My father was a pilot. And the moment I showed him Pilotwings 64 during a visit, was the moment he knew he needed an N64 for himself. I imagine he was better at landing an actual plane than playing the game, but he loved it. The game is fantastic and one of my favorite titles for the console, and some of my most cherished memories as a growing youth. I imagine the game still holds up today, despite depending on the Koopa Klaw controller. And the music is some of the greatest composed. I will even listen to the OST while I fall to sleep some nights. Rest In Peace Pop. Every time I see anything on this game, makes me think of you.
Yeah. Even more than Mario64, it really showed off what the N64 could do. Some of the maps, like Little America, were legitimately large for the time. Not to mention having an under-appreciated soundtrack.
Saikyo Habu Shogi's title music sounds like the BGM for a video essay about obscure fighting game facts. Lovely episode, it's hard to understand just how revolutionary both of these games were looking from a modern perspective where we live in a world built by them. The N64, blurry as it looks now, was leaps and bounds beyond the jaggy, fuzzy mess you could get on PS1 and Saturn and ran at a much steadier framerate. This might be the lower key release of the two, but it filled its specific niche in a beautiful way.
The fluid controls, the great level design, that MUSIC. I've longed for a game to do stylized geography as well as this games did the Little States - exploring the different areas and cites is still such a massive treat to find all the surprises. That Birdman track is the DOPEST thing I've ever heard in a vidoe game.
Pilotwings 64 was my school of virtual flight. It taught me how to handle aircraft with a controller, how to ease into a vector with gentle adjustments, how to line up an approach to a runway or target. All the skills I developed and used in everything from air combat in Aero Fighters Assault and Ace Combat to flying planes and helicopters in GTAO, those skills started in Pilotwings 64.
Totally agree. I was downright disappointed with Pilotwings Resort, in terms of how much they took out that was in PW64. Throughout the 3DS's life, I kept holding out hope they might do a remaster.
I cant believe how interesting learning about Saikyo Habu Shogi was. I love seeing the variety of experiences a console can provide to audiences. And it sent me on a little journey to learn more about Habu. And that title theme music is a hidden gem! Great video as always!
I bought the N64 at launch with both Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Pilotwings 64 doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It truly is a masterpiece. Flying around the entire USA felt like nothing ever experienced before on a console: the first open world experience. At the time there was really nothing that could compare to the vast openness and freedom you had. Also, a thought about the video: I was originally thinking that having Pilotwings 64 and Saikyo Habu Shogi in the same episode is kinda weird, especially since the latter isn't mentioned in the title. But I guess I probably would have never clicked on a video about Saikyo Habu Shogi because I had no idea what it was or that it even existed until now.
Dang. Your videos are top notch. It's always nice to discover a high quality UA-camr with a huge back catalog to go through. Thanks for these awesome videos, Jeremy.
Pilot Wings 64 is still easily in my top 3 N64 games, and I own over 100 N64 titles. Likewise the 3DS Pilot Wings Resort is my favorite game for the system.
Sure, English is taught as a common second language in Japan, and there's a general fondness for puns. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's been established that someone on the dev team (maybe Tanabe?) was a patron of Hooters during his frequent U.S. visits...
If you feel versed enough in Japanese pop culture do I recommend giving Gintama a try. It parodies pretty much everything, and has a suprisingly amount of good English puns. Just skip episodes 1 and 2 and start at 3 as the first are a weird hour special that is honestly pretty bad compared to the rest. That being said, probably unpopular opinion but I think puns are a pretty great. As one need to understand a language really well to understand them. My English teacher in 10th grade called my self-taught English fluent, but there's still a lot of puns, and weird words I don't understand...
I don't have much to add to the discussion about Pilotwings 64 as a game, having only interacted with the N64's most popular games after the fact, but I still really appreciate its soundtrack. It's full of great chill jazz fusion that remarkably doesn't feel held back by its low quality N64 samples.
While it may not have the "WOW" factor it did 23 years ago (Oh God, 1996 was 23 years ago D:) Pilotwings 64's gameplay experience still holds up really well. Saikyo Habu Shogi's use of the N64's tech was something I wish more developers had done on the system. I would have loved some games to use high resolution sprites on geometrically simple 3D backgrounds for a Disgaea or Xenogears style look, though games of that ilk were sadly rare on the console, the only I can think of is Ogre Battle 64
When I bought my N64 last year, Pilotwings 64 was one of the first titles I really wanted to play, since I was a fan of the SNES original. So it was kind of a "launch title" for me as well, and I love it. I got 100 points on most vehicles, except the cannonball and some gyrocopter missions.
Wow, you said previously you didn't plan on returning to N64. Nice to see you changed your mind, always happy to watch you dive into the nitty gritty of a game.
PilotWings may be long gone, but its spirit lives on still. Boot up Microsoft Flight Simulator, slap on the Pilotwings ost, and bam, you're back in 1996.
Ah, pilotwings 64... There really isn't much like it, and it's so much more playable than the SNES title. It really reinforces what proper 3d brings to flight simulation. There's a wide variety of challenges, large areas, amusing characters, interesting flight dynamics... It really IS a near perfect blend of fun and simulation, and for the time felt quite expansive. And all that for a launch title, which looked better and more elaborate than quite a few post launch games. (The European N64 launch actually had 3 titles by the way, but I forget if the 3rd title was Cruis'n USA or Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire) Still, as far as it goes it was definitely something else. Possibly one of the more underrated N64 titles, and does a way better job of it than it's predecessor...
