Nintendo might just be the most impactful video game company of all time. It made home console gaming a thing after the industry almost crashed in the '80s. Nintendo characters like Mario and Pikachu are more recognizable to children than one-time titans like Mickey Mouse. And the Switch seems to be exciting both gamers and developers in a way that hasn't been seen in a long time. A time like, oh I don't know, the 1990s when the Nintendo 64 reigned supreme.

The Nintendo 64 single-handedly brought many gamers into the fold. How many kids tried a demo of Super Mario 64 or Ocarina of Time in a department store and were instantly sucked into the worlds of those franchises? Or how about the scores of people who played marathon sessions of Goldeneye 007 and Mario Kart 64 at a friend's house only to run home and ask for a Nintendo 64 of their own for Christmas? And, of course, there's the Nintendo 64 kid, someone who was so excited to get a Nintendo 64 that his excitement propelled him to meme status.

The Nintendo 64 brought many first and lasting moments to many a gamer's lifetime. So what better way to honor the iconic console but with memes? We've got Star Wolf's favorite coffee, the hottest jam to come out of Kongo Jungle, and the earth-shattering truth behind Mario's adventures. Scroll on down, and let's party like it's 1999.

25 A Truly Rare Specimen

With these memes being about a piece of hardware from the 1990s, you're certainly going to see a lot of nostalgia. And with nostalgia, there often comes that "things were better back then" sentiment. The Nintendo 64 was not a better console than modern consoles, that is simply a fact. Having the ability to save games to my hard drive and play online is amazing and I never want that to go away.

That being said, Nintendo 64 does deserve credit for recruiting new gamers.

How many kids played Mario Kart 64 or Goldeneye at a friend's place only to run home and ask their parents for an N64? There was something about split-screen gaming, about having your opponents right there with you, that made it more fun. It also helped that lag and toxic voice chat weren't a thing. Just cheating jerks who looked at your screens. Ah, the good old days...

24 Mind Blown

Such a contentious topic, and yet such a simple answer. Who knew that the earth was really flat all this time, and that such a set up makes it the perfect place to throw baby penguins to their doom? No wonder the mama penguin doesn't want us to speak to her or her son ever again. Meanwhile, did you know that the Nintendo 64 was actually very big in North America when it was released?

Demand was so high in the United States that even famous people failed to get one.

There are reports that notable figures such as Matthew Perry from Friends, director Stephen Spielberg, and several Chicago Bulls all tried calling Nintendo directly to work their celebrity magic and skip the long lines at stores. That's not even the worst part. Because nowadays, Nintendo does just give random celebrities and YouTubers Switches for free!

23 Too Much Rose Incense

You know I did always wonder why Venusaur has those crazy bloodshot eyes whenever it attacked in Pokémon Stadium. It seemed like such a specific detail for one Pokémon to have. No other Pokémon in that game got such a detail in their attack animation. It is meant to be drying itself out because it's pouring all of its energy into its move? Why don't other grass type Pokémon get bloodshot eyes? Are they not trying hard enough? Why are they so lazy? I wonder if that animation is still present in Venusaur's 3D model. On a different note, I always treasured the Stadium games for giving me 3D models of my favorite Pokémon. Which is something I totally take for granted now that they're on my phone. Nostalgia sure is a powerful thing. Just not as powerful as whatever Venusaur's on.

22 Did They Just Like Hold It Up To His Head Or...?

These memes always get a chuckle at me only because I'm not creative enough to make these kids of associations. If I saw that haircut, my thought process would simply stop at "woah that guy's hair looks weird." I would never reach the point of thinking that it reminded me of a years-old Nintendo game format, let alone posting it online to reap the sweet sweet internet points. Which kind of makes me wonder what I'm doing being a writer. This job sort of requires creativity. Maybe I should be a barber instead. Apparently all you have to do is hold game cartridges up to people's heads and clip away. I wonder if I can get ahead of the game by creating a new Switch card-based hairstyle...

21 Every Time, Link

Some things change, and some things stay the same. Even as Link is reincarnated through multiple generations and worlds, he still has a habit of putting his priorities in the wrong place. An ancient evil is going to be unleashed upon the world at any moment? Hold on, I still have to find a few hundred Koroks. My sister is kidnapped? But I need to fill my bottles. Ganon has spread his reign of darkness and terror for seven years? Oh well, fishing sounds nice.

While the Zelda series' penchant for having a big world with tons of content is great for gameplay, it kind of kills the story.

How do you create urgency while also giving players a huge checklist of fetch quests and secret items? You don't. Zelda can wait, I want to try to hit this chicken.

