Read our round-up of the best ten websites that are informative, useful, and entertaining for all Nintendo fans.
Whether you want to know more about the development of Nintendo’s games, see some brilliant fan art, wallow in nostalgia, or keep your kids entertained, here are the top ten websites that every Nintendo enthusiast should bookmark.
1. Iwata Asks
Nintendo’s late great president Satoru Iwata oversaw many initiatives during his tenure. One of the smallest but most appreciated was an increasing willingness to reveal how the cake was baked at Nintendo’s talented development studios. This was best represented by the nine-year-long series of Iwata Asks features published on the Nintendo website.
Covering everything from Splatoon and the Wii U, to Fire Emblem and Jam with the Band, Iwata spoke to the creative minds behind the Nintendo’s games, hardware, and peripherals. In addition to providing an insight into the development process, each article is a reminder of Iwata’s curiosity and humour.
A printed collection is available in Japan from Hobonichi, and an English-language version is also planned for release. In the meantime, the Iwata Asks hub on Nintendo.com is a good place to begin, but the Wikipedia page also has links to some unlisted interviews.
Link: Iwata Asks / Wikipedia
2. My Nintendo
Many Nintendo fans still feel sore about the loss of Club Nintendo, the long-running rewards programme that gave members the chance to get exclusive merchandise in exchnage for buying Nintendo products. It was replaced by My Nintendo, a worldwide rewards platform that offers digital rewards and discounts for the ageing 3DS and Wii U platforms, in-game rewards for Nintendo’s mobile games.
My Nintendo points can also be redeemed against Switch software on the Nintendo eShop, and members get access to occasional physical goodies, such as the super-cool NES and SNES Switch controllers. It’s worth checking in with the site every so often to see the latest offers. We’ll also post updates here on Thumbsticks.
Link: My Nintendo
3. Before Mario
The name Nintendo is ubiquitous with video games, but the company has a long and storied history that began in 1889 as a hanafuda card manufacturer and covers everything from selling rice and running love hotels. The excellent Before Mario blog covers the products Nintendo created during the 60s and 70s, before it became a global gaming brand, and is a treasure trove of quirky toys, games, and gizmos.
Link: Before Mario
4. Supper Mario Broth
Supper Mario Broth is an ongoing Tumblr featuring thousands of Super Mario-related curios. You’ll find details of in-game easter eggs, merchandise oddities, magazine covers, interviews, and all sorts of Mushroom Kingdom-related miscellanea. It’s a warp pipe worth taking a trip through.
Link: Supper Mario Broth
5. Play Nintendo
Nintendo has always been a family-friendly company. It’s something reflected in the colourful nature of its biggest franchises and the (generally) robust build quality of its hardware. The Play Nintendo website is a kid-friendly hub chockfull of amusing distractions.
The site features characters, quizzes, digital jigsaw puzzles, polls, and more, all themed around Animal Crossing, Super Mario, Donkey Kong, Pokemon and Zelda. Another section features some print-at-home goodies to assemble, including placements, seasonal decorations, and dioramas. Most importantly of all, the site is pro-Tingle.
Link: Play Nintendo
6. Archiverse
The Wii U was not a blockbuster for Nintendo, but it was home to some wonderful games and plenty of innovation. One of its best is MiiVerse, a Nintendo-made social network that was at the core of the Wii U and eventually patched into the Nintendo 3DS.
Every Wii U game had a channel, and many – the likes of Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Maker, and Splatoon – were fully integrated with the network. Because of Nintendo’s family-focussed approach, MiiVerse was well-moderated and the result was a hive of creativity and humour with a genuine sense of community. MiiVerse closed down in 2017, but the folks at Archverse have preserved the entire thing. That’s 133,003,599 posts, 216,901,986 replies, and 72,135,190 drawings to explore. Yeah!
Link: Archiverse
7. The Super Mario Art Archive
The Super Mario Art Archive features a wealth of assets taken from games, websites, and promotional materials. In a Reddit post announcing the project, compiler Cevan says it’s an attempt to catalogue “every official modern Mario image done in the classic art style – specifically, those done by or in the style of Shigehisa Nakaue’s work.”
The entire collection is available to browse via Google Drive
Link: Super Mario art archive
8. Pokémon Database
Pokémon players have a wealth of destinations to visit to look up details of their favourite pocket monsters. The Pokédex on the official Pokémon website is a good place to start, and the recently released Pokémon Home for Switch and mobile is also feature-packed, at a price. However, for sheer usability and thoroughness, we nominate Pokémon Database. The site includes a listing for every single Pokémon, complete with details on its moves, base stats, evolutions, locations, and breeding.
Pokémon Database is also fast to load and suited to mobile devices, making it a useful companion whether you’re playing Sword or Shield on Switch, or Pokémon Go on mobile.
Link: Pokémon Database
9. Starmen.net
Starmen.net is one of several fan sites that have sprung up around specific Nintendo franchises. It’s the go-to destination for fans of the Mother and Earthbound series, pulling together an entertaining compendium of guides, magazine features, articles, and fan creations. So, if you’re a musician looking for the bass tab for Earthbound‘s Merrysville School theme, look no further. Metroid fans should also check out the equally excellent Shine Sparkers.
Link: Starmen.net
10. Unseen64
Another archive brimful of informative tidbits is Unseen64. The site contains articles, images, and videos for hundreds of unreleased and cancelled games across all platforms. Nintendo highlights include a look at the Game Boy Advance version of Grand Theft Auto III, the potential Nintendo DS port of Halo, and the unmade Earthbound sequel for GameCube.
Link: Unseen64
Honourable mentions
Other sites to visit include Super Smash Bros. fan community Smashboards, and the appropriately named Zelda Universe. We’ll also include a cheeky link to Nintendo Panic, an ever-growing collection of Nintendo box art from the makers of Thumbsticks. And finally, keep a link to Nintendo support website to hand, just in case you experience the dreaded Joy-Con drift or a cracked Switch screen.
You can also read our guide to the 10 useful video game websites everyone should bookmark.
Of course, the secret best video games website is Thumbsticks, so thank you for reading our news, features, guides and reviews. Please stay in touch by following us on Flipboard, Facebook, Google News, and Twitter.
