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NSO Four new titles coming to NSO Expansion Pack today: The Legend of Zelda: ALttP & Four Swords, Metroid: Zero Mission, Turok, and Perfect Dark

played a little of Zero Mission yesterday. Can't say I'm wowed by it. It's very simple. Which I'm not sure was the norm for this type of game back then. Never played 2d metroid. Not once. Always interested since Dread came out but never pulled the trigger.

I'll finish it but I wonder if this was the right game to jump into haha.
 
Hocot8 said:
played a little of Zero Mission yesterday. Can't say I'm wowed by it. It's very simple. Which I'm not sure was the norm for this type of game back then. Never played 2d metroid. Not once. Always interested since Dread came out but never pulled the trigger.

I'll finish it but I wonder if this was the right game to jump into haha.
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FYI it’s a remake of the Og Nes Metroid. It’s fleshed out compared to it but it’s still a lot more linear than later games and the newer and crazier stuff is saved for it’s all original final act
 
I'm replaying Zero Mission after going through the 2D Metroid series last year. It's still a very solid little game, although even by Metroid standards you do end up backtracking a lot. But I'd still put it at #3 behind Super and Dread.
 
LuigiBlood said:
The stick sensitivity is way too much imo and I think it's because of the framerate at times, but it's especially annoying for Goldeneye's aiming
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I remember my testing on this indicating that the original N64 just feels way different due to the longer throw/higher lever arm. I did a lot of (admittedly unscientific) testing between an NSO N64 Controller, real hardware, and a Pro Controller, and it certainly felt like the former two were identical while the latter was the most sensitive - but it became clear upon careful observation that I was just moving the Pro Controller stick more than I thought I was, and upon closer examination 25%/50%/75% of the Pro Controller stick movement matched up pretty closely (if not exactly) to 25%/50%/75% of the stick movement on real hardware; it just felt more sensitive anyway. I think I chalked this up to modern games tuning things differently due to an industry trend towards shorter sticks, but I don't remember for certain.

However, I didn't compare any games with boosted framerates on NSO, as I don't have any cartridges to compare against.
 
Jersh said:
I remember my testing on this indicating that the original N64 just feels way different due to the longer throw/higher lever arm. I did a lot of (admittedly unscientific) testing between an NSO N64 Controller, real hardware, and a Pro Controller, and it certainly felt like the former two were identical while the latter was the most sensitive - but it became clear upon careful observation that I was just moving the Pro Controller stick more than I thought I was, and upon closer examination 25%/50%/75% of the Pro Controller stick movement matched up pretty closely (if not exactly) to 25%/50%/75% of the stick movement on real hardware; it just felt more sensitive anyway. I think I chalked this up to modern games tuning things differently due to an industry trend towards shorter sticks, but I don't remember for certain.

However, I didn't compare any games with boosted framerates on NSO, as I don't have any cartridges to compare against.
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To be honest, it might correspond anyway, but the more I think about it, the more we actually need actual settings regardless for actual accessibility attempts because it genuinely is hard to back to, and that's something Nintendo seriously needs to think about for NSO at least some general options here and there...
 
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I'm not really a huge fan of Metroidvania games - most tend to be too similar for my tastes - but I really appreciate the tight pacing and clever mechanics of Zero Mission so far, having just beaten Kraid. Glad I decided to give it a go.
 
I've been playing Four Swords, it's so cathartic after years of playing Alttp GBA and only being able to watch that opening cutscene, because I had no friends who owned the bloody game.

Why Nintendo/Capcom made this a multi-pack game is beyond me. It's so everyone has to be on the same level of progression as the other players? Or that the GBA just couldn't store it? There's no reason everyone needs a profile as long as one player is making progress, like in Kirby.
 
Making my way through Link's Awakening for the first time on GB NSO, then ALttP after that

I don't think I will play Four Swords but how's the GBA version of ALttP? Worth it over the original?
 
Wockio said:
Making my way through Link's Awakening for the first time on GB NSO, then ALttP after that

I don't think I will play Four Swords but how's the GBA version of ALttP? Worth it over the original?
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Yeah it's worth it, if you don't mind the OOT voice clip. (I grew up with this one, so I am used to it.) Even the screen crunch isn't so bad, considering the kind of game Alttp is.

