Poor emulation makes Pilotwings level 64 frustrating on Switch

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Pilotwings 64 is the latest addition to the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack retro catalogue, and while it looks much better and plays just as well as the original version, there is one detail of the experience that Nintendo emulation seems to have made worse.

We are talking in particular about Birdman, a level that consists of making the player press a button to control the flapping of a character, who must avoid obstacles to stay in the air, and which is remembered for its relaxing gameplay.

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Why doesn’t Birdman’s level work? Pilotwings 64 on Nintendo Switch Online?

Well, the problem is that the emulated version doesn’t work like the original version did. Developer Rhod Broadbent (who has worked on games like starfox ds Y fable), was the one who pointed out the error in a gameplay video that shows how in the Nintendo 64 version the character flaps depending on how many times you press A, but in Nintendo Switch Online, no matter how hard you press the button, the character does not rise.

Broadbent explains that the character’s flapping is most likely tied to the game’s FPS. The frame rate per second was improved in the emulated version, so that in the new version it reaches 60 FPS.

The developer mentions that the original programmers would have calculated how many times the A button is pressed in relation to the FPS that passes after each button press. As the original version before had less, in the emulated version there is more between each press, requiring the player to press A more times, since Nintendo would have forgotten to update this ratio.

In case you missed it: studio worked on a Pilotwings open world for Wii, but Nintendo rejected it.

I did the science: N64 (red) vs Switch (grey) #Pilotwings64. New version has indeed lost its chill.

The flap timing seems tied to framerate (common back then), and hasn’t been adjusted for much higher FPS NSO version. https://t.co/wpy6au9yQP pic.twitter.com/Bvt9Awij0Y

— Rhod Broadbent (@sdrhod) October 20, 2022

How to fix the error Pilotwings 64 on Nintendo Switch Online?

In accordance with Video Games Chroniclesome users report that the difficulty is lower if the player alternately presses A and B, since more pressures are recorded.

This is not the first time that Nintendo has had problems emulating Nintendo 64 games for Nintendo Switch Online. The last case we told you about was one found in Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards which disabled Kirby control under certain conditions. Nintendo had to work on a patch to fix this issue, but has not commented on the issue. Pilotwings.

What do you think of this inconsistency in Pilotwings 64? Tell us in the comments.

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