Vini64's 2023 Gaming Retrospective
2023 was an incredible year for me when it comes to gaming. It was the year I left my comfort zone the most, playing games of genres I swore I hated until recently, and also the year I got into many popular franchises that I had never played before. So I’d like to do a little retrospective of everything that made up my 2023 gaming journey in a ranking format, from the weakest to my favorite games I played this year.
16. Yakuza Kiwami (2016)
Though I didn’t really play any games I downright hated this year, I know well which one was my least favorite, and that’s Yakuza Kiwami. This was one of the big franchises I got into this year, one that a bunch of close friends love, and thankfully Kiwami wasn’t the first Yakuza game I played - that one will be appearing much later on this ranking, but had Kiwami been the first I highly doubt I would’ve kept going forward into the franchise, because MAN this game sure is weak! Majima showing up everywhere unfortunately wasn’t enough to save this remake from mediocrity.
The story is unremarkable, with no memorable moments I can remember, something that’s a shame for someone who started with Yakuza 0 like me, because you expect to see more of Kiryu’s relationship with the amazing character that is Nishiki, except in Kiwami he’s FAR from being that, instead he’s just an asshole and a shadow of the great character he used to be. I get that this remake doesn’t change the story from the original Yakuza 1, but then why did they make him so likable in Yakuza 0 if they knew he was such a shitty character in the first game?
And that’s not the only thing they don’t change from the original game, because the cutscenes are all ported over from it and inserted in this game’s new engine and it is clearly noticeable in most of them with how stiff they look, which really bothered me after coming from Yakuza 0, a game released before this one but with much better looking cutscenes. Also the substories in this game are 80% just Kiryu falling for a scam. Had to bring that up too.
But even worse than all that is the combat. Good lord, the boss fights in this game are INSUFFERABLE, them alone are enough to make me not want to replay this game ever again. So yeah, Yakuza Kiwami is by far the game I enjoyed the least out of everything I played this year. I wouldn’t exactly call it bad, but it sure isn’t good.
15. Crash Bandicoot 4 (2020)
If you played this game you might be surprised to see it this low, but it’s more because of the circumstances in which I played it than by demerit of the game itself, because my first experience with Crash Bandicoot 4 was beating it in a single sitting during a blind race with some friends, and lemme tell you - this game was NOT made to be beaten in a single sitting in your first playthrough.
This game is often criticized by how batshit insane it is to complete 100%, and of course I didn’t even consider doing that, but even just beating it normally is pretty exhausting due to how unfair it can get, especially near the final levels, of which some are downright kaizo-like, not to mention the frustration caused by the jankiness me and my friends experienced, like some bizarre glitches and stuff like 2D sidescroller levels not limiting your movement to a 2D plane, meaning you can fall off the sides easily.
I’m confident that if I played this game bit by bit throughout some days I would’ve enjoyed it more, but its shortcomings are still pretty glaring. It’s like they focused more on the difficult and completion aspects of the PS1 games and turned them up to eleven, making the experience more frustrating than fun sometimes. It’s still the best Crash game since the original trilogy (and maybe Twinsanity), but it’s nowhere near as replayable as those.
14. Kuru Kuru Kururin (2001)
Really addictive and charming puzzle game that I’m sad wasn’t revisited again after the 2000s because the concept is so simple yet full of potential, it’d be an instant hit if they did a 99-style game for the Nintendo Switch Online service. The level design gets pretty damn tricky too by the end, you’ve no idea how much of an anxiety-inducing experience it is trying to get through the tightest of corners with a long propeller that’s constantly turning left or right.
Not much else to say about this one, really. It’s short and sweet, go play it if you have the NSO Expansion Pack, it’s one of GBA’s finest games they have in offer there.
13. Yakuza Kiwami 2 (2017)
After my disappointment with Kiwami 1, I was very weary of Kiwami 2, but thankfully my experience with it was considerably better. It’s an improvement in every single aspect, especially the combat (boss fights don’t make me want to cut my wrists anymore) and exploration, with everything in the cities being connected now, meaning you can now seamlessly enter and exit stores with no loading screens in between. The game also looks much prettier now, thanks to the brand new Dragon Engine (and I don’t mind the green Matrix filter many people complain about).
The substories are also much more memorable, with a bunch of funny ones that are among the best in the franchise (out of the games I played so far), like one where you find a Kiryu impersonator, the one Kiryu watches a horror movie tape and gets jumpscared, the one he’s unknowingly pulled into recording voice lines for an erotic visual novel, the one he finds a clan made of men that wear diapers (Kingdom Hearts fans)... There’s many crazy ones!
The main story, however, is still nothing to write home about. There are more memorable characters than in the previous game and the way the drama and romance is so over-the-top it feels like a soap opera does have some charm to it, so yeah, it’s better than Kiwami 1, but the bar was so low it was almost on the ground there. This game also has that one scene of Kiryu punching the table that you’d see the gif being used everywhere, so that alone already makes it more memorable than the entirety of Kiwami 1.
12. Sonic Frontiers (2022)
This one I actually started last year when it came out, 100%’d the first world in a single sitting, posted on Twitter how the game was neat, then proceeded to not play it again for half an year LMAO Because yeah, I liked playing it but it wasn’t enough to get me hooked, so it wasn’t until months later that I finally decided to play it through to the end (...literally).
I’m one of those Sonic fans that really likes the series but knows more than half of the games are shit, and the previous 3D Sonic game, Sonic Forces, was EXCEEDINGLY shit, one of the worst games I ever played, so Sonic Frontiers going for a different direction felt like a breath of fresh air, and thankfully it is indeed a step in the right direction, because the game is fun, I genuinely liked my time with it from beginning to end, however... it does need A LOT of tweaking.
Controlling Sonic feels great for the most part, it’s a blast exploring those expansive areas at lightning speed, but it’s also janky as fuck. There’s many things you can do with Sonic that you know you shouldn’t be able to, but the broken physics of the game allow you to finagle your way through, like scaling a steep mountain by mashing the drop dash; or they screw you up, something that frequently happens in the countless 2D sections. Another big part of the game is the combat, which I honestly don’t mind - it can feel pretty satisfying doing some crazy combos, though some enemies are a pain in the ass to deal with because of waiting cycles.
I said exploring the areas is a blast, but the merit certainly doesn’t go to the areas themselves, because they’re just bland realistic-looking environments that feel nothing like a Sonic game. It’s like those Unreal Engine demos that fans would make and people would go “HIRE THIS MAN!!!”, and sure enough, Sega hired that man and now we have Sonic running on a realistic generic desert. The gameplay loop is pretty repetitive, consisting of getting trinkets around the maps by clearing platforming sections or menial puzzles, but it’s fun, it never bored me.
Sometimes the pacing is broken by the Cyberspace levels, bite-sized challenges that revert the gameplay back to the boost formula from Sonic Unleashed onwards, whose a bunch of level designs are lifted straight from older games. Those are a welcome change of pace from the exploration of the main game - blazing through these stages to get the best rankings offer a rush of adrenaline that Sonic Forces couldn’t get even close to offering. And this is where the best songs in the whole game are found, some absolute bangers that are among the best in the whole Sonic franchise (which is saying A LOT, considering this franchise always delivers on the music department).
