​When I turned 25, I ranked my top 25 games at 25. For 30, I’d like to rank the other big entertainment pillar in my life, anime. While I’m generally just a big fan of animation in general, I decided to stick to just anime since it is the type I watch most frequently and it keeps comparisons simpler since I categorize anime separately anyway. I’ve kept a running list for years ranking all of the anime I’ve completed watching so I had a head start, but I still reevaluated every single show and movie I’ve seen to put my final list together. In the interest of highlighting as many awesome shows as possible, I grouped related media that would have taken up an individual spot in the top 30 together. When I do list multiple media in one entry, the first show/film listed I consider to be the most valuable and will be the only media being directly compared above and below it. I know that’s a little weird so I will have a title only top 36 at the bottom of my blog for those curious. The 30 anime I chose here are all ranked as my favorite anime at 30, the ones that currently mean the most to me, so not necessarily the best or the ones that historically meant more. My top 30 anime of course will change in the future, but right now at this moment, these are my top 30 anime at 30!

30: A Certain Scientific Railgun

Railgun is a spinoff of A Certain Magical Index and stars Misaka Mikoto, the Railgun, who is one of the most powerful espers living in Academy City who has developed and honed her electromagnetic powers. The show basically operates in two modes, slice of life and a battle series where Misaka and her friends fight off an array of powerful psychics, monsters, and more. The animation for the fights is generally awesome and the vast range of powers and uses keeps the fights exciting. My favorite part is definitely the second season where we get a significantly expanded story of how Misaka learns and confronts the fact that she has been cloned thousands of times over and how those clones have been put to use in deadly experiments. 

29: Pop Team Epic!

Pop Team Epic is an absurdly strange rapid-fire skit comedy starring Popuko and Pipimi. For every episode, the first half of the show is virtually completely repeated in the second half with one half voiced by female actresses and the other half voiced by male actors. Moreover, every episode stars completely different pairs of voice actors for Popuko and Pipimi for each half which adds to the absurdness. I loved how you really have no idea what you are in for as it ropes in all kinds of animation styles and even live action segments. My favorite segment was the story of Hellshake Yano which is told by people manipulating and flipping pages drawn in a big notebook which you really have to see to believe how cool it is.

28: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha

I’ve only seen the first two seasons and one of the movies for Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, but I thoroughly enjoyed them. A short monster of the week start to the show gives way to explosive magical battles that continue to grow in scale and excitement. Seriously if you love explosions, this is an excellent show on that front and the action really gets a significant level up in season 2. I really like all three main characters, Nanoha, Fate, and Hayate, and while the side cast doesn’t appear too frequently, I do enjoy them as well. I really hope one day the full show and movies become more easily available on Blu Ray because I’d love to see it to completion.

27: Yurikuma Arashi

Yurikuma Arashi makes a horrendous first impression where I wouldn’t blame anyone for rejecting it, but as the show goes on it becomes readily clear what the show’s very positive message is. Yurikuma Arashi tells the story of Kureha Tsubaki living in a fairy tale-like world where humanity has erected a wall to keep bears out. After two bears sneak into the human world, Kureha’s best friend who she is in love with is killed by bears like her mother was prior which reignites her hatred of bears. Yurikuma Arashi is ultimately a love story and about overcoming how society judges and restricts women’s behavior and actions. While not a factor on this list, I really appreciated how the manga offered a completely different universe and story using the same characters.

26: Little Busters!

Little Busters tells the story of Riki Naoe and how his friends, a group called the Little Busters, want to share something fun together before the oldest in the group graduates high school and joins the working world. The group settles on playing baseball together and early on it is teased that their world is hiding a secret of some sort. Little Busters! is based on the visual novel of the same name and it explores the various routes of the game by having new members join the team one by one. Each character has their own multi-episode story to work through like the transfer student, Kud, wanting to reunite with her parents and, Mio, who seemingly has a twin sister taking over her life. These individual arcs do range in quality, Komari’s I think is even quite poor, but I really enjoyed how the characters and story fully came together and the episodes where the group of friends just hang out were a lot of fun.

25: Gundam Wing

Gundam Wing was one of the first anime shows I ever watched on Cartoon Network and I watched it when I was quite young. My favorite parts back then of course were the giant robot fights both in space and those grounded on Earth which were rad as heck. If you asked me back then what the show was about, I honestly don’t know whether I’d be able to tell you or not, because when I finally rewatched it when I was older, I definitely remembered the broad details, but I was surprised just how all over the place the plot and character relationships are. This was not a show like Dragon Ball Z where you could skip five episodes and still be generally fine! But even with the plot and character relationships constantly changing, I do think Gundam Wing is still a generally fun show to watch and the big personalities shine through and make their impacts.

24: Love Live Sunshine / Love Live

One of my favorite parts of attending Anime Expo is the concerts, and in 2017 I decided to go to the idol concert since I had nothing else planned for that period. The final group was by far my favorite, Aqours, who had a fictional backstory explored in the anime Love Live Sunshine. I checked it out because I enjoyed their songs, but what I definitely didn’t expect was to come to enjoy it so much. After seeing videos of the original Love Live group, μ's (pronounced muse), performing, Chika Takami decides she wants to start a school idol group at her high school. At first, she only has her childhood friend You Watanabe joining, but eventually the group grows to nine members and they decide to compete in the nationwide Love Live competition. Sunshine is definitely my favorite of the four Love Live shows because it is ultimately a bittersweet journey filled with both major setbacks and major triumphs that each hit hard for the group.

23: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Gurren Lagann is awesome! What begins as a singular struggle against a giant robot invading an underground village ignorant of the world keeps growing in scale until the battle ludicrously comes to engulf the whole universe. This growth in scale is gradual over the course of the 27 episodes and I think it does a great job at making the most of each step in the journey before upping the stakes and scale. It also has a well-placed time skip in the middle of the show where it's fun seeing just how much the world and characters changed in a such a short time. While I don’t love everything about Gurren Lagann, it’s very juvenile at times, the attitude and energy of the show is largely infectious and fun.

22: Steins;Gate

I loved Steins;Gate right from the premise. A self-proclaimed mad scientist creates a time machine using a microwave that allows him to send text messages back in time. I’ll never forget when I first started watching the show and I got to the big moment where Okabe’s manipulation of time caught up with him and when I went to watch the next episode it wasn’t there because Crunchyroll’s streaming rights had apparently expired. This moment scarred me for life in regards to streaming shows and subscriptions in general because I really wanted to know what happened next! When Steins;Gate came out on Blu Ray years later, I really enjoyed the story’s back half and ultimate conclusion.

21: Angel Beats!

I’m forever glad I took a chance and joined my college’s anime club right at the start of my first year as it really reawakened my love for anime which had fallen off when Toonami stopped broadcasting. Eight of the shows I saw there made my list today (including my number one) and the first episode I ever saw there was the first episode of Angel Beats that culminates with a spectacular battle that takes place to guard an exciting concert that’s very well animated. The premise of Angel Beats is that a bunch of high school students are trapped in a limbo of sorts and are battling an angel that opposes them. There’s an interesting mix of action, comedy, and musical performances and the wacky characters are collectively a lot of fun. The emotional ending where the last few say their final goodbyes is great as well.

20: Working!!

Working!! is a work place comedy set in a Denny’s-like chain restaurant. An entertaining collection of weirdos work at this restaurant to the extent you’ll wonder how it even functions including the waitress who is deathly afraid of men and the lazy manager who mostly eats parfaits all day. While the comedy is a lot of fun, the best part of Working!! is definitely the romances that build across the three seasons. It took a long while, but I was very glad Working!! ultimately did get a third season since it was a satisfying conclusion.

19: Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online

I have mixed feelings on Sword Art Online as it regularly sabotages itself and goes off the rails too many times to count. Thankfully Sword Art Online Alternative was handled by a different author entirely, who uses every quirk of its setting to craft a wildly entertaining adventure across two team-based VRMMO battle royales. I really like the main character, LLENN, who initially just wants to live a different life to her normal existence, comes to really enjoy video games and cares so strongly about the connections she makes with her new friends. The gun-based action is awesome with lots of strategy and regular moments of bombast. My favorite moments are definitely when the main character enters a state of berserker rage and hilariously starts hallucinating her gun, P-Chan, is talking to her and a separate time when the main antagonist returns to battle with a light saber like she is Darth Vader.

18: Cardcaptor Sakura

I saw bits of Cardcaptor Sakura when it aired on TV as The Cardcaptors. I definitely enjoyed the episodes I saw, but it didn’t mean much to me then. I finally watched all of it after seeing the Clear Card anime and I really enjoyed it! It really has a great mix of slice of life following the characters going to school and following them on trips versus the fun magical action. While definitely a kids show, it was also surprisingly violent at times where the characters would get placed into real danger which certainly kept it interesting. My favorite part of the show is definitely the cast. Sakura is a great heroine and her best friend Tomoyo who wants to document her life on video is ridiculous in a great way. While I’m just ranking the original TV show here, I will say I definitely enjoyed both movies and the sequel anime.

17: Durarara!!!

Durarara has a huge cast of characters that regularly meet and clash with each other in Ikebukuro and it’s just a ton of fun. There’s a lot of big threads and ideas in play over the course of the story from gang wars to demonic swords possessing the populace. Of course, my favorite is the face of the series, Celty, a Dullahan riding a motorcycle in search of her missing head. I think my favorite part of Durarara is definitely the characters. The big personalities like Shizuo and Izaya definitely steal the show, but there are tons of fun side characters too like Kadota’s group and Akabayashi. I also have to give a shoutout to the many amazing opening and endings to the show that are slickly put together and have amazing music attached.

16: Fate/Zero

One of the first shows I ever checked out on Crunchyroll was Fate/Zero and wow what a great early pick that was! I didn’t know anything about Fate prior to this and I can’t remember if I knew at the time Gen Urobuchi, who wrote Madoka Magica, also wrote Fate/Zero so I believed I mainly just clicked on the cool looking poster. I loved the basic premise here, as seven wizards summoned historical figures from across history to battle each other and claim the wish granting holy grail. The awesome action and big moments brought to life with high quality animation are incredible, but I think my favorite moment is early on where it rapidly cuts between the main hero and villain reading about each other’s exploits and they basically hype each other up as the ultimate badasses which makes their inevitable showdowns all the more exciting.

15: Granbelm

Granbelm was a big mix of things I knew I would love. It had basically everyone involved with the Re:Zero anime, including the character designer and studio, teaming up to create a magical girl, battle royale, fought with giant robots. For whatever reason I put it off for a few years, but when I finally sat down to watch it, I absolutely loved it outside of the goofy robot designs. There’s a lot of fun personalities clashing against each other and the robot action is awesome! I really liked the main character, Mangetsu, and I found the mysteries surrounding her and her adversaries interesting. I also enjoyed the bittersweet ending.

14: Attack on Titan

I have mixed feelings about Attack on Titan. I wasn’t pulled in by the first few episodes and didn’t end up watching it until my anime club decided to show it where I finally saw the early big twist that hooked me. I eventually began reading the manga monthly which meant I was always now waiting to see it animated. At a certain point, I had a strong feeling the ending was going to be a colossal disappointment which it was! While we still have to wait for that to be animated as of this blog, the journey in between the start and finish is largely so fun and compelling that it still ranks highly for me. Seeing humanity take down titans while swinging around like Spider-Man doesn’t get old and regular new threats and mysteries are compelling.

13: My Hero Academia / Two Heroes

When Crunchyroll added My Hero Academia, I ended up watching the first season in two days. The premise of a young boy living in a world of superheroes finally being granted powers to fulfill his dream was an amazing hook. What I’ve really treasured about this show was getting to have a superhero story and universe where you don’t know the outcome for its mysteries and characters as so many of the Marvel and DC shows and movies are all inspired by comics where you can guess the trajectory through cultural osmosis. “Oh, they are bringing in this character and this story, here’s what to expect” does not apply with My Hero Academia even if you still expect the heroes to win ultimately. There are so many fun characters to root for like Deku, Todoroki, Ochaco, and Iida, and across the show and movies they all have plenty of moments to shine. 

12: Mob Psycho 100

I wasn’t a big fan of One-Punch Man at first, so I was skeptical walking into Mob Psycho 100, but I was completely won over by the characters and blown away by the amazing animation. Mob is such a great character. While he has incredible powers, he is most focused on his ordinary everyday life and protecting his family and friends rather than seeking adventure or fame. His mentor Reigen, is a hilarious con-man who amusingly fails upwards, but he truly cares about Mob when it counts. When action does pop up, it is absolutely incredible thanks to studio Bones going all out. As of this blog, we are awaiting season 3 and I cannot wait to see how it all ends.

11: Dragon Ball Super / Super Broly

I had a love / hate relationship with Dragon Ball Z growing up. On one hand, its amazing fights 100% blew me away and I came to love so many of the characters like Goku, Vegeta, Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin, but its horrendous pacing where you could skip a week and feel like you missed nothing, and the Buu arc in particular being so dumb, made me think I would never care about Dragon Ball again. But then a perfect storm happened, Dragon Ball FighterZ from my favorite fighting game developer was announced, and the Dragon Ball Super anime had all of its episodes come to Crunchyroll. Once I got through the early arcs, I eventually got so hooked I was regularly watching ten episodes at a time. It was amazing having new Dragon Ball adventures that really spoke to what I loved most about Dragon Ball and the final Tournament of Power arc was an amazing spectacle. I really hope Dragon Ball returns to TV soon!

10: Re:Zero

Re:Zero tells the story of Natuski Subaru who gets sent from Japan to a fantasy world. At first, he is excited this will be a typical isekai experience where he’ll get everything handed to him, but he quickly and violently discovers his only superpower gained is being able to die and be sent back in time to “save points” not of his choosing. Re:Zero sort of works like unraveling a giant puzzle as Subaru learns new information with each of his lives and it’s often most interesting and satisfying as he puts that knowledge to use. I appreciate how well written the characters are, as characters rightfully distrust Subaru who has to learn to become a better person who can actually help the people he cares about. Re:Zero is excellently paced and the big moments and reveals are regularly shocking and every cliffhanger is painful. I think a 3rd season is inevitable, but if we never get more, what we have is such a deeply satisfying experience with a great conclusion.

9: Hajime No Ippo The Fighting!

One of my favorite friends on Twitter, Nate Ming, always raved about Ippo so when it came to Crunchyroll I knew I had to check it out. I was pretty hooked right away, but what sealed the deal was the end of the third episode, when Ippo’s soon to be rival Miyata says to himself after his first sparring match with Ippo that his hits were powerful and that “boxing has just become incredibly interesting to me.” I love the general loop of Hajime No Ippo as he trains with his friends at the gym to prepare for his next match, he meets and comes to understand his next opponent which usually causes him to adjust his training, and then they finally meet in the ring. Each of the boxing matches are awesome because the hits have real impact and you always know what each boxer has on the line for each fight. I really hope one day I can continue Ippo and see the second and third series officially because Ippo’s journey is so exciting and inspiring. 

8: Nichijou

Nichijou is a celebration of animation and an anime that always makes me smile and laugh. It is ostensibly a comedy about strange moments in everyday life with a touch of surrealness. The skits in each episode vary in length and subject matter, but what doesn’t change is how Kyoto Animation lovingly animated all of it. One of my favorite early moments was definitely a scene where a bite sized piece of sausage falls off one of the characters bento boxes and the characters are shocked and horrified in slow motion as it bounces around the room. Another of my favorite scenes is when Yuuko is being punished by having to stand outside her classroom and witnesses the principal get into a wrestling match with a deer that wandered into the school. While I don’t expect to get more animation for Nichijou, I am glad the author has recently begun drawing more of the manga again years after the series ended.

7: March Comes In Like A Lion

March Comes In Like A Lion follows Rei Kiriyama who is a young, professional Shogi player and is battling depression while living alone. While he doesn’t feel worthy, three sisters who live together, the Kawamoto’s, are friends with Rei and frequently invite him over for dinner. There is so much grief to work through in the series, but also a ton of warmth to experience as well. While the main characters, including Rei’s rival Nikaido and his eventual mentor Shimada, are my favorites, a really fun side cast slowly builds up over the course of the series, many of which are Rei’s opponents and friends at the Shogi Hall. Shaft does an exceptional job bringing the series to life and clearly has a ton of fun animating the expressive characters and the moody imagery that serves as a metaphor for the characters’ feelings. March is my favorite anime that I consider an important watch that offers more than just entertainment which it’s also excellent at. I’m really glad it has wide, universal appeal because I can’t recommend it enough.

6: Girls Und Panzer Der Film / Girls Und Panzer

Girls Und Panzer is a wacky universe where tank combat is considered a fun sport where virtually no one gets injured and Der Film is basically “tanks are awesome, the movie.” The film has a really unusual structure as the vast majority of its run time is solely dedicated to two tank battles with only the middle 15 minutes or so offering a smidge of story and character development. While the first half of the film is already excellent, the back half is truly spectacular as the high school teams seen in the TV series band together to form a 30 tank team and square off against a college team of 30 tanks. Like the TV series before it, Der Film combines all the fun of a sports team show with tank action, but here the action is more gonzo than ever. To tease it a little bit, the finale of the film takes place in an abandoned amusement park and they make the absolute most of the setting for the final exciting battles.

5: Baccano!

Baccano strangely starts with the final episode chronologically that offers a framing device for the story and tells you one thing clearly, something really bad happened on the Flying Pussyfoot train. Baccano is a fitting name for this story, as it means ruckus in Italian. Set during the Great Depression three stories play out, the journey of the Flying Pussyfoot across country, the search for a man named Dallas who has gone missing, and the story about the mafia who encounter an elixir of immortality. Each episode regularly bounces between the three stories and multiple protagonists and villains. My absolute favorite story is definitely the Flying Pussyfoot as two armed forces, two groups of train robbers, and a monster called the Rail Tracer are all battling it out aboard the moving train. Baccano is very concerned with having a wild, fun time, and it’s criminal it never got more than the one TV season and a few OVAs. What we did get is still an all-time classic and I’ll treasure it forever.

4: Monogatari

Perhaps the hardest anime to place on my list was the Monogatari series that began with the Bakemonogatari anime and even included a film trilogy with the Kizumonogatari films. When I first watched Bakemonogatari I was very unsure how I felt about it as it is a very sexually charged series and the main character, Koyomi Araragi, while lovable, is regularly a terrible person. It took until the final, 12th episode where I could finally see where the heart of the series truly lied and every subsequent TV series, OVA, and film absolutely rewarded that initial investment. The full cast is excellent (I especially love Shinobu and Kanbaru) and I was always surprised how much I enjoyed the many protagonist shifts. My favorite part of Monogatari is that there is a mystery at the heart of each ghost story and as the characters examine it over and over again the final truths revealed are always so interesting and satisfying. Monogatari ended in animation for now at least with Zoku Owarimonogatari and I haven’t rewatched any of it since. I always hoped I could continue the series with the novel releases in English, but sadly they stopped with Zoku Owarimonogatari as well. I cared so much about the series for so long, but now I’m wondering exactly where it fits in my life. For now, I bumped it down from second to fourth place. I definitely need to rewatch it in full sometime.

3: Symphogear

My first experience with Symphogear was Crunchyroll tweeting out a video and calling it one of the best scenes of all time. For whatever reason, I clicked on it and was 1,000% sold. The scene, which I’d later learn was basically the no context opening of Season 3, featured three magical girls boarding a rocket shuttle that has lost control upon reentry. From here they guide the ship to a safe landing, but this is not before Hibiki Tachibana, the main character, punches through a mountain (which forces a guy at base to update the tallest mountain wikis), through a canyon, and safely as possible through a small town. It was perfect, the action, the concept, the dialogue, all of it. But if you want a sense about why this is one of my favorite series when I later reached this point watching the show, I discovered there was still two more huge fight scenes and a well animated concert in the same episode alone. Symphogear is awesome and always strives to be as over the top and entertaining as possible. I love the main characters and the music, both the openings and endings as well as what the characters sing in battle, is incredible. It also has a perfect ending in season 5 that was so good I had to take a long break from anime since nothing could come close to topping it.

2: Yu Yu Hakusho!

My favorite show from Toonami was without a doubt Yu Yu Hakusho. When Yusuke Urameshi dies saving a child about to be hit by an incoming car, he is given a second chance at life and is tasked with becoming the Spirit Detective of Earth who solves supernatural crises involving the spirit and demon worlds. After solving a few early cases, he eventually joins forces with his rival, Kuwabara, and two of his former enemies, Kurama and Hiei, to take down even more powerful threats. It’s here that the show really hits its stride as the dynamic between the four friends is amazing and they all have fun powers, techniques, and tools for the battles ahead. While the very final stretch of episodes is very whatever, the peak of the show between the battle with the Four Beasts, the Dark Tournament, and the Chapter Black arcs is unforgettable. I sometimes wonder if the shows I loved growing up are as good as I thought they were and I was so happy to find when I rewatched Yu Yu Hakusho on Blu Ray how exceptional it still was.

1: Puella Magi Madoka Magica / Rebellion / Magia Record

When I first watched it in Anime Club, I obviously loved Madoka Magica a lot, but it was when I rewatched it again and again to show friends and family, that I became sure it was my favorite anime I’ve seen to date. Madoka is a densely crafted show filled with wondrous, but haunting imagery that makes the absolute most of its twelve episodes. While it first presents itself as a standard magical girl show, it’s obvious from the imagery and plot details that something more sinister lurks beneath the surface. It’s a perfect tragedy between the six characters at the heart of the show and it ultimately ends on a bittersweet, but magical ending. Every time I watch Madoka Magica, I still pick up on new details I didn’t catch or truly appreciate on a prior viewing which is what makes watching it so rewarding. My favorite character is definitely Madoka herself as she begins the show very uncertain of herself, but becomes more decisive and able to stand up and protect what she believes in as the show continues. I also have to thank Madoka Magica for introducing me to my absolute favorite musical group, ClariS, who provided the amazing opening theme song for the show, Connect. Overall, Madoka Magica forever cemented my love of anime and I’m still inspired by everything it achieved and its final message of hope. It is without a doubt, my favorite anime at 30!

…

That concludes my latest blog! I hope you enjoyed it and thank you for reading! I always love discussing anime so feel free to share what you thought of my favorite shows and share your favorite anime with me on Twitter @JustinMikos. Below is my top 36 anime that shows where all the related media that I had grouped together would have placed. Otherwise, until next time!

1: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
2: Yu Yu Hakusho!
3: Symphogear
4: Monogatari
5: Baccano!
6: Madoka Magica Rebellion
7: Girls Und Panzer Der Film
8: March Comes In Like A Lion
9: Nichijou
10: Hajime No Ippo The Fighting!
11: Re:Zero
12: Dragon Ball Super
13: Mob Psycho 100
14: My Hero Academia
15: Attack on Titan
16: Granbelm
17: Fate/Zero
18: Durarara!!!
19: Cardcaptor Sakura
20: Sword Art Online Alternative: Gun Gale Online
21: Dragon Ball Super Broly
22: My Hero Academia: Two Heroes
23: Working!!!
24: Angel Beats!
25: Steins;Gate
26: Girls Und Panzer
27: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann
28: Love Live Sunshine
29: Magia Record
30: Gundam Wing
31: Little Busters!
32: Love Live!
33: Yurikuma Arashi
34: Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha
35: Pop Team Epic!
36: A Certain Scientific Railgun

​Since its launch at the very end of July to almost the very end of August, I was consumed by Xenoblade Chronicles 3. It took me 100 hours to roll credits and I knew I was far from done as I still had so much of the game to see and experience myself. I ended up putting another 42 hours in before reaching my current stopping point. Across my first 142 hours with Xenoblade 3, I mapped out every corner of Aionios except for the very last level 95+ cave, I completed every quest in the game I could find, and I maxed out affinity with every location. I made the decision to stop when I did in large part due to waiting to see how the DLC expansion content will be integrated into the game, not for a lack of enthusiasm to fully wrap it up.

As I did for Xenoblade Chronicles X, I’m excited to share my full thoughts on the game fresh off my first playthrough. The Xenoblade series has meant so much to me since before the first game even released in the US, so I’m very excited to both put together and share this blog. Given just how enormous and complex this game is, I needed to write this blog to properly sort my feelings out on the game. Even so, I still feel hesitant to make definitive statements on certain fronts, so please forgive me when that happens here. I think it’s a great problem to be so overwhelmed by this game and I was always pleased to find it truly challenges the almost impossible to overcome throne the original Xenoblade Chronicles sits on in my mind. I’ll say it upfront, I do think Xenoblade Chronicles 3 ultimately edges out Xenoblade Chronicles as the best game in the series, though in my heart it’s still battling it out to become my favorite. I’m just too close to the experience still and the story of Xenoblade 3 is far from over as we have three more rounds of DLC ahead which will add new heroes, which I’m very curious to see how they will be implemented, a new challenge mode, and a significant story mode expansion so it may be a while before I know for sure.

​Before I dive in, I’d like to lay out how this blog is organized and to set spoiler expectations. Let’s start with the latter. In this blog, I ultimately want to discuss the story of the game in detail. It’s so wrapped up in my feelings on the game that talking around it would do a disservice to the game and just make for a weaker blog. I also want to feel comfortable talking about combat mechanics and the game’s structure and again dancing around details just seems ill-advised as that’s where the depth of the game lies and my overall thoughts evolved throughout my full journey. So yes, there will be full spoilers for Xenoblade Chronicles 3 in this blog beyond this paragraph and if you haven’t finished the game yet I encourage you to return to this blog after you have rolled credits and dived into the post game, a first for the series. If you want to hear my mostly spoiler free thoughts on the game, I encourage you to check out my Twitter thread of my first playthrough. If you are unfamiliar with Blue Reflection Second Light, an RPG from last year I loved, you are good to go there. I noted a major connection the two games share which I will bring up again in this blog so watch out! By nature as well, expect full spoilers for the rest of the Xenoblade series in this blog, it is just unavoidable. For this blog’s structure, the rough plan from start to finish is to cover my initial expectations walking in, discussing the premise of the game and its structure. I’ll then cover individual elements including exploration, combat, music, the characters and story, and then finally discuss my overall feelings. There is a ton to discuss so let’s dive right in!

