NINTENDO CONSOLES RANKED: Worst to Best, Part 2

My Top 4 Nintendo Consoles

Can’t find your favorite/least favorite Nintendo console here? Check out Part 1 first if you haven’t read it already!

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#4: WII U

FIRST RELEASED: Nov. 18^th, 2012 (US)

SALES: 13.56 million

GAMES: 792

I love underdogs, which means I love the Wii U. I love its ridiculous tablet controller, I love its stupid name that confused the hell out of the general populace, and I love that only 13 million people bought one.

Now, I acknowledge that the Wii U wasn’t a great system. It was poorly executed, terribly marketed, and almost solely supported by Nintendo after its first year. But dang, did I love this bulky, awkward mess.

The Gamepad remains one of my favorite controllers ever. Not only does it just feel good in your hands, the tablet screen, when used properly, was amazing. Making levels with Super Mario Maker worked perfectly. The world map in Xenoblade Chronicles X is surprisingly detailed and well-considered. And I think I’m one of the few weirdos who preferred using the Gamepad in Pikmin 3 over the Wiimote/nunchuk combination. Few games made good use of the tablet screen, but I was always impressed by those who succeeded. Also, at the time, playing games solely on the tablet while your wife watches “Monk” or whatever was pretty nifty.

The good game list is shockingly small, even smaller than the N64’s. New Super Mario Bros. U. Nintendo Land, Pikmin 3, NES Remix 1+2, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Hyrule Warriors, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Yoshi’s Wooly World, Mario Kart 8, Wind Waker HD, Twilight Princess HD, Breath of the Wild, and Super Mario 3D World are all top-tier. Splatoon, Paper Mario: Color Splash, and Super Smash Bros. Wii U are all pretty solid as well.

Xenoblade Chronicles X unfortunately remains a Wii U exclusive.*

So if I acknowledge that good games are few and far between, why is the Wii U ranked so high? Some of the Wii U’s games absolutely floored me. I sank 100+ hours into Hyrule Warriors, Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Breath of the Wild, and dozens more into Mario Kart 8, the Zelda HD remasters, and Super Mario 3D World among others. Excellent games holding my interest for long spans of time combined with a quirky system that few seemed to appreciate at the time, propel the Wii U’s standing in my eyes.

I also appreciated the Miiverse, Nintendo’s bizarre online network that essentially gave each new game its own community. People could write notes to others and draw non-crude, but still freakishly rendered iterations of Nintendo characters to their heart’s content. Miiverse felt like Nintendo finally taking a step into online community, so it’s a shame that they failed to improve on its solid foundation for the Switch.

Even though the Wii U is absolutely the precursor to the Switch, it is, to me, the last Nintendo system that feels like it had its own personality. Like an awkward teenager who has a lot of endearing traits, but just needs a bit of confidence and encouragement. Players were few, games were fewer, but the memories are forever.

*images courtesy of Nintendo and GameStop

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#3: NES

FIRST RELEASED: Oct. 18^th, 1985 (New York), Feb. 1986 (Los Angeles), Sept. 27^th 1986 (rest of US)

SALES: 61.91 million

GAMES: 1,387, including Famicom and Europe-only titles

They say you never forget your first, and I suppose that’s true.

When my dad brought home the Nintendo Action Set that included two controllers, the Zapper, and the Super Mario Bros. / Duck Hunt combo cart, I didn’t know that this was the console and game that saved the video game industry. I wasn’t aware that the NES had dozens of landmark titles or that entire genres were being pioneered on the console. All I knew was that Super Mario Bros. ruled. When Mario jumped, I jumped. When he died, I died a little inside. Getting to Bowser felt like an event… until I realized Princess Toadstool was in another castle. That was it, I was hooked, like millions of other kids my age. For a time, Nintendo was gaming, thanks to the NES.

While I grew up with the NES and enjoyed the SMB trilogy extensively, I never owned many games. But I rented a ton of titles, and particularly fell in love with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles trilogy and any Mega Man game I could get my hands on (usually 2, 3, 4, and 5 – 1 and 6 were always difficult to find).

My cousin also had an NES and his library was slightly more extensive than mine. Ninja Gaiden II, Paperboy, Wheel of Fortune: Junior Edition (surprisingly fun, this one), and the bootleg to end all bootlegs, 42-in-1. Yes, the latter actually had 42 games on it, and yes, it worked like a Swiss watch; still does today, in fact. 42-in-1 compiles mostly older titles, like Pinball, Tennis, Donkey Kong 3, etc, but it also contains an array of Famicom-only games that are fantastic. Games like TwinBee, B-Wings, Antarctic Adventure, Battle City, and Front Line, bizarre Japanese relics that deserve a wider audience, even today.

