly. I hate systems that try to build themselves up into some sort of unique looking monolith. I prefer just a nondescript, sleek looking box that I can hide in a corner. I disliked the way the cartridge stuck up in the air (a NES style tray would have been preferable).
- All in all, the games had their quirky appeal, but nothing really had the same sort of grand cinematic excellence that you got on PlayStation with Metal Gear Solid, Gran Turismo and Final Fantasy VIII.

1. The controller was weird, but it was designed for a world where 3D gamign was untested. It could be played in two ways: In 3D mode with the analog stick, or 2D mode with the D-Pad. It managed to get around the main issue of the Dual Shock at the time, which was hand cramps from playing 3D games.

2. Cartridges in hind sight was a mistake, due to price and third party support. But I would be lying if I would pick a CD game over a cartridge version. It plays infinitely better in every way, no load times whatsoever and much more reliable.

3. The system design was nice. Like a high-end car.

4. Both systems delivered different things. For example, while you had realism with Gran Turismo, you had action with Mario Kart.
 
It's very simple:

JPN/modded Saturn = Saturn is the best

normal US Saturn = N64 stomps its head in


The above equations are irrefutable facts, anyone who says otherwise is a liar.
 
It is true that N64's lineup was weaker in Japan. The system was a flop over there, and it didn't help that a lot of it's games were Western.

Ironic considering how this past decade has been for Nintendo.
 
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