Hyrule Warriors (Wii U)
When your favorite part of a Zelda game is the combat, a musou game would be right up your alley and so it goes here. Only real complaint is the inability to move the map down to the Gamepad. The game provides plenty of replay value, has a lot of free content added in updates, and beating thousands of soldiers may cause the Tetris Effect. The story is perfunctory but actually manages to make previously unlikable characters into things that are actually fun to play. Best Zelda on an HD console, no question.
93Legend of Korra (PS3)
Platinum games either end up as masterpieces of the genre or entertaining crap, and this is the latter. Korra's elemental powers are fun to use, but can get a little repetitive. If I never have to play a Platinum racing game again, it'll be too soon. Some of the requirements are a little obtuse, but the graphics are amazing given the devlopment time.
63You should do one of these for all the core Pokémon games.
Ask and ye shall eventually receive...
Pokemon Red/Blue (Game Boy)
Good building block for the series, but the game has so many glitches it's a miracle it even boots and is so imbalanced as to be the equivalent of draw poker with wild face cards.
35Pokemon Yellow (Game Boy Color)
Good news: Some of the glitches are fixed, and the game is a little more balanced late. Bad news: One should never attempt to ape that particular anime, which artificially inflates the difficulty early. The added multiplayer options were nice but never get much play.
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Pokemon Crystal (Game Boy Color)
A good first effort in character customization, and the attempts to bring some of the new Pokemon in early are appreciated, but it's still a game that's on the wrong platform.
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Pokemon Ruby/Sapphire (Game Boy Advance)
TRUMPETS EVERYWHERE! OK, it's a decent first attempt to reboot necessitated by the old games being broken as hell, but it needed a lot of the later quality of life improvements. It's the first ingame that feels as though it was balanced, but it could stand to do without the surfing and the postgame is limited.
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Pokemon Fire Red/Leaf Green (Game Boy Advance)
The attempt to play off nostalgia will definitely annoy you when the Golbat evolution stops because reasons, and Kanto as a region was getting tired at this point. Plenty to do in the postgame that's not retreading six-year old territory that may be worth revisiting eventually.
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Pokemon Emerald (Game Boy Advance)
Pre-ORAS, this is the definitive 3rd generation Pokemon experience. A logical extension of the old storyline that only slightly breaks the ingame and just the right balance changes to make the game challenging for all. The Battle Frontier is a postgame experience that still hasn't been repeated, but there's still a tad too much surfing involved, making it the first game you go bankrupt buying Repels in.
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Pokemon Diamond/Pearl (DS)
So... damn... slow... and some questionable Pokemon choices doom this game to mediocrity. It's not a good thing when making the wrong choice of starter ruins the experience. It also pulls the Gold/Silver stunt of locking out new Pokemon until the end of the – rather decent – story.
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Pokemon Platinum (DS)
Finally, a Pokemon DS game that's worth playing. The performance issues have been resolved, and there's enough there that a decent 3D sequence fits into the game without any issues. A wide variety of monsters are available, and some logical game flow changes from Diamond/Pearl make the ingame a blast to run through. A giant postgame upgrade and the idea of actually keeping a few loose ends untied until the postgame keeps you playing well past wasting Cynthia.
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Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver (DS)
You can only polish a turd so much, as Kanto is STILL getting old and the additions to Johto flesh it out slightly but the level curve for full completion is still insane. The best part of the game is the part literally pasted in from Platinum.
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Pokemon Black/White (DS)
The first real attempt at a series reboot, the decision to leave all of the old Pokemon out until post-E4 makes it that you actually want to use all of the new Pokemon. The series's biggest annoyance is the experience scaling of this game being removed. With the reboot comes a serious attempt at a storyline that attempts to makes the player think about what they're actually doing, and does a good job of looking at serious issues while still having it make sense to the young audience.
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Pokemon Black/White 2 (DS)
The first true Pokemon sequel makes enough changes that you're not retreading all of the game, and adds a lot of variety in the wild Pokemon present. Although the Pokemon World Tournament is fanservice to the extreme, it's executed well and doesn't wear out its welcome. It's hard to follow up the storyline of the original, and the result is falling into a lot of the old story traps the prior generations did.
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Pokemon XY (3DS)
Like the first DS games, the first games on a new system run into performance issues – have fun with single-digit FPS in horde battles, a main feature. A basic storyline is buffed by the insane number of options you have. It makes getting to the Elite take long because you're leveling so many Pokemon. That's where the time comes in, since the postgame is extremely limited to where you can finish it in a night.
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