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It’s easy to consider a game an essential pickup for a system, but if there was ever a game I would call a must-have for those who love video games, it is unquestionably Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.
It asks you to be kind, even though it knows how hard that can be. It is aware that some wicked beings will never be receptive of your good intentions, and cautions you appropriately. It proposes that being good — while difficult — feels good.
Every moment spent feels like a treasure; an experience that no other game, franchise, or thing in this world can provide. It will forever be a landmark of style, remaining vibrant and vivid long after its release. It is a feast for the senses, a splendor of divine properties, and one of the finest games to ever be made.
Hollow Knight is a special game; a triumph of atmosphere, design, and so much more.
Xenoblade Chronicles is a game that draws you into its expansive universe and never lets go.
From start to summit, Celeste is a joyous journey brimming with heartfelt moments that will sink their heel hooks in you long after the closing credits roll. Strong storytelling and a firm grasp of platformers past slowly snowball into an emotional avalanche worth riding, cementing its place as one of the most compelling video games to ever grace the medium.
What’s left in Skyward Sword HD is a fantastic journey with beautiful and varied locations, puzzling dungeons, memorable characters, and one of the best stories in the Zelda series. It’s nice to finally have a traditional 3D Zelda game on the Switch (albeit a remastered one), and if you’re hungry for a Zelda game that does what a Zelda game does best, I cannot recommend Skyward Sword HD enough.
There’s so much more I could go on about – the customizability, the perfect pacing and length, the world map thrice as rich and dense as Zelda 1’s, the little moments of LGBT rep, the charm of all the names, how it manages it be more than the sum of its already gorgeous parts – but I don’t know if I’d be able to stop. Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a special game, one as finely crafted as it is sentimentally inspired, brimming with color for an experience so seemingly monochromatic. There’s only one word for it: art.
For anyone looking for a game that will hold them for weeks and potentially even months on end, Fire Emblem: Three Houses will be happy to educate you on the fine points of strategy RPGs.
It’s not often that franchise spinoffs can win me over so effectively, let alone twice in a row, but the improvements and additions made in Builders 2 have me feeling like Dragon Quest Builders is more of a franchise, rather than just a builder-game spinoff.
It’s everything a Zelda spinoff demands: wisdom in design, courage in concept, and power in music — culminating in the one of the most epic video game crossovers this side of Hyrule.
I hope that every Switch owner picks up the trilogy, because there’s really never been a better way to play this set of games.
As one of the last indie titles of 2018, GRIS also proves to be one of the greatest. Anybody interested in gaming as an art form should absolutely pick it up. It’s tender, it’s vague, and it’s inspired. And it will be a landmark in both visual design and abstract storytelling for years to come.
Its evocative use of visual storytelling, haunting soundtrack, and fluid combat system will leave you cutting and coughing through its beautifully pixelated playground long after the credits roll.
In a year full of fantastic indie titles, it manages to live up to their precedent while arguably surpassing them. You can compare it to what’s come before, and you can look forward to what might come next from Sabotage Studio, but more than anything you should take some time to play The Messenger as soon as possible, here and now.
Dragon Quest XI S should be remembered as one of the best JRPGs of the generation — not because it pushes the genre forward, but because it reminds us why we fell in love with role-playing games in the first place.
The level of polish, attention to detail, and the immaculate mixture of silly and spooky has made this a near-perfect game — the fact that it exists in my favorite Nintendo franchise is mere icing on the cake.
Simply put, Ring Fit Adventure is the new gold standard of fitness games. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it just works.
UNICLR shocked me with its easy-to-digest combo system, fun cast of characters, kicking tunes, and gorgeous visuals.
Whatever the case, Animal Crossing: New Horizons is magic reinvented. It’s been seven years since the last mainline entry, Animal Crossing: New Leaf, and 12 years since the last console entry, City Folk. To all long-time fans and newcomers, let me tell you: It was well worth the wait.