Welcome everyone to the first annual Raccoonies, the video game awards show based entirely on my opinions. Before Geoff Grubb has his fun, I wanted to get into what really matters: all of the complaining I have yet to get done this year. There are ten categories: Dark Horse of the Year, Most Not Done Game, Fuck This Game of the Year, Old Game of the Year, Mobile Trash of the Year, Stupidest Purchase, Shovelware of the Year, Funniest L of the Year, Most Anticipated Game by Raccoons, and Game of the Year. This was intended to be a video at one point, but an excruciating session in the recording booth encouraged me to instead clean up my prose a bit, adjust the format slightly, and post it here. Now, let’s get started.
Let’s start off with perhaps my most controversial pick: Dark Horse of the Year goes to Pokémon Scerlet. So fun fact about this game, I was actively dreading it coming out. Two of my three sisters were getting it, a friend was getting it, it felt like everybody was getting it. So of course, needing to be part of everybody, I bought the game knowing that it would be a disaster and I would hate it. Shockingly only one of these things became true: Pokémon Scarlet is absolutely a technical disaster, as any video of the game can show you, but it has the strongest bones of any Pokémon I’ve played. You see, I was never a big Pokémon fan growing up, but my two older sisters were, and sometimes I would get busywork to do in Pokémon because I just wanted to play with the thing they had because I was nine or whatever. Mostly I would be on “checking the berry bushes” duty, and as I travelled the worlds of these games always felt so alive and real. Pokémon Sword very much did not. That game felt dead as hell. Arceus was a little better, but in Scarlet the setting and especially the characters are a cut above. Granted, I’m not actually very far yet, but I’ve met most of them: the guy who wants to get the five strands of weed, I know his whole deal; a lot of teachers, who range from realistically nice to realistically insane; I met the older girl who’s obsessed with you, that one always makes me miss school. Oh yeah, that’s a big part of the appeal too: you’re a dumb little Pokémon kid so you get to go to a big Pokémon school. Now, I really wish the school had a cohesive and explorable interior but this game clearly needed that development time elsewhere. Again, the atmosphere is both compelling and comforting, and more than a little nostalgic. Pokémon making me feel nostalgic for childhood despite not having played them then actually started with Sword, which always reminded me of regional band tryouts in its organized tournament setting. For me, the most fun part of this game is naming the Pokémon: my sister sent me a Ditto to breed cats for her, whom I named Scrawmbolio and Scrimboolini. It’s all great but fun but there’s obviously one glaring problem with this game: they didn’t finish the graphics. Not only is the color palette disgusting and the terrain textures noticeably tiled, but it is just so unbelievably buggy. There’s actually a button you can press that just straight-up breaks the camera. While for the most part these baffling visual glitches actually make the game more enjoyable, they definitely hold the game back. I feel strongly that with another year in the oven, Pokémon Scarlet would’ve been a masterpiece.
Speaking of which, the Most Not Done Game of the Year goes to, and I’m sorry for this, Splatoon 3. So a couple of days ago I asked Famiboards which game is more unfinished, Switch Sports or Splatoon 3, and I was inundated with people saying Switch Sports sucks, fuck this game, they delayed golf, what about the leg strap, and so on. This was a bit discouraging to me as I had already firmly decided to go with Splatoon 3. Nintendo Switch Sports may have come with an accessory it barely worked with, but it was sold as a new Wii Sports and that’s exactly what it is. Splatoon 3 meanwhile was sold in large part on promises about its future. Big Run is a great example: the August Direct said it was coming at some point after launch, people thought it would be halfway through the three month update season, then they thought it’d be at the end of the season, and now it’s coming at the end of this week. The 2.0 update only made me more bearish: we got no new music, no multiplayer for the card game, barely any brand new gear, and the only good weapon is the pencil. Now, with over 270 hours played in a little under three months I obviously love Splatoon 3, but it’s a game designed around being unfinished, and with the new season system and reduction in Splatfests really disappointing me as a new fan, this was the obvious choice. I have a better category for Sports anyway.
