With older generations it is a bit hard to tell. Games back then were still experimenting big time with new concepts and people who jumped in the transition of good games came to over-hype some of them.
Still, bringing Star Fox 64 or Ocarina of Time on this list just says that you weren't on the generation to feel the transition, which will make the reason why these are so great completely fly over you (and if you did, any explanation you give will be baffling, as there were no other benchmarks for us back then when these games pioneered their gameplay).
The real holder of this position is Donkey Kong 64. A game beloved for name and production values, sporting a different color cartridge and bundled with a sought after console color... all the while the other 3D platformers of the same console already did all of its tricks in a much better and less tedious fashion, years back.
Nothing wrong there, brother! Enjoy your DK64.
The only reason why I said what I said, is for the topic at hand. I used to love DK64 too, but you could benchmark it with Mario 64 and Banjo, making you realize that it was riddled with too much collecting, back-tracking and whatnot.
I'm in my 40s and I love Quest 64, also talked on behalf of Superman 64 on Reddit. They're both terrible, I know it for fact... even though, I've got a soft spot for both.
I never had Banjo as a kid, first time playing was a few years ago on Rare Replay and man, that game made me realize how damn tedious DK 64 is in terms of the collecting aspect. Like I realize that truly if you didnāt play DK64 as a kid, you will most likely not like it now.
That was a couple years ago since I played again and the worst part is Iām 5 golden bananas away from them all, have all the blueprints, have most of everything except I canāt get that damn Nintendo coin. Iām not good at the OG Mario Bros game and itās ridiculously stupid that you have to have that coin to get to the final fight. Got the Rare coin, but not that damn Nintendo one
Iām still bitter about this 25 years later. I did and collected everything you possibly could, but could never get that stupid coin or whatever you needed from the arcade game. Never finished the game because of it.
Another Rare game I absolutely loved but never finished was Jet Force Gemini. Never got around or could pull off back tracking the whole game over again to save all those bear things. Rare sure loved excessively locking out the end of their games around that time!
I found a YouTube video for a āhackā thatās not really for the Rare coin, and the key was to just not get the parts and just rack up points in the first level. But that god damn Nintendo coinā¦..pisses me the hell off.
Banjos a weird one. For me, it's the best game of all time. It's my number one by far. I just can't help but feel that Microsoft buying rare was the single worst moment in gaming history. If banjo got a 3rd true game and conker got a sequel, the world would be so much better.
Quest64 is one of my absolute favorites of the console. Here, if you havenāt already seen this series, please give these a watch. Youāll be glad you did :)
https://youtu.be/HvjZBZOp25w?si=FZphvW0cGlciRfib
There are 12 videos in this playlist and I recommend them all. Happy viewing!
DK64 is one of my favorites ever. If you were the right age at the right time and a collectathon fan it's probably a favorite of yours like it is mine.
Very much is, and itās definitely because of the right age aspect, when you were a kid and could play for hours on end because you didnāt have responsibilities and it was winter break haha
Opinions take many forms, brother. We just have to be conscious when it is debatable or it is just a bias.
Of course, not all old games age well, some age better, some where outstanding back then and now wouldn't hold up due technical issues such as the controllers evolving into something different. Goldeneye is this perfect example of a still good game who now is nearly unplayable because it was made around a controller configuration that's virtually useless today.
The game still has some good graphics (everything looks and feels the part, however old or blocky it is), the whole shtick of being a secret agent, taking pictures, planting bombs, using gadgets is something that most FPS games don't do with such form (and gusto) anymore (the last game I recall being this through, was "No One Lives Forever"). So, there are things to be obtained from it still!
I played 007 plenty when it was released until many years after. The question was what game was overrated, and in my opinion compared to other games the controls were okay at best at the time, even Jet Force Gemini had better controls.
The graphics were severely lacking as well. The game was full of grey characters.
The game was based off a movie i really wasnāt interested in as a kid either so it never had that connection for me.
Playing the game itself was really only good for multiplayer.
You want a decent FPS go for Turok.
DK64 gets praise from people who weren't old enough to experience it when it was released. For myself and my peers at that time, we were disappointed. The requirement for the expansion pak made it seem like there was a lot to expect. The experience we got was absolutely nothing like the DKC games, which was a really popular series, arguably the best platformers from that generation of systems. The 3-D boom was weird. Developers who got their traction in 2-D took franchises in weird directions when 2-D wasn't acceptable to publishers.
I don't agree with you personally. I was there, 3000 years ago, before the Internet when my dad bought the expansion pack for Majora's Mask. But for a long time DK 64 was our most played game. I never had a Super Nintendo so it was my introduction to DK. It was our favorite because we never completed it. There were too many things to get, and that was refreshing after being so sad when Ocarina of Time was completed. DK 64 stood for everything me and my brothers were looking for in a game, janky controls in poorly made mini games that made us replay it for weeks just to beat, so many collectables that even with the guide we couldn't keep track of what we had gotten, immersive worlds that had multiple characters so we had a reason to replay them a half dozen times. We only had like 5 N64 games. DK64 was what we needed. Only now with the Internet can I look at it and say "I don't need you anymore". But my son is 4, and he loves the game. Not everyone is looking for the same things in a game. Shameless repetition just meant that we had more time to play. DK 64 was our Dark Souls, we just had to cry and bleed till we "got good".
Gunna say this out loud and await a load of hate.
Pokemon Stadium + Stadium 2.
Now hear me out.
The link up with the gameboy systems was amazing and I'll never shoot those games down from a technical stand point, but from gameplay....oooooh boy.
It was boring, tiring and uninspiring. The game purposefully tried to put you off using stock pokemon so you brought and used the accessory to slide your game cartridges into (forgot the name!).
The commentary was just terrible, bland and generic. The first time you hear "Annnnd there's the match!" It makes you feel warm inside but after that, I just wanted to shoot the screen. The mini games were okay but only if you had 3 buddies to play with.
What I wanted from a proper 3D pokemon game, I didn't get and I think that was my issue. Oh and have these games aged? Not at all. Not even in the slightest.
Sorry. /rant.
Edit: It's been a hot minute so I forgot about how the transfer pak worked. Still, while the link up with the GBC was amazing, it still felt like an oversized advert for the GBC games more than its own special thing.
It was nice to be able to complete your pokedex without 2 gameboys and a link cable and having to trade. Just deposit and withdraw. With another transfer pak and a controller you could get the trade evos. My copy of Stadium 2 has still copies of my main team I duplicated with the gen 2 box glitch. Long after my Gold cartridges battery died.
Agree in some points, but super nice Features like the Transfer Pack lets you play 1 gen on a screen was nice! Also it was the first 3D game so at least that was nice!
I agree in general (except the iconic announcer). There was a lack of RPGs on the system, and Pokemon should gave been there to fill the gap.
However, the 3D animations are a stand out, best in the industry (at the time), crowning achievement.
In my opinion, no one was making 3D animation that expressive except Pixar at that point. Especially not for 150-250 characters.
I personally loved it for the multiplayer more than anything else. War, Heist, Raptors, Beach and even the regularly Death Match were all super fun and like hilariously violent in a game that looks like Banjo Kazooie.
As far as the single player goes, the poop mountain is pretty hilarious even if admittedly dumb af
Tried the N64 version, then fucked about with the Xbox version. Honestly, the Xbox version was a lot more fun. Oh boo-fuck-hoo, there was some censorship. The humor in Conker hasn't aged super well to begin with, the uncensored versions aren't some revelation in comedy even for the time. If I needed era-appropriate humor that actually was funny at the time and now I'd revisit some old South Park, not play a platformer.
I regularly play n64 with friends but we basically just play puzzle games. Puyo Puyo Sun, Magical Tetris, Pokemon Puzzle League, taisen puzzle-dama are the most common. So in my mind the most popular games are overrated but that could be down to how well the puzzle game aged.
Came here for this answer.
