Best Nintendo 64 Platformers - Every N64 3D Platformer, Ranked By You

Fun fact: Conker's Bad Fur Day received an M rating in Australia (our M is analogous to the PEGI 12 and ESRB T ratings) for violence and sexual references, with no mention of coarse language at all (as it could have been accommodated at the then G8+ rating, astonishingly enough, since superceded by PG).

Hell, even if the F-bombs were uncensored, it wouldn't have impacted the rating itself; it merely would have necessitated a "coarse language" descriptor at the M level, as our standards are much more relaxed in that regard when compared with other jurisdictions.

I feel Earthworm Jim 3D is unfairly maligned.

This era of gaming always makes me a little sad. I never had an N64 growing up because I started my gaming hobby when the PS2 and Gamecube were already out. Any time I try to revisit games from this generation, it just is not a good experience for me. The visuals often give me a headache and the N64 controller feels awkward. I've made peace with this generation of gaming not being for me, and hope that Nintendo will continue to remake some of the beloved games from this era like they did with Super Mario RPG.

As someone who never played Banjo Kazooie (or any N64 game) as a child, going back and playing games like Mario 64, DK 64, Goemon (especially Goemon), and Conker are a real treat. But playing Banjo Kazooie just wasn't enjoyable in any way. I won't try and tell anybody they're wrong but it's interesting that Banjo is above Mario?
Won't try and argue that there is big fun to be had here, however. :L

BK being above SM64 is interesting to see on this site. I love SM64, but I do think BK is the pinnacle of the genre in the N64 era.

That said, I think Banjo-Tooie suffered from bloat and then DK64 looked at Tooie and said, “Hold my beer.” Replaying a lot of these in the last decade has been really eye-opening as to what holds up and what doesn’t.

Interesting list! Some comments:

Tonic Trouble is a game I really, REALLY wanted to like, but even as a kid it felt disjointed, weird and unresponsive. The concept wasn't bad, but it was never a delight to play.

Bomberman Hero remains high on my list of not just N64 games, but Bomberman games in general. Making Bomberman into a 3D action game did wonders for the character, and it surprises me there hasn't been another attempt at this since.

Conker's Bad Fur Day, while unique and fun, is also probably Rare's weakest outing on the platform. Might be a bit of a spicy take, but it lacked the responsiveness of Banjo and DK. The setpieces were awesome, and there's something to be said about having M rated humor in such an outwardly kid-friendly package, but as a game it left a lot to be desired.

Super Mario 64 hasn't aged as gracefully as Banjo or even DK64.

DK64 can be a snoozefest collectathon, and the level design is a bit mid, but I can't deny I had great times with it.

And lastly, Banjo-Tooie below Banjo-Kazooie?? Come on friends! Tooie outdid Kazooie in every conceivable metric!

I absolutely adore the N64, and I can easily pick up Mario 64, Goldeneye, OoT, any game I played as a kid. I see some gamers complain about how N64 games are clunky, hard to control, etc... And it's exactly how I feel about Banjo. I know those two games are true masterpieces but the whole experience is just awkward for me. I wish I could go back in time and give younger me these games

I did not know there was 2 Mystical Ninja games on the N64 or I forgot. I like Banjo-Kazooie more than Super Mario 64 to. Where is Jet Force Gemini? Jet Force Gemini was very good game.

I had alot of these & personally I loved DK64 more than the Banjo Kazooie games. SM64 was the best but DK64 a very close second.

N64 is kind of the hardest console to go back to for me. It doesn't take long down the list before you've exhausted the mandatory titles. The cream on top is so sweet but unfortunately the bottom of the N64 barrel has a thick layer of crust.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed any of the 3D platformers on the N64. Super Mario 64 was fine for what it was as it was the only 3D platformer I owned & played. Banjo & DK64 i could care less about.

Rayman 2 I gotten on Dreamcast as it felt much better with the controller.

Nice list, I quite enjoyed reading about the more obscure games at the bottom of the rankings.

Played Banjo-Kazooie for the first time when it was added to NSO and hated every second of it. I'll never understand the love for that game.

Surprised 3D raymans haven't come to the switch. I loved Rayman 2 on ps2.

