Nintendo has been one of the strongest forces of original exclusive video games ever since its debut in the ’80s, creating some of the most celebrated and massively influential video games in each era of gaming. However, any studio that has been releasing games for over 50 years is going to face some difficulties every once in a while, and Nintendo certainly has its fair share of disastrously bad games that they have released over the years.
From disappointing entries in massively beloved franchises to abstract experiments gone terribly wrong, when a Nintendo game is of lower quality, it proves to stand out that much more because of the normally perceived high quality of their releases. Each generation of Nintendo games is going to have its own standout failures, with a game really having to be terrible in order to be one of the worst games that they have ever released.
10
‘Metroid Prime: Federation Force’ (2016)
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Due to not being one of the biggest Nintendo franchises, the Metroid series has faced multiple periods of extended stagnation that left fans in a real state of yearning for the next major release. This made the pain of Metroid Prime: Federation Force all the more painful, as it was the first Metroid game released in six years as a generic multiplayer experience that didn’t even feature the series protagonist, Samus Aran. Even without the context of the disappointment in its existence, the game itself is just incredibly forgettable, especially for a game in the Metroid Prime series.
It tries to follow in the footsteps of DS classic Metroid Prime Hunters, but the novelty of a multiplayer FPS experience on a handheld just doesn’t land the second time, especially when the focus is more on co-op multiplayer missions instead of online matchmaking multiplayer. The multiplayer soccer-based mode Blast Ball has some fun moments, but it’s held back by the control scheme of the 3DS and lacks the touch-based controls of Metroid Prime Hunters.
9
‘Urban Champion’ (1984)
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It’s hard to be too negative towards many of the games that Nintendo released during the era of the Nintendo Entertainment System, as the standards and methodology for video games as a medium were still being fine-tuned and built upon with each year. However, even in the context of the era in which it was released, Urban Champion is an extremely bare-bones video game experience that will bore players within minutes of playing.
The 2D fighter is incredibly basic, with high punches, low punches, and blocking being the only things you can do as you go from fighter to fighter. It’s incredibly repetitive, and subsequent fighters don’t have the differences to make subsequent levels exciting and worth playing. Even more egregious than when it initially released, the various Virtual Console re-releases that placed it on the same price point as other NES classics really put into perspective how ineffective the game is.
8
‘Paper Mario: Sticker Star’ (2012)
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The Paper Mario series has proven to be one of the most beloved spinoff series in the Mario franchise, with the charming papercraft aesthetic combined with the dynamic new worlds and characters leading to some of the best Mario games of all time. However, everything that made the series so great was completely abandoned in Paper Mario: Sticker Star, with the game having a bare-bones story, next-to-no original characters, and a combat system severely lacking compared to previous entries.
It’s one of the biggest cases of a direct downgrade in a sequel that Nintendo has ever released, going from some of the most beloved fan-favorite games of their respective consoles to the single worst game in the 3DS library. What new concepts that the game does come up with end up having their own distracting issues, such as unintuitive puzzle solving with various real-life objects and the overwhelming annoyance of the main companion of the game, Kersti.
7
‘Wii Music’ (2008)
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It cannot be overstated just how massively popular the phenomenon surrounding the Nintendo Wii was, as it felt like just about everyone was experiencing this massive leap forward for casual gaming, with motion controls being the must-play new phenomenon of the 21st century. Nintendo had a great line of massively successful games under the Wii banner after the success of Wii Sports, but this string of success eventually reached a halt with the release of Wii Music.
Wii Music attempted to utilize the incredibly low barrier to entry of other Wii titles for the experience of playing music, which seems fun at first, but in practice removes a majority of actual depth and intrigue in this glorified waggle fest. While there were actual goals and fun games to be had in the other Wii games, Wii Music feels like a learning tool that doesn’t go far enough in the actual learning, resulting in this confused mess of concepts with no real throughline.
6
‘Donkey Kong Barrel Blast’ (2007)
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One unlikely trend that the Donkey Kong franchise had in the time following Rare’s departure from Nintendo was the DK Bongo peripheral. GameCube games Donkey Konga and Donkey Kong Jungle Beat found great success in utilizing this peripheral, leading to the creation of what would become Donkey Kong Barrel Blast. During development, however, Barrel Blast was changed from a GameCube game to a Wii game, removing the DK Bongo functionality and refitting its gameplay to work on the Wii remote and nunchuck.
This resulted in a racing game severely lacking in its core identity, going from a quirky gimmick to incredibly tedious gameplay as it requires constant shaking of the controllers to play the game. Combined with a great deal of repetition and uninteresting tracks, the game lacks any of the creativity and character that made previous Nintendo kart racing games so fun. The game’s time in the spotlight would be short-lived, as just 6 months later, Mario Kart Wii would release and become the Wii’s dominating racing experience.
Four of the largest communities on the planet, and four completely
different reasons to belong to one. Here is yours, what it would give you, and the argument you
would be having within a week.
You belong to the fandom that is really about comfort. Hogwarts
works on people because it is a place rather than a plot, and the pull is not the wizard war
so much as the corridors, the food, the weather and the sense that somebody is expecting
you.
- You are drawn to belonging, which is why this fandom sorted itself into houses within
about five minutes and has never stopped. - This is the most social of the four, and the one most likely to know which type every
single person in your life would be. - The books are built to be reread rather than analysed, and rereading is exactly what you
do with things you love. - The new HBO series is bringing the whole thing back one book at a time, which means the
arguments are about to start all over again.
You belong to the deepest fandom on this list, the one where
somebody has always read further than you and is quietly delighted to say so. Middle-earth
rewards patience more than any other world in popular culture.
