Best fps ever till today is laughable take for its time amazing but the genre has advanced in a massive way since then.

Eh Goldeneye was only great if you played only on console. PC had much better FPS games in 1997. Many that aged well where GE has aged so poorly. 1997 had Quake II and Hexen 2 on PC.

I love how goldeneye has objectives, something most fps don't have.

I don’t have much of an opinion, but the one that sways me the most (of those listed) is Goldeneye 007.

Goldeneye 007 was a megaton nuke in the FPS genre. It not only took the genre out of the basement and into the living room, but drastically improved it. Prior to GE007, FPS games were at best, like Doom, Hexen, and Quake; good for fans of the genre, but not good enough for the mainstream. GE007 changed all that, it was like a nuclear submarine, blowing those old franchises out of the water. GE007 marked the beginning of the modern FPS genre.

But it took a while. When GE007 launched, it wasn’t that big. It came out quite a while after the film, and a genre that most at the time found uninteresting. It wasn’t selling very well at first, but months later, once people had a chance to play it (particularly the multiplayer), it soared in popularity. In this way, it became one of the biggest sleeper hits of the 1990s (perhaps only topped by Pokémon in that regard).

It was also one of the most critically successful games of the 1990s, scoring high in reviews, and even defeating the juggernaut RPG FF7 at the AIAS awards (which were like the Academy Awards for video games).

So yeah, Goldeneye 007. I don’t think many games in history can match what that game did. While it didn’t age as well as DKC, it arguably topped DKC in terms of popularity, influence, and importance… and DKC was no slouch, it was the highest selling unbundled game of the 16-bit generation, and arguably the turning point of Nintendo vs Sega, as Sega never really recovered - at least, the headliner of that turning point. And in terms of influence, DKC’s influence transcended the genre as it influenced companies like Square to experiment and use pre-rendered graphics. GE007’s influences have echoed down through the FPS genre to this very day, and even into other genres (granted, Rare probably introduced an lot of those things, such as the sniper zoom to platformers, but GE007 introduced it to gaming).

Does Kid Icarus: Uprising count as second party? I am quite confused about that. If not, I nominate Fire Emblem Awakening. I doubt Ganbarions Pandora's Tower falls under the second party umbrella (although Nintendo published), this is a game I like very much. Same with Another Code R from Cing, which was Nintendo published and now in a weird move got a remake as Nintendo first party.

So yeah, my difficulties are in the area of identifying what counts as second party.

This gets my vote.

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For me,

I would say Banjo Tooie too even if people say its a lot of filling, I think it expands over everything BK had but introduces a lot of new stuff that added a lot to the overall experience.

The lore being expanded was nice (jinjos, Mumbo, and other side characters, etc).

The worlds being interconnected in a way was nice too.

I know someone nominated Kirby and the Forgotten Land but having played almost all of the series as of now, Kirby Planet Robobot is the best game in the series in my mind. So yeah, that's my nomination.

Though, technically, Smash Ultimate has been worked on by Bandai Namco lol, so does that count.
Also Metroid Dread is such a banger too.

Nintendo really had it good in terms of collaborations and 2nd party releases this generation. Here's hoping they stay strong for the next one !

For me, I’m going with a studio perhaps less renowned than Rare, but HAL Laboratory. Satoru Iwata worked for them for 20 years during the 1980s and 90s before joining Nintendo. Earthbound and Kirby Superstar are two games Iwata was heavily involved with, and they would easily top my list of third party games published by Nintendo outside of Rare at least. I’d probably add Dragon Quest 9 to the list, as it was published by Nintendo, but developed by Level 5 and Square Enix, but published by Nintendo and remains a Nintendo exclusive.

On top of these, I’m a big fan of the earlier Fire Emblem games as well - particularly Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Blade, and Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War (which was my first Fire Emblem game). But FE4 is in desperate need of an update with some QOL adjustments, as the game is fairly slow by today’s standards. FE7, on the other hand, remains fun to play to this day.

So, in short - my picks, I picked a bunch because I can’t pick one (not yet, at least, right now I’m leaning toward Earthbound or Goldeneye 007, but am still considering all these games):
Fire Emblem 4: Genealogy of the Holy War
Fire Emblem 7: Blazing Blade
Kirby Superstar
Earthbound
Dragon Quest 9
Goldeneye 007
Banjo Kazooie
Donkey Kong Country trilogy

It was a lot easier to play 4 player Goldeneye with your friends in the living room, versus 3 friends bringing their computers over setting them up to play what I think were called lan parties back in the day.

Donkey Kong Country 1. I doubt there has been a more impactful second party game since.