ShareThis
Kyle England
Again, you speak the truth Andy. I can’t deny the greatness of the Super Nintendo. It set the standard of excellence. Nintendo 64 just improved upon that. N64 gets a bad rep for losing third party support, and that’s a shame. However, this proved that Nintendo could totally stand on its own. I’d say Nintendo 64 was completely dependent on its first party games, and it still sold pretty well. It proved that all you need to succeed are great games, nothing more.
You rub salt in the wound by mentioning Super Metroid though. N64 deserved a Metroid! But I do need to interject that there was Mother game meant for Nintendo 64, but it just got delayed and made into Mother 3.
All of the games you brought up for SNES were fantastic and wildly influential, but like I said before, N64 games were some of the most influential of all time. Three N64 games completely revolutionized their respective genres: Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, and GoldenEye 007. I’d say that’s the most important legacy of the Nintendo 64.
I would also like to posit that the hardware of the N64 console was more aesthetically pleasing than SNES (both its American and European forms). SNES looked like a boring grey box, a toy even. Nintendo 64
looked like it could fit right in with late ’90s entertainment devices with its dark figure. Its rounded edges gave it an awesome footprint.
Andy Hoover
You’re right, N64 succeeded because Nintendo showed it could single handily support a console on nothing more than the strength and creativity of its games. But I think we all wish that wasn’t something that needed proving. Who here wouldn’t be happier if Nintendo had been receiving the same treatment as its competitors over the last 15 years? If you only had Nintendo products you played some amazing games, but you also missed out on countless other games.
And please don’t talk about Mother 3, that’s a sore spot for me. Not only did the N64 version get canned, but when it did finally appear as a GBA game, everyone outside of Japan was denied the pleasure of experiencing it. Unless of course if you could read Japanese or downloaded the fan translated ROM, but that is illegal and we would never condone that…
If only…
Moving on, I must call you out as being totally wrong about something. SNES was not a “boring gray box” because it had purple in it too, and purple is never boring!
Did it look like a toy? You know, yes it did and I’m okay with that because it was a toy. SNES provided me with more hours of enjoyment than the army of action figures and buckets of LEGO bricks I had growing up. I had played video games before but SNES is what made me a gamer, a devotee of the Church of Saint Miyamoto who holds the same reverence for his original copies of Chrono Trigger and Super Mario World as others might reserve for the Shroud of Turin or a pair of Elvis’s rhinestone encrusted pants.
N64 of course holds a special place in my heart as well, after all I’ve probably spent just as much time writing and talking about how much I love Ocarina of Time as I have actually playing the game. But for me SNES was where it all began, it was Genesis… not of course to be confused with Sega Genesis, which was totally lame by comparison.
Kyle England
Of course, SNES was purple too! I hadn’t meant calling the SNES a toy as an insult. I still play with LEGO myself. N64 just seems a bit more sophisticated. However, you make a good point about the third parties. I was always rather peeved about the cool PlayStation games that never made it to the Nintendo 64 because of Nintendo’s stubbornness.
We’ve had a great discussion here, but I do believe we must draw it to a close. Honestly, there’s room for both the Nintendo 64 and the Super Nintendo on any gamer’s shelf. We can both agree that the consoles were great in their own ways. Debating about Nintendo systems usually comes down to this, as they are all quite awesome. Except for Virtual Boy. Never that one.
Readers, now that you’ve seen Andy and myself square off, what do you think? Which console is your favorite? SNES or N64? Which one do you keep coming back to? Until next time, this has been Versus!
Pages: 1 2
I loved Body Harvest!!!! Man tat game was awesome, but never got around to completing it.
You guys missed out on the Super Famicom / PAL SNES design that was created by Kenichiro Ashida. I believe that design holds its own against the N64 (which is also an Ashida design). I’m not a huge fan of the American SNES, but I do like that Lance Barr and the NOA team added the concave/convex face buttons. It’s something I wish modern controllers would adopt.
I only had a few wow moments with the N64 (i.e. playing Mario 64 to the end, semi-intelligent a.i. and hit detection in Golden Eye, and fighting the Great and Might Poo in Conkers Bad Fur Day); however I had countless wow moments with the SNES (e.g. countless moments in Earthbound, the entirety of Super Mario RPG, being “sick” from school when Donkey Kong Country came out, beating Super Star Wars: Empire Strikes Back for the first time without the thermal detonator cheat, and many more). Perhaps the biggest factor was that the Dreamcast came out three years into the lifespan of the N64 and that system took over my free time. Harsh yes, but Mario RPG over Paper Mario.
I never owned a SNES, while N64 is the first home console I purchased on my own. Perhaps that colors my opinion… but to this day I think that SNES is one of the best consoles ever made by Nintendo.
Why does it win out? SNES represented a high-water mark for 2D gaming. It took everything good from the 8-bit generation and then improved on it. The console offered a huge stable of games from every major third-party developer, covering the widest possible range of gaming genres. Looking back now, there are dozens of absolute classic games along with a huge number of unheralded gems that are worth playing.
Judging the N64 is tougher. There are moments of brilliance: games that changed how the industry would progress forever afterwards. But those moments were relatively few and far between. The overall library of games is small and even the most memorable titles often had issues that were hard to overlook (at that time, and even more so today) due to limitations of the hardware and the experimental nature of moving into 3D gaming.
I don’t regret the time spent with either console, but if forced to choose which was “better” I have to stick by SNES.
I’m gonna have to go with the SNES here. Some kick butt software for that wonderment. The only thing that would make me say otherwise are Ocarina and Majora. Those two defined the Zelda franchise and were the first stepping stones in making the mythos what it is today.
Still the SNES. Super Metroid.
I never owned a SNES. I had a Sega Genesis at the time (I know, how could I?). I’ve played enough SNES games to appreciate what I ultimately found to be the superior system of that generation. With that said, the amount of hours devoted to Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, Smash Bros, Ocarina of Time, Pilotwings, Waverace 64, Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie, Donkey Kong 64,etc, etc are countless. These games either transformed the video game experience or moved the industry forward in some meaningful way. Verdict = Nintendo 64.
The Nintendo 64 had two of my most-beloved games – Majora’s Mask and Paper Mario – but the SNES had Earthbound and, moreover, defined how 2D games should be done. Were it not for the SNES the GBA would not have had anywhere near the number of quality 2D games it eventually received.
So in terms of legacy, the SNES grabs it for me on software, while the N64 was more important for hardware.
this is hard, the two best consoles of all time, i know that popular oppinion says snes, but for me, the n64 give me the best game of all time and the ones i had the most fun: mario 64, mario kart, banjo kazooie, star fox 64, ocarina of time, majoras mask, perfect dark, turok,conquer bad fur day, super smash bros. glorious!
I owned an SNES, but it often seems like the system I missed out on. You see, I also had a Sega Genesis at the time, and having both (and being fairly young at the time) meant that my concentration was too divided. I never owned DKC (though I played it every time I went across the street to my friend’s house), Yoshi’s Island, Zelda or plenty of other true classics. Many of those games I wouldn’t even play until the Game Boy Advance or Virtual Console rereleases.
Fast forward a few years to the N64 era, and that system kind of defined my middle school and early high school years. Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye, Conker’s Bad Fury Day, Smash Bros., Mario Party, Wave Race, South Park: Chef’s Luv Shack, drinking flat pop and eating cold pizza with friends until 2:30 in the morning… the list goes on and on. The SNES might be “better,” but I know which one I’ll always hold near and dear to my heart.