Here we are again with more Nintendo 64 detritus to pick through to find those precious gems that have stood the test of time and should be welcomed with open arms by the Nintendo Switch Online service, which despite establishing an extra special super-premium subscription tier for N64 ROMs is being exceptionally languid when it comes to actually adding any. I say detritus, but we got some pretty fortunate picks this week. I guess miracles can happen.
A recap of the rules:
- We're playing two or more N64 games for sixty-four minutes apiece. Hence, 64 in 64.
- One is pre-selected by me, the others are picked randomly from the master list of 388 unique N64 releases. Yes, including all three Army Men games. Fingers crossed for those, yeah?
- I write about my escapades with each after each sixteen minute segment. Sort of a quarterly report.
- I then conclude with my thoughts as to how well they've aged and how likely they are to pop up on the NSO service, considering their desirability and the current condition of its license owners.
Programming note: After this week's episode I'm going to switch to one pre-selected and one random game per week. These larger editions were intended to jumpstart this feature for its inaugural month, but they've been consuming too much of my weekends. I'd rather put that time towards contemporary games from my gargantuan backlog and maybe less on annual sports games from 20 years ago. I have enough ideas for this feature to last the rest of the year if need be, but we'll see what kind of legs it has for the foreseeable future. Hopefully y'all are still enjoying my suffering. It's why I'm here after all.
(Prior Episodes: Episode 1, Episode 2, and Episode 3.)
Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (Pre-Selected)
- Quest Corp. / Nintendo
- 1999-07-14 (JP), 2000-10-05 (NA)
- 223rd N64 Game Released
History: Quest Corporation was one of those unassuming RPG developers of the '90s that was able to stay solvent thanks to a surfeit of talent: writer and designer Yasumi Matsuno, composers Hitoshi Sakimoto and Masaharu Iwata, and character artist Akihiko Yoshida. Sadly, most of them had already been poached by Square to create Final Fantasy Tactics prior to the development of Person of Lordly Caliber (soon followed by Quest itself), the exceptions being the freelance Sakimoto and Iwata. The third in the Ogre series, following Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (both SNES), Ogre Battle 64 is - as far as I'm aware - the only localized tactical RPG for the Nintendo 64 and one of a small handful of notable N64 RPGs period.
My love for RPGs would later see me quasi-defecting to Sony during the late '90s, since the N64 was very much not the platform for those, but this is one of the system's uncommon few I never found my way to playing. Part of that is because the SNES Ogre Battle's real-time aspect never appealed to me much as it was far too anxiety-inducing juggling all those moving units running off on different tangents, but I'm still curious enough to discover what I missed out on. Its use of pre-rendered sprites and that isometric perspective always reminded me of Super Mario RPG too, so that's a plus.
16 Minutes In
As anticipated from my first RPG playthrough for this feature, I'm still in the opening cutscenes at the 16 minute mark. The game establishes your character as a man dissatisfied with his home life, choosing to enlist at a military academy to prove himself. Six years later, you're getting blessed by the local Archbishop with a graduation questionnaire - it definitely felt like one of those older The Elder Scrolls "pick your character type by truthfully answering these vague prompts and be dissatisfied with the result" scenarios - and then it's off to the first location of the game, Tenne Plains, for further training. It was shortly after the first mission's briefing that I received the above scene between my character, the guy with the customary purple protagonist hair, and this disgruntled Dio guy who wasn't happy I was commander. I mean, you could fathom as much from the dialogue captured. (There was actually a decision here whether or not to accept Dio's challenge for a duel; I hope I made the right choice by accepting. Weirdest feeling that this character might run off to become a vampire if I mess up.)
Suffice it to say I don't have much to comment on the game's combat mechanics (or really any mechanics) just yet. I remember Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen kinda dropping you into the thick of it from the go with a huge battle - either my memories are screwy or it was one of those mostly-automated abilitease fights like the start of Final Fantasy Tactics - so I appreciate a little bit of worldbuilding and character work before the first fracas. Here's hoping I get through at least one battle before the full 64 minutes are up, though.
32 Minutes In
The next sixteen minutes mostly comprised of the first true battle of the game, in which I am to take the local mines from some monsters and bandits while capturing one or more of their three settlements along the way. By capturing settlements I can recover faster and deprive the enemy forces of the same benefit, though they aren't all strictly necessary for the mission. While the player determines a unit's movements and direction, the actual combat is automatic: your unit engages the enemy, they exchange a few blows, the game decides the winner and forces the other side to retreat. This is how you take over settlements: by routing its defenders, you deny them a safe haven and can either wait for them to try to retaliate or chase them down as they escape. It's a Catch-22 however: either they wait until you leave to recapture the base, or you let it be captured by another enemy force while you pursue them.
