At first I tried to rank each game in order of difficulty but it became very arbitrary. Instead this page lists how to beat each game listed by order of how long it took. Naturally if you are good at Mahjong or Shogi those games will pose little problem for you. But for mere mortals such as myself, they are next to impossible. For that reason I would argue that Habu The Strongest Shogi is the hardest game on the N64. My guides for 63 of the games. I think we can divide games up into the following categories- Games that are fun and easy to beat.
I.e SM64 and Wave Race.- Games that require quick mental skill or special knowledge.
I.e Mahjong, Pachinko and shogi games. Also puzzle games such as Puyo Puyo and Sim City.- Games that require Japanese language ability.
I.e Wonder Project J2, Sim City, Mareel II The Murder Route
- Games that require gameplay skill but are fair and fun.
I.e Blast Corps and Sin and Punishment.- Games that are technically easy but are long and therefore boring and hard to finish.
I.e Sports games such football and baseball games.- Games that are poorly made and are therefore unnecessarily difficult
I.e Turok 1 and Hyper Olympics in Nagano 64.Additionally many games have unclear ending conditions, meaning you could spend tens of hours beating a certain mode, only to find out it does not result in clearing the game. If the game has credits, I have explained the conditions to see them. I do not consider myself to be that good at video games, although I do like the Soul's series and shmups. For reference, I used to consider the PAL version of Body Harvest to be one of the hardest N64 games. But it is hard for me to objectively rank these games because I played many of them for many hours as a child, so some of them are quite easy for me now. It is also hard to rank the games based on how much Japanese you need to know to easily get through them. For reference I had passed the N3 level of the Japanese Language Proficiency test when I started the challenge and it was enough to understand and beat Wonder Project J2 in Japanese. Most games can be cleared easily with trial and error and of course you can rely on the guides I have written. Games that have western releases are also relatively easy because you can refer to western manuals and guides.