Every time I play a 2D Mario game, I wonder if the series is really as good as everyone thinks it is.

Yes, I loved Super Mario World in the 90s, and none of the games are bad by any means, but the gameplay just doesn't feel exceptional or noteworthy anymore. Admittedly, this is a very “Citizen Kane is overrated” kind of thought, seemingly ignoring the innovation and pioneering of the entire medium that came from what I’m dismissing. But I dunno, I just think I’m over 2D Mario.

Then I play Mario Kart, Mario Party, or Smash Bros and I consciously avoid using Mario at all, as if he’s the most boring, vanilla choice possible. He feels like Mickey Mouse. Iconic, but bland.

And then a new 3D Mario game shows up, and I lose my freaking mind.

I love Super Mario 64, Galaxy 1 & 2, and 3D World. I want to love Sunshine, but it’s just never clicked for me for some reason. (Trying it again soon!) As blasé as I can be about 2D Mario, 3D Mario is my JAM.

This game is like a bulleted list of my favorite things in games:
- 3D platforming with ridiculously tight and acrobatic controls
- Tons of stuff to collect and items to buy/earn
- A bunch of unique, gorgeous non-linear worlds
- God-tier music
- Awe-inspiring set pieces
- A severe amount of post-game content with a second ending

The game is so incredible that it suddenly makes me love the actual character of Mario again. Do I dress him up as Waluigi most of the time? Absolutely. But Odyssey managed to make Mario endearing.

As soon as I had beaten it, I had to make something to express how the game made me feel (and to shoehorn in as many visual puns as possible). I didn’t really write reviews before finding out that game tracking sites were a thing, so the first “love letter” I ever wrote for a game was this (SPOILERS FOR THE END OF THE GAME IN THE LINK): https://youtu.be/zj93Imivr54

I don’t think anything I can write here will express the way I feel about this game as well as that video. But the best verbal praise I can come up with is this:

I 100%ed this game twice in a year. And I’d happily do it again.

I know it's an uncommon opinion to call Skyward Sword my favorite Zelda game. But here we are. Rather than rehash the entire game, there are a few key things that really mean the most to me when it comes to this beautiful game.

~ ~ Home ~ ~

I love me a good Zelda hometown. The people, atmosphere, music, side-quests, etc. all make me feel at home and like I belong there. While the Zelda series is absolutely about the adventure, I always value that adventure more when it's contrasted with the Hobbit-like comforts of home. Skyward Sword excels at this, as Skyloft is undoubtedly the best home in the franchise.

Kokiri Village is a beautiful introduction to Ocarina of Time, but you're really not going to spend much time there unless you're 9-year-old me and have no idea how to get out in the first place. Outset Island is similarly charming, but not exactly a focal point of Wind Waker. Ordon Village is in the same boat. Skyloft is different because you will constantly be returning throughout the game, interacting in meaningful ways with the townsfolk. Majora's Mask's Clock Town is my second favorite specifically because it's as busy as Skyloft.

This floating town is where you meet wonderful characters (more on that later), engage in continuing side-quests, upgrade your equipment (a brilliant mechanic that I hope returns soon), and it's also where many of the game's most important story beats take place. And it's just so pretty! The peaceful island floating above the clouds is a locale I'm always happy to see.

~ ~ Characters ~ ~

While Skyward Sword has the most fleshed-out story of any Zelda title, I feel that it only works because of its endearing characters. This is the first "Princess" Zelda that we really got to know, and we see her and Link (and Impa, for that matter) develop as characters throughout the game. Side characters are memorable and delightfully designed, with many standouts.

- Beedle, always pedaling his flying store, angrily dropping you through the trap door if you don't buy anything.
- Pumm, the frustrated owner of the Lumpy Pumpkin, one of the first Zelda NPCs to actually react when you break stuff in his house. ("WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!?")
- Batreaux, who is the biggest softie despite his appearance.
- Fledge, who effectively plays the role of your little brother who just needs some confidence.
- Sparrot, who's just a friggin' weirdo.
- The Kikwis, who I can not get enough of.
- GROOSE.

And I'll just say it. Ghirahim is the best villain in the franchise. You really learn to hate him, but he's undeniably entertaining whenever he pops up. Bring back Ghirahim!!

~ ~ Control ~ ~

Okay yeah, Link looks like an absolute idiot running around with his sword awkwardly pointed in whatever direction you happen to be positioning your controller. But having gotten used to that, I have never felt so in control of a Zelda game. Once I found that sweet spot of how hard/far to swing the Wii Motion Plus remote, I was completely enamored with the controls.

I've played countless games where you mash A to attack. Instead of that, Skyward Sword makes each enemy encounter a puzzle. It requires you to pause for a second, take account of the enemy and their positioning, and then attack from the right angle at the right time. It's a vastly more nuanced and engaging way to do Zelda combat, and I would love nothing more than for BotW2 to let me do this with my Joy-Cons.