Fourteen years ago, I started a NES blog called “The Quest to Review Every NES Game.” The quest took a little over three years to complete, but I eventually reviewed all 754 NES games. The reviews are still up now, so if you’re inclined, check them out on Questicle.net.

During this quest, however, I discovered a shocking secret. One that really irritated a lot of NES fans out there, but that I, after playing every NES game, could not deny. The NES has a lot of crap games. Like… a lot. I’d say about 1/3 of the library is great-to-good, 1/3 is mediocre, and 1/3 is complete rubbish. That’s a little over 500 games that you’re probably not going to want to play, ever. And your disposition towards the 250-ish games that are left will depend on your affinity for dated game mechanics. My brother-in-law, who’s slightly older than I am, can’t play NES games anymore for this very reason, and I understand that.

Mighty Bomb Jack hasn’t held up very well, alas.

Personally, I still love many cherished titles like Contra, Ninja Gaiden II, and even the original Super Mario Bros., but I find Legend of Zelda and Metroid difficult to return to today. Not unplayable, mind you, and I appreciate that they pushed the exploratory action-adventure genre forward. Still, future iterations of each franchise are, for the most part, more polished and interesting than their inaugural entries.

The latter is an example of why the NES isn’t higher on this list. It’s a fantastic console and a pioneer. Without its unbelievable success, we wouldn’t have, well, every other console that came after it here in the States. But it’s also nearly forty-years-old. While some of the games remain excellent to this day, a good portion are absolutely feeling middle age.

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#2: GAMECUBE

FIRST RELEASED: Nov. 18^th, 2001

SALES: 21.74 million

GAMES: 651

As evidenced by my undying affection for the Wii U, I love when Nintendo gets odd. Especially when it looks like they’re also trying to appeal more to the mainstream. The Gamecube has incredible graphics, arguably some of the best of the sixth generation, which includes PS2, Xbox, and Dreamcast. The console also, finally, embraced optical disc technology, which meant games were much cheaper than N64 titles.

With these two consumer wins, however, come a host of caveats. The discs are tiny, which gives them personality, but was mostly done to prevent copyright infringement and to avoid paying licensing fees to the DVD Forum (both the PS2 and Xbox used DVD discs as their proprietary format). As such, Gamecube does not offer the ability to play DVDs, which both the PS2 and Xbox provide. The Gamecube itself is essentially a small purple cube, and arguably, to quote a young Elijah Wood, looks like a baby’s toy; it has a carry handle, for crying out loud.

The games are eclectic and weird, much more so than any previous Nintendo console before or since. Luigi’s Mansion was a launch title. The divisive Super Mario Sunshine and Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker were the flagship Mario and Zelda titles on the console. Sega, now a third-party developer for the first time, loaded up the Gamecube with exclusive Sonic Adventure ports, Billy Hatcher and the Giant Egg, and Skies of Arcadia Legends. Other random exclusives like Animal Crossing, Cubivore, and Chibi Robo are wonderful Japanese oddities. Donkey Konga 1 + 2, Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, P.N. 03, Viewtiful Joe, Odama, all the Mario Parties, but especially that one with the microphone, I could go on and on. Every Resident Evil title saw a release on Gamecube, with three – the Resident Evil remake, Resident Evil Zero, and Resident Evil 4 – exclusive to the console for a time.

I know I’ve mentioned some popular titles already, but some of these, like Luigi’s Mansion, sold well because it was a launch title, not because people necessarily wanted it. The game got decent scores at launch, but many critics (and players, no doubt) wondered why the system didn’t launch with a Mario game. No one could have predicted that Luigi’s Mansion would become a beloved franchise. Ditto Animal Crossing, which didn’t really pick up steam until the Wii and DS versions. Wind Waker is now considered a beloved entry in the Zelda franchise, but its existence was a dramatic point of contention before and after its release.

A pinball/tactics game where you use a microphone to guide your troops. Only on Gamecube!

Metroid Prime, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, Resident Evil 4, Mario Kart: Double Dash, and Super Smash Bros. Melee are about the only games people can agree on for the Gamecube. The rest are up for debate.

Just writing all of this reminds me how unbelievably brilliant the Gamecube was at the time. Poor Nintendo, they had no idea what an early 2000s mainstream audience wanted, but they were absolutely catering to me, a guy who loved as much Japanese strangeness in his games as he could get. The controller might be my favorite Nintendo controller to this day, it is so comfortable and ergonomic, and all the big, pillowy words people use to describe a well-made controller. Get rid of that worthless little D-pad, and it’s a 10/10 here.

