N64 Month | Cubed3's Memories of the Nintendo 64: Zelda, Mario and More!

Jorge Ba-oh, Editor / Founder

Around the school yard there was a growing shift towards Nintendo. Sonic figures and comics became taboo, growing dust in one corner, and GoldenEye 007 echoed around corridors as being the game to have. I counted down to my tenth birthday, the special one; I just had to get my hands on the beast. Popping in the grey cartridge, flicking the switch with palms ready to embrace a pixelised Pierce Brosnan and my love affair with the PlayStation was over. I would plod through the immersive levels -- popping bullets into confused soldiers -- ride tanks and get absolutely creamed in multiplayer. Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time came next; two phenomenal pieces that truly represented a new age of 3D games with massive, expansive words you could genuinely interact with and become part of. The polygon-based approach wasn't new or unusual, but what the Nintendo 64 offered was a greater sense of control -- being able to naturally manoeuvre protagonists like Link and Mario with an analogue stick, whilst being able to lock targets and use face buttons to perform actions. It looked peculiar, and felt almost alien at first, but are key in so many great memories.

Mario Party was one of my fonder moments -- summers spent roaming around outside rapidly came to an end when this series suddenly gave birth: a board game on the TV; a rarity that has become such a huge franchise in just over a decade. It was like nothing I had ever played, and the joy came when four players would compete for super stardom. Control pads were slammed, friendships lost and once topping the 100 star mark and that sudden event happened, I can recall almost urinating my pants in fear. Collecting enough coins to buy stars and the feeling of trumping your foes after over an hour's play was a truly great experience.

There is something quite special about the Nintendo 64 -- timeless games that still have strong single and multiplayer appeal today. It is no wonder fans and Nintendo themselves look back to it as a golden generation of gaming.

Adam Riley, Operations Director

It only seems like a few hours ago that I was eventually hammering away on the spaceship-shaped controller, twiddling the long, protruding analogue stick and bracing myself as the Rumble Pak kicked in every five seconds, complete with a satisfactory buzzing noise thanks to my third party version that included a Memory Pak in the same device to save having to swap between the two, as required when sticking with the official products. It feels like I have been eerily transported in some crazy time machine from a time when I was care-free, with a full head of hair, to now, present day waiting for the advent of the Wii U.

Memories of playing GoldenEye 007, International Superstar Soccer ’98, Mario Tennis and Mario Kart 64 with three of my friends from school are still firmly lodged in my mind. The countless hours spent in four-player, split-screen sessions, whooping and shouting at each other when someone had just fired off a deadly shell in Mario Kart 64 to nab the previously elusive first place mantle, or bemoaning the person who hid in a safe spot in GoldenEye 007 and waited for armour to regenerate before picking off passers-by with deadly headshots. I even fondly remember back to International Superstar Soccer 64 when I used to devastate my friends by scoring straight from corners nearly every single time, or dance my way through defences with my silky skills.

Unfortunately, I was also at an age where defacing the sleek black curves of the Nintendo 64 did not faze me in the slightest, and to this very day there is a decal of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time on it from my favourite publication at that point, N64 Magazine, purely because I really cannot get rid of it without leaving annoying glue marks and ripped paper leftovers on the casing! My console, as you might have guessed from that last sentence, is in my possession to this very day, and only got begrudgingly boxed up and put into storage when I started downloading numerous Virtual Console releases. The system now sits comfortably next to my NES and SNES, so is definitely in good company. Rest in Peace, dear N64...

Az Elias, Previews Editor

My brother and I were lucky enough to receive the system, Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, and Banjo Kazooie as a Christmas present from our parents, setting us on a path of fantastic moments of fun for years to come. Banjo Kazooie struck a chord with the both of us; the sheer hilarity of characters' conversations was comedy gold, and the music was some of the most addictive I'd ever heard -- to this day, I can still remember just about any of the game's theme tunes. Jumping around in these incredible and diverse worlds, not only in Banjo Kazooie, but Super Mario 64 and Donkey Kong 64, as well, was almost too good to be true. Swinging Bowser by his tail in Super Mario 64, as the camera panned around him, and launching him into bombs was a pinnacle moment for that gaming era. Despite having a selection of fantastic single-player games, the N64 was the party console of choice for multiplayer events. Mario Kart 64 was usually where it was at, however, GoldenEye 007 was never far behind.

It was the two The Legend of Zelda games that I will always fondly remember the Nintendo 64 for, though. Playing through Ocarina of Time, I really felt like I was little Link, where the whole world was my oyster, and I could go and do whatever I wanted. Sometimes I didn't feel like tackling a temple -- I wanted to hang out with Malon at the horse ranch or go fishing to catch that bloody Hylian loach! I literally spent hours at the fishing pond trying to bag me the biggest fish I could find. With Majora's Mask, everything was taken to a completely different level. The three-day clock was one of the best gaming mechanics I'd experienced, with the ability to play with time by speeding it up and travelling backwards. With a bigger emphasis on out-of-dungeon quests rather than doing one dungeon after another, as well as the fleshed out personalities of the characters, and a deeper and darker storyline, I found myself engrossed in the world of Majora's Mask more so than its predecessor.

