The Nintendo 64 had about the thinnest launch shelf a big console ever had. In North America you could buy two games on day one, and only eight Nintendo 64 games were released in the US in 1996. Nobody seemed to mind much. One of those two games was enough to sell the whole machine, and the rest of the year filled in with a jet ski racer, a Star Wars game and a pile of arcade ports.
So this list covers the launch window, from the first day through the end of 1996, the stretch when everyone with an N64 owned more or less the same handful of cartridges. Here are the 8 best N64 launch games.
8. Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey (1996)
Gretzky started in arcades, and a port for the Nintendo 64 was released a month after the arcade version. That made it the first-ever four-player game for the Nintendo 64. On a launch shelf this small, that was a big deal.
It plays nothing like a serious hockey game. A power save turns the goalie into a brick wall for a second, and a hard enough check sends an ambulance across the top of the screen. Games are high scoring, and the fights are over the top. There is a simulation mode too, but nobody remembers it.
Players who grew up with it still bring it up when people list their N64 favourites, and it is the silly one they are fond of. You do not need to know anything about hockey to have fun with it.
7. Cruis'n USA (1996)
Cruis'n USA came out in arcades in 1994 from Midway, with a port to the Nintendo 64 developed by Leland Interactive Media released in 1996. It was branded as the first release of the "Ultra 64" deal between Midway and Nintendo, even though the arcade board had nothing to do with the N64. You race one-way courses through streets loosely based on real places across the United States, and you have to finish first to move on to the next track.
The Nintendo 64 version received poor reviews but was also commercially successful, which tells you a lot about that first Christmas. Players today still name it with real affection. It is a dumb, fast road trip, and you can change the music mid-race.
6. Mortal Kombat Trilogy (1996)
Trilogy takes Mortal Kombat 3 and adds characters and stages from the other arcade games, including Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. It also adds the Aggressor bar, a meter that fills during the fight and makes your fighter faster and stronger for a while, and the Brutality, a long combo that ends with the other fighter exploding.
The N64 version is its own thing. It lacks Kahn's Arena and the Bank, and it swaps the male ninja Chameleon for a female character named Khameleon, who switches between Kitana, Mileena and Jade during the fight. Of all the fighting games on the launch shelf, players are fondest of this one, and for anyone who wanted every Mortal Kombat fighter on one cartridge, it was the only place to get them.
5. Killer Instinct Gold (1996)
Rare made Killer Instinct as Nintendo's answer to Mortal Kombat, and Gold is the home version of the arcade game Killer Instinct 2. It was scheduled as a launch title but was delayed until its North American release in November 1996, and other regions waited until May 1997.
The cartridge could not hold the arcade's full-motion video, so that went, but Gold adds a training mode, camera views and better sound and visuals. Reviewers preferred the Nintendo 64 port over the arcade release, though they felt the memorization-based combos were not enough next to Tekken 2 and Virtua Fighter 2.
Players do not care much about that comparison now. It still shows up on their lists of N64 games worth owning, often right next to the Rare games that came later. If you want to learn one combo-heavy fighter on this console, this is the one.
4. Pilotwings 64 (1996)
Pilotwings 64 was one of two launch titles in North America, along with Super Mario 64, and one of three in Japan and Europe. It is the sequel to the SNES Pilotwings, which was also a launch game. Paradigm Simulation in Texas built it with Nintendo, and you pass flight tests in vehicles like the hang glider to earn a bronze, silver or gold license.
There are six pilots to choose from, each with strengths and weaknesses based on things like weight. One of them, Lark, is modeled after Nester, the old Nintendo Power mascot. The soundtrack is by Dan Hess.
Players call it relaxing, and a few point out that it gets forgotten next to the bigger names. That is fair. There is no enemy and no clock you really have to fear, just a big quiet island and a lot of sky.
3. Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996)
You play Dash Rendar, a minor character from the Shadows of the Empire book, while Luke and the Rebels deal with Prince Xizor. The developers picked him on purpose, because it gave them more freedom than using the heroes from the films. Each level is timed, with challenge points hidden around for anyone who wants to dig.
The music is the part people forget. Nintendo agreed to increase the cartridge space from 8 MB to 12 MB, enough for about 15 minutes of real orchestral samples, which made it unique among Nintendo 64 games. The game received mixed reviews but was the third best-selling Nintendo 64 game for 1997, with more than one million copies sold.
The opening fight on Hoth is the bit everyone remembers. As one player put it, "The Hoth level was amazing". The rest is bumpier, but in 1996 that first level was as close to the movie as a game had come.
2. Wave Race 64 (1996)
Wave Race 64 started out as "F-Zero on water", with fast boats that could transform. Shigeru Miyamoto felt that would not stand out from games on other systems, so the boats became jet skis. That turned out to be the right call. The water moves, the waves change with how you and the others ride, and you have to learn to ride the swells instead of fighting them.
There are Championship, Time Trials and Stunt modes across nine courses. Critics praised the controls and the water, and the game got a GameCube sequel, Wave Race: Blue Storm, in 2001. Codemasters even cited it as a key influence on Colin McRae Rally.
Players still recommend it as one of the console's best games, and some say the water physics hold up better than the sequel's. Of all the launch games after the big one, this is the one to own.
1. Super Mario 64 (1996)
Super Mario 64 was the first Mario game in 3D, and it came out in Japan and North America in 1996. Shigeru Miyamoto first thought of a 3D Mario while making Star Fox. You collect Power Stars by jumping into the castle's paintings, each one a door into a different world, and the score is by Koji Kondo.
Reviewers praised its ambition, visuals, level design and gameplay, though some criticized its camera. It became the best-selling Nintendo 64 game, with nearly twelve million copies sold by 2015. Its camera and 360-degree analog control set a new pattern for 3D platformers, much as Super Mario Bros. did for side-scrollers.
When someone new to the N64 asks where to start, players tell them to start here. Nothing else on this list comes close in how often it gets picked.
Which one to play
There you have it, the best games from the N64's first months. A short list, but the top two are still among the best things on the console.
If you are only getting one, get Super Mario 64. If you want to race, Wave Race 64 is the deeper game and Cruis'n USA is the dumber, louder one. Star Wars fans should play Shadows of the Empire at least through Hoth. For a fighting game, pick Killer Instinct Gold if you like learning combos and Mortal Kombat Trilogy if you want the big roster. For four players on a couch, put on Wayne Gretzky's 3D Hockey. And if you just want to fly around and unwind, Pilotwings 64 is waiting.
