Some gamers are complaining the Nintendo 64 games available in the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack are suffering from online lag and more.
Nintendo recently announced that their online membership, needed to play games online and for most online features, would be getting a premium Expansion Pack tier. This included Nintendo 64 and Sega Genesis games, and later revealed to also include the Animal Crossing: New Horizons Happy Home Paradise DLC.
There have been ongoing discussions if the Expansion Pack is worth the extra $19.99 USD a year of the regular subscription (for a total of $49.99 USD). Our own editorial proposed it was not, but new footage of the Nintendo 64 games running may bring further doubts for any who had them.
VGC and Eurogamer report that in addition to the button mapping being off-putting for some (being mapped to buttons not in similar places to their original counterparts), some Nintendo 64 games appear to be running awfully. These include fog being improperly rendered (or rather hardly at all), and extreme lag when playing online (even in single-player games where other players can spectate).
However, others have defended accusations of input delay as being near-indistinguishable from the originals (such as GameXplain), and that online connection issues could have come from poor internet connection on the player’s end.
There is also no support for mechanics and features that needed the Nintendo 64 Controller Pak; despite the Nintendo Switch having ample memory for those features. Another curiosity is that Super Mario 64 in Japan has a rumble, while the western version does not. However there is a work-around for the latter, if users create a Japanese account to access the Japanese eShop.
You can find a collection of some of the worst offenders below. Once again we must emphasize there is no guarantee these have not been edited, nor what other factors these individuals may have to cause their games to run like this.
It should be noted others have shared clips showing little issue with the games running online. One of these includes Xiphos_YT, who put their previous issues with the game due to a poor online connection from Scotland to the US. Issues with Sega Genesis games have also failed to surface.
Does the issue come from the players’ internet connections, the games being unable to handle online play (let alone dealing with any connection issues), or the Nintendo online service? Sound off in the comments below!