Oh jesus, these N64 games were just OOZING with soul. I really miss this era of gaming and I really wish they can do a proper Pilotwings sequel one day. It would be amazing with the capabilities of modern Switch and its rumble/joycon.
The "profound sense of chill" and photo options, combined with the free-flying mode, remind me a lot of a later favorite on the Wii, "Endless Ocean". It's a hidden gem with the added bonus of MP3 support, which was sadly dropped for the sequel.
I remember playing Pilotwings 64 for HOURS. It was so fun to explore Little States! The soundtrack is also one of my favorites and I feel like goes mostly unappreciated these days. One last thing to note: It has yet to be re-released on a digital service like Virtual Console or the eShop. I'm not sure if it is an emulation problem or the fact that someone at Nintendo feels nervous about the Twin Towers being in Little States.
As an action-craving teen, i wanted to understand this game. As a mostly chill young adult, i understood it thanks to Pilotwings Resort (extremely underrated game) As a chill adult dude, i want to play this again and enjoy it to the fullest, but adulting has my hands tied
Jeremy mentions that Pilotwings 64 was impressive for its time since a lot of its appeal was just the sheer novelty of 3D gameplay itself. That makes me realize that as videogame tech has plateaued that we're seeing less and less titles that will be regarded as "good for their time". In the N64's time new console generations offered an enormous jump that was immediately obvious. Since the HD era console gens are more incremental in their tech upgrades. The improvements are more subtle and behind the scenes. A game that was considered good ten years ago doesn't come across as hopelessly outdated today but a 1986 game sure came across as old in 1996. So what games will be seen as "good for its time" in retrospect? Early motion control games will fall in that category (or already do) as well as early VR titles. Both of those types of games though are considered unconventional though compared to your average generic videogame. Unless future games are like the holodeck I can't imagine what is considered a conventional game today, or over the last dozen years, being seen as "good of its time". The good games will still be good because they won't be that different from contemporary good games.
Mario 64, Wave Race 64 and Pilotwings 64; the holy trinity of Nintendo's intent with the system. Shame they would be just as much of a hindrance than a benefit in the long run.
While Pilotwings Resort might have better controls the obnoxious presentation and graphical style kills the chill atmosphere that the 64 title had, proving that it still holds up to this day.
Great work Jeremy, thank you for your effort. What strikes me the most looking at these early N64 games, aside from the blurriness of the 3D renders is how much the UI elements themselves seem to be so fuzzily defined. It is as if artists chose to reinforce the blurry impression by choosing heavily antialiased UI elements rather then attempt to contrast it with precisely defined shapes. After the very slick UIs of previous generation SNES games, these blurry and textured buttons look really awful. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could have thought they constituted an enhancement over said previous generation.
@@CobaltZeroni Maybe harder, but still noticeable. Back in the day, N64 games had a visible "Vaseline on the lens" look when compared to contemporaneous PSX and Saturn games.
Yeah there's so many n64 and PS1 games that have UIs that look like they've been created in Microsoft word using the basic word art and basic fonts. They look amateur. After the UIs of the SNES and mega drive which look great to this day. It's like if a person today uses Comic Sans on something completely inappropriate for that font, it always looks amateur. It's strange. It's very 90s I guess, back then the stuff you could do in Word was brand new and groundbreaking, but we got so used to it that these days it looks like someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
The N64 had an anti-pixelation hardware feature that automatically started blurring elements when they got too close to the camera. I would suspect the GUI designers were abusing this, on purpose. If they drew the GUI assets at a lower resolution, the system would automatically "scale" them by blurring them, rather than letting them be pixelly. And the N64 was notorious for its lack of video memory, so they might need to resort to such corner-cutting measures by necessity. But that's just me speculating.