@Selim Jet Force Gemini wasn’t a platformer.

Anywho, glad Banjo won here. I’ve always thought Mario was slightly overrated. And yes, I played it around the time of release. Don’t get me wrong it’s fun but I just preferred the Rare games.

No Yoshi's Story? Not even for last place?

I will argue that Castlevania 64 and its upgraded counterpart Legacy of Darkness are platformers and thus should be SOMEWHERE on this list. It makes me sad to see that not included— they’re as dark and gothic as they come on N64.
Sorry to sound like a broken record but the day they come to NSO I’ll be soooooo happy. 🤞

How is SM64 not in first?!

Didnt agree with Banjo being better than Mario 64 back in the day and since then Banjo has not held up as much as Mario 64 has

@ArcticEcho it’s not a true 3D platformer, it’s 2.5D at best. Apart from a small number of branching paths, it’s all played in a linear 2D plane.

Banjo-Tooie has some terrible frame-rate issues. And while most people cite DK64 as the worst offender for excessive collectables, BT feels worse. Rare overreached with that one.

@Selim I feel like JFG (a great game) falls more under the third-person shooter genre than 3D platformer.

So many memories.

• Loved Donkey Kong 64 a lot. Maybe because it was my first console game ever, but just loved it, specially the DK rap.
• Never finished Banjo Kazooie honestly because I could never finish the trivia section at the end.. I was too young and didn't know any English and kept just guessing the answers incorrectly.
• Oh Banjo Tooie, I never bought it but rented it like 7 times from Blockbuster. I always got frustrated when I went home to find another user had restarted the playthrough.
  Good ol' times

Man that Bugs Life game looked so exciting to me from the back of a cereal box when I was a kid 🤣

Spacestation Silicon Valley is probably what you should check out if you are looking for something to play. The ones above it in the list are good, but you probably know what you are getting, a polished formula. SSV has really cool music, is funny, and has interesting mechanics that is quite different from the others.

This probably sounds bad, but this list makes me glad I went with PS1 back in the day. I was into RPGs and N64 hardly had anything for me.
I did pick up an N64 around 2005/6 at a Gamestop for about $25 and have only a very few physical games for the system. Seven: Mario 64, Star Wars Shadows of the Empire, Wipeout 64, Goldeneye, Star Fox, Wave Race, and Zelda: Ocarina of Time. All great games. I do have other originally N64 games in my collection, but they are ports/Virtual Console to other systems (GameCube, Wii, Wii U, Switch).
I think it is a case of quality over quantity with the N64. The games that were good…were amazing and genre defining, but I don’t regret going the PS1 route back in 1997 when I bought into that generation. I mean, I played FFVII, VIII, IX, Final Fantasy Tactics, Wild Arms, and Cool Boarders 2 just to mention a few.
Of course I did go back to the GameCube for the next generation…because I got the system and Mario Sunshine in a bundle for $99 at the local Walmart. After that, it has been a great ride with Nintendo.
I guess what I mean to say is that this article helped me realize I personally don’t feel that I missed much from Nintendo during that weird period of time.

Loved the music in gaemon 64! Would love to play that again.

Glad to see my fav game of all time at no1!

We've gone a long way from n64. As I see it, the system had only 6 good platformer games and 4 of those were made by Rare.

When I first started them out, Banjo was a 9 and Mario 64 was a 6. I played them for the first time in the past few years.

After about 20 hours with each, though, Banjo was still a 9 but Mario was a 10. They're both excellent games and Banjo is clearly more polished, with camera controls that at least resemble modern standards. Mario feels janky by comparison.

Thing is, eventually you get good (or at least, i got good) at Mario 64 and then that game just blows up. The sheer amount of creativity you can unleash on those levels is one of my biggest gaming highs. No other 3D Mario come close to the jazzy freedom and experimentation you can have in that game, not even Odyssey.

Steep learning curve, though.

Great top 10 but have never played Conkers Bad Fur Day or Donkey Kong 64, so really hope we get a switch release, but as it's Rare maybe not but we thought that about Goldeneye, so still hoping.

I didn't knew two Goemon games were available on the N64. C'mon Konami and Nintendo, put them on the NSO N64 app!

