The Nintendo 64. What a beautiful library. Leaving the Super Nintendo and 2D games behind, Nintendo would launch their most ambitious console of all time, the Nintendo 64.

So many of its most recognizable IPs would become the faces of the most popular genres of the time. But if you could only limit yourself to four games, what would be the Mount Rushmore of the N64 library? There’s many ways to interpret that. For my purposes, I’m going with four games that proved Nintendo was cutting edge, the front of video game innovation, and define what it was like to own an Nintendo 64 – not necessarily my four favorite or the four best.

007: Goldeneye

I would be remiss to not mention a multi-player experience. There’s so many! Some of my favorites are Super Smash Brothers, Mario Kart and Mario Party 2. But looking back at the iconic nature of Goldeneye, I’m giving it the selection. Goldeneye was a behemoth on two fronts. It revolutionized both multi-player versus games as well as FPS games. Let’s tackle both points.

First, multiplayer. The Nintendo 64 was beloved for couch co-op and couch versus. It had four controller ports and a fantastic selection of games. Often, Goldeneye was the pick when we had friends or family over. Everyone had their favorite characters, weapons, and maps. I know for me, when I was at my grandmother’s with my brother our cousins would come from down the street. The four of us would play countless rounds of Goldeneye. We would play 2v2 and we would basically play King of the Hill with the Golden Gun. If your team had it, you made sure that person did not die.

To this day, almost 20 years later, the only multiplayer FPS games that come close to recreating that experience were when my brother and I beat Halo 3 together. Or when Xbox Live changed everything and I was able to play Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 online with a different cousin of mine even though we lived five states apart! [Man, the future used to be so cool!]

Now on to what it did for First Person Shooters. Goldeneye was my dad’s game. He was a fan of 007 movies. I still remember him bringing home Goldeneye the movie from Movie Gallery and my unhealthy obsession with Goldeneye was born.

As much as my dad and I loved the movie and as much as my dad played the game, oddly enough we never played it together. He only played the campaign. At the time, I didn’t realize how groundbreaking the campaign was. And it’s certainly easy to overlook. But prior to Goldeneye, Doom was the industry standard. It was fast-paced, tight corridor action, and had out of this world set pieces, literally.

Goldeneye was rarely any of that. Mission structures went from ‘find key and rush to the end’ to ‘explore massive levels and complete different objectives around the map’. Gunplay went from ‘guns blazing’ to ‘using a multitude of strategies for each new area’. There was an emphasis on mission variety that scaled with difficulty increases, exploration, elements of stealth and espionage, and strategically picking off enemies to not alert others.

These changes went unappreciated to a little kid like myself. Goldeneye was my first FPS… and I wasn’t very good at it. I would select the easiest difficulty and often end up alerting every enemy. For me, my 007 playthroughs often felt like Doom. Shoot up every enemy, ignore bonus objectives, and rush to the end.

But for skilled players, there’s a lot of depth and strategy that can go into each playthrough. That kind of experience varity just wasn’t present in First Person Shooters before it.

Very rarely do games perfect the blend of single player campaign depth and multiplayer versus depth. In fact, I cannot think of a game that makes both halves feel like the better part simultaneously [Halo is probably the only game series that comes close.] .

With all that said, I think its obvious that Goldeneye had one of the biggest impacts in video game history and is worthy of being on the Mount Rushmore of N64 games.

Star Fox 64

I would say Star Fox is an underrated candidate for Mount Rushmore status, but worthy nonetheless. Star Fox 64 is […was?] the second title in one Nintendo’s most ambitous IPs, Star Fox.

Debuting on Super Nintendo, Star Fox blew people away. It was built with the new Super FX chip in mind. This allowed the Super Nintendo to produce seemingly full 3D graphics years before the release of the Super Mario 64.

Four years later, Star Fox and team took to the skies again to redefine what a video game could be. In 1997, this game truly stood out. The game looked and played great. It featured tight on rail gameplay. The world’s felt lived in. Voice acted team members interacted to what you were doing [how many of you shot your teammates back in the day? Their responses were great]. Epic backdrops that were destoryed or blew up as you played were a visual feast for your eyes. There were giant bosses waiting for you at the end of the stage. And who can forget, dynamic path changes.