An interesting observation, and I could think of a number of reasons why that might be happening. First, resolution - the N64 technically can do up to 640x480 (or even 720x576 if you have a PAL console), but in practice it was frequently rendering in 320x240 or even less. For that matter, since the output system of the console can do arbitrary image scaling, it's perfectly possible to run a game at 128x96 and still have it fill the whole screen. Not sure if any games went that extreme, but it undoubtedly has an effect. The next possible issue is the edge antialiasing filter; This is a two part filter that consists of something that partly filters polygon edges, and a post-process filter that does something to the entire screen. Other possible culprits - a lot of N64 UI that seems 2d often turns out to be 3d elements. The entire game menu system for Mario 64 is actually all 3d geometry. As such, UI is also a 3d object, and subject to the same kind of filtering and processing. Which brings us to texture filtering; I'm personally unsure if this can be turned off; It would make sense if it could, but there doesn't seem to be clear evidence for it. - the n64 performs bilinear texture filtering; Though from rumours I've heard, it uses a hacked filter for performance reasons; Normally bilinear filtering results in interpolated pixel being the average of 4 adjacent pixels, but for the n64 it's supposedly only using 3 samples, which is part of the reason it looks so dubious compared to 'real' bilinear filtering. Bilinear filtering of the UI would NOT be a good idea, but you never know. It's worth noting that Nintendo provided microcode for 2d graphics, but the system is fundamentally a 3d system. And if you've ever seen any of the pure 2d games that exist for the system, you'd know most of those ALSO look absurdly blurry and frankly kind of ugly compared to the SNES (or the Playstation or Sega Saturn - both of which still have dedicated 2d graphics features, which the n64 does not) That leaves on final possible issue; The 4 kilobyte texture cache. Given how the default microcode is set up, and how most 3rd parties were incapable of creating their own microcode until well into the system's life, this had some serious limitations. All the more so because in spite of being called a 'cache', this was an entirely programmer controlled area of memory, broken up into 4 blocks that could be assigned a texture each. Considering that using 8 bit texture would limit you to a texture of just 64x64, that's pretty limiting, especially if you're not good at managing it. Late era games tended to have custom microcode, and used a technique of breaking up large surface textures into a large series of smaller chunks, thus getting past this limit... But otherwise it's pretty restrictive. While 4 bit and even 2 and 1 bit textures were used, that would still limit you to 128x64, 128x128, and at best 256x128 textures. As you can imagine, that could be a serious problem for UI, and the worse you are at managing texture swapping the more serious of a problem it becomes. It's also worth noting that relative to what kind of graphical effects it uses, the n64 has an exceptionally poor fill rate, and it's highly likely that most of the games on the system are fill rate limited rather than say polygon limited. Something like 60 million texels/second sounds like a lot, and in absolute terms compared to the competition, it is. But if you try for 30 fps, you've got just 2 million texels/second. If you activate the Z buffer, and turn on trilinear filtering, and then use two pass texturing on a surface, plus Goraud shading... That's roughly 10 samples for each such pixel drawn onscreen. At 320x240 that's 768,000 samples for a single frame. And that's probably being optimistic. You then factor in the awkward memory architecture where the CPU has to go through the Graphics chip to access main memory, and continuous throughput could easily halve if not drop further... Anyway... Going kinda off-topic there, but yeah, I can imagine blurry low-rest UI textures could be a side effect of several of these problems all coming together at once. Especially with inexperienced developers who don't understand the hardware very well...
Watching this brings back frustration over the fact that the 64 only had 2 games for a very very long time. I rushed to Blockbuster to rent the 3rd.... Wave Rave 64.... and I was tired of that before taking it back.
I recently found your channel and really like what you are doing, subbed. Pilotwings 64 was an odd game for me. I never owned it but I borrowed it for *years* from a friend who had it but simply didn't like it at all. He'd beat me at goldeneye 99 times out of 100 but didn't enjoy Pilotwings at all. I on the other hand absolutely loved it, especially the hang gliding levels. I can't say for sure but I probably but more hours in to PW than I did in to, say, Mario 64, trying to perfect my scores on each level. It's a shame Nintendo never really did a proper follow up on a home console. I'd love one on Switch but I'm not so sure it would sell well enough for Nintendo to justify it.
I played tons of pilotwings 64 when I was a kid, but nothing in this video rocketed me back to being 6 years old quite as much as the smokestack in the snowy mountain level. Couldn't tell you why that stuck with me so much, but I have this extremely vivid image of all the various pictures I took of that. I think getting a picture of it was a goal for that level, or something? Who knows. Memory's a funny thing. I'm sad there's no third part to the Mario video coming (and even sadder you've given up on multiple episodes for one game, I would LOVE to see your FFVI series continued) but I do get it and if it removes a roadblock to more N64 Works episodes... good riddance!
This is probably in my top 5 N64 games. Loved the trick of landing the gyrocopter in Little states and refueling. Spent hours driving around little states.
Hey jeremy! Love all the nes snes and genesis game episodes you do! Please keep doing more! So many nes snes and genesis games you can do as episodes as before!! Anyways please do a genesis mini review!!!!
I love the idea that some Japanese businessman went, "Yeah, this character has big boobs? Let's name her Hooter" no doubt based on a drunken debauchery-filled trip to an American Hooters.
1996 was a dry year for the N64 and I ended up playing a ton of Pilotwings and Wave Racer because of it. I doubt I would have ever even rented them if Nintendo had had the kind of third party support the SNES had.
Oh hell yes - N64's lineup is about a weird as Gameboy's. So many low-poly, blurred textured treats to come. Cannot wait until you get to Blast Corps. There is nothing that ISN'T odd about that game.
"as with many n64 games this was a formative work that felt pretty revolutionary in its time, but countless games have followed in its wake..." shows the one portable sequel this game has had. I can't think of really any game that's tried to do what pilotwings does outside of the series. there's barely any flying games period these days. Still good video but i strongly disagree with saying this game is dated. Its fantastically chill with the freeroaming levels, several secrets, fun objectives, bizarre flying machines (there isn't even a single normal plane in the game), and a killer midi soundtrack.
You nailed Pilot Wings 64 being simultaneously relaxing and stressful. I loved renting it back in the day. Looking for a bit of advice: I enjoyed writing reviews purely as a hobby, but almost...don't see a "use" in it...when videos as nice as yours are constantly being created, and thus haven't wrote in a couple years. That being said, I miss the discipline, flow and act of creation that comes from writing. Any thoughts on how I might start again?
Not to be overly reductive, but I'd say find a topic that interests you, ask yourself what you have to say about it, and write that down. You don't need to write for any purpose except your own satisfaction.
