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Saturday, June 6, 2009

Tero's Top 10 - N64

Well, it's been an exhausting week and I have nothing ready, so it's time for another filler post. I really went all out on this one, though, and I've actually gone back and made the previous top 10 posts longer (click on Channel 4 to find them).

The N64 is an interesting system. On one hand, it's often cited as the system where Nintendo went bad, this generation saw the birth of Playstation and a ton of Nintendo franchises left and never came back, on the other it has a number of absolute masterpieces on it. It also has an extremely small library, containing only 400 games total (most other systems have >1000), and yet naming 50 high-quality games would not be difficult.

1 - Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
2 - Banjo-Kazooie
3 - Super Mario 64
4 - Pokemon Puzzle League
5 - Road Rash 64
6 - Super Smash Bros
7 - Mario Kart 64
8 - NBA Hangtime
9 - Mischief Makers
10 - Blast Corps

With the exception of the top 3 picks, this was agonizing. Obviously, the first thing that must be mentioned is that there's an obvious omission here - This list does not contain either of the Zelda games. I've never liked 3D Zelda, most particularly not on N64, I've always found Ocarina of Time boring, despite repeated attempts to like it. I think the fact that Link is so slow and effectively has his feet glued to the ground kills it for me, here you have this huge, expansive 3D world, and you're stuck exploring the very bottom of it at a snail's pace. There's also far too much dungeon crawling. I've always felt 3D Zelda would be much better if it was basically the same as Mystical Ninja.

Speaking of which, the top pick is, perhaps, the most obvious top pick ever. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon is probably the best game of all time by a fairly significant margin. Even if we ignore the fact that it came out in 1998, I still think it compares favourably to just about every other platform and adventure game ever. Even something like Okami still couldn't quite compare on even terms, and it came out almost a decade later. It's a timeless masterpiece in every sense of the word.

Mario 64 and BK are, I think, relatively obvious for slots 2 and 3. The ordering of them is definitely debatable, I think Banjo-Kazooie is a better game overall, but Mario 64 was first and it's definitely more iconic. In the end, you have to choose one or the other.

The other 7 games, as much as I agonized over the placement, are sorted near-randomly. Every time I alter the order, I feel it puts one of the games too low. You'll just have to accept that the difference in quality between slot 4 and slot 10 is extremely small.

Interestingly, some of my favourite obscure games for the N64 have actually been squeezed out of this ordering. Every time I hastily made a list of best N64 games, Flying Dragon, Penny Racers, and Snowboard Kids would tend to place in it. However, as much as I love them, the more I poured over the list of N64 games, the more obvious it became that there are some games that are a little better. Some of this also has to do with the PSX, you'll see how when I make that list.

Ironically, this actually took almost as long to write as it would take me to beat an easy game. Since I worked on it for so long, I might as well state that those 3 games in the previous paragraph, plus Diddy Kong Racing and Mario Golf would be my top 15.

2 comments:

Tomicus said...

Interesting. I've never heard of anyone's all time favorite being Goemon. However I do agree with 8 out of 10 of those games being all time favs with the exception of RR 64 and Silicon Valley as I've never played those. I'm a big Zelda fan so I would throw in Ocarina of Time and lets see what else is missing...ah Body Harvest.

Goemon#1 said...

A little late and I found this by coincidence. However I must agree: I've played thousands of games in my life (been playing video games for over 20 years) and the best game of all time, overall, is def. Mystical Ninja starring Goemon. No other game can compare to this masterpiece. Kudos to you, sir.

What's On:

NES:

Adventure Island 3
Chip and Dale Rescue Rangers
Contra
Darkwing Duck
Die Hard
Double Dragon 2
DuckTales
DuckTales 2
Eliminator Boat Duel
Felix the Cat
Galaxy 5000
GI Joe: A Real American Hero
Hi no Tori
Ivan "Ironman" Stewart's Super Off Road
Jackal
The Jetsons: Cogswell's Caper
Journey to Silius
KickMaster
The Little Mermaid
Little Nemo the Dream Master
Low G Man
MC Kids
Megaman 2
Metal Storm
Ninja Gaiden
Paperboy
Power Blade
Rampart
SCAT
Shatterhand
Snake Rattle n' Roll
Stunt Kids
Super C
Super Mario Bros
Super Robin Hood
TaleSpin
Widget
Yume Penguin Monogatari


Master System:

Wonder Boy in Monster Land
Wonder Boy 3: The Dragon's Trap


SNES:

Aladdin
Battle Dodgeball
Battletoads and Double Dragon
Biker Mice From Mars
Bonkers
Bubsy
Cool Spot
Demon's Crest
Dolucky's A-League Soccer
Donkey Kong Country
F1 ROC 2 Race of Champions
Ganbare Goemon 2
The Magical Quest Starring Mickey Mouse
Megaman X
NBA Jam TE
Pac Man 2: The New Adventures
Pieces
Plok
Pocky and Rocky
Sparkster
Super James Pond
Super Mario World
Tetris Battle Gaiden
Tiny Toon Adventures: Buster Busts Loose
U.N. Squadron
Wario's Woods
Yoshi's Cookie


Genesis:

Alien Soldier
Castlevania Bloodlines
Chiki Chiki Boys
Cyberball
Knuckles Chaotix
Puggsy
Rocket Knight Adventures
Sonic the Hedgehog 2


N64:

Bust a Move '99
Diddy Kong Racing
Mario Kart 64
Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon
NFL Blitz Special Edition
Penny Racers
Pokemon Puzzle League
Sin and Punishment
Snowboard Kids
Super Mario 64


PSX:

Bishi Bashi Special 2
Bishi Bashi Special 3
Choro Q2
Monster Rancher 2
Pocket Fighter
Snowboard Kids Plus
Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage


GC

Sonic Adventure 2 Battle


PS3

Puyo Puyo Tetris


GB

Batman
Megaman V
Trip World


GBA

Megaman Zero
Summon Night Swordcraft Story


DOS:

Holiday Hare
Jazz Jackrabbit
XMas Skyroads

Community Access Channel

Here I've listed a handful of games I've considered doing runs for. If you have a particular preference for one of these games, you can vote for it here. There's no guarantee that a game that gets a lot of votes would get done right away, but it might influence me when picking the next game to do.

Should I switch to using Youtube?

Player Info:

My photo
I'm just a guy who plays far too many video games. I own an Intellivision, NES, SNES, N64, Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, Dreamcast, Wii, Gameboy, Gameboy Colour, Gameboy Advance, DS, and PSP, as well as far more games than I could count.

I started doing these game runs both as a way to show off and to challenge myself. Mostly the former, though.