Gold Medal Games: Picking the best sports games in Nintendo’s multi-decade history
From Duck Hunt to Mario Kart, Wave Race to Punch-Out!!, we pick the best Nintendo games in every sport
Games Features Nintendo
When people think of a Nintendo game, they usually imagine an Italian man committing turtle crimes, or a green-clad boy with a sword and a surprising affinity for boomerangs. Which, while fair, also overshadows one of the key strengths of the company, one it just recently highlighted with the release of last month’s Nintendo Switch Sports: It’s also one of the best sports game creators in video game history, with a steady stream of home-developed new releases challenging every generation to strut their stuff on the virtual field.
The company’s sports catalog runs deep: Golf games, boxing games, baseball games, soccer games, and more racing games than you can shake a batch of blue sparks at. Which got us wondering: What are the best Nintendo sports games—for every sport the company’s tackled across the last 40 years?
Hence this list, which purports to do exactly that, broken down across 16 sports, with a grab-bag category at the end for single-entry categories; after all, we wouldn’t want Mario’s brief foray into horse racing to get left off a list of Nintendo’s great sports triumphs, would we?
When assembling this list, our main criteria was that the games in question needed to have either been developed by Nintendo (or one of its close development partners), or prominently feature Nintendo characters (since the company has been much more willing to license Mario and crew out for sports titles than in other genres). This eliminates certain games that would otherwise be obvious shoe-ins for their categories; Tecmo Bowl, for instance, was developed by, well, Tecmo, and while Midway certainly sold a lot of copies of NBA Jam for the Super Nintendo, it’s hard to classify a game with such a long arcade life as a “Nintendo” game.
For each category, we’ve written up our top pick, as well as some interesting examples of other stabs at the sport from the company’s history, and a list of the games in consideration. We have also honored the position of Nintendo’s one true sports star—the primary Mario character created for, and in service of, its love of sports—by asking a simple question in every entry: Is Waluigi in this one?
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1) Air Sports – Pilotwings (SNES)
Also Ran – Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
2) Baseball – Ken Griffey Jr. Presents Major League Baseball (SNES)
Also Ran – Baseball (NES)
3) Basketball – Mario Hoops 3-on-3 (DS)
Also Ran – Wii Sports Resort (Wii)
4) Bowling – Wii Sports Resort (Wii) (Note: Clubhouse Games, for whatever reason, isn’t included in the list.)
Also Ran – Nester’s Funky Bowling (Virtual Boy)
5) Boxing – Super Punch-Out!! (SNES) (Note: List does not contain either of the arcade games nor any of the Fitness Boxing games, which is published by Nintendo)
Also Ran – Teleroboxer (Virtual Boy)/ARMS (Switch)
6) Fitness/Track and Field – Ring Fit Adventure (Switch)
Also Ran – Stadium Events/World Class Track Meet (NES)
7) Football – Super Play Action Football (SNES)
Also Ran – Tecmo Super Bowl, though technically not eligible for the list
8) Golf – Mario Golf: Super Rush (Oh, that won’t be a contentious pick, I’m sure)
Also Ran – Golf (NES)
9) Hockey – Ice Hockey (NES)
Also Ran – Mario Sports Mix (Wii)
10) Racing – Mario Kart: Double Dash!! (GameCube) (Note: All of the RC Pro-Am games are eligible, despite Nintendo not acquiring Rare until 1994, after all the games in the series were made.)
Also Ran – ExciteTruck/ExciteBots (Wii)11) Shooting – Duck Hunt (NES)
Also Ran – Link’s Crossbow Training (Wii)12) Soccer – Super Mario Strikers (GameCube)
Also Ran – Mario Strikers Charged (Wii)13) Tennis – Wii Sports
Also Ran – Mario Tennis (N64/GBC), Mario’s Tennis (Virtual Boy)14) Volleyball – Mario Sports Mix (Wii)
Also Ran – Mario Spikers (cancelled)15) Water Racing – Wave Race 64 (N64)
Also Ran – Wii Sports Resort16) Winter Sports – 1080 Snowboarding (N64)
Also Ran – Slalom (NES)17) And the Rest – Mario Sports Superstars: Horse Racing (3DS)
Also Ran – Ball (Game & Watch)
Strange omission for the two mode seven sports games: NCAA Basketball and NHL Stanley Cup for the SNES to not even be considerations. Sure Nintendo was only a publisher but for a lot of these games Nintendo is merely the publisher for games made by other developers. Not totally egregious though, both these games kind of suck with NHL Stanley Cup having a pretty easy “auto goal” bug that my friends and I used to use to run up insane scores.