The Fuck This Game of the Year award goes to Nintendo Switch Sports. Because fuck this game, man. Okay, at this point everybody who knows me knows about the whole Miis vs Sportsmates thing and I probably shouldn’t get into it. But I also kind of have to. The announcement of this game was the strongest whiplash I’ve ever had in a Nintendo Direct, going from literally jumping up and pogging at the sound of a fucking tennis ball to shock and disappointment at these bizarre new Playmobil figures. This was not what I was hoping for, full stop. Around that time an older man I knew on Discord, I believe his name was jamecube (editor’s note: this is part of a visual inside joke that was going to be used for the video that doesn’t really translate into text), told me that I shouldn’t expect everything to stay exactly how it was when I was a kid and that living this way was just setting myself up for disappointment and bitterness. I don’t remember taking it very well, probably saying something like “well the new thing fucking sucks,” completely missing his point. And to be clear, it does kind of suck. But it’s also actually very good. Don’t any of you ever tell that fucker (you know the one) but I actually like the Sportsmates. As long as they don’t have facial hair they’re quite cute and are very aesthetically congruent with modern EPD 4 art. Unfortunately, Miis are just infinitely better. Sportsmates all look the exact same, with the same face shape, nose, and position of features. I suppose Splatoon’s Inklings are even worse in this respect, but because they are distinctly inhuman I subconsciously abstract them away as little goblin elf creatures. Growing up with Miis really spoiled me: I viscerally expect people to look very different, because people all look very different. Maybe the most devout Sportsmates enthusiasts all have face blindness or something because I find the identical opponents genuinely distracting at times. However, recently thinking about how all the Sportsmates look the same for the umpteenth time gave me an epiphany: they 100% made the right decision in creating Sportsmates as the primary avatar for Nintendo Switch Sports. I have always imagined a Mii-oriented Nintendo Switch Sports as an enchanting gala of my own choice cut A5 beef Miis, but if the game forced the Timmies and Magic-Men to play as a Mii every online match would be populated by barely modified default Miis or lazy permutations of random options. Making a more visually appealing default was actually an inspired choice, because instead of looking at ugly, boring Miis I get to look at cute, boring Sportsmates. And when people do play as Miis, they are instead usually pretty good. Shortly after the game came out I got placed in a game of volleyball with three other Mii players, and it really was magical. I think one was handsome Squidward and another the classic Matt. I felt like I had found my people. And the cool thing is that the game, despite being built around somewhat boring and generic avatars, is very encouraging of creativity. In addition to the surprising variety of art styles in the emotes, can change your character, name, and title super easily, allowing me to swap from So-Called Father Hayao Miyazaki to Queen Hero Freddie Mercury in a flash. At this point you may be saying, okay Raccoon, when are you going to get back to shitting on it like the actual award says? But here’s the thing: not only is this the “fuck this game” of the year award, it’s also the fuck this Game of the Year award. As disappointed as I was by Sportsmates and the loss of Wuhu Island, as well as more prolific complaints like the lack of content and glacially slow updates, the game is really fun. Volleyball and soccer especially feel like a worthy next-gen evolution of Wii Sports Resort, making inspired use of each controller having a stick. Bowling also uses Joy-Con more subtly in allowing you to change angle and position more intuitively. Finally, having never played Wii Sports Club, playing Wii Sports with random online matchmaking is a revelation. All that being said, fuck this game of the year, moving on.
