The Rarest N64 Games (& How Much They’re Worth)

The Nintendo 64 brings back a lot of memories for a lot of people. For many, the N64 represents the glory days of couch co-op gaming, sitting with friends around an old TV, blowing on the cartridge when it didn’t work (even though that didn’t do anything and could harm it in the long run), munching on some snacks and duking it out in Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros.

Nostalgia aside, the N64 had plenty of notable games; many of which proved monumentally influential to the gaming industry as a whole. Some remain incredibly rare to this day, making them some of the most expensive N64 games ever and helping them to take pride of place on the shelves of collectors luckily enough to own them.

Updated November 15, 2024, by David Heath: The Nintendo 64 remains a popular retro console thanks to providing some key advances in gaming, from Super Mario 64‘s open-world platforming to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time’s sense of adventure. Still, it took a distant second place to the PlayStation as it was harder to program for, and its cartridges were more expensive to buy than CDs.

Nonetheless, it overcame its limitations to be a humble success in its own right. It’s enough to get a person into collecting games for the console, from its big hitters to its also-rans. However, it can be costly, as most entries in its library are rising in price with each year, and some territories offer pricier games than others, as this updated list shows with its new entries and new prices.

All prices were taken from
PriceCharting.com
and were accurate at the time of publication.

1 Starshot Space Circus Fever

Juggling Moneybags

Despite having clunky and hard-to-master controls, Starshot Space Circus Fever was loved by the community for the unique unsettling feeling that players felt while playing it. Another questionable aspect of the game is its ending, with many players left wondering if they got the bad ending. But nope. It only had one ending, and it closed the quirky platformer off on a bum note, likely meant to lead to a sequel that never came.

All things aside, the game is still considered a cult classic and is among the rarest games on the console. New copies have risen to a new peak at $843, and CIB copies are gradually climbing back up in price. It’s actually gotten slightly easier to find it loose at $84 per cartridge. Still, it’s quite dear, especially for people who want to check it out on real hardware. For cheaper alternatives, the PAL version is only $12 loose, and the PC version is just over $10.

2 Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine

It Belongs In A Museum

The first 3D installment of the franchise, Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine is not only a great game in many respects, but also a critical title for the Indiana Jones series. In the game, players navigate beautifully built environments, overcome enemies, solve intricate puzzles, and make their way across hard-to-reach platforms for 17 levels.

Although it is not as well-known as some other titles on the platform, this entry earned a special place in the hearts of fans of the series and adventurers alike. It’s gradually gotten more precious as loose and complete in-box (CIB) prices have risen, though surprisingly, new copies have dropped a lot. They were over $934 in August. With this erratic bouncing, buyers can only rely on luck so long.

3 Goemon’s Great Adventure

Stealing From The Rich

Hosting peculiar elements and highly stressful Japanese themes, it’s not all that surprising that the Mystical Ninja franchise never quite took off in the West. Legend of the Mystical Ninja is an underground favorite for the SNES, and Goemon’s Great Adventure somehow managed to go even deeper into the earth. It perhaps deserves a better fate though, as it was one of the more accessible 2.5D platforming games on the N64.

Players take on the role of the wild-haired ninja Goemon as he ventures through forests, mountains, and other colorful lands in a fantasy version of Edo Period Japan. Loose and CIB copies have dropped only slightly in price, while new copies are rising. Not even the PAL version, Mystical Ninja 2 Starring Goemon, is any cheaper at $116.56 loose. Only the Japanese version goes easy on the wallet at $27.50.

4 Big Mountain 2000

Players Ski Downhill, Prices Climb Uphill

A winter-sports-themed game, Big Mountain 2000 was a hit thanks to its simple-to-play, hard-to-master controls, smooth gameplay, and relatively good graphics for the time. Rivaling the snowboard game craze at the time, players race down various slopes on skis while trying to manage their stamina and overcome any obstacle they come across on the track.

The game owes its place among the rarest and most expensive Nintendo 64 games not because of its popularity, but because of how unlikely it is to find a complete copy online. This scarcity has led to the price climbing massively in recent years, as CIB prices peaked at the $700 mark at the start of the year. That said, its prices have dropped slightly since the last update, so buyers can now pick the game up for $30 cheaper than they would’ve been back in the middle of 2024.