Thank you! That's a great point...one's own satisfaction is all that really matters in the end, regardless of money/fame. I'll follow up some months ahead.
I do enjoy going back to this one once in a while since, all these years later, I've still yet to get top medals in everything. Also, I got my N64 in Toys R Us at launch and I'm pretty sure that Mortal Kombat Trilogy was also a US launch title. Am I misremembering that?
Hoping for more details on what didn't pan out with the Odyssey video. Obviously I gave up hope on it a while ago, and I immensely appreciate the free content, but it would satisfy my curiosity to know.
Nintendo stopped providing advance review code for new releases to small outlets beginning with Odyssey, but I had planned my production schedule with the intent to run that video around launch day. Their change threw a monkeywrench into my schedule and screwed up the video process for a couple of months. Kind of soured me on the whole thing.
I'm still confused as to why Pilotwings 64 kept skipping the VC services. Some unknown legal issue I don't know about, or is this game just too forgettable to put on the service? Then again, Dr Mario 64 is an outstanding game and that got skipped too
Luckily Super Mario 64 was an amazing launch title. SNES only had 1 extra launch game over the N64's two., so in that way they were similar. Nintendo would certainly rectify that with the GameCube launch.
Nintendo released 3 games in time for launch day in the U.S., 2 if we're not counting the system pack-in (Super Mario World) Pilot Wings, and F-Zero). Both SimCity and Gradius were released for sale on the following week.
If and when you do get around to the Wave Race episode please, may I ask you to consider avoiding (you allude to it in the post credits, at least) the awful hackneyed and meaningless use of the term "tech demo". In fact, one should avoid it in ~anything~ concerning videogame reviews and writing at this point: you're a far better pedigree of writer than to regurgitate something so trite. Every videogame-firsts in history, especially those that pushed any kind of boundaries, apply or start out as demonstrations of technology of the period. Implementations of unseen or advanced programming techniques form the basis of almost all of the *best* and most original games ever created, and informed the foundational process of any videogame development studio worth its salt in the pre-Unity/Unreal dominated un-technology world of 2019. Try and find any such games that don't, in fact. Or better yet, try and find an ~actual~ game that was released only as proof-of-concept technology. Then you can use it.
My father was a pilot. And the moment I showed him Pilotwings 64 during a visit, was the moment he knew he needed an N64 for himself. I imagine he was better at landing an actual plane than playing the game, but he loved it.
The game is fantastic and one of my favorite titles for the console, and some of my most cherished memories as a growing youth.
I imagine the game still holds up today, despite depending on the Koopa Klaw controller. And the music is some of the greatest composed. I will even listen to the OST while I fall to sleep some nights.
Rest In Peace Pop. Every time I see anything on this game, makes me think of you.
jarannalli thank you for sharing this story.
Sorry about your Dad.
Thanks for sharing! A year later, i'm enjoying your comment. I am thinking of getting this game. I also have fond memories of the N64.
"Profound sense of chill"
Four word summary of exactly why I still play this game
The Birdman music is just the best track that ever came out of an N64
You made the Shogi games super interesting (to know about and learn of their place in gaming history, not playing them. Thank you for doing that)
Even though Shogi wasn't released in the US, I recall several gaming journalists making fun of it. At least Jeremy put it in proper context.
Pilotwings 64 is one of the best games on the platform. A truly incredible game.
Yeah. Even more than Mario64, it really showed off what the N64 could do. Some of the maps, like Little America, were legitimately large for the time. Not to mention having an under-appreciated soundtrack.
@NextdoorGamer k.
Saikyo Habu Shogi's title music sounds like the BGM for a video essay about obscure fighting game facts.
Lovely episode, it's hard to understand just how revolutionary both of these games were looking from a modern perspective where we live in a world built by them. The N64, blurry as it looks now, was leaps and bounds beyond the jaggy, fuzzy mess you could get on PS1 and Saturn and ran at a much steadier framerate. This might be the lower key release of the two, but it filled its specific niche in a beautiful way.
Another great episode! Really looking forward to the Wave Race episode when it releases 😁
The fluid controls, the great level design, that MUSIC. I've longed for a game to do stylized geography as well as this games did the Little States - exploring the different areas and cites is still such a massive treat to find all the surprises. That Birdman track is the DOPEST thing I've ever heard in a vidoe game.
Pilotwings 64 was my school of virtual flight. It taught me how to handle aircraft with a controller, how to ease into a vector with gentle adjustments, how to line up an approach to a runway or target. All the skills I developed and used in everything from air combat in Aero Fighters Assault and Ace Combat to flying planes and helicopters in GTAO, those skills started in Pilotwings 64.
I enjoyed Pilotwings Resort, but I would love to see a spiritual successor to 64. Well, at least some of the more bizarre features like Birdman.
Totally agree. I was downright disappointed with Pilotwings Resort, in terms of how much they took out that was in PW64. Throughout the 3DS's life, I kept holding out hope they might do a remaster.
I cant believe how interesting learning about Saikyo Habu Shogi was. I love seeing the variety of experiences a console can provide to audiences. And it sent me on a little journey to learn more about Habu. And that title theme music is a hidden gem!
Great video as always!