Despite not having as large a selection of games as Sony's PlayStation, many of the games I did have on the Nintendo 64 were of such a high quality that they kept me coming back for more. I will always fondly remember the system for the wonderful single-player experiences and multiplayer madness it gave me.

Shane Jury, Features Editor

My young mind was mesmerised by the way I could move Mario around in this big new world with a weird mushroom-like stick, it was like magic happening right in front of my eyes, and though there was an imposed one-play-a-day rule, this got over-ruled in record time. I reminisce about the machine the most when I recall the countless hours of multiplayer time that was put into it, GoldenEye 007 not so much, but Mario Kart 64 and wrestling games were slotted into the console so often they might as well have been built-in.

This machine is also credited with being the one to introduce me to Zelda games in spectacular fashion, namely with one of the greatest in Ocarina of Time. Ocarina took my breath away, from the curious beginning of the forest and the spiritual stones, to the future of going through a ghost town packed with zombie-like creatures (that would subsequently keep me off the game for weeks), to the epic finale, it was perfection in gaming form. Some of the greatest N64 games live on through Wii emulation and 3DS re-imaginings, but the console itself will always be a benchmark in my gaming career.

Rudy Lavaux, Retro Editor

This meant that I had to visit friends who had one in order to play Super Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64, although most of those times were spent playing multiplayer. Back during the early days of N64, the only multiplayer game everyone cared about was obviously GoldenEye 007. I'm sure anyone who played the Nintendo 64 in multiplayer back then is still familiar with "Proximity Mines" and the "Golden Gun."

Fond memories of borrowed games include Jet Force Gemini with its insanely hard bosses (Mizar and the Twin Mantis, most of all), Donkey Kong 64 which I had a hard time due to the headache inducing character-switching system and loads of different items to collect, and The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, which is still by far my favourite Zelda game. I'll refrain from going into too much detail about how much I loved the Mystical Ninja games and Resident Evil 2, which also are still some of my all-time favourites on the system.

However, it is sad to say that in the long run, many of the promises were not kept. The difficulties inherent to programming a game for the Nintendo 64 meant that a lot of games were continuously delayed or simply cancelled, more often than not. The 64DD was only released in a very limited quantity in Japan only, and seeing as it offered only 64MB of storage (opposed to the whopping 650MB of PlayStation discs), other than the reduced production cost, many would wonder "What was the point?" considering cartridges of that capacity became available by the end of the system's life anyway, although the price for those was pretty steep.

It wasn't all about disappointments, though. It's hard not to look on bright side, with the incredible exclusive games that the system did get, which are what makes the Nintendo 64 a truly unforgettable system for the Nintendo fans of my generation.

Ross Marrs, Podcast Editor

It was called the "Ultra 64" and I remember the excitement of seeing 3D games for the first time, like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda. Of course, there were games like Starwing and Stunt Race FX for the Super Nintendo, which I played and those were 3D, but the beauty of the Nintendo 64's visuals outshone them so considerably that it was unbelievable. There was also my fond memory of a video cassette tape I got with Issue 1 of N64 Magazine (now known as Nintendo Gamer). After watching the video over and over again, it was clear we had to get the system.

The Nintendo 64 lives on as my favourite console of all-time and I still go back to it from time-to-time to play some of my favourites, such as Diddy Kong Racing, Banjo Kazooie, GoldenEye 007, Lylat Wars, Super Mario 64 and many more, but I'd be here all day if I listed everything! Simply put, the Nintendo 64 is utter perfection.

Stuart Lawrence, Character Profiles Editor

Up until F-Zero X (and later Jet Force Gemini), Banjo Kazooie was my favourite, although I never actually completed it -- a habit of playing games and not completing them has stuck with me even today, although I do play to completion more often now. GoldenEye 007 turned me into a big Bond fan and playing the game I would just remember the parts from the film and imagine being the man himself, and playing multiplayer with my little brother and friends was great fun, too. I went on to complete more games and I became a big Nintendo fan.

Pokémon was another love of mine on the 64. I loved Pokémon Stadium and Pokémon Snap. I thought playing my Red version on my TV with the turbo button on was the best idea ever, and, better yet, it was in colour. Another thing about Pokémon Stadium was the mini-game collection, playing with friends and family on that was just as fun and competitive as anything else. Of course, you may be wondering why I haven't mentioned Ocarina of Time yet. Well, that is simply because I didn't own the game until about 5 or 6 years ago! It has been quoted many times as being the best game ever, and while I can see why many people think/thought that (I loved the game), it has been bested by the games that came after it, in my opinion.

Even now I'm still collecting N64 games, and with the Virtual Console I now have Majora's Mask as well as Ogre Battle 64 and Sin and Punishment, which originally never saw release on UK shores. I loved my N64, and it's still at home at the foot of my bed ready to be played anytime.