The Nintendo 64 is one of the Japanese developer’s most popular consoles, but not all of its titles have made the leap to other systems.
As Nintendo’s first real foray into 3D gaming, the Nintendo 64 was responsible for paving the way for many of the company’s legendary franchises as they are known today. games like Super Mario 64 and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time are still considered some of the best and most influential games in their respective series. However, the N64 is home to more than a few games that have yet to move off the platform, but these two are perhaps the most unique.
Upon its release in 1996, the N64 faced competition from Sony’s PlayStation and its use of CD-ROMs. The N64’s cartridges contributed to a faster load time, but limited the space available to developers and made future backwards compatibility nearly impossible. As such, re-releases of N64 games have largely taken the form of Virtual Console digital releases on Wii and Wii U and the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack. Despite Nintendo’s efforts to bring a large part of the N64 library to modern platforms, some games have yet to be re-released.
Buck Hummel
Published by Ubisoft, Buck Hummel is an N64 exclusive game that deserves attention. Launching in 1998, the game sees players piloting its titular bee character with action-adventure flight mechanics and draws many comparisons Star fox 64. The game is set in the “far future” of 2010s London, where a chemical spill has mutated insects, causing a group of them to form the evil herd bent on world domination. Buck Bumble joins the resistance against the herd and gains a cyborg technology that allows him to use hi-tech weapons to defeat the herd minions.
The game featured both single and multiplayer modes, which was one of the elements that garnered praise from players, leading to an overall positive reception at launch. A mode called Buck Battle was a PvP-style dogfight in which players flew with the aim of shooting and eliminating their opponents. Another mode, Buzz Ball, was a variant of soccer where players could shoot at their opponent to disable them. While these modes earned Buck Hummel a cult following, its sales weren’t high enough to warrant a sequel, and it’s yet to be re-released via the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.
Hello you, Pikachu!
Although the Pokemon Series is certainly not trapped on the N64, this unsuccessful attempt at a spin-off has never seen a future re-release or sequel. Hello you, Pikachu! was designed to capitalize on the popularity of the mascot at the height of the Pokemon in 2000. Players were tasked with helping Professor Oak test his new PokeHelper device, which would allow communication between humans and Pokémon. As such, the game relied on the gimmick of speaking to Pikachu via the included Voice Recognition Unit (VRU) and microphone, which could translate speech into commands for the character.
While the novelty was unique at the time, it received mixed reviews, criticizing the very limited gameplay and imprecise nature of the VRU. It’s probably due to the limitations of the hardware required that the game hasn’t seen a re-release. A spiritual successor with the title Pokemon Channel was released in 2003 for the GameCube, which also included a Pikachu for players to befriend and play with. However, it only has loose gameplay connections Hello you Pikachu!, and cannot really be considered a sequel.