As for the story, I was never one to care about Sonic plots, so it wasn’t much different with this one, despite the new direction they took with it, being more somber and introspective. It’s an interesting approach, though it also needs some fine tuning, because it’s pretty convoluted and there are still the occasional jokes being cracked at inappropriate times. Oh, and the writing is WAY TOO self-referential to the point it gets annoying - hearing Sonic mentioning events of every Sonic game under the sun one every two lines isn’t a particularly enticing kind of fanservice.
Should be noted that all my thoughts are related to the game before that big update that added new characters, new story and new challenges. I've beaten the game before that dropped and didn’t play it yet, but I’ve heard very conflicting opinions about it. I do plan to play it eventually though, especially because a close friend of mine absolutely loved it. But yeah, it may feel like I was harsh on the game, but I genuinely believe it’s a solid blueprint for the future of the series. Can’t wait to see how they’ll improve on it with the next 3D Sonic entry.
11. Pilotwings 64 (1996)
And here we have the last game I beat this year - on Christmas Day, even! Despite renting a bunch of N64 games during my childhood, Pilotwings 64 is one I never played and was never interested in playing, especially after growing up. Something about its visuals always put me off, mainly the characters, they look so ugly lmao, but I knew the soundtrack was a banger because of the Birdman track I’d listen to every now and then, some sweet sweet jazz.
But with it being available on NSO, I decided to give it a shot and I enjoyed it a fair amount! I’ve always heard people saying how it’s a soothing and relaxing game, and while that’s certainly true about the first few missions, this game gets TOUGH halfway through with its missions, relaxed is the last thing you’ll feel while trying to complete them, especially if you’re going for silver and gold medals, which I didn’t even bother trying to go for because I was getting frustrated with them (so I didn’t unlock yet the extra games that you do so by getting silver medals in every mission).
But it’s the good kind of frustrating! It’s those challenges that are tough to complete but really satisfying when you’re finally able to do so, and then later you decide “maybe I should try going for that medal”. I miss this type of shorter games centered around score-based missions, they’re always extremely addictive and replayable, so I’ll definitely come back to this game in the near future to try and get those medals to unlock the extra games.
GAMES I REPLAYED (AND ROMHACKS)
Before we move on to the top 10, I’d like to quickly go over the games I replayed and some romhacks I played for the first time. The first game I replayed this year was Bowser’s Fury, beat it in a single sitting, and it’s easy to see why some people even consider it better than Super Mario Odyssey (not me though), because it is just that good, I enjoyed it even more during this playthrough, it’s clear how this was made to test the grounds for the next 3D Mario. If that game happens to be like Bowser’s Fury but on a much larger scale, we’re in for one of the best games of all time.
I mentioned in the Crash Bandicoot 4 section how I first played it during a race with some friends, which is how I replayed two other games. The first was Yoshi’s Island, in which I placed 4th in the race (out of 5 people) because I suck at 2D sidescrollers, but I still love this game to pieces, it’s insane how creative and inventive it is from beginning to end, much better than Super Mario World imo.
The second was Sonic 1, in which I placed 2nd in the race (out of 3 people), but that race was considerably more frustrating because Sonic 1 fucking sucks, the level design is littered with bullshit made to screw you up and stages that completely break the pace of the game. People love to dog on Labyrinth Zone, deservedly so, but going from Green Hill to Marble Zone is the biggest whiplash in the history of gaming, ESPECIALLY considering how this game was marketed in the 90s as super fast paced and dynamic while Marble Zone is the antithesis to all of that. Still the worst classic 2D Sonic.
The fourth and final game we did a race of was a Super Mario World romhack based on a Mario fangame I used to play somewhat frequently (but never beaten) in the 2000s, called Mario Forever. Even though I never played it again after I “grew up”, that game would every now and then come to my mind, especially all its original music. So this year we found out there was a super faithful SMW romhack based on that game and we decided to do a blind race of it, which would be much better than trying to find a download link of the fangame through a sea of malware. It was fun playing it! I placed last in that race though (out of 3 people).
Another romhack I played was Paper Mario TTYD64, which, as the name suggests, is a romhack of Paper Mario 64 but with TTYD’s mechanics, like the battle system with the ability to superguard and do stylish moves, partners having their own health and badges, a higher level cap and badges taken from that game. There’s also a bunch of new areas, including sections taken straight from TTYD (which are cleverly hidden on each chapter), along with difficulty settings that offer a nice challenge for someone who’s played the original countless times such as myself. The remixes of TTYD songs are atrocious, though.
And the last game I replayed this year was the one and only I replay every single year in December as a tradition: Star Fox 64. It’s my favorite N64 game after Super Mario 64 and definitely one of my all time favs, too. My score wasn’t as great this year, though... Will I ever be able to beat my high score that I don’t even remember when I set? Probably not... But I will keep replaying this game every December until the end of my life, and maybe on one of those occasions I’ll beat my old ass high score. That pic above is of my own N64 btw, taken during this last playthrough.
10. Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe (2023)
If this was a list of the most unexpected remakes, it’d be first place no doubt. Not even the most optimistic Kirby fan (me!) could’ve imagined we’d get a remake of Return to Dream Land, especially right after we had just gotten the fantastic Kirby and the Forgotten Land (my GOTY of 2022) and the spin-off Kirby’s Dream Buffet, but we surely didn’t complain about it, and as expected of HAL Laboratory, the remake is fantastic.
Given it’s a Wii game, you’d imagine they’d just upscale everything and call it a day, but no, this is a remake from the ground up, with all models, assets and backgrounds completely remade, and HOLY DAMN if this game isn’t gorgeous! It’s even prettier than the previous 2D Kirby game on the Switch, Star Allies. Just that alone would justify the existence of this remake, but HAL is never content with the bare minimum, so they added some substantial new modes.
The one heavily featured on marketing material was Merry Magoland, a multiplayer-focused side mode featuring many subgames returning from previous games in the series and two brand new ones. Usually the subgames are just meant for a quick diversion in Kirby games, but this mode is surprisingly in-depth, featuring a bunch of missions for each subgame (that are fun to do even in single player!) and collectibles in the form of masks that you can get by playing them. Some will even alter Kirby’s sound effects when worn, which can be funny as heck.
But even better than Merry Magoland was the new campaign, Magolor Epilogue. You get to play as Magolor, the game’s “villain”, who starts incredibly weak, but as you progress through the campaign (which lasts around 3-4 hours, a solid amount for an extra mode) you unlock new abilities that make him overpowered af. The central mechanic of this mode is chaining combos on enemies with your attacks to get more Magic Points (that you use to get the aforementioned abilities), and it’s incredibly satisfying to chain massive combos. Undoubtedly one of the best extra modes in the entire Kirby series.