I bought the N64 at launch with both Mario 64 and Pilotwings 64. Pilotwings 64 doesn't get the recognition it deserves. It truly is a masterpiece. Flying around the entire USA felt like nothing ever experienced before on a console: the first open world experience. At the time there was really nothing that could compare to the vast openness and freedom you had.
Also, a thought about the video: I was originally thinking that having Pilotwings 64 and Saikyo Habu Shogi in the same episode is kinda weird, especially since the latter isn't mentioned in the title. But I guess I probably would have never clicked on a video about Saikyo Habu Shogi because I had no idea what it was or that it even existed until now.
That’s funny, when I got my 3ds the two games I bought were Super Mario 3D Land and Pilotwings Resort.
Dang. Your videos are top notch. It's always nice to discover a high quality UA-camr with a huge back catalog to go through. Thanks for these awesome videos, Jeremy.
"Jet tricks and chill"...Wow, dude. Surely your best title yet in the Works series and that's high praise. Mind = blown.
I live for Jeremy's titles and intros on Retronauts.
You and Gajillionaire have the best video game channels on UA-cam.
Thank you
Nice work Jeremy, looking forward to the Wave Race episode as well. Thanks!
One of my most beloved games on the N64. Thank you for this video.
Pilotwings 64 was awe inspiring to me.
Pilot Wings 64 is still easily in my top 3 N64 games, and I own over 100 N64 titles. Likewise the 3DS Pilot Wings Resort is my favorite game for the system.
_>The busty lady was named "Hooter" in Japan._
I wasn't aware that the Japanese were capable of such English wordplay.
Sure, English is taught as a common second language in Japan, and there's a general fondness for puns. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's been established that someone on the dev team (maybe Tanabe?) was a patron of Hooters during his frequent U.S. visits...
If you feel versed enough in Japanese pop culture do I recommend giving Gintama a try. It parodies pretty much everything, and has a suprisingly amount of good English puns. Just skip episodes 1 and 2 and start at 3 as the first are a weird hour special that is honestly pretty bad compared to the rest.
That being said, probably unpopular opinion but I think puns are a pretty great. As one need to understand a language really well to understand them. My English teacher in 10th grade called my self-taught English fluent, but there's still a lot of puns, and weird words I don't understand...
I don't have much to add to the discussion about Pilotwings 64 as a game, having only interacted with the N64's most popular games after the fact, but I still really appreciate its soundtrack. It's full of great chill jazz fusion that remarkably doesn't feel held back by its low quality N64 samples.
While it may not have the "WOW" factor it did 23 years ago (Oh God, 1996 was 23 years ago D:) Pilotwings 64's gameplay experience still holds up really well.
Saikyo Habu Shogi's use of the N64's tech was something I wish more developers had done on the system. I would have loved some games to use high resolution sprites on geometrically simple 3D backgrounds for a Disgaea or Xenogears style look, though games of that ilk were sadly rare on the console, the only I can think of is Ogre Battle 64
When I bought my N64 last year, Pilotwings 64 was one of the first titles I really wanted to play, since I was a fan of the SNES original. So it was kind of a "launch title" for me as well, and I love it. I got 100 points on most vehicles, except the cannonball and some gyrocopter missions.
Wow, you said previously you didn't plan on returning to N64. Nice to see you changed your mind, always happy to watch you dive into the nitty gritty of a game.
The Bird Man mission uses a song that is a clone of The Beatles' Free as a Bird, but no one has ever picked up on that :S
Hmmm... I kind of hear it, especially in the rhythm section, but that's 1000% more Yacht Rock than the Beatles ever sounded.
PilotWings may be long gone, but its spirit lives on still. Boot up Microsoft Flight Simulator, slap on the Pilotwings ost, and bam, you're back in 1996.
I spent countless hours just flying around . What a relaxing fun game
I just came across your videos, and I subscribed immediately they are really interesting. You really deserve a larger audience
Played this classic back in the day and play it every now and then today. Great video.
Jet tricks and chill, just wow. Good on so many levels.
An absolute classic Parrish pun in the video title today, great work
This is one of my top 10 N64 games! Thanks for the video!
Ah, pilotwings 64...
There really isn't much like it, and it's so much more playable than the SNES title.
It really reinforces what proper 3d brings to flight simulation.
There's a wide variety of challenges, large areas, amusing characters, interesting flight dynamics...
It really IS a near perfect blend of fun and simulation, and for the time felt quite expansive.
And all that for a launch title, which looked better and more elaborate than quite a few post launch games.
(The European N64 launch actually had 3 titles by the way, but I forget if the 3rd title was Cruis'n USA or Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire)
Still, as far as it goes it was definitely something else. Possibly one of the more underrated N64 titles, and does a way better job of it than it's predecessor...
Oh jesus, these N64 games were just OOZING with soul. I really miss this era of gaming and I really wish they can do a proper Pilotwings sequel one day. It would be amazing with the capabilities of modern Switch and its rumble/joycon.
The "profound sense of chill" and photo options, combined with the free-flying mode, remind me a lot of a later favorite on the Wii, "Endless Ocean". It's a hidden gem with the added bonus of MP3 support, which was sadly dropped for the sequel.
I remember playing Pilotwings 64 for HOURS. It was so fun to explore Little States! The soundtrack is also one of my favorites and I feel like goes mostly unappreciated these days. One last thing to note: It has yet to be re-released on a digital service like Virtual Console or the eShop. I'm not sure if it is an emulation problem or the fact that someone at Nintendo feels nervous about the Twin Towers being in Little States.
