Steve Watts
Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit is Nintendo at its toyetic peak, with a magical AR effect that nonetheless requires some elbow grease to find the fun.
Super Mario 3D World + Bowser's Fury packages one of the best recent Mario games with a delightfully odd new experience.
Bravely Default 2 brings the throwback RPG series to Nintendo Switch, but the loss of modern quality-of-life features make this a decidedly grindy experience.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart looks and plays better than ever thanks to new-generation hardware, but it's still the same lovable, goofy series at heart.
Wario goes back to his roots with a great character platforming-inspired take on the microgames concept.
A charming little photo adventure all about leaving home and discovering beauty.
Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are comfortably nostalgic, with just enough modern tweaks to smooth over the rough edges.
Big Brain Academy: Brain vs. Brain is a solid collection of mental exercises, but the focus on competition loses the game some of its friendly, self-improvement vibe.
Shovel Knight: Pocket Dungeon combines familiar tile-matching puzzle mechanics with rogue-lite elements to make one of the best puzzlers in years.
Nobody Saves The World is a fiendishly compelling action-RPG with creative ideas that all fit together for frictionless fun.
Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a significant reimagining of what makes a Pokemon game, with an exciting level of flexibility that's only slightly hampered by a slow early-game grind.
Grapple Dog is a light, breezy mascot platformer that hooks you with precise, simple controls.
Triangle Strategy strips away some classic genre norms while adding extra nuances of its own and a stellar, if sometimes indulgent, story.
Mario Strikers: Battle League has all the makings of a great sports game, but there's not much there right now.
PowerWash Simulator is a novel and soothing chore-core game that only occasionally breaks up its own relaxing flow.
River City Saga: Three Kingdoms blends modern sensibilities into a decidedly old-school brawler style.
Splatoon 3 isn't quite as novel the third time around, but a great campaign, tons of multiplayer options, and a few new surprises make it much more of a good thing.
Shovel Knight Dig takes everything that was fantastic about the retro platformer and recontextualizes it into a roguelike that's hard to put down.
Lego Bricktales is a remarkable approximation of actually playing with Lego bricks, thanks to a variety of clever physics-based building challenges.
Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope is an improvement over its predecessor in every way, and one of the best modern Mario spin-offs.