To properly kick this blog off, I have to discuss my expectations walking in. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is the sixth Xenoblade Chronicles experience and my reactions to the first five thoroughly informed my expectations. The original game was my 2012 game of the year and won me over by being the complete package. Every element is excellent and works in harmony to create an unforgettable experience. When I replayed Xenoblade with the Definitive Edition, I wrote a blog laying out my full thoughts on the game like I am here. My thoughts on Future Connected are included as well. Xenoblade X was another game of colossal importance for me that I considered at the time a messy masterpiece. Its level of execution could not always reach its absurd ambitions, but darn if X isn’t so loveable and always arresting all the same. I strongly yearn for Xenoblade X to be brought over to the Switch, not just because my Wii U will one day fail me, but to have an excuse to play it again and hopefully check out the multiplayer with friends.

The largest factor hanging over my expectations for Xenoblade 3 was the infamous Xenoblade Chronicles 2. While it was still one of my favorite games the year it came out (at 9th place), the more distance I had from it, the more it personally felt like a relatively big disappointment. It was obviously a step back in quality and ambition from both Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade X with flatter environments and a less dynamic combat system. The pacing of the game is thoroughly mixed for the first thirty hours until it largely gets its act together for the back forty or so. While the story and characters did win me over ultimately, the juvenile and horny tone never sat right with me. To this day, I’ve never recommended Xenoblade Chronicles 2 to anyone. In fact, I’ve largely discouraged people to check it out given its worst content and given the first 30 hours are a slog. It’s a shame given there are elements of Xenoblade 2 I do really enjoy including the majority of the characters, the excellent ending, and the largely awesome soundtrack. So of course, with such a marked shift in tone and quality, I wondered what the next main Xenoblade entry would be like for years. The two smaller experiences following Xenoblade 2, Torna and Future Connected, gave me immense hope that the series was back on track as they more closely resembled Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade X. My hope was that Xenoblade 2 would stand as the black sheep of the series and now with Xenoblade 3 I can thankfully say yes, it is.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3 properly begins showing two nations at war, Keves and Agnus. The goal of the war is to kill as many of the enemy soldiers as possible as the two sides are literally harvesting the embers of life that leave slain soldier’s bodies. The war is being fought across the world of Aionios, between organized groups of soldiers called colonies. Each one has a Flame Clock that shows the amount of energy each colony has collected and each soldier’s life is tied to their colony’s clock. If the clock were to deplete, every soldier would die so they are forced to fight. There’s little questioning of the structure of this world by the majority of the soldiers themselves as they are literally born and raised to fight for their ten years of life. In the initial battle, we see one colony being wiped out entirely, and it is here that we meet three of the main characters, Noah the main protagonist, and his friends Eunie and Lanz. Noah is an off-seer who sends off the lives of departed soldiers so they can rest peacefully. While Noah has some questions about the structure of his world, the weight of the flame clock prevents him from acting on them.

By the end of chapter 1 the story begins to shift as an urgent special operation Noah’s colony is sent on sets Noah and his friends lives on a different course. They are tasked to destroy an unknown force and Noah’s squad happens to reach them first alongside a squad from Agnus ultimately composed of the other three party members, Mio, Taion, and Sena. While the six soldiers are battling it out, a giant monster appears and wreaks havoc killing some of their friends who had come to assist them. In the middle of this confusion, that unknown force led by a man named Vandham, activates the Ouroboros Stone which transforms the party into Ouroboros. This frees them from the shackles of the flame clock and allows them to Interlink between each other in set pairs which basically temporarily transforms them into giant robots of immense power. This allows them to overcome that giant monster who identifies as a Moebius and gives them insight into the memories and emotions of their partner. After a series of events, the six soldiers alongside two Nopon, Riku and Manana, decide to team up and search for a city in Swordmarch (the sword of the Mechonis from the original Xenoblade that pierces the land) that will hopefully give them more answers about Moebius and allow them to live beyond their ten years of life.

In chapter 3 the greater structure of the game comes into focus as you are able to explore the world of Aionios with more freedom. Noah, armed with a sword called Lucky Seven, is able to destroy Flame Clocks in a way that actually frees the people of each colony rather than kills them. From this point you are able to continue advancing the story or break off at any time to dive into various side content including huge optional zones to explore, hero and later ascension quests, and a vast array of side quests mostly attached to each colony you have liberated. Every colony liberated has a hero character to recruit that fills a rotating seventh slot in your party (the main six characters are locked in your party) and is heavily tied to the story of each colony. Zeon for example, the leader of Noah’s Colony 9, is a childhood friend of Noah, Lanz, and Eunie, and tries to address the food shortage his colony faces by growing crops. These characters are not just important to recruit because they flesh out the world and story, but because each one has a unique job that the party can learn and master.

I love the structure of Xenoblade 3. For the first time in the non-X games there truly is an overwhelming amount of quality side content to pursue beyond the main story. For exploration, my favorite element of the Xenoblade games, you no longer just have small optional parts of the main story areas you are in to explore, but often huge distinct areas to get lost in and have your own adventures in. As I played through the game, I often kept mental notes of optional areas I should explore once my level closed in on them. While there is no reward to mapping out the world, it was addicting filling in the map myself by wandering through it and seeing every last inch of the beautiful and fantastic world. I often wondered and was often satisfied with how the world connected itself together and figuring out how to reach certain places was as immensely satisfying as exploring them. I can’t speak to Xenoblade 2 since I don’t remember how it worked there, but at least in Xenoblade 3 compared to the original game I appreciate that you no longer whiff attacks on monsters more than three levels above you. With the right equipment, ability spread, and tactics then you can take on monsters many levels above you and come out on top. It’s such an empowering and deeply satisfying feeling that enriches the thrill of exploration into unknown territory when there is no artificial failure barrier because the amount of danger you can risk is far greater. 

Recruiting heroes and experiencing the greater stories that develop across locations is another excellent source of quality side content. Having recruited everyone along my journey, I could not imagine having not and ultimately seeing their stories through given how much it adds to the greater experience. While I waited until after I rolled credits to finish all of them, I’m also especially glad I saw every colony story through while maxing affinity. I’m always a huge fan of when you tackle side quests that introduce characters that later all come together as a community for a final quest. Xenoblade 3 does have a few quests with tons of crossover including building the giant robot together with Colony 30 and their neighbors, but more often it is one hero character or prominent side character working together with one another or the people of the individual colonies coming together. I don’t think I’ve had a game that’s ever had as many quests like these with such a fun range in scale, so I felt especially catered to and loved how they enriched the world. There’s a lot of a-ha moments in being confronted with a problem and then knowing who you need to turn to for help whether it’s an individual or a full community.

With the premise and general structure covered, I’d like to move on to discuss more specific elements of Xenoblade 3 starting with exploration. My favorite part of the Xenoblade series is unquestionably exploring the amazing and truly fantastic worlds Monolith designs and brings to life. I was skeptical of the strength of Xenoblade 3’s exploration element during my journey because while Aionios lacks some of the impossible fantasy landscapes that define the series and straight up reuses imagery from both Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2, I ultimately walked away deeply satisfied. Aside from X which reigns uncontested with its open world structure, Xenoblade 3 became my otherwise favorite game in the series for exploration. Walking into the experience from the prerelease information I was unsure whether Xenoblade 3 would be open world or have open zones like 1 and 2. I was initially disappointed to find out it was open zones again, but what I could not tell early on was exactly how huge, dense, and complex these zones were.

On three separate occasions, I was ultimately blown away by Xenoblade 3’s world. The first was the Fornis region which in chapter 2 is a guided experience. However, once you reach chapter 3, you quickly stumble upon my favorite area of the game that I dubbed the Crossroads. While it obviously has a proper name and is connected to a major area, the Crossroads are special to me because when you enter them the music fades away and the stunning scale and vision of Xenoblade 3 is fully revealed. The Crossroads is the intersection of four different areas of Fornis. The North where you came from leads to Colony 4, the Eastern path leads to Dannagh Desert, the path to the West leads to a deadly valley called Elaice Highway, and right before you to the South lies Ribi Flats a verdant, peaceful cliffside that you’ll have to scale. Even then, what I still could not imagine about Fornis was that there were still distinct biomes to find, two more colonies to find one of which is literally hiding inside a mountain, and two substantial dungeon-like caves. When I made each discovery one by one, I felt each time no way can Monolith make this land more complex and yet they did.

Since I’m talking about Fornis, I might as well bring up the new to Xenoblade 3 party skills which once found grant you new abilities like being able to ride down wires or walk over hazardous ground. There’s so few of them it’s not much of a Metroid element, but even so I did get a great kick out of getting a new one and knowing where to run back to explore new areas. Fornis has perhaps my favorite use of one as there is a mountain in the lower Western corner of the Dannagh Desert that I just did not know how to climb. Walking around the perimeter of the cliffside didn’t help as the only ramp was a sand flow that prevented you from climbing up it. At this point I found my first trick door dungeon which was a pleasant surprise and from there tried to figure out how to enter the two seemingly random door icons on the map to no avail. When I gave up, I returned to the Aetia region you begin the game in and ended up heading towards Mio’s colony, Colony Gamma, where I ended up learning an ability to climb up sand flows from the commander/hero Teach. Now the adventure was back on so I happily scaled and explored that mountain that thwarted me previously. It was a great moment in my adventure.

I mentioned I was blown away three times, so let me move on to the second time, the Cadensia region with the Erythia Sea. At this point in the journey, I thought Fornis was going to be the exceptional standout area after the Pentalas and Keves Castle regions were more linear. When you first enter Cadensia you are basically at the base of Swordmarch and the home of the Lost Numbers simply called, City. They task you with the next part of the journey of sneaking into Agnus Castle and give you a boat to cross the Erythia Sea. The port for the boat is inside a cave inside a small mountain, so when you emerge out into the Erythia Sea it feels awesome seeing the full sea before you. There are many islands scattered about to explore at your leisure with my favorites being Daedel Island, Corne Island, and the Levi Sandbar. The whole sea in general is just classic Xenoblade as most of the islands offer satisfying mini adventures. Take Daedel Island for example which after climbing up the beachside leads to a fortress of Gulkins, a sea themed offshoot of Tirkins. After you blast through them you can repel into the central core of the island that is filled with humongous dinosaurs and other seemingly prehistoric beasts. If you are properly leveled, you can fully explore this central core area including battling enemies in the lake, near a small cave, and later on the cliffside tackle a boss to reach the giant plant at the island’s center. Levi Sandbar offers similar thrills as there are rivers of sand to navigate, an underground spider den to find after falling in quicksand, a military base to conquer, and castle ruins to explore atop a small ridge. Throughout the sea there are sealed treasures to discover, tons of unique boss monsters to defeat including two superbosses, some very interesting caves to find, and, most impressively, the base of Agnus Castle is part of the same map. There’s so much adventure to be had in the Cadensia region and I was happy it remains relevant to the end of your adventure because it was the region I was most happy to be in.

The final moment of exploration that blew me away was the return to the Aetia region which is also my favorite long term payoff in Xenoblade 3. When I first approached the edge of Cadensia and saw it say I would return to Aetia I thought it was a mistake since I had definitely finished mapping out the Eastern edge of Aetia earlier. Prior to this, I had noticed that the remains of the Gormott Titan from Xenoblade 2 hung above Aetia and thought it’d be cool to explore up there, but I thought it was just decoration. Well it absolutely wasn’t! When you return to Aetia you are in a snow filled region called Upper Aetia and while it isn’t required for the main story you can complete the full loop of your journey around the world by climbing down into Cooley Lake, which was a portion of the map that haunted me throughout the adventure. I had so many ideas for how to reach Cooley Lake including what ultimately turned out to be an unconnected high level cave and a mysterious cliffside I couldn’t reach, as well as the edge of the battlefield at the beginning of the game. I had just ruled out the battlefield before heading to Upper Aetia for the first time. When I reached the Cloudkeep of Upper Aetia and turned around and saw the fantastic view of the battlefield where the game began and knowing it was all one huge level was such a wild moment I won’t forget.

​To wrap up my discussion on exploration, not only was I constantly compelled to push forward and see everything, I just ultimately came to really appreciate the world of Aionios to an extent even more than the original Xenoblade game whose best maps are also seared into my memory. I came to know Aionios like the back of my hand especially as I ran through side quests in the post game. Often, I’d be sent somewhere in the world to address an issue and feel yes, I know exactly where I’m heading and I’m excited to head back there. Along the way I’d often look into other things I had left unfinished like tackling unique monsters that were above my level prior to open up new fast travel points. I loved exploring so much that when it came time to fight the final boss and I wasn’t ready for my journey to conclude just then, I of course jumped right back into exploring and in this case fully mapped out the Lower Maktha Wildwood.

Ok, that covers exploration, so time to move on and discuss combat. I’d like to discuss the combat system itself of course and, in the process, I’ll discuss both party building and the job system as well. Xenoblade 3 thankfully returns to a combat system closer in spirit to Xenoblade and Xenoblade X where positioning matters more than ever. There is no question in my mind, this is the best combat system in the series yet when you are in the middle of it as there is so much more to immediately manage as well as more systems and strategies possible to tap into. When the game begins for the character you control, you simply have three basic Arts assigned to face buttons and a powerful Talent Art that fills up as you perform tasks that support your combat role. For example, attackers need to mix in positional attacks, attacking from the front, back, and side with specific Arts, to fill up their Talent Art’s gauge. Arts from Keves classes fill up after a time based cool down while Agnus classes fill up every time you auto attack. This distinction is important because ultimately you can equip up to three more Arts from classes from the opposite nation. In other words, you’ll have three Arts where Arts recharge over time and three that recharge through auto attacks which is especially interesting to juggle when they have a range of cooldown lengths. The second set of Arts is mapped to pressing up, right, and down on the d-pad and here is where an interesting decision comes into play. Arts that line up on the UI horizontally (Up and X, Right and Y, and Down and B) can be activated at once as Fusion Arts by holding ZR. In a Fusion Art, the main Art of your current class triggers and combines both the damage and bonus effect of the other Art, like Power Charge or Bleed, to it. Somewhere in there is some kind of damage multiplier as well given how easy it is to spot as your damage increases throughout the adventure. There’s another bonus as well because Fusion Arts help power up your Ouroboros form while the downside of course is that you must wait for both Arts to be charged which might leave one Art sitting unused for a while.

Ouroboros is the other main part of the combat system to manage and plan around. When the set pairs of characters Interlink, Noah and Mio, Eunie and Taion, and Lanz and Sena, they fuse together to form a powerful robot that is impervious to damage. Each Ouroboros also has its own set of arts and eventually when the Agnus crew get their own leading Ouroboros forms you can swap between the two to take advantage of even more Arts. Each form has their own role and purpose. Noah’s Ouroboros form is generally amazing at dealing damage and setting up big combos for example while Eunie’s Ouroboros form is good for healing allies and can even revive them. While a general goal of combat for longer encounters should be to charge the Ouroboros gauge to level 3 for max damage, sometimes activating it early to dodge a hit to keep a character alive is crucial. It’s important to remember that when two characters Interlink you might lose out on key roles in your party like your healers so you need to account for that when party building.

​While normal combat and Ouroboros combat are the most regular features of combat to consider, they aren’t the only ones. For the first time you can swap to any of the six main characters at any time which is great if you need a specific thing to happen that the generally good AI is not addressing. In addition to positional attacks, there are buff fields your party lays down that you can take advantage of if you move your party into them like attack up, healing, and haste/art recharge. This can be done individually or by making use of orders to cluster everyone together. There are also two limit break attacks to consider implementing. First is Chain Attacks, which I generally avoided in regular combat since they deal an absurd amount of damage. I did like using them occasionally as a get out of jail free card however since it is a very good way to completely refill your health. The second limit break is by far my favorite and one I enjoyed working towards. You need a lot of charges to build it up, but if you can manage to fill it without dying, Noah’s second unique talent art, Unlimited Sword, is incredible. When activated, Noah draws forth Lucky Seven and gets access to six unique Arts that grant buffs and debuffs consistently and a unique Talent Art that guarantees a very powerful Smash combo. You obviously draw a ton of aggro, but if you properly time the Smash combo you can interrupt enemy attacks. Alternately, you can hide temporarily in your Ouroboros form which grants easier access to Noah’s special Ouroboros talent art and maintains the timer for Unlimited Sword. Since it is so difficult to build and maintain, I had no remorse attempting to work Unlimited Sword into my longer fights unlike the absurdly powerful Chain Attacks that have little drawback beyond the long animations.

I want to briefly talk about one of my favorite fights I experienced as an example of how this all comes together. Around 15 hours into my adventure, I picked a fight with an elite scorpion monster four levels above me. Early on I swapped between characters to get everyone in position since we didn’t start the fight united. This set me up to take proper advantage of buff and healing fields for my whole party. From there I swapped to Noah who was using the Flash Fencer job to power up his attacks including his first Lucky Seven special talent art (not the limit break) and I took advantage of fusion arts to charge my Ouroboros as best as I could. I was able to dodge some of the biggest hits of the scorpion by swapping to Ouroboros, but unfortunately when he was at 25% health left my two healers went down. Unless you have a special item equipped or have access to Eunie and Taion’s Ouroboros revive, when your healers die you can no longer revive people. With my last four members, I did a hail mary Chain Attack and in the last round barely managed to kill the scorpion. My reward for the battle wasn’t just the thrill of it as it turned out this scorpion was guarding a secret location oasis in the top left corner of the Dannagh Desert. It was so satisfying to triumph here and see such an awesome spot. Most of my favorite fights in Xenoblade 3 would resemble this one as I regularly tapped into many of the combat systems at key points in order to triumph.

I’ve touched on it throughout my discussion of combat, but let’s talk about party building and the job system. I think even considering X which had a deeper range of possibilities, Xenoblade 3 despite ditching proper equipment is the most fun to build parties with since it readily presents interesting choices to play with. For the six characters always in the field, you are directly in charge of choosing their class, arranging their arts and fusion arts, and equipping three skills, three accessories, and finally three gems. The first choice for a long part of the game isn’t necessarily the most interesting in itself, but rather for how you plan your character growth. There are many weird quirks of the job system to consider when it comes to learning and mastering classes. First you have to complete the hero quest to recruit someone with a new job into your party. Upon doing so, one of the main six characters instantly becomes the class inheritor and has access to it as well. In order to teach the job to your other five characters you’ll need to have either the hero or someone who has mastered the job in your party with the job equipped. The more characters who have the job equipped the faster the other characters will learn it, but the game doesn’t tell you that you must also fight monsters at or ideally above your level to really move the process along. Since you permanently learn skills, arts, and eventually talent arts for your effort, it’s best to learn every job and master them as you play. When you don’t have jobs to learn and master, choosing your seventh hero can become quite strategic as they can make a surprisingly huge impact on keeping your party healthy vs dealing a lot of damage. I was mostly focused on leveling efficiently so I didn’t play around with possibilities of the job and hero systems as much as I’d have liked to, but every once in a while, I’d randomly assemble really cool and effective combinations which considerably raised my opinion of the system as a whole.

​To talk about how these choices all interact, I’d like to discuss my favorite build. While there are many jobs I enjoyed playing, like the Flash Fencer, Sword Master, and Full Metal Jaguar, my absolute favorite was Ghondor’s class, the Martial Artist. What makes the Martial Artist inherently special beyond its high critical hit rate is that most of its attacks I favored have inherently short cooldowns. This meant I could regularly sneak Arts in while my Arts drawn from other classes were recharging and, in the process, really charge my selected Talent Art quickly. One of its best Arts has an Evade effect which makes you entirely invulnerable to damage and lets you turn Xenoblade 3 into more of an action game where you can dodge the most devastating attacks. The Martial Artist’s Talent Art is particularly interesting as it boosts its strength by draining the power from charged Arts which can be weaker than just using Fusion Arts, but is sometimes more powerful especially when an enemy has high defense. While the Martial Artist has a lot of inherent strengths its real strength is that with a solid build to accentuate its strengths it becomes absurdly good. For Fusion Arts, I mainly picked Arts with short cooldowns and made sure I had the Flash Fencer’s Power Charge. For equipment, including accessories, skills, and gems, I prioritized choices that sped up attack and boosted critical hit rate. I also made sure to equip my absolute favorite accessory that doubles Fusion Art damage. Finally, I always made sure my healers had access to the fast art recharge field of Miyabi’s Troubadour Class and regularly brought along Miyabi herself as well which meant my Arts practically instantly charged. All of this together let me regularly fire off Fusion Arts as much as possible which could easily deal around 50,000 damage or higher in the right conditions. My Talent Art could also charge very quickly which was especially great if it was Noah’s unique Unlimited Sword Talent Art.

I’d like to move on now to briefly discuss the music of Xenoblade 3. In general, I was greatly pleased by the battle themes while I felt underwhelmed by the field music. It feels like there is less unique battle music overall in Xenoblade 3 compared to Xenoblade 2, but it does make up for it by having cool variations for the boss battle themes that speak to the tone of the fight at hand. On the quality front, I think Xenoblade 3 is my new favorite for battle themes. Keves Battle and You Will Know Our Names Finale are particularly cool for featuring the flutes used in the main story. My two favorite tracks are definitely, A Formidable Enemy, which is the theme of all elite monster fights, and Battle! Vs Moebius, which plays for all Moebius fights. The Moebius boss fight theme in particular gives me chills every time I hear it as it’s truly on another level. I also have to give a shoutout to the post game battle theme remix of Drifting Soul which takes one of my favorite themes of Xenoblade 2 into a very cool new direction.

On the other hand, we have the exploration themes for Xenoblade 3 which left me disappointed. In a vacuum they are all generally fine, but the songs that play when you are exploring are just so muted compared to the bombastic themes I loved from past games. There is no equivalent at all to something like the Gaur Plains theme from the original Xenoblade or Gormott, Mor Ardain, and Tantal from Xenoblade 2. Most of the songs in Xenoblade 3 are just generally wistful and melancholic which does work very well to accentuate the story and themes of Xenoblade 3, but I’m sad it all kind of fades into the background without a range of tones. The one exception is the Erythia Sea theme which is still quiet, but the melody of the piano is just catchy enough to stand out and it feels fitting for being leisurely at sea. While the general exploration themes let me down, I do like the town themes. The one for the City in particular is especially distinct and reminds me of the Nier soundtracks. I’m not terribly familiar with the names of the music for event tracks yet so I can’t give many shoutouts here, but to wrap up my music discussion, I will say I especially enjoyed, Remnants of Memories, and the end credit’s theme, Where We Belong.

​For my final section before my overall wrap up, I’d like to discuss the characters and the story. I can confidently say this is my favorite cast of core characters in a Xenoblade game. For the main eight there are no weak links at all. Eunie and Lanz are definitely my two favorites. Eunie is just incredibly funny with her rude remarks and regular exasperation, but she does truly care about all of her friends and has some good drama with remembering and overcoming the trauma of her past lives. Lanz is definitely the heart of the group and has meaningful moments with all of the main characters and a good number of hero characters. He also has my favorite repeated line of post battle dialog in the game “And I was the MVP…You’re all thinking it!” The second half is delivered with such amusing conviction that I always laugh when thinking about it. I like Noah and Mio a lot too. I had become iffy on Noah during the events of chapter 5 and 6 and later how he forgives his dark counterpart N, but those moments just seem weirdly out of character mostly in regards to how thoughtful and insightful he is in every other part of the story. Mio too suffers in the same story sections as Noah and again shines everywhere else, but I do give Mio the slight edge over Noah because the story really does a great job when focusing on how she spends her remaining time left both heroically and when she is more vulnerable. Riku and Manana are probably my next favorite pair. Riku always has the best wisdom and truly cares about all of his friends and I love his super deep voice. I was skeptical about Manana since she doesn’t get much to do in the main story, but her bubbly personality really shines in side quests and she gets so many of the game’s best silly lines. Sena and Taion definitely get less to work with than the other characters (Sena even gets robbed during her own ascension quest!), but I definitely love what each brings to the team. Sena has a ton of energy and wants to prove herself even as she is haunted by self-doubt and Taion alternates well between thoughtful analysis and snark.

​I greatly enjoyed the cast of hero characters overall. There’s a truly surprising amount of variety between them despite most of them being leaders of a Colony or faction and I was obviously thrilled both Nia and Melia returned. For new characters, I already mentioned Miyabi was definitely the MVP in my group in battle for fast Art recharging, but I also really enjoyed her relationship with Mio and her ascension quest, a cooking contest with multiple contestants and judges, which was very fun. Zeon was excellent too. I initially confused him with Garvel, the bully from flashbacks, and was very relieved to find out they were different characters because Zeon is an excellent friend and I love his intense passion for growing crops, especially potatoes. I also enjoyed Ashera who has by far the most amusing entrance in the game as she asks you to fight off her own colony who both hate and love her. Ashera’s ascension quest really fleshed out her character and the lore of the game as we learned prior to the main game the Homecoming ceremony was a brutal affair rather than a sad, celebratory one. My favorite hero character was definitely Ghondor. Her filthy language and aggressive personality make a bad first impression, but I was fully won over when she very amusingly returns to rescue the party in chapter 6. I became even more endeared to Ghondor the more side quests I played as we see many different sides of her across them.

