It’s been almost thirty years since the Nintendo 64 landed in the US and Europe, and its best games still don’t need an asterisk next to them.
Full 3D worlds. Characters that became shorthand for the whole medium. A library that shaped how everything after it played. Six of those games hold up with no edits required, and I’m listing them in no particular order, with one exception I’ll admit to when we get there.
Mario’s second RPG is the one nobody brings up
After Super Mario RPG came and went on the SNES in 1996, the reasonable assumption was that Mario’s turn-based detour had ended there. It hadn’t. Four years later we got Paper Mario, which kept the turn-based and platforming hybrid of its predecessor and added a conceit that carried the whole thing: Mario and everyone he meets live in a storybook world where every character and object is made of paper.
You’ve probably played Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door on GameCube, or its more recent Switch remake. The N64 original is just as much fun, and it’s worth the trip for anyone still hungry for Mario RPG action.
The launch title that made 3D look easy
Super Mario 64 was there on day one and hit the ground running. The PS1 had Crash Bandicoot, an on-rails platformer with some 3D elements. Nintendo answered with a fully 3D platformer starring everyone’s favorite plumber, something nobody had pulled off successfully before.
It still looks great today. The colorful environments carry a bit of magic, and Princess Peach’s castle is a glorious playground stuffed with secrets and a huge variety of levels to explore. Boss fights against Bowser get steadily harder every time you run into him, and they still get your pulse moving. You don’t need every star to finish the game. You’ll want every star anyway, and the reward for collecting them lands as well as anything else here.
Slippy Toad is intolerable and the game is flawless anyway
Star Fox was already making waves on the Super Nintendo with its 3D gameplay. With 64 bits behind it, Star Fox 64 became an arcade shoot em up that could go toe to toe with anything on the market. A brilliant score, voice work for every character, a story with multiple branches, difficulty options and secrets to unlock. It set the bar high and still looks impressive.
The campaign is short enough to clear in one sitting, but unlocking every level and reaching the true ending takes several runs and some real skill. Fast, chaotic, and at times it plays like a movie. Battle Andross, find out what happened to Fox’s father along the way, and endure the most annoying character Nintendo has ever put on screen.
Rare took Mario 64’s idea and dialed it up to 11
Banjo-Kazooie hands you two characters at once, and the sheer number of movement options turns the place into a parkour wonderland. The fairy tale setting and the cast feel pulled straight out of a children’s book. There’s no voice work, just grunting and squawking, and it doesn’t matter one bit. No other N64 cartridge is packed with more levels, secrets, collectibles and jokes.
Gruntilda’s quest for beauty sets the weird, gag-filled thing in motion, and every character is written with a healthy sense of humor. Colorful fun with genuinely challenging platforming and puzzle solving, built to use every button combination the N64 controller allows so you’ve always got an arsenal of moves to pull off. Mario 64 set the bar. Banjo cleared it on long bird legs.
Don’t pick Oddjob
GoldenEye 007 is one of the greatest FPS games of all time. Period. Sure, the control scheme feels alien now that we’ve all grown up on twin analog sticks, and that’s the only concession you have to make. The single-player campaign walks you through every scene of the movie without skimping on the gameplay, and the original score, gadgets, guns and characters do the rest of the work of turning you into James Bond.
Multiplayer is where it really lives. Four-player couch co-op with more play options than anyone asked for, and every level hides quirky spots, shortcuts and secrets worth mastering. Chaos and fun, in that order. Invite friends over, dust off the console, and set it to pistols only on license to kill in the Library. That’s the mode that separates the gamers from the noobs.
Here’s the one we saved for last
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of the greatest adventure games ever made, and with the remake launching very soon, anyone who never played the original gets a second chance on modern consoles. You’re Link, on a true hero’s journey to save Zelda and restore balance to Hyrule.
Gorgeous visuals, large open world sections to explore, dungeons that look and feel distinctly different from each other. The game gets its hooks in from the very first frame and never loosens them. The music is magical and the story beats still hit hard.
Some players are counting down to Grand Theft Auto VI later this year. There’s an army of Zelda fans out there waiting just as patiently for a fresh version of Ocarina of Time on Nintendo Switch 2. A timeless classic for all ages.
It’s the 40th anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, which is a fine excuse to go digging. Find the old Nintendo in the closet, blow into the cartridge and start with whichever of these six you never finished.
