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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

Why oh why couldnt they make for swords work on a single Switch - we do have multiple switches, but man.. I just want to be able to play it on the same TV :p
 
Stilt Village said:
Zero Mission has difficulty settings. Easy is by far the easiest Metroid game, and Normal is easier than Super Metroid for the most part but with a big difficulty spike at Mother Brain. Hard is at least as hard as Fusion, but I don't think it's even available until you've finished the game at least once.

Zero Mission is kind of meant as an introduction to the series, so you shouldn't have any problems with difficulty on a basic playthrough. The real challenge appears when you're going for 100% (which is a bit less obscure than Fusion but has by far the most difficult speed booster challenges in the series).
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Just as to add on in terms of 100%ing Zero Mission, there are a ton of items locked behind equipment you can only get at the very ending of the game and you are barely rooms away from the final boss.

In addition, even if you know what you are doing, the items are scattered around enough and numerous enough to basically take about half the time of your total playthough.

Should be noted that this is coming from someone who has not played Zero Mission, but has watched a couple of LPS of the game.
 
Semi Lazy Gamer said:
Just as to add on in terms of 100%ing Zero Mission, there are a ton of items locked behind equipment you can only get at the very ending of the game and you are barely rooms away from the final boss.

In addition, even if you know what you are doing, the items are scattered around enough and numerous enough to basically take about half the time of your total playthough.

Should be noted that this is coming from someone who has not played Zero Mission, but has watched a couple of LPS of the game.
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There are I believe just 8 items you can only get with the last upgrade located outside of the final area, and like half of them are just outside of it. Which makes it kind of annoying that you have to go back to old areas at the end of the game at all, because you'll be trekking all the way out to some isolated area to pick up one thing, but if you know what you're doing this part can be mopped up pretty quickly.

100% will take forever the first time though, not because of these, or even the Celeste-tier platforming you have to do to get some of them, but because even items that can be gotten pretty early are often hidden behind figuring out really obscure puzzles or secret techniques. You have to find the items, you have to figure out how to even get them, and then you have to do it. It's a multi-step process, and in contrast to just beating Zero Mission I would say that 100% completing it is instead the most hardcore-leaning experience in the series, and only for the sort of veteran Metroid players who can comfortably do things like navigate Maridia without using the grapple beam and beat Draygon with shinesparks. You definitely shouldn't worry about it for a first playthrough anyway, because new game+ gives you an item tracker on the map screen so you can see if you're missing anything.
 
I love that whenever an N64 game gets added I'm excited for a bit before remembering that the emulator is absolutely, completely terrible. I would not mind if they threw everything about the emulator out the window and just try again with Switch 2. The emulation problems Perfect Dark has are insane, might be the worst launch on the service since OoT, which is saying something cause Goldeneye was pretty fuckin bad.
 
JazzyFuture said:
I love that whenever an N64 game gets added I'm excited for a bit before remembering that the emulator is absolutely, completely terrible. I would not mind if they threw everything about the emulator out the window and just try again with Switch 2. The emulation problems Perfect Dark has are insane, might be the worst launch on the service since OoT, which is saying something cause Goldeneye was pretty fuckin bad.
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What’s wrong with Perfect Dark? I dabbled in it a bit earlier and it played exactly how I remember it— for better or worse. Trying to readjust to non-dual stick controls is brutal. But that’s not a problem with the emulator itself, but rather the game just being a product of its time in the way it controls, which makes the Xbox 360 remaster the definitive version both in play style and visuals.
 
Aurc said:
Whoa, you hadn't heard of it before? How long have you been a Metroid fan, just out of curiosity? Glad you enjoyed it. Definitely one of the most pivotal GBA games for me when I was a kid.
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I think I played Super Metroid for the first time around 1998, but almost no one I knew was into handheld gaming (all consoles). I even had a GBA, but I only got it for Pokemon and I never paid attention to handheld stuff.

Either way, Zero Mission feels like it's the most slept on game with Fusion getting way more attention.
 
Rareware said:
What’s wrong with Perfect Dark? I dabbled in it a bit earlier and it played exactly how I remember it— for better or worse. Trying to readjust to non-dual stick controls is brutal. But that’s not a problem with the emulator itself, but rather the game just being a product of its time in the way it controls, which makes the Xbox 360 remaster the definitive version both in play style and visuals.
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Stick sensitivity even on N64 controllers, completely broken effects, new things lag the game like the smoke that comes out of the guns while firing (which is impressive considering the original famously barely held a framerate), and somehow, broken music.
Good thread that showcases some of the problems.
 