However, with all that said, Return to Dream Land is the game that started what Kirby fans like to refer to as the “modern era”. As such, it’s a solid yet pretty standard Kirby game, with simple level themes, bosses and gimmicks, aspects that would get much expanded on in the next games. If Triple Deluxe and Planet Robobot get remakes as phenomenal as this one I’ll be the happiest Kirby fan in the world.
09. Paper Mario: The Origami King (2020)
And here we have a game I originally dropped. I’m a massive fan of the first two Paper Mario games, they’re some of my favorite games of all time, so after things started changing with Super Paper Mario and hit the bottom of the barrel with Sticker Star, you can imagine how disappointed I felt. I gave a chance to Color Splash back in the Wii U days but dropped it because of the obnoxiously convoluted battle system and gave a chance to Origami King when it came out in 2020 because the battle system looked tolerable this time around, but alas... the game still didn’t grab me and I dropped it after finishing the first world.
Fast forward to September 2023, when the unthinkable happened - a remake of Paper Mario TTYD got announced. Should go without saying, but that announcement got me so ecstatic I even cried. For some inexplicable reason, that gave me the urge to give a second chance to Origami King and I’m glad that happened, because this time I ended up playing it until the end and I really enjoyed it.
Beneath all the restrictions on original characters and RPG elements that have been plaguing the series since Sticker Star, there’s a game brimming with charm and creativity. Exploring the areas might just be even more fun than in the first two games, with each of them bringing something unique to the table, like traversing in a boot car a desert whose sun has been cut out from the sky, going to an amusement park themed around feudal Japan, sailing the seas on a boat while finding several funny-shaped small islands, teaming up with Bowser Jr. and Kamek to visit five hot springs located high up in the skies, venturing through temples belonging to ancient elemental creatures...
It really is crazy the amount of variety on display in every single area of this game, with so many memorable moments, lovely character interactions and setpieces that would be enough to make me consider Origami King to be as good as the first few Paper Mario games. BUT! One of the main reasons I love the first game and TTYD so much is the battle system, and unfortunately for this game, its battle system is nowhere near as engaging.
Thankfully it’s not as bad as in Sticker Star and Color Splash, where the battle systems completely ruin the games, but it’s still just as pointless engaging in normal battles, due to the lack of EXP. The battles are now more puzzle-like, where you gotta line up the enemies properly for more damage. While it is better than in the previous two games, especially as the game goes on and they get more complex, I gotta admit I really suck at these and I’d often just use the Toads to help me find the solution to the puzzles lmao
The boss fights, however, are the ones I found truly engaging (pictured above). These battles have you figuring out a way to get to the boss by lining up panels on the board, of which some offer damage multipliers, hints on how to find the bosses’ weaknesses and other perks, so you gotta really think through what path you’ll create for yourself, especially with some bosses’ gimmicks that restrict the way the board moves or add obstacles. Most of the bosses offer a great challenge with fights that can last up to 30 minutes without feeling exhausting, so yeah, they’re another of this game’s great triumphs.
The only thing I’m not too keen on regarding this game's exploration is how pointless the collectibles are. There’s no satisfaction in finding chests because they usually just contain a figure for the museum. Same thing for hidden ? Blocks, which just give you things you can easily buy in shops. That’s a byproduct of the dumbed down battle system, that prevents more meaningful accessories and items from existing. The only interesting collectibles are the hearts that increase your total HP and attack, but instead of appreciating those, instead they make me think: why didn’t they tie these to a level up system? It’s baffling the lengths they went to to distance themselves from proper RPG mechanics.
All in all, even with its shortcomings, Origami King is one super charming game that almost reaches the heights of the first few Paper Mario games. It’s a shame how some people still lump it together with Sticker Star and Color Splash, because it’s much, MUCH better than those games. I couldn’t be any happier to have given this game another shot.
08. Super Mario RPG remake (2023)
Earlier I said Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe would be first place if this was a list of most unexpected remakes, but strike that - THIS would be the first place! Although a remake of Super Mario RPG is something many people yearned for, we all thought it was never going to happen due to how Nintendo always refused to acknowledge this game and how half of the rights belonged to Square Enix, but here we are!
This is without a doubt one of the most faithful remakes ever made, especially considering how modern day remakes love to modernize the game so much it ends up feeling like a new game altogether, but all this Mario RPG remake does is upgrade the visuals (which are VERY pretty) and add quality of life improvements, mainly to the battle system. That’s it.
Even the soundtrack stays true to the original, opting to simply remake the tracks but with higher quality samples and an orchestral arrangement, barely rearranging them or adding new sections, and that’s fine, because the remade tracks sound so lovely. Some don’t hit as hard as the originals, particularly the battle songs, but thankfully there’s the option to switch to the original SNES soundtrack if you want to. I do appreciate how the battle tracks add a layer of percussion when you successfully keep up a combo chain though, it’s always satisfying and it gives this extra oomph to the battles.
Speaking of battles, the game was made considerably easier than the original, mainly due to the quality of life improvements it introduced, such as perfect timed hits damaging multiple enemies, being able to swap between all five members, and the Triple Moves, but those changes make the game feel more enjoyable, because it could get pretty unfair and frustrating originally. There’s still some nice challenges to be found too, especially with the postgame rematches, another new addition. Would’ve been interesting if they added a hard mode, though. They added an easy mode, so why not the other way round too?
The aforementioned rematches are the only new content they added to the campaign, which is pretty dang short for RPG standards. Even if it’s your first time playing, you’re unlikely to take more than 15 hours to finish. It would’ve been nice to have more content added, but it’s still a most enjoyable ride, makes it more replayable, too. It’s impossible to not get enamored by the overflowing charisma of this game, be it in its varied locations and its colorful cast of characters, and of course the engaging battle system, not to mention the absurd amount of secrets it has, most of which you’re likely to encounter only across multiple playthroughs.
My only nitpick about this game is its biggest strength - its faithfulness to the original game. This remake is so faithful almost to a fault, because certain aspects of it could have benefitted from some improvements, mainly in the sound design department, with some moments having no sound effects at all when the characters are doing certain actions, so it feels wrong having these be silent. The dialogue boxes having no SFX is also weird nowadays imo. All those things were like that in the SNES original, so they opted to not improve it, but even the new CGI cutscenes also lack sound design, so they just feel empty. Some of the overworld movement can also be a bit tricky because of the isometric perspective, sometimes even frustratingly so.
But obviously those are just small nuisances that don’t drag this game down at all. This is one of the best remakes not just of recent times but of all time. Here’s hoping the Paper Mario TTYD remake follows the same footsteps as this one!
07. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (2023)
You see that pic above? That’s me and my friends excited that we’d be playing Super Mario Bros. Wonder. But not only that, we’d be playing it before everyone else, because the game leaked a week early and we downloaded it! I never do that because I don’t have a modded Switch, but my friend did and I traveled to meet him and another friend (that lives in Ireland but was visiting Brazil again), so we simply couldn’t miss the chance of playing this game early together, since by the time it’d be legitimately out, the trip would’ve been over.
