Gadgetory

as the oldest of the three major console companies right now Nintendo has a variable of a history of retro system so much so that a lot of them have been given new life again again in different ways whether that's games being ported to later systems different services that you access and play these games or even the classic edition systems which offer a sort of greats his selections of things that came on the NES and SNES but in the rush of all these different products that allow us to play our favorite old games there's one system in particular that's been having the roughest time coming back and that's the n64 the NES and SNES are old enough that a lot of their games are very easy to adapt to various different platforms because the button inputs are so simple and the Gamecube came out just before HDTV started getting more standard and so there's a couple different options to make that work along with just simply using them with a Wii the n64 on the other hand hasn't really had those options a few select games have been ported over time there were virtual console titles in the Wii and some very big hits were brought over to the 3ds like Ocarina of Time and starfox but even then there is a very large library of awesome n64 games that are pretty hard to play on modern systems I was just looking at my instrument by the way if you want to see some more photos of the super 64 alongside some of my favorite n64 games that I've tracked down you can check that out on my Instagram you can also see BTS shots from videos like this one on the Instagram for Sun squared media both of those are linked down below now this is an issue that a lot of people are aware of there's been a lot of clamoring for an n64 classic edition after we've seen the other ones there has been talk from different companies of releasing their own systems capable playing n64 games and hooking up to an HDTV and we now finally have the first of those products that can let you do that the super 64 from beyond the promise of the super 64 is to be a very easy way of taking your pre-existing Nintendo 64 system and hooking it up to a modern TV with as little fuss as possible giving you not only a clear image but still maintaining all the things that are good about retro gaming like having minimal input Lag the question is does it work if you haven't heard of Eon before this is actually their second kind of third product they've released the first project was a similar adapter called the GC HD which came in two different versions this is the mark two one right here and it basically delivered on the same main promise the super 64 has but for the Gamecube giving the ability to hook it up to HD TVs now the GC HD offered a ton of different options there were a lot of different ways you could customize the image and fine tune it a little bit and most of this was controlled through the ability of being able to interact with the universal remote which was a little annoying but still offered a lot of great customization and the default options were strong I was a big fan of it the super 64 on the other hand is considerably simpler compared to the GC HD whereas the GC HD had a ton different options ways to customize the super 64 basically has well one by comparison the super 64 is something that's a bit simpler and a little more straightforward it still offers the same main promise of being able to allow you to plug in to your n64 that any additional cables you have to plug in to power you don't have to add any kind of modification to the system it just plugs right into where the video out would be for your n64 and bam you now have an HDMI out port to work with what's really kind of handy about this too is that the way the n64 itself is designed there's already a lot of bulk happening on the back end of the system I mean if you ever have used an n64 the power supply itself sticks out way far so while this does add a little bit to the overall dimensions of an n64 it's actually not protruding in any kind of noticeable way because it's basically just balancing out with that power adapter now in comparison to the GC HD which offered all kinds of different ways to customize and fine-tune the image the super 64 on the other hand is much simpler and really just has one special feature and that's not because they were trying to get rid of any features or they were trying to keep everything like that it's just that there's only so much you can do with an n64 video signal compared to a Gamecube so for the super 64 there's only one single feature that it has which is called slick mode instead of having to rely on using a new versatile remote to go through a bunch of menus that are hidden it just relies on a single little button right here on the side that you hit you hit this button it turns on slick mode when you hit it again turns it off as simple as that now as for what slick mode does it applies a filter to the image that's being put out by the n64 to smooth out a lot of the rough edges see when you're using an adapter like this for the entity bar it's not adding any kind of additional lines it's not changing the resolution of the image it's instead putting out a nice clean 480p signal which is all you really need to get a good looking version of the game but because it's a 480p signal being shown on a modern TV especially if you're using a larger one you're gonna start noticing all those blocky pixels and depending on your personal preference that can look a little annoying but there are a couple of cases here and there where I do find the crisper look of just leaving the slick mode off does look slightly better to my eyes I think one of the main examples has to be starfox 64 so with slick mode it's adding this effect where a lot of these hard pixels are now being smooth adapt to look more like traditional lines now the trade-off here is that it is actually creating a