Super Smash Bros. finds more tricks to play on Wii U
If you hold certain made-up heroes in higher regard than others, you may blanch at seeing them debased like this. But these heroes, like all others, are just toys in a bin. Play with them as you will.
I’d love to have seen a more radical take on each title’s conventions in order to play a mash-up that’s truly different. As an advertisement for each legacy franchise, though, Professor Layton vs. Phoenix Wright is a solid showcase for what both do better than any other game, if only by default.
Pushmo World is more of a great thing, and that's hard to complain about. But as the Wii U increasingly looks like a poor child captured in some mysterious restraints, I fear shiny versions from the past won't unlock these unfair shackles. Let's hope Nintendo does their best sumo-cat impression and gets to puzzle-solving like we know they can.
Scram Kitty is a game that shrugs off modern-day descriptors. It's not a throwback. It's not an open world. It's not a roguelike. There are no QTEs. No pixellated faux-8-bit art. Everything's slick and beautiful in some weird, Neo-Hanna Barbara future world of space cats and perpetual sunsets.
Mario Kart 8 warrants another go.
[T]hese enemies aren't simple stock obstacles, they are characters, and each has personality inscribed on its very design. There is no dialogue, no developing relationships, no other holding cell for these creatures' beings other than the way they look, move, and react. And yet each feels whole, even as it serves its sole function: to be jumped upon, avoided, or hit by a barrel.
Remember: NES Remix only pretends to be a simple game. Nintendo understand the deadly allure of both nostalgia and perfection: they introduce new players to The Way Things Were; they also challenge long-time players to prove their skills. Make no false move in any given level and be granted three "rainbow stars," an award for mastery and masochism in equal measure. I've lost hours to repeated attempts at meaningless three star scores.
Wii Sports Club shows the beauty of fixing what's not broken
Super Mario 3D World is an embodiment of joy.