I know the Gamecube’s failure is responsible for the Wii, and that makes me sad. With Gamecube, Nintendo got too insular, and according to them, too focused on the “hardcore” gamer, so they pivoted towards a more casual audience for the Wii. From a business perspective, this makes all the sense, but at what cost? The casual audience didn’t follow them to the Wii U, they jumped ship for mobile games.

I suppose Nintendo’s story has a happy ending, though, at least for now. After several years of costly trial-and-error with the Wii U, Nintendo finally found a profitable medium with the Switch, a console that caters to casuals and die-hards alike with a wide range of titles.

Nintendo will never be as weird as they were with the Gamecube again. Not just the console’s strange design, but the risks they were willing to take. For as much as I love some of Nintendo’s modern titles, a lot of them feel very safe,  polished to a cautious sheen. You can’t really say that about the Gamecube’s look or library. It feels designed to make the average gamer uncomfortable in the most precious way possible.

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#1: SNES

FIRST RELEASED: Aug. 23, 1991

SALES: 49 million

GAMES: 1,746

When all the SSD drives and microtransactions have been dumped unceremoniously into the Matrix’s garbage pile of irrelevance, the SNES will still be there. You will slam an F-Zero cartridge into its top-loader and it will turn on every time, because it is faithful and true to its purpose. It knows you’ll come back to it, as well. How could you leave? The SNES has it all.

Remember when you saw Mario fly with his yellow cape in Super Mario World? No more pretend flying with the raccoon tail! With the cape, you could soar all the way across the outdoor levels. And there was a world map! Hidden exits and secret levels and riding Yoshi and a very intimidating Bowser castle and a place called Chocolate Island where every kid wanted to go and live forever.

The very best SNES games aren’t just considered the best on the console. They’re considered to be some of the greatest of all time. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island is a perfect 2D platformer that’s rarely been equaled. Super Metroid is still one of the best entries in the adventure franchise 30 years later. Few RPGs rival Chrono Trigger or Earthbound for sheer creativity and innovation. And Turtles in Time is still one of the most enjoyable co-op beat-em-ups ever created. So many developers were firing on all cylinders with the SNES.

The SNES feels like it’s ancient, eternal, like a friend that’s always been there and always will be, yet you’re not sure where it came from or where it’s going. Like every console, it has its fair share of underwhelming games, and yet, just playing the SNES itself, regardless of the game, is a joy. The console represents wonder, your childhood imaginations catching up to realms of possibility. The best game developers understood that they could create full-on worlds on this thing, not just snapshots. The SNES feels eternal because these developers – many of them Japanese and exceedingly brilliant – aimed for eternity. Link to the Past needs to sell, sure, but if the game doesn’t take root in your soul and plant a garden, what’s the point?

Then there’s Chrono Trigger, one of very few games to live up to its own hype.*

Many millions before me have gushed about the SNES’ greatness. I could go onabout any number of titles I haven’t already mentioned. Titles like Super Castlevania IV, Street Fighter II Turbo, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, ActRaiser, Super Mario Kart, King of the Monsters, Final Fight II, the Super Star Wars trilogy, and on and on. These games are probably some of your favorites, and you probably have some of your own that I didn’t mention. Better do it now in the comments, or I won’t know what you love and that’d be a shame.

Do kids today need to play old games? We’re all kids, and SNES games aren’t old, they’re everlasting. Kids need to learn history, they need to know where they came from, where they’re going, what’s possible.

Maybe it’s been awhile since you’ve given your old pal, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System a visit. Maybe you feel like that part of you that played those games is in the past, and they’re never coming back, so why dredge up old memories? You’re too focused on being a responsible person, earning a living, taking care of your family. Fun is for kids who don’t know any better. That’s the hurt talking, the imposter, the voice you’ve settled for. You dwell in a ball of internal misery and anxiety constantly, not even the SNES and its powers can heal you now. Maybe so… maybe so. But perhaps, a perspective change is in order. To get out of your current self, you must return to where you came from. Start again. Change your mind. Play your favorite SNES game, embrace all the mixed emotions of life, and remember when all was well. Perhaps, someday, with enough time and effort, all can be well again.

*image courtesy of IGN

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If you made it this far, thank you for reading my two-part worst-to-best Nintendo console list. What’s your least favorite Nintendo console? Or how about your favorite, and why is it the SNES? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.