StarFox64 still holds up tremendously well. The blocky and simple art design makes it visually easy to read, and the gameplay is solid.
Mario 64
Legend Of Zelda OOT
Mario Kart 64
Goldeneye 007
Perfect Dark
Diddy Kong Racing
Blast Corps
Starfox 64
Killer Instinct Gold
Tetrisphere
Super Smash Bros
Kirby 64
WaveRace 64
StarWars Shadows of the Empire
Am I gonna be the first one to say Mario 64?? Really?
Mario 64
Mario Kart 64 was my childhood. My friend and I always dueled it out in battle mode.
Happy to see Perfect Dark so well represented - it was a hell of a hidden gem; it got sorta overshadowed by Goldeneye in the collective memory but it was one of those rare and shining examples of a sequel that perfectly added great and innovative next steps to the winning formula of the good first game without mucking up the core mechanics any.
Paper Mario
Jet Force Gemini
Majora's Mask / Ocarina of Time
Blast Corps
Custom Robo
Mario Golf
Space Station Silicon Valley
Goemon's Great Adventure
Oh man I forgot about blast corps!
It really holds up, probably moreso than most N64 games. There's so much fun in the simplicity of wrecking things.
Pleasantly surprised to see Mario Golf mentioned ❤️
I'm a sucker for Kirby 64
The crystal shards!
F-Zero X is one I haven't seen mentioned.
Super underrated: pokemon puzzle league
Diddy Kong Racing. Mario Kart with flight, I don’t know how it never got huge.
Edit: After Ocarina of Time of course. That was defining.
I swear Nintendo tried to hide it because it was better than MK64
It really was.
There is this though. About a remake coming early 2025.
Edit: oh wow GamePass too. Nice.
Ocarina of time, goldeneye, shadows of the empire, Mario kart
I agree with most of these lists. I would add Banjo Kazooie! Just finished a replay of it (N64 version, not XBLA) and it mostly holds up.
Majoras Mask, Perfect Dark, Jet Force Gemini, Tony Hawks Pro Skater, and Goemons Great Adventure are some of my all time favorites.
Jet Force Gemini was my top go to game quickly followed by Conkers Bad Fur Day. Cruisi'n USA deserves an honorable mention as well!
I've gotta rep one of my all time favorite party games to this day (ported to PC) Worms Armageddon. They've had several sequels, but I believe that was the last one to use that particular physics engine, and every game since has just felt a bit... Hollow?
Also +1 to Paper Mario - S-Tier RPG, best of the whole series IMHO, tho the GameCube sequel TTYD is deserving of a very close second. I wish so bad they'd make a return to badges and acquiring new buddies and buddy upgrades throughout the game. The oragami king battle mechanics did not do it for me, and with it being the core mechanic of the game just soured my whole experience despite the rest of the game being pretty solid.
I bought Sticker Star real excited for Paper Mario, and hated it. Every attack is a consumable item? No thanks.
Ocarina of Time, no question.
Gauntlet Legends is a classic.
Star Fox 64 is great.
Donkey Kong 64.
Custom Robo V2 was a fun game, if it was only in Japan.
Glover was fun.
GoldenEye, obviously.
Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, the best thing to come from The Phantom Menace.
Star Wars Shadows of the Empire was a technical marvel of its time.
I also liked MegaMan64, which was just MegaMan Legends but lower quality. It was pretty good for a port of such a big game (for the time).
Gauntlet Legends is so good, I might've played it on Dreamcast more but both versions are good
Dreamcast version was okay too, the levels were more similar to the arcade cabinet, but it included some content from Gauntlet Dark Legacy as well.
Really, any version was better than the PS1 port.
Hot take: Perfect Dark took everything that was great from GoldenEye, expanded on the formula, and is a much better game overall.
StarFox 64 is always gonna be an all-time favourite of mine. The gameplay is so simple yet very rewarding. Very arcade-like game loop, in a good way.
