Retro Gaming Australia

Waluigi is the single greatest character of all time.

Mario Tennis was the second sports title for the Nintendo 64 to feature the crew from the Mushroom Kingdom, and is arguably one of the best multiplayer games on the system. The game also marks the debut of Waluigi, arguably the most important milestone in the history of video games.

It’s the final lap!

F-Zero X is the second game in the series and the first to feature full 3D visuals. The game’s graphics may appear simplistic even by Nintendo 64 standards, but there was a good reason – Nintendo wanted to ensure that the game ran at a blistering 60 frames per second. That sheer sense of speed helped F-Zero X to be one of the most intense racers of the fifth generation era.

You might remember a couple of months ago that I posted a gushing review of Pix’n Love’s The History of Nintendo Vol. 1 – 1889-1980 (which you should still totally buy if you haven’t already). Florent Gorges in-depth history of one of the greatest forces in gaming was packed full of facts you (probably) didn’t know about Nintendo, along with images of many of their pre-video game products.

The second volume of the series, The History of Nintendo Vol. 2 – 1980-1991, which exclusively covers the Game and Watch line up, will be available on March 9. You can preorder the book here.

This should be an excellent book, if the first is anything to go by.

Rare’s final SNES release.

Donkey Kong Country: Dixie Kong’s Double Trouble was the third and final game in the series to appear on the SNES. This time around, both Donkey and Diddy are kidnapped, and it’s up to Dixie and newcomer Kiddy to do the rescuing. The game actually came out after the Nintendo 64, which hurt its sales performance.

Still a right jerk of a game.

The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 is a good case study for the way markets operated and content was controlled in the late 1980s. Today it would be unthinkable that Nintendo would develop a major Mario sequel and not release it here, but it happened back then. It was eventually released in its updated form as a part of Super Mario All Stars, but not in its original form until its Virtual Console release in 2009.

Originally developed as RC Pro Am 64, would you believe?

Diddy Kong Racing is a multi-vehicle kart racing game for the Nintendo 64. Basically rushed out for Christmas in 1997 when Banjo-Kazooie and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time were delayed, DKR‘s adventure mode and multi-pathed tracks proved popular with content-starved N64 gamers everywhere.

Flagship’s first crack at Zelda was fantastic.

The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages and The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons are two parts of a whole. Originally, they started development as “The Triforce Series” – three interconnected games that could be played in any order – The Mystical Seed of Power, The Mystical Seed of Courage and The Mystical Seed of Wisdom. Co-ordinating the development of the titles and getting them to interact proved too difficult, so The Mystical Seed of Courage was cancelled, and Power and Courage were adapted into Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons

Very nearly missed today’s post due to the upgrades and an afternoon spent finishing Banjo-Tooie.

Metroid Fusion is the last non-remake game in the series to be presented entirely using 2D graphics. It takes place after Super Metroid, with Samus becoming infected by a new alien lifeform and, somewhat ironically, saved by a serum derived from a Metroid, a species she was bent on destroying.

Kind of disturbing, no?

Mario’s Picross is the first of a number of Picross games developed by Jupiter and published by Nintendo. A picross is a kind of puzzle where players have to mark specific squares to create a picture. The game didn’t do well outside of Japan, so we missed out on a number of sequels until Nintendo took another crack with Picross DS.

Falcon Punch!!

Super Smash Bros. Melee was the best-selling game for the GameCube, taking the formula that made its predecessor so successful, and jamming it with new content until it was bursting at the seams (though it didn’t have a trophy for Poochie from Yoshi’s Island).