My Ranking of Nintendo Franchises
This list is exactly as it sounds: my personal ranking of Nintendo franchises. I certainly haven’t played every Nintendo game out there, but I have played a lot of their games across many of their franchises, to the point where ranking them by my personal preference feels like a worthwhile endeavor. Nintendo is unique in that it has a large array of diverse franchises, and we all have our own favorites. So I thought it would be fun to sit down and think through which have meant the most to me.
That said, since Nintendo does have so many franchises, a list like this comes with a few additional caveats that are worth addressing:
- First and foremost, this ranking is based on my personal, subjective preferences alone. The number of games within a franchise, and how many of those games I liked are the primary metrics I have to judge a franchise. Which is, of course, subjective!
- In some cases there are multiple ways to define a certain “franchise.” In these cases I made my own judgments, and made a note as to how I’m defining said franchise. For example, I break “Mario” into “Super Mario” for the platformers, and then each non-platformer franchise gets its own entry (“Mario Kart,” “Mario & Luigi,” and so on)
- This list is not a comprehensive list of every single Nintendo franchise. I didn’t include anything I’ve never played (such as 1080 Snowboarding). I also excluded a few franchises that I only played a tiny bit of (such as Clubhouse Games), and also a few that I don’t really think of as “Nintendo” franchises even if they could technically be considered as such (such as Drill Dozer). This list is already too long, and a comprehensive list would be even more so. I made judgment calls where I could.
- I originally was only going to consider franchises with multiple entries, but ultimately decided to include single-entry franchises. Take that for what you will!
- I will update this list as I play new games in an included franchise if it affects the order. I will also update it to add any new franchises that I play.
- Finally, the ordering in the back half of this list was very tricky to me. It’s a long list, and many of those entries I feel similarly about. Point being, don’t put a ton of stick in the order for the back half of the list in particular.
With those caveats out of the way, I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading!
Last updated on July 27, 2023 (original list creation)
See my other rankings of: Metroids | Marios | Zeldas | Final Fantasies | 2D Castlevanias | Fire Emblems | Gaming Years | Consoles and Handhelds | From Software Games | Nintendo Franchises