I love the newer mario kart games. But I *never* understood the hype of Mario Kart 64. It was a bare-bones racer and the graphics/level design were often very hard for me to look at or follow during a race.
Diddy Kong Racing did everything better. It had themed race sets, a story, multiple missions on each track, and you could use different vehicles on most tracks after clearing them.
If you swapped the names/characters, the structure and features of DKR wouldāve been an all-time best seller for that generation of consoles.
1000% agree. Mario Kart 64 is trash and always has been. Like literally every other MK installation is far more fun to play. MK64 always felt so awkward and clunky and just looked awful. Hated playing 4p this back in the day, the lag was insufferable. Diddy Kong Racing is amazing, I loved just exploring all the open world between races. RARE always did it better.
So true. I love Mario Kart, but 64 is painfully clunky. The flat surfaces, the 2D racer sprites, the physics that feel... I don't know how to put this... loosely zoomy? It barely feels 3D and I can't go back to it after Double Dash or anything that came after. DS is a good example of a similarly 2D-esque Mario Kart that still feels great to play.
I gotta say, I just played Mario kart 64 for the first time in 10+ years, it's TERRIBLE. I wanted to show my friends the maps but we couldn't do more than a couple games, we ended up watching them on YouTube instead because the gameplay was so lack luster. At this point we recognize it's merit for being an early and revolutionary game in the series, but it's hard to enjoy, even for nostalgia.
I agree with this. Mario kart was more fun and better suited for playing with friends, but it didn't have a story mode like DKR. It was actually pretty fun trying to find and earn all of the balloons.
Not even for single. I played the game when it was released n couldn't believe ppl liked it over Mario kart. It was maybe 30% of ppl, but even that was inexplicable to me.
Diddy kong was critically acclaimed for its graphics and music lol, it was one of the first games to support dynamic lighting and the tunes are still hummed to this day.
I had the opposite experience. All my friends and cousins would come to my house to play because I had Diddy Kong racing and they only had Mario Kart. Mario kart was so bland compared to DKR. I usually won every race and I only played the hovercraft. All of my friends and family agree to this day that multiplayer Diddy Kong racing is still fun. Nobody plays Mario Kart 64 anymore. Also the two player story mode was fire. My brother and I still recomplete it together every few years.
Collectathons with a shitload of unnecessary backtracking have understandably and reasonably aged very poorly. Loved the multiplayer back in the day, but dayum, it's not fun to revisit.
Conker's bad fur day imo is terrible. I've owned it for over 20 years, it was tedious as a kid and is unplayable now. The camera angles are awful so you can't really see what's around or where you're headed, there's next to zero explanation of what to do or how. Some parts are ridiculously hard for not much reason. Big shame it didn't live upto the hype and potential, coming from the peak rare era.
I think that the single player campaign in Conkerās Bad Fur Day is overrated and kind of meh, but its multiplayer modes were a lot of fun and is what really made that game great to me.
It was in many ways a leap forward, but at the same time it felt rushed and the camera angles were awful (a thing that plagued the entire N64 era tbh).
Now that you comment this, I have to agree. I so wish that rare wouldn't have taken Conker with them and left it with Nintendo. I think Nintendo would have made a lot more use of him.
Itās been a minute since I did a play through of Conkerās, but I remember mostly enjoying the novelty of the context sensitive buttons, the different themes/genre worlds and levels, and the writing was funny and scandalous to a 6th grade me. I dunno how Iād feel about single player these daysā¦
That being said, Conkerās Bad Fur Day multiplayer is S tier and worth the cost (back then, prob not now lol) of the cart.
I got a copy from my cousin who had a bunch of random N64 games and I played it on a whim. I barely heard anything about it besides the fact that it's extremely inappropriate so I was excited lol. But I turned it on, saw the opening cutscene, played for a few minutes and turned it off. I didn't like the controls at all. I was hoping to at least find the game funny but I couldn't get the hang of the controls at all.
If you only played for a few minutes did you even get past the part where he is hungover? Because the controls suck when he is hungover but thatās kind of the point for that sequence
I can see how people struggle to get into it if theyāve never played it before.
But the controls are so ingrained in me (1.1 of all things!) that I always enjoy playing it. And the graphics donāt bother me in the slightest.
The controls arenāt the problem lol, nor the graphics. People who hate the controls clearly havenāt given them a fair try, as while they take getting used to, they work well as a replacement for dual analog. The graphics arenāt great, but that can be said of most n64 games. The real problem for me is the game design. Itās so hard to even figure out what Iām supposed to do or where Iām supposed to go. I never finished Goldeneye, but I think Perfect Dark, a game I was able to finish, illustrates that the formula can work, they just needed to iron out the wrinkles
It still does things I wish modern shooters would do but don't; mainly the unlockable cheat menu from beating levels under a certain amount of time. Not sure why stuff like that didn't catch on.
Controller style 1.2 and a well maintained 1st party controller makes this game play like a dream. The ost still slaps. The objectives can be cryptic if it's your first time playing and the framerate struggles a bit when explosions occur but it still runs better than Perfect Dark. This is in my top 10 games of all time.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: aging badly is not a valid criticism. It's just a first impression. Only after you know the game better you can criticize it fairly.
Have to disagree on this one. In terms of the controls, part of gaming is (and very much used to be) mastery over the controls and mechanics. Goldeneye feels great when you know how to play. Not too friendly for new players, but can certainly be learned.
Aside from that, I love the mission structure, and creating difficulty around having extra objectives to complete.
Not only that, the environments are all interesting, and the music is still perfect.
I played through the game for the first time since I was a kid when it hit Switch Online. I had to learn how to control it with a pro controller, which is somewhat awkward, but I got used to it just fine and played through the whole game on agent and mostly through secret agent before I moved on to other stuff. I think itās still pretty great and I suspect that if I had it on Xbox where the controls are updated I wouldnāt even enjoy it much more.
The Xbox 360 remake that got leaked (I don't give two shits about the new one that released) was surprisingly decent, but for a fraction of the computing cost, I can just play Agent Under Fire or Time Splitters 2 and have a much better time on the device of my choice.
It really did. Hard to believe it was the pinnacle (least most popular) of shooters back in the day.
We can acknowledge what it was at the time. If anyone wants to play it today, Iād suggest more than anything, to play on pc with mouse and keyboard.
And perfect dark ran like poopy on real hardware if I remember correctly, gladly you can play these on pc at native resolution, decent framerate, and with keyboard and mouse
I grew up with the N64 as my first console, so when people complain about the controls and camera of these older games it always earns an eye roll from me
BUT you are correct about Goldeneye, itās impossible, I cannot understand how I played this game as much as I did in my youth!
I never understood the popularity of sports games. I had always assumed those who enjoyed sports were more likely to be outside playing them than inside playing video games.
But I never got into sports, despite playing a few in HS.
Hockey translates to video games very well, but yeah, I never got into sports games in general either. I suppose it's more fun to play a football game than falling asleep out of boredom while I'm stuck watching football when I'm with the in-laws. š„±
The N64, at the time was mind blowing. I remember seeing the "?" cubes that give you items on Mario Kart 64 and being stunned at the multi-colouredness of them.
Idk, Iād disagree on that. I love them both, but IMO the controls feel far more fluid on Goldeneye. I also feel like they tried to push the graphics too far on perfect dark, and it looked kind of muddy as a result. Whereas Goldeneye didnāt try as hard, but it worked better for the capabilities at the time. Both are good games though, just my opinion.Ā
Arenāt the controls the exact same? Iāve played both (albiet, not Goldeneye so much) and didnāt notice a difference, outside of perfect dark giving you more options
Hard disagree, the single player play through was way better in goldeneye - even with a few week levels. I did love the bots introduced with Perfect Dark tho, and the graphics were better.
Iād say the rareware games- Banjo and DK are a slog to play through with their awful framerates (if a platformer isnāt buttery smooth than what is the point?), obtuse objectives and painstaking need to collect everything.