​While the main party and hero characters are awesome, sadly Moebius, the villains, are not. While Moebius starts off with a great first impression with the maniacal D and that incredible boss theme, the ones you regularly encounter in normal side quests are just so mustache-twirlingly evil and even sometimes just downright incompetent that you lose all respect for them as adversaries. While it’s kind of the point that they are drunk on power, when the rest of the game is confidently presented with so much thoughtfulness, it’s just a real bummer most of the villains are just a parade of jokers. Perhaps if they leaned into camp more it would work out. The Moebius for Colony Tau for example sounds like an evil British grandma which is very amusing. Aside from D, there are three other villains who stand out in Xenoblade 3, Shania, N, and Z. Shania is probably the best in the game. She begins the game as a regular human and betrays the entire party to escape her mortal existence. In Sena’s ascension quest Shania returns as a Moebius and you learn how her upbringing drove her to only see her failures and the worst in people despite the support she did have. I really like N’s tragic backstory and his villainous actions in the plot have the most impact, but I do think he loses massive points for just being incredibly dense for 1,000 years. His redemption arc thus fell completely flat for me. Finally, I have to talk about Z, pronounced Zed, the ultimate villain of the game. In discussing the game online, I realized I may have misunderstood Z’s backstory. I think he existed prior to Origin, but regardless if he did or didn’t I do think in either case the idea of Z being powered by humanity’s fear of the future is pretty cool and his obsession with cinema is amusing. Unfortunately, the final, very dragged-out boss fight with Z is such a letdown, that I do think less of his character.

As for the story, I definitely enjoyed the biggest beats. The opening in particular is presented with such confidence that you really feel you are in for the adventure of a lifetime. The end of chapter 2 where the party really teams up for the first time is also very exciting. Things start to drag a bit in chapters 3 and 4 as the game settles into a predictable rhythm, but thankfully chapter 5 is incredible. The party meeting the Lost Numbers in full and seeing the normal human life cycle is such an incredible, wondrous moment. Of course, the best moment in the game, even with parts I disagree with, is when the party rescues Ghondor from prison, but ends up getting captured themselves. N’s twisted actions that seemingly culminate with the death of Mio and Noah is incredibly shocking. I mentioned it above, but I really liked N’s backstory revealed here as he was ultimately broken from all of the time loops he experienced. When Noah returns to reality from his dream journey and truly pulls Lucky Seven for the first time is an incredible, empowering moment. Rescuing Nia at the end of Chapter 6 is another fantastic moment, as Nia presents herself to the party as someone of legendary status and importance, but we the players know she is just winging it completely and constantly on the verge of being discovered. The final ending is definitely the most affecting moment of Xenoblade 3 for me. Seeing the two parties running after each other as the worlds begin to separate is so simple in concept, but is executed so effectively I definitely got misty eyed knowing they seemingly won’t reunite easily if truly at all.

While that covers the big moments, I do have to touch on the backstory of Origin and Z which has been contentiously received. Personally, it never really bothered me. I’ve played so many games and seen so many anime where the universe has to be rebooted that I wasn’t fazed beyond Tora from Xenoblade 2 seemingly being the idea guy behind Origin (incidentally, Tora is the worst!). I mainly thought it was incredibly amusing that the final dungeon name and concept were identical to Blue Reflection Second Light from not even a year ago considering it was rumored Xenoblade 3 had a chance to be launched at the same time. I know there are only so many JRPG stories out there, but it’s a bizarre coincidence two developers came up with the same ideas likely simultaneously. As for Z, I’ve also played many games where an evil being was created or empowered by the negative thoughts of humans so again, I remained unfazed. For me, I really think the stories of the characters coming together, the main party, the heroes, the people of the Colonies etc., are going to be what I remember most about the story of Xenoblade 3.

With all of the major elements discussed, it’s time to finally share my overall feelings and wrap this blog up. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed Xenoblade 3. When I rolled credits at 100 hours, I really did not want to leave Aionios just yet, because I enjoyed exploring it so much and enjoyed hanging out with all of the characters. It’s such a cozy and deeply satisfying experience from start to finish. Xenoblade 3 was the first Xenoblade game where I knew early on I had to do everything and I basically have since I completed the post game outside of clearing the final cave and super bosses which I’m saving for when the DLC drops. With possible exception of X, I think Xenoblade 3 has the most compelling game structure of the series and on many fronts easily the best side content. Again, outside of X, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is my favorite in the series for exploration as its world is just so wondrous, vast, and shockingly dense. It blew me away on three separate occasions and offered so many more surprises beyond that. I felt incredibly compelled to map out the full world and outside of the Erythia Sea, I basically have. The combat is easily the best in the series with so many interesting tools and systems to draw on including more action elements if you want to tap into them. Party building may not have as much depth as X, but it does bring the most generally interesting decisions forward and make them easier to play with. While I didn’t play around with its possibilities too much, I still had great fun with the job system and stumbling upon really cool combos. The music in Xenoblade 3 may not have satisfied me for field music, but I thoroughly enjoyed the combat music including one of the all-time best boss battle themes with Battle! Vs. Moebius. Finally, I really enjoyed the characters, especially the main cast and heroes, and the story overall. While some of the backstory is a bit whatever, the big ideas and themes landed for me and I adored the ascension quests and colony stories.

I think Xenoblade 3 overall is definitely the best game in the series even if it doesn’t excel on every front like the original Xenoblade Chronicles. But while it may be messier, I definitely had the most fun playing Xenoblade 3 and I did not want to put it down until I saw nearly everything the game had to offer. I’m very glad it is a huge rejection of Xenoblade 2’s vision for the series and is instead back on track with what Xenoblade Chronicles and Xenoblade X started. Xenoblade 3 is absolutely a huge evolution for the non-X games and raises the bar for what I expect from the series. I do hope after Xenoblade 3’s DLC expansion releases we’ll see either a return to Mira or an entirely new world divorced from Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2, though I do think there is potential to return to Xenoblade and Xenoblade 2’s worlds in the future. Even if it isn’t as open as Mira, I also hope we’ll see a return to an open world structure. I feel Xenoblade 3 is the peak of open zone design, but another game as phenomenal as Xenoblade 3 would be hard to complain about. Regardless, Xenoblade 3 fully reawakened my love for the series and I can not wait to play Monolith’s next adventures.

​That concludes my latest and longest blog to date, thank you so much for reading! I’d love to hear what you thought about Xenoblade 3, so definitely share your thoughts with me on Twitter @JustinMikos. Until next time!

​In the early morning hours of March 10, 2022, I fully finished my final Wii U game, Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water. While it was a commercial flop, I still really loved the Wii U and there are some things it offered that I dearly miss on Switch that should be givens like the ability to message friends directly and, most importantly, to buy and own Virtual Console games forever. I still have many Virtual Console games to play and replay on the Wii U which thankfully I can mostly entirely enjoy on the Wii U gamepad even when I unhook the console from my TV. It wasn’t just those features and others like the Miiverse (RIP) that made the Wii U special, but rather it’s small, but stellar library of exclusives. Now that I’ve exhausted all of my proper Wii U games, I’m eager to share my thoughts on my top ten favorite games on the system. As I put together this list, I decided to include Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE for consideration even though I only fully finished it on Switch since that version didn’t really alter much of the core experience. Perhaps contradictorily, I also decided I wouldn’t consider either of the HD Zelda remasters since those core experiences I first experienced on the GameCube and Wii though I do have to say both the Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD are excellent. With all of that said, let’s get right into it!

10: Paper Mario Color Splash

Paper Mario Color Splash was the direct follow up to Paper Mario Sticker Star, which at the time I had tried to finish twice, but each time was thwarted by Wiggler’s dreadfully boring forest. While I learned last year Sticker Star does eventually become the game it wanted to be in the much better back half as I finally finished it, Paper Mario Color Splash turns all of Sticker Star’s weaknesses into strengths and is excellent throughout. While it still features one time use abilities for every attack, by making them cards instead of stickers it removes the annoying inventory management of Sticker Star. Fights still no longer give you XP, but they give you tons of money to easily replace your deck and hammers that steadily increases your overall paint supply which is used in both exploration and in battle. Once again Toads are the primary NPC to find in the world, but this time the writers really went out of their way to craft hilarious jokes and dialogue which makes you actually want to meet all of them. Finally, while the world map is still divided into distinct levels, clear themes unite each set such as helping a train reach its destination or scouring the seas for pirate treasure. A lot of people missed Color Splash as it released at the end of the Wii U’s life, so I hope it comes back one day and gets the much better reception it deserves.

9: Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, the game formerly known as Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem, is an exploration of the Japanese entertainment industry and is closer in tone to a Persona game than a traditional apocalyptic Shin Megami Tensei game. In TMS, the world is currently being threatened by evil spirits called Mirages attempting to suck the life energy, Performa, out of humanity. You play as Itsuki, a young man who enters a partnership with one of the good mirages, to become a mirage master. The good mirages and biggest bosses are all spirit versions of Fire Emblem characters including Chrom, Caeda, and Tiki, which is certainly an odd way to do a crossover. The gameplay is ripped right out of SMT, with exploiting elemental weaknesses leading to big combo chains called Sessions here. I really appreciate that each dungeon in TMS has a clear theme, including photo shoots and a movie set, with no randomized elements to make each one feel more meaningful. TMS is divided into chapters and you are free to revisit earlier dungeons for side quests and to claim treasures you missed without worrying about a time limit like Persona which is ideal. While I mentioned already the crossover elements are a bit lackluster, I’m very glad TMS#FE is far more concerned with telling its own story. Every party member works at Fortuna Entertainment and, aside from Itsuki who is more of a supporter, every character works in different aspects of entertainment. For example, Tsubasa and Kiria are idols, Touma is a Tokusatsu actor, and Mamori is a child actor hosting her own cooking show. While the main story introduces their stories, each character has side quests that continue their journeys that truly makes them endearing. I also have to mention the game has slick presentation throughout that makes the game feel extra energetic and special and I especially adore all of the vocal songs. The main theme, Reincarnation, sung by Yoshino Nanjo is far and away my favorite, and I also really enjoy Dream Catcher and Beastie Game.

8: New Super Mario Bros U & Super Mario Maker

When I was putting together my list, I kept going back and forth on whether to place either New Super Mario Bros U or Super Mario Maker ahead of each other. I settled on cheating a bit by putting them together here as a tie, but honestly that does feel right even though they are two different experiences. New Super Mario Bros U was a launch title for the Wii U and had an excellent, creative, single player and co-op campaign with an awesome, challenging World 9 post game and an amazing challenge mode for Mario masters. It became my favorite New Super Mario Bros game and my favorite 2D Mario game overall when Nintendo added the Luigi U DLC campaign. Luigi U was an entire set of short 100 second levels to blitz through that were a good deal tougher than the original game stages and still featured three gold coins to collect which made them satisfying to master. If I only considered just how much fun I had and the sheer amount of clear, steady satisfaction I got from each game, New Super Mario Bros U would be ahead of Super Mario Maker. Where it becomes fuzzier, is just how brilliant Super Mario Maker is and how wonderous it felt despite a few frustrations. Designing Mario levels with such an intuitive interface was such a blast and something I always wanted to do, but couldn’t until Mario Maker came along. A steady stream of new levels, from both Nintendo and other creators, ranged in quality, but were astounding in how they frequently broke the rules of Mario and how much creative fun they were. In addition to the lack of single player content, the most notable issue with Super Mario Maker besides missing elements/enemies later added in Super Mario Maker 2, were that levels that went unplayed online were cruelly delisted from the servers which was heartbreaking when you spent so much time creating them. It’s hard for me to weigh which experience is better, quality versus wonder, but since New Super Mario Bros. U and Super Mario Maker each compliment and elevate each other, I think instead it’s right to celebrate both together.

7: Pikmin 3

While I do miss the underground levels and the huge co-op mode of Pikmin 2, Pikmin 3 is still a phenomenal game. This time you have three captains to manage and can pause the action at any time to decide what your next action should be. This makes it easier than ever to multitask and optimize your actions which shines incredibly well in the new mission mode where you strive for perfect scores in the shortest amount of time. While there weren’t many levels at launch, the DLC levels for mission mode, including a unique 2.5D tunnel level and a difficult factory level, were extra spectacular and were so much fun to clear in co-op. The main campaign was also a lot of fun even though it was breezier than Pikmin 2’s. Pikmin 3 introduces two new Pikmin types, Rock Pikmin and Flying Pikmin. While the former feel redundant of the bulky Purple Pikmin, the Flying Pikmin are both awesome for dodging obstacles and swarming enemies. Pikmin 3 also features some of the biggest and best bosses of the series, so I’m glad there is boss battle mode to challenge them freely. Pikmin is such an awesome franchise, so I really hope we finally get a Pikmin 4 soon.

6: Bayonetta 2

Bayonetta 2 is one of the absolute best action games I’ve ever played and certainly the most over the top. The beginning of Bayonetta 2 is truly spectacular, where you fight hordes of angels on top of a fighter jet in the middle of a big city that culminates in a battle with a giant Godzilla monster. While things understandably calm down in the next level, the action always steadily rockets back up including fighting a giant sea serpent while surfing on a piece of debris in the middle of a giant vortex of water and fighting hordes of enemies in giant mech. Even when it isn’t being completely over the top, the core action is just immensely satisfying as you can swap between sets of weapons easily and dodge big attacks to enter Witch Time to punish enemies. Boss fights and challenge rooms really put all of your skills to the test especially the super hard post game arenas with back to back fights. There’s a lot of cool unlockables and fun secrets to find including unlocking Nintendo costumes like Princess Peach’s outfit which lets you summon Bowser’s fists to crush opponents. I recently replayed Bayonetta 2 and it still holds up amazingly. I have no clue how they can, but I can’t wait to see Platinum try to top Bayonetta 2 with Bayonetta 3 later this year.

5: Splatoon

I’ve always been a big fan of third person shooters and Nintendo released an instant classic with Splatoon. In the most basic mode, Turf War, you try to cover as much of the multiplayer maps as possible with ink. Standing in enemy ink drastically reduces your speed which gives you further incentive to spread as much of yours as possible. In essence then, Nintendo cleverly made map control a very tangible element to interact which is awesome since map control has always been quietly key to success in team shooters. The three main competitive modes are interesting as they each put their own spin on map control. Splat Zones is simply King of the Hill, Tower Control, my favorite, has you escort an on-rails tower into an enemy base, while Rainmaker, the most complicated, lets you take any path you want to bring the Rainmaker weapon into the opposing goal. Fights in Splatoon are fierce as ink flies in every direction, Inklings can dive in and out of ink for extra mobility and to sneak up on opponents, and it’s easy to rejoin the fray with a quick glance at the map and super jumping to your allies. I really love the colorful aesthetic of the game and especially its awesome soundtrack bursting with personality. Finally, while it is very short, the Mario Galaxy inspired campaign is awesome and culminates with one of Nintendo’s all time best boss fights.

4: Mario Kart 8

It is hard to divorce all of my fond memories made in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has slight tweaks that really enhance the experience, from the initial experience on Wii U, not to mention the impact of new courses from the Booster Pass which barely rolled out Wave 1 at the time of this writing. Divorced from Deluxe, I think the original Mario Kart 8 makes sense in spot 4 on my list. It was up in the air in the beginning, but the moment Mario Kart 8’s original DLC began rolling out that added 16 new tracks to the game and the new 200cc mode, Mario Kart 8 cemented itself as my favorite Mario Kart game. Already, the new anti-gravity mechanics were awesome and opened up the potential for engaging alternate routes in the tracks. 200cc is super unique as well, as you rocket forward on the course and actually need to feather the brake to navigate tight turns. The item balance, which was out of control with power items on the Wii version, has thankfully been calmed down in 8. The addition of the Super Horn, a defensive item that can crush the Blue Shell, is a game changer. Mario Kart 8’s graphics are impeccable and the jazzy soundtrack featuring a real Mario band is amazing and lovely. The best element of Mario Kart 8 is certainly the track selection. There are so many awesome new tracks like Mount Wario, Toad Harbor, Cloud Top Cruise, and Wild Woods, amazing retro tracks like Yoshi Circuit, Royal Raceway, and Wario’s Goldmine, and incredible crossover tracks including Hyrule Circuit and my two absolute favorites, Mute City and Big Blue. I have no idea how the Mario Kart team will ever top Mario Kart 8, especially now with the Booster Pass in 8 Deluxe, but I can’t wait to see them try.

3: Xenoblade X

Xenoblade X is a messy masterpiece that I love to pieces and I lament every day it remains trapped on the Wii U because way more people need to play it. Xenoblade X wonderfully captures the feeling of exploring a hostile alien planet on such a grand scale. Virtually everywhere you look offers impressive sights and sounds as well as hostile aliens to combat. The most amazing part of Xenoblade X is that the way you explore the planet changes significantly twice during the adventure. You begin Xenoblade X on foot, but eventually acquire a giant transforming mech that can cover a lot of ground quickly in vehicle mode, before ultimately gaining the ability for your mech to fly. While the world does essentially shrink with each upgrade, there is of course even more locations you can access and ground exploration still has its place. Because it was so intimidating, across my 75 hours of play I never did quite get a handle on mech combat so I ended up fighting the final boss on foot where I had built an engine to constantly enter overdrive for four times the damage. I appreciate Xenoblade X lets you explore upgrading your character with little hand holding as discovering myself how to make an overdrive engine felt so special. While exploration and combat steal the show, the story is no slouch either as there is so much to discover through side quests. The questions the game raises are so interesting that it is especially frustrating that to this day we still don’t have a sequel in sight. Finally, I do have to mention I love the soundtrack by Hiroyuki Sawano. He basically only composes songs with one tone, bombast, and I can’t get enough of it. My absolute favorite track is the boss battle theme, Uncontrollable, as it brings huge anime OP energy to every boss fight which way more games need.

2: Super Mario 3D World

My 2013 GOTY was Super Mario 3D World because it offers so much joyful, satisfying fun from start to finish whether you are playing by yourself or tackling the game with friends and family. A majority of the levels are a huge step up in creativity and purpose from its predecessor 3D Land. Scattered throughout each normal level are three green stars to collect and one stamp and in the original Wii U version they aren’t saved between deaths which makes collecting them a proper challenge. Incidentally, while the Switch version of course has a clear edge with awesome online play, I do think the slower speed of the original is the ideal speed for the game and makes each space feel more meaningful to play through. It probably would have been my GOTY back in 2013 with just the already strong main game, but what truly cemented my love for 3D World is the glorious post game that features tons of new exciting levels, a fifth playable character with Rosalina who gets the awesome Mario Galaxy spin jump, tough remix levels, and the ultimate gauntlet in the Mario series, Champion’s Road. While I’m currently most interested in seeing Mario explore a true open world after Bowser’s Fury for his next adventure, I really hope we also get a sequel to Super Mario 3D World one day. There’s nothing else like it.

1: Super Smash Bros For Wii U

Even though I loved it a great deal from the start, Super Smash Bros For Wii U (aka Smash 4) was not my favorite Wii U game when it first came out. Over time though, as new DLC rolled out and patches smoothed up the gameplay, it evolved into my favorite game on the system. I ultimately put 142 hours into Smash 4, which was almost double its closest competitor, Xenoblade X. While I enjoyed Brawl’s slower speed at the time, Smash 4 opted for a middle ground between Brawl and Melee’s lightning fast speed. As a result, fights were more exciting, but still manageable and easier to read. While I immediately gravitated back to my favorite character, Lucas, when he returned as DLC, there were tons of awesome new characters to learn. My favorite was definitely Shulk from Xenoblade. Shulk was a slower sword wielder with long reach, but he stood out from the rest by having access to five different buff states with his Monado Arts. By activating a Monado Art, you could dramatically raise one stat at the cost of another which made matches with him incredibly technical. I love too, Shulk came along with the Gaur Plains stage (my favorite background for Final Destination) with a handful of the best Xenoblade songs to rock out and fight to including You Will Know Our Names. Other newcomers I really loved included Lucina, Robin, Mega Man, Duck Hunt, and Cloud. While learning the characters was especially fun, the most excitement of course was playing the game locally with friends and the introduction of eight player Smash made it better than ever. While I’ve still never played a true eight player Smash game, being able to accommodate groups of five, six, and seven is amazing. My favorite memories of the game were playing intense first to five wins sets with my friends. These heated showdowns were so intense and the big moments were always so fun and emotional which made Smash 4 a staple when hanging out. While Super Smash Bros Ultimate holds the crown as the best Smash Bros game these days, I made so many fond memories with Smash 4 that I still treasure today.

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That concludes my latest blog and I hope you enjoyed it! I always like hearing from my readers, so if you have any favorite Wii U memories be sure to reach out to me on Twitter @JustinMikos. Also, in case you missed them, I did recently put out My Final Wii and Wii U Games blog as well as My Top Ten Favorite Wii Games blog, so check those out if you are interested! Until next time!

​As I entered 2022, one of my major gaming goals for the year was to finally finish some of the games in my deepest backlog. By the end of the year, I definitely wanted to finish both my final Wii games and my final Wii U games and maybe tackle my final Xbox 360 games as well to retire the consoles. Over the past three months, I played through both my final Wii games and my final Wii U games. For the Wii games, my two final disc games were Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love and Pandora’s Tower. I also had a digital copy of Zack and Wiki to play on my Wii U which I started promptly after finishing Pandora’s Tower. I had to plug my Wii U back into my TV that day which proved very weird when hours later it was announced the Wii U and 3DS eshops would be shutting down forever in March 2023. I mention this not just because it was a weird, disappointing coincidence, but because I scooped my final Wii U eshop purchases as a result including one of my final non-Virtual Console Wii U games, Affordable Space Adventures. The other Wii U game I still had to play was Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water which I had bought when it released and never played much of. Fatal Frame was part of my decision at the time to buy an external hard drive for the console which maybe wasn’t the best of investments considering the Wii U releases were almost entirely dried up by then, but it did free me to purchase more Virtual Console games and later Affordable Space Adventures without having to worry about the miniscule storage space the console came with. To be fair, I don’t believe we knew The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild would also head to Switch at the time, but yes thankfully it did work out.

In this blog, I want to talk about these final games I played to primarily wrap up both consoles. I still have games I want to replay on the Wii and I will continue to keep my Wii U at least connected to my power outlet so I can play my remaining Virtual Console games on the Wii U Game Pad. I mentioned this in my Top Ten Favorite Wii Games blog, but I always regretted not writing a similar blog for my final PS2 games after I had finished my Top Ten Favorite PS2 games blog. I think talking about what games I was determined to finish before I retired my consoles would be interesting, so here we are today! I’ll discuss my five final Wii and Wii U games in the order I finished them. With that said, let’s roll right into my first game then, Sakura Wars!

Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love (Wii)

The game that had been holding me back from completing my final Wii games sooner was definitely Sakura Wars. I had made a few attempts to play Sakura Wars ever since I picked it up towards the end of the Wii’s lifespan, but I just wasn’t really connecting with it. When the pandemic started in early 2020, I had started a fresh playthrough of Sakura Wars and by chipping away at it here and there I managed to make it into the third chapter for the first time. Usually when I put a game down for more than a year, I typically start over from the beginning, but in January this year I actually picked up my playthrough since it still felt fresh in my mind. At the time, I still hadn’t fully figured out how the battle system worked and I really was not connecting with the characters, but picking up my playthrough and fully focusing on it proved to be a great decision. I made sure this time I had a guide handy so I could scope out which of the many, unmarked limited time events I wanted to clear most which helped cut down on some the friction of only being able to save at set checkpoints in each chapter. While I still have some complaints about the game I’ll delve into, with less friction and finally understanding how the battle system works by engaging with it more I ultimately had a fun time with the game.

So, what is Sakura Wars? Essentially, there are two halves of the game, a dating simulator and a turn-based strategy game. The characters you date in the dating sim are your mech pilot partners in the strategy game portion and by raising their affection for you by doing well in the dating sim you boost their stats/abilities in the strategy game. The premise of Sakura Wars: So Long, My Love is most definitely unique. You play as Shinjiro Taiga, a Japanese naval lieutenant in an alternate version of the 1920’s who is sent to New York to join the New York Combat Revue, a secretive military unit that uses mechs to fend off demonic forces threatening to steal the creative energy of humanity for nefarious purposes. When Shinjiro arrives in New York, he learns the New York Combat Revue was originally expecting a different, more experienced pilot, Shinjiro’s uncle, and as a result of his inexperience they want nothing to do with him. Through his perseverance, Shinjiro is eventually offered a job as an usher at the Little Lips Theater which is both a front and the day jobs of the New Combat Revue. Over the course of the story, Shinjiro does eventually get to join and ultimately lead the team. As a quick aside, I have to mention there is a truly unusual and weirdly amusing plot point for a video game at the start of the game, where the New York Combat Revue members all actively distrust and give Shinjiro grief for an extended time when they first meet him for having a baby face. This thankfully does die down as they get to know and trust him, but again it’s weirdly and amusingly unusual for a video game.

