16 - Super Mario Maker

When I first saw the announcement of Super Mario Maker I thought that was a minor announcement, a nice addition for the WiiU catalogue, but not something I would be interested: I thought that it would be a game targeted to the community of Mario editors that made things like “Super Mario X” or the kind of players that love playing extremely difficult Mario mods. Since I don’t belong to any of those categories, I wasn’t interested in the game.

 As months passed by, I started to watch more and more videos of the game. Well, it seemed that it allowed doing some impressive levels, but I wasn’t interested still. The game launched and YouTube was flooded with crazy levels people had done. Both playing and creating levels seemed really fun, I felt that my interest was growing, that I even wanted that game, but I was still reticent to buy it: I thought that I would try to make one or two levels, try a few levels and then get bored forever. Also I didn’t have much time to game lately, so I preferred to invest it wisely.

That Christmas my wife surprised me buying the game. I started to create levels and playing that damn 99 Mario Challenge. Well, as I expected, it was fun, even funnier than what I had expected, but after some time I was already bored… of everything else. I suddenly realized that whenever I had some free time to spend gaming, the only game I wanted to play was SMM. How? I still can’t understand it: I’m bad making levels, and not very good playing them in the most difficult levels (and many of them are as bad designed as mine), but somehow the magic of 2-D Mario has kept me addicted.

15 – Mario Kart 8

The game in which I’ve invested more hours on my WiiU, Mario Kart 8 keeps all the charm and fun of previous Mario Kart and brings it to the next generation. Artistically the game is gorgeous, being one of the WiiU games with best graphics. New courses are great and the redesigned ones seem almost completely new, looking better than ever before. Control is perfect and IA rubber-banding is not as upsetting as in previous games.

The item system, although still favors lagged players, make the races less chaotic by diminishing the number of blue shells and nerfing the strength of some items, like the Star. This, although makes the races less crazy, hurting a bit the couch multiplayer, makes the game less unfair. Also, in my experience the game still gives enough chances to the less skilled players to win every race.

Battle mode is maybe the biggest disappointment in this game, without proper battle arenas, but I have to recognize that I haven’t missed it in all my hours with the game. It is not my favorite kart racer game of all time, but it’s my favorite Mario Kart.

14 – Metroid Fusion

While Metroid Prime shook up the Metroid formula by successfully translating it to 3-D with a first person perspective, Metroid Fusion seems to keep a more traditional approach by maintaining the 2-D perspective. Fusion altered the classic Metroid gameplay, though, in an effort, to make the experience more accessible by introducing a goal structure that makes the game linear and story driven. Also, the introduction of a computer who talks with Samus – giving her instructions and objectives - avoids the isolation sense traditional in the franchise. These changes weren’t well received by some fans, and Fusion is sometimes considered an inferior game in the franchise. This being the only Metroid game I’ve played, those critics haven’t bothered me.

Anyway, the game is very good by itself. Even with the linear structure, exploration is still required to advance in the game, and enemies and bosses fights are great. The story doesn’t spoil the gameplay, and the scenes where the main antagonist appears, that clearly remind to science fiction classics like Alien, have a great tension.

13 – Perfect Dark

Although the console was already dying, 2000 was a great year for the Nintendo 64: Excitebike64, Mario Tennis, OgreBattle64, Banjo Tooie, Majora’s Mask and Perfect Dark, among others. Rare developers outdid themselves with this “spiritual sequel” of his previous success Goldeneye. The loss of the 007 license was more than enough compensated by the creation of a brand new universe, with a plot that introduced the player gradually in a science fiction conspiracy story. Graphical improvement over Goldeneye, at least with the N64 Expansion Pak, was very big, creating an impressive atmosphere for that generation.

The game maintained the mission structure and the gameplay style of its predecessor, enriched by the new weapons, which now have a primary and a secondary fire, and bigger levels. It kept, of course, the addictive multiplayer mode (made even crazier thanks to the damn slayer – a rocket launcher that allowed the player to control the rocket directly). It also added a cooperative multiplayer that allowed two players to play jointly through the story mode (and is the mode I beat the game at).

Sorry for the Spam, but I'm permanently behind now! I have to make easier hints...

Game #12

Hint 1: In this sequel your goal is to make sure that the event you were trying to avoid in the previous game happens. In both games your goal is the same (save the World), but your information varies. In this sequel you finally visit places that you had only heard before, including a lost continent named after a group of Primates.
Hint 2: The previous game in this handheld RPG franchise has already appeared in my list.

Hint 3: The franchise has had 3 entries at the moment.

Hint 4: Yo may remember this game advertisement, it featured Edvard Grieg's most famous song

Game #11:

Hint 1: This game (well, its HD revision) has just announced a new expansion recently, focused on asian civilizations.

Hint 2: Japanese have Samurais, Persians war elephants, Franks throwing axemen...

Game #10:

Hint 1: This game final boss would make its first appeareance in this game. He would become the main character in the next game, starting its own franchise (He has been the main character in games of different genres, and appears in many other games as a playable character).

Hint 2: You'll get a lot of coins during this game, but in order to beat the game you only need six.

Game #9:

Hint 1: This RTS may be too obscure, specially outside some European countries, so I'll give abundant information: It was developed by a Romanian studio, that would later develop two entries in the Tropico franchise. The title of this game varies from country to country: In Spain the subtitle made reference to the Latin name of the country, in Italy to Carthage, in the UK, both to the celts and Carthage, while in the US it made reference to the Roman Empire. Those four civilizations (Iberian, Celts (or Gauls), Carthage and Romans) were playable in the game.

Game #8:

Hint 1: El Capitán game is a cute puzzle adventure blend.

Game #7:

Hint 1: Not sure if it's the longest, but this adventure is a great journey (and no, the game is not Journey)

Game #6:

Hint 1: Bat is to bird what certain game releasing next year is to _________________.

You got it!

Hint for 14: One of the best 2D platformers of recent years.
Hint for 11: A miserable little pile of secrets.
Hint for 10: Those characters kinda look like Dragon Ball characters..

10: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins

8: Captain Toad Treasure Tracker

#11: What is a man? (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)

All of them are correct!