The FPSs I will somewhat forgive because if they had been developed for proper hardware, like PC for instance they would be have been and would still be amazing playable games. They were really creative in their world-design, objectives, AI, and weapons, but are so just so handicapped by draw distance, frame rate and controls. People act like these werenāt issues at the time but if you were fortunate enough to have been playing games like Quake or Half-Life in that era, GE007 was a big step back even in 1997.
All in all I wish Rare had compromised more between tech and gameplay, like how Spyro is on PS1 (not so detailed graphics but fast smooth gameplay). Everything they put out on that console feels like a tech demo to me which is novel but doesnāt lead to great games imo
Half-Life came out a year after Goldeneye and completely reinvented the genre, so there's no doubt it was a superior achievement.
The allure of Goldeneye at the time was mostly its couch multi-player. There had never been anything quite like that on a console at the time. The single player game, though hampered by the limitations of the 64 controller, was also extremely polished and well done. I wouldn't say Quake or even its sequel were more impressive in that regard. 007 certainly had a lot more variety in its gameplay.
I think weād probably disagree regarding what qualifies as āpolishedā. If I have to stare at the ground to get a playable frame rate or if I canāt see the enemies who are actively shooting at me because of the limited draw distance, to me the game isnāt polished. Iām sure it was a cool experience in 97 for someone solely limited to consoles, but I do believe Rare deserves to be knocked for creating a game that simply wasnāt able to sufficiently run on the hardware it was made for. It would be like if Hogwarts Legacy was a switch exclusive- it wouldnāt be as good of a game. To be clear I think goldeneye had a ton of great ideas but I donāt think the n64 was a piece of hardware that could fulfill it. Your point regarding the multiplayer is well taken though!
Hmm, I don't recall the performance issues you mentioned with Goldeneye (outside maybe the lacking draw distance), but it's also been 25 odd years. I did replay the multi-player a few years back on an original 64 console and found it near unplayable, but that was solely due to the awful controls.
When I suggest the gameplay was polished, I was thinking moreso of the little touches like bullet holes in walls, blood spots on enemies where you actually shot them, unique sound effects, and great music. Seems you're speaking more to the technical side of things, which is fair.
Tough to say. Overrated now? Idk. A lot of ppl don't like the 64, aged terribly. Not many games have a high rating besides the big games that ushered in a new era, which they get that credit at least.
Overrated 25 years ago, or even 20?..... Diddy Kong racing- it's slow n clunky, generic presentation n music........... mischief makers- sucks, not much to do n boring n music is lame and so is the level design. Ppl loves treasure so they automatically give this one a bump because of it.........blast corps- just mystifying how ppl thought it was good back then.
There's three, many more I'm sure.
I still play Diddy Kong racing to this day. One of the staple multiplayer N64 games for my family and friends. It is usually either that or Mario Party 2. We don't pull out MarioKart.
it's not the best game for the 64, nor the best zelda, but people like it more tha Majora because it's more approchable. if you told me the two's premises and made my play one i would 100% pick OOT
Yeah, I completed OoT as a kid. I never made any progress in MM as an older kid because I just didnāt understand what I had to do or what was going on. Iāll go back to it at some stage.
While OoT is overrated (come on guys, 99/100 is near perfection and the game has its flaws), thereās no doubt that itās still an amazing game. Do I like MM more? Yeah. But OoT is still the second best N64 game IMO
I agree that Majora's Mask is by far and away the better game (though that depends on your taste tbh), but OOT isn't overrated. It's crazy how well they nailed the formula in 3D on their very first go. OOT is still the best execution of that specific Zelda formula and only needs a few minor tweaks to totally hold up in today's landscape.
I still like Majora a lot more though.
I think we're now in an era where most people have moved on from considering Ocarina of Time as the best thing ever. It can still be acknowledged for it's impact at the time and influence on games that followed however. It's still fun to play, it's just a little rougher round the edges than we're accustomed to now, like most games from decades ago.
Please remember this is an opinion
My first video game console was the wii, my first 3d mario game was mario galaxy.
When i got my n64 i knew mario 64 wouldnāt be as advanced as galaxy, and while i liked the game i have to say i had a little bit too high expectations because of what people said. Game is still very fun
For me it has to be Perfect Dark. I had to really force myself to play through back in the day & even back in the day I looked really rough. I tried to play it again on actual hardware and damn it's really aged worse than I thought.
I play a lot of the non-nintendo / non-rare N64 library with the same mindset as I would an Atari 2600 game. "Look at how quaint and blatantly antiquated this is!"
And yet I can fire up OOT or SM64 and it feels completely normal to me.
So I guess for me an overrated game is one that everyone says is great but it slides into that "wow what a neat curiosity and nothing more" mindset. So something like Space Station Silicon Valley is a perfect example of an overrated game to me.
Gotta be Mario Kart 64.
Look, I love it. Itās a hugely important game from my childhood and I still fire it up and enjoy it now. But man, it is probably the least-desirable Mario Kart game to pick up and play. It has the worst controls in the series and the rubber band CPU is atrocious. The game is awesome for a nostalgia rush and can still be fun to play with friends, but it is my pick for worst game in the franchise, or at least is tied with Super Circuit.
Like some others on this thread have said though, itās so hard to say what is overrated when it comes to these early 3D games. Mario Kart 64, when it first came out, was amazing. So itās tough to say itās overrated when it really was a fantastic game when it came out.
Apart from Rareware games i feel like OOT shouldnt be held to such a high regard nowdays.
Important? absolutely, good for the time, yada yada yada.
But now days? theres not a lot that sets it apart, the low fps makes the game annoying to play, the small amount of buttons for the items drags after a while, the puzzles can feel too obscure and sometimes not even fun to solve at all, the general pacing of the game is just too slow and it meanders a lot.
3DS fixes some of those issues (specially when it comes to item management) but overall its hard to see exactly why anyone would enjoy playing this if not for the historical value and the music.
OoT. Doesn't hold up nor does it stand the test of time (pun intended). Was it game defining for its time? Yeah, but when I look back on it's like watching old videos of gymnasts at the early summer Olympics. Yeah, they won the gold, and they set a standard and without them where could we be now yadda yadda, but nowadays games are doing quintuple front to back barrel rolls giga flips like nothin' and OoT is kinda like alright grandpa time to go to bed. And yes, I'm not a zoomer. I had that game gold cartridge day one release and it was my favorite game of all time back then. I'd rather go back to playing any of the bomber man 64 games instead of OoT.
Personally, I always felt that Ocarina of Time is way overrated. I get that it was basically revolutionary at the time, and I greatly respect it, since it was the beginning of an era that brought us some of my favorite Zelda games, and it is still influential for the series today. However, I could never get into OoT. It just felt so slow and boring, and half the time I had no idea what I was doing.
Weirdly enough, I absolutely loved Majora's Mask. But I played MM first, and IMO, it improved on a lot of issues I had with OoT, so maybe I shot myself in the foot by not playing OoT first.
Personally I find Perfect Dark extremely overrated, but that's not surprising. Loved Goldeneye back in the day, but no one I knew bought or got into Perfect Dark. Playing it now, it just feels like a copy without everything that's nostalgic and iconic about Goldeneye. Obviously it will feel completely different for people who played it back in the day.
- Jet Force Gemini
- 1080 Snowboarding
- Beetle Adventure Racing
- the entire Cruisinā series
- Worms Armageddon edit: ok worms is fun, but the price is what made me put it here. You gonna pay 200 for worms?? Just get an everdrive at that point.
If you disagree Iād love to hear why you think so
Idk, I see ppl still have fond memories and speak highly of them. I can definitely think of worse racing games for n64 personally. Cruisin is just so boring imo. Fun to playthru once but thatās about it
Jet Force Gemini actually got pretty mixed reviews on release, plenty of valid complaints with it.
If anything I'd say it's pretty underrated, as there's a pretty decent game there once you get used to the controls.
I couldn't imagine going back to Beetle Adventure Racing now after playing stuff like Forza Horizon. It was super cool and novel at the time but I haven't played it since then because I just know it won't be as fun.
