{"id":67993,"date":"2018-12-10T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/12\/video_digging_deep_into_resident_evil_2_on_n64_one_of_the_most_remarkable_ports_of_all_time"},"modified":"2018-12-10T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2018-12-10T11:00:00","slug":"video-digging-deep-into-resident-evil-2-on-n64-one-of-the-most-remarkable-ports-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2018\/12\/10\/video-digging-deep-into-resident-evil-2-on-n64-one-of-the-most-remarkable-ports-of-all-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Video: Digging Deep Into Resident Evil 2 On N64, One Of The Most Remarkable Ports Of All Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/887ad85745761\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/887ad85745761\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2018\/12\/video_digging_deep_into_resident_evil_2_on_n64_one_of_the_most_remarkable_ports_of_all_time\/large.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<aside class=\"object object-youtube\">\n<div class=\"youtube\">[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9J716rqAPCU?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1&#038;w=900&#038;h=507]<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>The <strong>Resident Evil<\/strong> series may be most closely associated with Sony hardware, but it&#8217;s important to remember that it has been a platform agnostic franchise since the first entry, which, lest we forget, also made it onto the Sega Saturn. Since then, we&#8217;ve seen notable Nintendo instalments such as <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/resident_evil_4\">Resident Evil 4<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/ds\/resident_evil_deadly_silence\">Resident Evil: Deadly Silence<\/a><\/strong> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/gamecube\/resident_evil_0\"><strong>Resident Evil Zero<\/strong><\/a>, but back in 1998, the news that the Nintendo 64 was getting a port of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/n64\/resident_evil_2\">second game<\/a> was nonetheless a groundbreaking moment.<\/p>\n<p>Our friends over at <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UC9PBzalIcEQCsiIkq36PyUA\">Digital Foundry<\/a> have investigated the story behind this remarkable feat of porting; handled by Angel Studios &#8211; which is now better known as Rockstar San Diego &#8211; the N64 version takes two CDs of data and crams them into a 64MB cartridge thanks to a series of amazing technical tricks. As detailed in the video (skip to around <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/9J716rqAPCU?t=893\">15 minutes in<\/a> for the good stuff), compromises had to be made; FMV is massively reduced in both detail and frame rate, backgrounds are also lower-resolution and sound samples \u2013 including the massive amount of speech \u2013 suffer. Even the famous door-opening loading screens drop from 60 fps to a much lower rate.<\/p>\n<p>However, while all of these cutbacks are irksome, there are some <em>amazing<\/em> positives here. Thanks to the talents of Chris Huelsbeck of Factor 5 \u2013 who created the sound tool MusyX for the N64 \u2013 the soundtrack from the PlayStation version makes its way across practically intact, a truly stunning achievement given the cartridge-based nature of the hardware. N64 players also benefit from smoother-looking characters, an analogue control scheme and \u2013 when using the Expansion Pack \u2013 occasional 480i visuals.<\/p>\n<p>While the N64 version isn&#8217;t as impressive as the PlayStation original in terms of presentation, the fact that it arrived on the console at all is a truly stunning event; the game was so large it had to be put on two CDs yet Angel Studios managed to transport all that data onto a cartridge without sacrificing any of the core gameplay or content. The <em>really<\/em> amazing thing? This port was done in 12 months by a team of around 9 people.<\/p>\n<p>Do you have fond memories of Resident Evil 2 on the N64? Were you aware at the time how much of a technological marvel it was? Let us know with a comment below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=9J716rqAPCU?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1&#038;w=900&#038;h=507] The Resident Evil series may be most closely associated with Sony hardware, but it&#8217;s important to remember that it has been a platform agnostic franchise since the first entry, which, lest we forget, also made it onto the Sega Saturn. Since then, we&#8217;ve seen notable Nintendo instalments such as Resident Evil 4, Resident [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67993\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}