It is true that rumors about a new 2D Mario had been happening for a long while up until the point this game was revealed, but I can say for myself that the New Super Mario Bros. series wore off the charm of 2D Mario so much I wasn’t even sure if I wanted another 2D Mario ever. However, the reveal trailer for Mario Wonder eased my mind and showed something completely different from the blandness of the NSMB games - a brand new 2D Mario game with a beautifully charming artstyle, brimming with creativity and new ideas. It felt like it had the potential to be the best 2D Mario ever created, and that’s exactly what it ended up being.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is basically a 2D Mario with the inventiveness of 3D Mario, in which every individual level feels unique and introduces new fun gimmicks, be it in the level design itself (which finally offers much more variety than the usual grass-desert-ice-volcano themes), its wide array of brand new enemies or with the star of the show, the Wonder Flower. Picking up a Wonder Flower the first time was always a magical experience, because you never knew what you were getting into. We always had a big smile on our faces with the wackiness these flowers provided and the clever ways they altered the gameplay.
The game isn’t without its faults, though. The main one would be how not all worlds are created equal. We have some phenomenal worlds, like worlds 1 and 4, the first one with a wide variety of hidden exits and the latter with an expansive open area in the world map that you can freely explore and find a bunch of secrets. At the same time, we have worlds like 3 and 5, that have less levels than all other worlds, are more linear and don’t even feature a boss fight at the end.
Speaking of which, the boss fights are really lackluster. They’re either a clash with Bowser Jr. for the castle levels or with a Bowser machine in the case of airship levels. All of these encounters are mind-bogglingly easy and don’t have any interesting mechanics. You’d imagine they’d do something wacky and over-the-top considering the wonder theme, but no, even the boss fights from the NSMB games are more involved than these. The final boss is fantastic though, no doubt one of the best final bosses of a Mario game.
The multiplayer works differently than in the NSMB games, with there being no collision between the players now and the camera always being centered on a single player, so the others have to keep up or else they’re screwed. It took a bit to get used to this, but the rush for the flagpole in the end was made much more exciting, because getting the top of the flag first means the camera will be centered on you. However, it’s clear how some levels were clearly not made with multiplayer in mind, especially the badge challenges. That’s not a critique though: some games focus too much on making everything multiplayer-accessible that they end up ruining the single-player experience, so I’m glad this game isn’t guilty of that.
The game is also fairly short, clocking at about 10 hours to finish the main campaign, which I’m totally fine with. Nowadays many games feel the need to pad out the game with a bunch of filler content just to make it lengthier to make it seem like more bang for your buck, but that usually backfires, so I’m glad Mario Wonder doesn’t go out of its way to extended its runtime with unnecessary repetitive content. That also makes it much more replayable, too.
This is the game we needed to revitalize the image of 2D Mario. There’s so much potential in it that I’m sure we’ll see DLC or even a sequel soon, and I sure hope they keep on being creative like this and don’t return to the blandness that plagued the series for over a decade. I never put Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World on a pedestal like many gamers do, I was always more of a 3D Mario kid growing up, so I can safely say Super Mario Bros. Wonder has become my favorite 2D Mario.
06. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (2023)
I should preface this by saying it’ll probably look like this game should be much lower on the ranking based on how much I’ll criticize it, but that’s all out of admiration for an incredible game that happens to be the one I played the most out of everything on this list, with almost 120 hours.
First of all, the new mechanics. My God, how is this game even able to function without making the Switch explode? Well, it kinda almost does with how often the framerate tanks, but AHEM! These new abilities make the ones from Breath of the Wild feel like the most boring shit in the world. I’m not a game programmer, but I know the devs created something here that feels like wizardry.
Using Ultrahand to create the wildest contraptions ever known to man and seeing them actually work or break down catastrophically? Fascinating. Using Fuse to craft a pulverizer wooden club or a bomb barrel shield? Sick. Using Ascend to noclip your way out of caves? Satisfactory. Using Rewind on a rock that you previously used Ultrahand on to attach it to something else you used Fuse on to then use Ascend on in order to create a solution to a puzzle because Rewind somehow keeps track of the previous positions of all those elements? How the FUCK does that even work????
Because of the limitless potential of these abilities, the shrines are much more inventive than what we’ve seen in BotW. Playing this game alongside everyone on the internet was a neat experience because you’d often see people sharing clips of them solving puzzles in ways you never even considered possible.
Many people were understandably worried about this game reusing the same map, myself included, especially because I feared exploring the world wouldn’t be as magical as in Breath of the Wild (spoiler: it wasn’t.), but one thing that I looked forward to was seeing how the main regions were changed. Revisiting the same timeline in a Zelda game is an extremely rare occurrence, so a direct sequel of BotW meant we’d be able to interact once more with its memorable characters, like Sidon and Kass, see what they’re doing now after the events of the first game.
Exploring those main regions again was indeed a highlight of the game, seeing how they were affected by these climate problems (or crack addiction in the case of the Gorons) and teaming up with the champions’ successors to solve those issues. The main quests revolving around those areas are now much more involved than in BotW, with more substantial puzzles and mini-boss fights before you make your way to the temples. Protecting Gerudo Town from zombies in a tower defense battle, climbing flying boats inside a massive storm cloud, fighting a magma monster in a volcano atop a flying contraption... All incredibly memorable sections.
The temples are certainly an improvement over the Divine Beasts from the previous game. While I didn’t hate them, once you did the first one, you knew how they all worked and how they all looked, so they got stale quickly, and that’s a shame, because the temples are usually the best parts of a Zelda game. Thankfully, the TotK temples are more akin to those of previous 3D Zeldas, each with their own theme and focused on different mechanics from each other (such as mirrors in the Lightning Temple pictured above). The only one who’s a bit of a letdown is the Water Temple, being the easiest and just a bunch of floating stone structures, no different from the standard sky isles.
But what’s really a MASSIVE improvement are the bosses. Now that’s something I genuinely dislike in BotW, the bosses are incredibly mediocre and their designs are a bunch of nothing, so that was the change I was yearning for the most in TotK, and boy they sure delivered. The bosses in this game are all a blast to fight and they’re all inspired by (or straight up are a version of) staple enemies of the series, like Marbled Gohma being, well, a Gohma, a recurring boss from previous games, or Colgera being inspired by Molgera, a Wind Waker boss. That also applies to the mini-bosses, like Moragia being inspired by Volvagia from Ocarina of Time.
However, the temples are held back from true greatness due to them still following the format of the Divine Beasts - you progress through them in a non-linear fashion by activating 5 terminals. And therein lies the main problem of Tears of the Kingdom: how derivative it is of Breath of the Wild. “Well duh”, you might say, “of course it is, it’s a direct sequel”, but Majora’s Mask is also a direct sequel to Ocarina of Time and, other than reusing the same engine, those two games feel nothing alike.