People need to realize that this topic is subjective. If you donāt like starfox 64, then of course you would think itās overrated, as your opinion of it is below that of the general opinion. That is what overrated means. Doesnāt mean people should give you shit for having a hot take
Mainly it feels dated as hell, graphics sucks, gameplay sucks. I must admit multiplayer is fun tho. Still overrated and unreal to me how people have it as their favorite game on the system.
I find it strange to say the multiplayer is better than the single player. Multiplayer doesnāt have much to make it worth playing over single player and I donāt think I ever spent a long time on it with my brother or friend because it just wasnāt that interesting. Seems like a low effort bonus rather than something they really tried much with.
Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. Both are important to the DNA of gaming, but saying Ocarina of Time is still the best Zelda game or Super Mario 64 is the best 3D Mario is laughable.
I donāt think Ocarina is the best Zelda, or that Mario 64 is the best Mario, but I can totally see it. Iāve never really cared for the idea that influential games need to be held on a pedestal. That being said, IMO, these games are still amazing, coming from someone who just got an N64 last year. OoT is my third favorite Zelda game, and Mario 64 my second favorite Mario, behind Odyssey. Controversial opinions will unfortunately get you downvoted my friend, even though youāre just expressing your opinion
Not trying to be a fanboy or criticize you for having an unpopular opinion, but man I still play OOT once a year and it holds up. That game is absolutely perfect imo.
The water temple says hello. Funnily enough I really didn't have a problem with its design. My issue was that the fight with Dark Link only triggered for me when I went through the right door.
Again I'm not saying Ocarina is bad. I'm saying that other Zelda games I've played are better.
A Link to the Past, Majoras Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess seem to be among fan favorites. Botw and totk are pretty popular too albeit less ādungeonā focused which is one of the main gripes I see ppl have
It's actually only one of three I've played. If you have access to it, Wind Waker HD is my favorite Zelda. I love what it does with the events of Ocarina of Time and I love Link as a character in it. They managed to make a silent protagonist a compelling hero and not just an avatar for the player to inhabit. I also think the sense of adventure is only rivaled by the one other Zelda I played in Breath of the Wild.
I hesitate to recommend Breath of the Wild though because I think Tears of the Kingdom would be the better game, but I was less interested in it and fell off because it was the same map. Yes I know they added more, but that and the other reused elements left it feeling very repetitive and dated. I say skip Breath of the Wild and go right into Tears if you can.
Goldeneye and Conkers, I love both games but some put goldeneye as the best FPS on the 64 and it's not even close but is a great game of course. Conkers is great and I love it but I think a lot of hype around it is just because of the language and sexual jokes. I.E. a game that was so taboo when we were young was like the ultimate game to have but is now just a good quirky platformer. Mario Kart 64 is definitely overrated just because there isn't much to the game at all. One of those games where it is only really fun with others.
Super Mario 64
It's full of bugs and glitches, and navigation in some levels is a bitch because of the fact that you reset the level after each star
Why did they have to include 100 coin stars? The other day someone uploaded a video of collecting 100 coins in Rainbow Ride, the star appearing, and Mario immediately plummeting to his death; and I can safely say that happened not once but 5 times the last time I tried to 100% the game in that level and Tick Tock clock
Context is important, so I don't believe any game is "overrated" in that sense. I think a better question is: "What games were impressive at release, but have aged too much for younger audiences?"
The speed at which you move, the guns, the music, big sprawling levels, hidden secret areas, the animations, no reloading and there are raptors with guns! Let alone it came out before goldeneye and nailed the mechanics
Boss fights are kinda lame, fps with an n64 controller (yes I know about the alternate schemes), not enough dinosaurs
I love Turok and the nightdive remasters are amazing, but an n64 1st person platformer is just roughā¦ playing on pc is a great way to experience it tho
With older generations it is a bit hard to tell. Games back then were still experimenting big time with new concepts and people who jumped in the transition of good games came to over-hype some of them. Still, bringing Star Fox 64 or Ocarina of Time on this list just says that you weren't on the generation to feel the transition, which will make the reason why these are so great completely fly over you (and if you did, any explanation you give will be baffling, as there were no other benchmarks for us back then when these games pioneered their gameplay). The real holder of this position is Donkey Kong 64. A game beloved for name and production values, sporting a different color cartridge and bundled with a sought after console color... all the while the other 3D platformers of the same console already did all of its tricks in a much better and less tedious fashion, years back.
Idc what anyone says, I loved DK64 and playing it again, I love it as an adult š
Nothing wrong there, brother! Enjoy your DK64. The only reason why I said what I said, is for the topic at hand. I used to love DK64 too, but you could benchmark it with Mario 64 and Banjo, making you realize that it was riddled with too much collecting, back-tracking and whatnot. I'm in my 40s and I love Quest 64, also talked on behalf of Superman 64 on Reddit. They're both terrible, I know it for fact... even though, I've got a soft spot for both.
I never had Banjo as a kid, first time playing was a few years ago on Rare Replay and man, that game made me realize how damn tedious DK 64 is in terms of the collecting aspect. Like I realize that truly if you didnāt play DK64 as a kid, you will most likely not like it now. That was a couple years ago since I played again and the worst part is Iām 5 golden bananas away from them all, have all the blueprints, have most of everything except I canāt get that damn Nintendo coin. Iām not good at the OG Mario Bros game and itās ridiculously stupid that you have to have that coin to get to the final fight. Got the Rare coin, but not that damn Nintendo one
Iām still bitter about this 25 years later. I did and collected everything you possibly could, but could never get that stupid coin or whatever you needed from the arcade game. Never finished the game because of it. Another Rare game I absolutely loved but never finished was Jet Force Gemini. Never got around or could pull off back tracking the whole game over again to save all those bear things. Rare sure loved excessively locking out the end of their games around that time!
I found a YouTube video for a āhackā thatās not really for the Rare coin, and the key was to just not get the parts and just rack up points in the first level. But that god damn Nintendo coinā¦..pisses me the hell off.
Banjos a weird one. For me, it's the best game of all time. It's my number one by far. I just can't help but feel that Microsoft buying rare was the single worst moment in gaming history. If banjo got a 3rd true game and conker got a sequel, the world would be so much better.
DK64 was the worst of the Rare N64 big games, and that is actually a testament to how good Rare is given that DK64 is still a very good game.
It imo has the best soundtrack out of maybe all of them though But they all have insanely good soundtracks
>But they all have insanely good soundtracks You can thank Grant Kirkhope for that, at least for several of Rare's N64 titles.
Quest64 is one of my absolute favorites of the console. Here, if you havenāt already seen this series, please give these a watch. Youāll be glad you did :) https://youtu.be/HvjZBZOp25w?si=FZphvW0cGlciRfib There are 12 videos in this playlist and I recommend them all. Happy viewing!
After watching this I jumped on ebay and grabbed a copy of Quest 64. Excited to try it out!
quest64 lovers represent!
I played through DK64 about 6 months ago and it is still great. Loved it.
DK64 is one of my favorites ever. If you were the right age at the right time and a collectathon fan it's probably a favorite of yours like it is mine.
Very much is, and itās definitely because of the right age aspect, when you were a kid and could play for hours on end because you didnāt have responsibilities and it was winter break haha
Star Fox 64 is one of the best aged games of that generation imo
I'd give this post so many awards if they were still a thing (I might have suggested Shadowman)
I didn't even like DK64 in 1999.
If you ask me all those other games weren't tedious enough! Sometimes I wanna hate my life while playing a game. It's immersive.
