The 3 best things about the Nintendo 64 that everyone forgets

Many Nintendo fans have great memories of playing all sorts of games on the Nintendo 64. It was a home console with a few quirky aspects to it, but also possessed features that made it one of the great Nintendo consoles that impacted the industry in a big way. As a pioneering platform for 3D gaming, some games on it went on to become iconic classics that future releases became inspired by. For some players, the console got them to play games together with good friends and introduced new Nintendo characters and series to their lives. It may not be seen as the best Nintendo console of all-time, but the Nintendo 64 has a solidified spot in gaming history from the mid and late 90s.

However, there are aspects about the Nintendo 64 that many people often forget. It wasn't just the big releases from Nintendo or other third-party companies that made the N64 so beloved by fans. Certain things are often taken for granted, which were interesting perks of the console, even if we didn't realize it at the time. Here are 3 things about the Nintendo 64 that everyone forgets helped make it a great console for everyone.

3 It pushed multiplayer gaming further

Not playing alone often

One of the biggest things that made the Nintendo 64 such a hit among families was its heavy emphasis on local multiplayer. People have fond memories of specific games they got to play with up to three other friends, but they don't realize how many games on the console featured this. Unlike other consoles of its time, the Nintendo 64 was the platform that had the most games to push people to gaming with groups of people. 4-player gaming became a trend after the N64 put it at the forefront. Other consoles like the PlayStation and Sega Dreamcast had the ability to have up to four players in one game, through adapters or built into them, but they weren't the first to make it a main attraction for their platforms.

Games like Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, Mario Party, and Super Smash Bros. gave the impression that having a full crew with four controllers was the optimal experience on the Nintendo 64. It helped push gaming to become more of a social experience than a secluded one, even appealing to a fun party-like setting. And while not every game was like that, a large portion of the console's library was geared towards it. Third-party games like WWF No Mercy, Turok 2: Seeds of Evil, Jet Force Gemini, GoldenEye 007, and many others followed this trend to become more attractive to N64 owners. Local multiplayer gaming would become even bigger through LAN connection for other consoles, such as the original Xbox for games like Halo: Combat Evolved and others that would release before online gaming grew in popularity.

2 Compatibility with other devices

N64 and Game Boy working together

An unsung and often overlooked feature of the N64 was its ability to communicate with Nintendo Game Boy games through the use of the N64 Transfer Pack. Certain titles on both platforms had compatibility with one another, allowing players to access new content or transfer data between places for extra perks. One of the most famous examples of this was Pokémon Stadium and the original Pokémon Blue and Pokémon Red. Not only did players have the ability to bring their unique team into the N64 game for battles, but they could go back into Pokémon on the Game Boy with some extras. It opened up the experience within the series that let people benefit from being on both platforms.

But that isn't the only instance of the transfer pack being used for the console and handheld. Mario Golf and Mario Tennis could do something similar with save data between both games, while Mickey's Speedway USA could do the same with both home and portable versions. Other consoles had varying degrees of peripherals that did similar things, but it wasn't as easy or frequently used as it was on the Nintendo 64. The closest example would be the Sega Dreamcast VMU, which had some features that were similar but not exactly the same for a few titles. Having access to a Transfer Pack for the N64 enabled those who invested in the Nintendo ecosystem to benefit from sticking with it and playing more games together. This would be very familiar years later for those who owned a PlayStation 3 and the PSP handheld, where certain games would be able to communicate and interact with each other and reward players for doing so.

1 So many style options

A console color for any occasion

By far, the biggest aspect of the Nintendo 64 that was always taken for granted is the many color and style options that were available for the console. Alternate versions and variations on colors have always been something that was part of gaming for years, but it wasn't a big trend until the mid-90s console generation. The N64 was available in a variety of colors that ranged from basic hues to radically different styles that really stood out. There were more than 16 options for the console on the market, with variations on them between regions that included transparent cases. You could display a different colored Nintendo 64 in your home to match your outfit on different days because there were so many.

This became something that other companies would do with future console releases in the years that followed. The element of self-expression or customization is an appealing thing to customers that pick up new products like video game consoles, and many console makers would capitalize on it. Nintendo had been doing something like this for some time with the Game Boy and Game Boy Color, but the trend didn't reach a high point with fans until the N64 generation.

The legacy of the N64

While not everything about the history of the console was great, there were a lot of good things to come from the Nintendo 64. Those who grew up playing the console vividly remember the fun times they had playing together with friends or experiencing something unique they couldn't find anywhere else. Many of the classics the N64 had within its library went on to become influential releases, but that doesn't mean the console itself didn't make waves on its own. Whether you were playing alone or with a group of people, it was a fun ride having a Nintendo 64 at home. We just didn't realize how awesome it really was back then, or how much everyone would look back positively on it.