ShadowFox08 said:
I'm just really disappointed Nintendo isn't allowing custom controller access through the app, if not each game in NSO. It's very low effort.

I wish we got the x box 360 version and Rare Replay.
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This. That crap needs to get sorted out, it's ridiculous. I was so happy when Goldeneye was released on NSO only to find out that I'm nowadays unable (and absolutely not willing!) to readjust to these hilarious controls. Same with Perfect Dark? What a bummer, online would be so much fun :(
 
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JazzyFuture said:
Stick sensitivity even on N64 controllers, completely broken effects, new things lag the game like the smoke that comes out of the guns while firing (which is impressive considering the original famously barely held a framerate), and somehow, broken music.
Good thread that showcases some of the problems.
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Oof. Yeah that second video with the broken effect is rough.
 
Man, Turok is rough. Just feels plain awkward on both the N64 controller and the Joy-Con, particularly because of the very primitive way aiming is handled (you have to hold the stick in the position you want to aim, letting go neutrals the camera). Perhaps I shall put the remaster on the wishlist, seeing as I do enjoy Doom-likes...
 
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Sucks that PD plays like that hopefully they patch it. I played the first level and did notice the sound was off but not unplayable by any stretch, unfortunate about the dizziness thing.
 
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Can you play 4 swords with your friends if you‘re the only one with an expansion pass. Like you bring your switch and have everyone play
 
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Did a clean sweep of Zero Mission a few years ago for a Famiboards event and, yeah, no contest the best Metroid game.

It looks like the version on NSO has the ‘Fusion Gallery’ unlocked already, which required linking the two games. It has all the end scenes from the JP version of Fusion, some of which I believe were cut from overseas releases for being too naughty. A nice touch that Nintendo continues to good about with these GBA rereleases (got dem e-Reader Mario 3 levels too).
 
JazzyFuture said:
Stick sensitivity even on N64 controllers, completely broken effects, new things lag the game like the smoke that comes out of the guns while firing (which is impressive considering the original famously barely held a framerate), and somehow, broken music.
Good thread that showcases some of the problems.
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Oof, that would make the Area 51: Escape level unplayable because you start in a room full of toxic gas that makes you dizzy.
 
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Man, I played through all of Perfect Dark for the first time every on NSO with my N64 controller and while I definitely noticed framerate issues, some graphics problems, it's hard to believe it's this bad. On the plus side if they ever patch it in the future it'll give me a great excuse to replay it because dang... Even with the emulator quirks I had an amazing time with the game and I wish I'd have played it sooner!
 
I've came to the conclusion recently (mainly due to the stuff surrounding TF2 as of recent) that legally, companies should not be able to charge money for software that doesn't work properly. Poor emulation is one thing, but emulation so terrible that part of a game is almost unplayable is another.

I really hope that something is done about the N64 emulator with the next system, like a complete rewrite from NERD. Maybe also give us an option to run games at their native resolution too, because N64 games do not upscale very well.
 
I really don't get why Nintendo's quality control often just goes out of the window with the N64 NSO app, with Pokémon I understand it but here is just weird, especially since the other apps are fine.
 
Question for those in the know (and my apologies if this has been answered elsewhere): Why did Acclaim get removed from the box art for Extreme-G and Iggy's Reckin Balls but not the box art for Turok? I think I understand that the rights to the first two are owned by a different company, hence the change. I assume that is the case with Turok too, but did the owner for it just not care to change it?

Edit: Just checked the listing, didn't know Nightdive owned the rights to the game. They don't really strike me as the kind to feel the need to change the box art, so that answers that.
 
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Really not a good look that nitnendo's own official N64 emulator for NSO continues to run like dogshit, especially as at a time when romhackers have gotten so good with N64 emulation.
 
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StretchNStripes said:
Question for those in the know (and my apologies if this has been answered elsewhere): Why did Acclaim get removed from the box art for Extreme-G and Iggy's Reckin Balls but not the box art for Turok? I think I understand that the rights to the first two are owned by a different company, hence the change. I assume that is the case with Turok too, but did the owner for it just not care to change it?

Edit: Just checked the listing, didn't know Nightdive owned the rights to the game. They don't really strike me as the kind to feel the need to change the box art, so that answers that.
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A company called throwback entertainment owns iggy and extreme g. They seem to want their logo on the games so they edited out acclaim in favor of theirs.

