Should I buy a N64?

Yes

you will probably get bored quickly with those games, at least i did. xD
find an emulator and see if you are still interested in playing them, you can decide later and get a console.

Raspberry Pi 3 + RetroPie + Controller of your choice (I´ve used DS4 and xbox360, both work out of the box)

N64 was a console I enjoyed a lot. I was a huge fan of having friends over and playing Golden Eye all night long lol. I'm someone who would much rather get the real thing than the emulator so I'd be buying a real one. If you do pick up a real one make sure you check everything especially the controllers. If the controllers had heavy use the stick on it probably is going to need to be replaced.

Depends on what you want to do really. If its just for playing games, use the emulator. However, if you'd like to build some kind of retro arcade at home nothing beats the real deal. i am more about owning the consoles than the gaming itself.

It was very enjoyable at the time, but plenty of the great games probably wouldn't be that playable now. The only kind of ones I'd think would still be enjoyable is stuff like... Tetrisphere, Killer Instinct Gold, Zelda, Mario Party, Pokemon Stadium, and Super Smash Bros. Possible I'm forgetting some that may still be worth playing, but, other games like say Goldeneye, which was amazing at the time, would be horrible today.

You can buy n64 games on Wii and WiiU. Get one of those instead. N64 carts are expensive.

Double Yes

I use both emulators (PC-based and Retropie, which is shit for N64-tier) and the original console. I loved the console, and can still pick up the older games and enjoy them. Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, and OoT feel timeless to me, but I did grow up playing them. I don't like the emulators as much, even with a USB-to-N64 controller adapter.

The console itself sells relatively cheaply and you can very easily mod it to be region-free. The analog sticks on wonky control pads can also be replaced fairly easily. I'd recommend that but if you're just looking to replay things for memories, try running them on an emulator (or buy one of the USB-N64 pads) and see how much you like it.

Personally i dislike the N64, more could be done with either a SNES or GC (Nintendo Gamecube Game Boy Player) which are far more interesting consoles, with weird unecessary acessories.

have both - i'd recommend: For playing > Emulator and Controller.
For collecting aka sitting in a box or somewhere for display > ebay / craiglist of your country.

Could also softmod a WII and use an emulator or get a WII U and buy (there's like 20) what they have legally in the store.

I'm super unhelpful in this situation because the answer to 'Should I (blank) ?' for me is always 'Well, do you want to (blank)?' What is it you really want, and why do you want it?

If you do really want it, and got the funds, spend it on whatever your weird little heart wants. (To help answer this, remember you can't afford something if you can't buy it twice, ideally you should be identifying how much of your money is 'fun' money vs. living expenses and savings and base it off of that.)

Same with asking why you want it - a lot of others have covered this above, re: you gonna play those games? with friends? a lot? vs. displaying it, making a home arcade, interior design-type stuff

The only reason to buy one is if you want to collect the cartridges and/or play on the real hardware. I've never used N64 emulators so I don't know if they are perfect or not at this point.

If you just want to play the games on a real console, you can buy an N64 and get an Everdrive-64 which is a flash cartridge that lets you copy every game ever made onto a single SD card and select them from a menu. So you can play all the games you remember and all the ones you never had a chance to play, plus hacks and homebrews.

Or if you don't care about playing on the actual console you can use an emulator and buy a bluetooth N64 controller or a USB N64 controller and play them on your PC with proper controls.

I personally don't feel like the N64 games have aged very well. Very primitive 3D graphics and a lot of games with awkward control schemes. But if you have nostalgia for them it'll probably still be fun to give them another try.

Yes, yes you should.

Nostalgia is a lie. Most of those games are complete damn garbage . It's just that you remember them fondly.

And no, it's a bad idea.

Honestly? Get yourself an emulator and be happy, but i'm sure you'll play it only for a moment.

BUT, if you are collecting, then it's a very nice way to increase your 'Collector Culture'. WAT

for sure would be a good purchase for ya ,i have so many childhood memories from it
as fan fact,ill share one childhood memory :

I was playing N64 - 1080 Snowboarding game and bammm 6 Richter earthquake happened to my place (Greece)
hopefully my house didnt get destroyed but we closed the power for safety reasons ,damn that day progress in the game was gone : <