What's a "Moral Compass Cricket Thingy"?

[Moonface]

Are there games outside the kart racing genre that would've interested you but didn't because of lacking a story mode? I was trying to think of games outside racers that might do that myself but I couldn't think of anything.

[Maniakkid25]

Not really? I Guess sports games come to mind, but those have, like, a season you can play with complex aspects of trading and that sort of thing. Several fighting games, as well, have, like, an arcade ladder and that's it, but that still has stuff you can unlock. Then again, I gravitated to single-player games for the exact reason that I never reliably had anyone to play with. It really sucked, to be honest...

[Moonface]

Dang, I'm sorry to hear you didn't have anyone to play games with back then.
Did the introduction of online multiplayer in games at least help with that at all?

[Maniakkid25]

It did, but then I ran into the new problem: none of the games I really wanted to play were multiplayer, or I'd have to play with randoms, and I don't really like playing with randoms. So, you know, it kind of just reinforced itself, tbh.

[Moonface]

Oof. That's a shame.

What games back in the day would you have played multiplayer in with people if you'd been able to?

[Maniakkid25]

Snowboard Kids 2, Banjo Tooie, and Diddy Kong Racing immediately come to mind. There's a few I can't remember off the top of my head, but those are the first ones that came to mind. Anybody remember Snowboard Kids 2?! Because I do! It was awesome.

[Moonface]

Banjo Tooie has multiplayer? I never knew or expected that. o.o
I personally don't remember Snowboard Kids 2 but that's because I didn't really grow up around anything not tied to PlayStation. I did recently hear of it by name though because a streamer I watch was wearing a shirt of it IIRC.

Also I have no idea how good these things actually are in practice but while looking up SK2 I came across this website that seems to let you play it in browser: https://www.retrogames.cc/n64-games/snow...2-usa.html

[Maniakkid25]

Yeah, Banjo-Tooie had four player local multiplayer, where you basically just ran through all the mini-games the game has you do in the campaign. It's really cool.

God, Snowboard Kids on the N64 was so awesome. I might of been on the "losing" side of that console war, but goddamn did the N64 get some kickass exclusives. Rogue Squadron, Snowboard Kids, Bomberman 64, and those are all non-first party. Then again, I don't care about the consoles; I just care about the games.

[Moonface]

I missed out on practically the entire N64 library because I didn't know anyone with the console and heard about Nintendo so little I didn't know Mario or Zelda even existed until probably the Wii. I'm curious to try out Snowboard Kids properly (that website doesn't really let the game play well on mobile) because I wonder if it has similarities to anything I've played or seen on PlayStation at the time.

Assuming you don't have NSO or at least not the tier that gives access to N64 games, what game(s) would Nintendo have to add to that library to make you strongly consider subscribing to it?

[Maniakkid25]

I do not, mainly because I'm not paying 50 bucks for that. I don't use my Switch often enough to justify that price tag, sadly. But, if I did, I would absolutely drop the money right now because they have Pokemon Puzzle League and Winback. I love Panel de Pon in general, and Pokemon Puzzle League is that, so I absolutely want to see if I can hold my own on a real controller (I've beaten Super Hard before, but that was with a keyboard where I had much faster response times). And Winback is just an interesting game that I'd want to experience, considering it's basically the first ever cover-based shooter (even though they botched the implementation of that, as the game actively punishes you for going too slow).