Nintendo 64 on Nintendo Switch: lag, bugs, missing textures, problematic gameplay – the first subscribers are bubbling – Frandroid

The first Nintendo 64 games are available for Nintendo Switch Online + Additional Pack subscribers. Unfortunately, the emulation offered by Nintendo is not up to expectations.

A first catalog of Nintendo 64 games are now very officially playable on Nintendo Switch if you are a subscriber to Nintendo Switch Online + Additional Pack. Of course, it is not a question of putting the cartridge of the time back in its Nintendo Switch, but rather of downloading ROMs of the games of the time with an emulator offered by Nintendo. Unfortunately, the experience doesn’t seem to match the high price Nintendo charges.

As a reminder, the new subscription is offered by Nintendo at 39.99 euros per year for the individual plan, or 69.99 euros for the family plan.

The many problems of the players

The first subscribers have indeed taken the path of the web to expose several problems with the emulator offered by Nintendo 64 which gives the impression of being facing a beta, rather than facing a marketed product.

First problem, the arrangement of the chosen keys by Nintendo to emulate the N64 controller on the joycons. Thus, on Mario 64, the arrow C down is associated with the X key of the Switch, a key however located upwards. The A and B keys are correctly associated with the A and B keys of the Switch controller, but this represents the reverse of what was present on Nintendo 64. Regarding the controller, several games display an error concerning the lack of Controller Pak connected to the controller. the remote. This is an accessory adding a memory card to the Nintendo 64 controller for which Nintendo has not integrated the functions into the emulator.

Impossible to save a ghost on Mario Kart without the “controller pak”

Source: GameXplain on YouTube

More problematic are the various performance problems encountered with the emulator. Several Internet users thus complain aboutinput lag, that is to say, the latency between the action and the realization on the screen. There are also reports of audio latency issues, between an action like choosing your onscreen character on Mario Kart and the select audio.

The input lag in OoT on #NintendoSwitchOnline is even worse than SM64 it feels like. Just look at this #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/4yyt605aFd

– Toufool (@Toufool) October 26, 2021

Several games would also encounter performance problems like Star Fox 64 or Yoshi’s Island mixed with other input lag problems. The Mario Kart 64 game is said to have some texture display issues.

If the emulator crashes, the game save may be deleted. Be careful, however, we are talking about a crash of the emulator occurred by a player who wanted to exploit a flaw in the game, to perform a speedrun.

yep! crashing seems to delete save data

– MutantAura (@MutantAura) October 26, 2021

We are therefore in a very special case, which should not affect most subscribers. In this case, the problem is not the possible crash of the emulator, but the erasure of the game save if the emulator crashes.

The emulation itself also seems problematic on some games, since it fails to reproduce the vintage look. This is particularly the case of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. We can see that the reflections in the water for example have completely disappeared from the emulated version.

Finally, there is the online multiplayer mode offered by Nintendo on several titles such as Mario Kart 64. Several Internet users complain of connection and performance problems in this game mode. Be careful, however, this last problem should be taken with a grain of salt. impossible to know the quality of the connection used by the Internet users in question.

50 dollars for this ? # Nintendo64 #NintendoSwitchOnline #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/flHFpTfQFk

– fuck it phrog phone (@kirbolotl) October 26, 2021

In particular, one can read on part of the screen that the connection is of poor quality, which could cause sound problems. It is difficult as it stands to know if it is Nintendo’s servers that are the problem, the company is not known for offering a quality online mode, or if it is the internet connections that are to blame.

Nintendo must improve its product

The fact remains that between the bugs, the problems of lag, management of the controller or of game emulation, it seems that the copy made by Nintendo in this first premium subscription formula is not the right one. Considering the increased subscription price that comes with this offer, it seems clear that Nintendo should fix these issues. It remains to be seen whether the pressure will be sufficient to move the firm.