Wasn’t NCAA basketball also one of Nintendo’s first attempts at rendering a 3D environment?
I haven’t played a console-based video game in over two decades, but as a kid, I always preferred Nintendo’s in-house goofiness and intuitive controls over other studios’ attempts at realism. It was so much more fun playing hockey with a mixture of unnamed fat, medium and skinny players than the officially licensed, but otherwise intetchangeable avatars of real NHL players, for example. And have hockey fights ever been such a choatic joy as the bench-clearing brawls that would randomly break out in NES’s Ice Hockey? I doubt it.
I agree generally, but Konami’s Blades of Steel was much better in this instance. Only the fight loser gets a penalty? That’s awesome.
Sega’s NHL ‘93 would like a word with you. That Genesis game crushed it.
Absolutely insane choice for Golf. Like, I get it, you don’t like golf. Gamecube, GBA, 3DS, and even N64 versions of the series are better but they commit the crime of being slightly more golf-like. Weird choice for racing too (the Double Dash mechanic never returned, because it sucked) but understandable if that’s the version you spent the most time with.
Wii Sports Resort deserves it’s own entry for being one of the greatest console sports games of all time, and specifically one of the most “Nintendo” games ever made, for the following reasons:It has INSANE replay value. Over a decade after it’s release my kids still play it every now and then, it’s literally the only reason we still have our Wii U hooked up to the TVIt has an emphasis on silly, fun gameplay over realism.In-person split screen gameplay vs remote online gameplay makes it an ideal game to play as a family (an important differentiator between Nintendo and other console makers) It’s an outstanding showcase for the Wii’s unique hardware; I doubt there’s ever been a game that achieved better synergy between hardware and gameplay.Or alternatively, add categories for table tennis, Swordfighting, Frisbee golf, Archery, and Cycling, giving Wii Sports Resort the win in each one.
I still love frisbee golf. So much fun.
Yeah, this one still gets regular play at our house long after a general migration to X Box and Switch. And I love the waverunner game.
Ummm does SNK baseball count? I don’t see it on the list and it’s the best baseball game ever. You can create your own players and I created a team of the greatest players ever with my brother (Ruth, Mays, Aaron, Johnson, Cy Young)….. That was for the NES and to me no baseball game touched it and everyone. Or is that like RBI baseball and not considered a Nintendo baseball game?
List of all the Nintendo games with this sport:
There are a lot of omissions here. Did you forget that the Bases Loaded series exists? Base Wars? The NHL games for SNES? NBA Jam?If I can play it on a Nintendo system, then it’s a Nintendo game.
Agreed. I have no idea why they put the artificial limitation of the game having been made by Nintendo for this list. Wouldn’t best sports game payable on a Nintendo have been more interesting and led to more debate/comments?
No, because then you might as well expand it to best sports game. And then you have to decide which year of a particular annual game is the best.
I’m guessing they weren’t confident in their ability to come up with a comprehensive list if they included everything.
(redacted) Didn’t realize this was solely for Nintendo developed games.
Not developed by Nintendo, but this reminded me of Blades of Steel, by far the best NES hockey game. Lose the fight, go to the box. Just outstanding.
I will not stand by and have this “SNES Griffey’s stadiums are wrong” hogwash be spread about. It was an absolute thrill for me (at age 9 and 37) to visit the faithfully rendered SkyDome preceded by the final notes of O Canada.I think the sequel deserves an annotated history; it’s nowhere near as fun but it’s almost like a bunch of art students who have never seen a game of baseball before were tasked with making a baseball video game from scratch, and the end result is baffling, boring, and at times mesmerizing in its beauty, along with some of the best (if not weirdest) music for an SNES game. RARE were in a class of their own.
Wrong on all counts. The best Nintendo sports game is Dodgeball for the original console.
Original NES hockey. End of discussion.