It stands out, since most games are using the original boxart, which references previous publishers (The Immortal on NES still has EAs logo even though the rights are elsewhere now. Breath of Fire on SNES still has the Squaresoft logo despite the rights reverting to Capcom) or the names of long dead companies like Acclaim.

I guess the edited boxart was a request by Throwback. I think most companies don't care that much about updating vintage boxart, but apparently they do.
 
It's weird of much better Turok controls than Perfect Dark''.

Graslu, one of the best Goldeneye & Perfect Dark player have made a full comparison running PDark on N64 and NSO and there's quite a lot of problems. If you had a hard time aiming correctly, not only there's input delay but also a slower sensitivity (that you can't fix).

 
I don't understand why Nintendo would let it release in this state, same with the previous N64 emulation issues, especially since It's a higher-tier subscription.
 
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I know they had iQue's work just laying around from the Wii U, but I'm starting to wish NERD just made a new emulator from scratch instead of attempting endless patch jobs on this one.
 
Chie said:
Oh I meant does 1.2 work well with the default controls or are you doing that in addition to using the system level button remapping?
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Well I don't do any configurations on a system level. I understand that it is weird for people accustomed to today's standard dual analog controls. It will probably still take some time to get used to. If you want to, you can also exchange the sticks' roles on a system level to make 1.2 more like regular dual analog.
 
Red Monster said:
Speaking of 100%’ing Zero Mission, doesn’t getting 100% make the final boss much more difficult?
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Yes, because the game believes that if you're the type of person who is willing to do some of the Shinespark puzzles required for 100%, then you're a glutton for punishment, and it's happy to oblige you with more.
 
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Koren Lesthe said:
It's weird of much better Turok controls than Perfect Dark''.

Graslu, one of the best Goldeneye & Perfect Dark player have made a full comparison running PDark on N64 and NSO and there's quite a lot of problems. If you had a hard time aiming correctly, not only there's input delay but also a slower sensitivity (that you can't fix).

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I do know that Nintendo has over time fixed issues with other N64 titles, one of which I believe was OoT when that first came out. So hopefully they take some of this feedback, and improve it. I would not be surprised if the team involved with N64 titles on NSO are quite small, and have a limited tome budget to get the games out, and end up fixing it later in post once feedback is presented.

But it still doesn't address the elephant in the room, which is N64 emulation. For fuck's sake, PCs since the late 90s have been able to get N64 emulation working properly. And Nintendo have the low-level tools to make it happen correctly!
 
Mbolibombo said:
Why oh why couldnt they make for swords work on a single Switch - we do have multiple switches, but man.. I just want to be able to play it on the same TV :p
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Honestly same. Four Swords is absolutely the first game I thought of when I wish it could have local multiplayer on a single console.

Stupid thing is, didn't some dataminers determine that when a GBA game is in four player mode, it is emulating all the consoles at once but just zooms into the screen that you're playing?
 
Shoulder said:
I do know that Nintendo has over time fixed issues with other N64 titles, one of which I believe was OoT when that first came out. So hopefully they take some of this feedback, and improve it. I would not be surprised if the team involved with N64 titles on NSO are quite small, and have a limited tome budget to get the games out, and end up fixing it later in post once feedback is presented.

But it still doesn't address the elephant in the room, which is N64 emulation. For fuck's sake, PCs since the late 90s have been able to get N64 emulation working properly. And Nintendo have the low-level tools to make it happen correctly!
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Let's not exaggerate. The unofficial N64 emulation was still bad for a long time, more so in the late 90s, it was just enough to get the big games working but not necessarily accurate graphically.
My real blame on the current N64 emulator is how they just don't seem to try much with it. Standards have changed, these very same standards with Vulkan that actually paved the way on super accurate N64 graphics with Parallel-RDP and a very decent middle ground with RT64.
 
It's a real bummer how many issues there still are with N64 emulation on NSO considering how incredible the game lineup has been, especially in comparison to prior N64 Virtual Console lineups which were fucking desolate wastelands. Hopefully they can fix PD in future updates like what they did with OOT.
 
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Shoulder said:
I do know that Nintendo has over time fixed issues with other N64 titles, one of which I believe was OoT when that first came out. So hopefully they take some of this feedback, and improve it. I would not be surprised if the team involved with N64 titles on NSO are quite small, and have a limited tome budget to get the games out, and end up fixing it later in post once feedback is presented.

