Pokemon's turn-based combat can be best described as an inch wide and a mile deep. Its rock-paper-scissors style is easy to understand, but below the murky surface lies an entirely different game. Moves that may seem useless at first glance take on a different meaning in a competitive setting, where complicated stat spreads are tweaked ever-so-slightly to maximize a Pokemon's efficiency and a constantly evolving meta-game makes it hard to nail down which strategies are viable and which aren't. Toss in over 1,000 unique monsters that can be trained in hundreds of thousands of different ways, and you're left with arguably the most impenetrable competitive video game scene of all time.

For decades, Pokemon's competitive scene was just that: a near-impenetrable experience that requires hundreds of hours--and hundreds of dollars--to keep up with. Pokemon Champions is The Pokemon Company's attempt to bring white-knuckled, competitive battling to the masses. The financial barrier to entry, at least ostensibly, is low thanks to its free-to-play model, and the snappy stat-training mechanics reduce a lot of friction. However, Pokemon Champions lacks the necessary onboarding to captivate a new audience while also giving clear advantages to players who've invested in Pokemon Home. In its current state, Pokemon Champions falls just short of being the be-all and end-all of competitive play that I hoped for.

Despite Pokemon Champions' lackluster onboarding, there are a lot of tutorials. When you first start up the game, you're introduced to a cast of characters who teach you how to battle, obtain Pokemon, and build a team. Assuming you don't skip any dialogue, it takes roughly 30 minutes before you're set loose. From there, you can battle online, train Pokemon, build teams, or continue with supplementary tutorials. I opted to do the latter.

People of Note was clearly made with lots of love, but it is also a deeply silly game. Conflicts are resolved between musicians flinging music at each other, a simple country-wide road trip transforms into a battle to save all of reality, and somehow everyone is convinced that the power of friendship will somehow overcome an ancient eldritch-like power. If I didn't know any better, I'd think this game was an old-school role-playing game. And, to be fair, People of Note shares a lot of parallels with those games. While that means the strengths of those types of games are present in People of Note--notably the music and world design in its case--it also means that some of the shortcomings that can be found in the weaker installments of the genre are present in Iridium Studios' turn-based RPG too.

People of Note sees would-be pop star Cadence striving to fulfill her dream of winning a singing competition and getting propelled into fame. Worried that the pop song she's prepared isn't strong enough to sway the judges, she sets out through the land of Note in search of people who can add to her song. Her journey takes her to a desert where everyone is all about different kinds of rock music, a futuristic metropolis blanketed in perpetual night and inhabited by EDM-obsessed disc jockeys, a block-shaped party city that's all about rap and hip hop, and so much more. And all the while, repeated references to an event known as the Harmonic Convergence steel you for what will eventually be a sharp tonal shift away from road-trip comedy to dramatic high fantasy.

Your enjoyment of this story is really going to come down to how much you like puns and pop culture references--People of Note's humor is not unlike Borderlands 2 or Saints Row IV. The game rides the line between funny and corny well enough for me, save for one moment in the third act that made me cringe so hard, I contemplated simply not playing any more of the game that day. But I also enjoy games like Borderlands and Saints Row. If you're not a fan of the idea of a story that takes every single conceivable musical term and crafts a whole high-fantasy society and plotline with said terms, People of Note is probably going to grate.

Darwin's Paradox takes the 2D puzzle-platforming sensibilities of a game like Limbo or Inside and makes it distinctly less creepy and unsettling. Whereas those games presented elements of light body horror and spooky high-contrast compositions, Darwin's Paradox evokes classic cartoons starring goofball protagonists in vibrant, colorful settings. The result is a pleasant little gem of a game with loads of variety that makes the most out of its relatively short playtime.