There were a lot of nominees for Old Game of the Year. First up is, of course, Pikmin 3 Deluxe. Now everybody with a brain knows Pikmin 3 is a masterpiece, but what I didn’t learn until this year is that Mission Mode is actually the best part of the game. I 100%-ed all of the base game Collect Treasure missions without any Pikmin deaths which turned out to be an incredible gauntlet; knocking them all out in sequence over a few weeks may be the most fun I’ve had with a video game in years. Before going through that I finally actually beat the game. Yeah, so apparently the “Normal” difficulty option that I beat last year was dumb little baby mode and the real game is on “Hard” for some reason. No problem, all fruits, no deaths, best game of all time. I also finally bought Baba is You, which nobody told me is in fact a programming game. The audiovisual presentation really heightens the surreal experience of manipulating the reality within a game, and the puzzles I’ve played so far were all very enjoyable and exciting, from most simplistic to most demanding. I’m stuck on the last level I unlocked though and haven’t played in a while because of that. I’ll look up how to do it eventually. Maybe. But fuck that indie shit, I also played the greatest game of all time this year directed by the greatest guy of all time, Shigeru Miyamoto. Supah Mario 64 baby, now we’re getting into the real shit. The older the Switch gets, the more I realize that the NSO retro games are the best goddamned thing about it. Not only has it let me try all sorts of good or funny old games that I never would have even known to buy on Virtual Console, but they had the genius idea of letting you play single-player games online, passing the controller back and forth like it’s 1997, we just got out of school and skateboarded hope with our capri-suns and backwards baseball caps. I played Mario 64 this way with my good friend mr dynamite heady from eggman’s bean machine. We got in a voice chat on Discord and played the wahoo game on NSO, and it was an absolutely incredible experience. I had no fucking idea but this is actually the best 3D Mario by a longshot. It controls better than any of the others I’ve played, giving the player all sorts of options to approach your two constant goals of acquiring more height and bing bonging faster. It’s a masterpiece, I wish someone had told me about it sooner. I mean, I guess people did. Probably jamechube. Oh shit, speaking of the Nintendo jamechube, I started Sonic Adventure for the first time too. When Sonic Frontiers was immediately discounted to 40 bucks, dynamite heady compelled me to buy it. I sorta said nyeeeeehhhh to that though and instead went old-school. It’s good as hell, too. I was immediately won over by the presentation, dated as some aspects may be, and the physics blew me away. I recall being in a mountain area, I believe it was called Tails Mountain, and wanting to get a little secret up on a ledge. I did a spin up a wall, jumped at just the right time, and slingshotted all the way up to the ledge. It took several tries and I’m not sure if that was even the right way to do it, but it was so exciting to pull off (editor’s note: how did I plan to procure B roll for this???). Definitely a good ass game, I should go back and try to finish it. Hmmm, what else… oh yeah, last one: Animal Crossing New Leaf. For those who are unaware, the Nintendo eShop on Wii U and 3DS are finally being shut down in March of 2023. I snapped my ugly blue 3DS XL in twain a long time ago, so around May of this year I decided that I NEEDED to get a 3DS so I could play Chibi-Robo: Photo Finder at least into my thirties. After a bunch of failed repair attempts, I finally found a used black New 3DS on eBay that I suspected only needed a battery replacement. Lo and behold, the battery swap worked and I got to play a good Animal Crossing again. And make no mistake, this is in fact a very good Animal Crossing. It may have started the current identity crisis the series has between whatever it used to be before and a Sims clone, but there’s still enough of the former here to keep me interested. The latter being so daunting, however, has sort of pushed me away. Even more than New Horizons, New Leaf is WORK. Still love it though, no regrets. Alright then, the winner of the Raccoonie for Old Game of the Year 2022 iiiis… c’mon, remember who you’re talking to here, it’s-a-me, Raccoon! The winner is Pikmin 3 Deluxe, baybee, let’s-a-go!
Alright, now we’re getting into the funny categories (editor’s note: which, thankfully, trended much shorter!). Mobile Trash of the Year goes to, what else, Pikmin Bloom. I love this game, man. Miyamoto wasn’t bullshitting, it really does turn walking into a little strategy game and I love it for that. I spent a lot of my walks in college coordinating routes to maximize my Pikmin efficiency, just as I sought to maximize my efficiency in Pikmin 3. It’s an absolutely inspired game that I wish more people liked. I don’t have much else to share about this one, except for the fact that at the time of writing I have 412 Pikmin. For those of you playing along at home, that means that I spent real actual money on Pikmin Bloom to expand my Pikmin storage. I believe in total I’ve spent somewhere in the neighborhood of five dollar. Man, that was stupid of me. Perfect seque to…
…The Stupidest Purchase of the Year. This one was fucking easy, it’s gotta be these Joy-Con Battery things. The, uh, Nintendo Joy-Con AA Battery Pack. Yeah, these were on sale and they were still an enormous waste of money. For some reason I kind of thought they’d be good for Pikmin but they actually kind of weren’t. I instead found them quite fun for Nintendo Switch Sports. The thicker, rounder shape and added weight really took me back to the Wii days and I think might’ve made me better at tennis. However, in addition to their frivolity, what secures these things the award is that the goddamn strap on one of them broke basically immediately. And no, for the people who know me, this was not an instance of raccoon rage. This was even worse: I for whatever reason tried to adjust the strap with the hand I was wearing it on and somehow broke this little latch. Thankfully it still mostly works, but it breaking so easily kind of pissed me off.