5 Castlevania: Legacy Of Darkness

Casting A Pall Over Bank Accounts

When compared to the rougher Castlevania 64, 1999’s Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness shines more from a gameplay standpoint by adhering more to classic franchise elements. Still, the game managed to get overshadowed by its N64 counterpart in infamy and the more popular PlayStation titles like Symphony of the Night and Castlevania Chronicles in quality.

Still, it offered the original Castlevania 64 campaign with C: LoD‘s improvements, and Cornell’s lycanthropic story did draw some hardcore fans to the title. Nonetheless, this prequel still wasn’t particularly well-received, it soon became one of the rarest N64 games, which explains why the cartridge alone has a pretty steep price. New copies were also going for $1,000+ before they had their own drop. Still, they’re gradually climbing back up, reaching $693+ in November 2024. At least the CIB editions are a little cheaper now, at nearly $319.

6 Daikatana

This Game Is About To Make Players Its ATM

Although the game wasn’t reviewed all that well by critics, Daikatana offered unique environments, and its level design was actually pretty good and went some way toward living up to the pre-release hype. Nonetheless, even if it didn’t have development problems or its infamous ad campaign based around director John Romero, it still would’ve been brought down by its dodgy gameplay.

PC owners at least have access to the 1.3 patch, which helped it play more like how Romero and Ion Storm planned. The N64 version has the old faults combined with a low frame rate, fogging, and an awkward translation thanks to it being handled by Japanese developers Kemco instead of Ion Storm. Nonetheless, its infamy has made it a collector’s item, as it’s gradually increased in price across the board.

7 Mario no Photopi

Learning Photoshop With Everyone’s Favorite Plumber

Mario Paint on the SNES was a fun little game. Players could do all sorts of things, from making pictures to funny musical arrangements with sound effects. It was popular enough to make one wonder why it never received a sequel. The thing is, it did, in the Mario Artist series. The problem is that it was on the Nintendo 64DD, an add-on that lets the N64 read special disks, and even connect to the internet for online play. Each disk served a different function, from painting to uploading art to the web.

If owners only had the basic console, they had to make do with Mario no Photopi. Players could insert SmartMedia cards into the slots on the cartridge to upload images to the machine, then edit them with borders, fonts, and other tweaks. They could even turn them into posters, slideshows, or image-based puzzles. It’s the dearest of the Mario Artist games, though that $614 price tag might be more tolerable if players didn’t also need the 64DD on top of it.

8 Rush 2049 (PAL)

Running Past the $990’s

Futuristic racers were all the rage in the 1990s, from the high-octane pace of the F-Zero games, to the trendsetting Wipeout series. Sadly, they petered out once the decade gave way to the 00s, where players preferred gasoline-powered motors than sci-fi super tech. One of the last notable future racers was San Francisco Rush 2049, aka Rush 2049, an Atari racer that sped through the arcades before ending up on the Dreamcast, N64, and Game Boy Color.

The handheld port wasn’t anything to write home about, but the big console ports offer solid, speedy fun. The N64 version was particularly favored by critics, and isn’t too hard to pick up in North America. Picking up PAL copies is another matter, as they cost nearly $672 for CIB sets. It’s odd, as its Dreamcast and GBC ports are vastly cheaper, being more on par with their NTSC equivalents. The N64 port was likely a victim of timing, as it came out in late 2000, when people were looking to the next generation of consoles instead of Nintendo’s aging box of wonders.

Transforming Into A Treasure Chest

The N64 wasn’t a great platform for fighting games outside Super Smash Bros, but that didn’t stop developers from giving it a try. Transformers: Beast Wars Transmetals brought the vibe of an early Virtua Fighter with a Transformers motif. Players picked characters from the Beast Wars show and fought their opponents in a standard fighter, albeit with alternate Beast and Vehicle forms to add some Bloody Roar hints to the proceedings.

It threw in an Energon resistance gauge, which players had to maintain, or their attacks would be limited if it ran out. The N64 version also had a console-exclusive boss, Megatron X. Still, its late release in 2000 and lack of attention relegated it to obscurity. The loose North American (NA) cart goes for nearly 10 times the Japanese version, and 5 times the PS1 version. It’s climbing higher in CIB and new prices too, reaching 4 figures easily.