Dopeness. Another great series.
I'm so happy this game is finally coming to Switch
So...
when are we getting a real life Mount Rushmore recreation with Mario and Wario's faces on it?
Nintendo World at Universal Studios Japan opens next year!
_EEEEEEXCELLENT!_
I Love your channel man really! Keep going you deserve way more subcribers!
I loved this game!
Loved hunting down the giant and blasting it with rockets.
As an action-craving teen, i wanted to understand this game.
As a mostly chill young adult, i understood it thanks to Pilotwings Resort (extremely underrated game)
As a chill adult dude, i want to play this again and enjoy it to the fullest, but adulting has my hands tied
So, Yoshiharu Habu was the "Mike Tyson" of Shōgi...
Minus the credible assault allegations.
Jeremy mentions that Pilotwings 64 was impressive for its time since a lot of its appeal was just the sheer novelty of 3D gameplay itself. That makes me realize that as videogame tech has plateaued that we're seeing less and less titles that will be regarded as "good for their time". In the N64's time new console generations offered an enormous jump that was immediately obvious. Since the HD era console gens are more incremental in their tech upgrades. The improvements are more subtle and behind the scenes. A game that was considered good ten years ago doesn't come across as hopelessly outdated today but a 1986 game sure came across as old in 1996. So what games will be seen as "good for its time" in retrospect? Early motion control games will fall in that category (or already do) as well as early VR titles. Both of those types of games though are considered unconventional though compared to your average generic videogame. Unless future games are like the holodeck I can't imagine what is considered a conventional game today, or over the last dozen years, being seen as "good of its time". The good games will still be good because they won't be that different from contemporary good games.
Getting psyched to play some fucking Pilotwings 64 tonight.
Mario 64, Wave Race 64 and Pilotwings 64; the holy trinity of Nintendo's intent with the system. Shame they would be just as much of a hindrance than a benefit in the long run.
Such a cool series. I grew up with the n64, and this series appeals to my sense of nostalgia.
Nice touch! Loved the NG4 rendition of "Next Episode" XD
I can't believe it's been two years since your Mario 64 retrospective, glad you returned to N64!
While Pilotwings Resort might have better controls the obnoxious presentation and graphical style kills the chill atmosphere that the 64 title had, proving that it still holds up to this day.
It always feels like your coming full circle.
This game is a gem. I never owned but rented it probably ten times. It was just really charming
Fucking hell I love this channel
> Spends half the video talking about Pilotwings
> Now here's a review of a Japanese 4D chess game nobody heard of.
"Oh yeah!"
Goose looks like the man in red from Ghost Trick..!
the fact that they will use sound effects and voices from the game for children's channels is hilarious😂😂😂😂😂
Great work Jeremy, thank you for your effort.
What strikes me the most looking at these early N64 games, aside from the blurriness of the 3D renders is how much the UI elements themselves seem to be so fuzzily defined. It is as if artists chose to reinforce the blurry impression by choosing heavily antialiased UI elements rather then attempt to contrast it with precisely defined shapes.
After the very slick UIs of previous generation SNES games, these blurry and textured buttons look really awful. I have a hard time understanding how anyone could have thought they constituted an enhancement over said previous generation.
The blurriness is probably harder to notice on a CRT, where *everything* is kinda blurry.
@@CobaltZeroni Maybe harder, but still noticeable. Back in the day, N64 games had a visible "Vaseline on the lens" look when compared to contemporaneous PSX and Saturn games.
Yeah there's so many n64 and PS1 games that have UIs that look like they've been created in Microsoft word using the basic word art and basic fonts. They look amateur. After the UIs of the SNES and mega drive which look great to this day. It's like if a person today uses Comic Sans on something completely inappropriate for that font, it always looks amateur. It's strange. It's very 90s I guess, back then the stuff you could do in Word was brand new and groundbreaking, but we got so used to it that these days it looks like someone who doesn't know what they're doing.
The N64 had an anti-pixelation hardware feature that automatically started blurring elements when they got too close to the camera. I would suspect the GUI designers were abusing this, on purpose. If they drew the GUI assets at a lower resolution, the system would automatically "scale" them by blurring them, rather than letting them be pixelly. And the N64 was notorious for its lack of video memory, so they might need to resort to such corner-cutting measures by necessity.
But that's just me speculating.
An interesting observation, and I could think of a number of reasons why that might be happening.
First, resolution - the N64 technically can do up to 640x480 (or even 720x576 if you have a PAL console), but in practice it was frequently rendering in 320x240 or even less.
For that matter, since the output system of the console can do arbitrary image scaling, it's perfectly possible to run a game at 128x96 and still have it fill the whole screen. Not sure if any games went that extreme, but it undoubtedly has an effect.
The next possible issue is the edge antialiasing filter; This is a two part filter that consists of something that partly filters polygon edges, and a post-process filter that does something to the entire screen.
Other possible culprits - a lot of N64 UI that seems 2d often turns out to be 3d elements. The entire game menu system for Mario 64 is actually all 3d geometry.
As such, UI is also a 3d object, and subject to the same kind of filtering and processing.
