Shadowmask

I much prefer 2D FFIV. The difficulty of the DS version goes past "challenging" straight to "punitive," to the point where I simply don't find it fun. Also, the 3D graphics with SD proportions have aged poorly compared to the timeless sprite work.

Golden Sun! A remaster of the original/Lost Age/Dark Dawn would be great, followed by a proper continuation of the series.

That’s stretching the definition of “exciting,” I’m afraid.

Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks are the only Zelda games I genuinely dislike. The touchscreen-only control, with no traditional option, felt clumsy and was forced gimmick Nintendo at its worst.

Zelda II was my third, though I think it’s far above the DS duo. It doesn’t hold up very well today, but to be honest, that’s true of a lot of NES games, much more than SNES.

Some additional standouts for me:

“Those Chosen by the Planet” (Final Fantasy VII)
“Kuja’s Theme” (Final Fantasy IX)
“Bionis’ Awakening” (Xenoblade Chronicles)
“Child of the Elder Blood” (The Witcher III: Wild Hunt)
“Those Who Sow Darkness” (Fire Emblem: Three Houses”)
“Only the Corpse Goes Out” (Ys IX: Monstrum Nox)

I'm surprised Monster Hunter Rise isn't on the overall GotY lists. Certainly both it and Dread could be solid contenders.

I enjoyed it a lot. It was cheesy in some ways, and hardly groundbreaking, but a good relaxing, arcadey fantasy romp.

I never had a Wii U, but I've heard nothing but good things about 3D World, so I'm excited to have my copy arrive today!

Absolutely! I love Zelda, enjoy Musou titles, and thought the demo was great fun.

I think SwSh are underwhelming in that they innovated very little while removing Pokémon. Compared to superb, innovative Switch titles like BotW or Odyssey, which broke excellent new ground in their respective series, they're a disappointment. With that being said, Pokémon is Pokémon, and I've enjoyed this series tremendously from its first American localization. More of the same isn't bad; it just makes me wonder what could have been.

As it stands, I think SwSh are a good 8/10, and the expansions do improve the overall package, but if GameFreak had put BotW- or Odyssey-level effort into them, they could have been 10/10 masterpieces. I know that GameFreak was initially skeptical about the success of the Switch, and I wouldn't at all be surprised if SwSh started as 3DS titles, with the Wild Area added later once it was determined that they would be for Switch. Now that the Switch is clearly a tremendous success, perhaps they'll devote more time and resources into making Gen IX truly spectacular (though we might get Sinnoh remakes first).

@mariomaster96 “Miyamoto retire” is a dumb reaction to Sunshine, assuming it’s sincere - but I suspect it’s tongue-in-cheek. Acknowledging Sunshine’s flaws is totally reasonable, though. It’s long been known that it was rushed in order to ensure that it came out during the GameCube’s second year, and it shows. While it’s still a good game in the grand scheme of things, it’s much less polished most main-series Mario installments.

@Kalmaro I’d say some of Skyrim’s bugs enhance the gameplay, such as being able to side-jump up mountains, but when you can’t complete a quest because the vital item spawned outside the area player characters can access, that doesn’t enhance anything.

It’s strange for an Anglophone website to list the NES version of FFII and the SNES version of FFV, as the majority of users won’t have been able to play those versions.

With that said, my top five are FFV (the job system perfected), FFVI (a wonderful story and ensemble cast, with a great mixture of defined roles and characters customization via Espers), FFVII (one of the most atmospheric video games ever, though poor translation hurts many of its story twists), FFX (perhaps the best world-building in the series and great tactical combat, though the Blitzball minigame isn’t my thing) and FFXII (wonderful story, voice acting, and battle system).

For sure. It’s one of my all-time favorite JRPGs.

I’d put the new Samurai Shodown on this list. Great game and very solid port.

Paranoia about hacking really can’t justify these consumer-hostile measures, and I include in that category the failure of Pokémon, etc. to support cloud saves, or for that matter the inability of users to back up their save data locally.

