N-Bombs: Nintendo’s 10 Most Exciting Moments Of All Time

At E3, we were finally able to get a glimpse of Nintendo’s new console, the Wii U, and it’s awesome. But! (You knew there was a but, right? It’s not the most exciting news to ever come out of camp Nintendo—not by a long shot. From what we’ve seen so far, it’s basically the Wii with current-gen graphics and a giant tablet. Cool, but the big N's shown much cooler in the past. Like these 10 pandemonium-inducing (at least for fanboys) moments to come from the house that Shigeru Miyamoto built. Mario would be proud.

By Rich Knight

Even to this day, Nintendo has a reputation for being not for the hardcore gamer. Sure, the Wii U is supposed to alleviate that problem. But the start of that sea change began almost two decades ago when Mortal Kombat II came home to the SNES and it was just as bloody and wonderful as its arcade counterpart.

If you don’t remember, the original MK had been totally butchered on the SNES, lacking "blood code" like the Genesis version boasted. But the shift for the sequel led many to believe that, hey, Nintendo ain’t f**kin’ around this time. This time, they were for real with their commitment to please both the casual and the hardcore audiences. This time, they weren’t being pussies. It was an almost arcade-perfect port, and it made Nintendo look like a beast. We still remember being shocked at seeing Kung Lao’s hat-slice fatality on the same system that we had just played the colorful Super Mario World on. It was one hell of an eye-opener, and we’ll never forget it for the rest of our lives.

We know, we know, we know. The movie is beyond garbage—we STILL want our money back even after all these years. But you have to admit, at the time, you were excited for this movie. It was the very first video game movie ever, and we had no idea that the term term would become synonymous with “shit that we wouldn’t want to see even if you paid us.” No, it was a very, very big deal, and the prospect of seeing Mario and Luigi on the big screen (even though Luigi was played by the very non-Italian John Leguizamo) was exhilarating. Remember, this is the 10 most exciting Nintendo moments, not the 10 best Nintendo moments. Cut us some slack here.

When we were younger, we always used to sit in class and dream up matches like Samus from Metroid going up against Link from the Legend of Zelda series, and then playing out those battles on our papers that we were supposed to be doing long division on. Ah, school. We learned so much back then. Like the fact that Samus would totally beat Link in a brawl. Or would she? Turns out it depends on who's playing.

The original SSB blew our minds with the fact that we would actually be able to find out who would really win. It was a Nintendo fanboy’s dream come true—and best of all, it was actually really, really good. There’s a reason that we love Nintendo so much: they meet our expectations...and then exceed them by about 100%.

Don’t get us wrong. We love the 360, and we love the PS3. As gamers, we can’t live without them. But since we’ve been Nintendo fans since childhood, we had a certain feeling of satisfaction when the Wii outsold both the 360 and the PS3 combined early on in its lifespan. We were seriously Team Nintendo back then.

Sure, the Wii probably didn’t deserve to be on top at the time, and things have definitely shifted since then (Wii Sports, for instance, is no longer next-level). But it was exciting as all hell to see Nintendo back on top again, just like the olden days. The Wii-mote was impressive upon the console’s release, and Nintendo looked like gods among men when it came to innovation. Both Sony and Mircrosoft have since followed suit with the Move controller and the Kinect, respectively. They had to—Nintendo was tearing them apart.

Oh, those graphics. Is there a word for the sound that a steam whistle makes when it pops out of someone's head? No? Well, if there were, we would make it right now, since DKC was one sexy beast when it launched. And what made the feat even more impressive was that Super Nintendo was a (seemingly) dying system. But when they rolled out what would become the second-highest-selling game on the system, everybody lost their shit. And just like that, Nintendo officially won its 16-bit war with Sega. Blast processing could eat it; Nintendo had the goods.

"Metroid doesn’t belong in first person! Metroid is perfect in 2D—leave it alone! It’s gonna ruin the franchise putting Samus behind the gun!" Of course, all of those accusations were idiotic and wrong. But back before Retro Studios’ Metroid Prime, people couldn’t get their heads around the idea of Samus becoming a first-person shooter. And here’s how it worked: It wasn’t one.

Instead, the game actually felt VERY Metroid-esque, with its morph-ballin’, searching for weapons, and back-tracking. It was a massive leap for the franchise and it worked beyond belief. It made us certain to never doubt Nintendo again. They know what they’re doing over there. Well, maybe except for Wii Music.

After so many delays and the last game being so good, there was no way that Nintendo could make an even better Legend of Zelda game than A Link to the Past. And the strange time traveling story of Link jumping back and forth as a child and as an adult had us baffled back then. It looked like it was going to be a dud, that Nintendo was going to have another Zelda II: The Adventure of Link on its hands. But it wasn't.

In fact, at the time (and still to this day, many say), it was the greatest video game that we had ever played in our entire lives; yes, Nintendo had done it again. The lock-on system for combat was perfect, the quest was epic—with that whole time-traveling aspect being amazing—and it took our other favorite Nintendo franchise and pushed it into the third dimension just as well as the portly plumber had. If not better. Yes, the water temple gave us a headache, but everything else was sublime. Nintendo did it again.

Yes, the other Nintendo movie. It was just as bad as Super Mario Bros.—and was even more shameless, as it didn’t even hide the fact that it was a 90-minute commercial for the company. It really was a piece of crap. The Power Glove was lame. The story was lame. And Fred Savage was lame. But you know what WASN’T lame? The unveiling of the then-unreleased Super Mario Bros. 3. We nearly shit our trousers.

Back before the Internet and spoiler alerts, this was a MAJOR shocker to everybody in the audience, and a loud squeal could be heard from the other side of the theater door when this scene popped up and showed us, among other things, how to get the warp key on the first map. We took that knowledge home and used it when the game finally came out. We still get goosebumps thinking about it. If only marketing were as clever today.

Before Super Mario 64, we didn’t really have 3D, unless you counted those faux 3D levels in games like Super Contra. But other than that, we had nothing. But then Super Mario 64 happened, and the world of gaming stood up and took attention. Everything about it spelled change for the video game market. And developers took note at how to handle a 3D camera, and how to make the motions fluid and precise. Needless to say, it took other companies a long time to reach the bar that Nintendo had set right out the gate for their then-new Nintendo 64.

In short, it blew everyone away. So much so, in fact, that a lot of people didn’t even care that the system was working on cartridges, which were a dying gaming model, or that the graphics weren’t nearly as good as they were promised to be. None of that mattered. All that mattered was that Nintendo got 3D right on its very first try. And that’s why it’s Nintendo’s most exciting moment ever. Nothing even comes close. In fact, it still holds up today. Bask in its glory!