Any gamer who has had a mom, dad, aunt, uncle, or other legal guardian call every single video game console on the planet “Nintendo” knows very well just how ubiquitous the company that helped bring the arcade into living rooms across the planet is. Nintendo essentially became synonymous with home gaming in 1985 with the NES and hasn’t really ceased ever since.
But what may be even more amazing than Nintendo’s console resume, is the fact that the company has also developed a tremendous number of games that fans across the world place among the best there ever. This may have never been more evident than during the 16-bit era, in which Nintendo’s dominance in both the console and cartridge arenas was equally on display. The best of their 16-bit entries are still appreciated today both by gamers who lived it and by ones who weren’t born for decades after their release.
10 Super Mario World
The Super Nintendo had quite a spectacular selection of launch titles and the most spectacular of them all probably has to be Super Mario World. It may have been hard to imagine how Nintendo could possibly improve upon Mario Bros. 3, but the first mainline Mario entry in the 16-bit generation did that in every conceivable way.
Super Mario World didn’t break much from its predecessors, it simply went bigger and better, with a gigantic new world full of interesting challenges, colorful new enemies, and plenty of secrets to unlock. It represents what is probably the height of Mario’s side-scrolling platformer adventures, and it holds up incredibly well to this day.
9 The Legend of Zelda: A Link To The Past
Following up what was perhaps the most anomalous entry in the main Zelda series in NES’s The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past saw what is now one of the most beloved franchises of all time at a huge crossroads. The series could hypothetically have continued on the curious side-scrolling path of Zelda 2, or perhaps done something totally different and completely altered the course of gaming history in the process.
Fortunately, the road that Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto chose to take was a brilliant one. The return to top-down form was a landmark moment for both Zelda and video games and only a handful of the dozen or so entries since are agreed to have bested it.
8 Super Metroid
Of the big Nintendo franchises, Metroid is probably the one that leaves its fans waiting around for a new entry more than any other. Although it did have two great remakes that serve as close, beloved cousins of the canon, there have only been five titles in the main line series since 1986’s original Metroid.
What’s awesome, however, is that every one of those entries has been fantastic, and perhaps the most fantastic of them all is Super Metroid. The 16-bit Samus adventure perfects just about everything fans love about these titles, and although the subsequent entries may give it a run for its money, this one is probably still Nintendo’s biggest home run of the whole series.
7 Pilotwings
Flight simulators have traditionally been much more of a PC gaming sort of thing, but in the deft hands of Nintendo anything is possible, and so one of the more notable flight simulators out there happens to be a Super Nintendo classic.
Pilotwings was a launch title for the SNES and it shocked the gaming world with its Mode 7 graphics that were as close to true 3D as any console game had ever displayed to that point. Sure, it wasn’t the deepest title, and other titles may have done the Mode 7 thing better, but there’s always something to be said for a super solid game that was the first of its kind.
6 Super Mario All-Stars
Super Mario All-Stars brought classic game collections to the masses at least a decade or two before classic game collections were even really a thing. For many younger gamers, this was their first introduction to the world of Super Mario Bros. and was it a fantastic one.
With updated graphics, a trio of legendary titles, and even The Lost Levels as a mysterious bonus game, fans had almost too much Mario to play with Super Mario All-Stars. Save for perhaps the Game Boy Advance ports, this game may very well be the definitive way to play these impeccable Nintendo titles.
5 F-Zero
The original F-Zero was a launch title that, like Pilotwings, took advantage of Mode 7 to create a visual experience that console gamers had never had before. It was a futuristic racer that moved at breakneck speed and showed no mercy to slow-fingered gamers who couldn’t keep up.
While the racing genre was nothing new in 1990, F-Zero tore through territory that was as yet untrodden and went on to lead the way into the genre’s next generation. Yet another feather in Nintendo’s already feather-filled cap.
4 Super Mario Kart
Super Mario Kart is one of those titles that essentially launched an entire genre all on its own. Okay, perhaps a subgenre, but the kart racer is a style of game that has endured for decades now, and although there hasn’t been a series that has truly one-upped the original, there have been countless that have tried.
Throwing Mario and friends behind the wheel of a go-kart and letting them have at it on racetracks all across the Mushroom Kingdom and beyond was a novel idea at the time, but it’s been the basic formula for a ton of great games since, especially if you include offshoots like Mario Tennis, Mario Golf, Super Mario Strikers, and the criminally underrated Mario Hoops 3-on-3.
3 Star Fox
Star Fox was actually developed in tandem with Argonaut Software, but Nintendo was very much a part of the process and with this being one of their most iconic titles of the 16-bit era, it simply couldn’t be ignored. This semi-3D rail shooter was the first to make use of the Super FX chip which allowed for the revolutionary graphics that helped put Fox and co. on the map.
While the polygonal look of the original Star Fox hasn’t aged quite as well as many of the titles that stuck to the classic pixelated style, that shouldn’t take away from just how awesome this game was upon its release.
2 Super Punch-Out!!!
The 16-bit follow-up to the NES classic Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!! may have been an extremely simple game, but complexity is no necessity when the gameplay is just that good. Rarely has a sports title done so much with so little while also adding a surprising amount of strategy to a game that’s basic premise is “punch the other guy more than he punches you.”
The graphics are simple but well-executed, the character designs are excellent in terms of visual storytelling, and the difficulty is well-balanced enough to keep players returning for more even after their 375th knockout in a row.
1 Super Mario World 2: Yoshi’s Island
The sequel to Super Mario World came with some of the most beautiful graphics of Nintendo’s 16-bit era and a fair amount of tweaking to the tried-and-true gameplay of its predecessor while still managing to maintain the same overall feel. In fact, this is probably the mainline Mario that has the most distinctive gameplay of them all.
Yoshi’s Island received universal acclaim and spun off into a whole host of Yoshi-centric games that centered around its updated gameplay and warm-and-fuzzy graphical style. It’s a shining example of both Nintendo and Miyamoto’s unofficial motto: “Just because it ain’t broke, doesn’t mean we can’t fix it.”