Nintendo's 2023 Lineup Reviews

2023 has been a crazy year for games and Nintendo is no exception. They've released a ton of very well-received games, from ambitious remakes to ground-breaking new releases in some of their biggest series. So, with their last big game of the year, Super Mario RPG, having just released, I wanted to go over a big chunk of their 2023 lineup and see how it turned out.

But just to get the games I won't be covering out of the way first. I'm not a huge Fire Emblem fan so I didn't bother getting Engage, though I watched a lot of the support conversations because they look very funny. Detective Pikachu Returns and Everybody 1-2 Switch look straight-up bad, so I didn't get them either. And finally, Advance Wars Re-Boot Camp is a port of two games I've already played so I didn't get it either. Even though Dual Strike is my personal favorite Advance Wars game, the first two games are great too and this remake looks like a great way for people to experience them for the first time.

Now, without further adieu, let's talk about Nintendo's 2023 lineup:

Metroid Prime Remastered: Nintendo hit the ground running by showdropping this phenomenal remaster of one of my favorite games of all time. Even though it's really just a port, Metroid Prime Remastered is my GOTY for being everything a port should be, and Retro Studios deserves all the praise they could get. The new visuals are so jaw-droppingly gorgeous that I didn't think they were even possible on the Switch, they made the already top-notch art direction of the original Prime look outdated. The ability to use dual-stick controls and add in gyro assist makes this easily the best-playing 3D Metroid game to date. And all the little quality of life features and extras from the robust settings menu, fun gallery extras, and extra difficulties only sweeten the deal. And on top of all that, it was released for only $40, though I'd willingly pay a full 60 for a porting job this well-done. Metroid Prime Remastered shows that Retro Studios is back, and they haven't missed a single step. I've never been more excited for Metroid Prime 4.

5/5 Stars

Kirby's Return To Dream Land Deluxe: I've said my thoughts on Kirby's Return To Dream Land Deluxe several times before on this blog so I'll keep it brief. It's a good port of one of my favorite games of all time that adds a ton of new content like the phenomenal Magolor Epilogue and fun new minigames, as well as a bunch of neat quality of life improvements like the tighter controls and the harder Extra Mode. I think for your average person, this is going to be the definitive way to play this game. However, as someone who grew up with the original Return To Dream Land all their life, I have a lot of tiny nitpicks that still leave me preferring that original version. The weapon balancing is off, some abilities got noticeably nerfed. Certain Energy Spheres were made way too easy to collect with newly-placed copy essences that scream out the answer to a bunch of the game's tougher puzzles at you. The boot item was made way too easy to use since you don't have to time your jumps anymore. And the massive amount of content and Merry Magoland missions make 100%ing this game an absolute slog. This is still a really good port and Return To Dream Land on its own is an amazing game, but I just have too many criticisms to really call Deluxe a net improvement.

4.5/5 Stars

Tears Of The Kingdom: Tears Of The Kingdom... huh... 

I've gone on the record saying that it took me a long time to fall in love with Breath Of The Wild, but now  it's one of my favorite Zelda games. And if I love BotW, I should love TotK, right? In theory, yeah. Tears Of The Kingdom maintains a lot of what BotW does right and even improves on some of it. Ultrahand is a super fun (and technically-impressive) ability and building contraptions can be enjoyable. The shrines are still super addicting to complex, the world is still as well-crafted as ever, the bosses and dungeons are noticeable improvements over the ones in Breath Of The Wild, and the game as a whole exudes a ton of polish. However, I didn't get hooked on TotK like I did to BotW. As a matter of fact, I still haven't even beat Tears Of The Kingdom. So what happened?

