[Feature] Nintendo Everything’s 2013 Game of the Year Picks

Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Without a larger context, Animal Crossing: New Leaf would strike as a quiet, patient, personal experience that leverages subtlety to effortlessly slide players out of their daily life and into a separate world before they know they’ve left. It is a game notable for its warmth; it is an experience that always levels with you, remaining wholly genuine to itself from start to finish. There is no trickery, no pandering, no overt psychological manipulation– it is a game that steps into the room, says a quick and unimposing “hello”, and lets your interface with it as you please. It exists without you, but it welcomes you to join in as you like.

With a larger context– in a gaming world filled almost exclusively with experiences meant to directly stimulate players as often as possible– this experience is even more notable. Despite a few minor hiccups in the quality of the game’s writing, Animal Crossing: New Leaf manages to be the most-perfect iteration on the series formula, and perhaps the most focused and unwavering game of 2013. It is a home to return to after your long vacation in the real world.

Super Mario 3D World

Mario games have taken a turn towards fun in the last decade or so, doing away with long missions, complicated objectives, exploration-based levels, and organic platforming in favor of carefully sculpted entertainment packages that offer a constant-and-stable stream of general pleasure. That vision of colorful fun came to its highest peak yet with Super Mario 3D World

The game is an astounding display of aesthetic mastery, with visuals and sound design that couldn’t be described without a handful of synonyms for the word “flawless”. The rest of the game follows suit almost perfectly, and despite a few missteps in level design caused by depth perception issues it’s easily a shoe-in for most-polished-game of 2013. Except maybe Animal Crossing. Whatever, let’s move on.

Pikmin 3

It’s amazing to consider that my list has two Wii U games on it in this year that the 3DS completely dominated, but Pikmin 3 should not be overlooked even amidst that flurry of quality. It stands on that same level of polish found in Super Mario 3D World (as is to be expected– it’s Miyamoto’s baby after all), but adds to it a depth of gameplay that makes it much more cerebrally satisfying and pushes its concept much further into the territory of “ambitious”, rather than merely “fun”. It’s one of the only games that uses the Wii U Gamepad’s feature-set to supplement a “serious” gaming experience, and through that controller comes a new type of satisfaction previously only found on PCs.

There are some bits that keep Pikmin 3 just short of perfection, though: Some strange pacing issues going into the game’s ending throw off the smooth ride, and the constant need to pick up and put down the Gamepad means things can get pretty frustrating if you don’t have an endtable of sorts to set it up on. Still, it’s an excellent experience– one I believe to be the Wii U’s best game.