Tears of the Kingdom makes Breath of the Wild feel obsolete, yes, it improves on every aspect imaginable, yes, but it doesn’t have an identity to call its own like every single Zelda game before, the game is just Breath of the Wild again but better, and yeah, considering how much of a monumental game BotW is, that should feel like one hell of a compliment, but it isn’t quite that.
By heavily retreading on old ground (literally), TotK didn’t feel as magical to explore as BotW did for me. My first time with the original game was genuinely one of the most immersive experiences I ever had with a videogame, exploring that expansive world and getting distracted by every little thing I saw on the horizon... I had fun exploring in TotK too, but that sense of wonder just wasn’t there because of how familiar everything was, even with the new possibilities offered by the new abilities and the addition of sky islands, caves and the underground.
Considering how much the pre-release material focused on the sky islands, you’d imagine they’d be a huge part of the game, and the first few hours drive that idea forward, because you’re stuck in a massive island with tons of stuff to do, but after you leave it and start exploring the other islands scattered across the sky, you start to realize how they’re for the most part extremely similar to each other in themes, elements and missions. They’re the definition of wasted potential.
The underground, on the other hand, was completely kept as a surprise and wasn’t brought up at all before the game’s release. I liked exploring the underground more than the sky islands, it was interesting lighting up the pitch-black darkness as you moved forward, not knowing what awaited you. It does get pretty repetitive fast though, due to there being very few interesting landmarks down there. Gotta say not having a single Guardian hidden in the darkness was a real missed opportunity, lighting up the area with his red laser, would’ve been a huge “OH SHIT” moment.
And now that I brought that up, being a direct sequel, it’s strange how disconnected TotK feels from the previous game when it comes to the story and its most memorable elements. Like, the Divine Beasts simply vanish and no one ever brings up what happened to them. I mentioned earlier how I wanted to see how Kass would be doing after the events of BotW, but guess what? He’s just nowhere to be found! That’s an incredibly baffling omission, considering he was one of the most popular characters.
I usually don’t care that much about story in Zelda games, but I was expecting this game to have a more substantial story, based on interviews given about it. While the narrative is a bit more intricate, it’s nothing particularly special, and the way it is structured is once more the same as in BotW, by searching for memories across the map. I do like Ganondorf’s portrayal in this game though, badass hot man.
Well well, I guess I had a lot to talk about this one! That should be enough, right? Again, the fact I had this much to say just shows how much I care about it, despite having criticized it a fair amount. It’s a fantastic game, worthy of all the awards it got, but it could’ve been even better.
05. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004)
The first Metroid Prime would’ve made this list had I played it a week later, because I beat it for the first time on Christmas Day last year. It certainly would’ve ranked this high too, because it’s an insanely good game, finally understood why so many people hold it as one of the best games of all time. I liked it so much I started playing the sequel right after it, which was the very first game I finished this year!
Since it’s been basically a year since I played it, my memory is already getting a bit shoddy, so my thoughts won’t be as detailed as some of the other entries here, but I’m of the controversial opinion that this game is better than the first one. Not by much, mind you, but it’s really rare to see people who prefer this one (in fact, it’s much more common seeing people criticize Prime 2).
This is the Metroid game I took the longest to beat - almost 23 hours! Reached 94% completion on that first run, which is an incredibly high number for my standards (without any walkthroughs), and not even for a single minute I felt the game was getting boring.
The central mechanic of light and dark worlds adds another layer to the backtracking that’s a staple of these games, because not only you gotta remember points of interest of each area as you acquire new abilities, but you also gotta remember in which world they were in and how doing something in the light world might affect the dark world and vice-versa.
That does, however, make the progression more convoluted. I remember getting stuck at least 3 times in the game and having to activate the in-game hint system, but it’s not like the first Prime game doesn’t have its problems with backtracking either, having to traverse Magmoor Caverns a thousand times to get to the places you need to be.
Speaking of areas, I prefer (not by a large margin) the areas of Prime 2 over the ones from the previous game. Yes, the former ones are far more iconic than the ones of the sequel, everyone remembers Magmoor Caverns and Phendrana Drifts, but there’s something more organic about the areas of Prime 2. Their themes aren’t too varied: Temple Grounds, Agon Wastes and Torvus Bog all share similar visuals, but that’s what makes them feel more connected to each other, more cohesive in the context of that world, which helps to heighten their atmosphere.
And then we have the last and best area of the game, Sanctuary Fortress (pictured above). It looks nothing like the previous areas, being a highly technological complex, a true feast for the eyes. Exploring this place is a real treat, mainly because of how abundantly it uses one of my favorite abilities: the spider ball. Much to my delight, the whole game incorporates the morph ball and its related abilities (spider ball and boost ball) much more extensively than Prime 1, with this area being riddled with spider ball sections and puzzles. Hell, there’s even a boss designed around the spider ball! AND IT FUCKING SUCKS!
Yeah, the Spider Guardian is infamous for how frustrating it can be to defeat and it wasn’t any different for me, despite its concept being really interesting. But that’s the only boss fight that’s a dud, because that’s also something I prefer in this game over the first one, and this time it’s by a considerable margin, because the Prime 2 bosses are much more compelling. They follow the style of Metroid Fusion’s bosses, by using themselves the abilities you’re going to get after defeating them and having multiple phases, so that makes for some truly engaging fights.
Metroid Prime 2 is a bookmark example of a sequel that improves on everything the first game did. As controversial as that opinion may be, it’s a hill I’m determined to die on. I hope we get a remaster of this game in the same fashion as the Prime 1 remaster, because good lord, that remaster is one of the most beautiful games on the Switch! It gives me chills just imagining how stunning the Sanctuary Fortress will look if given the same treatment...
04. Yakuza 0 (2015)
A bunch of my friends are into the Yakuza series. As such, its games have been recommended to me many times, but to be real honest, they never interested me much. I was pretty confident I wouldn’t like them. One day, though, there was a Steam sale and a bundle of this game, Kiwami 1 and 2 was up for crazy cheap, so I said “eh, why not.” But even then it still took me some more months to finally decide to start the series.
I’ve always heard comments about how great Yakuza 0 in particular was, with many people even including it on their fav games of all time rankings, and how it was the perfect starting point for getting into the series. Now that I’ve played it, I can vouch for everything people say about it - Yakuza 0 is one PHENOMENAL game, truly deserving of the fame it has, and it’s one of those games that kept growing on me over the months the more I thought about it, because there’s no better word to describe it than MEMORABLE.
Everything about this game is memorable: the characters, the story, the soundtrack, the substories, the combat, literally everything. As I mentioned before, going from this game to the Kiwami games felt deflating due to their lackluster stories, because Y0’s story is so gripping, there’s some moments that even give me chills just remembering them, such as Majima’s knife cliffhanger, Kiryu’s last encounter with Kuze, Nishiki and Kiryu’s emotional scene in the middle of a dark road (the best scene in the game btw, pictured below), among many others.