There's a core comedic premise to Darwin's Paradox that begins subtly and then slowly becomes more obvious as time goes on. Your eponymous little octopus, Darwin, just wants to get back home to the ocean. But on his journey he haplessly bumbles his way through what is clearly a full-scale alien invasion of Earth. In most games, the hero would steel their resolve to take on the alien menace, but Darwin is just an octopus. For all he knows, this is normal among land-dwellers, and he doesn't really seem to care either way. So he's less of a hero and more of a Mr. Magoo, with his own perception limited to the threats around him as he gets flung around a hostile world and just tries his best to survive. We as the (human) viewers understand what's happening in a different context than he does, and that makes the story work on two levels at once.

Though he's not a hero, Darwin certainly has an expansive move set, which makes the game's platforming feel natural and fluid. They all trace back to the behaviors and adaptations of real-life octopi, like suckers to stick to walls, shooting ink to escape predators, and camouflage to blend in with their environment. And like a real octopus, he's most mobile underwater, where you have full 360-degree freedom of movement. Though traversing your way through land environments feels good, going underwater is immediately more natural. It really accentuates the feeling that you're a fish out of water the rest of the time.

Nintendo has consistently leaned on Switch 2 upgrades to fill gaps in its release calendar, enticing fans to return to their favorite games from the Switch 1. Those upgrades usually enhance graphical fidelity or add some new bells and whistles, like the Zelda Notes feature added to Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. The upgrade for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, Meetup at Bellabel Park, is pricier than some other Switch 2 upgrades, but its novelty comes from transforming Mario Wonder into an almost completely different game. And that new game is a well-made party experience, even if it may not be exactly what Mario Wonder fans are looking for.

Bellabel Park is almost entirely focused on its multiplayer component, which is admittedly a strange turn for a game and series so known for its single-player platforming prowess. That isn't to say that there's no regular single-player content whatsoever, though. The story of Bellabel Park, such as it is, involves a new area of the map: the eponymous park that houses special Bellabel flowers. The Koopalings show up to steal the flowers, so Captain Toad and the Poplins agree to scour the world map for them. You'll find a new brigade tent belonging to a Poplin scout in each world, which leads you to one of the Koopalings.

If you're making your way through Mario Wonder for the first time, this will be a neat little throughline that you encounter occasionally, but if you've already finished the game, you can easily just jump into the series of boss-fight stages. This time the Koopalings are enhanced by the Wonder Flower, so each one reimagines the Koopa kids with some fantastical effect. Wendy turns into a bulbous Cheep-Cheep-like fish, while Morton becomes a massive marionette puppet. You have to traverse a stage being terrorized by their special effects before confronting them as bosses, and it's fun how these classic baddies--who, let's be honest, haven't gotten much to do lately--are recontextualized with wild, stage-changing effects.

A game doesn't survive for decades without evolving, and World of Warcraft has evolved more than most in its 22 years, slowly transforming to cater to players' changing tastes and expectations. But despite being around for so long, many of the biggest, most foundational changes to Blizzard's MMO have happened more recently. It was only the game's previous expansion, The War Within, that added proper account-wide progression and the ability to earn endgame gear playing solo. It was only four years ago that Blizzard made it so Alliance and Horde players could finally team up.

WoW's new Midnight expansion continues that evolution. It's not as dramatic a transformation as The War Within, but nonetheless sees Blizzard continue to confidently push WoW forward in ways that just a few years ago would have been unthinkable. New systems like Prey bring actual challenge and endgame rewards for those who prefer to quest out in the game's outdoor world. Blizzard's new built-in user interface tools, like the Cooldown Manager and damage meter, give players the information they need to succeed without having to rely on third-party add-ons like in the past. Midnight also introduces the biggest new feature in the history of the game with player housing, finally allowing players to properly call Azeroth home after decades of waiting.

Even as Midnight advances WoW's various systems, the expansion leans more heavily on WoW's past than ever before. Modern WoW has rarely felt nostalgic, but it's hard not to think fondly of the game's early Burning Crusade days while running around a lovingly revamped Silvermoon City and Eversong Woods. That duality is Midnight in a nutshell. As a game, WoW has never felt more modern and approachable in its gameplay. At the same time, Midnight is more willing than ever before to pay homage to the past, mostly to its benefit.