But it still doesn't address the elephant in the room, which is N64 emulation. For fuck's sake, PCs since the late 90s have been able to get N64 emulation working properly. And Nintendo have the low-level tools to make it happen correctly!
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I won't excuse everything ; N64 ermulation is a nightmare, including for Nintendo, or, in that case, NERD the french team working on the Switch emulators iQue.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw of the N64 emulator is something baffling that should've been adressed after the initial release : why can't we configure the controllers specifically for N64 games ? This shouldn't be that hard. The Switch OS's controller remapping tool doesn't allow you to replace any of the sticks directions, which is beyond stupid.

It's nice to have this option in the OS, but the execution is very bad.
 
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Koren Lesthe said:
I won't excuse everything ; N64 ermulation is a nightmare, including for Nintendo, or, in that case, NERD, the french team working on the Switch emulators.

In my opinion, the biggest flaw of the N64 emulator is something baffling that should've been adressed after the initial release : why can't we configure the controllers specifically for N64 games ? This shouldn't be that hard. The Switch OS's controller remapping tool doesn't allow you to replace any of the sticks directions, which is beyond stupid.

It's nice to have this option in the OS, but the execution is very bad.
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In this particular case, NERD did not do the N64 emulator. It's iQue who has worked on it since Wii U and hasn't stopped since.
Not to reject the fault on them, but it's also hard not to think about the actual effort done on GB and GBA by NERD (and possibly Panasonic Vietnam).
 
LuigiBlood said:
In this particular case, NERD did not do the N64 emulator. It's iQue who has worked on it since Wii U and hasn't stopped since.
Not to reject the fault on them, but it's also hard not to think about the actual effort done on GB and GBA by NERD (and possibly Panasonic Vietnam).
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Oh, my bad ! I'm fixing my post.
 
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LuigiBlood said:
I don't wanna put all the blame on iQue, imo put it on Nintendo for not allowing the N64 emulator to be good
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I mean, sure, I guess it was Nintendo’s call to put iQue in charge of the N64 emulator…but iQue are ultimately still the ones working on it, and you don’t see the same kind of issues with other NSO emulators. I assume they were put in charge because they’re, like, the N64 emulation people for Nintendo…but clearly they’re not as good at it as they once were.

But to be fair, even with the issues, I wouldn’t say that the N64 NSO emulator is bad—in fact it’s perfectly adequate, and most of its issues are only really a problem (if they’re even noticeable at all) to a small minority of people like those of us here who care enough to post on gaming forums like this and nitpick over the smallest inconsistencies. That’s not to say that the N64 emulator shouldn’t be better, of course…but it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be.

I’ll admit, though, the Perfect Dark dizzy issue does seem significant enough to greatly impact the playable experience to pretty much anyone, so that should definitely be fixed if possible. I imagine it’s probably a consequence of the resolution being bumped up to 720p… Is it a known issue on other emulators, I wonder?
 
Tye said:
I mean, sure, I guess it was Nintendo’s call to put iQue in charge of the N64 emulator…but iQue are ultimately still the ones working on it, and you don’t see the same kind of issues with other NSO emulators. I assume they were put in charge because they’re, like, the N64 emulation people for Nintendo…but clearly they’re not as good at it as they once were.

But to be fair, even with the issues, I wouldn’t say that the N64 NSO emulator is bad—in fact it’s perfectly adequate, and most of its issues are only really a problem (if they’re even noticeable at all) to a small minority of people like those of us here who care enough to post on gaming forums like this and nitpick over the smallest inconsistencies. That’s not to say that the N64 emulator shouldn’t be better, of course…but it’s nowhere near as bad as it’s made out to be.

I’ll admit, though, the Perfect Dark dizzy issue does seem significant enough to greatly impact the playable experience to pretty much anyone, so that should definitely be fixed if possible. I imagine it’s probably a consequence of the resolution being bumped up to 720p… Is it a known issue on other emulators, I wonder?
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I'll be frank here: iQue was NEVER good at N64. Almost all the problems that people noticed on NSO literally stems back from the Wii U VC and in those versions, they NEVER fixed them. Remember the whole Dark Link room issues in Ocarina of Time? They were already there on Wii U and they never fixed that.
They were likely put in charge because the devs behind the Wii N64 VC emulator were gone, and iQue was working on emulators for 3DS (NES, GBC and GBA though that last one is unfinished).

