11 Best Nintendo Fan Games That You Should Know Update 04/2024

Best Nintendo Fan Games

Nintendo is known for being the worst company when it comes to fan-made games that use their intellectual property (IP). Even though protecting intellectual property is important in the internet age, Nintendo’s actions seem way too harsh.

Because Nintendo has so much money, it often scares creators into giving up on projects that have taken years to make. Some lost labours of love are more important than others. One example is games that people have been asking for for years but never got made.

Pokémon Tried To Bring The Regions Together

Pokémon

People who have played the Pokémon games for a long time have dreamed for years about a game that includes all of the regions. Traveling from Kanto to Hoenn or Galar to Johto in order to battle and catch all different types of Pokémon would be a dream game, the ultimate entry in an expansive franchise.

Aside from the games set in Johto, players haven’t been able to do this in any official game. Pokénet tried to make the dream come true and let players talk to each other in real time, like they could in World of Warcraft. Nintendo shut it down, of course.

Another Metroid 2 Remake Was Anything But Generic

Another Metroid 2 Remake was made by DoctorM64 in 2016 to make up for the lack of a real remake of Metroid 2. Its name alluded to the fact that Metroid fans had tried many times to make a faithful remaster of the game, since the original game was so popular.

When AM2R came out, though, it was clear that this remake would be different. AM2R had all-new items, bosses, and a map feature that made fans drool. A Nintendo Cease and Desist letter later that year took away the chance to play this improved version of an underrated classic.

Full Screen Mario Was Simple But Great

Paper Mario And The Thousand-Year Door

Josh Goldberg, a programmer, made Full Screen Mario to try to make a version of the first Super Mario Bros. game for the NES. It took him a long time to make because it was hard to recreate how Mario jumps and there were a lot of bugs, but the game is now available to play online and download.

Widescreen Mario didn’t get known until a few years after it was finished, but when an online gaming magazine picked it up, its popularity took off. In 2016, Nintendo filed more than one DMCA, which led to most platforms taking the game down.

Zelda Maker Could’ve Let The Fans Live Their Dream

In response to Nintendo’s Mario Maker games, Justin Sink made Zelda Maker to show that it wasn’t as hard to make this kind of game as Nintendo made it sound. The game was made in Game Maker, and it would have let players use pre-made Legend of Zelda assets to make their own maps.

Fans of the series were thrilled. It was a dream come true to have a fan-made game where anyone could make their own maps. Nintendo, on the other hand, didn’t like it and filed a DMCA as soon as they could. The developer changed the name of the game to Runiya to keep from losing everything, but Nintendo’s pride caused them to lose their dream project.

No Mario’s Sky Was A Hilarious Little Game

No Mario's Sky

No Mario’s Sky was a mix of the games No Man’s Sky and Super Mario Bros., as the name suggests. Mario could travel between worlds not by walking, but by taking a cute little spaceship into the sky and blasting off to literally another world.

The game’s idea and demo looked great. The art style was unique and reminded people of both the old Mario games and a sci-fi world. After Nintendo sent them a DMCA, the game’s creators had to change the name of the game. The game is now called DMCA’s Sky, which is kind of a joke name.

Ocarina Of Time 2D Cut The Classic Down Perfectly

One of the many remakes of old games, Ocarina of Time 2D was an ambitious project that attempted to bring the N64 classic down a dimension. The project started in 2006, but there was a long break between then and 2014. It was supposed to come out in the summer of 2016, because after many years of hard work, the game was pretty much done.

After Nintendo gave a “Cease and Desist” order, the whole project came to a stop. You can still go to the website where the download would have been, where a button says “Hopefully, it will be out in June!”

Zelda 30 Tribute Was A Way To Say Thank You

Zelda 30 Tribute

This is one of Nintendo’s more upsetting shutdowns because the game was made to celebrate Zelda’s 30th birthday. Zelda 30 Tribute is a remake of the first The Legend of Zelda game in 3D and isometric view. It was made out of love for the series. Even the blocky, pixel-like style of the originals was kept in its art. Nintendo didn’t like this bad use of their licenced franchise, so they shut it all down and tried to get it off the internet as much as they could.

Pokémon Uranium Was Fun And Fully Original

The excitement about the release of Pokémon Uranium, a fan-made Pokémon game that was made entirely by fans, can’t be said enough. Most fan games were just ROM hacks of Pokémon games that were already out, but this game was made with all new assets and Pokémon to play with.

The Pokémon fan community hadn’t made such a good fan-made game in years. Again, before the game came out, Nintendo said it couldn’t be played, and for a while, it wasn’t. The game has been redone, though, and you can still download it today.

Super Mario 64 HD Showed Nintendo It Could Be Done

Super Mario 64

People talked about the 2015 HD fan-remake of the Bob-Omb Battlefield stage, which wasn’t a full remake of the original Super Mario 64 on the N64. It showed how easy it would be for Nintendo to make their games easier to play on newer consoles if they wanted to. Why couldn’t they do it if one guy could?

Videos of the demo were shared on YouTube, and both small creators and big entertainment sites talked about it. As many people thought, Nintendo took it away for good.

Another Metroid 2 Remake

You’d think Nintendo would want to celebrate the 30th anniversary of one of their most popular series, right? No. Nintendo’s only Metroid-related action in 2016 was to shut down this amazing fan remake of Metroid II: The Return of Samus, which was a remaster worthy of the Virtual Console with updated graphics and gameplay. It fits right in with the most recent 2D games in the series, which are the GBA classics Metroid Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen much like them since. Federation Force doesn’t count, either.