I know its cool to hate on Castlevania 64, but its still a great game. come on now

Honestly, forgot there were so many. I didn't gamble with N64 purchases, as £40-£50 felt like a lot back then. Tetrisphere was the only unknown I took a punt on, as it was one of the few N64 games that was sold cheap and looked decent. That game needs a re-release.

@RupeeClock They should have included Mischief Makers then

Great list!

Unfortunately I could never appreciate Banjo Kazooie because I played games that outclassed it, Crash Bandicoot, Spyro the Dragon and Mario. And now it's too late to get me hooked, exept for Nuts and Bolts, which was an original and great title

@TotalHenshin
Interesting, I've never heard someone describe Tooie has having "bloat"; always considered it a refinement of what came before.

Mind elaborating on this? Last time I played both games was (sadly) close to a decade ago, so I might be misremembering.

BK is great, but it is (at best) the third-best 3D platformer on the N64, behind Super Mario 64 and Banjo-Tooie.

Thank you for including Rayman from Rayman 2 in the main image for this article. Also, I'm glad you were semi-positive to Tonic Trouble. I know it's not the best game out there but it has some good things to it.

Every time I see the word 'Infogrames' my brain changes it to 'Infrogames'

The best era for me. Some serious heavy hitters. Personally i have; Mario64, Both Banjos, DK64, Bad Fur Day and Rayman 2. Love them. I'll definitely get some more down the line when i see them for decent prices.

@__jamiie I thought it was a typo of "InfoGames", the first time I heard of the company!

IIRC, it's a French name, and it was going to be "Infogramme", which makes decent sense in English as well... then the spelling was changed, while the pronunciation stayed the same- this still makes sense in French, I guess, but it breaks it for us English speakers.

@Browny I thought it was a common opinion that Tooie was bloated.
It drastically cut back on the collectibles (possibly in response to DK's excesses?), but doubled down on backtracking and unnecessary new mechanics. I also found the huge levels to be difficult to navigate at times, with too few unique landmarks (e.g., which generic cave entrance goes where?), and too many "you can't get there from here" places where a shortcut was sorely needed.
A few tweaks to level design, and the ability to switch forms/characters on the fly would have gone a long way!

But we'll see what TotalHenshin has to say, as well!

I need to hit up ebay and see if i can find space station silicon valley. I keep hearing about this game but never played it.

@Ryu_Niiyama Space Station Silicon Valley was a lot of fun, but the NA version had a couple of bugs. One that was game breaking and one that made it impossible to get a collectible for 100%. Apparently some ROMs have been patched.

DK64 absolutely deserves the hate it gets. I turned that game off in December 1999 & never picked it back up again.

I really wish ninty would put Mystical Ninja and the Gex games on their n64 service.

@RupeeClock Yeah, was a bit surprised to see it here. I always considered it N64's best 2D platformer.

Back in the day, I considered Mario 64 the best platformer on the system. But now I would place Rocket: Robot on Wheels at the top spot. It was remarkable for its time and has agreed really well, IMO.

Of course the lineup will keep changing as more people vote. Contrary to some of the comments above, at the time of writing, Mario 64 is #1. As long as that remains, and the Rare platformers are in the top 10, I'm fine with any order.

That said, Glover should be higher. Toy Story 2 is a cut above the average licensed fare too.

Perhaps controversial to say on a Nintendo site, but even though I'm a Nintendo and Sega fanboy for life, and at the time of Playstation's launch I was an active hater of it - and specifically bought my N64 on launch day for Mario... when you take the whole complete library into consideration, in my opinion Playstation has a better lineup of platform games (both 3D and 2D / 2.5D) than N64. No-one would have ever believed that in the early days - if you wanted platformers, you bought N64.

To be crystal clear, I think even the best Playstation titles (Crash, Spyro etc) aren't as good as Mario 64 and the Rare games... but they came somewhat close, and there are more "good" playstation platformers than N64 ones. I guess thats probably because the library is so much larger.

Mystical Ninja is my top-pick - LOVE that game!

