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About midway into the N64 lifecycle a ram expansion card (expansion pack) was released. His modifications sound like they still play on a stock N64 but the expa

About midway into the N64 lifecycle a ram expansion card (expansion pack) was released. His modifications sound like they still play on a stock N64 but the expansion pack is needed. This was fairly typical with higher end games made by Rare. Even as a purist, this added detail doesn’t really detract from the outcome of the project to me.

hnlmorg 4y ago
Almost all games worked without the Expansion Pak ("Pak" intentionally spelt without a 'c'). In fact there were only 3 released games that required it[1] and even some of those were still playable without it, you just lost some content (eg Perfect Dark). If this Mario 64 mod requires the use of the Expansion Pak then it's definitely not typical of other N64 games and a point that, like the GP, I felt needed more emphasis rather than a passing remark that was very easy to miss. I'm not taking anything away from the incredible work that developer has done though. It's impressive and really interesting to see. From a hacker perspective it makes total sense to use the Expansion Pak because most retro gamers who might be interested in this mod would likely already have one. But from an authenticity perspective, this is a little bit of a cheat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans...
- propertymagnate 4y ago
  For perfect dark the content you lost was the main game, so it was pretty essential for it.
  - hnlmorg 4y ago
    Indeed, however and, somewhat counter-intuitively, the multiplayer game did work without the Expansion Pak. But arguments about the completeness of Perfect Dark aside, my point is that Perfect Dark is still the exception in that the vast majority of games worked without the Expansion Pak. Which is contrary to the earlier commenter who said a lot of N64 games required it.

hnlmorg 4y ago

Almost all games worked without the Expansion Pak ("Pak" intentionally spelt without a 'c'). In fact there were only 3 released games that required it[1] and even some of those were still playable without it, you just lost some content (eg Perfect Dark). If this Mario 64 mod requires the use of the Expansion Pak then it's definitely not typical of other N64 games and a point that, like the GP, I felt needed more emphasis rather than a passing remark that was very easy to miss. I'm not taking anything away from the incredible work that developer has done though. It's impressive and really interesting to see. From a hacker perspective it makes total sense to use the Expansion Pak because most retro gamers who might be interested in this mod would likely already have one. But from an authenticity perspective, this is a little bit of a cheat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expansion_Pak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_accessories#Expans...

propertymagnate 4y ago
For perfect dark the content you lost was the main game, so it was pretty essential for it.
- hnlmorg 4y ago
  Indeed, however and, somewhat counter-intuitively, the multiplayer game did work without the Expansion Pak. But arguments about the completeness of Perfect Dark aside, my point is that Perfect Dark is still the exception in that the vast majority of games worked without the Expansion Pak. Which is contrary to the earlier commenter who said a lot of N64 games required it.