I want to talk about both halves of the game ultimately, so let’s start with the dating sim. The Sakura Wars series in general puts an interesting spin on the dating sim genre with its LIPS system (Live & Interactive Picture System). Essentially, LIPS makes dialog choices more complex and stressful by introducing a time limit to your dialog decisions, sometimes asking you to adjust the intensity of your dialog delivery, and as it judges how you perform in minigames and button/stick input challenges. Letting time run out and saying nothing is sometimes a valid choice as well. This system has a lot of flexibility inherent to it as it works for not just dialog choices, but also to perform actions like cleaning a room or participating in a sword duel. To do well in the action segments, you’ll have to efficiently click the sticks in certain directions and slide them in others as fast as possible which on Wii is made awkward because the second stick is instead a D-Pad. I generally like this system, but since stat boosts are on the line, I feel like the developers made it extra unclear what the correct responses sometimes were where choosing a dumb or insensitive response was still rare, but still too often the correct one. I generally liked most of the cast in the game, but as a result of this system I never really grew to love any of them either since they were often more fickle than they probably should have been. I ultimately chose Gemini at the end of the game since she and Shinjiro had decent chemistry, but I can’t say I was invested in the decision. I did still enjoy the general story though and chapter 4 with its bizarre subplot of the citizens of New York fighting, unknown to them, possessed birds in Central Park was incredibly memorable thanks to the script and voice acting becoming as goofy as possible to sell it. (see below)

​My favorite half of Sakura Wars is definitely the turn based strategy game. Its ARMS system, Active & Realtime Machine System, predated Valkyria Chronicles’ combat system and while they are a bit different the core values of both systems and their mission designs are similarly excellent. Your robots all have different stats and abilities. For example, Cheiron’s mech can strike an extended distance in front of it to hit multiple enemies, while Subaru’s attacks with fans in a circular pattern and often has stealth activated to conceal its movement. Every attack with your mechs builds up meter that you can use for tag team attacks, super moves, and for healing. Since the enemy forces often outnumber you, you’ll take plenty of hits during combat, but by moving and attacking efficiently with your limited energy you can often wipe out multiple foes in one turn. Most of the missions sport incredible variety between them. While they often have a clear goal, like defending a position or wiping out the enemy force, each one has its own quirks to consider like fighting on multiple fronts (including mixing ground and air combat which each function differently), dealing with hazards like artillery and sinking sand, and contending with the threat of reinforcements. There are also very tough, often giant bosses to overcome that further put your skills to the test as they often target many of your allies at once which makes balancing attacking and healing very challenging. It’s important and difficult to make sure you win every fight without losing any of your allies’ mechs, because their stats will take a hit that makes even more difficult future missions even harder. Like I did in the dating sim, I often had to reload my save to attempt missions a few times to perfectly triumph. While there is an overwhelming number of options and information at your disposal that isn’t explained much, learning all of it and conquering every challenge is ultimately very satisfying and made me glad I finally played Sakura Wars.

Pandora’s Tower

I always wanted Pandora’s Tower to be my final Wii disc game as it was the final game I picked up for the console, so I had been waiting until I had finished Sakura Wars to finally play it. Pandora’s Tower was the third game in the Operation Rainfall campaign and was always the one I was least interested in even though I still wanted to play it. When I wrote a letter to Nintendo to bring the three games to America, I probably should have written that I wanted to beat all three games in my letter, not just play them, because my run of Pandora’s Tower ended in tragedy. For all of the years it sat in my collection unplayed, I was unaware that a significant portion of players of the North American version encountered a glitch that caused the game to crash when entering the final levels of the game. Ever since it came out here, there was never a surefire method discovered to avoid and escape the glitch. Even though I was mostly retiring the console after this game, I still wanted my console in good condition so after I tried various methods and suffered five hard crashes and five hard resets, I had to retire the game forever. While I never did finish the game, I did read about the various endings, which stings because I believe I was on track for either the best or second best one, but I did at least get closure.

I mentioned at the start of this section, I was always less interested in this game compared to Xenoblade and The Last Story and it was mainly due to its premise. Your girlfriend, Elena, has been cursed to slowly transform into a monster and you must enter twelve mysterious towers suspended over a huge chasm in a forbidden land to bring back beast flesh to hold off the curse. As your mysterious guide Mavda explains, by defeating the bosses of every tower and having Elena eat their flesh, you’ll ultimately be able to break the curse. From the outset, its obvious something is off about this deal and unraveling the mystery is a huge part of the game through tons of written notes and flashback sequences. The twelve towers sort of function as lite Zelda dungeons as you solve puzzles and defeat enemies along the way. There is a time limit for each trip to a tower since Elena’s curse will progress when you are inside a tower. Since I’m not a fan of body horror (the main reason I was always less excited for this game) I successfully always made sure to return just in time for the curse to never progress. While there are twelve towers to explore, I was disappointed to find there was only six actual dungeon themes as they repeat across the other six. I ultimately didn’t get to play the two final dungeons due to the glitch. They probably would have been an extra cool finale as you traverse both at once, but the other five themes are pretty good. I especially enjoyed the two water towers and the two themed after a clock tower as they involved activating and making use of various machinery.

​Beyond the story premise, the other unique idea in Pandora’s Tower is the Oraclos Chain you are equipped with in addition to your standard weapons. While your basic attacks are frustratingly fairly basic all being tied to one button (this isn’t remotely Devil May Cry), the chain offers unique actions for combat as you can bind enemies, swing them around to clear enemies away, and throw them against walls and off cliffs. By shaking the Wii Remote on bound foes, you can rip off both flesh and items from enemies using the chain as well, the latter are often used in basic crafting and unlocking upgrades for your weapons. The chain is also heavily used in traversal and puzzles as well as you use it frequently as a grappling hook to scale up the obviously very vertical towers, and to grab and throw objects around. One of my favorite uses of the chain in puzzle solving was to break a rock using the chain and then grabbing a broken part to throw and plant in a wall to then use as a ledge to grapple up with. The chain frequently sees inventive use in the boss battles against the masters of each tower. These monstrous foes come in a wide variety of forms and by maneuvering around the arena, throwing objects, and ripping off parts you can expose their weak points to actually deal damage. Perhaps more than anything else, given how fun bosses were to defeat I was disappointed I didn’t get to challenge the final boss battles after suffering the game crashing glitch. Ultimately, I’m not sure how much I liked the game overall and without seeing fully how the gameplay and story came together or not makes it hard to judge, but I did enjoy the gameplay for the most part and I’m glad I was able to play what I could.

Zack and Wiki: Quest For Barbaros’ Treasure

I had always heard Zack and Wiki was a great game, so a few years ago I ended up getting a digital version of it on the Wii U. I thought it was some kind of adventure game with puzzles, but it’s actually a very old school point and click adventure game divided into short levels. The twist is that many of the interactions in Zack and Wiki use the Wii remote in various ways such as grabbing and placing objects or using tools like a saw or an umbrella. For the most part the motion controls work very well and feel clever, but there are a few interactions that are incredibly frustrating such as the sword duels which frankly I’m still not sure what motions caused them to actually work or not. While there is an in-game hint system you can take advantage of, stumbling around each puzzle level and figuring out the solutions is the most fun part of the game. There’s a good variety in the levels as some require you to disarm ancient traps and machines, others ask you to sneak into enemy bases to sabotage and steal from them, and others present boss battle challenges to overcome. I didn’t totally vibe with the game’s Saturday morning cartoon tone (which is odd in that I usually like media like it) or really connect with the characters either except your goofy bunny airplane pilot who always wears sunglasses, Johnny Style. While I get why it was designed the way it was and think it would be worse in some ways if they changed it, I still wish there was an option to control Zack directly with the D-Pad or a control stick since it further disconnected me from the character. I still think Zack and Wiki is a pretty good game, but I wasn’t very in love with it either as some of the trial and error puzzles and one hit kill traps didn’t always feel interesting to overcome.

Affordable Space Adventures

When the Wii U and 3DS eshop closures were announced, there was inevitably discussion online about final essential purchases for both consoles. Affordable Space Adventures came up the most for Wii U since it took full advantage of everything the Wii U has to offer and after playing through it myself, I agree it definitely does! You pilot a little space ship that was supposed to be on a safe trip to an uncharted planet. When the game starts it’s obvious you are cut off from the company guiding your trip and most of your ship systems aren’t operating. While your ship still functions, you need to reach a functional beacon to signal the company back on Earth to come rescue you. The full functionality of your ship gradually unlocks as you progress through each level and can be controlled primarily on the Wii U gamepad. By adjusting the power of certain systems, your ship becomes hotter and colder, uses more or less electricity, and makes more or less sound. It can feel annoyingly too artificial at times, but various alien artifacts and alien life that stand in your way will react violently if your temperature, electricity, and noise gauges exceed certain values. Yet, that is the core of the game and overcoming every obstacle is often super fun! A common example for how to cut down on noise for example is to first build up speed using the electric engine and then cut all power to the engine so only the antigravity function keeps propelling you forward with your built-up momentum. In addition to adjusting gauges on the Game Pad, you often have to tilt it to angle your ship up and down to navigate tight spaces and use the buttons and sticks to maneuver your craft and engage the scanner and landing systems. While I didn’t get to experience it myself since the service has been shut down, there is a moment the game tells you in advance that will use the Miiverse and even offline it is still super cool. While I didn’t get to experience multiplayer since the pandemic is currently restricting my ability to hang out with my friends, I hope one day I can as splitting and coordinating the various piloting duties among friends and overcoming every challenge I imagine is lovable chaos. Also, I could use all the help I can get overcoming the super hard challenge levels since I couldn’t even clear the first obstacle! Even alone though, I had an awesome time with Affordable Space Adventures and loved the full journey, especially the ending. I’d definitely consider Affordable Space Adventures an essential purchase for any Wii U fan.

Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water

My final Wii U game was Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water and while I ultimately did not have a good time with it, I’m still glad I played through it. I had attempted playing through Fatal Frame at least two other times, but never progressed past chapter 1 since the tutorial doesn’t make a great impression. With momentum on my side, this time I pressed forward and finally made my way into and through the proper game. There are three main characters in the game that you alternate control over between each chapter, Yuri, the main character, Miu who gets captured by ghosts during the prologue, and Ren, a man who is troubled by recurring dreams about a cult ceremony. At the start of chapter 2, the most important person in Yuri’s life who prevented her from committing suicide in the past vanishes on Mt. Hikami. Worried something has happened to her, Yuri sets off with a flashlight to investigate the mountain at night starting from the base of the mountain. I wish I had just booted up chapter 2 in my past attempts, because Mt. Hikami itself, is far and away my favorite part of the game. The graphics and sound work together to build an appropriately realized spooky atmosphere. The weather effects, like rain and fog, further help realize the mountain setting even as you are restricted to set paths to explore. All of the abandoned buildings, both modern and traditional, are interesting to explore and I often loved finding pieces of lore scattered around that help you piece together the greater mysteries of the mountain. While there are frequent hitches in the game’s performance, it doesn’t detract too much from the setting.

I wish Mt. Hikami was in a different game, because Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water is ultimately a chore to get through. I think there are three main issues with the game. First, the game is not scary at all. I’m a wimp when it comes to horror so maybe that is a good thing, but the game also operates to an extent that it is supposed to be scary so it falling flat sucks any tension out of the experience. Nearly all of the ghosts you encounter on the mountain lose their impact as they reappear over and over again and since they are attached to combat with an arcade style score system which further makes them feel artificial. There is a mechanic in the game where you can touch ghosts as they fade away and see their final, tragic memories, but it displays them as black and white film footage that is blurry, lacks impact, and is often too over the top to be taken seriously. The second issue, is that while the gameplay is unique as it uses the Wii U gamepad as a camera to photograph and attack ghosts, combat is almost always incredibly drawn out as you either are waiting for a ghost to attack to score a Fatal Frame bonus or you take multiple pictures to release spirit orbs one by one that you ultimately all line up by tilting the Wii U gamepad to trigger a damage multiplier. Aside from scoring points to upgrade your cameras to increase your damage and film reload speed (which still remains slow), combat feels further pointless since ghosts deal such insignificant damage especially when you consider the mountain of healing items you are forced to enter each stage with (not to mention any you find and add to your stock pile during each mission). My final issue with the game is that while the lore is interesting, the actual story is not. It moves at a glacial pace and is vaguely infuriating as characters keep climbing up the mountain after you’ve rescued them. You’ll often enter interesting areas, like the doll house or the main shrine, but then return to it immediately in the next chapter and explore it again as a different character which obviously loses impact. I did replay the final chapter to see both the bad and good endings and while there is a ton of repeat content to work through to do that, I did ultimately enjoy the final destinations of every character’s journey in the good endings to the extent I felt the arduous journey was worth it enough.

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That concludes my latest blog! I hope you enjoyed it! I always love hearing from my readers, so definitely feel free to reach out to me on my Twitter @JustinMikos. Now that I’m done with all of my Wii U games, I will be writing my top ten favorite Wii U games blog next so please look forward to it. Until next time!

In the early morning hours of February 23, 2022, I finished my final Wii game, Zack and Wiki. It had been over six years since the last time I had fully finished all of my games on a game console and I was ecstatic. While I still have some games I want to replay on the console, my more than fifteen year journey with the Wii is primarily over. As I did over six years ago after finishing my final PS2 games, I want to reflect back and write about my top ten favorite games on the platform. Both retail disc games and downloadable original WiiWare games are eligible for my list, while any Virtual Console games I won’t be considering. The one exception I’ll make is for the original Sin and Punishment which came to North America for the first time on the service, but I’ll just say upfront it did not make the final list. Since I’m on the subject, I have to say the Virtual Console was one of my absolute favorite things about the Wii era. Being able to easily play some of my favorite retro Super Nintendo and Nintendo 64 games in particular and own them forever is incredible. While the Nintendo Switch Online subscription catalog apps have their own appeal, I’m genuinely sad Nintendo has moved away from the option to purchase retro games as we watch the Wii U and 3DS eshops prepare to shut down in 2023.

Coming up with a shortlist for my top ten Wii games was easy in the sense that the Wii, for all of its overly casual reputation, has an astounding array of absolute classics. I did debate over the order since some of these games I just haven’t played in over a decade which makes it harder to compare with games I’ve played more recently, but even so, I’m quite happy with the final list and I’m eager to share it. Before I get into it though, I do want to mention I plan to write a blog about the final Wii games I played, including Sakura Wars: So Long My Love, Pandora’s Tower, and Zack and Wiki. I always had some regrets that I didn’t do the same for my final PS2 games because I think it is interesting to talk about what I was determined to play before I retired the console. Since I only have one final Wii U game left to play that I’m determined to finish soon, I decided I’d expand my final Wii games blog to also include my final Wii U games, so it should come in the near future. With all of that said, let’s get right into it!

10: The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword

When I first played The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword, I thought it was the future of video games with how well it integrated motion controls into the entire experience. While it may not be until VR really takes off, that doesn’t take away how remarkable the sword gameplay in particular is. Having to think about the angle of your swings is such a cool experience and shines brilliantly in the sword duels throughout the game. While the motion controls define the experience, the rest of the game is great as well including a bigger focus on story and some very good dungeons. My second favorite change in Skyward Sword to the general gameplay is how it brings more dungeon-like gameplay into the three field areas you explore since it makes these areas more meaningful. My absolute favorite part of Skyward Sword are the final boss fights against Ghirahim and Demise. They are both incredibly cool, very intense, and so satisfying to conquer.

9: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

While New Super Mario Bros. U eventually topped it with the Luigi U DLC campaign, considered separately, New Super Mario Bros Wii is my favorite of the New Super Mario Bros. games. While it may lack the creativity of New Super U, New Super Wii just has excellent levels from start to finish that are a blast to tackle with friends. In addition to the new four player multiplayer, which is lovable chaos, my favorite addition to the game is definitely the new midair spin that grants you extra control in the air. While it’s better for consistency that later games mapped it to a button, shaking the Wii Remote to activate the mid-air spin for extra control feels so good here. I’m also very glad New Super Mario Bros Wii brought back Yoshi and introduced the Propellor and Penguin Suits and Ice Mario. The Propellor suit is a lot of fun as you really ascend rapidly to reach new areas or avoid falling into pits and it obviously shines in vertical levels. Ice Mario is probably the coolest new power up though since you can stand on enemies you froze as well as pick up and throw them. Collecting three big coins in each level returns from the original New Super Mario Bros. DS game and adds so much to the experience throughout as some of them are very cleverly tucked away and not easy to reach. If you collect all of them, you’ll have full access to the extra hard World 9 / Star World which I’m very happy returns here after being absent from the original New Super Mario Bros.

8: Sin and Punishment: Star Successor

Perhaps the hardest game to place on my list was Sin and Punishment: Star Successor. Like the original game, Star Successor is an on rails shooter that demands immense skill to conquer. Also like the original game, I’ve only played Star Successor once to completion in co-op with one of my best friends, Andrew. While I do want to play it again sometime due to its immense quality, my fond memories of Star Successor are so attached to that experience I’m not sure I’d want to without Andrew. While the original N64 game had some awkward controls mitigated by co-op, Star Successor takes awesome advantage of the Wii Remote’s IR pointer controls to make aiming a breeze. Each of the playable characters is armed with a jet pack and can freely fly around on screen. Since using a jet pack obviously makes the game easier where it isn’t required, you lose access to a score multiplier, but if you are just focused on survival like we were you’ll take every advantage you can get. Incidentally, Star Successor features an arguably better co-op mode than the first game considering a second player now gets their own targeting reticule to help out with even though only one character remains on screen. There are tons and tons of enemies to shoot at across wild landscapes, but by far the most exciting part of Star Successor are the numerous boss battles against huge over the top opponents. I don’t want to say the story is bad, but it is virtually completely overshadowed by the intensity of the gameplay challenges and boss battles. I’ll never forget when we conquered the game together in co-op, Andrew and I scored sixteenth on the US co-op leaderboards and thirty second when including Europe’s.

7: Fortune Street

There’s no game I lament being trapped on the Wii more than Fortune Street which is essentially Monopoly with a stock market. If you are a competitive person and have some competitive friends and family, there is no better Mario party game than Fortune Street. There’s so much strategy to Fortune Street that is far easier and more fun to tap into than most board games due to the influence of the stock market. Every time you pass the bank, you can buy stocks in an individual district on each board. You’ll want to do this as you can make huge returns on your investment if the stock price increases due to you and your opponents investing in their properties. While ideally you alone invest in yourself and claim all of the rewards, a very viable strategy is to invest in a competitor’s district to either reap rewards in their investment or to discourage them from doing so altogether. Interestingly, you can swipe properties from anyone for five times the value which can be a truly decisive move in the course of the game. Since the game handles all of your money and the math tied to each decision, you really can just focus on strategy. I have so many fond memories of playing Fortune Street, but my favorite remains the time my friend Andrew, my brother Jared, and I were all inconveniently late to dinner at a restaurant because we just had to finish our game first.

6: Cave Story

While I vastly prefer and recommend the original, free PC version of Cave Story these days due to how Cave Story was essentially swindled from its creator, Pixel, I won’t deny the Wii port of Cave Story introduced me to an amazing game. You can no longer buy this particular version, but all subsequent for purchase ports are tainted by the sordid publisher so please consider the praise for this entry towards the original game and for Pixel entirely. Playing Cave Story for the first time is like discovering a legendary classic Super Nintendo game you’ve somehow never heard of. You control a robot named Quote and are soon blasting away tons of hostile enemies in the cave system you woke up in. The most interesting thing about the gameplay is that your weapons level up as you grab bouncing triangle picks up, but decrease every time you get hit. There’s thus an interesting push and pull dynamic to combat that demands your engagement. The second most interesting thing about Cave Story’s gameplay is the jetpack that radically transforms both combat and traversal and is ultimately essential to master. While the core journey of the game is excellent, what truly cemented my love for Cave Story is the super hard hidden level. After unlocking it, which is its own journey, here your skills are truly put to the test from aggressive enemies, spikes everywhere, and an absurdly tough true final boss. I’ve only conquered it a few times and it is always immensely satisfying.

5: Super Smash Bros Brawl

I’m not sure I’ll ever be more excited for a video game than Super Smash Bros Brawl. I rewatched the first trailer revealing, Meta Knight, Pit, Zero Suit Samus, Wario, and Snake countless times and woke up early every weekday to check the Super Smash Bros Dojo website anxiously excited to learn every new detail about the game. When I got Brawl at launch, I played about ten hours on the first day and was blown away not just by the game, but all of the exciting and engaging content in it from the number of characters and stages (which seems quaint today), to the staggering number of modes, the Kirby Air Ride inspired challenges, and of course the full-blown Kirby Super Star inspired story mode, The Subspace Emissary, which was filled with amazing cutscenes. While I much prefer the faster speed of Smash Ultimate today, at the time Brawl slowing down the action was very welcome to me as Melee was just too fast. Brawl also introduced my favorite character in the series, Lucas from Mother 3. Lucas was the inverse of Ness for his special moves, but importantly all of his normal A moves are unique. He is the rare fighting game character whose entire kit, stats, and feel resonate with me and I’ve enjoyed playing him here, in Smash 4, and to this day in Ultimate. I have endless memories playing this game with friends and family and I loved it was such a staple in my college dorms. While Brawl’s time is over, I still have immense fondness for it and I still miss some of the specific creative ethos behind it that led to the lavish Subspace Emissary for example that did not return in Smash 4 and Smash Ultimate.

4: The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess was another game I had immense expectations for. I had never fully enjoyed the Wind Waker and aesthetically it never quite worked for me even if I appreciate it more today. Twilight Princess was a return to form to the darker edges of Ocarina of Time and Majora’s Mask and looked to be a colossal adventure. And it was! When I saw the title screen video play on my TV for the first time, I knew Twilight Princess would be special. Twilight Princess paints a much larger, crafted world than any Zelda before it. In the fields, you often have plenty of room to ride Epona around and engage with awesome horseback combat. My favorite part of the game is definitely the dungeons which are the best in the whole series. While they may not be too tough, they have tons of creativity. Some have unique settings like a yeti’s house or a city in the sky and they all take advantage of the now multiple properties of your items such as the boomerang having a wind effect or the iron boots also having a magnetic property. My favorite item in the game is definitely the double claw shots which lets you swing across gaps like Spider-Man. The boss fights in Twilight Princess are also very memorable. My favorite is definitely the dragon Argorok as you have to claw shot through the sky to dodge his attacks, climb on him, and ultimately drag him to the ground in the middle of a fierce rain storm. While much more basic compared to Skyward Sword, I have a lot of fondness for the motion controls in Twilight Princess. The basic shaking input to swing your sword is so generous you can pour yourself into it while aiming with the IR sensor of course works very well. Overall, Twilight Princess lived up to the long hype and remains not just one of my favorite Zelda games, but one of my favorite games ever made.

3: Metroid Prime 3 Corruption

It was hard to choose between Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime 3 Corruption for the third slot on my list, but I’m giving the edge to Metroid Prime 3 Corruption because from top to bottom the quality of Prime 3 is unquestionably amazing. After a set piece prologue that takes after Halo, you’ll soon be on your own to explore the multiple planets of Metroid Prime 3. Under the advanced control setting which minimizes the targeting reticule’s dead zone, you have astounding control over Samus’ aim such that the game had to become more action oriented than past games even though it is still far more forgiving than a traditional shooter. Beyond aiming, there’s some really fun uses of motion controls throughout, whether it is intuitively operating levers to open doors or ripping off the shields of enemies with your enhanced grapple beam. Traditional Metroid Prime gameplay remains as compelling as ever, whether it is using your scan visor to soak up as much lore as possible or figuring out where puzzles are in the environment and how to solve them. While all of the planets are interesting to explore, the standout planet is definitely, Elysia, which has a striking atmosphere accentuated by an incredible theme song. Really though, every element of Prime 3, from the awesome action that gives rise to incredibly, satisfying boss fights (the first Ridley fight in particular is absurdly cool) to the awesome sense of exploration through areas that are all overflowing with atmosphere and further enhanced by the stellar soundtrack, all combines together to make Metroid Prime 3 the epic conclusion the original Metroid Prime trilogy deserved. 

2: Xenoblade Chronicles

I have written at extensive length why Xenoblade Chronicles is so special to me over the years and I think will be doing so for years to come because it remains one of my all-time favorite games. Xenoblade is the true successor to Final Fantasy XII’s offline MMORPG legacy and builds upon its foundation by offering astounding, fantastical environments to explore on the backs of two deceased robot gods and by offering rich combat to enjoy that requires you to manage special attack cooldowns and your positioning on the battlefield to emerge triumphant. Shulk and his friends’ journey to avenge those they have lost in the war against the Mechon robots is a true, emotional epic. While the cutscenes are well directed, a huge amount of character is built upon the constant banter between party members during battle. I still can hear lines such as “I’m really feeling it!”, “This is the power of the Monado!” and “Now it’s Reyn time!” with full clarity in my mind today. While the combat and progression are awesome, I can’t speak enough to how rewarding exploration is in the game. The best zones, like the iconic Gaur Plains and Valak Mountain, offer tons of verticality and complex cave systems to explore that weave throughout the world. Exploring these zones is deeply satisfying just for the sake of it, but finding and fighting all of the boss monsters further offers an incredible sense of reward. Finally, I have to touch on the amazing soundtrack of Xenoblade Chronicles that adds so much to the experience whether it is the triumphant sense of exploration in the Gaur Plains theme, a wonderful sense of calm in Satorl Marsh’s night theme, or just a feeling of supreme blood pumping action in the boss battle theme You Will Know Our Names.