Did someone say cheap? That’s right, it’s time for the Shovelware of the Year. Something I used to do a lot was check the deals section of the eShop and buy any of the insanely discounted trash that interested or amused me at all. Eventually I realized that I was pretty much throwing away money, no matter how small a denomination, and stopped the practice entirely. I have a lot of nostalgia for it now though, so for the first Raccoonies I thought I should do it one more time. So, Shovelware of the Year goes to Sausage Wars. And hoo boy, did I luck out with this one. One of my sisters was visiting and I insisted we try it for the sake of these awards. I open the game and we try multiplayer, turning off all of the bots. I then decide to check out the single-player, for the sake of completeness, and I am fucking alone. It’s just my sausage guy, standing around waiting for the timer to run out. Go back to multiplayer and turn on bots, try single-player again, and bada bing bada boom there’s the fucking game. It’s kind of a fun idea and making video games is hard but I can’t imagine a more deserving candidate. And I found it first try!
There were a ton of great options for Funniest L of the Year. First one I think of every year is the Switch Pro, didn’t happen again, pretty funny but nobody besides me expects it anymore so who cares. Second is Metroid Prime HD, that’s another perennial. That one feels like it’ll happen though, and fall was packed so I’m not sweating it. Another rumor was way more interesting though: Everybody’s 1-2 Switch. Apparently Nintendo was making some sort of online 1-2 Switch, like a 1-2 Switch 99 of sorts. The host was a guy in a horse head mask named “horse” because “horse” apparently sounds enough like “host” to amuse Kouichi Kawamoto. According to the rumor the game sucked fucking ass and, despite packaging and marketing materials being produced in some quantity, the game was very likely going to either be overhauled or cancelled. It not coming out wasn’t really an L for us, but it was probably an L for Nintendo. Regardless, a bad game getting cancelled doesn’t really deserve L of the year. What does, however, is our winner for Funniest L of the Year: the June 2022 Nintendo Direct mini Partner Showcase. Holy shit was this an incredible punchline. E3 gets cancelled, everyone’s sweating about a June Direct. The most stalwart Direct speculators, likely myself included, start banging the “it doesn’t matter, doesn’t affect Nintendo” drum and assuring everyone that we would still get an equivalent E3 Direct. Through June we start to hear murmurs from the insider types, people start to think Partner Showcases might come back, but those same steadfast believers shout everyone down. Bam, Partner Showcase, the format that everyone believed would never come back. And the funniest part of all? This was far and away the best Direct of the year. Does that make it a W? Maybe in part, but the whole saga is the easy winner of Funniest L.
Okay, now we’ve got the two big ones: The Most Anticipated Game by Raccoons and The Game of the Year. You already know what the first one is: Pikmin 4! When I think I’m about to walk away from posting online, or even from video games in general, announcements like this pull me back in. I have no idea how it will play, and that does make me a bit nervous, but above all else I trust Shigeru Miyamoto to deliver one last Pikmin masterpiece. Just please give me a way to play Pikmin 1 and 2 on Switch beforehand, Nintendo. Don’t let Pikmin 3 win Old Game of the Year 2023.
Alright, this is it. The big one. Anybody who knows me already knows what’s coming, they’ve probably known what’s been coming this entire time: the Raccoonie Award for Game of the Year goes to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Just as Pikmin 4 was an announcement that reminded me why I love Nintendo, Kirby made me feel like a wide-eyed little kid again. I fucking love this game: I have all the Waddle Dees, I did all the treasure, got all the in-game figures. This game feels like it came from another era of video games: a better era, when precious development time could be spent on frivolous details like lighting the fireplace in Kirby’s house or going to bed. Waddle Dee Town feels especially magical: in addition to all of the little minigames, most of the menus are diegetic, the camera turning to focus on an interactive signpost or bulletin board. To me, this feels like a true next-gen Nintendo game, and that’s before getting to the fact that this is a goddamned 3D Kirby game. Kirby and the Forgotten Land dispels with the notion of growing pains, shooting past mediocrity to polished perfection in a single step. I hardly beat any games and 100% far fewer, but if you like Nintendo at all, do yourself a favor and experience everything this masterpiece has to offer.
Also, in Nintendo Switch Sports you can play tennis with a frying pan. It makes metal sounds that change in pitch based on ball speed. Good night everyone!