Diddy Kong Racing is one of the first games I discovered the… joys (?) of completionism as a kid.
I played Wave Race a ton with my father, he loved that game. Mario Golf as well.
Mario 64 is insanely good in retrospect, but I both didn’t understand much of English back then, and also sucked at the mechanics too much as a kid to really enjoy it. Similar situation with Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. I somehow managed to play through Donkey Kong 64 using walkthrough guides I printed out chapter by chapter. The multiplayer was nice although laggy as hell.
Spot on with Perfect Dark. It's one fault imo is that it was trying to do almost too much for the 64. Even as an expansion pak game, the graphics that the 64 was capable of could just not render the necessary detail for a lot of stuff to be easy to see/recognize.
Goldeneye, OOT, Gauntlet Legends... Uh... Shit I know there's more but those are the only three I can remember playing a lot.
Waverace
Pilot Wings
Mario Cart 64
Perfect Dark
I fucking love Quest 64. I'm under no impression that it is a good game, but I grew up playing it and it remains one of my favorite comfort games to this day. I play through it fully once every year or two. I also enjoy other, better games, as have been mentioned elsewhere, but Quest is just special to me.
Ever play Tetrisphere? It's awesome!
Also, check out Mischief Makers. Very fun platform game.
I’ve heard of those two…perhaps I will.
Rocket: robot on wheels
I agree with all of the other great games others have mentioned, but I really love the first level of rocket. It's your typical platformer, except it has a physics engine, so when you throw things, they might bounce in fun ways, and there is this dune buggy that you get to drive that bounces off the sand dunes in ways that releases a lot of seratonin in my brain.
I'm pretty "basic" in my choices. Both Zelda titles, Mario 64, Mario Kart, the three Mario Parties, StarFox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Kirby 64, Banjo-Kazooie. I just bought an N64 a few weeks ago partially because I wanted to experience the games I had growing up again and also play a bunch I missed. I tried Mischief Makers because it looked interesting and I enjoy the unique mechanics but the controls are hard to master enough to feel like I even have a basic handle on them.
GoldenEye and Conkers Bad Fur Day
Ogrebattle 64, criminally under appreciated
All of mine have been mentioned except Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2.
Cruising USA! Played beat that entire game while listening to Third Eye Blind first album. Good times.
Love the game and especially love that album!
Wayne Gretzky 3D Hockey is my all time favorite. The arcade style hockey was awesome.
Loved that you could get into fights in the Wayne Gretsky series
- ☆☆ Diddy Kong Racing ☆☆
- Chameleon Twist
- Mario 64
- Mario Kart 64
- Super Smash Bros
- Starfox 64
- Pokémon Snap
- Pokemon Stadium 2
Superman: The New Superman Adventures (AKA Superman 64). It’s a baffling time capsule of poor management, crunched game development, and lack of coherent vision (mostly due to the management thing). Is flying through the rings tough? Yup. Do the missions make no sense? Yup. Is there a charm in firing it up and remembering to be grateful you’ve lived to yet another day where you can play Superman 64? Yup.
Tetrisphere (Killer Sound Track too)
GoldenEye 007
Perfect Dark
Dark Rift
Battletanx
Gauntlet Legends
Cruis'n World
Rush 2
Mission Impossible
Army Men Sarge's Heroes
Army Men Air Combat
Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2
Hydro Thunder
Beetle Adventure Racing
Wayne Gretsky's 3D Hockey 98'
Worms Armageddon
Edit: readability
Perfect dark has a fan PC port that's really good. I couldn't stand it on console (low fps made me motionsick) but it was a hoot when I played it on PC. https://github.com/fgsfdsfgs/perfect_dark
Bomberman Hero is pretty special to me. Also, I don't think Jet Force Gemini gets enough love.
Just to say something beyond the obvious ones others are sharing; I really loved Battletanx. The game wasn’t all that great with the nostalgia goggles removed but I had so much fun playing it with friends 25 years ago