Crimson Desert excels as an open-world action-adventure game when exploration and combat intersect. In the lead-up to release, there's been a lot of discussion about what exactly the game is and whether it's too good to be true, with trailers showing off everything from dragon-flying and mech-piloting to Shadow of the Colossus-style boss fights. Developer Pearl Abyss certainly set its sights high with its first single-player game, and there's no denying that Crimson Desert is an incredibly ambitious game stitched together with as many ideas as humanly possible.

A few hours into my adventure in Crimson Desert, I decided to explore to the east of the Duchess of Hernand--the game's starting location. Just beyond a sloping valley, I could make out what looked like a giant diving board nestled atop a mountain ridge. With this landmark in my sights, I made it my mission to scale the chalky cliff face and find out what exactly this enticing structure was.

As I figured out how best to tackle the climb, finding spots where I could stand and replenish my stamina before continuing, I eventually reached the top and discovered that what looked like a diving board was actually a mysterious wooden pulley. It wasn't clear what it was used for, but I didn't really care. The view from the top instantly grabbed my attention, presenting a breathtaking panorama of Hernand and beyond. Pastoral countryside stretched as far as the eye could see, dotted with hamlets, beautiful meadows, and dense forests. In the distance, snow-capped mountaintops reached for the clouds, while a number of hilltop castles were only a horse ride away.

There aren't alien robots descending from the sky in Planet of Lana II: Children of the Leaf. Instead, the opening of this sequel is much more somber than the first game, beginning with the exploration of a crashed spaceship and the discovery of a more human-driven enemy. Protagonist Lana and her cat-like companion Mui don't seem like they're standing against an impossible threat this time around. They're older, and the world around them feels a bit smaller. But this planet is no less fantastical, and remains filled with unexplained questions. Planet of Lana II doesn't grow much beyond the mechanically simple, 2.5D puzzle-platformer formula of its first game, but it builds on the mystique of its predecessor to deliver a wondrous story.

Taking place two years after the events of the first game, Planet of Lana II sees the titular Lana adapting to a changed world where her people and the robots that once tried to collect the entire planet's inhabitants now live side-by-side, with the former using the latter as tireless beasts of burden. However, when the new technologically savvy Dijinghala tribe from the north starts pushing further south, their environmentally destructive practices start to negatively impact the lives of Lana and her people.

The biggest issue with Planet of Lana II's story is that it presents two problems in its first hour, and it follows the less interesting of the two for the first three hours of the five-hour story. The escalating efforts of the Dijinghala tribe lead to them dropping a crystal that's leaking a deadly green gas--this poisons Lana's adoptive little sister. To cure her, Lana sets out to collect the three ingredients needed to craft medicine. That's the inciting incident that gets her back out on the road and leaving home for another adventure.

We started on Perimeter, the map tuned to provide the "easiest" experience in Marathon, and spent the next 15 minutes trapped in the very first building we entered, fighting every single team of player "Runners" in the match.

It was GameSpot senior producer Jean-Luc Seipke's very first match in Bungie's online first-person extraction shooter, and it was nothing if not a trial by fire. Together with our matchmade teammate, we battled down hallways and around corners, flanking and catching opponents out, dying and reviving one another time and again. We came back from near-defeat over and over, hanging on by a thread.

At one point, with my guns completely dry, I slipped an opponent by hopping over a railing to a lower floor, only to sneak back up the stairs, find them facing away, and knife them in the back until they died. Another time, an invisible Assassin character lost us in a cloud of smoke, and I jumped through some broken windows into the room where we'd last seen them, hoping to flank--only to find them hiding in a corner, a claymore at the door, ready to ambush my teammates. They never even saw me as I machine-gunned them.

Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection is Monster Hunter firing on all cylinders. It takes Monster Hunter's core loop and molds it into a fantastic RPG with flexible turn-based combat, an engrossing story, and a captivating world. Its onboarding isn't the smoothest and some grinding can throw off the pace, but once Stories 3 settles into a rhythm, it's tough to put down. There's always one more monster to slay, one more den to raid, or one more quest to complete. This momentum builds into an explosive third act that I won't forget anytime soon.

You play as the prince or princess of Azuria, a prosperous kingdom on the brink of war with a neighboring nation. After negotiations between the two kingdoms fail, you and your party set out on a globetrotting adventure to understand the root of the struggle. It's an intriguing setup that sidesteps a lot of RPG tropes by putting the conflict front and center early on. Vermeil, the neighboring nation, isn't painted as a ruthless power-hungry aggressor: Their land is being torn apart by the Encroachment, a crystallization phenomenon that is spreading across their kingdom. This complicates both sides' motives from the outset, and adds shades of gray in what could have otherwise been a clear-cut good vs evil premise.

What really humanizes the Vermeil, though, is Princess Eleanor. In order to deescalate the war, she voluntarily puts herself in Azurian custody in order to buy the party some time to reverse the Encroachment without resorting to an all-out conflict. While you never actually visit Vermeil, Eleanor uses food to paint a vivid picture of what it was like growing up there. Meals have always played an important role in Monster Hunter, so it's clever how they're used to tell her story to the player.

It's been 13 years since 2K Sports took over the WWE license, starting with the release of WWE 2K14 back when we were all still playing wrestling games on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. In the time since, the franchise has evolved, crashed and burned, and risen from the ashes. Now, with WWE 2K26, the franchise is at a crossroads; that's bound to happen with any annual title.

While there are some years that see huge leaps forward graphically, there are also those other years that have iterative installments where the advancements are minimal. Last year's WWE 2K25 was one of those years, with the underdeveloped The Island as the marquee addition.

While WWE 2K26 might not have a major new addition like 2K23's War Games match, there is a lot to love about this latest entry, as its developers have addressed a long list of ongoing issues that have plagued fans in recent years.

Fate and destiny are prominent themes throughout the twisting, time-hopping story of Legacy of Kain. And in that sense, it felt like protagonists Raziel and Kain were destined to remain absent from our lives forever--it's been 22 years since the release of the last game in the series, after all. It feels weird, then, to be able to say that a brand-new game in the vampiric series is coming out later this month, with Legacy of Kain: Ascendance launching on March 31. A small-scale side-scrolling platform-action game might not be what we were all expecting, but it's something.

Before then, however, Crystal Dynamics has teamed up with PlayEveryWare to remaster 2003's Legacy of Kain: Defiance. After making Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver 1&2 Remastered, tackling Defiance was the logical next step, as it serves as the climactic final chapter in Raziel and Kain's theatrical tale, catching people up on what is going on in time for the release of Ascendance. And while this is a fantastic remaster, the flaws of the original game still shine through.

Defiance might be the third entry in the Soul Reaver story, but it's also the first and only game in the series to feature both Legacy of Kain protagonists as playable characters. From one level to the next, the perspective shifts between the despotic vampire lord Kain, and his former lieutenant turned vengeful wraith, Raziel. The story picks up right where Soul Reaver 2 left off, sending both characters hurtling into the past following a time paradox that altered Nosgoth's history for the worse.

The cult popularity that led to the creation of Scott Pilgrim EX is rooted in the comfort of nostalgia. The action-comedy movie Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, based on an indie comic book, was chock-full of references and recognition of gamer culture, even as it drew on more grounded themes of learning and growing after a messy breakup.

A tie-in video game from Ubisoft was a pure throwback to classic brawlers, and its removal from storefronts in 2014 (and subsequent return in 2021 after years of fan outcry) only accentuated its cult status. Scott Pilgrim EX is very much a spiritual successor to that earlier game, amping up every aspect that made its predecessor memorable--especially the nostalgia.