1: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Super Mario Galaxy 2 is one of the absolute best games I have ever played. It has a laser focus on quickly exploring and extracting everything that is fun out of new ideas and mechanics before moving on to the next and Galaxy 2 has a ton of new ideas. While Mario’s movement mechanics are more limited in Galaxy compared to his other 3D adventures, this time Nintendo is fully interested in exploring the limits of them and Galaxy 2 is all the better for it. New power ups and items abound like Cloud Mario which is my favorite Mario power up of all time since it allows you to create three cloud platforms anywhere you want which is incredibly powerful. Another awesome item is the drill that lets you tunnel into planets and emerge on the other side which forces you to really engage with levels that feature it. I also love that Yoshi is very prominently featured in Super Mario Galaxy 2. In addition to his flutter jump and long tongue, by eating different fruit Yoshi gains wild powers temporarily such as inflating like a balloon and dashing at incredible speeds. I said it earlier, but it can’t be overstated just how many new ideas Galaxy 2 has to explore within it as far less of its challenges repeat content. Aside from a conceptually cool, but still weak final Bowser fight, the bosses are otherwise across the board excellent in Galaxy 2 and are so much fun to overcome. Bowser Jr. with his many mechanical robots steals the show as figuring out how to destroy them is just as fun as doing it. Overall, the core journey of Galaxy 2 is amazing and I love that it features two awesome post game challenges in the hunt for 120 Green Stars scattered throughout every level (a few in particular are very tricky to reach) and the final challenge of the game, The Perfect Run. The latter is the first truly hard post game level in a 3D Mario. The Perfect Run strings together many different challenges that test all of your skills and if you take one hit you fail. It truly is an absolutely memorable capstone for Mario’s best adventure and my favorite Wii game of all time.

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Thank you for reading my latest blog! I hope you enjoyed it! I always love hearing from my readers, so definitely share your favorite Wii games and memories with me on my Twitter @JustinMikos. Until next time! 

Now that I’m done revisiting the first seven Mario Kart games, I’m ready to answer which tracks from those games should be the top choices to fill out the remaining forty courses of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe’s upcoming Booster Course Pass. If you are unfamiliar, during the February 2022 Nintendo Direct, Nintendo announced that 48 new tracks will be coming to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe across six waves pulled from past Mario Kart games to make a grand total of 96 tracks. The first eight tracks were announced at the same time including Choco Mountain from Mario Kart 64, Coconut Mall from Mario Kart Wii, and three tracks from Mario Kart Tour. While the two headlining retro tracks make me the most excited, I am also excited to play the three tracks from Tour inside Mario Kart 8 since they will be new to me. I had only played Mario Kart Tour, the Mario Kart mobile game, for about thirty minutes before I rapidly felt it was not for me due to the controls and structure so I really am not familiar with any of the possible track options from Mario Kart Tour. Even though then there will likely not be 40 courses pulled directly from Mario Kart 1-7, not to mention Nintendo didn’t fully rule out the possibility of new original tracks, we have no idea what the final breakdown will possibly be so guessing the cutoff point feels foolish. I’m already both prepared and excited to share what I think should be the top 40 tracks if they were pulled solely from Mario Kart 1-7 so let’s do it!

Before I dive in, I want to be clear how this list is ordered. I think both the easiest and most clear way to write this list is to order it based off my favorite tracks rather than try to account for duplicate themes which the developers will most certainly do. For example, I don’t expect them to add all of the missing Rainbow Road courses and I don’t even necessarily want that! I think making a list that accounts for filling in gaps essentially means I’d have to reorder the list every time new courses are revealed for the Booster Pass. Not to say that I didn’t use that thinking occasionally to settle close ties, but it rarely came up and was never the primary motivation to decide between courses. Also, I do think it might be fun to revisit this list in the future somehow as the Booster Pass winds down so filling in gaps would be more of a factor. Finally, I do want to mention I’m aware tracks already in, planned, or datamined for Tour are more likely to get in since they appear to be touching up Tour’s assets in many cases for the Booster Pass tracks, but that’s a boring way to consider this and one of the tracks in the first wave hasn’t been datamined for Tour so there’s great hope more will follow. With all of that said, let’s get to it!

40: Mario Circuit 2 NES

I want to see one Mario Circuit from the original Super Mario Kart make the cut for Mario Kart 8 as a way to see where the series all started. Mario Circuit 4 has a very good layout, but I want to push for Mario Circuit 2 which has a section where you circle around a turn and hop over part of the track you raced over previously. It adds some good personality to an otherwise standard track and would look cool in 3D.

39: Wario Shipyard 3DS

Wario Shipyard is kind of aesthetically garish as the Wario gold and purple mixes with the washed out water and bone fish. I still think this course is kind of cool with a mostly good layout. It reminds me of rides like Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones at Disneyland as it twists around itself. With a few touch ups, I think this could be a better course.

38: Luigi Circuit GBA

I love the rain in Luigi Circuit as well as the giant Luigi blimp in the distance. They add enough personality to what is otherwise a very straightforward track. The turns are more complex than an average circuit track to the extent I wouldn’t necessarily call it a beginner course even if it is beginner friendly. This is a great course for pure racing as the only obstacles present are a few deep puddles that cause you to spin out.

37: Roslina’s Ice World 3DS

Rosalina’s Ice World is quite a good course though I don’t have as much attachment to it as higher up choices (Sorry Rosalina!). The opening turn is wild and very memorable and you get a really cool run across an ice village on lap one before the ice melts. The cave section is hectic and features an interesting split path as the faster one is a narrower road with a giant cliff beside it.

36: Shy Guy Beach GBA

I love a good beach course and Shy Guy Beach is pretty solid. The flat, original flavor of a Mario Kart beach course is thus far unrepresented in Mario Kart 8. You have to travel between islands and avoid deep pools of water all while dodging cannon balls from a group of Pirate Shy Guys.

35: Maka Wuhu 3DS

I’m generally not a big fan of the segment races (Mount Wario and Big Blue being huge exceptions), but I want to see a Wuhu Island course make it into Mario Kart 8 and I think Maka Wuhu is the better of the two. As you ascend the mountain you’ll navigate tight tunnels, pass by the castle, and dodge some boulders. The showstopper moment though is being able to hang glide off the mountain and fly all the way to the beach below right during a huge sunset. I love there is an optional midair platform you can stop at too to grab some final items to prepare for the final stretch. There are ultimately two paths to the finish you can descend to which ups the drama as you can’t see the whole picture once you land.

34: DK Mountain GCN

I’d be sad if DK Mountain doesn’t make the cut. Blasting up to the mountain out of the barrel and seeing the big frowning volcano is excellent. The rest of the course was pretty rough in its Gamecube version despite the awesome concept, but adding ramps on the descent and filling in the gap on the final S turns fixed the biggest issues. Tumbling off the final bridge is memorably painful.

33: Waluigi Pinball DS

Waluigi Pinball is such a great concept as the whole race course is inside a pinball machine! After rocketing up to the top of the board you race down it dodging giant metal balls, bounce pads, and flippers. Also, the music is good!

32: Bowser Castle 4 GBA

Bowser Castle 4 is a tightly designed Bowser Castle course where optimizing boost pad usage is important. My favorite section splits the road into a wide open path and a narrow one with boost pads and an item block. The trick with the narrow path though is that you can accelerate so fast you have to abandon it right when you can, otherwise you’ll hit a wall and lose time.

31: DK Jungle Parkway N64

I have more fondness for this course than its actual quality. Like Royal Raceway, there is a big jump over a river which is conceptually cool, though the recovery from landing is awkward. I think changing this to a hang glider section like Royal Raceway did in Mario Kart 8 will dramatically improve the pacing. Though the middle is kind of blah, the final section across the bridge and navigating the cave is excellent and does a lot of heavy lifting.

30: Peach Gardens DS

Peach Gardens has a fairly tricky layout despite its calming appearance. The squared off flower patches are unusual obstacles for Mario Kart as you’ll want to take wider turns than usual to avoid clipping into the edges. I especially like the Chain Chomp hedge maze, the Monty Moles, and the final dramatic turn down the stairs into the goal.

29: Koopa Troopa Beach N64

I have a lot of fond memories of Koopa Troopa Beach from Mario Kart 64. It had cool ideas that originally worked well including one of the biggest shortcuts in the game by mushrooming up a ramp to jump through the waterfall and another huge ramp that let you grab an item block with a power item. The version in Mario Kart 7 has some interesting ideas on how to adapt the course in a more modern context to mixed results. I want this course back, but I think they’ll have to take a close look at what worked and what didn’t. The core course remains fun in both versions.

28: Lakeside Park GBA

Lakeside Park is actually my least favorite course on Mario Kart Super Circuit, but that is mainly down to how brutally tough it is in a game that is already brutally tough and how unfair the fireballs that rain down from the volcano with minimal warning are. A lot of the GBA tracks got heavily reworked when transitioned to 3D and I think the outline is there for a really awesome course paired with the more forgiving mechanics of Mario Kart 8. Making it more vertical (especially for the jump) and making the raining fireballs behave like in Grumble Volcano would be a great start.

27: Mario Raceway N64

This is a very good beginner course as it has few obstacles besides the interesting turns. I love all of the mushroom shortcuts in this course as they are all fairly interesting including rocketing off the hill, cutting between the big mushroom, and rushing across the dirt and grass to cut the final S turn. Driving through a giant warp pipe to cap off the course is cool.

26: Daisy Hills 3DS

Daisy Hills is a great intro course that really showed off how cool stereoscopic 3D was for Mario Kart (which would not be seen here) and how neat the hang glider is. It is quite a steep trek up Daisy Hills and you have to dodge goats along the way. The hang glider section has an awesome view as you fly over a lake into town and I love that there is a windmill to contend with for those itching for the tightest run through the course.

25: Wario Stadium N64

Wario’s surprisingly lengthy first course is a lot of fun as it is mostly focused on huge jumps and wicked turns. It has good pacing too as there are a few wide sections to let you set your own paths and to take advantage of items. If Mario Kart 8 kept Wario Stadium 64 at three laps, the endurance element would be unique to the game.

24: Mario Circuit 3DS

Mario Kart 7’s Mario Circuit is the best Mario Circuit to date with an excellent flow throughout. It has some good personality thanks to the cherry blossom section and a loop inside Princess Peach’s castle. The following hang glider section asks you to pay attention to the warp pipes scattered about as they may be blasting air that will help you cut a path over to the final giant warp pipe you drive through. I think this a great, engaging, beginner friendly course.

23: Bowser’s Castle 3DS

Mario Kart 7’s Bowser Castle is not as tough as some of his others, but it is creative and takes fun advantage of both underwater and hang glider traversal. The biggest setpiece obstacle is a barrel shaped water wheel of sorts that, depending on which route you take, you can land on top of or traverse the inside of. Dodging fire pillars underwater is a surreal visual and crossing the finish line by flying through a goal ring is unique and cool. Spread throughout are classic jumps over fire and thwomp dodging action backed by some sharp turns.

22: Frappe Snowland N64

Frappe Snowland is surprisingly more technical than it looks due to tight turns, a lot of jumps, and a field littered with snowmen. The final ice canyon section is memorable because bouncing shells off the walls is often your last hope to get ahead. Frappe Snowland is a really great intermediate course and plays well in heated competitions and time trials.

21: Broken Pier GBA

I’m not sure Broken Pier can be translated well to Mario Kart 8, but I’d love to see them try! There is such tremendous, but risky shortcut and optimization potential in Broken Pier that even the ruthless AI of Super Circuit can’t keep up. Lots of it revolves around bounce pads to cut corners and also very narrow pathways for shortcuts. We don’t really see either idea explored frequently in Mario Kart 8 and that’s why I think it is worth attempting even if it won’t touch the original.

20: Toad’s Factory Wii

Toad’s Factory is surprisingly tough for a beginner course as there are plenty of obstacles to dodge and conveyor belts altering your speed and direction to contend with. My favorite parts are jumping between the suspended platforms and the final stretch with the shifting walls that reveal and conceal boost pads to cross a pool of mud.

19: Dry Dry Ruins Wii

Dry Dry Ruins is quietly a very good course. My favorite section is definitely the half pipe section you engage with to cross a river of sand inside the ruins. It’s unique in Mario Kart in that you hit two sections back to back at the right angles to effectively speed ahead. There are also elements of the track that change from lap to lap which is always cool such as pillars falling over that then become ramps to jump off and a giant room that fills with sand that you eventually have to navigate around.

18: Waluigi Stadium GCN

I associate Waluigi Stadium so much with Mario Kart Wii I forgot it originated in Double Dash lol. This is a great beginner friendly course that has plenty of dynamic elements including giant piranha plants to dodge. I also appreciate how tight you can take some of the turns and the high shortcut potential with mushrooms. Also, all of the jumps are fun!

17: Bowser Castle 3 GBA

I have a lot of fondness for Bowser Castle 3 when it was remade into 3D on Mario Kart Wii. It’s a very solid course offering manageable challenges. There’s a real wicked 180 degree turn that’s a lot of fun to take fast and there’s an interestingly handled diagonal section of the course as it uses segmented blocks to form the path. The final long stretch over the grating with a few holes on the edges is stressful for exciting last minute upsets.

16: Rainbow Road GBA

I imagine this course would have to be reworked since its flavor of bounce pads aren’t in 8, but I really think Nintendo should work to adapt this Rainbow Road. There is a good flow between its challenges, and the three sections that revolve around bouncing over gaps are very cool. Maximizing your boost pads usage is tough since the course is so fast paced and becomes even harder as you lean into them. Choosing between the longer, safer road and the narrow road with full boost pads that you have to abandon early enough to not get launched into space is super cool. Super Circuit’s Rainbow Road would be a very unique course in Mario Kart 8 if given the proper care.

15: Choco Island 2 NES

The mud lake in Choco Island 2 is one of the most memorable obstacles in the series. Its slickness means you need to commit to an angle as you approach and would be incredibly chaotic with 12 racers all pushing through at once. The DS version added a few more obstacles to flesh the course out, though the core idea is strong either way and needs to come back.

14: Ghost Valley 2 NES

I love the Ghost Valley aesthetic and need it to come back in some way. The edges of the course collapsing as racers bump into them is a fun idea as it makes each successive lap harder. I picked Ghost Valley 2 over the other Ghost Valleys since it is a fairly balanced challenge, but I’d be happy with any of them. Also, I gave Ghost Valley 2 the edge over Broken Pier mainly because that course is all about speed rather the more muted elegance of a normal Ghost Valley course.

13: Banshee Boardwalk N64

I really like Banshee Boardwalk, the successor to the Ghost Valley courses from the original Super Mario Kart. The lone wooden piers suspended over water in a dark void just looks and feels cool. I love the ghosts, the giant Cheep Cheep that jumps over the track, and entering the collapsing shack filled with bats. It feels like a full journey and the narrow, precarious road and the gaps in the railing keep you focused.

12: Sherbet Land N64

The successor to the Vanilla Lake courses from Super Mario Kart is surprisingly technical and gets a huge boost of personality by prominently featuring the giant penguins from Super Mario 64. You can hop over the edge of the ice to cut corners, but the bigger gaps can throw you off. The cave section with the penguins on patrol has measured chaos and keeps you guessing if you’ll be able to take the tightest route or not which is always a fun gamble. The final, wide open stretch can be a bloodbath that lends itself to big upsets and its size makes you doubt how you should approach it.

11: Peach Beach GCN

There are surprisingly few good beginner friendly courses in Mario Kart 8, so I’d love to have Peach Beach back which works very well as one and is still interesting for veteran players. The general gist of the track is mostly a straightforward oval, but the receding tides and dodging the Cataquacks littering the beach offer dynamic challenges. Also, I just love the vibe of a good beach course, they make me happy.

10: Desert Hills DS

The angry sun and block pyramids of Super Mario Bros 3, not to mention the lovely oasis and titular giant hills, easily makes this the desert course with the most personality. Desert Hills is just very well designed and the wicked turns of the huge hills offer an interesting challenge that projects attitude. Aside from the first turn with an obvious shortcut for mushroom holders, it’s not terribly obvious how to optimize this course, but even a rough run still feels great and I think that gives it staying power.

9: DK Summit Wii

The superior DK mountain course, DK Summit, is themed like a Snowboard course and has excellent momentum. Hitting the right jumps and half pipe sections to propel you forward is exciting and there is a section of narrow cliffs that introduces a great sense of danger. The giant half pipe section at the end is filled with heavy snow and shy guys to dodge which is an appropriately chaotic and unique finale.

8: Delfino Square DS

On paper Delfino Square doesn’t seem like the most interesting course layout, but really every turn here feels carefully measured and exciting. After the big turn around the fountain, you race between buildings before hitting the harbor area. There are a few ways to navigate this area including a tight, mud filled alley. After crossing the suspension bridge a final sprint through a park leaves a great chance for final upsets.

7: Bowser’s Castle N64

Bowser’s Castle for the N64 lacks the big setpiece obstacles of his future castles, but it more than makes up for that with measured challenges and an interesting windy path to the goal. You get a bit of everything here, dodging thwomps, racing over bridges suspended above lava, racing down stairs, taking tight 90 degree turns, and dodging erupting lava pillars during jumps. It feels like a proper gauntlet from start to finish.

6: Airship Fortress DS

I love the Super Mario Bros 3 airship theme for this course! While Cloudtop Cruise also features an airship, here you get the full experience of dodging Bullet Bills and Monty Moles, before entering inside to dodge scattered boxes and fire pillars. After launching out of the ship you get a fun 360 degree looping descent in the nearby castle. Just a great tight course overall.

5: Rock Rock Mountain 3DS

Rock Rock Mountain has always been one of my most wanted 3DS courses. The cave and forest sections are solid, but it’s the dramatic descent down the mountain with one of the largest jumps in the series and the awesome ascent back up featuring boost pads and dodging incoming boulders that culminates with you rocketing off into a second hang glider section that really elevates it.

4: Maple Treeway Wii

Maple Treeway has a great unique, Fall aesthetic and takes you on a fun journey through the tops of trees. After blasting out of a barrel, you wrap around the top of a tree and dodge some giant wigglers. The boost pads rocket you up to the half pipe at the very top of the course and here you begin rushing downwards back to the start. A handful of alternate paths, shortcuts, and dynamic elements including the wigglers and leaf piles that can drop helpful items like mushrooms and stars keeps each race exciting.

3: Bowser’s Castle Wii

There is currently a dearth of good Bowser Castle content in Mario Kart 8 and it desperately needs the best one. While every section is excellent, the star section is definitely the hallway with half pipes where a Bowser statue launches giant fireballs down. Depending on the dynamic position of the fire balls you have to make an exciting choice as to whether to push forward into the next section of the hallway or stall for time on the halfpipes. Other obstacles provide great dynamic challenges as well, including the rotating fire bar and random lava pillar sprouts towards the end.

2: Rainbow Road Wii

My absolute favorite challenging gauntlet of a course across the entire Mario Kart series is Rainbow Road on the Wii. Right from the start you rocket down the first slope into a good 180-degree turn. From there you are soon met with a tight figure 8 set of roads to navigate. Players with mushrooms can hop across the middle, but the others have to deal with the chaos especially when the paths meet up together. This is quickly followed by a wicked S-Turn that can send you plummeting to Earth below. While the first half of the course definitely steals the show, the other parts of the course are no slouch either where maximizing boost pads and dealing with your opponents become the chief challenges.

1: Koopa Cape Wii

For all of the Mario Kart 8 era, I have felt the absence of the original Wii version of Koopa Cape in my life. It’s the only course that rivals Mute City as my favorite in the series. Every turn, with the constant rising and falling elevation, feels inspired. Where the track really comes alive though is the river section and the following underwater section. For the river section, staying in the water is crucial as you receive increased speed, but there are plenty of opportunities for shortcuts across gaps for those with mushrooms and choosing which ones to take advantage of is crucial to gain ground. After exiting the river, you rocket down the cliff into a warp pipe that leads to a fully enclosed glass tube underwater. The flowing water (criminally absent in the 3DS version) returns here to propel you forward and you must dodge in between rotating beams of lightning. Staying in the water is crucial to maintaining the maximum possible speed, but you must juggle if you can squeak past the lightning safely which is the peak of excitement in Mario Kart. The Wii version of Koopa Cape is an epic rollercoaster and is the number one track we need in Mario Kart 8. Don’t let me down Nintendo!

​Thank you for reading my latest blog, I hope you enjoyed it! I always love to hear from my readers, so feel free to reach out and share which tracks you’d love to see return in the Mario Kart 8 Booster Course Pass on my Twitter @JustinMikos. Until next time!

​One of the most exciting announcements from the February 2022 Nintendo Direct was the announcement of the Booster Pass coming to Mario Kart 8 Deluxe which will double the number of tracks in the game by adding 48 tracks from past games across six waves. During the pandemic, I have been thoroughly enjoying playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with family and friends. While it is my favorite Mario Kart game by far, these 48 new tracks are incredibly welcome as I logged 71 hours into the Wii U version and I’ve crossed 260 hours with the Switch version. With the first eight tracks announced alongside the pass, trying to figure what should be the remaining forty is the immediate question. Even just accounting for the first seven games since I never enjoyed playing Mario Kart Tour, the mobile game, I found it impossible to come up with a balanced full list because I really haven’t revisited any of the Mario Kart games beyond Super Mario Kart and Mario Kart 64 via their virtual console versions. After sitting on the Booster Pass news for a few days it became obvious it was finally time to revisit every game in the Mario Kart series.

The plan was simple. I would play on whatever the highest first available difficulty was for each game and claim the gold trophy in each original cup. Since I didn’t have a convenient save for Super Mario Kart, it ended up being the only game I raced in 100cc, whereas the others I ended up racing on the highest difficulty, 150cc. I planned just to do the original tracks in each game, though the moment I hit Mario Kart DS I did end up playing through all of the retro cups from then on anyway since I was having such a great time. Not counting the retro cups, I raced on 120 unique tracks over the course of five days! It was a very satisfying experience to be reacquainted with all of these games I grew up with and to see how the series evolved from game to game. I also had fun sharing my Mario Kart journey over Twitter which may just be my longest thread I’ve made there even edging out some of my lengthy RPG threads as I reviewed not just the games, but nearly every course as well. Since tweets and threads end up getting lost very quickly, I wanted to expand my thoughts and share them more permanently here on my blog. So here we are and here we go!

Super Mario Kart (SNES, I played on Nintendo Switch Online and raced as Yoshi)

I’ve been playing the Mario Kart series all of my life and I started with the very first game, Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo. Even from the start, Nintendo nailed the core of the franchise even though some of the details from what we see over the course of the series differ. There are four cups in Super Mario Kart, but unlike every other game there are five tracks in each course that you must complete five laps on compared to the now standard four tracks and three laps. There are eight racers to choose from, Mario, Luigi, Peach, Bowser, Yoshi, Toad, Donkey Kong Jr., and Koopa Troopa. Driving over question blocks on the ground gives you random items influenced by your position, including shells to throw at opponents, mushrooms to boost your speed, and bananas you can lay as traps on the ground that will cause opponents to spin out. While they would disappear from the series for a while, the very first Mario Kart game also featured coins to pick up that boost your speed that were often laid out on the course in unique, creative layouts. The twenty courses here are divided into unique themes rather than the all unique courses of future games with the exception being the final course, Rainbow Road. Strangely then by modern Mario Kart standards, there are four Mario Circuits for example labeled simply Mario Circuit 1, Mario Circuit 2, Mario Circuit 3, and Mario Circuit 4. While sadly not a part of my replay series as I played the games alone, battle mode which pulls from these same themes first appeared in the original game though it was limited to being just a one-on-one battle.

I have fond memories of playing Super Mario Kart with my Mom and brother. My Mom doesn’t play a lot of video games, but we’ve enjoyed playing all of the Mario Karts throughout the years and have enjoyed playing a tremendous amount of Mario Kart 8 especially together throughout the pandemic. One of our favorite Mario Kart memories was of me telling her when I was very young to “stay out of the mud, Mom!” on the two Choco Island courses. As I revisited the game today, I was still impressed just how snappy the controls are even though drifting in particular is tough to take advantage of. There is a big focus on your lap times in Super Mario Kart that has vanished from the series today. It makes sense it would be such a big focus here given each course is five laps long and the difficulty is fairly strict. While there may only be a few themes, most of the courses have distinct ideas within them, such as jumping across the river from the broken bridge in Donut Plains 3, navigating the mud lake in Choco Island 2, and jumping over the track in Mario Circuit 2. Despite the chaos caused by items, there really is a core elegance to the game best exemplified in Rainbow Road. There aren’t a ton of obstacles on the final track, but the narrow road lacking guard rails keeps you incredibly focused on making precise movements to take tight corners and dodge rainbow thwomps. Super Mario Kart is thankfully widely available at the moment as anyone with a Nintendo Switch Online membership has access to the game via the Super Nintendo app. You’ll be in for some whiplash if you haven’t experienced it prior, but I really think it’s awesome to check out and see the humble origins of the series.

Mario Kart 64 (N64, I played on my Wii Virtual Console copy and raced as Wario)

Time and place, Mario Kart 64 is perhaps my favorite Mario Kart game and cemented my love for the series. I have fond memories growing up with Mario Kart 64 not just of playing the game with my Mom and brother, but also playing the game with my cousins in Virginia when I went to visit them over Summer breaks. The series transitioned wonderfully into 3D with Mario Kart 64 as you can now play with up to four people for the first time in splitscreen. The sixteen, all new tracks are legendary in the series as they are all exceptionally designed and offer exciting ideas and obstacles not really repeated amongst them. There is a lot of wonder to be had in Mario Kart 64 that’s actually rewarded since you can drive to Princess Peach’s Castle for example from Super Mario 64 in Royal Raceway or follow the train into the mountain in Kalimari Desert. As an early N64 game there are a lot of glitches easily possible to experience yourself if you’ve heard about them such as the ability to jump through a cave wall in DK Jungle Parkway to skip laps. While again sadly not a focus of this replay, Mario Kart 64 has the best battle mode in the series by far. Each arena feels incredibly inspired and lends itself to unique strategies, including the series standout, Block Fort. Once again there are eight characters available to choose from, though Donkey Kong Jr. has been replaced with regular Donkey Kong and Koopa Troopa with now series stalwart Wario. Each of the racers now brims with personality thanks to newly added voice clips (Wario’s laugh is so good!) and more pronounced, but still hidden statistical differences.

