Nintendo’s N64 emulation is useful, but treasured memories deserve better

Anyone who has spent a decent amount of time gaming probably has a small handful of momentous memories etched into their brain. Not just that time you beat a grueling boss or played Mario Kart with your friends at Paul’s birthday party, more pretentious than that. We refer to a time when his perception of what was possible in the medium itself expanded in some way; a moment in which you thought Wow … I didn’t realize that games could do that.

Thinking back, I remember decisive moments playing online with friends at Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (the first) and Left 4 Dead that felt as potent as any team activity in the real world, perhaps more thanks to the bonds formed through digital difficulties involving zombies and gunboats. Although it is not the first open world video game in history, Breath of the Wild will have broadened the horizons of many players exploring their space of possibilities and discovering its joys for the first time. Everyone will have their own games and experiences that stick with them for one reason or another, and for me, a particularly powerful moment from the 64-bit era sticks in my mind, and it was nothing more than a quiet sight after a hard time. night in Hyrule Field.

I remember making my way to Ocarina of Time’s Lake Hylia for the first time in 1998. The sun was still low and I clearly remember standing and looking at the water as the dark blue sky gradually turned pink and I was dumbfounded in the morning. mist that forms over the lake. I felt like I could inhale mouthfuls of that cold, damp air sitting there with an N64 pad in my hands.

It was too short a moment thanks to Ocarina’s fast day-night cycle, but those 5-10 seconds on the shore of Lake Hylia left a lasting impression on me. It was a real ‘games can do this?!?!? ‘ moment, and as the rooster crowed signaling the arrival of the day (and the theme of Hyrule Field), my young mind had been expanded with the mere possibilities of a growing medium, one that could so beautifully capture such a natural and ephemeral moment.

Those 5-10 seconds on the shore of Lake Hylia left a lasting impression on me. It was a real ‘games can do this?!?!? ‘ moment

When I played the extraordinary remake of 3DS Ocarina, I looked to recreate that moment. Grezzo did a fantastic job tweaking the old classic, improving the visuals and frame rate to better suit your mind’s version of the game (rather than the 50Hz reality that Europeans first experienced with the PAL cartridge). But that morning mist that burns with dawn? No, that was not in the remake. It’s something we’ve seen in otherwise excellent hi-res remakes before, Shadow of the colossus PS4 remake being a good (and appropriately fog-free) example.

The recent arrival of the game on Nintendo Switch Online prompted me not only to play it at 60Hz for the first time, but also to race through the Deku Tree dungeon and move to Lake Hylia to see what the fog looked like on the Switch OLED. Absolutely spectacularsurely?

In fact, after seeing how the N64 emulation on the Switch seemingly cleared up much of the N64’s famous ‘fog’, most notably on the water temple – I braced myself for disappointment. Yes, unfortunately, the fog that is so ingrained in my brain had also cleared. Don’t get me wrong, the game looks more vibrant and plays better than ever, but for veterans of the original game, I totally understand the pang of disappointment when the bare polygons of Lake Hylia or, say, the Kokiri Forest feel a little less magical without the lovely fairy dust that used to float in the air.

It’s not the end of the world, the game is still fantastic and the convenience of playing on the Switch should not be discounted, but it does underline that many games are inextricably linked to the original hardware for which they were designed, especially titles from this formative era of gaming. in 3D. I’ve always believed in playing games with the controller they were built with (which is double for the idiosyncratic Nintendo 64 platform, of course), but the programmers and artists who assembled Hyrule and other 64-bit worlds didn’t just design around of restrictions, but incorporated those restrictions in art.

the ‘fog’ in Ocarina was never a necessary evil to save the system chipset … it was a vital and intended element, part of the atmosphere

Don’t get me wrong, there are a myriad of games that could benefit from losing the distance fog that plagued them in the past (I’d be intrigued to see what Turok would look like running on this Switch emulator), but the ‘fog’ in Ocarina was never a necessary evil to save the system chipset. Here, it was a vital and purposeful element, part of the atmosphere: dancing fairy dust and debris, storm-lashed sand, or my precious morning mist.

I started writing this article before turning on my trusty N64 to take a screenshot and it occurred to me that maybe, just maybe, my young mind had exaggerated the effect. Maybe it was a minor thing, or he had something in his eye that day. What if I detour to Lake Hylia in the original stored in my original cartridge and find that the mist simply It is not there?

It was a tense few minutes while I waited for the sun to rise, but luckily my memory sped up. There it was, hanging over the water so perfectly that you can almost smell the dew in the cool morning …

In many ways, the game looks terrible compared to the sharp visuals on the Switch version. Upgrading and converting the analog signal from the N64 to my paper thin TV produces a nasty mess of grain and fuzziness that is best viewed from across the room; Take that six-foot trip, though, and the overall on-screen effect is very nice. We often joke in the Nintendo Life office about super sharp pixels versus the softer images many of us saw through composite cables in the past. We wonder which one is the most ‘authentic’, and it always comes down to personal preference. In this case, despite the clear improvements in resolution, my heart goes to the original grainy image. The Switch version looks incredibly clean, but it also sucks up the atmosphere in this case.

Regardless of your thoughts on the images above, revisiting Ocarina of Time on the original hardware and seeing the difference in presentation underscored the fact for me that there will always be a place for completely impractical and inconvenient retro setups involving CRTs, climbers. and original consoles. and other marginally more convenient solutions like the Super 64 that help make hardware work a bit easier with modern displays.

Much of the reaction to the NSO N64 emulation has felt too scathing, and I’m certainly not looking to fan the negativity around a service that, overall, I think does a pretty decent job of offering 64-bit games on the Switch. I wouldn’t mind a couple of simple CRT filter options. Not being able to easily remap buttons is irritating as it gives the impression that the NSO N64 driver is more or less mandatory, which is not the case. I have one on post, because it’s the best pad ever made, but I was playing pretty happy with a Pro Controller.

Despite finding the online clamor a bit infuriating, I can totally sympathize with the disappointment when the emulation solution Nintendo has opted for here, while convenient, compromises the intent of the artists who created these games, and specifically this world. . Hyrule’s version in Ocarina of Time is a precious place for millions of people, a semi-sacred space where memories for a lifetime were created, and one that must be preserved as conceived. Something that, ironically, is only really possible with a digital world.

The exact moment I experienced once during Christmas 1998 is one that I have written about before and will surely do so again, and obviously one that is gone forever. You may not be able to retrieve the feeling more than two decades later, but at least I’d like to see that cold digital fog again. And if I could do it on my Switch, that would be great.