And the reason the story is this good is because the characters are all great, you actually care about them and want to see more of them as you progress in the game. I haven’t played most games in the series yet, but I HIGHLY DOUBT there’ll ever be better antagonists than the trio of Dojima lieutenants: Kuze, Awano, and Shibusawa. They’re those characters you just love to hate and can’t get enough of them. Sagawa is also an incredibly layered antagonist, I actually felt bad for what happened to him by the end of the game.
The substories also deserve a special mention because there’s so many great ones, like Majima infiltrating a brainwashing cult (MUNANCHO!), Kiryu meeting Steven Spielberg and Michael Jackson, getting a living chicken as a reward for bowling (which can then become a real estate manager), becoming a pizza delivery boy... Nothing beats hearing that melancholic but hopeful tune starting as an NPC thanks Kiryu for helping them find meaning in their life and starts telling him their ludicrous backstory after he just smashed a whole bike on their head.
As I’m finishing writing this section, the song for the long battles is blasting on my headphones, my favorite track out of a soundtrack that’s just full of banger after banger. Yakuza 0 is so damn good, man. I’m glad to have finally started this series just because it means I got to play this masterpiece. And if you still haven't gotten into Yakuza, don’t listen to elitists that tell you to start from something other than this game, they’re OBJECTIVELY wrong.
03. Fire Emblem (2003)
Now this one being here is a DOOZY! If you know me you might be aware I was always a huge Fire Emblem hater despite never having played a game, because the gameplay looked boring as shit and, above all else, for the petty reason that it started getting way too much representation on Smash Bros. with all those generic anime-looking swordsmen.
I never EVER imagined I would’ve given this franchise a try, but one day I was bored on the voice chat with some friends and decided to open the GBA app on NSO to play something. I started Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, which I had beaten 2 or 3 times before in the past, played like 5 minutes and said “ehhh idk.” Then I saw Fire Emblem there. Decided to open it just for shits and giggles, to see how boring the gameplay would be. What happened next? I kept playing for 2-3 hours.
I got HOOKED! The first campaign of the game is basically just one massive tutorial, which I know is a bit divisive among the Fire Emblem community, but for someone like me who had no idea how to play the game and how its many mechanics worked, it was very welcome and it didn’t bother me one bit. It speaks to the quality of the game that even its tutorial had me engaged!
Once the game lets go of your hand is when the real fun begins and fun I sure had. Strategizing my way across maps and enemies that kept getting increasingly more difficult as I tried to keep all my units alive was some of the most invested I got into a game this year. Few things felt as satisfying as landing critical hits, getting a good level up, and beating a tough enemy unit by the skin of your teeth, especially during longer skirmishes that I REALLY didn’t want to reset in case a unit died (yes, I did end up resetting quite a few times when a unit I really cared for died, but sometimes I’d just let go).
Even during the aforementioned Mario Wonder trip I kept playing Fire Emblem while me and my friends weren’t doing anything together. I just couldn’t put that game down. I got so invested I started reading a lot of info online about the game and its inner mechanics that aren’t properly explained due to the limitations of it being a GBA game, such as its many classes, hidden battle stats and the support system. I always kept a sheet open while playing it to see the units I should try pairing together at the end of each turn to get extra support buffs and some endearing dialogue between them.
And that’s a good segway to talk about the characters. While the story is your standard medieval fare, revolving around politics and dragons, the characters are what keep you interested in it, because this game has such a charming cast. Most of them have a great dynamic, especially the main trio, Eliwood, Lyn and Hector. I actively wanted to make them support each other to see what their interactions would be about, and they’d always put a smile on my face.
That’s why the permadeath mechanic is so devastating, because you start caring so much about some characters you don’t want to see them gone forever. They’re not just disposable units anymore, they’re people you want to protect as hard as you can. That’s why it’s so satisfying to see a character you love getting great level ups and upgrading to a new class and starting wrecking every enemy on their way. That’s what happened with my favorite unit, Florina. She became a goddess of destruction, raining despair over her opponents atop her white pegasus. And the funniest thing is that she’s a frail girl that’s super insecure of herself lmao
And I’d be remiss to not talk about the visuals of the game. Good lord, this game might just have one of the best sprite work of any GBA game. The battle animations are always a treat to watch, ESPECIALLY the critical hits. Their over-the-top animation is smooth and dynamic and packs such a punch, along with the crunchy sound effects that accompany it. It’s so goddamn satisfying.
But yeah, that’s the story of how I went from being a pathetic hater of a franchise I had never even played a game of to someone who became invested enough to want to play every single Fire Emblem game. Except the NES games. NES games suck. I’ll keep being a pathetic hater of NES games.
02. Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy
And speaking of franchises I had never played before of a genre I had never played before, we have the Ace Attorney series. One day I saw a bundle of this trilogy and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles for crazy cheap on the eShop and thought those were a perfect fit to be played on the Switch. I had a hunch I’d enjoy these games, I’d always see memes and pics of its characters, but after playing the original trilogy, I didn’t really like it. No, I absolutely LOVED it!
For a series that simply boils down to clicking on the screen and reading, it’s crazy just how riveting Ace Attorney is. I guess point and click appreciators and visual novel readers probably know how enrapturing games of those genres can be, but I had never played any work like that, so my experience with this series opened a brand new door for me.
What makes it so appealing are the characters and the narrative. The main cast is SO endearing and their dynamic is just a blast to see. Phoenix having to deal with Maya’s dumb remarks, Edgeworth being an absolute tsun, the Judge being the most malleable person in the world, Gumshoe being the most adorable AND trustworthy dork in the world (he’s THE BEST!!!)... I quickly got attached to all of them, and even to some recurring side characters and case-specific characters. There’s no shortage of personalities that will make you intrigued and get you laughing.
It’s because of all those characters that the cases become so gripping, along with the writing that rarely ever disappoints. The first game doesn’t get too crazy with the narrative, but starting from the second game they turn the supernatural elements up to eleven, with a huge focus on the mediums of the Fey Clan. The third game dives deep into the backstory of the main cast with its flashback cases, something that gives you an even greater appreciation for them and makes the finale incredibly gratifying.
Oh yeah, and the music! There are so many catchy tunes in these games, and their impact during the trial segments cannot be understated. As you’re cross-examining witnesses, a calm but intriguing theme plays, but as you get closer to uncovering their lies, the same tune gets faster and with more elements added to it, giving you an extra push to finish them once and for all. And nothing feels more empowering than presenting the right evidence, the music going completely silent, saying OBJECTION!!! and hearing the objection theme start. Same thing for when the pursuit theme starts as the culprit is about to break down. It’s an unrivaled rush of adrenaline and satisfaction.
If I were to rank each game individually, my order would be the first game, then Trials and Tribulations, then Justice for All. They’re all great, though! And yes, I’m aware 90% of Ace Attorney fans consider the third game to be the best in the whole series, which is totally deserved, given the strength of its cases, how they’re connected together and how nicely it wraps the trilogy up (and also the fact it has Godot, one of the best characters in the series), but my experience with the first one was truly special.