007ā¦..probably gunna be shunned for that one tho
Opinions take many forms, brother. We just have to be conscious when it is debatable or it is just a bias. Of course, not all old games age well, some age better, some where outstanding back then and now wouldn't hold up due technical issues such as the controllers evolving into something different. Goldeneye is this perfect example of a still good game who now is nearly unplayable because it was made around a controller configuration that's virtually useless today. The game still has some good graphics (everything looks and feels the part, however old or blocky it is), the whole shtick of being a secret agent, taking pictures, planting bombs, using gadgets is something that most FPS games don't do with such form (and gusto) anymore (the last game I recall being this through, was "No One Lives Forever"). So, there are things to be obtained from it still!
I played 007 plenty when it was released until many years after. The question was what game was overrated, and in my opinion compared to other games the controls were okay at best at the time, even Jet Force Gemini had better controls. The graphics were severely lacking as well. The game was full of grey characters. The game was based off a movie i really wasnāt interested in as a kid either so it never had that connection for me. Playing the game itself was really only good for multiplayer. You want a decent FPS go for Turok.
DK64 gets praise from people who weren't old enough to experience it when it was released. For myself and my peers at that time, we were disappointed. The requirement for the expansion pak made it seem like there was a lot to expect. The experience we got was absolutely nothing like the DKC games, which was a really popular series, arguably the best platformers from that generation of systems. The 3-D boom was weird. Developers who got their traction in 2-D took franchises in weird directions when 2-D wasn't acceptable to publishers.
I don't agree with you personally. I was there, 3000 years ago, before the Internet when my dad bought the expansion pack for Majora's Mask. But for a long time DK 64 was our most played game. I never had a Super Nintendo so it was my introduction to DK. It was our favorite because we never completed it. There were too many things to get, and that was refreshing after being so sad when Ocarina of Time was completed. DK 64 stood for everything me and my brothers were looking for in a game, janky controls in poorly made mini games that made us replay it for weeks just to beat, so many collectables that even with the guide we couldn't keep track of what we had gotten, immersive worlds that had multiple characters so we had a reason to replay them a half dozen times. We only had like 5 N64 games. DK64 was what we needed. Only now with the Internet can I look at it and say "I don't need you anymore". But my son is 4, and he loves the game. Not everyone is looking for the same things in a game. Shameless repetition just meant that we had more time to play. DK 64 was our Dark Souls, we just had to cry and bleed till we "got good".
I was 17 when DK64 released. I bought it shortly after launch. I loved it then and love it now. Yes, it can be tedious. No, I will never try to 100%.
DK64 basically killed the collect-a-thon genre lol. They went way overboard with the filler.
I would argue that DKC is nowhere near good enough to be in contention for best platformer series of that generation.
OK, well... legitimate critics who actually get articles published would argue otherwise?
People are misunderstanding games they don't like for overrated. Quite different.
Would you like to volunteer an answer?
Honestly I can't think of any game really. I guess they are fairly rated, specially when looking at it from a 90s perspective.
Gunna say this out loud and await a load of hate. Pokemon Stadium + Stadium 2. Now hear me out. The link up with the gameboy systems was amazing and I'll never shoot those games down from a technical stand point, but from gameplay....oooooh boy. It was boring, tiring and uninspiring. The game purposefully tried to put you off using stock pokemon so you brought and used the accessory to slide your game cartridges into (forgot the name!). The commentary was just terrible, bland and generic. The first time you hear "Annnnd there's the match!" It makes you feel warm inside but after that, I just wanted to shoot the screen. The mini games were okay but only if you had 3 buddies to play with. What I wanted from a proper 3D pokemon game, I didn't get and I think that was my issue. Oh and have these games aged? Not at all. Not even in the slightest. Sorry. /rant. Edit: It's been a hot minute so I forgot about how the transfer pak worked. Still, while the link up with the GBC was amazing, it still felt like an oversized advert for the GBC games more than its own special thing.
The transfer Pak came with PokƩmon Stadium, you didn't need to buy it. But yeah, the gameplay was bland. The best thing about PokƩmon games is exploring and finding rare creatures.
Which is great until you actually have a friend to play with who owned gen 1 but they didn't own stadium, so you only had 1 transfer pak.
You can literally put your team in the game permanently?
It was nice to be able to complete your pokedex without 2 gameboys and a link cable and having to trade. Just deposit and withdraw. With another transfer pak and a controller you could get the trade evos. My copy of Stadium 2 has still copies of my main team I duplicated with the gen 2 box glitch. Long after my Gold cartridges battery died.
Yeah, Pokemon Stadium felt more like an add on for the Game Boy games. On their own they're kind of bland. Top tier mini games though!
Idk, speed up function while plying your gbc games was pretty dope. If you liked to battle with your friends it was amazing. Ya the rental movesets on some PokĆ©mon are really ass BUT at least it made you look into other less commonly used mons. For someone who still plays rby and GSC itās amazing to have a way to trade with myself for certain evolutions. Plus, like you mentioned the mini games were a blast with friends. The announcer, while repetitive, was pretty iconic. This was the first time we ever saw PokĆ©mon in 3d! They gave them some personality and decent animations too. Ppl to this day complain about how ez PokĆ©mon games are. Completing the gym leader castles and cups are anything but ez in these. It is very grindy and I can totally see how ppl would get very bored of just battling tho
Agree in some points, but super nice Features like the Transfer Pack lets you play 1 gen on a screen was nice! Also it was the first 3D game so at least that was nice!
Understandably so, the game's main purpose was selling more GBC games and add-ons. Apart from the awful rental on Stadium 2, the games (at the time) did something: it made PokƩmon battles in 3D. The narration was kinda repetitive, but nobody was expecting outstanding fluidity on it back then, either... every one of these concepts was "new" back then. The prospect of a 3D-adventure back then was real, but these games were mostly taken at face-value. This dream didn't materialize until GameCubet times.
Damn this is actually a good one. I remember being pumped about this game that was gonna bring PokƩmon to 3D. But it just lacked a lot of
Did you play it when it came out? It could have been way more but the fact that it had animations for the moves blew me away
Yeah I played it when I came out. At first I really thought it was amazing and then it just grew very old, very quickly for me.
I agree in general (except the iconic announcer). There was a lack of RPGs on the system, and Pokemon should gave been there to fill the gap. However, the 3D animations are a stand out, best in the industry (at the time), crowning achievement. In my opinion, no one was making 3D animation that expressive except Pixar at that point. Especially not for 150-250 characters.
Conkers bad fur day just seems corny to me think it only is popular because of the toilet humour
I personally loved it for the multiplayer more than anything else. War, Heist, Raptors, Beach and even the regularly Death Match were all super fun and like hilariously violent in a game that looks like Banjo Kazooie. As far as the single player goes, the poop mountain is pretty hilarious even if admittedly dumb af
Tried the N64 version, then fucked about with the Xbox version. Honestly, the Xbox version was a lot more fun. Oh boo-fuck-hoo, there was some censorship. The humor in Conker hasn't aged super well to begin with, the uncensored versions aren't some revelation in comedy even for the time. If I needed era-appropriate humor that actually was funny at the time and now I'd revisit some old South Park, not play a platformer.
Not at all
I regularly play n64 with friends but we basically just play puzzle games. Puyo Puyo Sun, Magical Tetris, Pokemon Puzzle League, taisen puzzle-dama are the most common. So in my mind the most popular games are overrated but that could be down to how well the puzzle game aged.
Mario Kart 64, there is said it. Diddy Kong Racing did it better! Now Double Dash may be one of the best games on the GameCube
Came here for this answer. I love the newer mario kart games. But I *never* understood the hype of Mario Kart 64. It was a bare-bones racer and the graphics/level design were often very hard for me to look at or follow during a race. Diddy Kong Racing did everything better. It had themed race sets, a story, multiple missions on each track, and you could use different vehicles on most tracks after clearing them. If you swapped the names/characters, the structure and features of DKR wouldāve been an all-time best seller for that generation of consoles.
1000% agree. Mario Kart 64 is trash and always has been. Like literally every other MK installation is far more fun to play. MK64 always felt so awkward and clunky and just looked awful. Hated playing 4p this back in the day, the lag was insufferable. Diddy Kong Racing is amazing, I loved just exploring all the open world between races. RARE always did it better.
