The N64 is 30 years old! This week, we’re running a series of articles celebrating the 64-bit machine, its industry-shaping software, and its effect on a generation of gamers…
Three decades ago to the day, players were sitting down with Super Mario 64 on their new console for the very first time. Launching in Japan on 23rd June 1996, the N64 ushered in a new era of video games and Mario was there Day One to show everyone how it was done.
We recently asked Nintendo Life readers to send in their most treasured N64 memories, and today we’re publishing a chunky handful of the many responses that came in. It’s all here: smiles, tears, superlative parenting, multiple Snowboard Kids shoutouts, plenty of 14-inch CRTs, and who can forget that other ’90s mainstay, Lynx Africa?
Many thanks to everyone who responded. Below you’ll find some of our favourite Ultra 64 memories, including those of Team NL…
N64 at 35 – Nintendo Life Memories
“dad showed signs”
2007: aged 4, I remember going to the local game store buying cheap PS2 games. But my dad showed signs of wanting something else; somehow I picked up on that, so as soon as we got to the car, I decided to return my games to put that money toward the thing he wanted: an N64 with Perfect Dark. My dad played GoldenEye in the ’90s, but Perfect Dark hooked him in 2000, especially being able to make tuxedo-wearing aliens in Combat Simulator. Seven years later, he introduced me. We’ve been playing PD together ever since.
Atari-Dude
“One-Hit Crouching Slappers”
I got the N64 on release day with Mario 64 and the Shadows of the Empire. It cannot be overstated what a leap this was from the SNES. Suddenly all our favourite heroes – Mario, Link and Donkey Kong were running around in 3D. Fondest memories were 4-player Mario Kart 64, Lylat Wars (Star Fox), and the granddaddy of them all – GoldenEye 007. Now I’m fancying another round of One-Hit Crouching Slappers!
Scott Fuller
“I actually lost a friendship”
I have so many great childhood memories playing N64. The single player games were excellent, but the built-in 4 player multiplayer was a literal gamechanger for my friends and I coming off the SNES era & controller passing. The countless after school hang outs and slumber parties became multiplayer battles that lasted hours. Goldeneye, Mario Kart, Bomberman 64, Mario Party. But the king was always WrestleMania 2000. I was so good at it that I was willing to let my opponents pick my wrestler. I actually lost a friendship after defeating someone with Paul Bearer.
AG_Awesome
“an N64 in her shopping cart!”
When the N64 was close to release in Germany, I was 14 years. My family never allowed preordering (they were extremely risk-averse, they wouldn’t even do any kind of mail order), and told me to “just go to the store” when it’s released. But then — and just as I expected — a few weeks before launch all stores told me the same thing: It’ll be impossible to secure an N64 on March 1. I was devastated – I’ve saved money for months, ever since my birthday and Christmas the year before!
On March 1, I went to a large supermarket with my grandparents. My grandpa and I went to a nearby electronics store, but of course there was no N64. New stock? “Maybe in three months.” Sad and disappointed we went to my grandma, who was at the supermarket at that time. And guess what? My grandma had an N64 in her shopping cart!
What happened was this: While my grandpa and I were away, she asked for an N64 at the supermarket. And they actually had an extremely small amount of consoles – five or six, all of them reserved. But one of them was reserved by the store clerk she talked to – and he had empathy towards my grandma and let her buy the console he had originally reserved for himself, making not only me, but also my grandma extremely happy!
Markus Pfeffer
“we did the purchase at school with a teacher present”
I got my N64 secondhand from my friend in middle school. I begged my dad to let me buy it, it was a good deal the system and a stack of games and 2-3 controllers. My dad gave me the money and we did the purchase at school with a teacher present to hold the system till the end of day.
That was a cool memory but the thing I’ll never forget was that night playing Mario 64 for the first time. It was like nothing I’d seen or played before and my whole family mom, dad, and sister sat around the tv watching me play this new first of its kind 3D Mario. Everyone was blown away by the graphics and freedom of the 3D game play. That is 100% a core memory and it was an amazing family bonding moment.
