10 Best Nintendo Launch Games of All Time

Mario Kart World joins a storied history of Nintendo-developed games available on launch day of a brand new console or handheld, many of which went on to become some of the most cherished and respected games in video game history. But which were the best first-party Nintendo games to ever launch on a new Nintendo system?

While this task is like making your favorite childhood memories fight, we’re up for the challenge. We agonized over this list, and in the end, came up with our 10 best Nintendo launch games of all time.

10. Luigi’s Mansion (2001, Nintendo GameCube)

Luigi’s Mansion was the first solo game for Mario’s pluckier, lankier brother, opting to do something completely different by giving him a vacuum cleaner that hunts ghosts in a big house that he won in a contest. On paper, everything about Luigi’s Mansion is utterly bizarre, especially as the flagship launch title for the GameCube. But once players started moving Luigi around with the GameCube controller — a dual analog, candy colored input device with pressure sensitive shoulder buttons - things made sense immediately. Luigi could explore each room at his own pace, sucking up coins, dollars, and spooky cartoon ghosts as players used the left stick to move him around and the right stick and shoulder buttons to trap silly phantasms Ghostbusters style.

And while twin-stick controller games don't seem particularly novel in this modern era, this was a first for Nintendo in 2001. More importantly, though, Luigi’s Mansion was the first game to truly give Luigi his own personality traits instead of just making him a taller palette swap of his far more famous brother. As Luigi tiptoes around the mansion he gets increasingly paranoid, ranging from mumbling incoherent, vaguely Italian psychobabble to full on screaming in panic, a stark contrast to Mario’s heroic and confident “wahoos” and “let’s a go’s!” Luigi’s Mansion led to increasingly better sequels, a full on Nintendo 3DS remake, and a spooky mansion themed stage in Mario Kart and Smash Bros. Luigi’s hilariously scaredy cat personality first seen in Luigi’s Mansion has become a permanent staple for him, featuring in the majority of his appearances since, most notably when it was perfectly brought to life by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia actor Charlie Day in the 2023 Super Mario Bros. Movie.

09. Nintendo Land (2012, Nintendo Wii U)

While the Nintendo Wii U ended up being Nintendo’s least successful home console by pretty much every metric, that didn’t mean it didn’t get a ton of great games, most of which went on to become huge hits when they eventually got ported to the much more popular Nintendo Switch. Nintendo didn’t do a great job explaining to people that the Wii U wasn’t a peripheral for the original Nintendo Wii but rather a brand new standalone console needed to play exclusive games. Launch game New Super Mario Bros. U — a sequel to the Nintendo Wii New Super Mario Bros — added a single letter to the title and some meager and forgettable Wii U GamePad support, so it’s not hard to see why the average customer passed on the system.

The launch line up did have something significantly more innovative, though. Nintendo Land demonstrated exactly how the Wii U GamePad could be used for fun and unique gameplay possibilities in ways that New Super Mario Bros. U couldn’t. Nintendo Land was a freebie launch game that gave us a playable glimpse of what a Nintendo theme park could look like, nine years before Nintendo and Universal joined forces.

Obviously, Nintendo Land wasn’t enough to save the Wii U, but it established its place as one of the best and most unique games on the console. And though it never made its way to Nintendo Switch, you can probably thank it for planting the seeds for the actual Nintendo theme parks we now get to explore in real life.

08. StreetPass (2011, Nintendo 3DS)

The Nintendo 3DS’s first party launch library wasn’t Nintendo’s greatest. Once players got past the first hurdle of the little 3D handheld’s sticker-shocking launch price (which ended up getting a hefty price cut months later) they were left with games like Pilotwings 3D and Steel Diver, games that made good use of the system’s features but nothing really revolutionary. But pre-loaded on every 3DS was one of the system’s most definitive features, one that benefited greatly from its pocket portability. Nintendo StreetPass — specifically StreetPass Mii Plaza — isn’t exactly a game as much as it's a collection, one that only increased and improved as the 3DS system lifespan went on. By passing by or interacting with other 3DS players walking around in the wild, their user data would visit your system in Nintendo Mii form, bringing gifts and becoming a playable character to compete in a library of minigames

StreetPass was an ingenious concept that rewarded you for doing something you were already doing — taking your 3DS with you when you went places — and seeing your system light up with a Street Pass notification was one of the most delightful feelings Nintendo has ever delivered. The 3DS StreetPass Mii Plaza app was best known for its puzzle swap game as well as its Find Mii bite-sized RPG and occasionally got updated with additional mini-games centered around things like cooking, gardening, slot car racing, and zombie battling.