I only have the one unit right now, so strategizing around their superior numbers is kinda cumbersome. I've managed to successfully eliminate a single group of enemies so far, after three battles and the subsequent attempts to run after them, and I've since captured all three enemy settlements and then lost one because my attention was split. Literal "three steps forward, one step back" type of slow process. But, hey, things might change once I get another unit to work with.
48 Minutes In
I completed the battle shortly after the previous screenshot, though it took a total of seven days to chase all those enemy units down before making a break for the enemy HQ. Every time I finished one off, I got an "ali. down" debuff on one of my units, which I can only guess means they disliked that I was coup de gracing all these bad guys. However, if you don't actually defeat them you run the risk of them taking over an allied settlement to recover and your unit only earns 1 XP from successfully forcing them to retreat and around 20 XP if you wipe them out. I gotta be ruthless if I want to be strong enough to face the battles to come.
I'm also finding new gear occasionally but I've no idea where to equip them. There's no interstitial character customization menu I can find, so when the next battle starts (this is the briefing) I'm going to see if it's a HQ-only service. Seems a bit odd that I can't just equip them in the field, but maybe they have to be modified for my burly physique first or something.
64 Minutes In
Yeah, it's the R button. Not sure why I didn't try it until now, though I have my suspicions (i.e. I'm an idiot). Not only does the R menu let you organize and equip your units and potentially change their classes (once they've gained enough XP) but you can use it to dispatch your other units. I had five other troops sitting in here twiddling their thumbs, including that hothead Dio, that I could've used to that make first map far easier on myself. In my defense, it does seem odd that they're not all active from the get go, though maybe there's an option to dispatch at any allied settlement and the strategy was to pick something a little more central and deploy everyone from there. Well, I didn't need much help for the first map and it's not looking like this one will be much tougher despite the bigger field.
For the long-term, which obviously isn't applicable here, I'd probably want to figure out how to distribute the enemy XP evenly across all my active units so no-one falls too far behind and becomes a liability. I think there's a way to switch non-leader troops between units if I want to even out the level averages of each though with games like this I'm always inclined to put all my eggs in one basket, that being the protagonist's unit: the one I cannot afford to lose (it's a game over condition and everything). I now think the "ali. down" pop-ups meant alignment down, because everyone is neutral but could be lawful or chaotic. If my main unit is OP, then it's probably an alignment hit if I'm bullying these weaker units. I think the strat here is that my heavy-hitters come in to soften them up and I send one of my chump subordinates after them to finish them off so they can benefit from the XP. If nothing else, the game is certainly more complex than I gave it credit for: something about the real-time element had me believe Ogre Battle was the shallow brother to Tactics Ogre's deeper waters.
How Well Has It Aged?: You know, not so bad. The pre-rendered sprite approach has aged worse than most pixel graphics from the era, but the backgrounds and UI look fine. It really does look like a PS1 RPG that got lost and wandered into the wrong game library, but not necessarily in a negative sense. I'm glad the N64 saw a few of these complex, traditional SRPGs, even if the biggest developer of them - Squaresoft - very much wanted nothing to do with Nintendo after their optical media falling out. I probably wouldn't keep going with it after this, but I recognize and respect the level of depth involved if I ever decided to get serious with it. (One thing I was curious about: the game referred to itself as the sixth episode of the Ogre Battle saga, though I was certain it was only the third game in the franchise. I'm guessing they were going for a Star Wars thing? Leaving some room for eventual prequels?)
Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: High. Quest was absorbed by Square shortly after this game's release, which of course is now Square Enix, who has long since buried the hatchet with Nintendo and frequently pops by with ports. They were involved with the SNES Classic Mini (contributing Super Mario RPG, Secret of Mana, and FF6) and while they've yet to add any SNES games to the Switch Online service there's probably some sort of agreement in the works given how important Square RPGs were to that platform. (The Final Fantasies 4 through 6 probably won't be joining NSO any time soon, however: SE's trying to sell their "pixel remaster" versions at present.) Crucially, Ogre Battle 64 was part of both the Wii's and Wii U's Virtual Console libraries so they've already gone through this process twice.
Retro Achievements Earned: 1 (of 116). Almost all of these are story progression, recovering the hidden items on each map, and recruiting characters and finding their special equipment. Given there are over 40 maps, I wasn't anywhere close to being done.