William Randall
“The TV couldn’t do 60Hz”
I remember my imported US N64 arriving through the post at the back end of ’96. I remember plugging it in to my TV via its as yet unused S-Video socket. I then remember Super Mario 64 firing up in Black and White 😭 The TV couldn’t do 60hz over S-Video 😤 Luckily, the TV was a Sony Centre rental so I just upgraded it, happy days 😂 The end.
mandlecreed
“I can’t believe I lived without F Zero X”
I adored the NES and SNES. I lost touch with gaming for the N64, but from Gamecube on I was all in with Nintendo. I’m forming my memories now, it is a complete blank spot for me! I can’t believe I lived without F Zero X for that long…..
Ganon821
“arcade-like places”
I have to say that the Nintendo 64 is the console that I love the most, and that has something to do with the fact that I didn’t have one growing up.
I grew up in Manizales, a medium-sized city in Colombia’s coffee region, and my home’s budget would never have allowed my parents to buy me a videogame console.
We could actually rent game time in some arcade-like places. So I was always looking forward to meeting with a few friends, gathering as many coins as we could put together, and paying for the right to sit down on plastic chairs in front of a huge 14-inch TV split in 4 to play Mario Kart, Super Smash Bros., Cruisin’ World or the masterful Goldeneye for a couple of hours.
I can’t really put into words how satisfying it was to play next to my friends and feel the sheer group joy of a head to head final lap or hunting the person with the most points before time ran out.
There’s something so special about being in community and laughing or even amicably arguing outloud because of a dirty tactic someone pulled at the last second.
Unfortunately, I have never felt that way with gaming again. Playing online is nowhere near a similar experience, and I feel really sad to think that that incredible sensation will probably never return.
The weirdly shaped controller, the huge cartridges that still sell for incredible amounts of money and keep on working after decades of being released, so many game mechanics that first showed up in the Nintendo 64 and have shaped gaming forever. This console is literally a game-changer.
A few years back I bought my Nintendo 64 with an Atomic Purple semi-transparent controller. Then I fitted the controller with the 8BitDo Mod Kit + Rumble Pack + TMR Joystick, and bought a couple of my most beloved games for it. I want to keep it as a small treasure that brings me back to those beautiful years.
At this very moment, my wife and I are in the process of adopting a baby. My very naïve dream is that we will some day sit next to our little one and form hundreds of new precious memories with these marvelous games for years to come.
Sebas
“sent to Milton Keynes”
It was late 1997, I had graduated from Uni in the summer, and was starting my first full time job, in IT. Along with 2 old school friends, we were sent to Milton Keynes for training, for a month or so. We shared a single big room above a hairdressers and spent every night playing Mario Golf. The game was so well balanced, so much fun, and mashing the ‘nice shot’ and ‘mamma Mia’ taunts to say ‘nice mamma’ when your mate was trying to tee off is now a core memory haha.
Gaz Wills
“Enough said”
Grant Kirkhope.
Enough said.
Brandon
Yesssssss. – Ed.
“sneak a controller into my backpack”
My living situation wasn’t the best in the mid-90s, and I would often prolong going home after school as much as I could. A classmate picked up on this, and started inviting me to his place after classes. I’d sneak a controller into my backpack, and together with a few more friends, we’d while away the weekday afternoons with four-player GoldenEye, Star Fox, and WCW/NWO World Tour. Though I couldn’t avoid going back home at some point, the daily escapism was much needed. And to this day, those remain my happiest gaming memories by a long shot
notreallyhere
“Trevelyan on my aunt’s bedroom TV”
The N64 is the moment our TV chose to just stop working. But as I spent too much time on it, my parents decided not to buy a new one. I remember stuffing my console into my backpack to go to friends or relatives so I could go forward with Goldeneye… I finally killed Trevelyan on my aunt’s bedroom TV.
Tibob
“I could never find the Z-button”
My Nintendo 64 memories are somewhat unique because my family never actually owned the console. But we did have an Xbox with an early 2000s Nintendo 64 emulator. I was too young to realize that classics like Super Mario-64 and Ocarina of Time weren’t actually Xbox games. But I do remember being confused about why I could never find the Z-button on the Xbox controller when Navi prompted! The emulator wasn’t perfect either, but these idiosyncrasies led to several fun memories among my siblings. For example, on Mario Kart 64 the D.K. Jungle and Skyscraper maps were set at double speed. Imagine trying to land on the D.K. steamship or keep from falling to your (balloon) death when you moved at lightning speed with the slightest tap of the gas!
