Games Within Games - The Best Video Games In Other Video Games

Impressive as it may have been, Kanto in Pokémon Gold/Silver doesn't count because you're still playing the game game, you just travel to a different region.

This is like saying you play Super Mario 64 in Super Mario Odyssey once you reach the Mushroom Kingdom.

Still a fun list otherwise!

You forgot Doom 1 and 2 being in Doom Eternal's fortress of doom

The arcade in Shenmue I think is the pinnacle of games within games. You can even unlock the games to take home and play on your out-of-time Saturn!

Not a Nintendo system but, another good one I can think of is the xbox 360 Splatterhouse reboot. It included the original three Splatterhouse games as unlockables.

Also Doom 3 included Doom 1 and 2 respectively.

I know we're only including Nintendo games here, but for me, it will always be the arcade in Shenmue, playable versions of Outrun and Hang On made a fantastic game even better.

Hey how about Celeste?! Shortly into the game, you discover a small PC that has a more-basic-looking but equally awesome and challenging version of the game, which unlocks in the main menu after you first play it. Very cool!

@RadioHedgeFund Made the same comment literally seconds after you! Great taste there, Shenmue was a wonderful experience.

Yakuzas xx club sega xx

I know it’s not Nintendo related but wasn’t there a game hidden in one of the cells in MS Excel?

Not Nintendo, but Castlevania Dracula X Chronicles for psp had the entire Symphony of the Night “hidden” in it. You had to play the actual psp game to the third or fourth level and get a hidden pickup to unlock it. It was actually mentioned on the back cover of the game. SotN was a port of the Japanese version which had one or two more familiars and some other secrets. This version hidden on psp also had newly localized and recorded voice acting. No more miserable little piles of secrets.

I loved Rogue Squadron 3 for this very reason but 2 will always be the best. I can now play the original Atari Star Wars arcade games on my A1U cab so I haven’t really touched RS3 in a awhile. I still bust out the second one though. It’s one of my favorite games of all time.

Can't believe this wasn't mentioned, since this is a Nintendo site, in the GameCube version of Fight Night Round 2, you can play Super Punch-Out!! as a bonus. It was due to a deal between Nintendo and EA at the time IIRC.

Stardew Valley?

You forgot Maniac Mansion in Day Of The Tentacle and of course Shenmue 1+2 (Outrun, Space Harrier, Hang-On, After Burner)

What a great idea for an article. I’ll never forget the love I had for the original Geometry Wars within the Gotham racing game (I think that’s what it was called).

My favorite games within a game are the chaos garden in sonic adventure 1+2. Also Tin Pin Slammer in "The world ends with you ". I think both could be separate smaller releases

Neat article idea. Thanks!

Don't forget about Jet Force Gemini and the Jeff & Barry arcade machines.

Didn't Timesplitters have a hidden game too...

Another rule breaker ..... Snail Maze is a relatively little known easter egg game hidden in early versions of the Sega Master System. It has never been available on cartridge or card, it is a hidden game that can be accessed when the Master System’s BIOS screen starts up, simply by holding up and 1+2 together on the controller.

Desert Island Escape in Animal Crossing: New Leaf

The sample of Gradius that you could play during intermission (random, I believe) in Blades of Steel.

The best game within a game is Corgi Quest 7 from a Hat in Time

Sonic DX on the GameCube features all the Game Gear Sonic games, in much the same way Animal Crossing has NES games but is miles faster to start and play (once you've unlocked them) than in AC.

Of note: Sonic DX allows two instances of the game to display so two players can play their own run at the same time and "race" each other.

It also featured the games unmodified, unlike the 3DS versions that included edits in Sonic Triple Trouble, Sonic Blast, Labyrinth and possibly others.

It's also the entire collection, so it beats Gems Collection and 3DS VC in that regard.

Amazing! That's a lot more games than I thought there would be. Glad I could contribute in some way to this community even if it was just an idea for an article. Great read, thanks Gavin and Nintendolife staff

I guess Mario Bros. contained in Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario Advance would also count.

Great article! I remember finding Donkey Kong I DK64. New Colossus is on my wishlist and now I really want it just to take a stroll through Wolfenstein 3D, the first FPS I ever played.

Maniac mansion in Day of the tentacle was amazing to me at the time, playing it on a friends PC around release he showed me a game inside a game and it blew my mind that PC's could do this sort of thing and my Mega Drive seemed so basic in comparison... Maniac mansion was on the NES as well I think so somewhat Nintendo related.

Not sure if it qualifies, but the monster card battling minigame in Littlewood is also really entertaining and took up a surprisingly large portion of my time with the game!

For me it has to be the Death Tank! Games.

