Within minutes, you can tell that this is the technical leap forward for Pikmin that graduates the franchise from cult oddity to potential juggernaut. The quality of life improvements in this one are a masterclass.

And yet....

As hard as it is to go back to the first Pikmin's engine, there's something that neither of its sequels have recaptured. How much of this is my own nostalgia, I won't quantify right now. But there's something to be said for the "set quantity of treasures, set quantity of time" mechanic. I really enjoyed how Pikmin 3 integrated its plot, but the drawback was that it really made you feel how short the campaign is.

At the end of this game, Sonic says, "We have to fix the world we live in" and not just "the illusions" the Phantom Ruby created. This implies that Sonic is not into electoralism, a tool that is fixated on the aesthetic differences of power, but in a more material progress, rooted in environmentalism.

I'm not a real Sonic fan. My nostalgia for the character is rooted in Sonic CD. But as an adult, I don't have the reflexes or patience to complete Sonic Mania. As such, Sonic Forces is built for someone like me, particularly in the first 5/6 of the game, where deaths are almost all just dumb mistakes. But I found the final few stages....pretty damn enjoyable, from an arcade perspective.

And I mean....they did pay tribute to almost every era of Sonic. Does it matter why Silver is there? I mean, that's sloppy, but they didn't turn their back on the Sonic '06 fans. You have to admire something so overstuffed with fanservice.

Justice for Big the Cat, though.

I'm really not sure how this works. You start off with some basic character creation and then you enter a public lobby. Walking through the lobby, you can find existing games that you can play. I tried a platformer that seemed very reminiscent of Fall Guys, but it's single-player and foggy. But you can also explore the lobby and I found...a fun house? Presumably all of this can be made with the game creator, which I tried for 10 minutes. I've never played Minecraft, but it strikes me as a streamlined way of doing Minecraft.

Very happy I got to play this again on a modern system, as it's a game oozing with charm (and pollution). But Mario is so dang slippery and several of the shines seem designed to cause rage quits. The late-stage for story completion is particularly aggravating, forcing you to complete a certain number of episodes per stage and repeat tasks, culminating in chasing down Shadow Mario seven times. I'm happy to see this game get more attention as an interesting anachronism, but am even happier than the 3D games went in the direction of Galaxy and Odyssey.

There were times during my 3D All-Stars playthrough when I was tempted to bump this down to 4/5. Particularly whenever I tried to use a wing cap to land on a Shifting Sand Land pillar or when I was simply trying to stay on the elevators in Hazy Maze Cave. But the simple fact was that I woke up every day excited to get more stars and I felt a full sense of accomplishment when I surprised Bowser with the 120 star total. There will always be something special about the juxtaposition of the freedom the game grants you along with its restrictions. There's only so many shapes they could render and only so many sounds they could produce, but each playthrough can be your own and each ending feels earned. Thank you for more than 20 years of joy, SM64.

Not a final review - Ongoing impressions

Controls for Mario in SM64 are pretty smooth. You find yourself wishing you had a full-360 control of the camera, but the right stick is an improvement over the C buttons.

Currently at 96 stars, trying to go for 120 before Ultimate Bowser. It's been a huge pleasure to revisit this game.

On Sunshine, the emulation is making everything look really good except for the cutscenes - certain voice lines, particularly from the Piantas, sound extremely muffled. And then the cropping and brightness settings they're using really make the cutscenes incongruous with the gameplay.

I'm one of those who ranks Sunshine third among these three games and I'm still struggling. Mario is so damn slippery when landing on platforms, that it irrationally angers me. The music and gameplay animation makes me happy, though.