10 Turok: Rage Wars (Gray Cartridge)

It’s The Same Old Game, But The Cartridge Is In A Different Color

Though Turok the Dinosaur Hunter started life as a comic book character from the 1950s, he gained a new lease on life as the hero of a series of first-person shooters for the N64. The first three games even got remasters for modern machines, including for the Nintendo Switch. All except for Turok: Rage Wars, as it was essentially Turok 2: Seeds of Evil without the story but with more multiplayer modes and features.

The ordinary black cartridge is easy to get hold of, costing just $15 or so for a loose copy. However, it came with a bug that made the co-op campaign unbeatable. Fans back in the day had to post these faulty carts over to Acclaim, who’d replace them with gray cartridges that fixed the bug. Since the game wasn’t as popular as the main entries, few people bothered, so these improved editions are hard to come by and harder to afford.

11 Bomberman 64: The Second Attack!

Exploding In Price

Bomberman usually provides a great time for friends. But Bomberman 64: The Second Attack is one of the rarest N64 games due to a variety of factors. For one thing, it received poor reviews for its rough looks and playing no different from its classic entries, which significantly hurt its sales. Hudson Soft barely advertised it as well, so few people even knew that it existed.

Finally, it was released quite late in the console’s life cycle in 2000, just 1 year before the Gamecube’s debut. As a result, finding a copy of the game is exceedingly difficult, although they do still pop up on sites like eBay from time to time. However, if it’s going for less than $1,000, it’s either likely a loose copy or the deal might be too good to be true.

12 Worms Armageddon

A Tactical Offensive On N64 Owners

Worms Armageddon was the third entry in the appealing turn-based tactics game series by Team17 and is arguably the best as it brought in a host of new items and weapons (like the divine Holy Hand Grenade) to make destroying one’s foes more spectacular. It was released for practically every machine going in 1999-2000, from the PC and PlayStation to the N64 and Dreamcast, and even the Game Boy Color.

By being so common, people would think Worms Armageddon would be cheap to buy, and it is, save for the NA N64 copies. It’s the only one whose CIB and new copy prices are in the 4-figure range. Loose cartridges are just a few cents away from reaching their old peak of $220 from 2016. Given how common the other ports are, the prices are as ridiculous as a Concrete Donkey.

13 Doshin the Giant: Liberation Front Chibiko Chikko Collection

Tinkling Money Down the Drain

The original Doshin the Giant was a curious Black & White-style god game, where the player changes the land, protects the people, and answers their prayers through the love giant Doshin. Or, if they torment them instead, he can turn into his evil counterpart Jashin. It was one of the few notable games for the ill-fated Nintendo 64DD add-on, and one that actually got a Gamecube release — albeit one that only reached Japan and Europe.

Most people think it was a one-off, but it actually got a sequel in Doshin the Giant: Liberation Front Chibiko Chikko. This time, players control a toddler trying to free Doshin from the World of Dreams by watching cutscenes and tinkling hearts onto things, including Doshin himself. Players could even get a headstart by using data from the first game to boost their stats, and challenge other toddlers to tinkling contests. If playing as an incontinent child sounds strange, then paying over $1,500 for the privilege is even stranger.

14 Rat Attack! (PAL)

Scurrying For Coins

During an era in which most studios, Nintendo included, were stressing flashier 3D romps, Pure Entertainment took a simpler, more grounded approach in terms of presentation. In the multiplayer game Rat Attack!, players assume the role of intelligent lab rats set on dominating the world. However, to achieve this, they’ll have to collect groups of rats via lasso as they pour into small rooms and frantically scurry about.

While silly and shallow, its current asking prices are anything but. US CIB copies go for $750, and new copies cost just under $850. PAL copies are even worse, as loose copies cost over double the price of their US equivalents at $123+. Heaven help anyone in need of a CIB or sealed copy, as they’re practically sky-high. Buyers had better start saving, and sellers had better keep their copies safe until the right money came along.

15 F1 Racing Championship

Accelerating In Price

Racing games took off in the 3D landscape of the late ’90s and early 2000s. Between the futuristic likes of Wipeout and the more grounded Gran Turismo came F1 Racing Championship, which reached all platforms at the time, including the upcoming PlayStation 2. Though, like Worms Armageddon, NA N64 copies are the most expensive of the bunch.