Since my C64 days, I still to this day, every now and again, get a Paradroid itch which is very rarely scratched. Space Station Silicon Valley back in the day managed it. Really good game. I would put it ahead of Banjo-Tooie myself...but I'll happily abide with the charts, it's just a bit of fun

My three favourite N64 games are the top 3 - and exactly how I would rank them as well. 😊

I can play all of these on my series x retroarch!
And most of them run and play great.
I would of been happy buying these on my switch if nintendo let us....

@Browny I replayed both games on the Rare Replay collection about 6 years ago. I grew up with both and loved both and beat both. So when I revisited these, I was going in with the same affinity for both titles. I still thought BK was a delight and well-designed. Tooie on the other hand, certainly had more collectibles in regards to boat, but the levels became too sprawling. It became such a hassle to make it from the same starting point, regardless of which jiggy you set your sights on, to then get to the actual start of the challenge for said jiggy, then if you fail you start all the way back from the very start of the world. This doesn’t bear out in the first couple of levels, but from Witchyworld and on the levels just get too big.

Just my two cents.

@smoreon You said it better than I could. I agree wholeheartedly with your comment. Thank you.

@samuelvictor I actually do think the PS1 has a better library overall, but I don’t know if that’s true for 3D platformers. For exclusives there’s Crash 1-3, Spyro 1-3, Ape Escape, Croc 1-2, Jumping Flash… Tail Concerto? What else? I’m not being flippant, I’m asking genuinely.

If that’s the extent, I’d still say the sum of the best N64 3D platformers is greater than the sum for the PS1. Not by amount, but by quality. If you include 2D/2.5D platformers like Tomba, Oddworld, and Klonoa, then yes, I agree the scales tip back in the favor of PS1.

I mean... "Golden era" essentially boils down to 3 decent games, a load of average games, and plenty of... let's be polite. "Experiments".

This was a time when developers fell into 2 camps. Those that could make a 3D platformer. Those that could not - Not just ability, likely time and budget too.

Easy for us to forget now just how new this all was. Imagine you're a developer a d you have to set the budget to make your first 3D platformer - based on all your previous data which is for 2D games. Really no surprise this list has so many unfinished/rushed games attempting to recoup some money.

Funny thing is, they likely made their money back as the N64 library wasn't expansive. New releases, no matter how bad, got a lot of attention and shelf space.

@personauser93 Why would you still be using an N64 controller when that thing doesn't even exist anymore? You're not even trying to open up yourself to new (old) experiences. Emulators exist. Use whatever controller you like, play in whatever resolution you like.

@TotalHenshin Yes admittedly I was including 2.5D as well, but as for 3D games I'd include Bugs Bunny: Lost in Time, Bugs & Taz Timebusters, Pac Man World, the 5 Tomb Raider games... plus of course several of the N64 titles are on PS1 as well, Donald, Gex, Toy Story etc.

What happened to Earthworm Jim? Well his creator turned out to be awful and outspokenly anti-LGBTQ, so nobody wanted to work with him anymore. Then many years later he signed up to be part of that NFT scam console with a new EJ game. And we all know how that went down.

After all these Years, Mario 64 really shows that it has the right balancing.
All those other that have all that collecting are just too much.

@Azuris Yes, I love the Rare games and the graphics are better and levels are larger than Mario... but the collecting is overboard and I'm less inclined to go back to them and complete them. Whereas Mario 64 I replay from start to finish at least once a year. The only thing that I'd change about Mario is the camera controls, which have been fixed in the PC port 😅

@smoreon @TotalHenshin
VERY interesting!

I actually never felt the bloat as described. I do agree that the levels got larger, and traversing them could be a bit of a chore. Backtracking also annoyed me to some extent, but I always chalked that up to my being a bit weird and wanting to complete EVERYTHING in a single world before moving on. Which in Tooie wasn't viable because typically half the items were locked behind a skill found two worlds over.

Now I really want to go back and replay Tooie, see how it holds up. Granted, lacking an Xbox console, I'll have to hold out hope that it gets added to NSO down the line.

Thanks for your input.

Why is Goemon's Great Adventure being considered a 3D platformer? It's 2.5D. N64 had other 2.5D platformers like Kirby 64 which weren't listed.

@TotalHenshin DK64 came before BT, though.

@KeeperBvK You’re right! In my mind they were always switched (‘99,’00), but you’re 100% correct. Thanks for the correction!