As I revisited Mario Kart 64 the excellent track design and overall vision hasn’t faded. Throwing shells at your rivals still feels more satisfying here than in future games thanks to the reliable physics and dramatic impact racers suffer when hit. Speaking of shells, you can have three circling you at once now and the dreaded blue shell is introduced! The biggest surprise I had revisiting Mario Kart 64 on 150cc is just how absurd the rubberbanding AI is. If you are unfamiliar, basically as you pull away from the computer opponents through good driving and item use, to keep the race competitive the AI will then burst forward as if releasing a rubber band to overtake you. The problem with MK64 is that the rubberbanding is out of control as you are constantly fending off your two closest rivals. It makes every race an exciting nailbiter, but it’s just too much. While you can’t restart a race in a grand prix, you can thankfully abuse the fact that you can restart a race an infinite amount of times if you place 5th or worse which is handy during last minute upsets. This is of course far less of an issue if you are playing with friends or family, but it is a bummer the AI is the way it is. Overall, I still had a blast revisiting Mario Kart 64. It is still available until March 2023 to purchase on Wii U or you can enjoy it as part of the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pass if you want to relive it yourself.

Mario Kart Super Circuit (GBA, I played on my 3DS ambassador version and raced as Yoshi)

Mario Kart Super Circuit was historically my least favorite Mario Kart game. It is the only return of the series to 2D and it looks sharp and colorful. There are five original cups that offer a total of twenty new courses and all twenty courses from the original Super Mario Kart are unlockable. This was by far the biggest Mario Kart until the DLC for the original Mario Kart 8 gradually raised its total number of courses from 32 to 48. The problem with Mario Kart Super Circuit is that it is absurdly hard before you even factor in the random elements that are inherent to Mario Kart. Super Circuit introduced a grading system to Mario Kart. No longer is it just enough to get the gold trophy, with the grading system in its harshest form you must also do as well as possible. Coins appear again in this installment and serve three purposes: boosting your top speed, increasing your grade, and are necessary to unlock the Super Nintendo courses. I’m a completionist at heart, especially for my favorite game series, so back in the day I especially struggled repeatedly trying to conquer Super Circuit’s mighty challenge. I know I persevered to at least unlock all of the retro courses, but I know I didn’t get the best rankings on every challenge before quitting in frustration.

Revisiting Super Circuit today was a far more pleasant experience because the goal I had set for my series replay was to just get gold trophies in every original cup on the highest difficulty so I could ignore the grading system. I cruised through the first four cups with relatively little resistance, but that final cup is still obscenely tough. The first course in the cup, Lakeside Park, is the toughest course in the series, not necessarily because of its turns which are tough to optimize, but due to its tricky coin and item box layouts and the fireballs that rain down from the sky with minimal warning from the nearby volcano, not to mention the other racers are at their most aggressive. Broken Pier and Rainbow Road in particular really speak to how technically demanding Super Circuit is. If you have a good handle on it, Broken Pier actually becomes the easiest course in the cup as you can take advantage of all the shortcuts in a way the AI would never do. For better or worse, the Mario Kart series has moved away from trying to cut down on your lap times as much as possible. While I’m glad there will never be another game as tough as Super Circuit, I was happy to revisit this game more prepared and less pressured to enjoy its uncompromising vision.

Mario Kart Double Dash (GameCube, my racing team was Yoshi and King Boo)

Mario Kart Double Dash is both the transition to the more modern Mario Kart games and also the black sheep of the series. I had mixed feelings from my original time with the game as I wasn’t sold on its signature element, racing as a team of two drivers. It’s an interesting idea for sure especially if you play as a group since one player controls the driving and the other has to deploy their items strategically. Due to how complex the core mechanic is, hopping and holding items behind you like bananas for defense aren’t present here. Drifting however finally becomes a regular, useful mechanic in turning. You have to slide the stick left and right to build up your mini turbo boost which adds more skill to the mechanic. Like Super Circuit with its punishing difficulty before it, I also rejected Double Dash’s vision for the series at the time because I just wanted to race as one driver on standard karts which are both absent here. I also wasn’t a fan of Double Dash’s unique power items for each character since they added even more chaos to an already chaotic game.

Revisiting Double Dash today though knowing it wasn’t the future of Mario Kart, I really began to appreciate what it did offer. First, I was really impressed by how good Double Dash looks still. I know I had it running via HD component cables on my Wii so it looked better than it did back in the day, but Nintendo really poured a lot of detail into Double Dash’s courses and lovingly crafted the character animation. While it is frustrating it slows down your Kart, my favorite detail is when the character in charge of items has fallen off and is struggling to get back up. It really sells just how frantic Double Dash’s chaotic races are. It is weird that getting hit by items is generally such a minor setback, but you get hit so often without the ability for proper defense it makes sense. While we are sadly back to sixteen tracks total, there are a lot of great tracks here including Peach Beach, Sherbet Land, Yoshi Circuit, and DK Mountain. Like Mario Kart 64 there are interesting areas to poke around on the tracks to find secrets like warp pipes and there are things you can do just because they’d be fun like driving along the top of the bridge in Mushroom Bridge. While originally one of my least favorite Mario Kart games, I really think Nintendo should bring Double Dash back with online play as it is a unique experience that stands distinctly apart from Mario Kart 8.

Mario Kart DS (I raced as ROB)

Mario Kart DS is another of my favorite Mario Kart games. Its vision of the series is essentially what we have today and smart, subtle decisions offer massive quality of life boosts. While the online mode, which I don’t believe is still active, was certainly the star attraction, the addition of drafting is a game changer for Mario Kart. By trailing behind someone, you’ll notice little wind streaks start to form around your racer and if you maintain it long enough, you’ll burst forward. This is a far more elegant solution than rubberbanding to overtake players (which is still present) considering there is of course a risk element since you are setting yourself up to get blasted by a shell or a banana from whoever is in front of you. I also did not revisit the mission mode for this replay, but it’s still the gold standard for single player content in Mario Kart as it offered tons of tough, varied challenges to overcome and perfect. I really hope it will return someday. While not a terribly important feature, I also miss being able to craft your own pixel art emblem that shows up next to your name and on your karts. I loved crafting a Crono from Chrono Trigger avatar which I still use today (see below). While emblems understandably shouldn’t be widely seen online due to nefarious people out there crafting inappropriate ones, I do think they should bring it back for racing with friends as it is cooler than just seeing their Miis today.

​Perhaps the biggest change in structure for the series is that Mario Kart DS established the number and divide of courses for the series for the next three games. In Mario Kart DS, there are eight cups, four with all new courses and four with retro courses for a total of 32 tracks. This is a very solid number of tracks that importantly you often won’t exhaust in one sitting and it is always so cool seeing the NES and GBA courses brought into 3D for the first time. Some of my favorite courses include Delfino Square, Desert Hills, Tick Tock Clock, and Airship Fortress. I like that these tracks and others broke away from the more classic themes explored in prior Mario Kart games like the standard grass, ice, and desert levels and instead leaned more heavily into Mario’s past adventures or had unique premises like Waluigi Pinball which takes place inside a pinball machine. I was having so much fun playing Mario Kart DS again that I also played through the retro cups and I knew I would then as well for Mario Kart Wii and Mario Kart 7 for my series replay.

Mario Kart Wii (I raced as Rosalina)

Mario Kart Wii is my second favorite Mario Kart behind Mario Kart 8. I put a lot of time into Mario Kart Wii mastering every cup, playing locally with my friends and Mom, and also playing online. The number of racers participating in each race was bumped in Mario Kart Wii from 8 to 12 which makes every race even more wild. What I really appreciate though with this change, is that the online mode introduced the ability for two friends on the same couch and system to play splitscreen online together to take on the world. While guests didn’t get the same individual progression as the main player, just being able to play together was more than enough. Mechanically there isn’t too much difference between the Wii and DS versions however Mario Kart Wii did introduce half pipe segments to certain tracks that you could race up to get a burst of speed and introduced tricks that gave you boosts of speed off even seemingly tiny bumps in the road. There are of course new items here as is tradition. My favorite, which sadly remains exclusive to Mario Kart Wii, is the Thunder Cloud that first gives you a boost of speed, but will zap you with lightning if you don’t bump into someone to pass it off in time. There’s an awesome risk and reward dynamic as you try to maximize how much it can help without getting punished that is unique to the item.

I had a lot of fun revisiting Mario Kart Wii because it feels almost entirely in line with how the modern games control. Drifting in particular gets rid of the stick inputs to charge turbo boosts which is how Mario Kart controls today. The track design of Mario Kart Wii is excellent and includes some of my favorite tracks in the series including Koopa Cape, Rainbow Road Wii, and Grumble Volcano. Koopa Cape is my number one most wanted track to return in the Booster Pass. All the turns are exciting and the underwater section with the water pushing you forward as you dodge lightning rivals the excitement of the two F-Zero courses in Mario Kart 8. My one big complaint of the game is because there are so many power items, including the POW block exclusive to Wii, you really can just get wailed on from so many directions all at once. Thankfully it didn’t happen too frequently in this replay, but it did still happen once or twice when I’d get hit by the blue shell, lightning, red shells, a blooper, and a POW block all back to back. It’s absurd. Still even the nonsense can’t detract too much from what Mario Kart Wii excels at which made it very fun to revisit.

Mario Kart 7 (3DS, I raced as Rosalina)

The final game of my Mario Kart replay journey was Mario Kart 7, the direct predecessor of Mario Kart 8. While greatly overshadowed by Mario Kart 8, Mario Kart 7 is still an awesome game that laid the final foundation for Mario Kart 8 to perfect. The biggest changes are the addition of underwater and hang glider segments, the true return of coins which finally mitigates rubber banding AI, and finally the ability to feather the brake while accelerating which isn’t terribly important here, but is foundational for making Mario Kart 8’s 200cc mode work properly. Really the only things missing here from 8 are the antigravity segments, the double item storage from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and of course the unique items of Mario Kart 8 like the Super Horn. While not a game changer, Mario Kart 7 does of course have one unique feature over 8, its stereoscopic 3D effect which looks fantastic. The biggest jumps like the ones off Rock Rock Mountain and Maka Wuhu and particle effects like the falling cherry blossoms on Mario Kart 7’s Mario Circuit look spectacular in 3D. Speaking of courses, there’s a lot of excellent courses in Mario Kart 7. In addition to the three I mentioned I’d love to see Daisy Hills, Wario Shipyard, Rosalina’s Ice World, and Bowser’s Castle return in future games since they already chose four other great Mario Kart 7 courses for Mario Kart 8 already. I think if Mario Kart 7 had been on a home console and not so quickly replaced it would be more fondly remembered, but it is an excellent game well worth revisiting and I had a ton of fun doing so.

​I had a blast revisiting all seven Mario Karts prior to Mario Kart 8. It was a lot of fun to track the progression of the series and revisit all 120 unique tracks between the seven games. I hope you enjoyed reading my latest blog. I’ll be back pretty soon with another blog, so I hope you look forward to it! Be sure to share your fond Mario Kart memories with me on my Twitter @JustinMikos. Until next time!

​Our second year in the Covid-19 global pandemic is over. While I’m glad vaccines are reaching more people, it was once again a very tough year overall and I’m strongly concerned walking into 2022 as Omicron continues to rapidly spread and the government has seemingly given up. I don’t feel terribly safe yet given my own health, but I’m glad I was safely able to see friends a little more and continue to have great experiences with family and friends online.

Given I have spent so much more time at home as a result, I once again have been able to play an extraordinary number of games. While this year may have been short on huge blockbusters, there has been such an incredible variety of high quality games. It was very hard choosing what made the cut this year even though I’ve been playing with the order all year. As with every year, this blog is about my favorite games of the year, the ones that resonate with me the most, rather than a ranking of the highest quality. More than any prior year, I feel this focus has really impacted the rankings as some of the more tightly designed games of 2021, that I still love, didn’t impact me as much as usual.

Before we dive in, I want to share some honorable mentions. First is Gnosia, which is essentially a single player RPG version of Mafia or Among Us with a cool sci fi story. You can play it as just a Mafia game or try to advance through the story which will influence your decisions as you don’t always have to win a given game/loop to progress. The 14 distinct characters you square off against are interesting opponents you’ll want to get to know and the ending of the story is very satisfying. The second game I want to give a shout out to is Mario Golf Super Rush. I was so excited to finally have a new game on consoles and while I do prefer the old swinging method, the new one does encourage you to be bold and go with your gut which is cool. I had a ton of fun tackling all of the course, including the tougher free DLC courses, by myself and with my Mom. Finally, I also want to give an honorable mention to The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles. It takes a long while to warm up, but eventually you start to get the kinds of tough cases and wild twists the series is known for. I especially enjoyed getting to know the main cast of four, Ryunosuke, Susato, Iris, and of course, Mr. Herlock Sholmes himself and I hope we will get another adventure with them.

Now then, here are my Top Ten Favorite Games of 2021!

10: Nier Replicant ver.1.22474487139… (PS4, also on Xbox One and PC)

After thoroughly enjoying Nier Automata, I got a copy of the original Nier on PS3 and…never played it. Whoops…When the “version up” of Nier was announced that would bring Nier more in line with Automata and potentially add new content I knew this was the version I would play and I had a blast. The world Nier presents is intriguing with its large open spaces to wander through in between detailed towns. Every side quest, even the more mundane ones, pulled me in and helped connect me with Nier, the main character, his awesome traveling companion, Grimoire Weiss, and the greater, mysterious world. Throughout my journey, I enjoyed Nier’s simple, but very fun and satisfying combat, as well as fishing and gardening. Of course, the main attraction of Nier is the story. I became very attached to all of the characters, especially Emil and Kaine, and thoroughly enjoyed the dramatic ending. I was determined to get every ending, so that did mean replaying the ending sections of the game three times for bits of new content. It was interesting, but didn’t always work for me since I knew to an extent what to expect from its reputation. I didn’t expect walking in the smaller stories along the way, such as the Mermaid’s story and the story of the desert kingdom, to be so impactful so that was a nice surprise. Also, the new Ending E section is amazing and absolutely worth the effort to experience it. Overall, I had an awesome time with Nier Replicant. In many ways it was just as great if not better than Automata so I can’t wait for more Nier!

9: Bowser’s Fury (Switch)

Bowser’s Fury is an amazing experimental game from Nintendo that I wish we saw more of and is potentially an interesting peek into what may be the future of 3D Mario games. Bowser’s Fury is the first true open world 3D Mario game and it is tremendously fun from start to finish. After you ride Plessie across Lake Lapcat to find your next level, you simply have to walk up to a gate to have the next Cat Shine to claim queued up. The flow of the game feels so liberating even as the threat of Fury Bowser gradually builds in the background. During the day, you can see Fury Bowser slowly rising from the center of Lake Lapcat. When Fury Bowser awakens, dark storm clouds roll in, the rain picks up, and fire rains from the sky. While it sadly isn’t explored too much, Fury Bowser isn’t necessarily always an enemy as he can destroy Fury Blocks in each area which almost always hide another Cat Shine. You can engage Fury Bowser directly in battle once you claim a Giga Cat Bell power up to transform into Giga Cat Mario. In another interesting twist for a Nintendo game, Fury Bowser actually has an HP bar that you can deplete not only by throwing pillars at him, but also just by clawing at him. Its short length and awkward control scheme inherited from Mario 3D World that was never meant for open world gameplay holds Bowser’s Fury back from ascending higher on my list, but the quality of the journey is so high and the ending is so amazing, that I had to recognize it. While I never did sneak in a second playthrough this year, I’m very excited for all of my future replays.

8: Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (Switch, also on PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series, PC)

I played many Metroidvanias this year and Ender Lilies was one of my favorites as it strongly matched challenging combat with rewarding exploration. The striking art direction and slick animations are an immediate draw. While most of the countryside in Ender Lilies lies in ruins due to a horrible blight ravaging the land and corrupting all it touches, the scenery is still arresting and pockets of it, often near save points, look especially stunning. What’s most interesting about Ender Lilies is how it shifts how it plays over the course of the adventure. The main character, a little girl named Lily, does not attack directly, instead she faces off hordes of monsters with the help of ghostly knights she recruits. In the beginning, there is a distinct lag between hitting the attack button and having the knight be summoned to swing his sword which forces you to commit to your attacks and be extra mindful of your limited resources. Exploration into unknown areas requires further caution beyond the dangers of combat as the map only shows how rooms are connected to each other, rather than the exact terrain. I really appreciate too that the map marks every room in which you are missing items and pathways, but its lack of detail means it’s not always obvious how to claim new items and upgrades as many require you to seek secret routes across multiple areas. As the game progresses, the speed of your attacks and the length of your basic combo increases, you acquire a powerful, aggressive counter move, and you can create a wide variety of potential builds as you collect more special attacks, abilities, and accessories. By the end of your journey Ender Lilies transitions fully into a traditional, speedy action game as attack lag is eliminated and the enemies become far more fast and violent. A final highlight of Ender Lilies is the challenging boss fights that put all of your skills to the test and are immensely satisfying to conquer.

7: Blue Reflection Second Light (PS4 and Switch, also on PC)

I don’t think any other game best exemplifies why I’ve always chosen to do a favorite game of the year list rather than a best game of the year list more than Blue Reflection: Second Light. There is a core flaw in the initial playthrough of Second Light, as you are limited to only swapping between Easy and Normal difficulty, while Hard and Deathwish are restricted to any New Game+ playthroughs. The problem here is that Normal is far too easy which limits a fascinating combat system and means you never have to engage in other cool mechanics like figuring out interesting mixes of accessories for every character and upgrading/managing all of the facilities you build. Despite this core flaw, I think Blue Reflection: Second Light had a decent shot of landing on my list regardless, but it ensured its spot after I completed a New Game+ playthrough. After 106 hours between two playthroughs, I walked away fully satisfied as I finally got to fully engage with combat and those upgrade systems, see all of the character stories through, and see the brief, but satisfying true ending.

So why do I love the game? Well, Blue Reflection: Second Light despite its main flaw is easily Gust’s best game yet. It offers an immediately satisfying gameplay loop as you bounce between exploring character themed dungeons and returning home to hang out with characters and craft upgrades and items. Most importantly, Second Light is also the game the first Blue Reflection should have been as it now actually feels like a proper magical girl game. Second Light thankfully drops more than 90% of the unwelcome fan service from the original’s Persona-like social sim, and is instead very focused on getting to know the characters you interact with and is far more interested in advancing its positive themes that it explores throughout both the main story and the character stories. My favorite character is the protagonist, Ao Hoshizaki, who all of her life has dreamed for something extraordinary and longs to feel special. She gets her wish when she is transported to another world, a school surrounded by water, that’s only occupied by three other girls who have lost their memories. They quickly discover another world connected to it, and while it is filled with monsters, it also may hold the answers to why they are in their situation. Over the course of the journey, more characters arrive at the school and nearly all of them, whether they are Reflectors who can engage in battle, or supporters who boost your stats, have character stories to advance by hanging out with them and clearing their side quests. Dates are perhaps the best version of a “social link” mechanic that I’ve seen yet in an RPG and I hope other developers take notice of what worked here. After you’ve decided to hang out with a character, you have to walk to your actual date location. Along the way, short conversations happen and small events are marked on the map. During the actual date, there are three sets of dialog prompts where you must choose between two options. This offers a surprising amount of role playing as you’ll often learn about Ao in addition to the character you are hanging out with. The bigger events in each character story often challenge Ao’s assumptions and are both well shot and fully voice acted. Over the course of the adventure, Ao learns from her interactions with her new friends to better treasure everyday life and grows as a person and leader because of it. In addition to Ao, who I haven’t mentioned has a fun personality to begin with, my other favorite characters include, Kokoro, Yuki, Shiho, Hinako (the original game’s protagonist), and Uta, the latter who returns from the anime in a surprising way.

I still have to mention when the combat system is working as it should, it truly is an engaging battle system. Essentially, you and your opponents are constantly building ether points that are used for attacks. Your characters level up as you use attacks, which lets you build ether faster and gives you access to more powerful abilities. You are also building a combo multiplier with every attack and damage grows dramatically as a fight drags on. Though rarely needed, there is also a support character on your team that provides buffs at set intervals and can use items so your attackers don’t have to waste ether. There’s a lot of interesting decisions and optimizations already possible as you exploit weaknesses, use buffs and debuffs regularly, and decide when to store ether and when to use it. If fights drag on you may also get to take advantage of knocking down opponents, engaging in 1 on 1 Punch-Out fights, and using ether tides/limit breaks. Again, it’s a really cool system, done a massive disservice from not being able to shift to higher difficulties from the start. I had such a feeling of unfinished business with the combat system, that I had to immediately start a New Game+ playthrough that I thoroughly enjoyed. I’m very passionate about Second Light because I ultimately walked away very happy and satisfied by it. I hope it finds an audience because I really think Gust largely nailed it.

6: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox (PS4 and Switch, also on PC)

Like Ys VIII before it, I had a tremendous amount of fun playing through Ys IX. Unlike Ys VIII, which took place on an island full of dinosaurs, Ys IX takes place in the prison city of Balduq in an area reminiscent of France. Most of the excellent systems from Ys VIII return in Ys IX though some don’t have quite the impact in a different setting. For example, because you are trapped in one city, there are magical barriers in place to prevent progression rather than primarily being gated by the abilities you gain. Instead of building up a village of castaways, you are instead establishing a bar in town. But while it suffers from small knocks, the general thrust of Ys IX always remains compelling and I had fun flashbacks to exploring towns in the old Assassin’s Creed games as I found treasure chests hidden throughout the town.

The biggest step up in Ys IX is definitely the characters and story. While Ys VIII had a very good cast, there were a few characters who felt they were just along for the ride. After being falsely accused and thrown in prison, Adol Christin mounts an escape, but is cursed into becoming a Monstrum. This gives him the powers of the Crimson King which lets him fight demons invading Balduq from another dimension. Adol is not the only Monstrum in town, as five other characters have been there struggling from the start. Over the course of the game, you’ll recruit them to your cause one by one after helping them with their own personal quests. Each Monstrum has their own unique combat styles that are all fun in their own right and their own unique skill such as wall running or flying that helps you explore the town and countryside. Those two abilities in particular make movement very fun in the more vertical environments. My favorite character is definitely Krysha, The White Cat, who has very speedy attacks that can melt health bars. The biggest mysteries of Ys IX are all tied to the prison and a second Adol who is still inside of it. I think Falcom did a great job of calling back to past games to increase the mystery and I was ultimately very satisfied how it played out. One final thing I want to touch on of course is the combat, which wisely remains mostly unchanged from Ys VIII. Again, there is weirdness with encounters inside the town setting as random battles you choose to engage in are over almost immediately, but the moment you hop in a dungeon and the rock music kicks in all is right with the world.

5: Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart (PS5)

It’s been a very long time since A Crack in Time, the last big Ratchet adventure on PS3, and while Ratchet and Clank haven’t changed too much since then, I’m more than fine with them returning with just their most refined adventure yet when it’s as fun and heartfelt as Rift Apart. Ratchet on PS3 was already being compared to Pixar movies and yes Ratchet looks even more stunning than ever on PS5 with a rock solid framerate in performance mode no matter how many explosions are on screen and as you smoothly teleport across dimensions. As the name suggests, Ratchet and Clank are once again ripped apart after Dr. Nefarious steals the Dimensionator, but this time they find their interdimensional counterparts Rivet and Kit to team up with. Ratchet and Rivet each have their own levels to explore, but play identically as they share the same growing arsenal of creative weapons and tools. I’m more than fine with this as the core gameplay is tighter and more satisfying than ever and you encounter a wide variety of different gameplay on each level from rocketing across vast plains on your jet boots to classic arena battles. My favorite area in the game involves an underwater station that is completely destroyed in one dimension save for a monster hunting you down while the other side is fully operational and staffed by Emperor Nefarious’ army. Neither dimension is great to be in, but that makes it so interesting to explore and conquer! The writing in Rift Apart is perhaps the best yet for Ratchet for both jokes and heartfelt moments. Ratchet in particular is plagued with doubt if he can still be a hero after being away for so long and Kit wonders if she can be a hero at all given her past as a weapon in Emperor Nefarious’ army. I especially enjoyed getting to know Rivet and I hope she will return in future games. Overall, I had an amazing time with Rift Apart and I didn’t want to put it down until I 100% completed the game to get the Platinum Trophy.

4: Lost Judgment (PS5, also on PS4, Xbox One, Xbox Series)

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed playing all of the Yakuza and Judgment series these past few years since I first played Yakuza 0 more than four years ago. I didn’t expect it, but Lost Judgment has dethroned Yakuza Kiwami 2 as my favorite Ryu Ga Gotoku game to date. It has by far the most exciting action combat yet, the most awesome side content, and an exciting story full of twists that’s delivered by top notch cutscenes accentuated by a wonderful English dub. Lost Judgment once again stars detective Takayuki Yagami as he investigates the links between high school bullying in Yokohama, a groping incident on a train station, and a gruesome murder. Yagami’s friends from the first game all return to help him tackle these new mysteries and he makes a great new one along the way in the character ProZD voices. Early on I was very focused on side activities, but once the main story picked up, I couldn’t step away from it until it was done because it was so gripping. While the core gameplay remains mostly the same as past action Yakuza games and the first Judgment, Yagami now has access to a new third combat style, the Snake Style, that’s focused on stylish counter attacks. Most importantly, the combat in general feels just as exciting as Kiwami 2’s. You always feel satisfyingly in control whether you are fighting against swarms of goons or the dramatic one on one boss fights. Yagami also now has a wide array of new detective tools to aid his investigations including a sound sensor and a detective dog. Their uses are straightforward, but offer much needed variety that was missing from the first Judgment. My favorite addition to the basic formula is the skateboard that Yagami rides. For a series that’s so focused on reusing maps, the skateboard really is the most transformative addition here as it makes the vast expanse of Yokohama feel more personal.