(Or they could just give me Skyward Sword HD already)

EDIT 2/17/2021: HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE

~ ~ Closing ~ ~

In the end, Skyward Sword feels like a Zelda game that was custom made for me. It checks nearly every box on my "Dream Zelda game" list, but I'm fully aware that it's not for everyone. Skyward Sword is like Super Mario Sunshine, or even The Last Jedi. It makes some bold choices, and that puts a lot of people off. But I personally couldn't be happier with the end result.

Got first place a few times, and now I think I'm done. Random matchmaking works well on a technical level, but your game will only be as good as your group. Sometimes you'll get 5 or 6 genuinely funny people who score each other highly. Sometimes you're stuck with 7 curmudgeons who give basic Jacksfilms reference-based answers for every prompt and downvote everything.

In a standard game, you'll get three rounds. I played about 15 games and saw most prompts repeated 3-4 times. If the idea is to cycle new prompts in every week or something, then this is probably fine. But if this is the whole list? Things are getting stale fast.

The scoring system is a bit nebulous. You can laugh, smile, grimace, or rage at someone's response. But every time you push the button, it sends a wave of emojis at the other player, and the scoring amounts vary WILDY. Sometimes someone will score 1,600, sometimes -1,000. Most tend to be between 500 and -500, but what makes the scoring so volatile? Does repeatedly pressing your reaction button skew the score more? Does it make a difference if you press it immediately as opposed to waiting until the end of the timer? How many points are the purchasable Golden Roses or Tomatoes worth? If one person just mashes the angry emoji on every other player's submissions, does that completely throw the match? I have no idea!

It's a cute, free-to-play Jackbox type app, worth a shot if you've got time to kill, but would probably be best played with friends instead of randos.

And I thought Metroid would have been impossible without a guide!

Earthbound Beginnings is immensely charming, but I wouldn't quite call it "fun". What's most interesting about it is how similar the content and story are to Earthbound. More than anything, this feels like a practice attempt at making the game Itoi had always intended, but wasn't able to until the Super Famicom/Nintendo became available.

The songs, locations, playable characters, macguffins, even the end boss are all effectively the same as Earthbound, but with minor name changes. It's an impressively large adventure for the NES, and seems like Itoi got everything he could out of a cartridge with a capacity measured in kilobytes. This is worth playing if you enjoyed Earthbound and are curious about its background, but I wouldn't recommend it by itself to anyone besides die-hard fans of 80s JRPGs.

Twilight Princess is not the best Zelda game, but it's pretty close.

The game isn't as cohesive of an experience as most 3D Zeldas, but it has WITHOUT A DOUBT the best dungeons in the whole franchise. The Yeti mansion, Arbiter's Grounds, and City in the Sky outshine any 3-in-a-row batch of dungeons in any other Zelda title.

Midna's great. Wolf Link combat rules. Aiming with the Wiimote is smooth as silk.

This game is still a great time, but the HD port is the way you should play it.

This is one of the most creative and clever point-and-clicks I've ever played. Unfortunately, there's a large portion lampooning pay-to-win idle clicker mobile games, and the game's commitment to the bit just ends up being a bad time.

As the title states, there is no game here! Nope. Just a locked-down title screen. But while you're there, you might as well play around to see if you can find something to do.

If you're a fan of classic Lucasarts or Sierra adventure games, and if you enjoyed the meta humor and story of The Stanley Parable, you should definitely go into this game without learning anything else! The story is fantastically clever and engrossing, and the whole thing is only about 4 hours long. I waited for a sale ($9 instead of $13) and I honestly feel stupid for waiting that long to save 4 dollars. This game is absolutely worth it at full price, though you can get it for $5 on mobile. Since you're just clicking/tapping, it shouldn't be an inferior experience on a phone. Just be ready for a tedious middle segment (though the tedium is meant as a joke) that overstays its welcome a bit, and trust that the ending will absolutely be worth it.

Claw is the Treasure Planet of video games.

When the world was getting hyped about computer animation, people stopped going to see hand-drawn animated movies. The novelty of 3D models made audiences ignore Treasure Planet, despite it being a fantastic film.

Similarly, Claw came out in 1997, a year after Super Mario 64 and Crash Bandicoot. The Third Dimension was HYPE, and everyone wanted more. Unfortunately, that meant the gorgeous cartoon style of Claw didn't find a large audience.

(They're also both about pirates and feature a naval Captain who's an anthropomorphic cat.)

Claw filled a void for platformers on the PC, and it did so incredibly well. In the 90s, you pretty much had Commander Keen and a handful of more forgettable Apogee titles to choose from. There were some other obscure, more mediocre attempts, but Keen was the gold standard. Claw, the third game from a fledgling Monolith Productions, was on a whole other level.

