Nintendo, the company synonymous with video games, is a legendary enterprise. But that does not mean that the company is without its blunders that awkwardly stand beside their masterpieces. They all make some money and many of the bad games get quickly forgotten by the general public. But they probably remain a stain on the creator’s resume for a long while. As well it should.
But one can never know that the game they’ve been dreaming of creating or the game they’ve been hired or tasked with developing is going to turn into a piece of history that will embarrass all who remember it. Sometimes a game is so bad that it’s good, but only in the situation where the gamers are at a party and together mock what was meant to entertain us. And in a way it did.
Bad games are just that: party fun. And not even for that long of a time. A garbage game is something that you never play alone and enjoy. It’s not a game that you really power through unless you want to prove a point to yourself. But worry not, this isn’t a situation where we’re going to bash Nintendo for making a few bad games. We’re talking about the heroes of so many childhoods. They cast the widest net and certainly caught the most fish. So what if some of those fish turned out to be poisonous eels?
Here are the 15 worst Nintendo games, and 15 that are still pretty awesome.
30 Ugh: Friday The 13th (NES)
Friday the 13th, to some, is just a day of the year where they like to smash mirrors while walking underneath ladders and hanging out with black cats in dark alleys. To others, it’s a film series starring a dude in a hockey mask who REALLY doesn’t like campers or bodies of water. His name Jason.
But to some people, it’s the name of a video game that no one enjoyed.
Not only was this game incredibly absurd, it was super hard. Nearly unbeatable. Until, of course, you took the time to master the levels and gameplay. But without actual reward, who mastered this?
29 Awesome: Donkey Kong Country (SNES)
This is a game considered to be the greatest of all time. This is the game that put apes on the map for most of us as kids. Yeah, we’ve seen them chilling at the zoo, and maybe we watched a nature show, but playing with Donkey Kong and his son/friend Diddy made us want to be apes.
But that doesn’t make much sense, because we already are apes. But you get what we’re saying. Just a well done, fun, sweet-looking side-scroller. Nothing insanely unique, but for some reason, this is a game that will go down in history as something magical.
28 Ugh: Bible Adventures (NES)
The name should say it all. Adventures involving the Bible. Now, if this is one of those books that you, the reader, believe to be 100% accurate and true, then yeah, those were some wild adventures.
He did his thing and slew some dragons. Right? That’s what happened, right?
But if you’re like many atheist gamers, there is simply zero appeal to a game like this. Especially because the creators tried to play it safe. Give Jesus and Moses a war mace and a battle ax and have them fight off the reptilian horde attempting to reclaim the surface. That’s a bible adventure we’d embark on.
27 Awesome: Star Fox 64
Now, this may very well be one of the greatest games ever created. It’s simple, it’s fast-paced, and it’s Star Fox. This is the type of game that you only get better and better at and destroy enemies faster and faster.
There’s not much more to do than fly and smash enemies. But when you think about it, it’s the first real galactic war game we got to play. And it was amazing. Something to be remembered and they haven’t made a better Star Fox game since. That means something to us.
26 Ugh: Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde (NES)
So this here is a game that everyone should play at least once in their life if they’re given the opportunity. But only because it’s incredibly hard and incredibly dumb.
Everyone knows the story of Dr. J and Mr. H.
He’s a normal bro chilling beneath the cobblestone arches of Britain or western Europe, but when he drinks his magical science elixir, he turns into a raging hulk monster. The game is nothing like that, it actually feels like half of a game. You start out as Dr. Jekyll and make your way through the town until you perish and turn into the monsters and basically just reverse the level. It’s trash.
25 Awesome: Double Dragon I & II (NES)
These games take me back to when I was a young tyke sitting on the couch next to my brother. It was doubly sweet because we were brothers playing as brothers on the video game fighting bad guys. And that made a serious impression.
Double Dragon never really continued as a series and we don’t really know why. But it may have something to do with being so awesome in its base form that there was not much else to do. Sometimes a creator makes something so great that they leave that medium to conquer a new one. Perhaps that’s what occurred here.
24 Ugh: Super Pitfall (NES)
This game was a pretty generic game and something you see on the mobile gaming scene. But back when it came out years ago, it was just not good. It was one of those creations of video game art that didn’t seem complete.
The art was generic, the music was overly repetitive, and of course, the gameplay was one dimensional. Yes, this is from an era where there were only two buttons and a directional pad, but that never stopped other greats from being created. Nintendo has created so many greats that it can make up for the blunders, but it’s clear that there is room to make a great game in those times. No excuses.
23 Awesome: Any Pokémon Remake
Now we all know that his series is legendary and will probably continue to churn out similar games with different characters until the sun explodes. But we’re all good with that. Even more so because they keep remaking them with better stuff.
SoulSilver and FireRed were amazing remakes of already amazing games. They bring back the early storylines and the original creatures that got us into these games in the first place. Just think of how many people bought a Game Boy simply because there was a new game coming out with our pal Pikachu.
22 Ugh: Shaq Fu (SNES)
This was the type of game that a lot of people bought because Shaquille O’Neal was so popular. For some reason, basketball players who dominate the league become international superstars.
Maybe because it’s a fun sport to watch, or maybe it’s because these guys are huge.