Given how Sakurai revitalized Kid Icarus, I’d be interested to see how he could revamp Ice Climber.

One of my all-time favorites, easily. I’ll even disagree that it has a “tired ‘chosen one’ plotline.” The beauty of Xenoblade’s plot is that it starts out looking like a chosen one/revenge story of the sort you’ve seen in any number of other JRPGs, but then turns those standard clichés on their ear and becomes something totally different.

Such a wonderful game, and one of the finest JRPGs ever. Dragon Quest gets both praise and criticism for being a highly traditional JRPG, and it’s true that there’s vastly less fundamental variation between entries than, say, Final Fantasy. But even if no individual gameplay system is revolutionary, DQXI has everything polished to a fine sheen, and is one of the most user-friendly RPGs I’ve ever played. It’s probably my favorite release on Switch this year, and with both Three Houses and Witcher as competitors, that’s really saying something.

That doesn’t make sense to me. I always thought that the prevalence of annual or nearly annual sequels only increased in the Wii/PS3/X360 generation. And it’s not as if Nintendo itself is shy about series with many sequels, though there do tend to be more significant variations between its entries (Pokémon aside).

Dragon Quest XI, Witcher 3, and Smash Bros. for me.

I’m not one of those fans who thinks Gen I Pokémon are in general superior, but for Fire-type starters Charmander is still tops in my book.

The original line wasn’t some kind of porn fantasy - it indicated what an abusive piece of garbage Bernadetta’s father was. I could see changing disturbing stuff like this if the overall tone were happy and lighthearted, but FE:3H has one of the grimmest narratives of any Nintendo game, so the details of Bernadetta's background are completely appropriate in tone.

Still not “censorship,” though. Nobody forced Nintendo to make the change. I just disagree with their decision.

This strikes me as an unreasonable reaction. If Animal Crossing’s delay had been announced with little other news, than sure, I can see how that would worry investors, but Nintendo just knocked it out of the park this time. I can’t remember another E3 with this many exciting Nintendo announcements.

One of my favorite Final Fantasies, even though its main minigame (blitzball) is one of my least favorites.

Harassment of people is the major problem with online interactions, not off-color jokes. I have no problem with the pee or dick joke stuff, and honestly the 9/11 jokes really don’t bother me, either. (I’m American and grew up in New York, btw.)

I find this highly believable. I don’t think Nintendo would have arranged for Joker to be in Smash if Persona 5 weren’t coming to Switch. The only counterexample of a third-party Smash character whose main game wasn’t on a Nintendo system was Cloud in Smash 4, assuming it hadn’t yet been decided that FFVII was coming to Switch. Even so, Cloud is a considerably more iconic character in video game history than Joker.

I’ll be playing plenty of Switch in February... just not any of the games releasing then. Still excited for Yoshi in March, revisiting Final Fantasy X/XII in April, and Fire Emblem whenever it comes out.

My guess is they won’t quite make it, but it’ll be close. Smash seems to be doing even better than most people expected - and those expectations were high to begin with.

2018 was a very good year. Perhaps nothing as genre-defining as Breath of the Wild or Odyssey, but as someone who doesn’t own a Wii U or either of the current Sony or Microsoft consoles, ports such as Bayonetta 1&2, Tropical Freeze, Crash Bandicoot, and especially Diablo III kept me very busy. And Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is simply sublime, well on the way to being one of my top five games ever.

I play mainly single-player and local multiplayer games, so I’m most personally eager for more games, first- and third-party, but I answered that improving Switch online was most important going forward for the health of Nintendo overall. Sakurai’s urging of Smash Bros. players to buy an additional LAN adapter for online play was frankly ridiculous. It would be one thing if Nintendo’s online were still free; but if we’re already paying for the privilege of playing online at all, it should run much more smoothly without requiring users to shell out even more.