/vr/ - Retro Games

>>10189467
Nintendo 64 was legit. It was designed to play 3D games for the get-go, as its launch title, Super Mario 64 suggests. Which is in stark contrast to the other older systems on the market. The PS1 is a 2D system. Games like Resident Evil or Final Fantasy aren't fucking 3D games. They're 2D games with flat backgrounds that use simple 3D models. The best 3D games that the PS1 has are very, very basic stuff like Metal Gear and Spyro. The N64 was half a generation ahead of the PS1, and it shows. The PS1 doesn't have any game that properly uses 3D space in the same way that Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye do. The N64's CPU simply allows for much more realized and sophisticated 3D spaces and better game logic/AI too. If you want my honest opinion, the PS1 crippled the 3D game industry in Japan. Even into the PS2 era the majority of Japanese devs were STILL making 3D games with basic-bitch flat 2D arenas as "levels", when Mario 64 was showing not to fucking do this in 1996. Nintendo is probably the only Japanese developer that ever understood 3D games for a long time.

PS1 and N64 are barely the same generation. The "most 3D" games on the PS1 are so basic compared to the N64. Do you truly not see the difference between the real-time vertical architecture in Zelda, GoldenEye, Conker, etc when you compare them to PS1 games like Final Fantasy and Resident Evil (very low poly, limited models on a 2D image background)? Even the PS1 games with full-rendered environments (like Metal Gear and Spyro) still use extremely flat levels and arenas, because the hardware is older. Even with the absolute best programming tricks by talented devs like Naughty Dog, Konami, etc, the PS1 is still a league beneath the N64. And frankly the popularity of shitty flat level design ruined a whole generation of 3D Japanese games much beyond this era. The fact that the N64 didn't reach a broader appeal (because of the lack of CD's) is a tragedy that should be mourned.