Shaq is a massive human, and many non-American nations look at the size of our athletes with awe. As if they were the new Greek Gods or Olympians. Michael Jordan got a movie, Shaq got a movie and a video game. Does this mean that Shaq is better? We know that Lebron doesn’t have a video game either.
21 Awesome: New Super Mario Bros.
When this game came out, and you had four people to play with, it was absolute mayhem. Bouncing all over the place, losing lives left and right. No screen was big enough to capture all of the chaos.
But it was also a great game to play solo.
That’s the mark of a truly masterful game. A game that can be awesome to play alone or the exact same game to be played by yourself. That way when your friends go home or your siblings go to sleep, you can grind and get better. All while they read books or do other nerd stuff.
20 Ugh: Where’s Waldo (NES)
There’s nearly a 100% chance that anyone who ever owned this game had it because of the fact that their parents bought it for them. Their thought process, our parents’, must have been that this game will keep us busy and it’s probably just as fun as the printed version. It wasn’t.
It happened to be a game that rivaled most laserdisk setups.
Not as good as what we thought it would be, but sufficed to say it’d work well for the third world. After a while, we all put this game in the dustbin and opted for something better. Something better like ANYTHING ELSE.
19 Awesome: Any Legend Of Zelda Game
Now, we know that this is multiple games, and there are a few, maybe one or two, Zelda games that are garbage. But as a whole, this has to be one of the highest quality game series ever. Mario games may be the most popular games on Nintendo and the face of the company, but Link and the Legend of Zelda are the best.
It’s sort of like ice cream. Everyone loves vanilla, vanilla is the most popular, but chocolate is the best. Everyone knows that chocolate is the superior basic ice cream flavor. Legend of Zelda is like chocolate ice cream. And we hope this made you hungry for questing and dessert.
18 Ugh: Superman 64
If you’ve never seen a Superman comic or TV series, the photo above is usually exactly what the creator wanted him to look like. The smooth geometric shape, the strong chin that comes to a sharp point.
This is your hero.
Graphics aside, well… wait. Graphics not aside. That was basically why the game was so terrible. There were basically not details or textures, the ground was green and the sky was blue and the buildings and cars were gray.
17 Awesome: Mario Party 2
Now, we know that there are multiple sequels and version of this game that we’ve all played at some point in our lives. But the games sort of started to drop off in quality after the N64. That’s why the second installment is on this list.
That, and because it’s personally my favorite.
But that’s not fair to be the only reason on this list, because that’s biased. But if you take the worlds you could play in the game and the great selection of mini games to go in those worlds. It’s no contest. This was hands down the best party game on the N64. And it holds up over time.
16 Ugh: Mario Party: The Top 100
No one here is denying that Mario Party is an amazing game. What we are saying is that a game made in this way is unacceptable. Just for the record, this was a collection of the 100 best mini-games in all of the series.
The problem was that there was no real map to play on.
It was ONLY the one map to play on. So when you play these mini-games, you can’t even work towards anything serious. Mario Party is a game that ends friendships.
15 Awesome: Mario Kart Double Dash
Everyone knows about Mario and his racing life. But the issue is that most people can’t decide which of the games in the series is actually the best. And while we’re not saying that this game is the best, we’re saying it’s actually awesome.
You get to use two characters on the cart and they both have different specials.
That means you need to strategize offense and defense when choosing your team. And once you found the guys you liked, it was off to the races. Bowser Jr. for life, y’all.
14 Ugh: Nintendogs + Cats
Never really understood what these games were actually about. But we do understand that the word Nintendogs is hilarious. To just go ahead and add cats to the mix even though cats might be evil is just utter nonsense.
The game itself is pretty standard for the series.
But the issue comes from the disparities between dogs and cats. Dogs are pack animals, they love us as their pack leaders. They protect us and lick us with love. Cats, except for lions, are solitary creatures. They don’t need us and they don’t want us around.
13 Awesome: Advanced Wars
If any of you people reading this have never played this game, hurry up and finish the article and then go buy this game. any one in the series will do. But first, finish the article because it’s awesome and we’re awesome.
But what’s really awesome is Advance Wars.
It’s just a little war game with cute little dudes and tanks that battle on a checkerboard map. There’s mountains and trees and bazookas for all to enjoy. Seriously, these games are amazing.
12 Ugh: Jenga
This game is one of those scenarios where you should just play the game for real. Like having a catch with your friend outside, or bowling. Seriously, just go outside or hit up the local bowling alley.
You’ll be a much better person for it.
We’re not advocating anyone to stop playing video games. We’re just saying how you should be playing better video games. Play something that can’t be easily done in the real world, like slay Zeus or fly a spaceship. Grow up, turkeys. Jenga on Wii is ridiculous.
11 Awesome: Ogre Battle 64
This is one of the only games on the N64 that can be called an honest RPG. It was the type of game where you had battalions and squads that would travel like board game pieces across a match and initiate a battle with the enemy.
Then the battle formation above would occur.
The best part about this game was each main character, or hero, had to dive into battle with the best squad of people or creatures you’ve leveled up and outfitted to stand alongside them. It was like a mixture of StarCraft/WarCraft, board games, and Final Fantasy but with 12 main characters and 40 minor characters whose name you’ll never forget.