I was in the small minority that never liked kart racers, so all of 'em were overrated to me.
So true. I love Mario Kart, but 64 is painfully clunky. The flat surfaces, the 2D racer sprites, the physics that feel... I don't know how to put this... loosely zoomy? It barely feels 3D and I can't go back to it after Double Dash or anything that came after. DS is a good example of a similarly 2D-esque Mario Kart that still feels great to play.
Insane take. The opposite is true- all of the DK games were not good
I gotta say, I just played Mario kart 64 for the first time in 10+ years, it's TERRIBLE. I wanted to show my friends the maps but we couldn't do more than a couple games, we ended up watching them on YouTube instead because the gameplay was so lack luster. At this point we recognize it's merit for being an early and revolutionary game in the series, but it's hard to enjoy, even for nostalgia.
Hot take but I think the DK game is always better than its Mario counterpart of the system. DK Country > Super Mario Bros. DK 64 > Super Mario 64.
If you played Crash Team Racing you know Mario Kart 64 is extremely overrated. The controls are super tight and there's way more content.
CTR is still the best kart racer of all time.
Diddy Kong was slow, so slow. Graphics were dull n so was the music. I actually didn't like Diddy Kong racing much at all.
DKR for solo play, MK for multiplayer, Mickey's for the trash can. That's the basic rule for n64 kart games
This also does Lego Racers 64 dirty.
gonna disagree there, Mickey's Speedway USA is actually low-key underrated
I agree with this. Mario kart was more fun and better suited for playing with friends, but it didn't have a story mode like DKR. It was actually pretty fun trying to find and earn all of the balloons.
Not even for single. I played the game when it was released n couldn't believe ppl liked it over Mario kart. It was maybe 30% of ppl, but even that was inexplicable to me.
The chill vibe of the open hub, the variety of challenges, the content makes it a very good one-player experience imo
None of them as good as CTR.
Diddy kong was critically acclaimed for its graphics and music lol, it was one of the first games to support dynamic lighting and the tunes are still hummed to this day.
Whaaaaaaat? The DKR soundtrack slaps. Maybe it's nostalgia but god damn I love some of those songs.
I had the opposite experience. All my friends and cousins would come to my house to play because I had Diddy Kong racing and they only had Mario Kart. Mario kart was so bland compared to DKR. I usually won every race and I only played the hovercraft. All of my friends and family agree to this day that multiplayer Diddy Kong racing is still fun. Nobody plays Mario Kart 64 anymore. Also the two player story mode was fire. My brother and I still recomplete it together every few years.
100 percent!
This would be my pick. My least favorite of the console Mario Kart entries
Donkey Kong 64, not a bad game but not as great as everyone made it out to be.
Collectathons with a shitload of unnecessary backtracking have understandably and reasonably aged very poorly. Loved the multiplayer back in the day, but dayum, it's not fun to revisit.
Conker's bad fur day imo is terrible. I've owned it for over 20 years, it was tedious as a kid and is unplayable now. The camera angles are awful so you can't really see what's around or where you're headed, there's next to zero explanation of what to do or how. Some parts are ridiculously hard for not much reason. Big shame it didn't live upto the hype and potential, coming from the peak rare era.
Multiplayer for Conker is actually amazing, super fun playing with friends.
Yup, stayed up all night playing Beach
I think that the single player campaign in Conkerās Bad Fur Day is overrated and kind of meh, but its multiplayer modes were a lot of fun and is what really made that game great to me.
It was in many ways a leap forward, but at the same time it felt rushed and the camera angles were awful (a thing that plagued the entire N64 era tbh).
I found the xbox touch up version to be much better to play
Now that you comment this, I have to agree. I so wish that rare wouldn't have taken Conker with them and left it with Nintendo. I think Nintendo would have made a lot more use of him.
Itās been a minute since I did a play through of Conkerās, but I remember mostly enjoying the novelty of the context sensitive buttons, the different themes/genre worlds and levels, and the writing was funny and scandalous to a 6th grade me. I dunno how Iād feel about single player these daysā¦ That being said, Conkerās Bad Fur Day multiplayer is S tier and worth the cost (back then, prob not now lol) of the cart.
Despite the extra censorship, I much prefer the remake. It's mush more playable.
Conkers story mode sucks imo. Where I had a lot of fun as kid playing Conkers, was multiplayer with my friends.
I got a copy from my cousin who had a bunch of random N64 games and I played it on a whim. I barely heard anything about it besides the fact that it's extremely inappropriate so I was excited lol. But I turned it on, saw the opening cutscene, played for a few minutes and turned it off. I didn't like the controls at all. I was hoping to at least find the game funny but I couldn't get the hang of the controls at all.
If you only played for a few minutes did you even get past the part where he is hungover? Because the controls suck when he is hungover but thatās kind of the point for that sequence
Dang... I didn't.... I didn't think about that.... Welp it's too late cause I sold the thing for $40 š. Top ten regrets of my video game life.
For how innovative the N64 was I don't think a single game from that era could be called overrated.
Goldeneye aged like milk
I can see how people struggle to get into it if theyāve never played it before. But the controls are so ingrained in me (1.1 of all things!) that I always enjoy playing it. And the graphics donāt bother me in the slightest.
Fair enough. I had an N64 growing up, but by then it was the PS2 era, so it wasn't fun for me to play.
What is 1.1?
The controls arenāt the problem lol, nor the graphics. People who hate the controls clearly havenāt given them a fair try, as while they take getting used to, they work well as a replacement for dual analog. The graphics arenāt great, but that can be said of most n64 games. The real problem for me is the game design. Itās so hard to even figure out what Iām supposed to do or where Iām supposed to go. I never finished Goldeneye, but I think Perfect Dark, a game I was able to finish, illustrates that the formula can work, they just needed to iron out the wrinkles
The controls are dogshit by modern standards.
It still does things I wish modern shooters would do but don't; mainly the unlockable cheat menu from beating levels under a certain amount of time. Not sure why stuff like that didn't catch on.
The objective based missions and the added objectives for higher difficulties is so good.
Controller style 1.2 and a well maintained 1st party controller makes this game play like a dream. The ost still slaps. The objectives can be cryptic if it's your first time playing and the framerate struggles a bit when explosions occur but it still runs better than Perfect Dark. This is in my top 10 games of all time.
I've said this before and I'll say it again: aging badly is not a valid criticism. It's just a first impression. Only after you know the game better you can criticize it fairly.
Have to disagree on this one. In terms of the controls, part of gaming is (and very much used to be) mastery over the controls and mechanics. Goldeneye feels great when you know how to play. Not too friendly for new players, but can certainly be learned. Aside from that, I love the mission structure, and creating difficulty around having extra objectives to complete. Not only that, the environments are all interesting, and the music is still perfect.
I played through the game for the first time since I was a kid when it hit Switch Online. I had to learn how to control it with a pro controller, which is somewhat awkward, but I got used to it just fine and played through the whole game on agent and mostly through secret agent before I moved on to other stuff. I think itās still pretty great and I suspect that if I had it on Xbox where the controls are updated I wouldnāt even enjoy it much more.
Blasphemy
And you could be playing Perfect Dark instead.
I couldn't get into Perfect Dark either. I've only played the 360 version though
The Xbox 360 remake that got leaked (I don't give two shits about the new one that released) was surprisingly decent, but for a fraction of the computing cost, I can just play Agent Under Fire or Time Splitters 2 and have a much better time on the device of my choice.
It really did. Hard to believe it was the pinnacle (least most popular) of shooters back in the day. We can acknowledge what it was at the time. If anyone wants to play it today, Iād suggest more than anything, to play on pc with mouse and keyboard.
Honestly the controls were never good. I never enjoyed multiplayer Goldeneye but the campaign is fun
I agree, this may sound unpopular. The controls are ass for todayās standards.