That could be put down to Formula 1 racing not being as big in the US as other territories, but the game’s other NA ports are much cheaper. New PS1 copies are $60 at most, while new N64 cartridges are over 100 times that price, at $6,445. Even if people just wanted a loose copy, they’d have to fork over $512, and that price is steadily climbing by the month.

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16 Super Bowling

Striking Out In Sales

The fact that barely anybody has heard of Super Bowling is what makes the game so rare and expensive. Developed by UFO Interactive Games, it was basically a 3D update to the equally obscure SNES game of the same title, simulating all the fun and excitement of 10-pin bowling. With its niche appeal and late release, it didn’t result in a lot of sales, leading to it becoming a rare item.

It wasn’t always so prized, being quite affordable loose in the early 2010s. But once the 2020s began, it started rising in price. The strangest part about it was that, for much of 2022, sealed copies were cheaper than CIB ones, going for $1,080. That doesn’t sound cheap, but that was less than half of its CIB equivalent at $2,550. Nowadays, new copies go for double that price, at over $6,000, and CIBs at $2,150+.

17 Starcraft 64 (PAL)

Overcoming the Zerg Rush in 64 Bits

There have been plenty of RTS games released on consoles, though they rarely match their PC counterparts. Even when their consoles had a mouse peripheral, the experience was cut down by comparison. For example, Starcraft 64 brought the original Starcraft and its Brood War expansion to the N64, but it was less of a port and more of a reworking. It had new command button functions, cheat codes had to be discovered within missions, and all cinematics and voiced dialogue was removed to fit it on the cartridge, among other changes.

It’s a little difficult to get within North America, though with loose cartridges going for $90, and CIB ones for $250, it’s not exactly a wallet buster. But in PAL territories, gamers have to cough up the equivalent of $305 minimum for a loose cartridge, and nearly $2,250 for a full boxed copy. The game was commendable for its creative workarounds to fit the console. However, even the biggest Starcraft fans will likely pick it up only as a collector’s item, as its gameplay isn’t a patch on the PC version.

18 Stunt Racer 64

No Sign Of Crashing

Stunt Racer 64 remains one of the rarest games for the console, as its retro-futuristic racing fun couldn’t quite overtake the almighty behemoth that was Mario Kart 64. It was also released exclusively in the US and only through Blockbuster Video, so it’s little wonder it’s nearly impossible to track them down cheaply.

A run-of-the-mill loose copy of this arcade racer will set collectors back just over $320, a gradual climb back from its $252 dip back in March 2024. But getting it complete with its box and manual will set them back by $2,250, and over 3 times that price for a new copy at $6,975. Those prices are gradually climbing too, so anyone feeling the price pinch might want to settle for the loose cartridges.

19 Snowboard Kids 2 (PAL)

The Land Down Under Offers Prices Up Top

Published by Atlus for the Nintendo 64 in 1999, Snowboard Kids 2 is the sequel to the original Snowboard Kids game. Using a variety of characters, players snowboard down slopes and use their unique skills and abilities to get ahead. With its colorful visuals and fast pace, the game offered players a smooth and entertaining racing experience and a great multiplayer experience.

Getting it in the US isn’t so bad. Not cheap, at $72 loose, $302.26 complete, and $937 new. Japanese copies are cheap as chips, at $30.38 loose and $254 for new copies. But if collectors really want to add some jewels to their collection, they should look into the PAL version. Released only in Australia, it’s the rarest version of the game, and thus the most expensive. Any Aussies with a copy could make a killing by putting it on the market.

20 Nintendo 64 Test Cartridge

Burning Money On A Piece Of Tech History

Fancy paying nearly $3,350 for a cartridge that doesn’t have a game in it? The Nintendo 64 Test Cartridge was used by Nintendo 64 Service Centers to examine people’s consoles to see if they were in working order. If they had any faults, the Test Cartridge would spot them with its different diagnostics. If the red light on the cartridge came on, the console had a fault that needed examination.

Since it wasn’t meant for retail, it didn’t come with a box to be sealed within, and its instruction pamphlet came separately. If it can be found on the market, it can only be found loose, and for $3,339. It’s stayed steady at this price for the past year, but it has spiked to nearly double that cost in the past. Unless someone has a time machine to travel back to 2012 when it costs a mere $518, that’s as good as the price is going to get.