The original Death Tank was a hidden bonus game in the Sega Saturn port of PowerSlave (1996). And Death Tank Zwei, was hidden in the Saturn version of Duke Nukem 3D (1997).

"Free" NES games as a bonus in Animal Crossing and Metroid Zero Mission... the good old days before Nintendo realized they could print money at will by selling decades old software.

@nimnio That’s awesome, thanks for sharing! I wondered if it was the original demo or something…

The fully playable Manic Mansion in Day of the Tentacle, amazing!!

But Fate of Atlantis topped it for me

@Nontendo_4DS yes, It was, good memory. If I recall, the Japanese version of Asault had more Namco games.

I am sad I missed the NES Golf on the launch Switch. I had a Switch on launch too.

@Lord Yes! I wish Death Tank would come to Switch!

@MarioLinkSamus I was wondering if anyone would mention Timesplitters 2! The snake game and the lunar lander game are both awesome. I would buy them for my Switch if I could. The racing game is good too, but not as amazing. Plus I didn't get to play the racing game as much because it was harder to unlock. I might have used a cheat device to get it. The snake mini game is awesome in multiplayer, up to 4 people.

@Franc001 Great idea, nice one.

@BaronMunchausen I literally came to the comments to say this exact thing. Geometry Wars is an absolute must-play, especially the 2nd game. It's an arcade masterpiece. It's a shame the developer, Bizarre Creations, got shut down because they made really awesome video games.

@LinktotheFuture same here. First time I hear about it

@Longondo First thing I did when reading this article was do a search for the word "Demontower." What an absolute blast (contained within a stone-cold classic in-and-of-itself).

Contra 4 had unlockable versions of Contra 1 AND Super C, which is pretty amazing come to think of it

Going by some of the logic in this article then you could include all the mini games in No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle.

Tekken 5 on PS2 had arcade versions of Tekken 1, 2, and 3 as unlockable.

Every versions of Pitfall: The Mayan Adventure include the original Atari 2600 version of Pitfall as unlockable.

In Ultimate MK3 for Super NES and Genesis, you could play Galaga via a cheat menu or Kahn's treasure. In the Sega Genesis version of MK3 and Ultimate MK3 entering a special vs. kombat kode will let you and player 2 play a short game of Pong. If you fight at the Pit stage on the N64 version Mortal Kombat Trilogy and see a silhoulette flying towards the moon, press Z. After the match you could play Space Invader.

The original NES versions of Contra and Super C are both available to unlock in Contra 4 for DS.

A more easier version of Super Mario Bros. 2 - The Lost Levels could be unlock in Super Mario Bros. Deluxe for GBC.

A 32-Bit remake of the original Super Mario Kart tracks are unlockable in Mario Kart: Super Circuit.

Spring Breeze in Kirby Superstar is basically a 16-Bit remake of the Game Boy game, Kirby's Dream Land 1.

If you bought Rival Schools brand new for the PS1, it'll come with two disc. Disc 1 is the home version, disc 2 is the arcade version.

TMNT the arcade game is unlockable in the TMNT 2: Battle Nexus game while Turtles in Time is unlockable in TMNT 3: Mutant Nightmare.

Both the Sega Genesis and Super NES versions of Turbo Hyper Fighting and Special Champion Edition contain one other version of the game. If you bought Turbo Hyper Fighting on Super NES, you also get Champion Edition as Normal Mode, if you got the Genesis version of Special Champion Edition, you get Turbo Hyper Fighting as Hyper Mode.

Yokai Watch 3 3DS
There are a lot of crossover ideas as new Yokai or cameo such as Mogglenyan, Chocobonyan, Terminatornyan, Scully & Mulder (The X Files), Steve Jaws (Steve Jobs as Shark Yokai), Indy Jaws (Indiana Jones as Shark Yokai), etc.

Dance Dance Revolution X
There was a DDR song with title 30 Lives (Up Up Down Dance Mix) by The Motion Sick with Contra's 30 lives cheat secret Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A Select Start from the video.

LEGO CITY UNDERCOVER Wii U and Switch version
There are some Mario crossover in the game from Mario hat, Assembling Invincible Stars, Giant Cheep Cheep inside big aquarium, etc.

Pokemon heart gold and soul silver aswell

@tangeraniumm

That’s funny. Geometry Wars was the first game I played within a game and I spent more time with it than the main racing game it came in. The quality and gameplay blew me away (it was also my first twin-stick shooter and I’ve been addicted to the genre ever since). Yeah, it’s a shame that company didn’t make it.

The nanosecond I saw Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis's inclusion, I rattled off all the quotes I've remembered for years.
"I don't think that'll work." "Doesn't seem to open!... Doesn't seem to close!" "It's an old ship rib!" "Go back, you big jack-o-lantern!"

