24 Best N64 Fighting Games

Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. was planned for arcades, and prototypes were tested there, but the arcade release was canceled and the game went to home consoles instead, the N64 among them. The story is set in a near future where giant corporations known as GI-Corps fight each other over bio-engineering. The cast is small, with 8 different fighters and 2 boss fighters, and the game puts mobility first, giving dashes a great range in multiple directions.

The ones who loved it as kids put serious hours into it, and some still call it their favorite fighting game. It is the kind of game that got passed around at sleepovers and never fully explained. Nobody needed it explained. You picked the scariest-looking fighter and started pressing buttons.

Sculptor's Cut is an updated version of ClayFighter 63 1/3, and it was only released as a rental game from Blockbuster in the United States. You could not walk into a shop and buy one. It keeps all twelve characters from the original and adds four more, which brings the total roster to sixteen. Earthworm Jim is only playable as a secret character in this version.

Underneath, it is the same claymation brawler with the same jokes and the same loose fighting. For players who rented it, the extra fighters were the whole reason to pick this box off the shelf instead of the regular one. For a game most people never saw, that is a fair trade.

Backstage Assault came out for the N64 in North America on December 12, 2000. It was the final WCW game released before the WWF bought WCW's assets three months later. The fights happen backstage, across 14 playable areas that include a semi-trailer, and you can use the room around you as a weapon. Every match is one on one, with no outside interference and no teamwork.

The modes lean into the gimmick. First Blood matches are won by making the other wrestler bleed, and Human Torch matches can only be played with two players. It is the last gasp of a company that was months from being sold, and it plays like one.

Knockout Kings 2000 is a boxing game with a roster of past and present greats, so you can put Muhammad Ali in the ring with Evander Holyfield. There is an arcade-style slugfest for quick fights and a more realistic exhibition for the purists, and you can recreate famous bouts like the Thrilla in Manila. In career mode you create your own boxer, and unlike the first game, you now control the training between matches.

The rapper O wrote a song, "In the Game", just for it. Players who pick it put it next to the N64's other sports favorites, the games they still plug in when friends come over. It is the only real boxing sim on this list.

Rakugakids takes its name from the Japanese word rakugaki, meaning doodle, and the whole game looks like children's drawings come to life. Each fighter has an artist. Marsa, a witch whose hat acts like a chicken, was drawn by Nola. Beartank is a green bear with tank guns on its head and back, and it can turn its body into tank treads.

Under the crayon look it is a real fighter, with the standard six-button layout of three punches and three kicks. The Super Meter can be spent in three ways, one of them a counter you can only use while blocking. More characters unlock the longer you play. Its music later turned up in Konami's Beatmania GB.

WCW Nitro started on the PlayStation, and the N64 version came later with the updated roster from its sequel, WCW/nWo Thunder. It is named after WCW's Monday night show, and it gets the look of it right. Reviewers praised its dead-on WCW atmosphere and its large roster.

The trouble is in the ring. Reviews were mixed, and many critics decided it was flawed but still better than most of the few wrestling games out at the time. Some complained about the frame rate dropping when more than two wrestlers were on screen, and opinions on the controls went both ways. Next to the AKI games higher up, it shows its age fast. Still, if you were a WCW kid back then, this was a cartridge with Diamond Dallas Page and his Diamond Cutter on it, and that counted for a lot.

WCW Mayhem came out after THQ chose not to renew its WCW license, so it has an entirely new control scheme. It also came with a pile of firsts. It was the first game to feature all twelve WCW pay-per-view venues, and the first wrestling game released in the United States with backstage areas. There were 13 back rooms, from the parking lot to the bathrooms.

The roster aged almost at once, with several wrestlers leaving WCW soon after release. On the N64 only Tony Schiavone does commentary, even though some of his lines are spoken to Bobby Heenan, who is not there. Players who pick it call it fun, especially if you are a wrestling fan.

Ready 2 Rumble was made for the Dreamcast, and the N64 and PlayStation ports followed in November 1999. It is built around boxers with colorful personalities, the way Punch-Out!! is, and the ring announcer is Michael Buffer, playing himself.

