Biggest Disappointment

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Nintendo World Report's 2019 Game Awards

by Xander Morningstar, Neal Ronaghan, and Jordan Rudek - January 5, 2020, 7:57 am EST

Some things just don't live up to the hype.

Winner: Super Mario Maker 2

A sequel to or re-release of the original Super Mario Maker was all but inevitable, and we received the former during the summer of 2019. However, in many ways Super Mario Maker 2 has failed to live up to its predecessor, most notably in terms of its online modes and accessibility.

Multiplayer with friends was eventually added in a post-launch patch, but online multiplayer, co-op or competitive, continues to be a laggy mess for many players. The drip feed of new content, including a bounty of Amiibo costumes, has been absent from the sequel, and with it enthusiasm from the creator community seems to have dissipated to an extent. The ability to find and share courses is even more restricted now, too. The Wii U game made a compelling reason to invest in that console, but the same cannot be said for the Switch title. A year-end update added a neat Link costume with new mechanics and abilities, but the Ninji Speedrun mode hasn’t really delivered.

Ultimately, the core of Super Mario Maker 2 is great, but the lack of polish, inaccessible modes, and unfulfilled potential make it the biggest disappointment of 2019.

~ Jordan Rudek

Runner Up: The Structured Story of Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I have adored my time so far with Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I completed a whole playthrough that took 85 hours. I loved the characters and couldn't wait to see how the plot would wrap up. It did, but most of it didn't. The downfall of this comes in that all four routes need to be experienced, which I find to be very frustrating and hindering to the overall structure.

~ Xander Morningstar

Runner Up: SolSeraph

The end result was okay, but what a colossal missed opportunity at a new ActRaiser-like game.

~ Neal Ronaghan

Most Wanted Switch Port Nintendo World Report's 2019 Game Awards

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Talkback

OedoJanuary 05, 2020

I started playing through Genealogy of the Holy War last year (after finally catching up with most of the Fire Emblem games released in North America; the only ones I haven't finished now are Shadow Dragon and two routes of Three Houses, the latter of which I'm planning to start soon). The game really is super intriguing from a story and character standpoint, but yeah, it needs a full on remake from a gameplay perspective. There are a lot of interesting ideas with the large maps and mission structure, and how the romance and timeskip is implemented, but the game is hard to play in a lot of respects. I would love to see it remade, and with Koei Tecmo apparently taking a larger role on Three Houses than we initially thought, it makes a certain amount of sense that a remake is something other people at Intelligent Systems would have been working in the meanwhile.

I wouldn't hold my breathe for Thracia 776 as DLC though. I know people have speculated on that, or even both games being remade into a single package, but I don't think either scenario is feasible when you consider Intelligent Systems turned Gaiden into such a fleshed out, robust game with Shadows of Valentia due to the care and attention they approached the remake with. I think Thracia 776 would have to be its own remake.

Overall, it was interesting to read through this feature as always!