San Francisco Rush 2049 (Random #1)
- Midway / Midway
- 2000-09-05 (NA), 2000-11-17 (EU)
- 339th N64 Game Released
History: An Atari Games arcade racer brought to home consoles by fellow arcade devs Midway, San Francisco Rush 2049 took the high-octane formula of the previous two Rush games and injected some sci-fi, introducing retractable wings and a WipEout-style neon aesthetic to its titular city setting. It would be the final game created with the Atari Games label: the studio was renamed Midway Games West shortly after the game released.
There are fifty-eight racing games for the N64 as far as I can tell, which comprise approximately 15% of the whole library, so I can consider myself fortunate that I rolled up one of the better regarded ones. After all those dry F1 games I'm jonesing for a good arcade racer, if not a kart racer, for a bit more excitement. Also, shout-outs to our own King of Head Action, @rorie: he selected San Francisco Rush 2049 as his "Guilty Treasure," though I'm pretty sure the N64 port wasn't the edition he had in mind.
16 Minutes In
I dimly recalled from that Guilty Treasures video that the way to succeed in this game is by exploiting shortcuts in the environment, and so I took on the first track in Practice Mode to give myself time and space to look for them while also familiarizing myself with the controls. Man, this game moves real fast. Fast enough that even if I knew a shortcut was coming I'd barely have time to slow down and take the diversion in time without flipping my car or driving into a wall (both of which causes it to explode). Yet, as I found out when I attempted that first track again in a real race, there's almost no way to catch up to the cars ahead of you unless you creatively cut some corners. I spent almost that entire race in 2nd place unable to get an inch closer to the car ahead until I made an unfortunate choice with a shortcut that required a sudden 90 degree turn, and the subsequent barrel roll and immolation combo ensured I would finish in third place overall.
I like that the car selection included an F1 open-wheeled vehicle, a Super GT, and a straight up rocket car. Like, yeah, I'm going to pick the grampy '96 McLaren over the sleek 2049 vehicle with a jet engine strapped to it (no real noticeable difference in speed though). Even in circuit mode it looks like you can switch vehicles between races, so I think that's what I'm going to do. Hopefully it's not just a matter of memorizing the courses beforehand if you want to win and something more along the lines of just hitting the nitrous button (as soon as I find one) on the straights.
32 Minutes In
The difficulty is definitely starting to ramp up here in the fourth race which, fittingly, has way more ramps in it. I figured out the wings button but if there's a benefit of using these I've yet to find it. I've not been that much faster in the air and the slightest horizontal movement causes it to yaw dangerously as you can see above. My CPU opponents, of course, have no trouble with all these 90 degree turns and regularly head straight for all the shortcuts, so I'm starting to wonder if this "Beginner" difficulty isn't something of an ironic misnomer.
The game certainly has an element of fun about it - the last track had a jump near the end where three jets would regularly fly overhead as you hit it - but the increasing number of squirrely turns and the dawning realization that I should've practiced all these tracks beforehand is sapping my will by the moment. I've since switched cars from the Rocket 2X to the Magnum, as I figured I needed a monster car for my magnum dong, and its superior handling is definitely making a difference on these twistier tracks. Statistically, every car I have unlocked is identical besides the rocket car (faster top speed and acceleration, worse handling, perhaps as to be expected) so I might just stick with this for now.
48 Minutes In
Ah, so it turns out the game only has four tracks. The second half of this eight-track circuit are the same four in reverse. I did score my first victory on the reverse version of the first track, and would've won the above race on the reverse second track were it not for my update timer going off and distracting me (an ever-present menace in this feature). I haven't tweaked much, besides switching to a medium frame for the Magnum to boost my max speed a little. I still have no idea if the wings are helping, but I enjoy popping those bad boys out for some air too much to mind at this point.
With only four courses, it's making sense to me now why they're so elaborate with the shortcuts and alternative paths and how much they change when you're driving down them the other way. Gotta give them some replay value. There are also these collectibles I keep finding off the beaten path: I've no idea how there's so many or why they're split into silver and gold (are gold harder to find, perhaps?), and of course I have no idea of what they do or unlock, but any N64 game with collectibles has my interest piqued. Since they still count in the practice races, I might spend the remainder of my time left after this circuit (I'm not going to win; one CPU opponent in particular regularly trounces me and is like 20 points ahead) looking for shinies.