It has a few small QOL changes along with the new translation that's more accurate to the Japanese original.

https://zeldawiki.wiki/wiki/The_Legend_of_Zelda:_A_Link_to_the_Past_&_Four_Swords#Palace_of_the_Four_Sword

Controls​

  • The R button now performs the same actions that the A button originally did. The A button now replaces the Y button as the button to use Items.

User interface​

  • When Link's Rupee, Arrow or Bomb carrying capacity is full, the color of the amount's number changes to yellow to signify this.
  • The secondary menu in the inventory screen that held the Bottles is now merged with the main screen, creating a new column on the right side. This is made possible due to the wider screen ratio of the Game Boy Advance.
  • The cursor in the inventory screen is now a pair of parentheses instead of a circle.

Places​

  • The area south of Kakariko Village now plays the overworld theme instead of Kakariko's.
  • Link can now jump over some of the Tombstones found in the Graveyard.
  • The Digging Game can now be played again without the need to leave and re-enter the area. Also, the sound effect played when an Item is dug up is changed.
  • The cave in the Light World that can be accessed by using the Magic Mirror from outside Turtle Rock now contains Eyegores instead of Goriyas.
  • A piece of a broken bridge was added east of the Pyramid of Power in order for Link to see the Skulls used to cross the gap with the Hookshot.
  • The Shop to the west of the Pyramid of Power now not only sells Red Shields, but also Fighter's Shields and, once Link obtains it from Turtle Rock, Mirror Shields. This is because Link can now lose his Mirror Shield to Like Likes, which now infest the area around the Shop as well as the Palace of the Four Sword.
  • A new Shop appears in the Village of Outcasts that sells Bees, Fairies and Golden Bees, though Link cannot buy Golden Bees until he shows the shopkeeper one from the Light World.
  • The Smithery is now called Smithy during the credits.
  • Dungeon names and their Level number are now displayed on the screen when Link enters them.
  • One of the rooms in Hyrule Castle now has a single Spear Soldier instead of two.
  • The Ice Palace was altered to make the puzzle requiring Link to push a block to a lower floor slightly easier.
  • The symbol seen before activating the Treasure Chest containing the Big Key in the Eastern Palace is replaced with a new one.
  • The staircase leading to Ganon's Tower no longer makes Link walk faster halfway through it.
  • The platform with the Treasure Chest appearing after defeating Moldorm in Ganon's Tower is extended by one row.
  • The Telepathy Tile found in Chris Houlihan's room is no longer present.

Characters​

  • During the prologue sequence, the blue Soldiers hold spears rather than swords, as in the original Japanese version of the game.
  • The Witch's Assistant is replaced by Maple.
  • Trees in the Dark World only spit Bombs after being talked to, and only if they are unfriendly.

Items​

  • Obtaining an Item which consumes Magic now fills the Magic Meter. Likewise, obtaining the Bow gives Link 10 Arrows.
  • The flames from the Lantern can now cause minor damage to enemies.
  • Light coming from the Lantern in dark rooms now disappears only after lighting every Torch in the room.
  • The archaic spelling "Faeries" has been changed to the much more common "Fairies".
  • The Good Bee has been renamed to the Golden Bee.
  • Pots can now be shattered using Arrows or the Golden Sword, and Silver Arrows can break through entire rows of pots. This new ability is used for puzzles in the Palace of the Four Sword. Signs can now also be destroyed with the Master Sword and its upgrades.
  • Certain Rocks and Skulls will sparkle on the overworld. If Link strikes these Rupee Rocks with his Sword, they will scatter Rupees. Link can continue striking them until they return to normal.
  • Bushes can now be destroyed using the Magic Hammer.
  • Link can now dive underwater using the Zora's Flippers. This allows him to dodge Enemy attacks.
  • The Shovel now has its own inventory slot and is kept after finding the Flute. Link is also able to dig in all four directions instead of just right and left.
  • The Flute has a ninth destination point in addition to the original eight. This new location is at the top of the Light World equivalent of Turtle Rock.
  • Bunny Link retains the Blue or Red Mail if Link is hit by a Rabbit Beam while wearing it, rather than reverting to his Green Tunic.
  • The Super Bomb now grows in size when it is about to explode.
  • Link's hands no longer change color to indicate that he is wearing either the Power Glove or the Titan's Mitt.
  • Bomb drops no longer create a splash effect when appearing on water.
  • Upgrading an Item at a Great Fairy Fountain now plays the "Get Item" jingle.
  • Items thrown into a Great Fairy Fountain now move up a down when retrieved by a Great Fairy.