07. The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (2006, Nintendo Wii)

When the Nintendo Wii launched in 2006, the only game on Nintendo fans' minds was The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. Sure it had been in development as a GameCube game for years, but who cared? The Wii version featured motion controlled sword slashing, pointer controlled arrow aiming, and a Wii Remote that actually talked to you. All we wanted to do was play Twilight Princess, and after waiting hours for our grandparents to get tired of playing Wii Bowling, it was time to take on the role of the legendary hero of Hyrule like we never had before.

Twilight Princess was a massive, sprawling game that put the Zelda franchise on a scale and scope it had never seen before. It was the first time a Nintendo console launched with a brand new Zelda game. Nintendo Wii owners could now play as Link on launch day, just as soon as they got through that annoying goat herding mini-game. The sword slashing, while rudimentary, was still satisfying even dozens of hours later, and hearing Midna speak to you through your controller added a level of immersion not previously experienced in a Zelda game. Link’s design became a staple for Nintendo, making his way into official key art, amiibo toys, and Smash Bros. games for years to come.

06. Super Mario World (1996, Super Nintendo)

If you weren’t around when it happened, it’s kind of hard to explain how big a leap Super Mario World was compared to the trilogy of NES games that preceded it. Vibrant, sixteen bit graphics, Mode 7 visual effects that allowed enemies and boss sprites to rotate and shrink, an incredible midi orchestrated soundtrack, a new spin jump, a cape feather power up, and dozens of huge, gorgeous levels with hidden exits that opened up secret worlds… You just had to be there. The Super Nintendo launch also featured the Nintendo published futuristic racing game F-Zero, an awesome visual showcase and great game in its own right, but Super Mario World easily takes the lead here. Even though it was a pack-in game, Super Mario World went on to become one of the most beloved Super Nintendo games and also really good leverage for kids trying to convince their parents to buy them a console that came with a free game.

Unlike the original NES game which was downright revolutionary, Super Mario World felt more like a maturation and refinement of every platforming game that came before it. It also introduced Yoshi for the first time, an adorable and charismatic dinosaur mount that went on to star in plenty of great games of his own.

05. Tetris (1989, Game Boy)

Every now and then a video game breaks through and reaches a whole new stratosphere of people who never even thought they’d be addicted to a video game. Tetris is not just one of those games, it’s arguably the game. When Tetris launched in 1989 on the original Game Boy - Nintendo’s first dedicated handheld with swappable cartridges — AA batteries all over the planet wept in fear. Millions and millions of Game Boys flew off the shelves, and while the other launch day offerings like Super Mario Land, Baseball, Alleyway, and Tennis were solid, shrunk down versions of popular NES games, it was the Nintendo’s take on Alexey Pajitnov’s addictive block dropping puzzle game that truly was synonymous with the system, at least until the first Pokemon games launched seven years later.

Tetris played to the Game Boys' strengths — and weaknesses. It was packed in with every Game Boy at launch, giving people immediate and portable access. It didn’t require flashy graphics or color coordinated elements, it was simply about fitting blocks together in clever ways, meaning the Game Boy’s fuzzy, puke green screen didn’t hold it back in the slightest. Tetris was a global obsession, capturing the attention spans of kids and adults alike for hours and hours a day, leading to the medical shorthand term “Tetris Effect” for people who played the game too long and claimed to see falling blocks in their thoughts. Tetris is one of those games that people who don’t play video games can explain to you, part of the pop culture fabric that defines our species. It takes something truly special for that to happen and it’s all because it was a launch game on the original Game Boy.

04. Super Mario Bros. (1985, Nintendo Entertainment System)

Super Mario Bros. effectively invented the platforming genre as we know it. With just a run and a jump button players had a level of control and freedom not seen in games before, thanks largely in part to its revolutionary (and first of its kind) scrolling level design. Super Mario Bros. introduced the world to the Super Mario that we still know and love, along with Bowser, Princess Peach, Goombas, Koopas, and many other other iconic video game characters. Super Mario Bros’. simple but hard to master design philosophy effectively taught people how to play platforming games for the first time. As soon as the game began and players started walking, they came face to face with a Goomba. If they walked into it, they died, so they learned to push a button and jump over it and generations of muscle memory was formed. Decades later, World 1-1 is one of the most instantly recognizable video game levels ever conceived.