In fact, playing Scott Pilgrim EX often feels like a game of "Spot the References." The world is full of homages to everything from 8- and 16-bit game franchises to movies like Hot Fuzz, a movie that was helmed by Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright. Characters are self-aware that they're inside a video game and will casually mention elements like tutorials. It's all very Millennial-coded, and maybe slightly cloying for those of us in that sweet spot, but it feels at home in a game that so happily wears its inspirations on its sleeve.

In one of Esoteric Ebb's chambers lies a chest. Above it, a sign: "Not a mimic." Snell, your goblin companion, deduces the most obvious outcome: The sign is the work of some prankster who's hoping to get one over on whichever unsuspecting rube decides to saunter into this secreted away room, ignore the sign, and loot the chest. Mimics are often "chest-shaped" like this--the game's joke, not mine--and seeing as how they are a trick as old as fantasy itself, it doesn't take a genius to piece together how such an encounter might end.

Esoteric Ebb is a lot like the mimic in this scene. It looks and sounds like things it takes the shape of--some more obvious than others--but delights in playing with expectations one might have of it. Just when you think you might have it figured out, it contentedly throws another wrench in your understanding of its tone and aspirations. It's a fun ride. It does not veer wildly off course in the process, but it is a stylistic and colorful detour that is nonetheless a riot worth your time.

In Esoteric Ebb, you are the Cleric, a bumbling idiot and magical savant sent by the magistrate to investigate the absolute hornet's nest that is an explosion of a tea shop in Norvik. The timing couldn't be any worse, since Norvik's constituency is voting on a referendum. Should it stick by the Urth-worshipping Nationalists who've governed and shepherded the city through its founding decades, consequently hardening the attitudes and beliefs that have called its rule into question at this very moment? Should it instead ally itself with the deep-pocketed Freestriders who are clearly strong-arming their way to a victory? Or should the city consider other policies, like the dwarven-born egalitarian platform of Azgalism?

God of War: Sons of Sparta is a reasonably decent but not particularly great metroidvania spin-off that suffers from an identity crisis. A prequel set when franchise protagonist Kratos and his brother Deimos were coming of age in the Spartan army, Sons of Sparta lacks the over-the-top action spectacle of the other games in the God of War franchise. As a metroidvania it is middling and at times simply awkward, with a dearth of its own original ideas or excellent execution to liven up the genre. The result is a game that feels confused and muddy, despite a few bright spots.

Sons of Sparta takes place across two distinct time periods in the God of War timeline: an adult Kratos telling the story of his adventure to his daughter Calliope, before the tragic events of the first game earned him the nickname the Ghost of Sparta; and the story itself, which takes place when he's a headstrong but duty-bound teenager just starting to make a name for himself in Spartan warrior trials. That tale involves Kratos and Deimos encountering mythical beasts and monsters and cultists as they search for another missing teen, Vasilis. As the story progresses it becomes an interesting look at a foundational time in Kratos' life, though as a side story it does feel removable from the rest of the canon.

At the beginning, though, Kratos is not a very interesting character to follow at this point in his life. He's too rigid and committed to his duties and the rules. He can frequently be overly pious and condescending toward Deimos. The search for Vasilis carries as much weight as a Scooby Doo mystery--you'll get a clue to go towards a location, search around, and then Kratos realizes that he arrived a few minutes or hours too late. Aw shucks, you just missed him, but maybe he left to go here instead. There aren't many twists and turns; it's just following a wandering character around.

I audibly gasped. My small community of Pokemon friends had been steadily growing in the first hour or so of Pokemon Pokopia, and now Professor Tangrowth asked me to build a house and mark it as my own. I could even invite another Pokemon to live there with me, he said. You mean I can have a Squirtle roommate?! I built my new house as quickly as I could and invited Squirtle to come live in it, and he happily agreed. Childhood dream fulfilled.