Enemies and Bosses​

  • Enemies and Bosses now flash white and shake when struck, rather than flash in multiple colors.
  • Crows are now more aggressive, however their Dark World counterparts, Dactos, are less so.[verification needed]
  • Fire breathed by Kodongos can no longer be seen in the darkness.
  • Goriyas keep moving even if Link is pushing a solid object.
  • Up to four Geldmen can appear at once instead of the previous three.
  • Stalfos in the Eastern Palace can no longer be defeated before spawning.
  • Like Likes appear in the Palace of the Four Sword and near the Shield Shop to the east of the Pyramid of Power. Much like the Pikits, they will eat Link's Shield, but will also run away and fly into the sky to prevent him from getting it back. They will even eat the Mirror Shield, which can be repurchased only in said Shield Shop.
  • Link can no longer shoot Arrows when defeating a Lanmola until it fully disappears.
  • Mothula can now be damaged by attacks of any of the Master Sword upgrades.
  • Kholdstare now has an animation when its shell is melted.
  • Ganon's arm when holding his Trident has been mirrored horizontally. This may either be a graphical glitch or an oversight.

Miscellaneous​

  • The title screen has been slightly altered where the Master Sword is now blue in color, as opposed to purple in the original game. The background also takes up more of the screen and a "PRESS START" prompt now appears under the game's name.
  • The game has a lighter color palette to compensate for the lack of backlight on the Game Boy Advance. However, the player can adjust the brightness on a file, and switching to "Dark" sets the colors closer to the original release. There is also a "Bright" option, which makes the colors even lighter.
  • There is an option to speed up and slow down the text speed.
  • The music and sound effects have been altered slightly due to the limited sound capabilities of the Game Boy Advance, resulting in some lower quality samples.
  • The icons that display at the top of the screen have been adjusted to compensate for the smaller screen size. The pause menu has also been adjusted.
  • Link now has voice samples as sound effects, which are taken from child Link in Ocarina of Time. He will yell when attacking and falling down holes, and grunt when taking damage.
  • Certain sprites found in Dark World dungeons use the same green palette that is otherwise used for the overworld, as opposed to the blue palette used in all the original game's Dungeons and the Light World. This has the effect of changing the color of certain Enemies, such as Bari and Kyameron.
  • Pots make the same sound effect for shattering even if they fall down a pit, unlike in the original game.
  • Dropping Bombs or Blocks created by the Cane of Somaria into a pit also makes the sound effect used when other Items fall as well.
  • Rubble no longer falls from walls when blown open with a Bomb.
  • Performing a Spin Attack on grass also cuts the grass patch Link is standing on.
  • Items dropped after bashing a Tree now produce a sound effect.
  • Dashing over landmines does not make them explode, unlike in the original where it would safety detonate them.
  • The Fairy Fountain theme no longer loops after a Great Fairy is summoned twice.
  • Link can now cancel a warp after being picked up by the bird summoned with the Ocarina.

Though playing Four Swords is worth it if you want to unlock a bonus dungeon and a new sidequest in Alttp.
 
I'm not into either of these Mature 64 titles but RE2 would turn my head. But really there's a lot more stuff I'd rather see on the regular app first (Puyo Puyo Sun, Mischief Makers, Ogre Battle 64, Mega Man 64, Rakuga Kids, both Goemons, Rayman 2, Smash, more Bomberman, etc, etc).
 
Mer.Saloon said:
They didn't just put in the french/german roms on the SNES app like they've been doing with the others?
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The NES, SNES, and Genesis NSO apps don’t support PAL versions of games, so only the GB, N64, and GBA NSO apps have European versions of some games available via a toggle.
 
fiendcode said:
I'm not into either of these Mature 64 titles but RE2 would turn my head. But really there's a lot more stuff I'd rather see on the regular app first (Puyo Puyo Sun, Mischief Makers, Ogre Battle 64, Mega Man 64, Rakuga Kids, both Goemons, Rayman 2, Smash, more Bomberman, etc, etc).
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Rayman 2 would be such a great get for the service
 
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Rran said:
Having a blast w/ PD so far (just reached the airport mission).