Which brings us to texture filtering; I'm personally unsure if this can be turned off; It would make sense if it could, but there doesn't seem to be clear evidence for it. - the n64 performs bilinear texture filtering; Though from rumours I've heard, it uses a hacked filter for performance reasons; Normally bilinear filtering results in interpolated pixel being the average of 4 adjacent pixels, but for the n64 it's supposedly only using 3 samples, which is part of the reason it looks so dubious compared to 'real' bilinear filtering.
Bilinear filtering of the UI would NOT be a good idea, but you never know.
It's worth noting that Nintendo provided microcode for 2d graphics, but the system is fundamentally a 3d system. And if you've ever seen any of the pure 2d games that exist for the system, you'd know most of those ALSO look absurdly blurry and frankly kind of ugly compared to the SNES (or the Playstation or Sega Saturn - both of which still have dedicated 2d graphics features, which the n64 does not)
That leaves on final possible issue; The 4 kilobyte texture cache. Given how the default microcode is set up, and how most 3rd parties were incapable of creating their own microcode until well into the system's life, this had some serious limitations. All the more so because in spite of being called a 'cache', this was an entirely programmer controlled area of memory, broken up into 4 blocks that could be assigned a texture each.
Considering that using 8 bit texture would limit you to a texture of just 64x64, that's pretty limiting, especially if you're not good at managing it.
Late era games tended to have custom microcode, and used a technique of breaking up large surface textures into a large series of smaller chunks, thus getting past this limit...
But otherwise it's pretty restrictive.
While 4 bit and even 2 and 1 bit textures were used, that would still limit you to 128x64, 128x128, and at best 256x128 textures.
As you can imagine, that could be a serious problem for UI, and the worse you are at managing texture swapping the more serious of a problem it becomes.
It's also worth noting that relative to what kind of graphical effects it uses, the n64 has an exceptionally poor fill rate, and it's highly likely that most of the games on the system are fill rate limited rather than say polygon limited.
Something like 60 million texels/second sounds like a lot, and in absolute terms compared to the competition, it is.
But if you try for 30 fps, you've got just 2 million texels/second.
If you activate the Z buffer, and turn on trilinear filtering, and then use two pass texturing on a surface, plus Goraud shading...
That's roughly 10 samples for each such pixel drawn onscreen.
At 320x240 that's 768,000 samples for a single frame.
And that's probably being optimistic.
You then factor in the awkward memory architecture where the CPU has to go through the Graphics chip to access main memory, and continuous throughput could easily halve if not drop further...
Anyway... Going kinda off-topic there, but yeah, I can imagine blurry low-rest UI textures could be a side effect of several of these problems all coming together at once. Especially with inexperienced developers who don't understand the hardware very well...
Watching this brings back frustration over the fact that the 64 only had 2 games for a very very long time. I rushed to Blockbuster to rent the 3rd.... Wave Rave 64.... and I was tired of that before taking it back.
Pilotwings 64 looks amazing for me to play. 😀👍🎮
I recently found your channel and really like what you are doing, subbed. Pilotwings 64 was an odd game for me. I never owned it but I borrowed it for *years* from a friend who had it but simply didn't like it at all. He'd beat me at goldeneye 99 times out of 100 but didn't enjoy Pilotwings at all. I on the other hand absolutely loved it, especially the hang gliding levels. I can't say for sure but I probably but more hours in to PW than I did in to, say, Mario 64, trying to perfect my scores on each level. It's a shame Nintendo never really did a proper follow up on a home console. I'd love one on Switch but I'm not so sure it would sell well enough for Nintendo to justify it.
Is it weird that Haru's gameface reminds me of Parish's gameface back from around when he was fresh to 1up?
Yes.
I played tons of pilotwings 64 when I was a kid, but nothing in this video rocketed me back to being 6 years old quite as much as the smokestack in the snowy mountain level. Couldn't tell you why that stuck with me so much, but I have this extremely vivid image of all the various pictures I took of that. I think getting a picture of it was a goal for that level, or something? Who knows. Memory's a funny thing.
I'm sad there's no third part to the Mario video coming (and even sadder you've given up on multiple episodes for one game, I would LOVE to see your FFVI series continued) but I do get it and if it removes a roadblock to more N64 Works episodes... good riddance!
Wave Race should make a comeback. It could absolutely work in today's market.
I feel gross saying this, but... Switch gyro controls would be kind of perfect.
This is probably in my top 5 N64 games. Loved the trick of landing the gyrocopter in Little states and refueling. Spent hours driving around little states.
My favorite thing to do was use a Gameshark for infinite rocket pack fuel and just explore all of the maps.
I rented this one a few times as a kid but never really liked doing the tasks. I just flew around in the bird suit
The Pilotwings 64 soundtrack was so money.
To be fair, Jeremy, glacial is what I'm here for. Keep up the good stuff.
I got an N64 when I was 11. I now own over a hundred games for the Nintendo 64.Pilot wings 64 is my second favorite on the system.
I was expecting a 28 -minute long stand alone episode for Saikyo Habu Shogi. :(
Sounds like you've found your UA-cam niche!
Hey jeremy! Love all the nes snes and genesis game episodes you do! Please keep doing more! So many nes snes and genesis games you can do as episodes as before!!
Anyways please do a genesis mini review!!!!
Damn I miss this game.
Waiting for Blast Corps
i thought the wave game was a launch too, anywho killer vids bud
I would love to see a Pilotwings VR title.