20 Secret Technique

Nintendo seems to go between offering amazing controllers to crappy controllers constantly. NES? Decent enough for being all there really was at the time. SNES? Great! N64? Holy crap what even is that controller? I never knew the right way to hold it as a kid. Who knew the secret was just sprouting an extra arm? Darn Nintendo and always requiring strange new peripherals. Fortunately, things got a lot better after the N64 era. The GameCube controller is probably the greatest controller in all of gaming. Even Nintendo's developers knew they could never surpass it, so they just started going crazy with remotes, tablets, and Joy Cons. Which are all fun but...what am I supposed to do with this third arm I grew to play N64?

19 He's Just Chewing A Jawbreaker

Not much to add to this weird visual hiccup, so I'm going to throw my last few Nintendo 64 facts at you. First, the Nintendo 64 ended its run with almost 400 games in total! Do you know what the last cartridge ever made for the Nintendo 64 was? Tony Hawk Pro Skater in 2002! What an iconic final game. Perhaps we can play it again if they make a Nintendo 64 classic. Although, the chances of that might be low. Part of the reason the NES and SNES got miniature rereleases is because they are seen as collectibles now, and originals can fetch a high price online. But the Nintendo 64 hasn't reached such a collectible status. You can still get them on eBay for well less than $100. Pretty crazy for a 20-year-old piece of discontinued hardware!

18 And Yet We Didn't Care

It's funny that game balance became such an essential concept in the online era of gaming. It makes sense, for sure. Nowadays, we have huge tournaments and even an entire league dedicated to multiplayer gaming.

A completely overpowered weapon or character would ruin it that the same way letting one football team deflate the balls would ruin sports.

But Overwatch League didn't exist in the '90s. We were kids playing for fun, and balance just didn't exist. In fact, entire matches with everyone using the Golden Gun happened all the time. As did full rocket matches later on in Halo. Even though it sometimes broke the game, we didn't care because we were too busy laughing. Except when Brian played as Oddjob. That was just a low blow. Stupid Brian.

17 Trigger Intense Music Flashbacks

This darned shark. Every time you want to risk going into the water he just appears out of nowhere and is basically right on top of you. The music that accompanies him is very ominous as well. Even though he only bites you for a small amount of health, the music alone was enough to creep me out. You know what else is scary?

The N64 had a disc drive and online features, two staples of modern gaming, back in the '90s.

However, these things never made it out of Japan. The 64DD was an attachable disc drive that helped the N64 keep with the PlayStation and Dreamcast in terms of entering the era of disc-based video games. The online service cost $25 a month and offered demos and some online competition. 25 dollars! And people complain about $5 a year for Pokémon Bank!

16 And Here's Your Mad Catz

Not only did the console's owner always get the player 1 slot, they also got the official Nintendo controller that came with the console. Everyone else got that Mad Catz garbage that died after like one game of Mario Party. Now that split-screen gaming is no more, I wonder if Mad Catz took a huge hit in business. I certainly only have one controller for my XBox One and PS4. And I don't think Mad Catz is going to try and create some $10 version of the Switch Joy Cons. Then again, this is Mad Catz we're talking about. There probably already exists a "Joy Wand" or "Pleasure Stick" or something. Just let me Google that real quick...uh...you know what...never Google pleasure stick.

15 You'd Think They'd Have A Species Neutral Restroom

With all the different types of creatures in the Mario world, do they only have two types of bathrooms? What about the Koopas and Goombas? Sure they're animals and mushrooms, but they are also sentient beings who hold down paying jobs as soldiers. They certainly deserve equal rights. In fact, now that I think about it, there actually seem to be more of them than there are humans. We only see a handful of humans but entire armies of Koopas and towns of Toads. So where do Mario and Peach come from? Are they immigrants from New Donk City? Except Mario looks way too cartoony compared to the city residents. So many questions. We need lore Nintendo! Give us the Mario timeline!

14 Enemy Goals

This is definitely one of the most iconic boss battles of all time. I would love to see Mario spin Bowser around by the tail in a future game. Fun fact related to Super Mario 64. You might remember that it was available at launch for the N64, but do you remember that it was one of only two games released at that time? The other was Pilot Wings 64.

But there was also a secret third launch game that was only released in Japan.

It was called Saikyō Habu Shōgi and, as the title would imply, was a virtual version of the Japanese board game Shogi. As Shogi is an old pastime of Japan, the game was expected to sell high. However, it was actually a flop that only sold one copy per every 100 N64s. The game was thrown out faster than Bowser in this picture, but still managed to get a sequel.

13 It Got Too Real

So...someone actually took the time to do this. The thing that really strikes me is the Kazooie. Her endless state into space. She's seen some things. Anyways, much like Banjo and Kazooie here, the Nintendo 64 took on many forms during its lifetime. There was, of course, the dark grey version that was most common. But as sales picked up and Nintendo decided to invest more in the console, it released green, blue, orange, red, black, and pink. Each color also had its own awesome see-through controller. That's not all. There were also several special edition N64s released. There was a green jungle edition for Donkey Kong 64, a special gold edition that could only be bought at Toys R Us, a Pokémon Battle Set, and three different Pikachu editions. Man, why does Nintendo always make the cool consoles after I buy them?