64 Minutes In
As expected, I managed to squeak my way to a second place finish, and in doing so unlocked a fifth course! I guess this one's a little tougher, as it only appears in the Intermediate circuit (which was also unlocked) and appears to be full of twists and hard turns. It'd be easier if there were more straights, but that was never going to be the case for San Francisco. Going to extrapolate from this completion bonus that there might be even more tracks to unlock on higher difficulties, though I wonder if I would've received something special for first place? The game seems cool with you restarting any race provided you're still in the middle of it, so if I was obdurate enough I could probably find out. I'm not that invested though.
After that sliver of silver, I decided to check out this new course in the practice mode and as you can see in the screenshot above I went a little off-track looking for spinning tchotchkes. Gold ones definitely seem a bit trickier to collect: it's not just that you have to find them, but many require you to be moving at great speed before hitting some part of the geometry to send you flying high enough to reach them. It's clear that the direction of the course is also important for specific collectibles, though it wouldn't take much to pull a U-turn and check the same course again backwards. Either way, I'm bowing out here before I give into my nook and cranny exploring instincts.
How Well Has It Aged?: S'fine. Within its generation SF2049 kinda sits between the more realistic racers like those F1 games from previous episodes and those of a more fantastical bent, like the system's many future racers (F-Zero X, Extreme-G) and kart racers (DKR, MK64), neither of which I wouldn't mind bumping into eventually. I'm not the type to race on the same courses over and over to shave off another second from my best lap and so I doubt this game would've retained my interest beyond the length of a weekend, but I appreciate how ridiculous it knows it is. If I never have to dodge another incoming tram or get blown off-course by low-flying jet fighters I'll be all set.
Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: Slim. Midway's IPs were all bought up by WB Games after the former folded but I don't think the Warners are doing much with any them besides Mortal Kombat. WB has a lot of studios under its belt off doing more important things than converting old games for digital archival projects, though I use that term very loosely wherever Nintendo is involved. The last time SF2049 (or any of the arcade Rush games) saw a port it was on one of those Midway Arcade Treasures compilations back in 2005, so it's been dormant a while.
Retro Achievements Earned: 1 (of 65). Whoever created these achievements was inventive, enforcing rules like never accessing the menu (presumably because you can restart races endlessly; though it wouldn't stop someone exploiting save states) and taking on specific tracks with specific settings for the achievement to count.
Blast Corps (Random #2)
- Rare / Nintendo
- 1997-03-21 (JP), 1997-03-24 (NA), 1997-12-22 (EU)
- =20th N64 Game Released
History: Our first Rare game on 64 in 64, and the second they ever developed for the N64, Blast Corps has the player become a demolitions expert as they drive around a series of maps destroying everything that stands in the way of a slow-moving tanker. Rare is, to some degree, the third-party champ of the N64: if you peruse any "best of" list for the system, it's usually (if not exclusively) a mix of first-party and Rare titles. As of writing only Banjo-Kazooie has appeared on the NSO service, but I'd imagine more are to come if Microsoft (Rare's owners) and Nintendo maintain this cooperative relationship of theirs.
I really won the random chooser lottery here. Blast Corps was already on my shortlist of pre-selections as it's the only Rare N64 game I've never had the opportunity to play before (besides Mickey's Speedway USA, though I'm a little less enthused about that one despite Rare's pedigree with kart racers). Don't worry, I'm sure this good fortune won't last.
16 Minutes In
Wow, this game wasn't kidding about its simplicity. Drive into buildings marked by arrows before the tanker reaches them and that's pretty much all there is to it. Some buildings are a bit sturdier than others, so you'll sometimes consider getting a run up to knock them down harder. There's so much extra on each map though, and the game does you a solid of letting you stick around after the tanker has made it safely through to sweep up any remaining collectibles before moving on. Maps can also contain other vehicles, in addition to the truck you enter to finish the level, and I suspect that'll become an important factor later if it turns out your starter vehicle isn't up to the task ahead. Blast Corps is like if someone took one of those EA Strike games with their multiple objectives and vaguely isometric open-world maps and turned it into a gloriously mindless action game. With more explosions.
In the first sixteen minutes I managed to complete two of the earlier maps, though I'll admit to spending some time driving around looking for that elusive 100% completion gold medal. In addition to knocking down all the buildings, not just the critical ones in the way, there's also road markers that you need to drive past and other objectives like rescuing survivors and hitting these bonus level beacons. I'm curious to see how the difficulty curve will build or if the game's going to maintain this "fun for all ages" attitude throughout. I feel like I would've adored this game had I played it at the time (and I still kinda dig it now).
