What N64 decompilation projects exist where the genre didn’t evolve drastically? Are you saying games like Mario 64 and OoT are representative of modern platformers/action rpgs?
Mario 64? Kinda yeah, because the Mario franchise has been more or less alone in the 3D platformer space, and everything since 64 has either been expansions on it like Sunshine, Galaxy and Odyssey, or that time they made the same 2D-but-in-a-3D-engine game 5 or 6 times. New Super Mario 3D World Land Wii U Switch.
Ocarina of Time is kind of similar: the classic Zelda franchise is kind of alone, especially after the 16 bit era ended nothing has really played like a Zelda game. They’ve only made like six of them; OoT got the formula almost perfectly right on the first try even if they were pretty much just re-implementing ALttP in 3D. Majora’s Mask took the same engine and assets and made a heartburn simulator. I personally think it’s less pleasant to play because of the constant time pressure but it’s the most interesting one to study. Wind Waker returns to the formula with the sailing gimmick as “we gotta do something different” and as a way to mask loading screens. Twilight Princess was a reaction to fan clap back at Wind Waker’s perceived childishness, it’s basically OoT again, It’s also the most blatantly unfinished. Skyward Sword is just Wind Waker but worse. The control scheme is hideous. You can feel Nintendo corporate breathing down the necks of the dev team talking about "we went full Japanese on motion controls this console generation and the best we have to show for it is the pack-in bowling demo. Put in as many motion controls as possible, even if the joystick would make more sense. After that they gave up and started making Just Cause games.
Mario 64 is still a very recommendable 3D platformer (a genre that sees only a handful releases every year) that aged really well; Starfox 64 was just released again with better graphics because the game’s still good (in a genre that’s basically dead); OoT and MM are still peak Zelda in a very rather small pool of Zelda-likes (not action RPGs). So yes, I don’t see much development in any of these areas.
I don’t think this is controversial. Halo is the first game that managed an actually useful but still subtle aim assist that allowed playing a shooter with an analog controller to actually feel good.
007 Goldeneye N64 did have (surprisingly modern) dual stick control layouts … but it required 2 controllers. Of course it was ruined by how shitty the stock N64 controller was, never-mind having to hold one in each hand.
The only benefit to the N64 controller was that because it only had one stick, you could use 3 fingers of your hand on the stick rather than a thumb only. Way better control over the cursor than just a thumb.
All FPS controller-based controls are inferior to keyboard+mouse. It just depends on how much hampering you can tolerate. People who played Doom on PC and adapted to Goldeneye were already making an alt control scheme work (although technically you could use 2 controllers to get a similar layout to Halo controls) because the game was good enough to warrant it at the time.
Of course the Halo twin stick controls were/are superior to the weird N64 controller, but none of them have “decent” controls once you’re used to m+kb. I even played a bit of Goldeneye 20 years after release and had fun with it–muscle memory kicked in and it was fine.
Did you play Doom or something? GoldenEye predates basically every 3d shooter. It’s controls suck today even for controller standards but it did a lot for the FPS genre… more than halo ce.
What N64 decompilation projects exist where the genre didn’t evolve drastically? Are you saying games like Mario 64 and OoT are representative of modern platformers/action rpgs?
Mario 64? Kinda yeah, because the Mario franchise has been more or less alone in the 3D platformer space, and everything since 64 has either been expansions on it like Sunshine, Galaxy and Odyssey, or that time they made the same 2D-but-in-a-3D-engine game 5 or 6 times. New Super Mario 3D World Land Wii U Switch.
Ocarina of Time is kind of similar: the classic Zelda franchise is kind of alone, especially after the 16 bit era ended nothing has really played like a Zelda game. They’ve only made like six of them; OoT got the formula almost perfectly right on the first try even if they were pretty much just re-implementing ALttP in 3D. Majora’s Mask took the same engine and assets and made a heartburn simulator. I personally think it’s less pleasant to play because of the constant time pressure but it’s the most interesting one to study. Wind Waker returns to the formula with the sailing gimmick as “we gotta do something different” and as a way to mask loading screens. Twilight Princess was a reaction to fan clap back at Wind Waker’s perceived childishness, it’s basically OoT again, It’s also the most blatantly unfinished. Skyward Sword is just Wind Waker but worse. The control scheme is hideous. You can feel Nintendo corporate breathing down the necks of the dev team talking about "we went full Japanese on motion controls this console generation and the best we have to show for it is the pack-in bowling demo. Put in as many motion controls as possible, even if the joystick would make more sense. After that they gave up and started making Just Cause games.
Mario 64 is still a very recommendable 3D platformer (a genre that sees only a handful releases every year) that aged really well; Starfox 64 was just released again with better graphics because the game’s still good (in a genre that’s basically dead); OoT and MM are still peak Zelda in a very rather small pool of Zelda-likes (not action RPGs). So yes, I don’t see much development in any of these areas.
Halo was the first console FPS with decent controls. I said it. They’re all borderline unplayable before that.
I don’t think this is controversial. Halo is the first game that managed an actually useful but still subtle aim assist that allowed playing a shooter with an analog controller to actually feel good.
Time Splitters
007 Goldeneye N64 did have (surprisingly modern) dual stick control layouts … but it required 2 controllers. Of course it was ruined by how shitty the stock N64 controller was, never-mind having to hold one in each hand.
Here’s a video of someone playing with the “2.2 Galore” control style
The only benefit to the N64 controller was that because it only had one stick, you could use 3 fingers of your hand on the stick rather than a thumb only. Way better control over the cursor than just a thumb.
All FPS controller-based controls are inferior to keyboard+mouse. It just depends on how much hampering you can tolerate. People who played Doom on PC and adapted to Goldeneye were already making an alt control scheme work (although technically you could use 2 controllers to get a similar layout to Halo controls) because the game was good enough to warrant it at the time.
Of course the Halo twin stick controls were/are superior to the weird N64 controller, but none of them have “decent” controls once you’re used to m+kb. I even played a bit of Goldeneye 20 years after release and had fun with it–muscle memory kicked in and it was fine.
Yes. This is why I never really liked Goldeneye that much. Just never got the big deal.
Halo is the first one that I thought was decent. I didn’t say it had good controls, I said decent 😂
Did you play Doom or something? GoldenEye predates basically every 3d shooter. It’s controls suck today even for controller standards but it did a lot for the FPS genre… more than halo ce.