On another note, I attribute my love of dark green settings to the hours I spent wandering around Kokiri village and forest as a young lad. When I think about the Nintendo 64 I remember how well these games embody atmosphere, music, and fun gameplay in one phenomenal package.
Bowsers-Inside-Story
“cake and lasagna”
The N64 will always be special to me. Not just for the games that felt surreal at the time. For me it is more personal. I asked my parents for an N64 for my birthday and my mother created a custom scavenger hunt with small presents (plus cake and lasagna!) as I was home alone for about two hours after school. The final prize was an IOU from my mom, stating she put the system on layaway. Christmas 1996 I got my N64 and Mario 64. I cried like a baby and played until I passed out, controller in hand. Love you Mom!
Ryu_Niiyama
“on the Trinitron”
I’ll never forget the late nights on the fold-out sofa bed with my cousins and friends as we played Smash, Mario Kart, and Diddy Kong Racing on the Trinitron.
Bradley Herdman
“our new family dynamic”
The release of the N64 came out at a sensitive time in my life, right at the height of my parents’ divorce. Over that next year, in the summer of 1997, my mother and I adjusted to our new family dynamic by playing way too much Mario Kart 64, and I even learned to reconnect with my dad and his new partner thanks to Mario Tennis and multiple Mario Parties. It’s the system that turned what could have been some truly terrible memories into some truly great ones, and I’ll always cherish it for that!
Splash_Woman
“sitting in a beam of light like the Master Sword”
When the N64 was nearing its release and the hype was building, my dad took me and my brother to Blockbuster to go pick out a SNES game and a movie to rent for the weekend. We didn’t know that this location had set up a 64 demo kiosk with Mario 64. What a surprise. In my memory, it was sitting in a beam of light like the Master Sword. We took turns playing and laughing, and we had it all to ourselves because we were somehow the only customers at the time. To this day it’s a perfect memory.
Dave Montes
“a competition with Pokémon stickers”
My first memories with the N64 were unhappy ones. It was not widely available in my country as we were still recovering from communism and such luxuries were EXTREMELY rare.
I remember a competition with Pokémon stickers and if you filled an album it with ALL Pokemon you had a chance of winning the Pikachu N64 edition … that was unheard-of at the time! I filled TWO of those and send them over but only got Pokemon toys as a prize
Now, today I have TWO N64! One European for my European games and one USA N64 that (I think) you know really well as I have hand crafted it into a StarCraft battlefield!
Zuljaras
“the atmosphere”
I never owned a Nintendo 64, but I still remember playing Ocarina of Time on my cousin’s console one Christmas Eve. We spent the whole afternoon exploring Hyrule Field, amazed by how vast and alive that world felt. It was a constant battle of “my turn” and “your turn,” but neither of us wanted to put the controller down. What I remember most, though, is the atmosphere: a small TV with mono sound, my grandmother’s warm kitchen, and the excitement of Christmas dinner approaching. Looking back, it wasn’t just a game—it was one of those perfect childhood memories.
MicroMatscenes
“an N64 for good grades”
I remember going into CompUSA (does not exist anymore, but was a Best Buy like store) with my mom and brother and picking up an N64 for good grades. We must have grabbed it the next spring since it released in September. We each got to pick one game to go with it. I went with Super Mario 64 and my brother went for Goldeneye. Wow the hours we put into those games. The N64 really was top 2 for local game play.
Danielle Boyd
“a communal N64”
At six years old, a post-tonsillectomy infection left me in and out of the hospital for weeks. The only thing to take my mind off the pain was a communal N64 the nurses would roll in on a cart and hook up to the TV. I vividly remember dreaming about Mario Kart in that hospital. Dad promised that if I would get better, he’d buy us one for home. I couldn’t understand how incentives would help me heal faster; but I guess it worked! I got better, and I’ve been a Nintendo fan to this day.
Sam White
“Why do they speak like dummies?”
Perhaps my most treasured N64 memory is not even about a game itself. My late-granda was watching me play Banjo-Tooie. When she hears the characters talk she immediately asked “Why do they speak like dummies?” That surprisingly has stayed with me all these years.
HammerGalladeBro
We’re not even halfway yet! Turn the page for plenty more N64 memories…