That’s right. As you made your way through the galaxy, your path could change depending on factors like how well you played. This allowed the game to have insane replayability, secrets to discover, and allowed the game to naturally handle difficulty scaling. As new or bad players would naturally follow the easier path, while veteran players could aim for different paths for harder experiences or new routes.

I loved this game as a kid. I would have to have the GameFAQ [who remembers that website?] loaded at all times to try to get my preferred route. However, I’m not a big on rail shooter or shoot ’em up fan. Meaning, as the N64 rotated out of the limelight and I moved on to newer things like the PS2, I never really went back to Star Fox. I tried newer space shooters and just never liked them.

But lately, as I reflect back on the N64, Star Fox always stands out to me as an epic, ambitious project. Panzer Dragoon released two years prior and did a lot to move Shoot ’em Ups in a good direction. But Star Fox’s branching paths, voiced characters, 3 vehicle types [did you know there was a submarine in Star Fox 64?], and the rumble feature make this a unique experience on the Nintendo 64!

Super Mario 64

No Nintendo 64 Mount Rushmore would be complete without Super Mario 64. Oddly enough, this is a game I feel a lot of hard core retro players go out of their way to hate. That might sound funny on the surface, but I know a lot of Nintendo 64 gamers who swear Banjo Kazooie is better in every way. Banjo had cooler power ups, bigger levels, a great cast, and Rare’s signature ability to just make an awesome N64 game.

Even I say Donkey Kong 64 is my preferred 3D platformer. I love the epic levels, the five playable characters, the mission diversity, and of course Rare’s signature ability to just make an awesome N64 game.

But Super Mario 64 is just timeless. It’s a classic. Wonky level design and atrocious camera aside, I’d argue this is one of the Godfathers of video games.

Mario 64 was revolutionary in ways that we cannot really fathom today. Other companies tried to create 3D games. Sony wasn’t dumb. They saw what Nintendo was cooking up. They released several games that tried to be first to market as a true 3D game on home consoles. But there’s a reason people often remember Super Mario 64 as that first truly epic home experience 3D game. Because it nailed it.

Nintendo designed the console and the controller around this game [apparently they had a bunch three arm humans playtesting this game.]. Of course it was going to work.

Super Mario 64 worked back then and still captures the hearts of people today for a couple of reasons. A. The controller. People give it a hard time, but it was vital to video games being able to transition to the 3D space. For starters, the joy stick. You may forget the original PS1 controller did not have joysticks. They stuck with the traditional D-Pad. Needless to say, the joystick allowed for more fluid and complete movement. The C-Buttons were also paramount. In Mario 64 the C-Buttons are always active, allowing the player to rotate camera options to find the exact style they need for each situation.

B. The pick up and play nature of the game. Mario 64 isn’t bogged down with an amazing story, just what you need to know for an adventure. Princess Toadstool [who the heck is this Peach character I keep hearing about?] has baked Mario a cake. Mario arrives to learn that Bowser has made himself at home. Its up to Mario to stop him. That’s really the jist of the story. Mario has access to two levels right away. Bom-Omb Battlefield and Princess’s Secret Slide. The player can amass quite a few stars with just these two levels. Once the player has rounded up a handful of stars, the entire first floor becomes available [even more levels than that if you know how to backwards long jump into the wall and shoot yourself through doors, but that’s a different story.].

I think its that degree of ease and unlockability that makes it so easy to get into. It doesn’t feel like you have to grind experience points for hours to get new abilities or face unbeatable bosses to advance. You just need to go around having fun, collecting stars, and occasionally beat Bowser.

C. The perfect first stage. I’ve never played a game before where the opening level is just simply this perfect. It is simple. It is open. It is the perfect level for a sandbox game. Mario drops in, has a nice open area to run around in, and eventually, a mountain to climb. Here, a boss awaits him to test his strengths. This stage also test your ability to find hidden shortcuts, collect red coins, and even fly through the sky. It is great at teaching players simple mechanics and giving them areas to test the basics for harder stunts later.