Breath Of The Wild was a perfectly calibrated game. The world was worked on for years to make sure everything interacted with each other as intended, so much thought went into every facet of that game, it feels hand-crafted. I even warmed up to its minimal story because that's kind of the point. BotW is meant to be a melancholic game about exploring the remains of a kingdom destroyed long ago and piecing together what happened to it. The flashbacks work for its narrative and tone. Tears Of The Kingdom, in its attempts to add a ton of stuff to BotW's Hyrule, messes up the balance. The overworld doesn't feel new, it feels like Nintendo just copy-pasted a bunch of meteors and caves everywhere, and that's not enough to bring back that sense of exploration that the first game did so well. The story tries to be more plot-heavy and present, but it relies on the same flashback formula that BotW did to dramatically diminishing returns, and any potential threads and continuity from BotW are dropped completely. There's more content than ever before, but it all feels like busy work now since a lot of it is stuff I've already done in Breath Of The Wild. Breath Of The Wild had a cohesive design philosophy and it feels like it had something to say, but I'm not getting anything from Tears Of The Kingdom.

But most of all, by 2023, I'm so tired of the Breath Of The Wild style of Zelda. It's been nearly a decade since our last unique 3D Zelda, and Nintendo has been sticking with the same timeline, characters, artstyle, and gameplay ever since. I still enjoy Breath Of The Wild on its own merits, but not once did it ever feel like a Legend Of Zelda game to me. I'd honestly appreciate it more if it was its own series, because then I wouldn't feel like it's replaced one of my favorite video game series of all time. It's like how Paper Mario fans felt about the games after The Thousand Year Door. I'd argue for most of the post-TTYD Paper Mario games being good on their own merits, but if you got into Paper Mario for the RPG elements, it's hard not to feel bitter.

Who knows? I know Tears Of The Kingdom is a fine game, and everyone loves it, and it's probably going to win Game Of The Year, but for me, this was one of the most disappointing experiences I've ever had playing a game. I don't like Tears Of The Kingdom, I might even say I hate it. BoTW had its flaws, but there was room for improvement. TotK shows that not only is the formula not going away, but it's going to continue veering farther from what I loved about the series.

2/5 Stars

Pikmin 4: Pikmin 4 is finally out and it's really good... but also really flawed. I always preferred the timed Pikmin games like 1 and 3, so Pikmin 4 taking more after the second game had me worried. That being said, it manages to fix all my issues with Pikmin 2 and basically feels like a better version than it in a lot of ways. The overworlds are absolutely massive in this game making exploration and finding treasure more engaging than ever before. Many of the quality of life features from 3 are back and as a whole, the difficulty isn't nearly as frustrating. And best of all, the dungeons aren't randomly-generated anymore which make them leagues more memorable and fun to play. Pikmin 4 is a massive game filled with side content and unlockables, including a Pikmin 1-style Olimar mode for those like myself who miss dealing with the time crunch. That being said, I still have a lot of new issues with Pikmin 4. The auto-lock is really annoying and a downgrade from the perfect control of Pikmin 3, Oatchi while fun is incredibly overpowered, the night expeditions aren't all that fun, and the music is really muted and forgettable. Still, I think Pikmin 4 manages to stand out as great despite all these issues and I sunk a ton of consecutive hours into it when it had came out, so I think that counts for something.

4.5/5 Stars

F-Zero 99: F-Zero 99 is a pretty neat revival of a series I quite enjoy. I know that this game is a bit divisive among hardcore F-Zero fans particularly those who love GX, but I'm not one of them. I'm into F-Zero for the combat, not the blistering speed, and I've always been more of an X person than a GX person. With that said, F-Zero 99 is absolutely my kind of F-Zero game, leaning hard on the frenetic combat that I love about the series by cramming 99 players from around the world on a single track. The track design may be from the original SNES title, but the controls and mechanics take more from X and GX with your energy being used for boosting and the addition of a spin mode, so it still feels super modern to play. While I personally didn't get as addicted to F-Zero 99 as some other people I know mostly due to me not being much of an online person, I can still easily call this my favorite of the 99 games.