Ahhh, one of my favorites! To be honest, I never bothered with Staff of Kings; I simply opted for Steam, where Fate of Atlantis is available by itself.

Not Nintendo, but my favourite is Space Harrier in both Shenmue and Yakuza. I'm not old enough to have played this when it came out, but the version within these games' respective arcades is a great distraction from otherwise interesting games.

And as impressive as it was that Iwata squeezed Kanto into Pokemon GSC, and as shocking as it was at the time, I personally wouldn't count it. I recently replayed Gold and outside of the novelty of revisiting a beloved region, everything about it is pretty stripped back and dull IMO.

The original 8 bit beta of Retro City Rampage deserves a mention.

I have to add no more heroes 2 to this list since it is an awesome game, that has several fun retro nes style games in it as well.

I was going to get mad if Pico wasn't on this list.

@BaronMunchausen believe that was “Project Gotham Racing” … wasn’t that an OG Xbox launch title?

Loved Atlantis playable on the Wii, an incredible experience with the Wii remote, but I also really enjoyed the main Staff of Kings and it has a great co-op. One of the best games on the Wii, so much fun.

Are the original Bard’s Tale RPGs still included with The Bard’s Tale comedy reboot? They were on iOS. That is some brutally old-school dungeon crawling right there.

Gwent is my favourite game within a game, but I suspect that’s not really what we’re going for here.

Are we gonna ignore Super Luigi Bros. in NES Remix 2?

@AlienX Came here to post this too. I never unlocked all the GG games in SADX, but it was probably one of the coolest bonus features of any game.

No mention of Pac-Man 2 for the SNES and Genesis which included the original Pac-Man, as well as Ms. Pac-Man (SNES) or one of the forgettable Pac games on Genesis.

That outdates every game on this list, I think.

Does it count that Pokemon Puzzle League for GBC had a secret code to unlock a monochrome mini version of Panel de Pon (by putting the GBC-exclusive game inside a monochrome console capable of physically accepting the cart and entering the code on the lockout screen. Devs even put in an additional code to force the game to reboot in monochrome when played on GBC hardware, just so you could play the minigame.)

Blades of Steel on NES also had a nod to Gradius where you could briefly fight the first level boss. It was during intermission on the jumbotron screen followed by a funny ad for Blades of Steel. The game you were actually playing at the time! 😆 “ALL YOUR FRIENDS WILL WANT IT”

https://youtu.be/-EZgac-g6SM

@Avoozl Just saw you mentioned this already. Good call! That was always fun. I wonder if it was possible to actually kill the boss?

The shooter in the bar area of Starcraft 2 is really cool. And that jumping dinosaur game in Google Chrome when your internet drops out? Day one if it ever gets a Switch release..

Not on Nintendo but I'm really thinking about getting Yakuza: like a dragon on steam just for the full version of Virtua Fighter 2 and 5. There's also Outrun, Super hang on, Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier. And a ton more mini games outside the arcade.

There's an interesting switch-a-roo in Konami Arcade Advanced for GBA.

Here, the standard version of the games are all included, but entering the Konami code actually gives you enhanced versions of all the games. You'd think they would have done that the other way around to sell the shiny enhanced versions, but they hid them in there as an easter egg!

@SupahM3tr0yd

That’s the one and yes, it was. It’s probably still considered phenomenal.

Dudes, Dr Wario in warioware was a big deal.

You guys forgot Luigi Bros, unlockable after beating Super Mario 3D World.

You left out Tron GBA. You can unlock arcade versions of Tron and Discs of Tron.

In TOKI TORI 2+ you can open the original Gameboy version of TOKI TORI, by making a special whisleblowere-song. (Google the backside of the physical version).

A dream within a dream...

Yakuza: Like A Dragon wins this conversation I'm afraid:

Virtua Fighter V FInal Showdown
Virtua Fighter 2
Out Run
Super Hang-On
Fantasy Zone
Space Harrier

That's a decent compilation disc by anyone's standards, to have them all present in-game is pretty mind-boggling.

Not Nintendo related, but in the games „Billy la Banlieue“ and „Billy 2“ from Loriciels for the Amstrad CPC, your task was to play and beat several Arcade Machines to get a code to win the game. Of course they weren‘t spectacular, but it was a fun idea to play breakout, a small racing or shooting game within another game.

@Deady To add to your post, you can also unlock the PC Engine version of Rondo of Blood while playing the 2.5D version.

Granted, that's a rule bender, but I personally found the PCE version a tad easier to time my jumps and attacks in.

Along the lines of the honorable mentions like Splatoon (where the game-in-game isn't an actual separately published game), Beetle Mania from Super Mario RPG comes to mind.

Also, while I haven't played it, Eastward's game-in-game should be considered.