These gems were worthy contenders to our top 10 list.
Mario Kart 7 - by Andrew Brown
What is essentially a staple for all Nintendo consoles and handhelds by this point comes to its seventh title on a home system, and the unique additions to the tried-and-true formula are more than enough to both quell naysayers who make claims of the series' deterioration and award this game some honorary praise. Undoubtedly the biggest change to the series is the inclusion of a glider that allows you to sail over great heights and a submarine rotor that lets you take your vehicle to unexplored depths. Coins make a welcome return after a long absence, and the controversial "snaking" from earlier games is largely hindered.
There's a solid lineup of retro tracks from across the series' history, and the new tracks are among the most creative and interesting ever. Add to this the best online integration in the series and arguably the best soundtrack in the series as well, and you have a more than worthy addition to your portable game collection.
The Legend of
Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D - by Zach Miller
Don't
complain. You haven't played this game in a decade, or maybe since its
initial release on the N64 in 1998 - 15 years ago. 15 DAMN YEARS! How's
that for feeling old? Anyway, the game holds up incredibly well, thanks
in part to Grezzo's re-development of many of the game's assets,
including a majority of the character models. Link and Ganon look
especially epic by comparison to their original versions. I had my
reservations about popping Ocarina of Time into my 3DS, but quickly
realized that I'd forgotten about 50% of the game, so it was a welcome
trip down memory lane.
The 3DS version includes the Master Quest, which is a remixed, much harder version of the main game (originally only found on a GameCube collector's disc in the West), a well-integrated hint system, and a boss rush mode--activated from Link's tree house. This is still one of the best Zelda games ever made, and probably still the best 3D Zelda game, especially now. Definitely worth a retread, Ocarina of Time 3D is not to be missed.
Etrian Odyssey
IV: Legend of the Titan - by Neal Ronaghan
I was
always curious about the Etrian Odyssey series, but the difficulty
always turned me off. Fortunately, Etrian Odyssey IV makes it *just* a
bit more friendly, making the experience that can still be brutal,
casual mode or not, much more for everybody. This dungeon-crawling game
is all about cartography, meaning you have to make your own map for each
dungeon, which is surprisingly engaging and awesome. The actual combat
is standard RPG fare, but the nuance of character customization makes
each of your guild members fun to build up even if they are ultimately
devoid of personality. With rewarding boss encounters, especially as
your team gets stronger and tens of hours of content, Etrian Odyssey IV
likely would have been a shoe-in for our Top 10 if, well, it wasn't a
super niche game that a lot of our staff didn't even play.
Crashmo - by Neal
Ronaghan
Pushmo supplanted Crashmo on our Top 10
list, but I feel that's mostly because of what I'll dub "The Mega Man 2
Factor." Pushmo was a fantastic game that introduced really great ideas,
but its sequel, Crashmo, refined and honed those concepts into a fine
experience. It's like if Pushmo is cocaine, then Crashmo is crack. The
expansive puzzles from Pushmo are filtered down into focused,
challenging, small puzzles. You also have more control and flexibility
over how you move the blocks around you, which is both a blessing and a
curse; you can do more to potentially solve the puzzle, but you can also
harm yourself just as easily. Crashmo likely will continue to go down
as inferior to Pushmo, and I'd mainly peg that at the increased
challenge. Pushmo's puzzles have a degree of attrition to them, but
Crashmo's are pure brain-teasing challenges that can rarely be solved on
accident.