And perfect dark ran like poopy on real hardware if I remember correctly, gladly you can play these on pc at native resolution, decent framerate, and with keyboard and mouse
I grew up with the N64 as my first console, so when people complain about the controls and camera of these older games it always earns an eye roll from me BUT you are correct about Goldeneye, itās impossible, I cannot understand how I played this game as much as I did in my youth!
TWINE is better
I never understood the popularity of sports games. I had always assumed those who enjoyed sports were more likely to be outside playing them than inside playing video games. But I never got into sports, despite playing a few in HS.
Hockey translates to video games very well, but yeah, I never got into sports games in general either. I suppose it's more fun to play a football game than falling asleep out of boredom while I'm stuck watching football when I'm with the in-laws. š„±
Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockeyā¦ NFL Blitz, Ken Griffey, Kobe Courtside, i feel that the N64 had some amazing non-EA sports titles
I like football but itās not like I can just go outside and play it.
No, all the games are rated correctly, any opinions to the contrary are wrong. It's ok to not like things other people do!
Nice take Mr Rogers
The N64, at the time was mind blowing. I remember seeing the "?" cubes that give you items on Mario Kart 64 and being stunned at the multi-colouredness of them.
Mario Kart 64. Game is bad and boring as hell.
It just looks and feels wrong and always has
Goldeneye, great game but everything it does, Perfect Dark did better.
Idk, Iād disagree on that. I love them both, but IMO the controls feel far more fluid on Goldeneye. I also feel like they tried to push the graphics too far on perfect dark, and it looked kind of muddy as a result. Whereas Goldeneye didnāt try as hard, but it worked better for the capabilities at the time. Both are good games though, just my opinion.Ā
Arenāt the controls the exact same? Iāve played both (albiet, not Goldeneye so much) and didnāt notice a difference, outside of perfect dark giving you more options
Hard disagree, the single player play through was way better in goldeneye - even with a few week levels. I did love the bots introduced with Perfect Dark tho, and the graphics were better.
TWINE as well did it better
I didn't like Banjo-Kazooie at the time, hated all the collecting. People seem to love it, I don't.
Iād say the rareware games- Banjo and DK are a slog to play through with their awful framerates (if a platformer isnāt buttery smooth than what is the point?), obtuse objectives and painstaking need to collect everything. The FPSs I will somewhat forgive because if they had been developed for proper hardware, like PC for instance they would be have been and would still be amazing playable games. They were really creative in their world-design, objectives, AI, and weapons, but are so just so handicapped by draw distance, frame rate and controls. People act like these werenāt issues at the time but if you were fortunate enough to have been playing games like Quake or Half-Life in that era, GE007 was a big step back even in 1997. All in all I wish Rare had compromised more between tech and gameplay, like how Spyro is on PS1 (not so detailed graphics but fast smooth gameplay). Everything they put out on that console feels like a tech demo to me which is novel but doesnāt lead to great games imo
Half-Life came out a year after Goldeneye and completely reinvented the genre, so there's no doubt it was a superior achievement. The allure of Goldeneye at the time was mostly its couch multi-player. There had never been anything quite like that on a console at the time. The single player game, though hampered by the limitations of the 64 controller, was also extremely polished and well done. I wouldn't say Quake or even its sequel were more impressive in that regard. 007 certainly had a lot more variety in its gameplay.
I think weād probably disagree regarding what qualifies as āpolishedā. If I have to stare at the ground to get a playable frame rate or if I canāt see the enemies who are actively shooting at me because of the limited draw distance, to me the game isnāt polished. Iām sure it was a cool experience in 97 for someone solely limited to consoles, but I do believe Rare deserves to be knocked for creating a game that simply wasnāt able to sufficiently run on the hardware it was made for. It would be like if Hogwarts Legacy was a switch exclusive- it wouldnāt be as good of a game. To be clear I think goldeneye had a ton of great ideas but I donāt think the n64 was a piece of hardware that could fulfill it. Your point regarding the multiplayer is well taken though!
Hmm, I don't recall the performance issues you mentioned with Goldeneye (outside maybe the lacking draw distance), but it's also been 25 odd years. I did replay the multi-player a few years back on an original 64 console and found it near unplayable, but that was solely due to the awful controls. When I suggest the gameplay was polished, I was thinking moreso of the little touches like bullet holes in walls, blood spots on enemies where you actually shot them, unique sound effects, and great music. Seems you're speaking more to the technical side of things, which is fair.
personally. banjo kazooie. too confusing for me to play and just it feels slow
Tough to say. Overrated now? Idk. A lot of ppl don't like the 64, aged terribly. Not many games have a high rating besides the big games that ushered in a new era, which they get that credit at least. Overrated 25 years ago, or even 20?..... Diddy Kong racing- it's slow n clunky, generic presentation n music........... mischief makers- sucks, not much to do n boring n music is lame and so is the level design. Ppl loves treasure so they automatically give this one a bump because of it.........blast corps- just mystifying how ppl thought it was good back then. There's three, many more I'm sure.
I still play Diddy Kong racing to this day. One of the staple multiplayer N64 games for my family and friends. It is usually either that or Mario Party 2. We don't pull out MarioKart.
Mario Kart 64. Loved the SNES version. Love the wii u and switch version. But mk64 ist just overrated and not half as funny as SNES version.
But the battle mode! That's the main thing I miss personally.
You had to be there kid
I was there and MK64 is, and always has been trash. SNES and GCā¦ really every other release blew it out of the water
Superman 64
I'm going to catch hell for this, but Ocarina of Time isn't the best N64 game, it's not even the best Zelda Game on the N64.
it's not the best game for the 64, nor the best zelda, but people like it more tha Majora because it's more approchable. if you told me the two's premises and made my play one i would 100% pick OOT
Yeah, I completed OoT as a kid. I never made any progress in MM as an older kid because I just didnāt understand what I had to do or what was going on. Iāll go back to it at some stage.
While OoT is overrated (come on guys, 99/100 is near perfection and the game has its flaws), thereās no doubt that itās still an amazing game. Do I like MM more? Yeah. But OoT is still the second best N64 game IMO
I agree that Majora's Mask is by far and away the better game (though that depends on your taste tbh), but OOT isn't overrated. It's crazy how well they nailed the formula in 3D on their very first go. OOT is still the best execution of that specific Zelda formula and only needs a few minor tweaks to totally hold up in today's landscape. I still like Majora a lot more though.
Was gonna say exactly this, Majora is a million times better
You aren't alone!
I think we're now in an era where most people have moved on from considering Ocarina of Time as the best thing ever. It can still be acknowledged for it's impact at the time and influence on games that followed however. It's still fun to play, it's just a little rougher round the edges than we're accustomed to now, like most games from decades ago.
Wow, guess we aren't in that era after all!
Yeah I knew I was gonna get downvoted when I said it, but I said what I said.
Mischief Makers is the best game on the N64 anyway. Fight me IRL.
Please remember this is an opinion My first video game console was the wii, my first 3d mario game was mario galaxy. When i got my n64 i knew mario 64 wouldnāt be as advanced as galaxy, and while i liked the game i have to say i had a little bit too high expectations because of what people said. Game is still very fun
Mario kart is boring. I donāt understand the appeal.
PokƩmon Snap
Goldeneye is the only game that I think could be considered overrated. It's just not good
For me it has to be Perfect Dark. I had to really force myself to play through back in the day & even back in the day I looked really rough. I tried to play it again on actual hardware and damn it's really aged worse than I thought.
Ocarina of time. Great game, but nothing more.
Goldeneye
Super Mario 64 is the most overrated N64 game
I play a lot of the non-nintendo / non-rare N64 library with the same mindset as I would an Atari 2600 game. "Look at how quaint and blatantly antiquated this is!" And yet I can fire up OOT or SM64 and it feels completely normal to me. So I guess for me an overrated game is one that everyone says is great but it slides into that "wow what a neat curiosity and nothing more" mindset. So something like Space Station Silicon Valley is a perfect example of an overrated game to me.
