Yes, I know that the Nintendo 64 was already sold well into the 21st century. You knew what I meant.
Right. I love the Analogue consoles. The Analogue NT+ does an amazing job with the Super Famicom and Super Nintendo cartridges. The Analogue Pocket goes with me everywhere, and can play pretty much any handheld game from the 90s or 2000s — with its OpenFPGA core swap mode, it can even play a wide variety of other consoles, including the SNES, the Vectrex, and quite a lot of others.
The sad news that their newest console, the Analogue 3D, does not support OpenFPGA and hence can only ever play Nintendo 64 games disappointed a lot of fans who expected that everything going forward would at least have the functionality of the Pocket.
More than that, Analogue has a history of making very limited quantities of their consoles, and that continues with the 3D. The option to pre-order one goes live at 8 AM PDT October 21, and it is pretty much guaranteed to sell out to scalpers in seconds. Normal people probably won’t get a chance to get one.
I’m going to try, though. I still actually have my original N64 from the 90s, and I have the S-10 to HDMI connector so that I can play it with modern monitors. But it’s not the best. Ogre Battle was playable because it isn’t a real time game. Racing games like Pod Racing and Beetle Adventure Racing were iffy at best due to the video lag. Plus, the games looked pretty crappy. Pokemon Stadium was boring without having my own team battle against other people’s teams.
Analogue promises to make these games look and play better than they did on the original hardware. So, if I get one — and that’s a big IF — here’s what I’m looking forward to (re)playing.
Having recently played through Beyond Shadowgate, I was surprised to find that some version of the game had been released on the Nintendo 64. The plot seems similar to that of both the original Beyond Shadowgate for the Turbografix and the new one for Steam, with legally-distinct hobbit Del Cottonwood once again trying to stop the Dark Lord from being resurrected and making everyone feel really bad.
It goes for about $35 on FleaBay for just the cartridge, or around ten decabucks for the complete-in-box version. If I do get the A+3D, this is going on my shopping list.
This isn’t a screenshot of the game, this is a handcrafted diorama that you can buy. But I thought it looked cute enough to share.
Weirdly, I haven’t played Paper Mario. I haven’t played Super Mario Galaxy, the premiere flagship game for the system. I just thought at the time that I’d had approximately enough Mario for one lifetime. But, it’s been just about one lifetime since Paper Mario came out, and it might be time to give the chubby little feller another chance. My boyfriend partner (he says we’re too old to say girlfriend/boyfriend) bought me Super Mario RPG for the SNES, which I played a little of — then he went and played through the remake in like three days. It’s a good game. If I get the Analogue 3D, Paper Mario is going on the list.
This is a weird game. It’s an action RPG with a really complicated experience system where skills, weapons, and even your arms and legs gain experience separately. It reminds me of Parasite Eve, that old PlayStation game which was just weird, and wonderful.
I still have Parasite Eve downstairs. But I have never played Hybrid Heaven. Costs about $75 on fleaBay for a complete in box copy.
I miss Blockbuster. We’d get all the games we wanted for three bucks for a weekend. Now I have to pay premium prices for them.
I don’t play shooters much, but sometimes I do. I slept on Perfect Dark. Ima fix that if I get the Analogue 3D. It’s cheap (relatively) on fleaBay. It’s by Rare, it’s going to be a fun time.
Of course I played these two games. I have one or both of them downstairs even, and if I don’t, I know Kasul does. I was over Mario in the 90s, but I still wasn’t over Link. I may not play all the way through these, but they’re going to at least give me a chance to see how they look on the new system.
Anyway. I probably won’t get one. But if I do — these are the games I look forward to playing (aside from Beetle Adventure Racing, the best game on the system).