Personally I was down to defend the N64 emulator a little bit, but after several years, for me I lost all my good will about it. This is objectively bad. End of story.
There's too many issues, and I'm not even asking for the most accurate N64 emulator, just to RESPECT the games they're emulating, and Perfect Dark is for me the final straw. The fact they let past certain issues that shouldn't have been difficult to find is frankly a disrespect to the game and to us.
And nah, I'm not gonna let past the whole "people won't notice it" for me it's also complete disrespect of people who played the wrong version of a game and might possibly dislike that game just because the emulator was shit.

(EDIT: FUCK I accidentally posted too early)
 
LuigiBlood said:
And nah, I'm not gonna let past the whole "people won't notice it" for me it's also complete disrespect of people who played the wrong version of a game and might possibly dislike that game just because the emulator was shit.
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Okay, this is fair when it comes to issues like the Perfect Dark one, but most of the issues have just been, like, minor graphical bugs that I think really aren’t going to make anyone dislike the game or be significant enough to make it the “wrong” version to have played. In fact the benefits of playing on NSO versus original hardware—Restore Points, handheld play, online play, etc.—likely make it a better experience all around for the vast majority of players despite any emulation issues.

Again, not trying to excuse the issues, and I’d like to see those fixed as much as you (plus other issues that go ignored that I feel are just as much if not more of a “disrespect” to the original games), but people act as if NSO N64 emulation is among the worst official emulation out there…when it’s really not that bad.
 
Tye said:
Okay, this is fair when it comes to issues like the Perfect Dark one, but most of the issues have just been, like, minor graphical bugs that I think really aren’t going to make anyone dislike the game or be significant enough to make it the “wrong” version to have played. In fact the benefits of playing on NSO versus original hardware—Restore Points, handheld play, online play, etc.—likely make it a better experience all around for the vast majority of players despite any emulation issues.

Again, not trying to excuse the issues, and I’d like to see those fixed as much as you (plus other issues that go ignored that I feel are just as much if not more of a “disrespect” to the original games), but people act as if NSO N64 emulation is among the worst official emulation out there…when it’s really not that bad.
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Personally the minor graphical issues are more grave than getting the game names slightly wrong in a menu. But there were still a bunch of major ones, some of which took an entire year to fix like Yoshi's Story's Inviso's transparency that wasn't working properly when it was the entire point of the boss.

Then there's the fact that I looked into the emulator for a while and I get constantly mad at decisions like how they actually emulated the Controller Pak but doesn't use it in any game, having a very nice game scripting thing they don't even use it to automate pak switching between Controller Pak and Rumble Pak but they use it to remove a Controller Pak error message, constantly even showing me that they do reverse engineer the games but doesn't do the obvious, having unfinished 64DD emulation since Wii U but hasn't bothered to finish it.
And the whole technical aspects of getting a game working in this emulator is imo more work than it is actually worth and more likely to play whack-a-mole with bugs than any other emulator... It's just badly designed.

For me they haven't done anything towards at making sure the games actually run and are playable properly, they haven't shown any interest on that and they constantly play catch up. For me that's just a real disrespect towards players and I'm still kinda sick of the whole good enough excuse.
 
Curious: outside of the issues with Perfect Dark, what's the notable emulation issues that are still occurring with the other N64 games on NSO right now? Anyone got a list?
 
Dinoman96 said:
Curious: outside of the issues with Perfect Dark, what's the notable emulation issues that are still occurring with the other N64 games on NSO right now? Anyone got a list?
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On a personal level, the more general ones are the following:
  • Lack of remappable controller is genuinely awful for some games.
  • F-Zero X still has random framerate issues. Most people would think it's good enough, but for me when the game goes from 60 FPS to randomly unstable it bothers me to no end
  • Pilotwings 64's Birdman requires tons more A button mashing than the original did because of the higher framerate
  • Lack of controller pak support for some games as I would genuinely like to not use save states
  • Harvest Moon 64's constant mix of filtered and unfiltered graphics bothers me so much that I just don't wanna play it
  • 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
  • and no remappable controller support again because that's genuinely the most important problem
  • terrible online

For the rest however:
  • Jet Force Gemini runs better sure, but the game was designed with the lag in mind and is more difficult as a result
  • See Perfect Dark's twitter thread on how bad it is, and some of those issues also apply to Goldeneye
I'm sure there are probably some other issues, and I expect DK64's treatment to not be good if I rely on how it was on Wii U
 
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