What really pushes Lost Judgment to the top of the Ryu Ga Gotoku games, is the best side content in the series so far. In addition to the traditional side cases and a ton of awesome minigames, the biggest side content is all unified under School Stories. As part of his bullying investigation, Yagami finds himself becoming the adviser of the Mystery Research Club on campus. A nefarious criminal, named The Professor, seems to be corrupting the students with their influence and so Yagami must investigate school clubs and other outside groups in order to put a stop to their plans. For example, Yagami becomes the new instructor for the dance team and the new operator for the robotics club. Half of the ten school stories have exceptional production values for side content as they are fully voiced and have distinct minigames to work through. My favorite is definitely the Boxing Gym story which gave me huge Hajime No Ippo vibes as I dodged between opponents’ attacks to let loose a flurry of jabs. Even though not all of it works, the Biker Gang story is notably whatever, what makes the School Stories collectively so special is that they all come together to advance and ultimately complete the greater story of confronting The Professor. The School Stories absolutely raise the bar for what awesome side content in games can look like. What’s truly wild to me is that even then there is so much more to tackle such as perhaps the most interesting spread of classic Sega games being included (Motor Raid is the coolest!) and new minigames such as Aircelios, a twin stick Geometry Wars style game, being such an absolute delight. I have no idea how the Ryu Ga Gotoku team could ever top Lost Judgment, but I’m very excited to see them try and I’m also really looking forward to the Kaito DLC story they are putting out in early 2022.

3: Metroid Dread (Switch)

The most masterfully designed 2021 game in my book is definitely Metroid Dread. It had been over 14 years since Metroid Prime 3, the last amazing all new Metroid adventure, and nearly 19 years since the last mainline 2D Metroid so I was very excited to devour this long awaited sequel. The day I got it, I played through the full story and came back the next day to claim 100% completion. Both sittings were amazing as the main path forward is incredible and collecting all of the items means you get to contend with the most interesting and complex puzzles a 2D Metroid has yet featured that frequently utilize multiple abilities in quick succession. Aside from a minor criticism that the environments don’t seem terribly cohesive, an issue Samus Returns also had, and a weaker soundtrack, I thoroughly enjoy everything else Dread has to offer. Dread interestingly begins at the bottom of planet ZDR rather than its surface and your main goal is to return to the surface. Along the way, you’ll contend with massive, aggressive bosses and the E.M.M.I. research robots that have been turned against you. The E.M.M.I. encounters are the most interesting new element in Metroid Dread. While Fusion toyed with having a powerful enemy hunting you, it was only in small, set locations. The E.M.M.I. robots are confined to much larger sections of the map and will pursue you throughout them. They’ll track your sounds and if they spot you, it can be very hard to avoid them. When you are captured, you only have one brief, random window to counter them and avoid death which is obviously very unreliable. Since you can instantly restart if you are defeated, I never felt terrible dread as the game wants, but even so the encounters are a fun change of pace from the usual Metroid action and ultimately taking out the E.M.M.I. robots is very satisfying. I won’t get into details, but there is more story beyond the premise (including three of the coolest events in the series) and the depiction of Samus is finally fully back on track as a confident, compassionate badass.

There are three other major areas where Metroid Dread stands out from prior games. First are the controls feeling the absolute best they ever have. You can run and blast every enemy ahead of you in full confidence. The new dash move in particular is a game changer for Metroid as it helps you both navigate the environment and have a reliable way to dodge boss attacks. Speaking of bosses, they are another standout feature of Metroid Dread. These bosses are all credible threats and have well designed, aggressive attack patterns. The sole loading screen tip for boss battles is simply “every attack can be avoided” and truly that’s all you need, because Metroid Dread is a rare game these days that truly believes you can overcome its challenges. You get instant retries when you die and you always feel yourself getting better if you don’t just crush it on your second attempt. Finally, I love the way the world you explore guides you through it as it opens and closes paths around you. While Fusion toyed with the idea, in Dread certain actions of yours and events in the story cause the maps to change in subtle and radical ways. Oftentimes it is as simple as a pillar crumbling that seals off the way behind you or by flipping a switch to activate a machine. Ready or not then, you can be locked into confrontations with bosses which ups the tension considerably. Also, although I usually love going back to old areas in Metroidvania games to collect upgrades after getting a cool item, there is such an exciting forward momentum in Dread that I never wanted to get pulled too far off the main path. It does such a good job subtly guiding you forward that I only got lost once in part because I unintentionally brute forced myself further off the path. I’m glad we finally have another 2D Metroid game in the same league as Super Metroid and I’m looking forward to replaying Dread over and over again in the years to come. Metroid Dread was absolutely worth the wait.

2: Trails To Azure (Chinese PC, officially coming in 2023 to Switch, PS4, and PC)

Thanks again to the hard work of the Geofront fan translation group, I was able to play the Chinese Joyoland PC port of Trails To Azure on PC this year to finally complete the last missing gap in the Trails series in America and at the same time complete the Crossbell duology. Though it actually took way less time since I extensively used turbo mode, my 89 hours with Azure definitely affirmed to me why Azure is so beloved in the Trails fanbase. Without going into details, Azure plays for keeps in a way future Trails games don’t. Azure opens with wrapping up the loose ends of the SSS’ first big case. From there it becomes obvious that Crossbell is truly under external threat from both Erebonia to the West and Calvard to the East as both are using their visible and invisible forces to take more control of the state of Crossbell. Of course, the countries aren’t the only factions involved in Crossbell as Ouroboros, the Septian Church, and heroes from Trails in the Sky are all on the move. This is the Trails series at its most fascinating as you see first hand how the larger forces in the series affect the people stuck in the middle. By playing its predecessor, Trails From Zero, you already have a strong connection with Crossbell, its citizens, and the SSS who all have their own stories to advance. I was really happy the SSS gets new members in Azure with both Noel and Wazy becoming regular party members. While the core SSS was already great, these two characters make the group far more lively. The Geofront’s writing is absolutely wonderful throughout Azure and makes everyone truly come to life. Even though I really wish I could have played Azure first before Cold Steel since I knew the greater ending and the fates of some of the characters, I was so excited to see Lloyd’s story through to the end and seize the truth of the biggest mysteries.

While the story is far and away the biggest attraction of Azure, it’s also one of the best Trails games to play. Like Zero before it, Azure still gives you too much room to explore every chapter since all of Crossbell is regularly open to visit and Crossbell’s many citizens always have new things to say after every event, but thankfully you do get access to your own patrol car this time for easier fast travel. The side quests run the gamut from the mundane to more interesting detective work. The sharp writing of the greater story is also strongly present here and elevates some of the activities. Fishing and the casino games return from Zero and are also joined by fishing duels and the first appearance of Trails’ Puyo Puyo knockoff Pom Pom Party which is very fun. Azure is loaded with tons of missable quests and secrets, so I sadly did have to play with a guide ever handy, but seeing everything is worth it. Combat is another major pillar of Trails To Azure and it does not disappoint. Azure is the last Trails game with grid-based combat and the fundamentals are still rock solid as you manage the rise and fall of CP for special attacks, positioning, and by manipulating turn order to claim buffs and push debuffs on your enemies to emerge triumphant. Azure introduces both Master Quartz and Blitz to the series and although I have mixed feelings about how much you can abuse both of these features (Blitz gives you six to nine free turns!!), there are plenty of extra challenging fights in Azure.

One final area I have to touch on is Azure’s excellent soundtrack. There are a fun array of new battle tunes and I especially dig two remixes from Zero’s soundtrack featured in the game, Inevitable Struggle’s Super Arrange version and Get Over The Barrier’s Silent Devotion version. Both originate from Zero’s Super Arrange album and are used for spectacular effect in some of Azure’s biggest emotional moments. I actually know the names of many of the songs on the soundtrack, because the Geofront went above and beyond and added an optional feature that tells you the name of every song in Azure as it starts to play. I really wish this becomes a standard feature in every RPG going forward because Azure and the next game I’m about to talk about both wonderfully feature it. Overall, Trails To Azure is an amazing JRPG from top to bottom that I can’t recommend enough. I’m so excited the Geofront’s translation will soon become the basis of the official translations of Zero and Azure in 2022 and 2023 so more people can enjoy these amazing games. I also can’t wait for Trails Into Reverie to arrive in the US in 2023 because after ten years of playing the Trails series I finally have every Trails game so far under my belt. Thank you again Geofront!

1: Neo: The World Ends With You (Switch, also on PS4 and PC)

Fourteen years after the original The World Ends With You hit the DS and became one of my favorite games of all time, we finally have a sequel with Neo: The World Ends With You and it truly is the rare perfect sequel on virtually every front. Neo follows the story of Rindo and his friend Fret who get pulled into a new Reaper’s Game. Unlike the original game, with new people in charge the Reaper’s Game now features large teams competing against each other for points to claim the top spot on the leaderboard. Rindo and Fret thus soon team up with a fan favorite character from the first game, Sho Minamimoto, and another new character named Nagi to form the Wicked Twisters to try to win and escape the game. Compared to the first game’s story, Neo’s story is a slow burn by design that plays with your expectations and hopes walking into it. The script and translation are thoroughly excellent with very natural dialog and on point humor. I think Neo also strikes an excellent mix of new characters to old characters as it keeps the game accessible to newcomers, but also offers exciting closure and payoffs for fans. Once the story picks up, there are so many satisfying developments, awesome reunions, and cool showdowns that all build up to an epic climax.

The most interesting question walking into Neo was how combat would be addressed. The original DS game had an addictive, complex, and very unique combat system with a thematic purpose that could never be properly replicated on any future hardware as it heavily relied on the dual screens of the DS and inputs including the touch screen, buttons, and even the microphone. As Neo’s Reaper’s Game is now a team game, the solution is that everyone fights together in large, stylish 3D arenas and every character can hold one pin that grants a physic ability. Neo is focused on managing your cool downs and setting up big combos with regular timed assists. Until later in the game when you can double up, each character equips pins assigned to different buttons. For example, maybe Rindo has an X button pin that has rapid physical attacks while Minamimoto can charge up big launcher attacks by holding the R button. Whoever’s button you used last is swapped in as the main character you control and anyone whose attack button is still held is also active and vulnerable. While it harkens back to the complexity then of the original game, dodging attacks is intuitive to manage. I touched on it earlier, but the biggest goal of combat is to set up cool combos by following up attacks with proper timing to charge the groove meter and unleash huge team attacks that restore health. There are over 300 pins in the game to collect and master so there is a ton of variety in setting up your party and the amount of moves you have access to even though there is obviously only so many big ideas for pins. I love the way combat evolves in complexity over the course of the game because the farther you get the more exciting and addicting Neo’s combat becomes.

Like the first game, Neo is so driven by you the player pouring yourself into it and making it your own. In addition to cycling through pin layouts another area of focus is putting together outfits for your full crew. While you can always take advantage of the stat boosts of any equipped item, all threads have skills/buffs that activate if you have enough style points for that character. Eating food to boost your stats is thus even more important in Neo and is something you should be constantly doing as hunger is no longer locked by real world time. As your power grows, once again you can raise the difficulty not just by selecting Easy/Normal/Hard/Ultimate, but also by both lowering your level which reduces your HP and by chaining together multiple battles which together can wildly increase the drop rate to further fuel your growth. A new progression system is also introduced in Neo and is tied to meeting new characters and completing side objectives to grow your relationships in Shibuya. Some rewards are major, like unlocking Hard mode for example, while others are just special clothes/pins, but it is yet another compelling reason to do as much as possible in the game. I was having so much fun diving into all these systems that it became no question that I wanted to do a full New Game+ replay of the game on Ultimate immediately to collect all of the secret reports and to tackle the boss rush and super bosses in the post credits chapter.

One final area that I have to touch on is Neo’s outstanding soundtrack that truly is my favorite album of the year. Neo’s soundtrack is about 3 hours and 15 minutes of music spread across 51 main tracks and virtually all of it is glorious. There are remixes of songs from the first game, but the vast majority is brand new vocal heavy music with a harder rock edge. Whether you are running around town or fighting battles the soundtrack is proudly blaring in the background. Nearly every song is an earworm and has fun lyrics to sing along to. Once again you can set any song as your menu music once you purchase a CD at a store and you’ll actually be able to easily identify them as the game briefly displays the name of every song that plays. There’s also a rad new way to dash in Neo to the beat of the music which I love by itself and since it also gives you extra groove heading into fights. My favorite songs are definitely Last Call, World Is Yours, Breaking Free, and Kill The Itch.

Ever since I started writing my Game of the Year blogs, I’ve been lucky that every GOTY I’ve had not only reaffirms, but actually reignites my love of gaming, and Neo: The World Ends With You proudly carries on that tradition. Neo: The World Ends With You is my 2021 Game of the Year.

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That concludes my 2021 GOTY blog! I hope you enjoyed it! I always love hearing from you, so be sure to let me know what you thought of my list and the games you enjoyed this past year on Twitter @JustinMikos.

Listed below are all 66 games I beat last year in order. Until next time!

2021 Games I Beat

Ys IX Monstrum Nox (100% Hard)
Bowser’s Fury (100%)
Super Mario 3D World Switch (100%)
Love Live! School Idol Festival ~after school ACTIVITY~ WaiWai! Home Meeting!!
Nier Replicant (Ending E)
New Pokemon Snap
Re:Zero Prophecy of the Throne (100%)
Famicom Detective Club: The Missing Heir
Famicom Detective Club: The Girl Who Stands Behind
Guilty Gear Strive
Final Fantasy VII Remake: Intermission
Idol Days
Trails To Azure
Kingdom Hearts Union Cross
Mario Golf Super Rush
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Platinum Trophy)
Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights (100%)
Mushihimesama Switch
World’s End Club
Cotton Reboot
Pokemon Unite
Neo: The World Ends With You
The Great Ace Attorney: Adventures
CrossCode: A New Home
Axiom Verge 2
The Great Ace Attorney 2: Resolve
No More Heroes III
Ghost of Tsushima: Iki Island DLC
WarioWare: Get It Together!
Toem
Lost Judgment
Metroid Dread (100%)
Melty Blood: Type Lumina
Blue Reflection: Second Light (Platinum Trophy + True Ending)
Picross S6 (100%)
Gnosia (True Ending)
Cruis’n Blast (100%)

Old Games I Beat In 2021

Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
Yakuza 7: Like A Dragon
Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World The Game (Replay)
Ori and the Blind Forest (100%)
Super Mario 3D Land (100%)
Devil May Cry 4
Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition (DNV x2 + Vergil)
Captain Toad (Replay + DLC)
Super Mario Odyssey (100% Replay)
Yakuza 5
Yakuza Dead Souls
Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core
Picross S5 (100%)
Dreams
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered
Super Metroid (Replay)
Metroid Fusion (Replay)
Mighty Gunvolt
Metroid Zero Mission (Replay)
Metroid
Metroid II: Return of Samus (Replay)
Metroid Samus Returns (Replay)
Paper Mario Sticker Star
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Motor Raid
Crystar
Ori and the Will of the Wisps (100%)
Mario and Luigi Dream Team
Bayonetta 2 (Replay)

​One of my favorite announcements from E3 2021 was Metroid Dread, the first new mainline Metroid game in nearly 19 years. The same night Dread was announced, I immediately started a Super Metroid playthrough and very quickly decided it was time to finally replay every mainline Metroid game in preparation. Aside from Super Metroid, which I replay nearly every year, most of the Metroid games I’ve only played once despite my love for them and other games inspired by them. Between my Switch, 3DS, and Wii U I was able to play through the four mainline games and their two remakes and I’m excited to share my thoughts on revisiting the games on my blog. I played these games in an unusual order (Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, Metroid, Metroid II, and Samus Returns), though for the purpose of this blog I’ll cover each of them in release order. Let’s get right into it!

Metroid (NES 1986/87, also on GCN, GBA, Wii, Wii U, 3DS, And Switch)

The original Metroid has been made available on so many platforms, but it wasn’t until this year that I finally beat it for the first time with the help of a fresh playthrough of Zero Mission, save states, and most importantly strong determination. I first played Metroid on the Gamecube where it was included as a bonus in Metroid Prime if you linked it to your copy of Metroid Fusion. I know I got as far as finding the Ice Beam and at least seeing Kraid’s Lair and Norfair, though I never progressed far in either region. The original Metroid is incredibly influential and still an amazing foundation for the series as it established the basic loop of collecting items to allow more exploration of the world where you’ll find more new items to continue the process. While the worlds in Metroid games are increasingly treacherous the deeper you explore them, you too are becoming more and more powerful until you eventually surpass the increasing difficulty as you get closer to the end of the game.

The original Metroid game is in some ways the most difficult Metroid game because even though it is in color, many of the rooms in the first Metroid look very similar to each other and there is no map. Without consulting a guide or downloading a map (the latter I wisely did for my Metroid II replay) your best bet is to really memorize the large vertical shafts in the game as best as possible. While they too aren’t the best of landmarks, as vertical shafts in the same region share features, they are certainly more memorable than the horizontal rooms that often look completely identical to each other. Not only is it very easy to get lost, it’s often not clear where you should be going at any given moment. As the Metroid formula became more refined with Super Metroid in particular, the number of new areas you can reach at any given moment is never quite as large as in the original Metroid since items and abilities aren’t gating progression as much as later games. Early on when your max health is low, enemies deal a lot of damage and it isn’t easy to recover health (there are no dedicated energy and ammo recharge stations), but this time I played I fully internalized and felt comforted that there are still a few rooms that have respawning bug enemies at nests which throughout the series is a good way to farm health and ammo drops in dangerous territory. While I didn’t download a map, I’m glad I consulted a guide at parts, because while every subsequent Metroid game including Metroid II does a good job of suggesting when you should bomb walls, it is absolutely not intuitive here which can grind progression to a halt.

​While my patience was constantly tested, my determination this time helped me push through and finish Metroid for the first time and I’m glad I did. Grabbing the Varia Suit for the first time was huge as it drastically reduced damage from enemies, but what really gave me momentum to finish the game were the final two abilities, the Wave Beam and the Screw Attack, both of which completely change the game. Even with the Long Beam upgrade, which lets you shoot your power beam across the screen instead of barely a foot in front of you, it’s very hard to hit enemies as they zig and zag much faster than your bullets travel. The Wave Beam is a life saver as it weaves up and down as it rapidly travels across the screen and deals substantially more damage. The Screw Attack gives you immediate protection when jumping and is a powerful weapon as well as it rips enemies apart. Suddenly the oppressive world of Zebes feels under your control which gives you the confidence to take on Kraid and Ridley and their deadly lairs. The bosses themselves aren’t complicated, but they each offer good challenges different from the rest of the enemies. I also enjoyed finally playing through the original version of Tourian, the final area of the game and Mother Brain’s lair, as well as conquering the final escape sequence (which is thankfully and surprisingly very easy). Finally encountering and defeating the metroids as you approach Mother Brain feels novel as you need to re-fetch your Ice Beam to tackle them. Overall, while I don’t ever foresee myself replaying the original Metroid game as its punishing difficulty and lack of an in-game map and save points is off-putting, I’m so happy to finally have it under my belt to truly know the origins of the series and I did have fun finally conquering it.

Metroid II: Return of Samus (Game Boy 1991, also on 3DS)

Growing up Metroid II was one of my favorite Game Boy games because it felt so smooth to play and it looked really good. I played through it at least twice, but it has been well over a decade since I last tried to beat it. Unless you were playing on the Super Game Boy or Game Boy Color, Metroid II like other Game Boy games is displayed in black and white and like the original Metroid it also does not have an in-game map. This is far less of a problem thankfully, because Metroid II has a unique structure compared to every other Metroid game. Samus is tasked by the Galactic Federation to wipe out every metroid on their homeworld, SR388, after realizing how much of a threat they posed to the universe following the events of the original Metroid. There is a counter constantly displayed on the bottom right corner of the screen of how many metroids remain, but more than that is how the game is built around this metroid hunt. There is a central shaft on SR388 where triumphant music plays that is filled with acid. Somehow, every time you eliminate all of the metroids in a given area the earth shakes and the acid level recedes to let you explore a new area and defeat more metroids. Essentially then, even if you do get lost in a given area, you know the moment the earth shakes you are good to exit out back to that main shaft and head to the next area. I’m still glad I downloaded a map because the rooms frustratingly don’t always map cleanly to a 2D grid, but I generally knew where I was at any given moment which makes the game flow much smoother.

Even with a cramped screen given how big Samus’ sprite is, Metroid II generally feels great to play and I love the items it introduced to the series. The biggest item that sets the game apart was the very powerful Spider Ball upgrade. Using the Spider Ball, Samus can literally roll up walls and travel across ceilings, provided there are no spikes in the way to block her progress. The Spider Ball makes you think about rooms differently as a result as you might be able to skip across deadly obstacles like lakes of acid and reach areas well beyond your sight. In that same vein, another power up I really love is the Space Jump which lets you infinitely jump in midair provided you don’t mess up the timing or collide into an enemy. Amazingly, both of these items are found fairly early on in the adventure despite how powerful they are which really opens up your ability to explore the much larger environments compared to the original Metroid. While the environments are harsher and more alien than the original Metroid since you are more powerful as a result, energy and ammo recharge stations and most importantly save points are thankfully all introduced in Metroid II which makes the journey far smoother.

​While I much prefer having all unique boss battles to overcome as I conquer Metroid games, Metroid II’s metroid hunt is made interesting in that the metroids you encounter are at different stages of evolution. The floating jellyfish larva metroids evolve into alpha, gamma, zeta, and ultimately omega metroids across their lifespan and the different types are spread throughout SR388’s cavernous depths. Each metroid type has different attack patterns and generally hit harder the more evolved they are. I appreciated too that even with types you become familiar with, the game makes fights more challenging as it mixes up the arenas where you confront them. One especially cool metroid fight takes place entirely in the sand it hides in. You have to blast away the sand with your power beam, but it refills if you look away which can trap you if you aren’t careful. Even though it is terrifying, my favorite moment of the game is still the final showdown with the queen metroid which is basically a giant alien dinosaur that can even swallow you whole. You have to pump a ton of missiles into it to defeat the queen metroid so it is a true test of endurance and skill. While I don’t want to revisit the original Metroid again, I can definitely see myself revisiting Metroid II in the future. Even though you can get easily lost, I was happy to find the game is generally very fun and satisfying to play to this day.

Super Metroid (Super Nintendo 1994, also on Wii, 3DS, Wii U, and Switch)

Super Metroid is in constant battle with Super Mario 64 as my favorite game of all time. I played through it a ton of times growing up and I still regularly replay it every year or so and I always find new things that impress me about it as I play. Replaying this year on Switch I impressed myself by finally beating Super Metroid in under 3 hours for the first time which seemed like an achievement forever out of reach. When I was little, I had the Super Nintendo strategy guide laying out how to beat Super Metroid in less than three hours to get the best ending, but I always love to collect items in Super Metroid and explore every room which was completely at odds with their strategy and any of the Games Done Quick Any % speedruns I’ve enjoyed over the years. I still did some dumb, fun stuff in my latest playthrough like jumping into and exploring the acid lake in Ridley’s Lair and stubbornly attempting a few tricky wall jumps over and over (I’m relatively good with wall jumps after playing the game so much), but those distractions still didn’t pull me too far off my otherwise very efficient playthrough where I grabbed 91% of the items in 2 hours and 55 minutes. I’ve gotten 100% items on every Metroid game before so this successful run here inspired how I played the other five Metroid games this time which worked well for revisiting them back to back. (Incidentally, I also finished Metroid II and Zero Mission in less than 3 hours, Fusion in just over 3 hours, and Samus Returns in under 8 hours. Metroid II was 2 hours and 51 minutes specifically and I even got 100% items which I’m happy about!)

​It may play only on a 2D plane, but Super Metroid channels a similar energy to Super Mario 64 in that there is so much room for expression. I really appreciate that Super Metroid’s jumps are far wilder and less tight than the rest of the Metroid games that follow as it takes skill to optimize and perfect. Even before you consider advanced speed tech seen in speedruns, wall jumping in particular, which is a tight input, can help you reach many items ahead of the intended ways to acquire them. For example, I always grab the Spazer Beam before getting the High Jump Boots and the Spring Ball without getting the Space Jump, but there are plenty of other awesome uses for wall jumping as well, such as directly jumping up to the Speed Booster early which I did in my latest playthrough. Aside from shooting for the best ending, which isn’t hinted at in the game, Super Metroid is just so fun to play efficiently that it just naturally pushes you into becoming a master of it and every upgrade just makes playing the game feel even better.

​One area I think Super Metroid excels the most at of the mainline Metroid games is in being a fully satisfying adventure. Planet Zebes offers incredibly distinct environments, from the oppressive lava filled Norfair to the peaceful, watery depths of Maridia. Every area is vividly brought to life with beautiful and evocative pixel art that sparks the imagination. The music is appropriately moody throughout and excitedly ramps up for the epic boss battles against terrifying monsters like the towering two screen tall Kraid and Samus’ eternal nemesis Ridley. The items you acquire over your journey constantly expand your options in exploration and often in combat as well (the power beam upgrades in particular stacking on top of each other was a cool and elegant addition). The world feels increasingly like your own more than other Metroid games as a result. There are also so many genuine moments that seem effortless in how well they are executed from Samus’ ship quietly touching down on Zebes in the rain, the surprising end to the battle with Crocomire, and of course the dramatic final showdown with Mother Brain.