Super Mario Bros. was not only bundled with the Nintendo Entertainment System on day one but also got rereleased on NES carts with other classic games like Duck Hunt and Track & Field, not to mention the dozens of times it was rereleased on subsequent Nintendo systems. Perhaps most importantly, though, Super Mario Bros. on the NES is largely cited as being responsible for resurrecting the industry after the fabled video game crash of 1983, meaning you can argue that every other game on this list wouldn’t have existed if it wasn’t for this one. Is it a better 2D Mario game than Super Mario World? Well, that’s up for you to debate, but it’s undeniably more important.

03. Wii Sports (2006, Nintendo Wii)

Nobody could have possibly predicted that the unassuming baby blue disc tucked amongst the wires and packaging of the Nintendo Wii console would go on to become one of the most successful Nintendo games of all time, especially considering it was not only a sports game — something Nintendo wasn’t exactly famous for — but a sports game with zero official licensing from any actual sports leagues.

Wii Sports was an absolute monster, a cultural juggernaut, and a massive breakthrough for Nintendo’s “blue ocean” strategy of reaching both lapsed gamers and people who had never played a video game before. Once people got a Wii remote in their hand and threw their arm backwards to simulate rolling a bowling ball, they were completely hooked, assuming they didn’t launch the controller into their ceilings or televisions first.

Wii Sports took over college dorms, kid’s birthday parties, and retirement homes everywhere. Millions of people who didn’t traditionally sit down to press buttons on a video game controller stood up to simulate goofy but utterly endearing versions of tennis, baseball, bowling, and more, all complete with their custom designed Mii avatars. It not only caused dozens of video game publishers to chase the trend with their own Nintendo Wii motion controlled games, it also inspired Nintendo’s direct competitors PlayStation and Xbox to quickly pivot internal strategies and fast track their own motion controlled video games, resulting in PlayStation Move and the Xbox Kinect, two valiant efforts that ultimately couldn’t compete with Nintendo’s motion control dominance. Meanwhile, Nintendo’s motion controls live on in the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2 Joy-Con controllers along with the hit game Nintendo Switch Sports that has gone on to sell over sixteen million copies, but none of this happens without that beautiful blue pack-in disc that started it all.

02. Super Mario 64 (1996, Nintendo 64)

Super Mario 64 quite literally changed the way we play video games. After Nintendo’s first 3D platforming game was available on day one on Nintendo’s first 3D capable console, controlling characters in a 3D space was never the same again. Once Mario jumped out of the warp pipe into the Mushroom Kingdom courtyard, a big open playground that led to a castle brimming with opportunity and challenge players realized pushing the joystick just a bit could make Mario tiptoe and pushing it a lot could make him run, an entire new dimension of possibility had arrived.

Gamers old enough to play Super Mario 64 when it launched have been chasing that feeling since, constantly looking for the next “Super Mario 64 moment” a phrase synonymous with a new video game experience raising the bar so far above everything that ever came before it that things are never the same again. While many classic two dimensional video game franchises had struggled to make the jump to 3D in the ‘90s, Super Mario 64 jumped in head first and set all the rules. Mario’s incredible moveset created a seemingly endless number of ways to tackle each level and the Mario 64 speed running community is still finding clever new ways to shave seconds off of their completion times nearly three decades later. Super Mario 64 remains one of the deepest and most revolutionary Nintendo console launch games of all time and it’s still incredibly fun today.

01. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017, Nintendo Switch)

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is a masterpiece and a triumph in open world game design, but more importantly, altered the path of both the Zelda series and Nintendo’s hardware philosophy for years to come. After The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword the Zelda franchise’s previously successful formula was starting to see diminishing returns and both Nintendo’s console and handheld hardware divisions were in desperate need of a refresh. Breath of the Wild gave players a massive open world Zelda game they could carry with them anywhere and approach in any way they wished, allowing them to travel everywhere in real life while they did the same in Hyrule.

Discovering intimate secrets while hunched over a little portable device or coming home, docking your Switch, and experiencing grand, epic triumphs played out on your largest TV proved that the Nintendo Switch could do it all. Sure, a few Zelda series staples like dungeons and dungeon specific weapons got a bit lost in the shuffle, but the sacrifices were largely worth it for the biggest and most inspired Zelda game the world had seen, and one that helped cement the Nintendo Switch as one of the most successful video game systems ever made. It led to the even more ambitious Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and will surely lay the groundwork for the next instalment of the Legend of Zelda franchise sure to arrive on Nintendo Switch 2 at some point, a system that likely wouldn’t even exist if not for the original having one of the greatest games of all time available on launch day.

So what was your favorite Nintendo launch game of all time? Did we miss anything you loved? Let us know in the comments below.