A few days later, Squirtle told me he wanted to move out.

Heartbroken and with nothing to do to change Squirtle's mind, I pressed on. I was determined to learn more, earn more, and do more, so that, one day, Squirtle will come back. Someday I'll make a new house and I'll invite Squirtle to live with me again. Maybe he just wanted his own bedroom? Admittedly, the leaf hut is not a lot of space. Maybe he didn't like my decor at the time--a few items I had arranged slapdash to fulfill the housing requirements.

The Resident Evil series has a long history of struggling to find the right balance of horror and action, sometimes becoming massively successful and influential in either genre, and sometimes completely faceplanting after leaning too far one way. Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline game in the series, sees Capcom dialing in the combination of those elements better than ever, though in a somewhat inelegant way. Rather than try to blend different elements of two different genres into a single experience, it just staples together two distinct experiences that each capture the best parts of Resident Evil--to the point where it is almost two separate games running in parallel.

One game is a slow, frightening, gory haunted house story following an everyday person as its protagonist, hewing close to the horror-first approach of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. The other is a fast-paced, panic-inducing experience starring an action-hero badass that draws directly from Resident Evil 4. Requiem even lets you set different points of view for the separate protagonists, recommending RE7's first-person approach for horror and RE4's third-person camera for action, though you can use either for both.

Disparate as they may be, though, both halves are extremely compelling. Requiem feels like Resident Evil's developers, for the most part, recognizing what they do well and leaning in all the way. The result is a game that's unwilling to leave the track set by its predecessors, but one that still provides an intense, often exciting ride.

Who knew that adding a skateboard to a first-person shooter would make for a better game? It's an unconventional approach, for sure, but developer Squanch Games isn't exactly known for following conventions. If 2022's High On Life was Metroid Prime by way of Rick and Morty, then High On Life 2 looks to Ratchet & Clank, Sunset Overdrive, and Tony Hawk's Pro Skater for new ingredients to add to its eclectic mixture. The end result is an improved sequel--absolutely bursting with creativity and out-of-the-box ideas--that nonetheless suffers from a few familiar shortcomings.

Like the first game, High On Life 2 plops you into the space boots of a silent and nameless protagonist, complete with an arsenal of talking alien weapons. The story setup is much the same, too, except instead of hunting down an extraterrestrial drug cartel that wants to turn humans into a narcotic, you're killing off the celebrity propagandists, financiers, and scientists behind an extraterrestrial pharmaceutical company that wants to turn humans into a narcotic (one with much better branding than the drug from the first game).

You're also on the wrong side of the law this time around, swapping your role as a bounty hunter for that of a rogue assassin, illegally murdering your way across the galaxy. The nearly identical setup is an odd choice, but your wanted status makes for some interesting deviations, and the pivot to Big Pharma as an antagonist sharpens the anticapitalist satire.

The best thing Crisol: Theater of Idols has going for it is the world it is set in. The game clearly takes many cues from the likes of Resident Evil and BioShock in terms of cultivating a sense of mystique and atmosphere in its opening hour, with tension-building sound design, closed-off environments, and unnerving enemies that are visually human-like but move in an unnatural manner. Unlike those games, however, Crisol begins to lose its edge when the enemies become too numerous and easy to defeat, undermining the sense of danger that first built up its setting and undercutting the game's best mechanic. The first-person shooter gameplay grows increasingly dull as the layouts of different arenas become repetitive, keeping combat from evolving in exciting ways. And while the narrative framework of Crisol is interesting and immediately draws you in, the actual story is held back by another drag: its protagonist.

In Crisol: Theater of Idols, you play as Gabriel, a soldier of the god of the sun who has infiltrated the perpetually stormy island settlement of Tormentosa, a locale that is part of Hispania, a nightmarish version of Spain. Gabriel is waging war against the sea god for his master and receives his mission instructions through visions that the sun god sends him. He must make his way across the island, working alongside the remnants of a human resistance that is struggling to survive against statues that have been given some form of sentience and now move with murderous purpose. Throughout it all, he is dragged further and further into the history and politics of the ongoing war between the two deities.

