Superman: The New Superman Adventures (AKA Superman 64). It’s a baffling time capsule of poor management, crunched game development, and lack of coherent vision (mostly due to the management thing). Is flying through the rings tough? Yup. Do the missions make no sense? Yup. Is there a charm in firing it up and remembering to be grateful you’ve lived to yet another day where you can play Superman 64? Yup.
Just to say something beyond the obvious ones others are sharing; I really loved Battletanx. The game wasn’t all that great with the nostalgia goggles removed but I had so much fun playing it with friends 25 years ago
I fucking love Quest 64. I’m under no impression that it is a good game, but I grew up playing it and it remains one of my favorite comfort games to this day. I play through it fully once every year or two. I also enjoy other, better games, as have been mentioned elsewhere, but Quest is just special to me.
Hot take: Perfect Dark took everything that was great from GoldenEye, expanded on the formula, and is a much better game overall.
StarFox 64 is always gonna be an all-time favourite of mine. The gameplay is so simple yet very rewarding. Very arcade-like game loop, in a good way.
Diddy Kong Racing is one of the first games I discovered the… joys (?) of completionism as a kid.
I played Wave Race a ton with my father, he loved that game. Mario Golf as well.
Mario 64 is insanely good in retrospect, but I both didn’t understand much of English back then, and also sucked at the mechanics too much as a kid to really enjoy it. Similar situation with Banjo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie. I somehow managed to play through Donkey Kong 64 using walkthrough guides I printed out chapter by chapter. The multiplayer was nice although laggy as hell.
I’m pretty “basic” in my choices. Both Zelda titles, Mario 64, Mario Kart, the three Mario Parties, StarFox 64, Diddy Kong Racing, Kirby 64, Banjo-Kazooie. I just bought an N64 a few weeks ago partially because I wanted to experience the games I had growing up again and also play a bunch I missed. I tried Mischief Makers because it looked interesting and I enjoy the unique mechanics but the controls are hard to master enough to feel like I even have a basic handle on them.