There are few games that are just so joyous and satisfying to engage with as Super Metroid. I think I’ll always keep finding new things to appreciate about it and enjoy having new goals to shoot for as I play Super Metroid which is astounding. I didn’t need this particular replay to better inform how I feel about Metroid as I look forward to Dread, but all the same I’m so glad Dread’s announcement sparked my annual desire to replay Super Metroid because I finally accomplished beating the game under 3 hours and had an absolute blast as always.

Metroid Fusion (GBA 2002, also on 3DS and Wii U)

I never expected when I first played Metroid Fusion in 2002 on the same day as Metroid Prime (the most glorious day to ever be a Metroid fan) that it would have to stand nearly 19 years as the final mainline Metroid game. I didn’t like Fusion nearly as much as Super at the time of release because some of the key differentiators between it and Super, a heavier emphasis on story and a more linear mission structure, felt like steps back for the franchise and ultimately did lead to the absolutely dreadful low point of the entire franchise, Other M. As the years passed with no Metroid V in sight, my feelings on the game remained relatively harsh even though I still liked it. I tried a few times to do a replay on my 3DS, but always abandoned them for whatever reason. When Dread was finally announced, I had to know how I feel about Fusion today as I have more years of gaming and Metroid experience and with Fusion no longer having the burden of being the end of the mainline franchise.

When you start Fusion the most notable changes are that the jumping is far snappier and for the first time you can grab onto ledges. While it takes some of the finesse out of the game, the more precise gameplay is fun in its own right and feels good. I also appreciate, unlike Super which has two dedicated buttons for looking diagonally up and down, Fusion defaults the initial look to diagonally up when holding down the L button (which is where the majority of enemies will be) and by pressing down you switch to looking diagonally down. It can lead to some awkwardness at times during the intense boss battles, but it is a clever solution as less buttons are available on the GBA compared to the SNES controller. Another interesting gameplay change here is that missiles get upgrades that stack on top of each other like beams do. I like that missiles eventually handle the Ice Beam functionality from prior games for example because it is a useful tool to freeze enemies in the air, but it is much more satisfying to regularly be blasting enemies away with your default beam.

While I remain very down on the introduction of Adam, the new AI in Samus’ ship who will annoyingly lock her in the newly introduced navigation rooms until he gives her orders on what to do next (we never needed him before!!), and the more restricted linear nature of the game as a result, I did appreciate the moment to moment gameplay much more than I remembered. Metroid Fusion takes place entirely on a Galactic Federation research station in space rather than an alien planet. You arrive on the main deck area of the station and eventually reach a collection of elevators that lead to six different research sectors that are uniquely themed from a recreation of SR388’s main surface to more standard fire and ice levels. The station has been overrun with the X parasite that began to overwhelm SR388 after you wiped out the metroids in Metroid II (whoops) and each section of the game has you investigating or stopping them from spreading further or causing damage to the research station. When you enter a sector for the first time Adam will give you a basic map of the area and my favorite part of Fusion is that in all seven areas of the game you’ll begin to break out of the maps he gives you (noted by green tiles on the map) as you pursue your objectives. Venturing into uncharted territory is one of my favorite elements of Metroid games and given that some of the uncharted areas can easily be twice as big or more of the provided map of a given area and how breaking out is usually a puzzle in and of itself, I really connected this time with how it works. My favorite moments of Fusion are all tied to breaking out of the map including how it factors into a big story beat at the end.

When I originally played Fusion nearly 19 years ago, I wasn’t a fan of Metroid Fusion’s notably higher difficulty, but I definitely appreciate it now. Many of the bosses hit like trucks and a few bad moves can easily send you into a panic as huge chunks of your health are ripped away. While the designs of the bosses don’t speak to me the way Super Metroid or its same day contemporary Metroid Prime did, the boss fights themselves are engaging and require you to learn their aggressive, but usually sneakily simple patterns. Perhaps the coolest boss in the game is Nightmare who can enable a gravity device to have the missiles you shoot at him fall to the ground. Breaking away its mask reveals a goopy gross face that looks worse as the fight drags on. There are two fights though that are massive disappointments, a Ridley clone and the SA-X that is the reanimated remains of Samus’ original power suit by the X parasite that had infected her. While the game makes a big deal of the SA-X hunting Samus down, the few sections it appears often end quickly when you hide behind cover, and the final showdown is super easy as its patterns are just too simple. Ultimately, I had a much better time playing Metroid Fusion than I did during my initial playthrough. While there are parts of Fusion I just won’t ever fully agree with, namely Adam’s role in the story and gameplay, I think it’s ultimately still a fun game.

Metroid Zero Mission (GBA 2004, also on Wii U)

Zero Mission is a remake of the original Metroid and is an astronomical improvement over the original game even if the new epilogue scenario is very weak. The differences are subtle, but Zero Mission refines Fusion’s controls and movement to upgrade them from feeling good for what they are into something that just feels immediately excellent. Its values are different, but Zero Mission rivals Super Metroid for the best feeling game to play in the franchise. While the game begins with the rough layout of Zebes unchanged aside from the addition of Crateria, all of the rooms are substantially more designed and are littered with new puzzles and items to find. While you still have to take out Kraid and Ridley (now designed like their Super Metroid incarnations) before taking on an unaltered Mother Brain, there are many new mini bosses to overcome that are well designed and satisfying to conquer.

I had mixed feelings on the new epilogue content in Zero Mission back in 2004 and I still do today. Following Mother Brain’s defeat, Samus’ ship is shot down back to the planet and for some reason her power suit is damaged or destroyed leaving her stripped down to her skin tight Zero Suit and a gun that can only paralyze the space pirates. Through a combination of stealth and outmaneuvering them in their space ship and nearby Chozo Ruins, you’ll fight a lame Chozo ghost boss to restore all of your abilities and activate some new ones. This half of the new content just isn’t very fun despite the designers’ best efforts of creating unique paths to run and evade the space pirates through and I’ve always been conflicted on the sexualized design of the Zero Suit and its impact on the perception of Samus as a character (Smash Bros made Zero Suit Samus cool at least). Once your abilities return, you do get an awesome power trip as all of the space pirates that were hunting you down crumple under your full might. The final showdown with a Ridley robot is sadly another low point in this section as the battle is never interesting and you had a proper Ridley showdown in the game already.

For two hours or so then as it reimagines the original Metroid adventure, Zero Mission is on top of the world, but the new forty minutes of new epilogue content is honestly just subpar. I wish there was a hard break between the two sections of the game for this reason, but if you did want to go for 100% item completion like I did back in 2004 it is neat that you have all new abilities to use as you return to the rest of Zebes to clean up items. Despite its flaws, Zero Mission is a journey well worth taking as the main portion of the game is just that great.

Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS 2017)

Like Zero Mission before it, Samus Returns is such a substantial reimagining of the game it is remaking, in this case Metroid II, that it might as well be considered a new game entirely. Even though I enjoyed it so recently, I was very interested in replaying Samus Returns before Dread because the same developer is handling both and they are clearly building off of their foundation here. The most controversial new change is the addition of a new melee counter ability for Samus that helps her repel charging foes. Since the screen real estate is so tight (a problem shared by the original Metroid II!) you have to be even more careful traversing SR388 as enemies hit very hard and have substantially more health in order for the melee counter to be necessary. While my other Metroid playthroughs were all finished around the three hour mark, I was just shy of taking eight hours to finish Samus Returns in large part due to this impact on pacing which is somewhat relatively exhausting.

The longer journey is absolutely worth taking though, because overall Samus Returns feels great to play. For the first time in a mainline Metroid game, holding the L button makes Samus stand in place to enter a free aim state where you can shoot at whatever angle you are tilting the circle pad in. Precision aiming can make the game both easier and harder depending on the enemy you are facing, especially so when you are aiming for moving metroids and their weak spots. As you get used to moving the circle pad and learn their patterns, metroid fights switch from being a good challenge to becoming substantially easier when every missile you fire lands even as they introduce new moves and modify old ones. My one complaint is that the developers did completely run out of buttons as specific functions are mapped to every face button, the shoulder buttons, the d-pad (for swapping between the cool, new Aeion abilities), and most annoyingly the touch screen which you might need to hit in the heat of battle. Experiencing this control bottleneck again does make me very curious how Dread will play as Metroid developers for the very first time will have access to two control sticks, with clickable sticks, and four shoulder buttons.

​While Samus Returns keeps the general structure of the game, defeating metroids to lower the acid level in the central shift to reach a new area to repeat the process, the remake eventually substantially diverges from the original game in how you navigate the world and the obstacles within it. I mentioned in my Metroid II section I was surprised you get the Space Jump so early on in the adventure because the environment basically never is an obstacle again even though the terrain becomes more treacherous. At the same spot you would collect the Space Jump in Metroid II, you instead collect the Grapple Beam in Samus Returns which keeps Samus grounded much longer. I was more than fine with this, because Samus Returns is impeccably designed and offers a good challenge between navigating the world and solving puzzles that take advantage of all of Samus’ abilities. There are a few new boss battles in Samus Returns and all of the returning ones have new attacks and patterns which make them satisfying to overcome. I also really appreciate the presentation boost as well as the world suddenly has fully 3D backgrounds in color that offer an impressive sense of depth if you slide up the 3DS’ 3D slider. My only complaint is that the various backgrounds don’t really seem to gel together (is the cool water area with green grass everywhere really below a lot of lava zones?) and even though it’s still a super cool area which is what ultimately matters I was slightly bummed the most oppressively alien area in Metroid II was transformed into an abandoned Chozo base. I do have to give a shout out to the music in the game as the soundtrack reuses a lot of classic Metroid themes like Magmoor Caverns’ and Maridia’s themes to great effect.

Samus Returns is an excellent game and my second favorite mainline game overall despite my small complaints. It really captures what makes the Metroid games so fun and provides interesting new ideas like the melee counter and Aeion abilities that might be further developed in Dread at the least. While it seems like it will be locked to the 3DS given how it takes advantage of both screens and every possible input, I really hope Samus Returns will one day make its way to Switch as I think many missed out on it as one of the final 3DS games.

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That concludes my latest blog! I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts on all of the mainline Metroid games. I had an absolute blast revisiting them and feel so satisfied to finally have finished the original Metroid. I always enjoy hearing your thoughts and feedback, so be sure to reach out to me on Twitter @JustinMikos to share your Metroid thoughts and favorite memories as we get closer to Metroid Dread! Until next time!

​After replaying every 3D Mario platformer and playing through Mario’s newest adventure, Bowser’s Fury, I knew I wanted to write a blog covering my thoughts on every 3D Mario game. Since I haven’t written about many of these games in detail, I decided to split this blog into two parts so I could properly cover each game. I posted Part 1 already covering Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Mario Galaxy, and Super Mario Galaxy 2. I’m back now with Part 2 which will cover Super Mario 3D Land, Super Mario 3D World, Super Mario Odyssey, and Bowser’s Fury. I have a lot to share, so let’s dive right in!

Super Mario 3D Land (3DS)

Like Super Mario Galaxy 2, my thoughts on Super Mario 3D Land have not terribly shifted with my latest playthrough. While Super Mario 3D Land wasn’t the first time a 3D Mario game arrived on one of Nintendo’s handhelds, it was the first uncompromised and unique 3D Mario experience on a handheld. 3D Land attempts to merge the 2D and 3D styles of Mario while being a showcase for stereoscopic 3D. While Nintendo has abandoned the technology for better or worse, Super Mario 3D Land still looks impressive on the 3DS as you can peer into Mario’s world to get an even better sense for Mario’s place in it which makes movement and jumps easier.

​Like the original 2D Super Mario games, Super Mario 3D Land is divided into eight worlds with a fairly linear progression of levels. Classic Mario enemies and power-ups are the focus here, rather than the anything goes drive of the Galaxy games. Perhaps part of the decision behind that focus is due to the smaller screen, which doesn’t lend itself to more elaborate platforming. While that is a disappointment, the core running and jumping feel good and the three star coins in each level present at least three secrets/challenges for players to pursue. There are interesting levels here as well including a deep descent through the clouds with the help of the Tanooki suit (which makes its first appearance in a 3D Mario game), some tricky ghost house levels, and a level based on the top down Legend of Zelda games. Another interesting idea are the Bowser showdowns, which essentially adapt the 2D fights into 3D. The final showdown is essentially just an intense platforming level with crumbling platforms and Bowser harassing you with fireballs which works out really well.

There is an impressive post game for Super Mario 3D Land as an extra eight worlds open up after the credits roll. Many of these levels are welcomely brand new, but there is a good deal that function like the comet levels in the Galaxy games that tack on a modifier to an existing level. Like Galaxy, the very last level is locked behind a complete Luigi playthrough (ugh) and a new goal to hit the top of the flagpole in every level. Like Galaxy 2, this final level is a new gauntlet for the toughest players. I reloaded my original save and had a great time tackling this challenge level. While you do have more than one hit, it actually asks a great deal from you including chaining long jumps across single block platforms, conquering two minibosses at their most aggressive, and dodging/kicking parachuting Bomb-Ombs off a switchboard platform. While I consider it unlikely, I really hope one day Nintendo will remake/port Super Mario 3D Land to other platforms because it is still an excellent game from start to finish.

Super Mario 3D World (Wii U, Switch)

I have mixed feelings walking away from my latest playthrough of Super Mario 3D World due to a seemingly minor, but ultimately disruptive change to the Switch port. When it first launched on Wii U, it was confidently my 2013 game of the year. I absolutely adored playing through all of the levels by myself as they brought so much more creativity and challenge to Super Mario 3D Land’s already tight design. While I didn’t get to do it too often, I had a blast playing the game in co-op too as multiplayer Mario works better in a 3D space and the five unique characters made 3D World lovingly chaotic. I came away on Switch still happy I replayed it, but I think the increased movement speed that actually makes the game more accessible, does dilute the difficulty for single player. At first blush it is a fun modifier as you really can tear through levels and you might even have trouble staying on the course. After a little while though, it’s obvious it makes jumps way easier and cheapens every level as you just don’t exist in them for as long. Another negative change in my view is that if you die mid-level, but start over from the start or a checkpoint flag, any green stars you had grabbed (the star coins of this game) remain collected which again cheapens the difficulty since you don’t need to survive collecting green stars from platforming challenges anymore. These changes make the game more accessible and potentially less frustrating (especially for online play), but both really should be modifiers you flip on and off to preserve the original vision. Like the Mario 3D All-Stars Collection, the changes just seem to be uncharacteristically less thought out by Nintendo which is disappointing to see. I wish I could say I’ll just play future replays on the Wii U as a result, but sadly I know my Wii U Gamepad’s batteries are on their last legs which will make replays impossible.

Despite my frustrations, there is still an excellent game at the heart of the experience. All of the levels are much more distinct than in 3D Land with many of them offering unique challenges and obstacles at the core of them. One of my favorite levels, Piranha Creeper Creek, is a jungle level infested with the new Piranha Creeper enemies and poisonous, purple waters. The way the Piranha Creepers wrap around the 3D space, especially as they cover tight and moving platforms, is engaging and stomping them out requires proper timing and patience. Two other especially cool levels are Shadow Play Alley, which plays around with silhouettes in both 3D and 2D spaces, and Mount Must Dash, which is essentially a delightfully, speedy Mario Kart themed sprint. The bosses in the game are sadly too easy, but there is an especially memorable one with Hisstocrat, a giant snake king. Hisstocrat summons snakes to burst through his sandy arena and with the use of the new Cat Mario powerup you can scale up the snakes to get enough height to jump on Hisstocrat’s head. While it doesn’t offer an additional eight worlds, the post game for Super Mario 3D World is impressive as truly fantastic levels populate it. Many of my favorites are in the early stretch that incorporate Mario Galaxy elements into 3D World and one of those surprisingly turns the game into a top down, auto-scrolling shmup. You unlock the fifth character, Rosalina, in this stretch of the game who has access to the spin jump / spin attack from Mario Galaxy which is especially useful as the difficulty ramps up and culminates in Champion’s Road which is the hardest Mario level to date. While significantly easier with the speed increase, it is still an awesome challenge to conquer as it tests all of your platforming skills across its many challenges.

One final element that I do want to touch on is the introduction of Captain Toad levels, which were so good that they eventually spawned their own game. I actually replayed Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker as part of my 3D Mario replays, but my opinion largely remains unshifted and it isn’t a 3D platformer so I didn’t want to talk about it in a dedicated section of my blog. It’s still fun to spin the camera around as you explore each diorama-like level and search for secrets. I barely remembered the game (which is unusual for me), so it felt like I was mostly playing it for the first time which was cool. I played Captain Toad’s DLC for the first time following my replay and sadly I highly recommend avoiding it. While the new levels are awesome, the DLC is disappointingly mostly remixes of old levels you will have played multiple times already if you 100% completed the game.

Super Mario Odyssey (Switch)

My final Mario replay, which concluded my journey for the 35th anniversary, was of Super Mario Odyssey. While I loved the game at launch and it was my fourth favorite game in 2017, at the time I considered it the weakest 3D Mario game. I know why I felt that way at the time as the insanely large number of unique moons, 880(!!), ultimately means a good deal of activities aren’t always the most compelling and a lot of the best challenges in the game don’t feature Mario himself. While those complaints still stand, I was wrong overall, because on replay, I truly began to feel Super Mario Odyssey is one of Mario’s finest adventures and is closer in spirit to Mario 64 than I first gave it credit for.

​Super Mario Odyssey begins with Mario failing to rescue Peach from Bowser’s clutches when he decides to kidnap her so he can forcefully have her marry him. When Mario is thrown off Bowser’s airship, his hat gets torn to shreds in the propellors. Thankfully, Mario teams up with a new character named Cappy, who replaces his old hat and grants Mario the ability to “Capture” enemies, animals, and objects. An astounding amount of variety comes from this as it dramatically increases the number of playable characters and increases the amount of variety in the game substantially. I think why I turned around on Odyssey so much was due to the knowledge I gained from my initial playthrough. I felt way more comfortable taking advantage of Mario’s moveset here, which evokes Mario 64’s feel and Sunshine’s versatility and depth. There are four new moves here that I finally made full use of from the start: rolling (so you can speed along the ground), throwing Cappy to attack (which lets you attack without stopping or jumping), the ability to bounce off Cappy if you let him linger in the air, and the Cap Dive which lets you alter your direction midair when you throw Cappy and use a dive to reach and bounce off him. These four moves, together with my knowledge of where, how, and why moons and purple coins were hidden, helped me more confidently and efficiently conquer each kingdom which dramatically improved the pacing. I enjoyed playing Odyssey far more on a moment to moment basis as a result since I wasn’t wasting as much time as I moved from objective to objective. Furthermore, I began to appreciate the variety in tasks more and noticed there actually is a substantial amount of platforming that still revolves around Mario instead of the captured creatures.

There’s a lot of awesome kingdoms to visit in Mario Odyssey and also a lot of cool Captures to play as across your journey. My favorite kingdom by far is definitely the Metro Kingdom. All the kingdoms in Mario Odyssey have distinct world states locked behind a main quest of sorts and the Metro Kingdom certainly has the most interesting. You first enter the Metro Kingdom at night during a fierce storm. From a distance you can see Bowser’s army has locked down the streets and a giant Mecha-Wiggler is wrapped around New Donk City Hall (the biggest skyscraper in the city). After you free the city, the sun shines again and you are told the town is going to hold a festival, so you need to recruit musicians to perform in it and fully restore the city’s power. At this point you are given free reign to explore the city and Mario’s platforming skills are well suited to scale skyscrapers and jump across rooftops. Tons of collectibles are tucked away in this dense area as well as hidden levels to explore. When the festival itself begins, the wonderful vocal theme song Jump Up Super Star begins playing and you hop in a pipe and play a handful of Donkey Kong themed 2D levels before squaring off with Donkey Kong himself! Some other standout kingdoms in the game are the Wooded Kingdom (which plays my favorite instrumental song in the game, Steamed Gardens), Bowser’s Kingdom (which is themed like a Japanese castle instead of his traditional Western ones), and the Moon Kingdom. What makes a lot of these levels especially memorable are the Captures in each one. My favorite Capture in Odyssey is still the Pokio that is primarily found in Bowser’s Kingdom. It is a small, round bird that can scale walls and attack enemies by extending its beak. Playing as the Pokio is so much fun and the challenges that require them are so clever and well designed that I want a spinoff starring one in the same way Captain Toad got his own game. Other awesome Captures are the Sherm tanks, the stretchy Uproots and Tropical Wigglers, the Gushens, and of course the T-Rex.

As I blasted my way through each story mission, I made sure to thoroughly explore each kingdom. With my knowledge from my first playthrough, I knew what to look for to find Moons hidden across the land. For example, if I didn’t know it my first time through, I internalized for sure this time that the levels hidden behind doors and moon rock passages always have two moons to find within. While a few moons still don’t feel special, I think far more than I first gave credit for are proper rewards for poking around for secrets and solving puzzles (they are also better rewards than the 1-ups of old Mario games). At the end of my big sweep through a level, I appreciated that there are two separate in-game hint systems you can take advantage of for the final clean up. One gives the title of the Moon which can help direct your search, while another points you to its location even if it doesn’t help you claim it. There’s a substantial amount of Moons to claim on your first visit to each kingdom and I was impressed how many more there are to claim in the post game which also opens up new areas to explore in each level. I ended my Mario Odyssey journey this time by claiming the final multi-moon on the Darker Side of the Moon. This final gauntlet is nowhere near as hard as the other post game gauntlets since I actually beat it on my first try in this replay, but its still so cool how it incorporates so many of the best Captures in the game. It truly feels like the culmination of the journey and that final climb of New Donk City Hall as Cappy reflects on everything so far is still a cool moment. Ultimately, I’m so glad I replayed Mario Odyssey. My opinion of Odyssey has only soared now that I’m more in sync with the game’s flow. I’m excited to one day play it again.

​Bowser’s Fury (Switch)

The latest 3D Mario game, Bowser’s Fury, came bundled with the Switch port of Super Mario 3D World and is a significantly different experience than every other 3D Mario thus far. Bowser’s Fury repurposes the controls, obstacles, and graphical style of Super Mario 3D World into a fully open world adventure. Bowser’s Fury takes place in Lake Lapcat and the various islands within it. All you have to do is walk up to an area/level and you are instantly ready to collect the current Cat Shine available until you have collected them all. When you complete or get bored of one island, you can hop on Plessie to ride across the lake in search of new islands and levels. That would already be interesting, but the biggest change is the introduction of Fury Bowser. During the day, a resting Fury Bowser is slowly rising from the center of Lake Lapcat. After a few minutes pass, a dark rain storm rolls in, and Fury Bowser awakens. At this point you can either try to avoid him until his fury subsides, collect a cat shine while dealing with his chaotic havoc, or use a Giga Bell to transform into Giga Cat Mario to engage Fury Bowser directly in battle. While I wish this idea was explored further, across the various islands of Lake Lapcat, are Fury Blocks that can only be destroyed if you lure Fury Bowser over to them so his presence isn’t always an obstacle to overcome.

Bowser’s Fury not being a standalone adventure and its short length (three hours to beat, maybe five or six hours to collect all 100 cat shines) gives it an experimental feel, but all of the levels and challenges are fantastic and make interesting use of the space they occupy. The regular threat of Fury Bowser keeps you driven to tackle goals efficiently and informs how you’ll tackle goals. I often kept an eye out for Fury Blocks for example, so I’d know where to rush to the moment Fury Bowser would awaken. Other times I’d glance over to Fury Bowser and check his state before claiming a Cat Shine so I could dismiss him quickly if I wanted to. My biggest complaint about Bowser’s Fury is the lack of control customization. Like 3D World, there’s a run button in Bowser’s Fury that you’ll always want held down. Unlike 3D World, since you actually need to manipulate the camera regularly, the control scheme becomes incredibly uncomfortable as three things constantly ask for your right hand's thumb all at once. I tried a variety of “claw” grips, until I settled on resting my index finger on the X button perpetually which is awkward. I didn’t think there’d be a third instance of Nintendo being uncharacteristically sloppy with their Mario games for the 35th anniversary back to back, but here we are!

​All of the levels in Bowser’s Fury are largely excellent, but I do have a few favorites. Pounce Bounce Isle is littered with bounce pads and bullet bills, while Trickity Tower is an invisible climb save for the ground surrounding Mario’s feet. I also really enjoyed Mount Magmeow as you use Switchboard platforms to ascend it as well as Roiling Roller Isle which is probably Bowser’s Fury trickiest level. The Fury Bowser showdowns when you power up as Giga Cat Mario are a lot of fun as well. They amusingly all directly take place on Lake Lapcat and oddly for a Nintendo game Fury Bowser has a health bar and you can actually swipe and damage him directly as Giga Cat Mario. The most effective way to take him down is to counter his attacks and throwing the pillars he rains down from the sky to open him up to a ground pound attack. The spectacular final showdown with Fury Bowser is definitely my favorite part of the game as he temporarily loses the ability to be driven away by cat shines, his attacks become the most varied and fully aggressive, and he has one extra phase to the battle that ends on an incredible note. While I had an amazing time with Bowser’s Fury and it is one of my favorite experiences in 2021 thus far, I’m not sure just yet where it totally fits in relation to the other Mario games. Regardless, I’m looking forward to replaying Bowser’s Fury eventually. It’s a short, but sweet experience that stands out among the 3D Mario games. I hope it is pointing towards a full open world Mario game, because Bowser’s Fury teases the amazing potential that idea has.

​That concludes Part 2 of my 3D Mario blog and I hope you enjoyed it! Every 3D Mario game is truly an incredible experience and I’m so glad I finally replayed all of them back to back. I definitely need to replay these games more often as they are all delightful and satisfying to conquer. I always enjoy hearing your comments and feedback, so feel free to reach out to me @JustinMikos. Until next time!