From my count, I actually played 39 N64 games this year, but the rest of them aren’t worth talking about (i.e. they’re a lot of bad racing/generic sports games).
1. Castlevania 64
The Angry Video Game Nerd did such a disservice in the way he talked about this game years ago. Yes, it can be a bit clunky at times and yes, it suffers from N64 camera, but Castlevania 64 is WAY better than I’ve ever seen anyone give it credit for. If given the chance, I think it’s one fans of the system or the franchise should try out.
2. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2
Growing up playing Tony on the Gamecube and becoming accustomed to that control scheme makes playing Tony on the N64 challenging. The original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater on the N64 is particularly rough, but they learned and reoriented the control scheme for the second game in a way that makes so much more sense.
3. Rocket: Robot on Wheels
Rocket: Robot on Wheels was the first game developed by Sucker Punch Productions, the studio that would later go on to make Sly Cooper, Infamous, and Ghost of Tsushima. It’s one of the many 3D collectathons of the N64 and, while it’s seemingly lesser known, it’s one of the best on the platform.
4. Super Smash Bros.
Similar to Mario Kart 64, Melee was my introduction to Smash so the original doesn’t do a ton for me. That said, it’s obviously still one of the best games on the system and deserves to be recognized for its influence.
5. Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling
Brunswick Circuit Pro Bowling has a cosmic bowling mode so for that week’s N64 Mania I found a Spotify playlist titled “90’s Cosmic Bowling Birthday Party” filled with all of the Europop songs you know and love. We listened to that playlist while playing and it was one of the best N64 Mania weeks I’ve ever participated in.
6. Star Fox 64
Yes, I know Star Fox being at 6 is going to upset some people, but I played it as part of a shuffler so every 30-60 seconds it was shuffled to some other game. Even so, it didn’t hook me the way it has in previous playthroughs.
7. Wetrix
Wetrix is an arcade game in which the player has to terraform a piece of land to create lakes and score points. That explanation doesn’t do a great job, but the game is pretty fun. I’d recommend looking up a video to really see it.
8. Mario Kart 64
I think Mario Kart is one of those franchises where the game someone played growing up is typically their favorite. I didn’t grow up playing Mario Kart 64 so it doesn’t hold much nostalgic weight for me. I do think it greatly improves upon the foundation of Super Mario Kart on the SNES, but there are other Mario Kart games I’d choose to play over this one.
9. Mortal Kombat Mythologies: Sub-Zero
Mortal Kombat Mythologies is almost certainly worse than most of the games lower on this list, but for some reason, I’d rather play it a second than most everything below it.
10. Ms. Pac-Man’s Maze Madness
People like to talk smack about the N64 controller about how you only use ⅔ of it. In Ms. Pac-Man Maze Madness, you only need to use ⅓ of the controller. In many ways, the game is a Metroidvania in that many of the levels cannot be completed on their first playthrough and must be returned to later in the game. There’s a ton of depth to the game and while I do think the game is fun, it’s longer than it needs to be.
11. A Bug’s Life
A Bug’s Life isn’t a bad game, but there are some pretty lackluster moments. Multiple levels just end up being big mazes that end when you find a certain character. However, the open levels that are more puzzle-based are really good.
12. Hexen: Beyond Heretic
I don’t fully know why Hexen clicked with me and Daikatana didn’t, but I had significantly more patience in figuring out Hexen’s puzzles.
13. Robotron 64
Robotron 64 is a 3D version of the arcade game. Robotron: 2084. Adding a third dimension makes the game particularly frustrating at times because, for me at least, the depth perception wasn’t great. Additionally, some enemies float above the arena so you just wait around for them to drop to the ground. By no means is it bad, it’s just frustrating.
14. BattleTanx: Global Assault
When playing BattleTanx, I didn’t really take care to maintain my health or lives. I then got to a point where I entered a level with little health and zero lives, when I died and restarted on the level, I had the same health and same life count. I stopped playing and said I’d return to it, but I never did.
15. Tarzan
Another game that I assume was designed for kids. Another game where if a kid actually beat this on the default difficulty, they’re a legendary gamer.
16. WWF No Mercy
Playing WWF No Mercy against a CPU opponent likely doesn’t do it justice. I can only imagine how great it would’ve been to play this with friends at a birthday party or sleepover.I didn’t get to play the “Story Mode” which I know does some really cool stuff, so maybe it’ll get a redemption ranking in 2025’s list.
17. Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue
Honestly, I have very little recollection of this game. The game has three different kinds of levels: the first is you running around saving civilians from different monsters, the second is a autoscroller driving minigame, and the third is a first-person fighting game against the bosses. The levels in which you run around saving civilians are the most boring; unfortunately, they’re also the best.
18. Tigger’s Honey Hunt
Considering that this is a Tigger game, my assumption is that the target audience for this game is little kids. This game has so many necessary secrets that the player has to find and so many different mechanics to keep track of that if a little kid beat this game, they’re actually the greatest gamer of all time.
19. G.A.S.P!! Fighters’ NEXTream
The fact that there are six games lower on the list kind of blows my mind because I really didn’t enjoy this game. It’s a fighting game and once I figured out the combo that beat every opponent, it wasn’t worth doing anything else. One interesting thing though is that the final boss can take two different final forms, I don’t know how they’re different or what causes him to take a particular form, but I guess it’s something.
20. Rat Attack!!!
Continuing with the multiple exclamation points section of the list is Rat Attack!!! I actually played this for the first time years ago using an emulator, but had issues with getting it to run properly. I feel like I enjoyed it back then, but did not have the same enjoyment this time around. In Rat Attack!!!, you play as a cat and have to trap a certain number of rats before escaping to the next level. Maybe I didn’t make it very far the first time around so I just got to play the fun, easy levels, but this time, by the end of the game I was so ready to never turn it on again.
21. Rugrats in Paris: The Movie
In this game you play as one of the babies and go through Reptarland, playing different minigames to win tickets to buy the Reptar helmet that lets you control Reptar in the final fight against Robosnail. The game is an absolute slog and that final fight is way more difficult than it has any business being.
22. John Romero’s Daikatana
I guess John Romero made me his bitch because I had no idea what I was doing and stopped playing it after about an hour.
23. Transformers Beast Wars: Transmetal
This was the first N64 game I played in 2024 so it wasn’t the greatest start to the year. As was the trend with the fighting games I played this year, there was one move that the CPU enemies couldn’t stop. The game wasn’t good enough to try out other strategies.
24. The Powerpuff Girls: Chemical X-Traction
This is an arena fighter using The Powerpuff Girls characters. To fully beat the game, you must complete the story mode with Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup. Unfortunately, those three playthroughs are exactly the same. Even more unfortunate, you can win every fight by just spamming the same attack, even on the hardest difficulty. As someone who grew up during The Powerpuff Girls era of Cartoon Network and was a fan, it’s an incredibly disappointing game.
25. Conker’s Bad Fur Day
The game crashed on me four times in like an hour. I wasn’t much of a fan of what I did play, but the crashes made it easily the worst N64 experience of the year.
[Editor’s Note: Authors were told to approach their game of the year lists however they wanted, including listing their favorite games they personally played this year regardless of release year.]