The game was well reviewed and got two sequels. Reviewers also pointed out the catch: it is easy to beat, and once you are done, you are done. On the N64 it works best as a party game, with a friend on the second controller and a lot of trash talk. Single player is a weekend. Two players can stretch it for a lot longer.

WWF Attitude is the sequel to WWF War Zone and the last WWF game Acclaim published. It is a game about options. You can build your own stable, and set up your own pay-per-view with its own name and arena. In career mode you start on house shows and work your way up to RAW and then title shots. It also had the first WWF game roster with several active female wrestlers, Sable and Chyna among them, though they had to be unlocked.

One reviewer said the options would keep wrestling fans busy for a long time but its bland graphics and sounds may turn off everyone else. Players who grew up with it remember it fondly anyway. If you liked making wrestlers more than playing matches, this was your game.

War Gods started in arcades in 1996, and Midway ported it to the N64 in 1997. Ten fighters have been given great power by a mysterious ore that crash-landed on Earth, and the goal is to beat the rest and become the most powerful warrior on the planet. It borrows a lot from Mortal Kombat, and it adds a 3D button that lets you dive around the ring in a circular arc to attack or dodge.

Players are honest about this one. They call it cheesy fun and admit it does not hold up. That is fine. Some games are for an afternoon with someone who remembers it too, and War Gods knows exactly what it is.

Interplay made ClayFighter 63 1/3 for the N64 in 1997, and its whole cast is made of clay. Bad Mr. Frosty is back, and Bonker the clown returns with a completely different design. You can fight in and out of 3D backgrounds, and get tossed out of a window to keep fighting outside. Nine characters are open from the start, and the other three are hidden.

Critics did not like it. They panned its gameplay along with the animation and the AI. Players loved it as kids anyway. Going back now is harder, because the jokes hold up better than the fighting does. The title alone, a fraction of a console, is funnier than most of the games it was parodying.

Flying Dragon is two fighting games on one cartridge. Culture Brain made it as part of its Hiryū no Ken series, and Natsume brought it to North America and Europe. Virtual mode is a straight 3D tournament fighter. SD mode is the one people remember: small chibi fighters who level up as they gain experience, while you collect credits and treasure items to equip them.

There are over 20 characters and 200 items, and you can save your fighters to a Controller Pak and take them to a friend's house. Fans of the game love it for being two games in one, and the RPG side is what kept them coming back. It had a sequel a year later, S.D. Hiryu no Ken Densetsu.

Mace started in arcades, where 3dfx Voodoo chips gave it cutting-edge graphics and turned Atari a profit. Critics praised those graphics and were much less excited about how it played. The game is similar to Bio F.R.E.A.K.S. and the Mortal Kombat series.

Players who pick it remember it as a fun one-on-one fighter, the kind you played against a friend until somebody finally learned a real combo. It never got the attention of the Mortal Kombat games, which is part of its appeal now. If you like Midway's fighters and want something stranger, this is the one.

Fighters Destiny was made by Genki, and it plays like a standard 3D fighter until you look at the score. Instead of a best two out of three, you must score seven points to win a match. Each knockdown, ring out or throw is worth anywhere from one to four points, and if the timer runs out, the judges award one point.

In the Master Challenge you learn the skills of each fighter you beat, and the Joker can take them all away. There is also a Rodeo mode where you try to stay in the ring with a fighting cow. Critics panned its generic characters but praised its point system and consider it one of the best fighting games on the N64. Players call it an overlooked gem.

WrestleMania 2000 was the first WWF game released by THQ, after the WWF left Acclaim. It uses the exact same engine as WCW/nWo Revenge, now with Steve Austin and The Rock on the roster. It came out five months before the real WrestleMania 2000, so the stage design comes from WrestleMania XV.

It added a cage match and a First Blood mode, and it was THQ's first N64 game with a Create a Wrestler mode. That mode is what players remember most. They built their own wrestlers for hours, then threw them into matches with friends.

Mortal Kombat 4 was the first game in the series to use 3D graphics, and the last to come out in arcades. The N64 port followed in 1998. Ed Boon, the series co-creator, found it hard to lead a team that had grown so much since the first game, when he was the only programmer. The story goes back millennia, to Shinnok, an Elder God who tried to conquer every realm.

