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Top 15 Nintendo 64 Era Video Games of All Time

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Ignacio Weil

Gaming - September 12th 2026, 23:00 GMT+2

Cropped Conkers Bad Fur Day — 15. Conker’s Bad Fur Day (2001)

Rare packaged toilet humor, movie parodies and cartoon violence inside a platformer that initially looked built for children. *Conker’s Bad Fur Day* constantly changes its rules, bouncing from gunfights and hoverboard races to encounters involving opera-singing piles of excrement. Beneath the deliberate bad taste sits sharp writing, impressive voice work and one of the most technically accomplished games on the console. Its unevenness almost feels necessary: good judgment would have ruined the joke. | © Rare

Cropped Star Wars Rogue Squadron — 14. Star Wars: Rogue Squadron (1998)

The Death Star stayed off the itinerary, but *Star Wars: Rogue Squadron* understood that piloting an X-wing was already enough of a sales pitch. Its planetary missions combine arcade-friendly handling with objectives involving escorts, rescues and assaults, while familiar ships and sound effects do the atmospheric heavy lifting. Earning medals encourages cleaner, faster runs, and unlockable craft provide another reason to return. It remains one of the most convincing arguments that licensed games did not have to settle for fan service. | © LucasArts

Diddy Kong Racing n64 — 13. Diddy Kong Racing (1997)

Calling *Diddy Kong Racing* a *Mario Kart* imitation undersells how ambitious it was. Timber’s Island functions as an explorable hub, races unlock boss encounters, and the campaign builds toward a showdown with Wizpig rather than another anonymous trophy ceremony. Karts, hovercraft and airplanes each demand a different approach, giving the tracks more variety than their cheerful appearance suggests. Rare essentially smuggled an adventure game into a mascot racer—and made multiplayer excellent as a bonus. | © Rare

Cropped Mario Party 2 — 12. Mario Party 2 (1999)

Friendship becomes a negotiable resource once *Mario Party 2* reaches the television. The sequel tightened the original formula with stronger boards, better item strategy and themed costumes that dress Mario and company as pirates, cowboys and wizards. Its minigames move between genuine skill and gleeful sabotage, ensuring the leading player never feels completely safe. Later entries grew larger and shinier, but this installment captured the ideal balance between planning, luck and stealing someone’s star just before the finish. | © Nintendo

Cropped F Zero X — 11. F-Zero X (1998)

Nintendo sacrificed decorative scenery so *F-Zero X* could throw 30 machines around corkscrews at a blistering frame rate. That exchange paid off: speed is not merely part of the spectacle but the central threat, since one mistimed turn can send Captain Falcon pinballing between rivals and guardrails. Death Race embraces the series’ nastier side, while the X Cup generates track combinations capable of surprising experienced players. It looks austere in screenshots; in motion, it feels barely legal. | © Nintendo

Re2 1998 msn — 10. Resident Evil 2 (1998)

Compressing a game originally spread across two PlayStation discs onto one Nintendo 64 cartridge sounded like technical self-harm. Somehow, Angel Studios preserved *Resident Evil 2*’s two intersecting campaigns, cinematic sequences and oppressive version of Raccoon City while adding features such as an item randomizer and alternate controls. Limited ammunition keeps every zombie inconvenient, and the scenario system rewards playing as both Leon and Claire. It is not the definitive edition for everyone, but the fact that this port works remains borderline sorcery. | © Capcom

9. Star Fox 64 (1997)

A straightforward trip across the Lylat system can be finished quickly; discovering how many other routes *Star Fox 64* hides is the real campaign. Secret objectives redirect Fox toward new planets, alternate bosses and harder encounters, turning a compact rail shooter into a score-chasing obsession. The Rumble Pak gave every explosion physical impact, while fully voiced radio chatter produced lines players still quote without invitation. Peppy’s advice became a meme, but the wonderfully precise flying underneath it was never a joke. | © Nintendo

Perfect Dark 2000 — 8. Perfect Dark (2000)

Rare took the structure of *GoldenEye 007* and responded to every limitation with an almost unreasonable amount of ambition. *Perfect Dark* offers elaborate objectives, alternate weapon functions, customizable multiplayer bots, cooperative play and even a mode that lets another player control campaign enemies. Joanna Dark’s corporate espionage story occasionally swerves into full alien conspiracy, but the escalating weirdness suits its gadget-packed arsenal. The frame rate can buckle under all that content; the cartridge itself seems surprised that Rare fit everything inside. | © Rare