slightly blurry er image but you're only gonna really notice that if you're using it on a very large TV and you're playing at a pretty close distance if you're playing from further away on our smaller screen generally it just flat out looks a lot better in my experience the vast majority of games that I've played using the super 64 slick mode is the way to go some games particularly look way better like Mario 64 there is an obsession with trying to recapture this style we had for old systems we grew up with and there's a lot of different ways people have found tap into that now as far as official channels go things that say Nintendo has done first hand it's usually things like making games available on later systems whether that's a port or even like what they're doing with the NES online on the switch where there's a library of old-school games you can play and then there's even of course the classic systems where they kind of put a greatest hits compilation of games from those titles on a standalone little system which is great if the games you grew up in love or on those systems great easy option but if there's some game you love that was a weird kind of side game that not any one really knows about or wasn't a huge popular hit chances are you're not getting a lot of portunities to play that again and when talking about the n64 which is kind of focus of this video you know there's a lot of love for that system and everyone was so happy when we got the NES and SNES classics so you know fingers crossed Nintendo's gonna bring an n64 Classic next nope we went a whole year without any new system coming out and even on the record while Reggie was still working for Nintendo he stated yeah the NES and SNES were cool ideas they were kind of one I live in two things we wanted to do we're not looking to move forward on any other kind of similar products meaning the hope of an insectivore system like that probably isn't happening again compared to the GC HD the super 64 is a very simple product I think that's really the big focus of Avion has is that this is meant to be a maximum convenient option for people that want a way to play n64 games on a modern TV because there really aren't that many out there and the ones that exist are very expensive more so than a super 64 or they're much more specialized involve things like having to actually open up and modest system whereas in the case of the super 64 you just plug this into the back plug an HDMI cable into it and you're done now as for how the games actually look while you're playing with this honestly they look really really good there's definitely some visual aspects here and there that stand out as being a little awkward sometimes things don't properly translate to a modern TV and there are things that accounted for playing on a CRT that just doesn't work when you're doing in HD and this isn't doing any extra work to try and clean any of that up it's focused on just being able to give you an easy way to push that signal and I'd say that overall it is worth it it's certainly not a cheap option at 150 bucks this is not aimed at just every single person out there who owns an n64 the goal is definitely people who are n64 enthusiasts that one option to use their systems still today on a modern screen but that haven't deal with a lot of hassle like modding or anything beyond that it's just a good simple straightforward solution that gets the job done something I think is really important to emphasize and point out about the n64 particular is that there really aren't that many options out there for NES and SNES there are a lot of ways of experience classic games even the GameCube has a couple options including the GC HD that we talked about but when it comes to n64 and something that's actually a convenient choice this is basically the first one so that's where the option of third parties and more enthusiasts kind of stuff comes in and yes of course there's always the option to just straight up emulating things on your computer or some kind of dedicated emulation device but there's always the argument of whether or not that's entirely legal and how much that actually recreates the spirit of the thing look there's plenty of games that you can emulate I did it myself growing up but there's something different about actually playing with an SNES controller on an actual SNES recapturing those systems that you played on the proper way and using game carts you grew up with to continue those same save files and that's where some of these other options like the super 64 come in now those are great options that I'm a big fan of them but there is also a certain magic that's gained from the other option which is something that just modifies a previous system whether it's something that is in-depth or you're opening up an old-school system and changing the parts of the board or something that's simpler like the super 64 where you just plug it in and you're good to go because there's a certain kind of feeling you get with this concept of hey this is the n64 I grew up with these are the games I still have the controllers I still have and this gives you a way to take all of that and just use all of it today on a modern screen this isn't thing I've talked about a few times on this channel where of course I love modern games there's a lot of amazing stuff coming out and things that were never possible before in gaming and most of what we cover on the channel is modern stuff but there's a part of me that has always been fascinated by and has a deep love of any kind of tech that focuses on taking those old experiences I grew up with and finding ways to bring it into the modern age and for the longest time sadly the n64 is one of the system's that's just kind of missed out on that experience and that's why I'm so happy to see something like the super 64 come out and hopefully it's just the beginning