Fujin, the wind god, is playable for the first time, and Goro returns as a sub-boss in the home versions. Players remember it as a solid fighter and one they played a lot. The move to 3D is clunky next to the fighters that came later, but on the N64 nothing else looked quite like it.

Trilogy packs most of the series so far onto one cartridge. All the arenas from the second and third games are here, plus four from the original, though the N64 version lacks Kahn's Arena and the Bank. Johnny Cage is back, this time played by Chris Alexander. The N64 version also swaps Chameleon for Khameleon, a female ninja who switches between the female ninjas in the middle of a fight.

Sub-Zero's famous Spine Rip is still in, but the screen blacks out and only the word Fatality is left. Players put it beside Killer Instinct Gold as one of the N64's best fighters, and for some it is an all-time favorite. If you want the 2D Mortal Kombat on the N64, this is the one to own.

War Zone was the first 3D game based on the WWF. Development started in 1997, so by the summer of 1998 some of its wrestlers had already left the company, Bret Hart most of all. You grapple first and then enter a series of presses on the D-pad followed by a button, a bit like a fighting game combo. Vince McMahon and Jim Ross call the action.

The N64 got two match types of its own, Royal Rumble and Gauntlet, and Mick Foley shows up as Mankind with two more of his personas to unlock. Players loved it when it was new, and most say the games that came after it play better. For a few months it was the 3D wrestling game everyone wanted.

Killer Instinct Gold is Rare's port of the arcade game Killer Instinct 2. Rare started it as a Super NES sequel and moved it to the N64 when the new console was announced. It was meant to be a launch title but slipped to November 1996 in North America. The cartridge could not hold the arcade's full-motion video, but Gold added a training mode and new camera views, and its backgrounds move at 60 frames per second.

Reviewers preferred it to the arcade release but felt its memorized combos fell short of Tekken 2. Players do not agree with that part. They rank it among the best fighting games ever made. It came back on the Nintendo Classics service in 2025, so it is easy to play today.

World Tour was THQ's first N64 wrestling game, released at the peak of WCW's dominance in the Monday Night War. It introduced the AKI grappling system that every game above it builds on, where all moves start from a hold. It also has match types the later games dropped, like a WCW versus nWo tournament and league tournaments more familiar to Japanese wrestling.

Critics liked the big roster and the large move sets, and it won Console Fighting Game of the Year at the inaugural Interactive Achievement Awards. Players remember it as the game they sank hours into with friends. Hollywood Hogan and Sting are on the roster, right at the height of the nWo.

Revenge is the sequel to World Tour, and it fixed nearly everything. It kept AKI's grappling system and added heavily improved graphics and a championship mode. The roster has more than 60 wrestlers, real and fictional, and there is a 40-man Battle Royale.

It was the best-selling wrestling game on the N64, and at the time the top selling third-party Nintendo game ever. It was also the last WCW game AKI made before THQ moved to the WWF license. Players put it among the greatest wrestling games ever made, and for a lot of them it is the game that started their love of the genre.

No Mercy is the last of the AKI wrestling games on the N64 and the most complete. Its championship mode gives seven different WWF titles their own story, and winning one unlocks that belt in exhibition, where you can defend it as you like. Up to four players can compete in cage and ladder matches, and some matches leave the ring for four different backstage locations. Underneath is the same momentum system, where attacking fills your Attitude meter.

It became one of the best-selling titles for the Nintendo 64. Players still call it the greatest wrestling game of all time. It has more depth than the arcade-style wrestling games of its day, and it rewards anyone who learns it. Only one fighting game on the N64 is recommended more.

Super Smash Bros. was made by HAL Laboratory, directed by Masahiro Sakurai, and released in North America on April 26, 1999. It does away with the life bar. Each player has a damage total shown as a percentage, which rises as they take hits, and the goal is to knock the others off the stage. Characters from across Nintendo's series, Mario and Pokémon among them, fight with items and stage hazards, and the box art shows them as toy dolls that come to life to fight.

It sold over five million copies worldwide by 2001 and started a series that came to each Nintendo console after it. Players recommend it about twice as often as anything else on this list, and they remember it as the N64 game they played most with friends. It is still the best reason to own four controllers.