Cropped Super Smash Bros 1999 — 7. Super Smash Bros. (1999)

Nintendo’s mascots had shared promotional artwork before, but *Super Smash Bros.* finally let them settle their differences with hammers, Poké Balls and strategically timed uppercuts. Its percentage-based damage and ring-out rules made the action instantly understandable without flattening every fighter into the same template. The original roster now looks adorably tiny, yet its 12 characters cover an impressive range of styles. What began as a curious crossover became the console’s preferred method of determining who had to surrender the controller. | © Nintendo

Cropped Paper Mario 2000 — 6. Paper Mario (2000)

After *Super Mario RPG*, Nintendo could have chased greater complexity. *Paper Mario* instead flattened the Mushroom Kingdom, simplified its numbers and built battles around timed button presses that keep players involved in every attack. Partners contribute distinct abilities both in combat and during exploration, while the script gives minor characters enough personality to steal entire chapters. The storybook presentation was initially a clever workaround for hardware limitations; it became so inseparable from the series that abandoning it now would feel like vandalism. | © Nintendo

Banjo Kazooie 1998 — 5. Banjo-Kazooie (1998)

Collecting objects becomes irresistible when every corner contains a joke, a transformation or a resentful toilet asking for assistance. *Banjo-Kazooie* gives its central duo an expanding set of moves, then builds compact worlds that reward experimenting with them instead of simply following markers. Gruntilda heckles players in rhyme, Mumbo Jumbo reshapes Banjo for environmental puzzles, and Click Clock Wood revisits one location across four seasons. It is a collectathon with restraint, which may be Rare’s most impressive achievement here. | © Rare

The Legend of Zelda Majoras Mask 2000 — 4. The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (2000)

The moon will destroy Termina after three days, and nearly everyone below it has a personal crisis requiring Link’s attention. *The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask* transforms that deadline into a clockwork puzzle: residents follow schedules, quests overlap, and resetting time saves the world while erasing much of your immediate progress. Transformation masks provide entirely different bodies and abilities, but the smaller human stories leave the deepest marks. No other *Zelda* game makes helping one person feel so urgent—or so heartbreakingly temporary. | © Nintendo

Cropped Golden Eye 007 1997 — 3. GoldenEye 007 (1997)

Console shooters were not supposed to work this well before dual analog sticks became standard. *GoldenEye 007* compensated with carefully constructed missions, generous auto-aim and objectives that became more demanding at higher difficulties instead of merely making enemies tougher. Then its four-player split-screen mode turned proximity mines, the Facility and one visibly smaller Oddjob into sources of permanent household legislation. The controls have aged, certainly, but its marriage of cinematic espionage and open-ended level design still deserves more than nostalgia. | © Rare

Cropped The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time 1998 — 2. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)

*The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* made a vast 3D adventure feel intuitive when the industry was still learning which way the camera should face. Z-targeting brought order to close combat, context-sensitive actions reduced control clutter, and the ocarina turned music into a genuine tool for exploration. Link’s passage from childhood to adulthood gives Hyrule’s transformation real emotional weight, while its dungeons remain models of escalating puzzle design. Its influence is enormous, but the greater compliment is that the journey still works. | © Nintendo

Cropped Super Mario 64 1996 — 1. Super Mario 64 (1996)

Mario’s first steps in three dimensions could have been cautious. Instead, *Super Mario 64* lets him triple-jump, wall-kick, dive and launch himself from cannons with a freedom most contemporary games could barely describe. Peach’s castle hides its 120 Power Stars inside paintings, secret rooms and stages that frequently allow multiple solutions. The camera now fights back harder than Bowser, yet controlling Mario remains enormously satisfying. Nintendo did not merely translate its mascot into 3D; it wrote the grammar everyone else borrowed. | © Nintendo

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The Nintendo 64 library was relatively small, but its greatest games helped drag the entire medium into three dimensions. From revolutionary adventures to multiplayer classics responsible for countless arguments around the television, these releases defined what the console could do—and occasionally pushed its strange three-pronged controller beyond reason. Decades later, the best Nintendo 64 games remain wonderfully difficult to put down.

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The Nintendo 64 library was relatively small, but its greatest games helped drag the entire medium into three dimensions. From revolutionary adventures to multiplayer classics responsible for countless arguments around the television, these releases defined what the console could do—and occasionally pushed its strange three-pronged controller beyond reason. Decades later, the best Nintendo 64 games remain wonderfully difficult to put down.