I always have ads up looking for locally sourced TG-16 Duo games. Every about 4 – 6 months I get a bite from someone and I get some games. It is always nice to buy locally.
Recently someone contacted me with a great arrangement of Duo games. I’m still attempting to arrange a deal with this fellow. We are attempting to work out a trade. I have an extensive SNES boxed game collection that I am unloading so he seemed interested. Here is the thing though, at the top of his “wanted” list is an N64 and about 20 games.
I blew out most of my N64 stuff over the last half year because I just came to realize that it does not interest me. I continued to analyze why I was not a fan of that system and came to a few conclusions.
- There were not a lot of great games for the N64. I dare anyone to name more than 20 “universally” loved games (I’m being generous), with the caveat that they still hold up. This brings me to my next point.
- N64 games for the most part, do not hold up to the test of time. Let’s be honest, a lot of N64 games feel like tech demos at the dawn of Nintendo’s attempt at three dimensional gaming. I still agree that Mario 64 is one of the best games of all time, but I’m sorry, Goldeneye (I’m about to get lynched) is an aged, slow, and ugly game, with poor controls. Welcome to the start of, “look what we can do in games now”. All of this fancy 3d was seen as a major progression in gaming. Looking back, most of those games don’t feel like progress. To be fair, the game creation techniques just needed refinement and a few years of development before they got it right and 3d gaming became truly great.
- Art. Art is important. I think we all can agree, TG-16 Duo games are for the most part, beautiful. Rich and interesting art styles. Colors that pop on the screen even by modern standards. N64 games and the word “art” have almost nothing in common. N64 games are full of graphics designed for function. Shading a polygon in 1996 is not art. Again, with the exception of a few games, this is the argument I will defend.
- Point 3: This sh*t is not rare! Why, week after week and month after month, I see people posting N64 games on Kijiji as “rare”, I cannot figure out. There is some person posting Conker’s Bad Fur Day every other day on Kijiji for as long as I can remember, but those individuals still post it with the disclaimer, “no low ballers. I know how much this is worth.” It’s a $60 dollar game at best (cart only)! It’s ugly, not even that good, and hardly a rare title. There are millions of N64 carts collecting dust in basements and attics all over my city that you can buy every week at garage sales for $1 per cart, but for some reason carts like Zelda Majora’s Mask, and Super Smash Bros. sell for $40- $50 because they are supposedly “rare”. I’m not saying that the price of all other collectable games are justified, but with the N64, it is just ludicrous. (with the exception of a few titles that actually are rare.)
- My last reason for disliking the N64 is: The ridiculous pie eyed love for everything Nintendo by 70% of the gamers I run into. I like Nintendo a lot. I am a huge fan, but I am a gamer. I also loved the Nokia N-Gage and the Panasonic 3DO. Every system had its moments that defined it, but that does not hinder my ability to recognize fault and say, “Hey, this particular product is not so great.” I just cannot fathom why 9 times out of 10 when I’m looking to trade games with someone who has actually great and valuable games, all they want is N64 titles. I don’t have any! They are gone! I traded them all off because they are not great, they are so damn common, and everyone wants them. I kept about 13 games for the N64 and I can’t think of any others that I want, yet week after week in my city they are treated like the gaming pinnacle and traded/sold in ridiculous numbers. I can’t even get my friends to recognize that the TG-16 is a valid system most of the time. I explain how great the games are, and how great the Japanese PC Engine games are, and show them examples of the greatness, but alas they just want to play Starfox 64 (so ugly and muddy/dark). The really sad thing is, if I took all of those great TG-16/PCE games and plopped them onto a Nintendo system with the trademark of “Nintendo” on them all of the sudden people would be falling all over themselves to get a copy of Blazing Lazers.
Anyway, what are your thoughts? Am I completely off base here? I should say that as a gamer, I own almost every system post NES, including obscure items like the Atari Jaguar, Nokia N-Gage, CDX, 3DO, Lynx, NEOGEO Pocket, blah blah blah. The point is, I’m not a console snob, but I'm mostly proud of my TG16/PCE stuff. Best systems ever!