And that’s the thing, each level will build on what the player has learned. Future levels add wall kicks, other hats, environment hazards like lava, but Bom-Omb Battlefield allows the players to get a grasp on gameplay before sending them out into the bigger world.

D. The music slaps. It just does. Simple as that.

Super Mario 64 was a system seller unlike any system seller I’ve ever seen before. Sony had epic cinematic works of art that were great in their own right, but Super Mario 64 is the pinnacle of what makes gaming fun. [And did I mention you can pull Mario’s face on the home screen to make funny faces? 10 out of 10]

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

Where do you even start with arguably the greatest game of all time? For everything I said about Super Mario 64’s simplicity and commitment to nailing the little things, is true of Zelda but with mastering the large scale nature of a video game. The quest is epic, the setting is great, the items are perfect. And honestly, what this game doesn’t get credit enough for is being the perfect size game. Literally, if you asked how big a game should be before it feels bloated, I would point to Ocarina of Time. Breath of a Wild is truly an insane adventure but it is filled with so much empty space and an obnoxious amount of Korok seeds. [I will never complain about the 100 skulltulas every again].

Locations are another strength of the game. There’s plenty of diversity here so no location feels the same as a previous one. Death Mountain, Lake Hylia, The Lost Woods, The Gerudo Desert, and on and on. The game also used a time jump mechanic where you play as kid Link and adult Link. This allows them to essentially double the map as exploring locations as a adult feel different from exploring them as a kid.

Side quest are also done in a healthy amount. There’s the heart pieces and songs to collect. The mask quests, skulltulas to find, poes to kill, a fishing hole, horse racing, and plenty of weapon upgrades that all give Link plenty of stuff to do if you get bored of the main quest. Again, all of this is manageable. Even if I love side quest and gameplay diversity in my games, this feels like a healthy, manageable amount for the average gamer and why I don’t think Ocarina of Time suffers from bloat like many games did around this time. Bloat in video games is an epidemic that has only gotten worse in video games.

Of course, we can’t talk about why Ocarina of Time was cutting edge for the time without mentioning the Z Lock on system. Ever gone back and played a game only for it not to hold up well? Yeah, that isn’t a problem here. Ocarina of Time aged amazingly. Compare it to the OG Resident Evils. They were masterpieces upon release. But tank controls, static camera angles, and a… looser[?] aiming system have many modern gamers saying those games are nearly unplayable today. [Of course a tad bit of exaggeration, but this is the case for a lot of older games.].

The jump to 3D was not kind to every combatant. Many didn’t understand level design, how to make smooth movement, or how to aim in a 3D space. I simply just do not see those flaws in Ocarina of Time and a large part is Link’s ability to lock on. This made sword fighting and ranged weapons easy to use and actually kill enemies.

In my mind, Ocarina of Time is the definitive open world adventure game of its time. Combat is easy, movement is smooth, the world is the perfect size, plenty of great NPCs to make the world feel lived in, great and iconic items and weapons, cool use of magic, great dungeons, and memorable boss fights. Yes I’m biased, but I cannot think of a single complaint for this game that isn’t just nit picking [like how in the original you have pause to equip the iron boots and then pause to unequip them.].

There you have it. My Nintendo 64 Mount Rushmore! I tried to leave bias out where applicable. For example, Star Fox and Goldeneye aren’t in my top 4 N64 games, but I think their impact was too great to ignore.

One game that would be in the running off of contributions to gaming would be the Pokemon Stadium series. Their transfer packs were huge at the time. The rental pokemons were kind of a joke, but with the transfer pack you could migrate your Gameboy team over to your Stadium cart.

Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon I think would be worthy based on just how great of a game it truly was. A lot of people say Perfect Dark deserves to be on the list because it took what Goldeneye established and improved upon it, but Goldeneye was just so instrumental to this era that its hard to leave it off.

Let me know what games make your Mount Rushmore of Nintendo 64! And let me know what console I should do next! Thanks for reading have a great day!