The best part of Crisol is its blood-for-bullets mechanic. There is no ammo in Crisol--instead, you refill each firearm by injecting Gabriel's blood into them. This, obviously, hurts. As a result, Gabriel's health and firearm ammo both pull from the same resource bar. This is not too much of an issue on the easiest difficulty, but on the harder ones, this blood-for-bullets mechanic makes for an interesting risk-versus-reward gameplay loop. You have to carefully manage how much you reload your firearms.

We're running through an abandoned room with a wheel we need to attach to a cart outside in order to escape. My co-op partner and I scream in unison as hollow, slimy ex-human skins slither quickly after us. One snap at our ankles and we'll be dead, forced to restart the encounter. It's almost needlessly tense--the respawn points are very forgiving, and there's nothing at risk here--but somehow these eerie undead creatures have my heart racing and palms sweating. I don't want to be caught by them, whatever they are, and however they came to exist.

Where Tarsier Studios faced criticism for muting the distorted and disturbing imagery of the original Little Nightmares game in its 2021 sequel, the developer has returned to its most outlandish in Reanimal. The gut-wrenching feeling of discovering a giant, mutated beast of an animal is strangely comforting in a nostalgic way, meaning that not only does Reanimal live up to the legacy of Little Nightmares, it surpasses it. Despite its haunting and unsettling atmosphere, Reanimal is thoroughly enjoyable. I find great delight in dragging my co-op partner toward what appears to be a dead end, only to find a narrow crack in the brickwork that we can squeeze through to uncover collectibles or other secrets. I'm not usually one to seek Trophies or Achievements, but Reanimal makes me want to uncover every corner of its sordid environment just to absorb more of its world.

Reanimal places you in the shoes of orphaned siblings trying to rescue some missing friends. As the game is the brainchild of former Little Nightmares creators, I already know to expect fragmented storytelling, uncovering lore as we go through the haunting experience--each secret adding more layers to the siblings' narrative. This leads to plenty of theorizing between my companion and I as we progress through the game, most of which turns out to be hilariously incorrect.

Though Bowser seems to be in the midst of a kidnapping or world domination on a regular basis, the Mario sports franchises show that the Mushroom Kingdom is a pretty friendly place. Even the villains are invited to compete in a pick-up game of basketball, or to hit the links in golf. At the same time, Mario's sports franchises across the Switch lifespan have been notably lackluster, offering slick presentation but very straightforward mechanics. Mario Tennis Fever, the first sports game as part of the Switch 2 generation, suggests that Nintendo has learned its lesson, offering a great new hook that is flexible enough to make for a wild party game atmosphere while also rewarding skilled players with another layer of substance.

The core mechanics of Mario Tennis have remained unchanged across several games--different buttons are assigned to shots like topspins and flats, while quick two-button combos exist for some of the more specialized shots like drops and lobs. You can press a button slightly early to start charging your next shot, or double-tap for a power-shot. Choosing which shot to use and where to aim it, along with where you position yourself on the court to be prepared for the return, creates the essential rock-paper-scissors loop that makes these games a lightly skill-based experience. It's approachable, but with a higher skill ceiling than you may expect.

But for the last several iterations, Mario Tennis has also been experimenting with new gimmicks and special powers, inching ever closer to making Mario Tennis more like Mario Kart--a game with effects so big and impactful that you really shouldn't take the competitive part too seriously. This time, the major new component is Fever rackets, a wide selection of special rackets with their own wild, game-altering effects. While you can play with standard rackets for a purer tennis experience, the Fever rackets help to elevate this into an arcade sports experience while still demanding skilled play. It's just a different kind of skill, as you're required to juggle your own special effects and avoid your opponent's while also planning your next shots.