Mischief Makers: The best game on the N64 that no one talks about.

[Mr. Duck]

People have been saying this game is underrated for at least 15 years now, to the point i believe is no longer underrated, tbf Treasure fans in general tend to be annoying.

 

[Jaded Optimist]

I have my original cartridge of this game somewhere. I remember really liking it because it felt different then most N64 games. I liked the mechanic of collecting stuff in a pot then shaking to combine them into new items. I remember the bosses being pretty cool.

 

[BlueCandles]

Freaking hated that cave level where all you do is fight the same three bosses like nine times in a row.

 

[PositiveMonk]

I remember watching my friend play this when we were kids and thinking the game was cool as shit. Then I never saw it again and forgot about it until just now. Thank you for the reminder, maybe I'll try playing it myself.

 

[Book Thief]

I think the problem is that (like Sin and Punishment) the controls are HEAVILY built around the N64 controller and it's awkward in a post-dualshock world.

Really? Are gamers so braindead these days that they can't customize a control layout to suit an individual game on a different controller type? Especially a game that's as simple as a 2D platformer?

First of all, the C-buttons aren't really all that necessary. All they do is boost, which is already on the D-Pad, but D-Pad boosting is not only stronger, but required during the racing minigames half-way through the game. That leaves you with two buttons: Jump, and Grab.

The only actual use-case I've found for the C-buttons, playing it both on emulator and on real hardware, is the fight with Lunar's Cerberus Alpha, where attempting to shake missiles with the D-Pad while riding a missile yourself makes you fly downwards, which can be played around, but it makes it a bit more awkward than necessary. Therefore, you can turn Mischief Makers into a 3-button game: A for Jump, B for Grab, and Cv for Shaking.

If, for whatever reason you just can't live without the weaker C-button boosts, then you can throw C^ on a fourth face button, put C> and C< on the bumper buttons, then throw Z on the Select button, since its only purpose here is to skip cutscenes, and there you go, Mischief Makers on Playstation-style controller.

Is the emulation of it really that bad? It can't be abysmal on a decent system running one of those newer cores for Retroarch, can it?

I played it both on PJ64 back in the day (roughly 2010 or so), as well as on Bizhawk. Both suffer from major frame drops during certain sections, as well as some broken textures on certain surfaces, which you can see here:

This does not occur on the actual system.

I can't speak for Retroarch, since I've never used it.