32 Minutes In
Soon after the previous, I took on some levels that were actually tutorials for how the game's other vehicles worked. As well as the standard bulldozer, you also have: Sideswipe, which can demolish anything on its left and right with hydraulic side-panel thrusters; the J-Bomb, a flying mech that powerbombs buildings from the sky; and the Backlash, a loader vehicle that destroys buildings by drifting at them real hard. The last of those is what you see in the screenshot above, and it's also the first instance of me having some trouble earning the high score for a map. Drifting into buildings backside-first is proving a tricky maneuver to master.
The introduction of these vehicles answered the difficulty curve question I had earlier, as the bulldozer now strikes me as the purposefully simple starter vehicle meant to acclimate new players. I'm hoping Backlash won't get used too often as I'm still struggling figuring out the right angle to start drifting if I want to catch as many buildings as possible without just driving straight into them (which does minimal damage in this vehicle).
48 Minutes In
My conclusion regarding the Backlash: I'm just going to avoid using the Backlash whenever possible. Fortunately, as you can see from the overworld map, there's always plenty of other choices if any particular stage is giving you trouble. The larger circles on this globe represent the normal levels, where you simply carve a path through priceless civil infrastructure as quickly as possible, while the smaller ones have largely been single vehicle tutorials though I've had a couple of other non-standard bonus levels too: one required I destroy everything as quickly as possible, and the second was a race that could be made much easier by finding shortcuts (that often require you drive through some buildings in the way, since that's the game's whole deal).
I'll admit, like last week's Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, this is a game I kinda want to keep playing after we're done here. Who knew driving through buildings could be this enjoyable?
64 Minutes In
One more standard level as the Sideswipe and a few more bonus levels and I was done. My compulsion to collect the gold medals meant I probably didn't get too far through the game's content, but I certainly made a dent with nine golds and two silvers (that darn Backlash...). I didn't mention him yet but there's a ten-meter-tall mecha named Thunderfist that likes to roll into things and has his own theme tune that I think is probably my overall favorite of the vehicles I've seen so far, though I might understand if the developers use him sparingly for future levels. Reminded me a lot of Mecha Hawk from Pilotwings 64, sadly absent the giant metal moustache.
I definitely get the appeal of Blast Corps now. If it's not the sheer destructive euphoria of its standard levels it's in providing all those bonus areas with their own rules and mechanics to keep it varied, even if the actual gameplay doesn't deviate too far from the norm. That many stages let you pick which vehicle you want to use - though on the standard maps you have to find them first, which might not be feasible with the strict time limit - feels like a modern concession to accessibility I did not anticipate a game this old would allow. It's rare, albeit not rare for Rare, that an arcade-feeling game is this dedicated to making sure the player is having a good time, challenge level occasionally be damned. Then again, perusing its retro achievements I can see where this game could start to really get tough.
How Well Has It Aged?: Like a fine Scotch turned improvised Molotov cocktail. If someone were to tell me that Blast Corps was the best Rare game for the N64 I would've just assumed that they were being contrarian because they'd become so enervated by all those beloved animal platformers and/or were less than impressed with GoldenEye 007 when compared to the likes of Quake or Unreal Tournament. Like one of those Jeff Gerstmann "don't @ me" type of hot video game takes. At least, that's what I would've assumed before I actually played it. I'm now of the opinion that Blast Corps is one of the best-preserved games on the N64 as well as one of its most original. I could totally buy it being on anyone's top ten for the system.
Chance of Switch Online Inclusion: High, I'd hope. We already have Banjo-Kazooie on there so whatever unholy ritual needed to happen to get Microsoft and Nintendo to see eye-to-eye on these Rare ports has already been sealed in blood. GoldenEye 007 might be more of a sticking point given the recent furore over that aborted remaster, but getting Blast Corps on there seems like a safe bet. If you don't feel like waiting and already have an Xbox One/Series X, it's available on Rare Replay too.
Retro Achievements Earned: 0 of 24. I think I used the wrong ROM again. Ah well. Regardless, I probably would've only earned one of them: most seem to be reserved for earning Platinum medals on levels, which I'm guessing is perhaps a post-game difficulty unlock?
Current Ranking
- Super Mario 64 (Ep. 1)
- Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon (Ep. 3)
- Blast Corps (Ep. 4)
- Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards (Ep. 2)
- Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber (Ep. 4)
- San Francisco Rush 2049 (Ep. 4)
- Tetris 64 (Ep. 1)
- NBA Live '99 (Ep. 3)
- South Park Rally (Ep. 2)
- Eikou no St. Andrews (Ep. 1)
- F-1 World Grand Prix II (Ep. 3)
- F1 Racing Championship (Ep. 2)
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