I think I may be blessed (cursed?) w/ ignorance regarding the technical aspects of these games lol
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It really sucks that many N64 games don't have an ideal way to officially play them. You'd think Perfect Dark XBLA would be ideal like the Banjo remasters are, but it also has an ABSURD 45% deadzone on the sticks for some reason. They are still good games and I think it's great if people can enjoy them for the first time here. It's just, man they should be so much better and personally, just always sucks when I can get a better experience on something unofficial instead of something that costs money.
 
fiendcode said:
Touch it more, it's still the best curated NSO app imo. I just wish Sega/M2 would go back to it.
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Genesis games just don’t really appeal to me, I’m sorry, lol. I don’t even like the classic Sonic games, and I’m a huge Sonic fan. I’m sure it’s full of great games that other people will enjoy, but I don’t even really touch any third-party games on the Nintendo system NSO apps for the most part, so the Genesis app—which features exclusively non-Nintendo games—just isn’t my thing. I already have too many Nintendo games to play as it is, and that will always be my priority and what I enjoy most.

I would absolutely play a decent amount of Dreamcast NSO if that were ever to be a thing, though!
 
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MegaStrimp said:
Mfw you need to find 4 people who just happen to own a Switch and care enough to buy the NSO Expansion Pass in order to play Four Swords
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Well there are the various discords and subreddits to Zelda at least when it comes to finding people to play FS.

Not that that means you shouldn't have matchmaking, but still, better than nothing.
 
Mer.Saloon said:
Or that the GBA just couldn't store it?
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This is likely the reason. Single-pak titles had to fit a game binary into the tiny 256 KB EWRAM on the GBA (remember, there's no proper on-board storage). That just wasn't much to work with.

For a point of comparison, I believe the entire ROM (ALttP + Four Swords) is around 3.5 MB. Obviously ALttP is probably a much bigger chunk of that, but I doubt it's still an order of magnitude larger.
 
Played a handful of the PD challenges online w/ a friend, and the game is still just so damn fun and chock-full of content.
After our session, I even went full nerd mode and ordered a Joanna Dark Save The World Tour tshirt lol
 
Jersh said:
This is likely the reason. Single-pak titles had to fit a game binary into the tiny 256 KB EWRAM on the GBA (remember, there's no proper on-board storage). That just wasn't much to work with.

For a point of comparison, I believe the entire ROM (ALttP + Four Swords) is around 3.5 MB. Obviously ALttP is probably a much bigger chunk of that, but I doubt it's still an order of magnitude larger.
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That's not really strictly true. The game could feasibly stream the data dynamically to the other players, something that I think was more common on DS with download play, but that's obviously much slower than loading from cart and the game would have to be designed around that.
 
Pokemaniac said:
That's not really strictly true. The game could feasibly stream the data dynamically to the other players, something that I think was more common on DS with download play, but that's obviously much slower than loading from cart and the game would have to be designed around that.
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Was that feasible? I was under the impression data in EWRAM couldn't be overwritten when used as the boot ROM source, though I suppose that was more of an inference I made than something I actually read. Relying on streaming data to the 32 KB IWRAM seems even more difficult and tedious, and the only other option is the 96 KB pool intended to be VRAM (though it was directly addressable by the CPU if you wanted to sneak some extra data into it).
 
Jersh said:
Was that feasible? I was under the impression data in EWRAM couldn't be overwritten when used as the boot ROM source, though I suppose that was more of an inference I made than something I actually read. Relying on streaming data to the 32 KB IWRAM seems even more difficult and tedious, and the only other option is the 96 KB pool intended to be VRAM (though it was directly addressable by the CPU if you wanted to sneak some extra data into it).
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I'm reasonably certain that several GBA games I've played in single cart mode actually sent over a preloader as the payload which would then finish receiving the data. I'm not certain of the technical details, but that would at least seem to suggest that dynamic streaming should be possible, albeit slowly.
 
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For comparison, Mario Kart: Super Circuit have both Single-Pak and Multi-Pak multiplayer. Multi-Pak features all tracks, characters, and play modes. While Single-Pak only allows Battle Mode with four map, and Yoshi being the only playable character.

From what I've seen, Four Swords has a decent chunk of contents in it, and with Single-Pak, it's likely that only a few stage were possible, so the developers decided not to support it entirely.
 
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