9-Volt
Yoshi
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I feel like the N64's library suffered from lack of balance way more imo.
Such as almost non-existent rpg presence.
I love N64, but the most common criticism of it is lack of genre diversity. It has plenty of sports, racing, and platforming games because that’s what the console does well. But compared to Saturn and PlayStation (and SNES) there are huge gaps in genres that don’t fit into those categories, the most obvious being RPG. N64 has like 5 RPG games— three of them star Nintendo characters, and one of the others is Quest 64.
All of you are definitely right. N64's RPG lineup was absolute shit. But that's the only genre that was lacking on the system. With just "few hundreds of games" of library, N64 actually beats or ties with Switch in several genres.This just doesn’t make sense to me. The N64 only got a few hundred games in total. There were very few 2D platformers compared to the Switch, almost everything I loved on SNES was gone, almost no RPGs or strategy games. If the Switch lacks balance, the N64 was just woeful in that regard, even though it did get the sports and arcade game ports of the time.
This can only be proven with some list wars.
Sports: Well this one is a given. Nintendo literally had "N64 Sports" banner in sports games and Nintendo actually published several serious sports games, such as Ken Griffey baseball and Kobe Bryant NBA. N64 had all sports, both arcade and realistic versions, including the biggest omissions on Switch: NFL and NHL.
Racing: N64's racing library is pretty legendary. Nintendo made not one but TWO kart games, plus a new full 3D F-Zero title. They also brought Cruisin games to Switch. Third parties provided insane amount of racers as well: Top Gear Rally, Extreme-G, Ridge Racer, Carmageddon, Beetle Racing, Rush...
Extreme sports: One genre that needlessly died. N64 was the golden age for it, not only third parties had a tons of them (from Tony Hawk to Snowboard Kids), Nintendo also published 3: Excite Bike 64, Wave Race and 1080. I don't think Switch got any other than Tony hawk's 1+2, which were remakes of N64 games.
Fighting: Honestly the genre is very much alive, they did Switch dirty. Switch still got 2 MK games, 2 new SNK titles (1 port) DBZ, Naruto, MHA arena fighters (if you count them), Pokken, Blazblue, DNF Duel, UNIB. N64 with smaller library had similar amount of fighters: 2 MK games, Killer Instinct, Clayfighter 3, Flying Dragon, God Wars, Deadly Arts, Fighters Destiny, Dark Rift, Bio Freaks, Mace the Dark Age. Popularity of arcade really helped N64 here.
3D platformers: Nintendo isn't at fault here, third parties pretty much ignored the genre. Switch got Mario Odyssey, Bowser's Fury, Kirby & forgotten land, third parties provide Pac-Man world, Crash, Spyro trilogies, Crash 4, Sonic Forces and Frontiers. Two spongebob games. Indies did the heavy lifting here: Hat in Time, Lucky's World, Yooka Layle, Penny, Demon Turf, Kao the Kangaroo. Tbh, N64 was the golden age of the genre. Nintendo had total of 4 3D platformers and from the third parties we had: Conker, Rayman 2, Tonic Trouble, Rocket Robot on wheels, Space Station Silicon valley, Glover, Earthworm Jim 3D, Goemon, Gex 3 and many more I can't recall...
And that's just five of the genres. N64 actually can go toe to toe with Switch with other genres as well. Like, N64 actually had a pretty robust FPS lineup, including the ones with full deathmatch multiplayers. Switch had its own share of FPS games but still none of them offer proper deathmatch modes. Space shooters too, as Switch is still waiting for its own Star Fox. And let's not forget wrestling. N64 was a total wrestling monster. Switch was screwed by Take Two, as they ditched it after failing in one wrestling game.
I apologize in advance if i have forgotten important games here (especially on N64 front) but the point still stands: Switch, and the whole generation Switch is in, missed some important genres. Not because people no longer want them, they absolutely do, but because there are no developers to make them. I mean, Activision literally had two developers that are good at above genres (Toys for Bob and Vicarious Visions) and forced them to assist CoD development, which Switch still haven't got a single entry of.