Just letting you know, this game returns this year on the switch N64 online service.
I love the idea that some Japanese businessman went, "Yeah, this character has big boobs? Let's name her Hooter" no doubt based on a drunken debauchery-filled trip to an American Hooters.
That opening track fucks
1996 was a dry year for the N64 and I ended up playing a ton of Pilotwings and Wave Racer because of it. I doubt I would have ever even rented them if Nintendo had had the kind of third party support the SNES had.
Gradius, you traitor! 😭
Oh hell yes - N64's lineup is about a weird as Gameboy's. So many low-poly, blurred textured treats to come.
Cannot wait until you get to Blast Corps. There is nothing that ISN'T odd about that game.
It's one I'm looking forward to for sure!
Watched the new Stop Skeletons video after this and it has Pilotwings 64 music in the background.
"as with many n64 games this was a formative work that felt pretty revolutionary in its time, but countless games have followed in its wake..." shows the one portable sequel this game has had. I can't think of really any game that's tried to do what pilotwings does outside of the series. there's barely any flying games period these days.
Still good video but i strongly disagree with saying this game is dated. Its fantastically chill with the freeroaming levels, several secrets, fun objectives, bizarre flying machines (there isn't even a single normal plane in the game), and a killer midi soundtrack.
I may have to wait a couple years before you talk about banjo kazooie
“Couple” is optimistic
Oh yeah, this series was a thing
You nailed Pilot Wings 64 being simultaneously relaxing and stressful. I loved renting it back in the day.
Looking for a bit of advice: I enjoyed writing reviews purely as a hobby, but almost...don't see a "use" in it...when videos as nice as yours are constantly being created, and thus haven't wrote in a couple years. That being said, I miss the discipline, flow and act of creation that comes from writing. Any thoughts on how I might start again?
Not to be overly reductive, but I'd say find a topic that interests you, ask yourself what you have to say about it, and write that down. You don't need to write for any purpose except your own satisfaction.
Thank you! That's a great point...one's own satisfaction is all that really matters in the end, regardless of money/fame. I'll follow up some months ahead.
was there a shogi game on gamecube?
No, and that's why it failed.
Mine too, but my heart don't pay the bills
I do enjoy going back to this one once in a while since, all these years later, I've still yet to get top medals in everything. Also, I got my N64 in Toys R Us at launch and I'm pretty sure that Mortal Kombat Trilogy was also a US launch title. Am I misremembering that?
You are. There were only two launch titles, Mario and Pilotwings. I remember this very clearly.
@@JeremyParish Thanks for the quick reply to clarify.
I preferred the sequel to Pilotwings 64; Superman
Hoping for more details on what didn't pan out with the Odyssey video. Obviously I gave up hope on it a while ago, and I immensely appreciate the free content, but it would satisfy my curiosity to know.
Nintendo stopped providing advance review code for new releases to small outlets beginning with Odyssey, but I had planned my production schedule with the intent to run that video around launch day. Their change threw a monkeywrench into my schedule and screwed up the video process for a couple of months. Kind of soured me on the whole thing.
@@JeremyParish Makes sense. I would have probably felt the same way. Thanks for the info, and great video as always.
Once again, why was this never released on any Virtual Console? It’s up to a theoretical Switch Online app, now.
Nothing developed by Paradigm Simulations has been reissued on latter-day systems, so I wonder if there's some sort of rights issue involved.
Is anyone else here from review tech USA??
huzzah!
I'm still confused as to why Pilotwings 64 kept skipping the VC services. Some unknown legal issue I don't know about, or is this game just too forgettable to put on the service? Then again, Dr Mario 64 is an outstanding game and that got skipped too
And released only in North America for some reason :/
@@TeruteruBozusama The N64 version of Dr. Mario was also released in Japan, but only as a port on the Gamecube "Nintendo Puzzle Collection".
@@AlanJones1984 so it halfly counts :/
Luckily Super Mario 64 was an amazing launch title. SNES only had 1 extra launch game over the N64's two., so in that way they were similar. Nintendo would certainly rectify that with the GameCube launch.
Super NES had five games on day one in the U.S.
Nintendo released 3 games in time for launch day in the U.S., 2 if we're not counting the system pack-in (Super Mario World) Pilot Wings, and F-Zero). Both SimCity and Gradius were released for sale on the following week.
I hated this game right away. I remember being disappointed that you couldn’t shoot anything.
There are plane missions with combat!
Yee Haa
If and when you do get around to the Wave Race episode please, may I ask you to consider avoiding (you allude to it in the post credits, at least) the awful hackneyed and meaningless use of the term "tech demo". In fact, one should avoid it in ~anything~ concerning videogame reviews and writing at this point: you're a far better pedigree of writer than to regurgitate something so trite.
Every videogame-firsts in history, especially those that pushed any kind of boundaries, apply or start out as demonstrations of technology of the period. Implementations of unseen or advanced programming techniques form the basis of almost all of the *best* and most original games ever created, and informed the foundational process of any videogame development studio worth its salt in the pre-Unity/Unreal dominated un-technology world of 2019. Try and find any such games that don't, in fact. Or better yet, try and find an ~actual~ game that was released only as proof-of-concept technology. Then you can use it.
Thanks for the preemptive, presumptive scolding, I guess?