The console's launch title and best-selling game at nearly 12 million units, and the game that established analogue 3D movement, camera control and spatial exploration as the grammar every 3D game would use afterwards.
2
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (1998)
Solved the problem of combat in 3D with Z-targeting, sold 7.6 million copies, and spent the next two decades as the default answer to "greatest game ever made".
3
GoldenEye 007 (1997)
Rare's licensed tie-in turned into the game that brought shooters to consoles, selling over 8 million copies and inventing the split-screen deathmatch evening.
4
Super Smash Bros. (1999)
The N64's fifth best seller at over 5.5 million units, and the origin of a fighting-game subgenre built on ring-outs and percentages rather than health bars.
5
Banjo-Kazooie (1998)
Rare's answer to Super Mario 64, denser and more collectible-driven, and the high-water mark of the 3D collectathon before the format collapsed under its own weight.
6
Perfect Dark (2000)
GoldenEye's spiritual successor, pushing the hardware past its limits with an ambitious single-player campaign, bots, and a frame rate that frequently could not cope.
7
Mario Kart 64 (1996)
Took the SNES original into 3D and four players, and in doing so fixed the shape of the party racer for every console generation since.
8
Paper Mario (2000)
A flat, storybook RPG on a console defined by polygons — proof that the N64's best ideas were not all about the third dimension.
9
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000)
Built in a year on Ocarina's engine, structured around a repeating three-day clock, and far stranger and sadder than Nintendo had any commercial reason to make it.
10
Star Fox 64 (1997)
Introduced the Rumble Pak, delivered full voice acting on a cartridge, and built branching mission routes into an on-rails shooter.