Retro Runback – Nintendo 64 Games I Loved and Personally Need Back

Okay, so normally with these, I pick games that I really did enjoy and would like to see because they belong to franchises that shouldn’t have died out. But I don’t tend to get too far into the ones I just selfishly want back. This time around, that’s exactly what I’m doing. So, welcome to my personal Retro Runback: Nintendo 64 edition.

‘Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2’

The arcade sports genre needs to come back. As the rest of the crew and I found out, Rematch appears to be on the path of making that happen. One of my early Nintendo 64 favorites was Ready 2 Rumble Boxing: Round 2. And I’m specific about it being Round 2. For one, I always loved the gameplay. It was fast, and there was just enough strategy with the RUMBLE mechanic to make me think about when to use it.

But the main reason this Nintendo 64 game means so much to me is that I could play as my favorite artist of all time, the GOAT, Michael Jackson. You could have given me 100 guesses at a game he would guest star in (or work on), and I would have never gotten to “boxing game.” The fact that he actually went to do the mocap and scans himself just made it cooler to me.

‘vigilante 8: Second Offense’

Hello, I am a Vigilante 8 truther. That’s right, I believe this is actually the superior car combat game. And I loved Twisted Metal — at least the first two. But V8 was just better to me. That has nothing to do with the fact that this was the only good N64 car combat game. I mean, you could wreck shop with a bus.

The one thing Twisted Metal has over V8 is the story. I do find the idea of the tournament and Calypso more interesting. But gameplay-wise? Yeah, I’ll cop to feeling like Vigilante 8 played better overall. And you could upgrade your vehicles using salvage points. Which made the game feel like more than just a straightforward car combat game. I was actually being rewarded for being good at it.

YES, I want to run both of these nintendo 64 games back

I’m not even going to ask, because again, this isn’t one of those Runbacks. Unfortunately, I also know that these games will never come back. Vigilante 8 is basically dead. And Ready to Rumble got one shot on the Wii, but it went nowhere. That wouldn’t matter anyway because Michael Jackson’s estate is too busy with its head up its ass to do anything the fans would like to see anyway. At any rate, these were both dope games from my childhood that I still have a lot of fond memories of. Fortunately, I do own them both still. I would like to see them hit the Nintendo 64 Switch online service at least, though.