- You like the sense that the story you are reading is only the visible part of something
enormous, which is precisely how Tolkien built it. - This fandom takes adaptation seriously to a degree that other fandoms find slightly
alarming, and it has good reasons for that. - Your favourite thing about the books is probably the bit that is not action at all,
which is the walking, the songs and the long goodbyes. - Nobody here thinks heroism belongs to the powerful, and the whole story exists to make
that argument.
You belong to the loudest and largest tent of the four, the one
where three generations are all watching the same thing and none of them agree about any of
it. That disagreement is not a flaw in this fandom, it is the main activity.
- You want something you can share with absolutely everybody, from a six year old to a
grandparent, and this is the only one on the list that really does that. - Nobody argues like Star Wars fans argue, and the argument has been running since roughly
1980 with no sign of resolution. - The pull here is sensory before it is narrative, since it is the sound design, the score
and the look of a used and dented galaxy. - You would be first in the queue, in costume, with strong opinions and a genuinely good
time.
You belong to the thinking fandom, the one that turns up for the
argument rather than the explosion. Trek has always been a series of ethical problems in
space, and the people who love it love being asked what they would have done.
- You are an optimist in a way that is currently unfashionable, and this is the only major
franchise still willing to say the future might be better. - The best episodes are the ones where nobody fires anything, which is a sentence that
makes perfect sense to this fandom and to nobody else. - Starfleet Academy brought the franchise back to a classroom in 2026, which is
appropriate, because Trek has always been a bit of a seminar. - You would want the conversation afterwards more than the episode itself, and here you
will always find somebody willing to have it.
5
‘Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash’ (2015)
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Mario sports games are a formula that fundamentally seems impossible to truly mess up, as simply putting Mario characters in a classic sport with all sorts of fun hijinks yet compelling gameplay was enough to make previous games highlights of their consoles. However, Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is a major departure from previous Mario Tennis games, severely lacking in content and new ideas, as its major selling point was being the first Mario Tennis game with worldwide online multiplayer.
Especially compared to games like Mario Tennis for N64 and Mario Power Tennis, Ultra Smash is overwhelmingly lacking in modes and interest, with no real single-player content and only basic stadium courts to play on. Especially with the core gameplay loop and feel of Tennis not being that much of a major improvement over previous titles. It’s just lacking in the personality and fun that made the previous games so memorable, with no amount of online multiplayer making it worth playing longer than an hour at most.
4
‘Donkey Kong Jr. Math’ (1983)
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Nintendo was certainly still trying to find its voice and understanding of how to make home console video games an enticing offer in the era of arcade dominance, which is one of the only reasons that come to mind as to why they would release a game like Donkey Kong Jr. Math. This riff on the beloved arcade game has the controls and feel of Donkey Kong Jr., but with the goal of completing math problems in order to get a high score.
The potential and concept of using a beloved game like Donkey Kong Jr. as an educational tool is admirable, but it doesn’t stop Donkey Kong Jr. Math from being overwhelmingly boring to actually play. Solving algebraic equations may just be the last thing that any respectable gamer wants to do when booting up their game console, especially in the era of the NES. This specific educational game experiment was never attempted again, as it remains one of the strangest releases in Nintendo history.
3
‘Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival’ (2015)
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Animal Crossing: Amiibo Festival is a game that fails on a fundamental level, as the core concept of its existence is one of abject failure and misunderstanding of what makes Animal Crossing as a brand so enjoyable to gamers worldwide. This party game spinoff acts similar to the Mario Party series, only with an Animal Crossing aesthetic and a reliance on physical amiibo figures as a core part of its gameplay.
While the amiibo figures found success in the Super Smash Bros. series as a supplementary experience, forcing these expensive physical figures to be the main part of this basic party game was a recipe for disaster that doomed Amiibo Festival from the start. What especially annoyed gamers was that this was the first home console Animal Crossing release since Animal Crossing: City Folk in 2008, as gamers were clamoring for a full Animal Crossing experience on Wii U that never came.
2
‘Hey You, Pikachu!’ (1998)
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The concept of Hey You, Pikachu! isn’t inherently a bad one, as the dream fulfillment of being able to interact and have fun with a Pikachu of your own feels like the perfect game to capitalize on the Pokémon mania of the late ’90s. However, N64 microphone technology was not up to par for what this game needed to be, resulting in an infamously unresponsive and annoying game experience that transformed the game from a cutesy virtual pet game to the worst Pokémon game ever released.
With very little actual interaction from the player, the game quickly becomes a test of patience as the player attempts to get Pikachu to do something, only for Pikachu to not understand what you’re saying or outright ignore your request as it gets distracted by something offscreen. It has all of the annoyance of training a pet without any of the positives of actually owning a cute pet. It’s a neat tech demo when it actually does work, but it could only barely be considered an actual gaming experience.
1
The Phillips CD-i Games (1993-1996)
Ask any die-hard Nintendo gamer, and they will be quick to tout the 4 games released during the infamous collaboration between Nintendo and Phillips as the worst games that Nintendo has ever released. These games were not technically released by Nintendo, as they allowed Phillips to use their license to help sell the console, resulting in the infamous failures of Hotel Mario, Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, Link: The Faces of Evil, and Zelda’s Adventure.
While these games do feature some legendary, so-bad-it’s-good cutscenes that have helped them stay iconic in the eyes of the internet, the actual gameplay of these games is an act of tedium, as they demand so much of the player despite their extremely unintuitive controls. Nintendo has overwhelmingly ignored the existence of these games, as they stain the legendary franchises that they are a part of as the undeniably worst Mario and Zelda games ever released, as well as possibly being some of the worst games of all time.
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