Eh, doesn’t hold a candle to NHLPA ‘93 or NHL ‘94.
Those don’t meet the criteria for this list.
I don’t care.
Say what you will, but my favorite NES baseball game will always be Little League World Series. Great controls. Really fun two-player mode.
If y’all haven’t heard of Summoning Salt, I recommend his short-form documentaries on speedrunning and he has some REALLY good ones about some Nintendo sports games. Here’s a few examples (because apparently embedded links don’t work, fuckin’ THANKS Kinja):
Super Punch-Out
Wii Sports Resort Golf
Punch Out: The Quest to Beat Matt TurkPunch Out – but BLINDFOLDED
If you like his content, consider subscribing on Youtube or even becoming a Patron!
The Wii Sports Resort Golf one is hilarious. It’s my favorite Summoning Salt video by far.
Why no Mario and Sonic Olympic games mentions?
Likely because they were all developed by Sega.
But exclusive for Nintendo systems. Besides it seems to fit the criteria they lay down at the beginning.
I was wondering how the hell they missed Tiger Woods Golf for the Wii, before realizing it’s an EA title. I thought this list seemed narrow.
Oh man, I loved that game. However, I never made it to the US Open because I was a completionist and insisted on playing in every tournament on the schedule before joining the Open.
The controller sensitivity was incredible. Wii Sport golf is fun, but just not in the same league.
Yeah, I remember is was the first game that I played that used that extra little box you attached to the bottom of the Wiimote and had to calibrate beforehand for the extra sensitivity.
I got to the baseball section and…no RBI Baseball for the NES??? Are you kidding me.I was a Sega kid and even I knew that RBI Baseball killed it. Fuck Nintendo but that game was the best sports game ever. Mike Tyson’s Punch Out is a close, very close second.
If you weren’t kneeling on the floor bongo drumming the Power Pad, you were playing World Class Track Meet wrong.
Diddy Kong racing!
You know speed golf is an actual thing, right? I have no intention of every playing because I’d slosh my beer all over the place but there are competitions and everything.
Limiting things to Nintendo systems is a pretty silly idea (which applies to all games anyway , never mind this article),even if we’re talking classic systems ..for example :Soccer : take your pick between Commodore 64’s Microprose Soccer, Commodore Amiga’s Kick Off 2 , or the first FIFA game on Megadrive/Genesis.Golf : PGA tour golf II on the Megadrive/genesis .Leaderboard on the C64/PCIce Hockey :NHL Hockey on the Megadrive/GenesisBoxing :Ready2Rumble on the Dreamcast (although I’ve a soft spot for Barry Mcguigan boxing on the C64)American Football : John Madden Football on the Megadrive/GenesisTrack and Field : Track N’ Field (Arcade , but the C64 version was good)Racing : Micro Machines Megadrive/Genesis, Daytona Dreamcast Basketball : NBA JAM Megadrive , Basketball Nightmares Sega Master System, Lakers vs Celtics Megadrive.Weird sports meets : World games/California Games C64
Kirby’s Dream Course is such an underrated gem. It perfectly combines mini golf and Kirby’s consume abilities to make a fun, weird, and surprisingly challenging game.
Wii Fit may be mostly forgotten these days, but the Ski Jumping mini game in it was outstanding. By far the best use of the balance board.
Limiting a list like this to only games published by Nintendo is pretty silly, as it doesn’t track the lived experience at all since it leaves out so many classic games that people would actually want to talk about. Which is probably why the comment section is so dead, and most of those that are posted are bitching about the games you left out.
Nah all time hockey for me has to be BLADES OF STEEL.But I get that that doesn’t fit the criteria.
RBI Baseball was the best baseball game because when you played one of the Canadian teams, they played part of the Canadian anthem before the game.
No Love for Kobe’s NBA Courtside??? For shame.
Complete oversight on basketball as the N64 had the very cromulent Kobe Bryant NBA Courtside.Also, Kudos to Ken Griffey Jr. for being the only Nintendo sports game cover athlete to not be accused of rape.
F-Zero has so much unfilled potential as a franchise it makes me sick. It could be part RPG, part Forza, and part Street Fighter if the developers wanted. You could level up your racer, customize your car and driver, race, and then challenge another racer to a fist/gun fight after the race to earn more XP?