Wed 23rd Jun Actually, the golden age of Nintendo was clearly the NES, SNES and N64.Of course, then there's Doom, which came out way before the N64 and does 3D exploration better than most games being released today. Anyway, I guess my point is that, if you can roll with the datedness of N64-era games, the datedness itself can become an asset rather than a fault.
At the same time, though, I actually appreciate that sense of experimentation and danger, the sheer variety of weird mini-games and art assets in Final Fantasy VII, the jazzy freestyle vibe of Mario 64, the wild ride that is Half Life (which kickstarted the whole linear cinematic shooter trend we're still living with, but because Half Life was first it's also - and thankfully - far more relaxed and hands-off than later cinematic shooters, including Half Life 2, which are always pushing you forward like a drill instructor). You play Final Fantasy VII and Super Mario 64, on the other hand, and they're comparatively scrappy and experimental, with lots of rough edges you have to forgive. You play A Link to the Past or Super Metroid today (or yesterday, in my case) and they just exude absolute confidence. The late 90s were a weird and exciting time for videogames, especially coming off the timeless refinement of the best SNES games. N64 may be lacking in JRPGs and losing to PS1 in terms of available game file sizes (although that ironically contributed a lot to my aforelisted acquaintance with the games - back in the late Noughties, even my home internet and even hard drive weren't equipped to afford many PS1 scale downloads😆), but it's still a solid machine that saw Nintendo, Rare and some others continue shaping many of the video game tropes and conventions we take for granted today. The damn thing redefined rail shooters for me. and possibly my top fave in the library so far, Sin and Punishment. I haven't even experienced the most talked-about icons like SM64, Ocarina/Mask dilogy or Banjo-Kazooie, but this was the platform I discovered 1080° Snowboarding, Body Harvest, Conker's Bad Fur Day, Cruis'n series (one of the recent Direct's most wowing comebacks), Diddy Kong Racing, Mega Man Legends (aka 64), Mischief Makers, Nightmare Creatures and Nuclear Strike, Pokemon Snap, Star Wars Racer, Turok, Wonder Project J2.
As with most Nintendo hardware of the time, I only discovered it in emulated form later.
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