Of course, there’s the fact I was experiencing the thrill of trials and all the crazy plot twists of the narrative for the first time, which you start getting used to as you play the games, but the aspect that makes my time with the first game stand out is the fact I didn’t savescum. Every Ace Attorney veteran knows how it’s almost muscle memory to save right before an important decision, but I only found out about that strategy after I had finished the first game! So the trials were much more tense due to the fear of getting a game over, which did happen 3 or 4 times.
Something else that helps this game take the top spot is the fact it contains my favorite case out of all 3 games: Rise from the Ashes. I wasn’t prepared for how long this case would be - I started playing it early in the morning during a weekend and finished it by 1 AM, playing basically nonstop, because I was totally immersed in it! It has so many memorable elements to it, such as its cast of characters, from the quirky Ema to the smooth Marshall, and of course Damon Gant (pictured above), my fav “villain” in the series so far; all the twists that kept surprising me constantly during its LONG trial sections, which you gotta remember I didn’t savescum; the slew of new mechanics it introduces, such as the forensics stuff and the video footage review... I kept thinking about this case for at least a month after finishing it.
There are several cases I would’ve loved to talk about, like the one you defend Edgeworth against the most despicable prosecutor in the world (and you expose him BY USING A METAL DETECTOR THAT WAS SITTING ON YOUR EVIDENCES AND YOU THOUGHT WAS WORTHLESS AND IT’S SO SATISFYING), or the one you gotta cross-examine a serial killer who’s talking through a walkie-talkie, or the one with a Phoenix impersonator who actually looks nothing like him, or the one where the defendant fucking kills himself by poisoning and drops dead on the stand... but then we’d be here all day.
I got into many new game series this year and Ace Attorney is certainly one of the franchises I’m most grateful for getting into. I can’t wait to play the Apollo Justice Trilogy that’ll be releasing very soon and also every other game in the series. HOWEVER, there is one franchise I got into this year that is THE one I loved the most, which is...
01. The Pikmin series
If you thought I cheated by including the whole Ace Attorney trilogy of games in second place, then get a load of this: FOUR games are sharing the top spot on this ranking! It had been a while since I last fell in love with a piece of media as much as I did with the Pikmin games. And much like with Fire Emblem, Pikmin was a series I always ignored because I was confident I wouldn’t enjoy it for being RTS, a genre that never caught my interest. But one day I decided to give the first game a shot on a GameCube emulator and got completely enamored by it.
Pikmin 1 would be the true top spot of this list, had the whole series not been grouped together. After playing and replaying all games in the franchise, I can safely say the first game is my favorite out of them all. There are three aspects that make it the best one for me: its replay value, the atmosphere, and the fact it has the best areas in the series. It was a wise idea starting with this one, because just like the situation Olimar found himself in, I was experiencing something completely new and unknown.
I felt completely immersed in its world, learning by trial and error how to interact with the elements in each area (because unlike the other games in the series, this one barely has any tutorials, you gotta learn most things by yourself), finding and observing creatures I had no idea how they behaved, getting used to the nuanced controls... It was a genuinely fascinating experience, heightened by the 30 day time limit that definitely pressured me on my first run, in which I didn’t even manage to get all ship parts in time!
Exploring each area was an adventure filled with wonder and anxiety. The tranquility of The Forest of Hope, the darkness of The Forest Navel, the deceiving serenity of The Distant Spring... No other Pikmin game offers this strong feeling of isolation, of being lost on an unknown planet without knowing what awaits you at every corner. Olimar’s reflexive diary entries drive that feeling even further, adding a surprising amount of depth to this character, to the point he’s one of the most well fleshed out Nintendo protagonists. The Distant Spring theme is the one that best represents the unique atmosphere of this game: serene, mysterious, and melancholic.
The game’s short length and its objective to collect the ship parts make it extremely replayable. It’s a nice challenge trying to get all parts in the fewest days possible to try and beat your old record, which is helped by how fun the areas are to explore on repeated playthroughs, creating strategies and finding out the most optimal routes. Nothing beats the adrenaline rush and satisfaction of carrying a ship part to the ship at the very last second during the end of day countdown.
I’ve beaten the game 3 times already and I’m sure I’ll try to beat it every year in a single sitting, like I do with Star Fox 64 and Super Mario 64, both of which are some of favorite games of all time, a title that Pikmin 1 is without a doubt worthy of now as well.
Right after finishing the first game and having loved it to pieces, I went straight to Pikmin 2. I also first played it on an emulator, the GameCube version. Before playing it I wasn’t aware of how divisive this game was in the Pikmin community, but now that I’ve beaten it 100% twice, I can definitely see why.
It boils down to a single word: caves. Some people love how unpredictable they are due to them being randomly generated and the challenge they offer with its many enemies and bosses, and those are the very same reasons some people hate them, because let’s face it, it’s not that fun wasting your time bringing down a gate just for it to have literally nothing behind, or having bombs raining down on you from the ceiling out of nowhere.
While the main focus of the first game is exploration, the caves make Pikmin 2 be more focused on combat, because they make up for like 80% of this game’s content. The overworld exploration takes a back seat, so much that they didn’t even bother on creating new areas - other than the very first level, all areas in this game are reused from the previous game, but with some changes. So if you don’t like the caves, well too bad, this game ain’t for you.
As for myself, I quite enjoyed my first run through the game. Exploring the caves the first time around made me increasingly anxious as I progressed through the game and noticed how unpredictable they were, uncertain of what devilish troll the game would throw upon me. I’d always be especially excited for the boss fights.
I’ll never forget my first clashes with the Empress Bulblax and her spam of evil larvae that can one hit kill Pikmin; the sheer surprise I had when this mechanical spider called Man-at-Legs started decimating my Pikmin squad with a fucking machine gun; and the nightmarish Waterwraith, crushing my Pikmin with its stone rollers in the most memorable cave in the game, the Submerged Castle, a cave with an unsettling atmosphere that forces you to use only Blue Pikmin despite it having hazards of every single element.
However, despite the randomized aspect being nice for repeated playthroughs, the overall magic of the first run is significantly reduced, especially because of how exhaustive some caves can be due to their long length and the overwhelming amount of bullshit. And speaking of length, Pikmin 2 is MUCH longer than the first one (AND third one!), so all that combined greatly diminishes the replay value of this game.
All that said, I still love this game. It may sound like I find this game vastly inferior to the first one due to all I said, but that’s far from being the case. I can understand why some people dislike it, but I don’t think it deserves all the hate it gets. I’m sure I’ll replay it again and again for the years to come, just not as much as the first game.
It seems the people at Nintendo heard the negative feedback about the second game, because Pikmin 3 is much more like the first game. Caves are gone, the focus on exploration is back, with the objective being collecting fruits, not unlike the ship parts from Pikmin 1, with those fruits being used to produce juice, the substitute for the day limit of the first game, seeing as the captains need juice to survive or else it’s a game over. That’ll hardly be an issue though, because this game is considerably easier than the previous two.
