Ultimately, Kudzu’s reliance on charm and nostalgia fails to conceal its greater failings. Attempting to bring back the gameplay and broader stylings of classic titles can be a tall task, but we can’t lower our standards the way we may have during the actual Game Boy era. Kudzu serves as an uncomfortable reminder that maybe some things deserve to stay in the past.
For a franchise that’s been around for nearly 40 years, Super Mario Bros. still has a number of new tricks up its sleeve, and even after beating every single level, I keep finding new pockets of joy and excitement at every turn. I don’t know precisely where I’d rank Super Mario Bros. Wonder in comparison to the older titles, but I can say for sure it’s one of the best 2D platformers I’ve played in a long time, and without a doubt a worthy contender for the top five of 2D Mario games. It convinced me there’s still so much more Nintendo can accomplish with its greatest mascot.
Perhaps one day I’ll get over my insecurity and lack of motivation around driving. Maybe I’ll get over any fear of harming myself or others in a freak accident, or I'll tire of taking commuter rails anytime I want to travel upstate and eventually take matters into my own hands. Until then, Forza Motorsport lets me feel the thrills of high-speed racing and, more importantly, gives me confidence that I can drive a car as well as the best of them. The game doesn't reinvent the wheel, but it provides more of those amazing feelings.
While I wouldn’t say Cocoon achieves wordless narrative perfection, it succeeds in presenting a story full of emotional resonance and mental stimulation with little to no communication to the player. What results is a great video game, and more importantly a great work of art, one that causes those who engage with it to mull over its events, its structure, and its atmosphere.
Sea of Stars brought me in with its clever gameplay, pretty worlds, and exciting battle system, but the vibes made me want to stay. The vibes compelled me to seek out secret treasures. The vibes made me seek out every possible fight with aplomb. The vibes even allowed me to overlook some of the wonkiness of the plot (and the writing). Most of all, the vibes made Sea of Stars truly stand out in an especially difficult year to do so.
A major focus of games discourse in recent years has been the number of notable titles that released in an unfinished, unpolished state. Exoprimal presents the inverse of this fear, where players get a fully-polished title that fails to elicit even a modicum of delight or exhilaration. There’s nothing wrong with a campy, silly backdrop for a multiplayer title, but you have to actually make the case that shooting these MacGuffins is a better use of time than shooting a different set of MacGuffins. In the current environment for multiplayer experiences—which is far more competitive than it’s ever been for new entrants—simply working as intended can’t be enough.