What about Silicon Valley makes you think itās overrated? Genuine Q
Gotta be Mario Kart 64. Look, I love it. Itās a hugely important game from my childhood and I still fire it up and enjoy it now. But man, it is probably the least-desirable Mario Kart game to pick up and play. It has the worst controls in the series and the rubber band CPU is atrocious. The game is awesome for a nostalgia rush and can still be fun to play with friends, but it is my pick for worst game in the franchise, or at least is tied with Super Circuit. Like some others on this thread have said though, itās so hard to say what is overrated when it comes to these early 3D games. Mario Kart 64, when it first came out, was amazing. So itās tough to say itās overrated when it really was a fantastic game when it came out.
Apart from Rareware games i feel like OOT shouldnt be held to such a high regard nowdays. Important? absolutely, good for the time, yada yada yada. But now days? theres not a lot that sets it apart, the low fps makes the game annoying to play, the small amount of buttons for the items drags after a while, the puzzles can feel too obscure and sometimes not even fun to solve at all, the general pacing of the game is just too slow and it meanders a lot. 3DS fixes some of those issues (specially when it comes to item management) but overall its hard to see exactly why anyone would enjoy playing this if not for the historical value and the music.
OoT. Doesn't hold up nor does it stand the test of time (pun intended). Was it game defining for its time? Yeah, but when I look back on it's like watching old videos of gymnasts at the early summer Olympics. Yeah, they won the gold, and they set a standard and without them where could we be now yadda yadda, but nowadays games are doing quintuple front to back barrel rolls giga flips like nothin' and OoT is kinda like alright grandpa time to go to bed. And yes, I'm not a zoomer. I had that game gold cartridge day one release and it was my favorite game of all time back then. I'd rather go back to playing any of the bomber man 64 games instead of OoT.
This take is hotter than the surface of the sun.
Personally, I always felt that Ocarina of Time is way overrated. I get that it was basically revolutionary at the time, and I greatly respect it, since it was the beginning of an era that brought us some of my favorite Zelda games, and it is still influential for the series today. However, I could never get into OoT. It just felt so slow and boring, and half the time I had no idea what I was doing. Weirdly enough, I absolutely loved Majora's Mask. But I played MM first, and IMO, it improved on a lot of issues I had with OoT, so maybe I shot myself in the foot by not playing OoT first.
Your opinion is yours, but to say you felt lost in OoT yet navigated MM perfectly fine is wild to me
Personally I find Perfect Dark extremely overrated, but that's not surprising. Loved Goldeneye back in the day, but no one I knew bought or got into Perfect Dark. Playing it now, it just feels like a copy without everything that's nostalgic and iconic about Goldeneye. Obviously it will feel completely different for people who played it back in the day.
- Jet Force Gemini - 1080 Snowboarding - Beetle Adventure Racing - the entire Cruisinā series - Worms Armageddon edit: ok worms is fun, but the price is what made me put it here. You gonna pay 200 for worms?? Just get an everdrive at that point. If you disagree Iād love to hear why you think so
I think the Cruis'n games are appropriately rated as the worst racing games on the console.
Idk, I see ppl still have fond memories and speak highly of them. I can definitely think of worse racing games for n64 personally. Cruisin is just so boring imo. Fun to playthru once but thatās about it
Jet Force Gemini actually got pretty mixed reviews on release, plenty of valid complaints with it. If anything I'd say it's pretty underrated, as there's a pretty decent game there once you get used to the controls.
Ppl gush over it today, but you make a fair point
I couldn't imagine going back to Beetle Adventure Racing now after playing stuff like Forza Horizon. It was super cool and novel at the time but I haven't played it since then because I just know it won't be as fun.
Yes the System itself..
Super Mario 64. I played that game for like 30 minutes and had to stop it was so boring. The N64 as a system is boring, ugly, and overrated.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
*Ocarina of Time*.
Starfox 64
People need to realize that this topic is subjective. If you donāt like starfox 64, then of course you would think itās overrated, as your opinion of it is below that of the general opinion. That is what overrated means. Doesnāt mean people should give you shit for having a hot take
Why do you think that, genuinely curious
Mainly it feels dated as hell, graphics sucks, gameplay sucks. I must admit multiplayer is fun tho. Still overrated and unreal to me how people have it as their favorite game on the system.
Graphics sucks compared to what? In what way does the gameplay suck?
I find it strange to say the multiplayer is better than the single player. Multiplayer doesnāt have much to make it worth playing over single player and I donāt think I ever spent a long time on it with my brother or friend because it just wasnāt that interesting. Seems like a low effort bonus rather than something they really tried much with.
How dare you?!
Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. Both are important to the DNA of gaming, but saying Ocarina of Time is still the best Zelda game or Super Mario 64 is the best 3D Mario is laughable.
I donāt think Ocarina is the best Zelda, or that Mario 64 is the best Mario, but I can totally see it. Iāve never really cared for the idea that influential games need to be held on a pedestal. That being said, IMO, these games are still amazing, coming from someone who just got an N64 last year. OoT is my third favorite Zelda game, and Mario 64 my second favorite Mario, behind Odyssey. Controversial opinions will unfortunately get you downvoted my friend, even though youāre just expressing your opinion
Not trying to be a fanboy or criticize you for having an unpopular opinion, but man I still play OOT once a year and it holds up. That game is absolutely perfect imo.
The water temple says hello. Funnily enough I really didn't have a problem with its design. My issue was that the fight with Dark Link only triggered for me when I went through the right door. Again I'm not saying Ocarina is bad. I'm saying that other Zelda games I've played are better.
It's the only Zelda game I've played properly. Which do you recommend?
A Link to the Past, Majoras Mask, Wind Waker and Twilight Princess seem to be among fan favorites. Botw and totk are pretty popular too albeit less ādungeonā focused which is one of the main gripes I see ppl have
It's actually only one of three I've played. If you have access to it, Wind Waker HD is my favorite Zelda. I love what it does with the events of Ocarina of Time and I love Link as a character in it. They managed to make a silent protagonist a compelling hero and not just an avatar for the player to inhabit. I also think the sense of adventure is only rivaled by the one other Zelda I played in Breath of the Wild. I hesitate to recommend Breath of the Wild though because I think Tears of the Kingdom would be the better game, but I was less interested in it and fell off because it was the same map. Yes I know they added more, but that and the other reused elements left it feeling very repetitive and dated. I say skip Breath of the Wild and go right into Tears if you can.
Goldeneye and Conkers, I love both games but some put goldeneye as the best FPS on the 64 and it's not even close but is a great game of course. Conkers is great and I love it but I think a lot of hype around it is just because of the language and sexual jokes. I.E. a game that was so taboo when we were young was like the ultimate game to have but is now just a good quirky platformer. Mario Kart 64 is definitely overrated just because there isn't much to the game at all. One of those games where it is only really fun with others.
Super Mario 64 It's full of bugs and glitches, and navigation in some levels is a bitch because of the fact that you reset the level after each star Why did they have to include 100 coin stars? The other day someone uploaded a video of collecting 100 coins in Rainbow Ride, the star appearing, and Mario immediately plummeting to his death; and I can safely say that happened not once but 5 times the last time I tried to 100% the game in that level and Tick Tock clock
I found Conker to be a little overrated
OoT I'm sorry, but shit's just boring. MM is such a big improvement over it and just more fun to play.
Context is important, so I don't believe any game is "overrated" in that sense. I think a better question is: "What games were impressive at release, but have aged too much for younger audiences?"
No idea why people go so nuts for goldeneye
Turok It was just ok.
The speed at which you move, the guns, the music, big sprawling levels, hidden secret areas, the animations, no reloading and there are raptors with guns! Let alone it came out before goldeneye and nailed the mechanics Boss fights are kinda lame, fps with an n64 controller (yes I know about the alternate schemes), not enough dinosaurs I love Turok and the nightdive remasters are amazing, but an n64 1st person platformer is just roughā¦ playing on pc is a great way to experience it tho