While Keen was emulating the 8-bit look of platformers on home consoles, Claw looked more like hand-drawn animation. There were animated cutscenes and loads of speaking characters. Captain Claw himself has a bunch of charming little quips that make him an endearing and memorable protagonist.

The game handles like a dream and the designs ooze charm throughout the entire journey. Challenge areas are dotted across each level with fun bonuses to be found inside. There are plenty of cheats that can be entered at any time for some extra fun, but the game makes a point to let you know that your score will not be saved because you cheated, YOU CHEATER.

The game even featured custom levels, which anyone could make and then submit to the game's site for other players to download, beating Mario Maker to the punch by almost two decades. People are actually still making and uploading them to captainclaw.net!

When anyone uses the phrase "hidden gem", this game deserves to be in the conversation.

MAGIC CLAAAWWW

It was about 5 hours into this game when I suddenly realized what it was. I had been trying to figure out what the gameplay felt like, but the unique tone of toys-in-a-backyard-sandbox was so distracting (and completely welcome, as a childhood fan of Army Men games) that it took me quite a while to realize this was Metroid Prime with a wooden sword.

I really enjoyed Supraland, but the comparison to Metroid Prime is important. Throughout Samus's journey across Tallon IV, you have to do a fair amount of backtracking. The reason this doesn't drive you absolutely insane is that the game features a great 3D map. Supraland DESPERATELY needed to copy that feature.

Getting lost is a serious problem here, especially if you're needing to remember where you saw something 10 hours ago. To go even further, a map pin system like you'd find in Hollow Knight or Breath of the Wild would be a perfect fit here too. Supraland plays well, has lots to discover, cool upgrades, and challenging platforming and puzzles. But I'd say about 5 of the 30 hours of my 100% playthrough were spent wandering aimlessly, trying to reach an area I'd previously been to, but couldn't remember how to get there again.

The weapon and ability upgrades are probably what Supraland does best. Most of them come as a complete surprise, and while the game can seem overwhelming at first due to the mapless, sprawling nature of the world, later upgrades ensure that just about everyone will be able to 100% this game without a guide if they really wanted to.

Great game! But the lack of an in-game map distracts from everything that it does so well.

Classic JRPGs normally take place in a fantasy setting. Swords, mages, kingdoms, etc. The tropes evoke a sense of magic and wonder. But Earthbound poses the question: What setting could be more magical than carefree childhood?

The vibe of Earthbound is fantastically unique. Instead of potions, you have burgers. Instead of a sword, you have a baseball bat. Instead of goblins and orcs, you fight hippies and clowns. Instead of a dungeon boss being a dragon in a cavern, there's a giant pile of slop in a sewer that burps at you.

The charm of this game is undeniable. I played it for the first time 20 years after its release, and I was shocked at how quickly I fell in love with it. The game makes you feel nostalgic even if you've never played it before. The music is so beautiful and haunting that it somehow feels familiar upon first listen. The setting of a childhood adventure is something that everyone can relate to on some level, and it makes this journey surprisingly heartfelt.

The battle mechanics are quite simple, though a bit cumbersome at times, yet it's never a struggle to get through the game's fights. If the aesthetic and setting of the game seem appealing to you, definitely give Earthbound a go. It's an experience like none other.

Can anybody think of any serious problems with Portal?

Cuz I sure can't.

Odds are you already know about this game. If you haven't played it, it's on sale pretty regularly on Steam for like $2. Two measly dollars for one of the most unique and enjoyable puzzle games of all time. It's not long, just a few hours. But just like a great film, those hours will leave a lasting impression.

And just wait until you play the sequel.

I grew up with Banjo-Kazooie. For some reason, I had a problem with Tooie because it seemed too different from its predecessor. I called BK my favorite game from 1999 to 2014. Then I finally decided to play Tooie, and I 100%-ed it.

It was incredible.

Everything BK can do, Tooie can do better. The only issue is the framerate, as Tooie (like other Rare games) pushed the 64 to its limits, and that leads to some performance issues. But if you play Banjo-Tooie on Xbox, it plays like a dream.

Play this game!!

I grew up with Banjo-Kazooie. For some reason, I had a problem with Tooie because it seemed too different from its predecessor. I called BK my favorite game from 1999 to 2014. Then I finally decided to play Tooie, and I 100%-ed it.

It was incredible.

Everything BK can do, Tooie can do better. The only issue is the framerate, as (like other Rare games) Tooie pushed the 64 to its limits, and that leads to some performance issues. But if you play Banjo-Tooie on Xbox, it plays like a dream, though it's really funny how they didn't change Jamjars's rhymes to match the new buttons. For example:

On N64, he said "First hold Z then press down-C, protected in liquids you will be!"

On Xbox, he says "First hold LT or RT then press Right Stick Down, protected in liquids you will be!"

WHACK THE BEAR!