4/5 Stars

Super Mario Bros Wonder: Only a few levels in and I knew this was going to be the best 2D Mario game ever made. It's got the creativity of Land 2, the interconnected hub of World, the level design philosophy of 3D World, and the musical numbers of Origami King. There is so much to love about Wonder, from the incredibly tight controls, to the consistently creative levels that always have you guessing, to the badge system that increases your moveset and the amount of replayability, to the massive amount of collectibles and optional levels, to the clean visuals and banging soundtrack. It was an absolute blast to 100% and the most I've been sucked into a new Nintendo game since Forgotten Land. I do have some gripes like the weak boss fights, Yoshi and Nabbit being locked to easy mode, very easy difficulty overall, and uneven world length, and I'd still put a lot of the 3D games over it, but Wonder is a phenomenal 2D platformer that easily blows the rest of that part of the series out of the water. I hope this game serves as a stepping stone for an even more out-there sequel.

5/5 Stars

WarioWare: Move It: WarioWare games are usually pretty great, and Move It is no exception. It almost feels like what 1-2 Switch should've been, a game that takes full advantage of the Switch's hardware, between the motion controls, HD Rumble, IR camera, split controller, and most of the buttons being used in some way. I've seen complaints about the motion controls, but I actually found them pretty consistently responsive, only ever acting out if you're not doing the action the game wants you to do. And that is a bit of an issue at times, sometimes it's not immediately clear what a microgame is asking of you. But once you get past the hurdle, the overall lineup of microgames is an absolute blast. Move It does have all the polish in terms of presentation, voice acting, and music you'd expect from a current WarioWare game, but I think its biggest issue is the lack of content. A massive chunk of the game is exclusively to TV Mode multiplayer, there aren't any microgame flowers to get, and a lot of the side modes that games like Gold and Get It Together offered like achievements and purchasable items are nowhere to be seen. As a result, I'd probably rank Move It around the middle of the pack. Not as good as the GBA games, Gold, Get It Together, or Smooth Moves, but better than the DS games and Game & Wario. However, the series is still so consistently fun that even a mid tier Warioware was one of the most joyous gaming experiences I had this year.

4/5 Stars

Super Mario RPG: Ending this triple whammy of Mario games on a really high note, we have the fantastic Super Mario RPG remake. I already really like the original Super Mario RPG. I think it's one of the funniest games ever made, with top-notch pacing, countless memorable scenarios and characters, and a solid action command battle system that I've grown to prefer to that of the Paper Mario games. This remake takes everything I love about the original and improves on them even more. The distinct isometric look of SMRPG is recreated perfectly in high definition, with characters keeping the same charming poses and animations, and they even added some very pretty prerendered cutscenes to give the game some extra flair. The battle system got almost completely overhauled by putting a stronger emphasis on the action commands. Perfectly timed action commands can deal splash damage and completely block any attacks, but the timing window is tight enough so that it doesn't feel too broken. There's now an action gauge that builds as you successfully nail action commands, and a full gauge will let you do these beautifully animated Triple Moves. And my personal favorite addition, nailing action commands in a row builds up a combo that will give you perks like higher stats and a faster-filling gauge. This was a brilliant move and I loved trying to get the combo as high as I could. All these additions really help solidify Super Mario RPG's battle system as one of my favorites in the franchise.

There's also a bunch of new quality of life additions and features like a fast travel option, the sole missable item in the game being fixed, a postgame with some brutal boss rematches to give the game some much-needed extra difficulty, and both a bestiary and a scrapbook that updates as you fight enemies and progress through the game. I love that addition in particular, as filling out the bestiary in its entirety gives Super Mario RPG a lot of extra replay value, and the writing in both is just as witty and charming as in the rest of the game. And of course, we have a remixed soundtrack by Yoko Shimomura herself, and it is godly. It may not have that iconic SNES stank, but the shift to Kingdom Hearts-esque orchestra fits the score perfectly, and every single remix manages to both expand on and stay true to the originals. And that's just Super Mario RPG (2023) in a nutshell, a remake that shows so much reverence for the original SNES game while also expanding on it and fixing a vast number of its issues. It's damn near on par with the Resident Evil REmake for me, and you know how I feel about that. There will always be people who have way too much nostalgia for that original game, and may not take kindly to the HD visuals, or the orchestral soundtrack, or the slightly reworked but still really good translation, or the battle system changes. But for me personally, this is far and away the definitive version of the game and easily ranks up with Metroid and SMB Wonder as one of my favorite Nintendo releases of the year.

5/5 Stars