That was the thing that stood out the most to me on my first run, because I was coming right after two games where I had to carefully plan each step or else my precious little guys would end up being mauled by creatures or electrified to death (among many other horrid fates). But in Pikmin 3, the hazards aren’t nearly as deadly and the enemies come nowhere near close to the level of threat of those games, not even the bosses. (Also, for the record, I played the Pikmin 3 Deluxe port for the Switch.)
However, the game being easier didn’t take away from my enjoyment at all. Having almost a 10 year gap from the previous game, the gameplay got refined to a new level. The areas are much more expansive and delightful to explore, full of setpieces that show how gorgeous the scenery is; the Pikmin AI is more responsive and the combat is more intuitive, thanks to the new lock-in and charge mechanics; and despite the boss battles being much easier, they’re true spectacles, due to how massive some of them are.
But just like the previous two games can be defined by a single aspect, with the first game’s being the atmosphere and Pikmin 2’s being the combat, Pikmin 3’s defining aspect is the multitasking. You can alternate between three captains and use the new “Go Here” feature to send each of them to a different place in the map to do different tasks simultaneously, that way you can optimize your efficiency in getting the collectibles back to the ship.
Mastering multitasking is CRUCIAL in this game’s side mode called Mission Mode, in which the objective is to collect all treasures or defeat all enemies within a time limit. This mode is where I spent more than half of my 75 hours playtime with this game, trying to get platinum medals on all 30 missions, whose timer is ABSURDLY strict for some of them - it forces you to be the master of planning and divide tasks between all three captains while making sure they’re taking the most optimal routes in each map. The Mission Mode is simply the best thing about this game.
Pikmin 3 is also more replayable than the second game due to it being shorter and nowhere near as stressful, but I’d say I like both of them equally. When I want to have some action, I might replay Pikmin 2, but when I want to chill and have a good time, I might replay Pikmin 3.
And finally, we have Pikmin 4. Like, literally, WE FINALLY HAVE PIKMIN 4!! AFTER A DECADE OF WAITING!! It was after watching the February 2023 Direct trailer that I decided to give the series a try. Everything in that trailer felt so charming! From the world, the sounds and the Pikmin themselves... Then I watched some reacts and saw how much that game finally being a reality meant for many people, with even some emotional reactions. So I played all the games, got deeply in love with the series and eagerly waited for the release of the fourth game.
Pikmin 4 is simply the definitive Pikmin experience. The game brings the best elements of each of the previous three games in a single package. The exploration of Pikmin 1, now with the biggest number of areas in the series, which are more expansive than ever; the caves from Pikmin 2, reworked to be less exhaustive and more cohesive in their designs (not randomized anymore); and the Mission Mode of Pikmin 3, now incorporated in the main campaign instead of being a side mode.
After Pikmin 3 omitted White and Purple Pikmin from the main campaign, Pikmin 4 finally lets you use all types of Pikmin. Also I just realized I didn’t praise the Pikmin themselves yet! It really is impossible to not fall in love with these little critters, with their silliness, their funny noises, their simple yet quirky designs... While other RTS games have disposable troops, here you try to protect the Pikmin with all your might, because depending on the circumstances, it HURTS when they die. Whenever the sunset countdown started, it was that crazy rush to make sure no Pikmin were left unaccounted for (especially in the first two games), even if it was just a single stray one. EVERY. PIKMIN. LIFE. MATTERS.
And just as charming as the Pikmin are the enemy creatures. The fauna and flora of Pikmin is the most fascinating aspect of this universe for me. There’s an immense variety of species and subspecies with designs that range from cute to bizarre. The Piklopedia enriches this universe even further with detailed biological information about each creature and how they live in the ecosystem, with scientific names, taxonomy info, how they reproduce and even how to cook them, courtesy of Louie’s depraved mind.
After playing the first three games, the thing I was looking forward to the most regarding Pikmin 4 was to see which enemies would return. In the July 2023 Direct trailer I got genuinely hyped when I saw some creatures that had been absent from the series for one game or two. I even memorized the names of pretty much every enemy in the series, THAT’S how much I got attached to them. The fourth game brought almost every creature back, along with introducing a bunch of new ones, of which some are already among the most iconic Pikmin enemies, such as the disco ball spider, Groovy Long Legs.
And the good thing is that engaging these creatures in combat is not a cakewalk anymore like it was in the third game, as it rebalanced the difficulty to offer a nice amount of challenge again. You gotta be real careful around some enemies and especially against bosses, such as the aforementioned spider, who killed SEVENTY of my Pikmin during my first encounter with it.
I’d say the reason for the difficulty increase is thanks to everyone’s favorite dog of 2023: Oatchi. He’s basically a buffed Pikmin who can fight enemies, carry treasures, crucial for puzzles and traversal across the maps, AND he can even be used as a second captain. Due to the ability to ride him to remove Pikmin from danger and how overpowered he gets after all upgrades with how he can stun or even one-hit KO some enemies with a tackle, he does make combat easier, but it’s still much more engaging than Pikmin 3’s combat. The enemies are more aggressive to accommodate the changes Oatchi brings to the gameplay.
Another substantial addition are the nocturnal expeditions, a first in the series, since in every game prior you had to leave the planet before night fell due to the increased hostility of the creatures. Finally being able to explore at night had me excited, but it isn’t implemented in a very organic way, like just choosing to keep exploring after sunset - no, instead these are treated sorta like a side mode you select on the hub area. Even the way they play feels like a side mode.
They’re basically tower defense missions in which you gotta prevent some towers from being destroyed because they produce an item that’s important to the plot. These missions start tranquil at first, but by the end of the game you gotta strategize well switching between both captains because they get CRAZY! And those missions do a great job at making you feel tense due to the superb sound design, with the music getting gradually more threatening the closer the creatures get to the towers. So yeah, night expeditions are fun but could’ve been implemented better.
The only other thing I’d criticize about this game would be the lack of options for the controls, mainly the option to disable the new automatic lock-on. That takes away from much of the skill that was needed to combat enemies and it’s often a hindrance because it locks on to any interactable element on screen, so sometimes when the screen is packed with enemies and other pickable objects, you might end up throwing your Pikmin on stuff you didn’t want to. That’s not a dandori issue on your part, it’s just the game’s flaw.
But these shortcomings are nothing but a small stain on a phenomenal game that’s my personal pick for the best game of 2023. It’s admirable the amount of content this game has, especially for today’s standard with so many games being released in an incomplete state. It’s the longest game in the series, with the largest number of explorable areas AND caves, largest number of collectibles, biggest enemy roster, lotta missions to get medals on... Pikmin 4 might’ve taken a decade to come out, but the wait was totally worth it, because they delivered a complete package that offers everything a Pikmin fan ever dreamt of.
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Whew, that’s it. I wasn’t planning on writing THIS much, but I just got carried away with how much I enjoyed pretty much all games I played this year. Pretty good for the inaugural text of the blog, right? Well, here’s hoping 2024 is also a fruitful one for new gaming experiences!