12 How Did They Get There?

Ah, Mario Kart. Teaching people life isn't fair for decades. Also teaching them that working hard is often rewarded with bananas. In all seriousness, I really just want to know the story behind this picture. Instead, I'll have to settle for the story behind the Nintendo 64. The Nintendo 64 was actually originally called Project Reality as a code name. When it got closer to being finished, it was dubbed the Nintendo Ultra 64 in honor of Nintendo's Ultra toys from the 1960s. Toys like the Ultra Hand, which was apparently the first grabby hand toy in history. However, Konami held the trademark for Ultra Games, so the final name was shortened to Nintendo 64. Makes you wonder where they got Wii and Wii U from.

11 The Downside To Split Screen

There's certainly a nostalgia when it comes to split screen gaming. There's just nothing quite like having your friends right next to you, and seeing the look on their face when you blue shell them. Even though voice chat has been a thing for years, it's just not the same. Even so, split screen was not without its flaws. One such flaw was forgetting which screen was yours. You think you're doing so well only to find out you're on the other screen, character flailing wildly and hitting walls.

The other downside to split screen gaming is screen looking.

When everyone is playing on the same small TV, it's hard not to see what your opponents are doing sometimes. But then there were those jerks who looked on purpose just to gain an advantage. It made shooter games downright unfair. Speaking of making shooters unfair...

10 This Guy

Overpowered characters and weapons were just part of the game back then, and there weren't things like tier lists to regulate their use. If you were smart, you would impose house rules to get rid of cheap tactics like picking Oddjob. And if your friends were decent human beings, they would agree.

Unfortunately, we all knew that one little cousin or sibling who just had to win at all costs. 

Too young to know or care about the concept of fairness, yet still old enough that your parents would force you to play with them, these little monsters did whatever cheap things were available to them. Playing Oddjob, Spamming Pikachu thunder in Super Smash Bros, no amount of your complaints would stop them. And if they won, you would never hear the end of it. Those memories make me glad online gaming exists now.

9 From A Certain Point Of View

Then there's the other side of the coin. The people who play the overpowered characters just for laughs. Maybe they didn't have an N64 of their own, so they didn't get to practice like everyone else in the friend group. Or maybe they were just bad at games and didn't care. Whatever it was, they would play Oddjob or spam easy moves in fighting games and laugh whenever they actually won. It wasn't malicious laughter though, like that of the little demons from the previous point. These types were just trying to break the game to see what happened. And many times, you couldn't help but laugh with them when they succeeded. After all, video games are meant to be fun. The right friends can remind you of that, even when they're being buttheads and picking Oddjob.

8 Pullitzer Prize Winner

Pokémon Snap, the one Pokémon spin-off game that managed to actually be good. Well, okay, Pokken is pretty cool too. But it seemed to really surprise Nintendo and Game Freak people when fans kept asking for some sort of Pokémon Snap remake or sequel on later consoles. They finally sort of gave it to us with the photography capabilities of the Rotom Dex in Sun and Moon. What probably also surprised Nintendo was the way the N64 sold. On a whole, the N64 sold 32.93 million units. 5.54 million of those were sold in Japan. A whopping 20.63 million were sold in the Americas, with the remaining 6.76 going to other regions worldwide. That means the Americas alone were responsible for buying almost two-thirds of the world's Nintendo 64s!

7 They Don't Make Them Like They Used To

Donkey Kong 64 was truly a rare game. See what I did there? But in all seriousness, I loved the Super Nintendo Donkey Kong Country games. So much. I played them countless times trying to unlock all their secrets and beat the final boss. And I never could. Then I got a Super Nintendo Classic and beat Donkey Kong Country in one night. So that was that. Anyway, flashback to my first time booting up Donkey Kong 64 and let's just say I was...confused. Where was Dixie Kong?

Why do I have to collect ten million things just to collect ten million more things?

And why does the orangoutang have no style or grace? These questions burned in my very soul, and yet to get answers I just had to collect more bananas. So...many...bananas.

6 Sometimes Older Is Actually Better

One thing I'll keep bringing up in this list is that older is not necessarily better. Sure those N64 classics seemed to have endless wonder and limitless fun as a kid, but when you play them as an adult you realize that the game is over in like five hours. Modern games last a lot longer with additional modes, online multiplayer, and DLC. Then there's Banjo Kazooie Nuts and Bolts. Nuts and Bolts might actually be bigger than the first two games in the series, but no one cares. No one cares because they took Banjo Kazooie and stripped it of everything that made it Banjo Kazooie. Change is a great thing. But not when you take a game and make it unrecognizable. So, yes, this time, the N64 game is actually better.