NL 10s – 20 Years of Reviews
First of all, though, some numbers and housekeeping.
The Stats
After removing re-releases and ports from the equation, Nintendo Life has given out 10/10 scores to 69 games over 20 years. (Yes, yes, that’s just the number it happens to be!) That averages to just under 3.5 ‘Outstanding’ games per year.
That might sound a lot, but it’s worth remembering the sheer number of reviews we’ve published, including migrations from the VC Reviews era and our newer Mini Review format. Remember, also, that Virtual Console releases resulted in an influx of 8-, 16-, and 64-bit classics, producing a clutch of ‘vintage’ 10/10s early doors. The site may be 20, but we’ve covered nearly half a century of video games!
Digging into the backend, the data says we currently have…7,599 reviews in the archives. Blimey.
That averages to approximately one review a day. Every single day, for two decades. Some years have been busier than others (we had a mind-boggling 609 go live in 2018, for instance), but it’s still pretty astonishing. A huge shoutout and thank you to all NL staff and contributors, past and present, who helped make the site what it is from the mid-2000s right up to now.
The Royal ‘We’ & Other Misconceptions
For the Switch 2 generation, NL switched from using first-person plural (‘we’) in reviews to the singular (‘I’), partly to help remedy confusion for readers who weren’t familiar with the convention. “How can you give GAME X a 7 when you gave GAME Y a 9, and this is objectively better?!” Erm, is it? Did I? That was a different person… *checks notes* over a decade ago.
Continuity is preferred, with one writer tackling the same series, for instance – something we endeavour to do whenever possible. Regardless, a review can’t be anything but the subjective opinion of the writer, and a snapshot of their thinking at the time. That should be self-evident, but nevertheless, it seems to confuse a lot of people! Likewise, it is not an editor’s job to arbitrarily push scores up or down according to personal preference or what ‘the site’ awarded a similar game.
Some games below might have you raising an eyebrow, and a couple you might not have even heard of. Just remember, if there’s something below that you wouldn’t give a 10…that’s fine! In some cases, you’ll find comments from the original reviewer exploring if they still hold the game in such high esteem years after the fact. (A big thank you to those who contributed!)
The Bar (What constitutes a 10/10 in 2026?)
In 2026, for us, it’s raising the genre bar which makes for the highest possible score.
Executing perfectly and having ‘nothing wrong with it’ isn’t enough these days – there has to be an ambition in a game’s design that pushes at the limits, that expands the possibility space.
For instance, a sequel to a game we gave 10/10 years ago doesn’t automatically get one for being ‘better’ by comparison. You’ll see several games below that got re-released later and didn’t hit the same high in a modern context. Games evolve and the medium moves forward; the best examples must go beyond simply refining what came before. In some fashion, a 10 should break new ground.
It’s worth remembering, too, that there really is no such thing as a ‘perfect’ game. Let’s remind ourselves of our current criteria for awarding our highest score, as communicated in our Scoring Policy:
10/10 — Outstanding
The pinnacle of a given genre at the time of release, these titles raise the bar in virtually all critical categories. You can be sure that a game awarded this score has the highest quality presentation and expertly honed gameplay, but also breaks boundaries and pushes the industry forward in a meaningful manner.
Okay, enough preamble. Enough caveats. Enough signage to tap when the comments come in. Below is every video game Nintendo Life has awarded a 10/10 score in its 20-year history, presented in release date order.
Note. Where multiple versions of the same title have gotten top marks — RE4, Link’s Awakening, BOTW, for example — we’ve distilled them into a single entry and noted the duplicates.
Let’s start at the beginning and celebrate some exceptionally good video games ‘we’ have had the pleasure of reviewing…
Every Game NL Awarded 10/10 (2005-2025)
Mega Man 2 (NES)
We begin with an all-timer, one of the finest NES games ever made.
“Mega Man 2 is a textbook example of a sequel done right,” said Philip J Reed, dearly departed friend of the site who rated this one very highly in his 2013 Virtual Console review.
Building on the strengths of the first game while refining the bits that didn’t work so well, whether this or its sequel is the best Mega Man game is a debate that will rage forever (and Mega Man X says hi), but it’s tough to disagree with Philip’s assessment. This is an 8-bit masterpiece.
Super Mario Bros. 3 (NES)
What is there to say? It’s the game that tops our Top 50 NES list, it’s the best NES game on NSO, it’s the jewel that is Super Mario Bros. 3.
Wondrous when it was first released, it’s one of those rare ‘old’ games that doesn’t need caveats or a history lesson for any player of any skill level to appreciate and enjoy in 2026. It’s still, simply, outstanding.
Including various VC releases and the GBA port (the snappily titled Super Mario Advance 4: Super Mario Bros. 3), we’ve had four reviews of this on the site over the years, each one a 10.
And eyebrows across the land remained absolutely horizontal. Perhaps the next one might prove more divisive?
Super Mario World (SNES)
Perhaps not. From one GOAT to another, Super Mario World is…well, it’s Super Mario World, isn’t it.
“I remember reading the 96/100 scoring review in Issue 112 of Computer and Video Games magazine,” says our original reviewer Jamie O’Neill. “The game was hyped as being special right from the Super Famicom’s launch, so I went on a journey of saving for a PC Engine to buying a Mega Drive instead, but I was convinced to sell my Mega Drive to play Super Mario World.”
As with its predecessor, time hasn’t dulled this, either. “Its Nintendo artistry feels even more special now,” says Jamie, “to the point that I have a Super Mario World cartridge permanently slotted into my spare, original Game Boy Advance, with 326 lives accumulated on one save slot.”
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (SNES)
I promise, there will be a couple of ‘Huh?’ moments, but this list, naturally, is propped up primarily by pillars of the medium.
The Legend of Zelda rolled out the blueprint, which Zelda II promptly rolled up and threw out the window. A Link to the Past, true to its title, went back in time to the source and laid the foundations for a quarter-century of the series.
Even after the move to 3D, Zelda III (as nobody calls it) remained the one to follow, the one to beat. Poor Zelda IV never stood a chance…
The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (GB)
Link’s Awakening: “Hold my beer.”
Link’s Awakening took its predecessor’s template and, remarkably, shrunk it down to Game Boy proportions without diminishing the series’ scope or imagination, throwing in some Lynchian spice to stunning effect. “It would be difficult to argue against The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening being the pinnacle of gaming on the Game Boy system,” Corbie Dillard said in 2009. Difficult, indeed.
This affecting little adventure came back colourised in DX form, too, gaining another NL 10 in the process – something that the Switch remake couldn’t quite manage. “The HD remake is charming, gorgeous, and unnecessary,” says Jacob Crites, our reviewer for the GBC version. “Link’s Awakening (and the colourised DX) remains a timeless, dreamy labour of love, which first began as an after-hours project by a handful of passionate Nintendo programmers.”