- First 3D platformer done right. It was mind boggling to see Mario run in 3D worlds in the castle and jumping in paintings for levels. I am not sure if this hub model has been done before. The game overall was perfect blend to create the greatest Mario WORLD experience. gameplay butter smooth.
- 3D on a cartidge that was something. 0 Load times, you turned into a skeleton waiting on PSX each time you open a door.
- The unique look of soft texture 3D was aesthetically pleasant to me
- First Kart racer in 3D, butter smooth like 60FPS
- Launch of Bros. franchise. I am not a fan but I recon its a huge game.
- First successfl FPS console(golden eye)
- First 4-screen split gameplay? (don't quote me on that)
- first analogue and z-trigger controller
- Zelda on 64 at that time recieved a perfect 10 mostly in reviews
- Launch paper mario
- The wrestling games in of pro-wrestling in its height of popularity
- 4-players local!!
- Golden age of RARE
There is probably more. Did it beat the PSX? NO. PSX was like your older brother cool adults console. But it offered a different experience especially with that 3 legged controller. It had way less titles than PSX but many of its games has high replay-ability especially with your social circle. It was family fun. From hardware perspective it was way more sturdier than PSX.
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Speaking of its generation, people here seem to look down on that generation. I see it as the greatest generation of all time, it opened the worlds of 3D. A lot of what we have today is refined PSX generation stuff. Wrestling games, 3D racers, 3D fighters, adventure games, 3D RPG, even hardware like memory cards. It had the most iconic of stuff like all the survival horror games, Tekken, MGS, GT, FFVI , Tomb Raider, Crash was the 3rd mascot next to Mari and Sonic and it worked. Tall plastic boxes and black CDs were very iconic to PSX at the time, albeit they dropped it later on idk why and I don't recall what colour it was replaced. General writable dvds became purplish. But a black CD was COOL. really gave a feeling this is not like your music CD, this is different, this is a PSX CD
It easy to look back now at Tomb Raider and compare it to the Last Of Us and say "Well this sucks" . But you had to see what it offered at its time. Thats like giving a 9 year old today a Gameboy meanwhile he plays Nintendo Switch. Tomb Raider was a sensation of its time so much so they created a movie on it in 1999, a rare occasion.
As for Saturn, I am old enough here to remember a time when Saturn was the members' favorite retro console. I believe there is a poll here somewhere buried in the archives. I was not a fan, 2D fighters were arcade like. It will forever be tied in my head with Nights Into Dreams. Thats the Saturn icon for me. The white one still looks beutiful. It had its share of uniqueness too.
