The Best Nintendo Game of 2025 Is… - NVC 793

It's the final episode of Nintendo Voice Chat of the Year, and we will crown the best Nintendo game of 2025. NBC starts right now. [♪ music playing, doorbell rings.♪ [♪ music playing, doorbell rings.♪ You switched to Nintendo Voice Chat for the week of December 16th, 2025. It's the final episode of NBC of the Year. I'm your host, Logan Planned, joined by Brian Altano. Hey, thanks for having me. Seth Macy. What up? And Rep Valentine. Is it the holiday break yet? Not yet. So close. We're so close. We're very close, but we have one more awesome episode of Nintendo Voice Chat to go through first, where we're going to award the best Nintendo game of 2025 at the end of the show, and along the way, we'll highlight our favorite third-party games of the year and favorite first-party games of the year. First, some quick housekeeping. Go check out IGN's awards, which are all up now or going up throughout this week. We've already crowned the best Nintendo games of the spoiler to the big reveal at the end of this episode. He is already out there, and we're crowning the game of the year at the very end of this week. So the features team worked really hard on all those, so go check it out. But let's talk about Nintendo's publishing lineup in 2025. There's a ton of games here. I won't read the entire thing, but it includes things like Donkey Kong Country Returns HD at the start of the year, Switch to Launch Games, like Mario Kart World, Nintendo Switch to Welcome Tour, giant titles like Super Mario Party, Jamboree, Nintendo Switch to Edition Plus, Jamboree TV, and Kirby in the Forgotten Land, Nintendo Switch to Edition Plus, Star Cross World. Gotta say them all I can before the year is over. And then the fall lineup, Hyrule Warriors, Kirby Airwriters, Metroid 24, Beyond Nintendo Switch to Edition, Pokemon Legends EA, and a lot of other stuff. Free updates for Switch One games like Mario Odyssey, Scarlet and Violet, Link's Awakening, Echoes of Wisdom. It was a packed year of Nintendo games. So before we get into specifics, I just kind of want to ask the panel how we feel about Nintendo's lineup as a whole in 2025, specifically the Switch to's first six months. Brian, how you feeling? Really good. I think that initially I was a little let down and then we waited four weeks and got Donkey Kong Venenza, which is one of the best Nintendo games ever made. Still nothing like on like a, you know, Breath of the Wild Tears of the Kingdom level for me for the launch year and that's okay. But those two games, which literally came out. Which, oh, those two games, yes. Yeah, you're right. Okay, yeah, they added a smartphone functionality. They did, did you want like Siri yelling at you or to find a carol speed? You got it this year. No, I think it's been a really solid first six months for the Switch to and a good sort of transitional year for Nintendo in general. And I'm excited to see where they go from here because it feels like they laid a really good foundation. There's a bunch of people bought the system. There's a bunch of great games already and there's even more coming. So yeah, we're just getting started. Yeah, Seth, what do you guys think? Oh, I think they're doing a very, very good job. The cadence of the releases has been excellent. They have future releases, so we don't have to have an episode where we're talking about the second year slump, at least not yet. So yeah, it's been a great time. Like Brian said, like Donkey Kong, but it ends as like one of the best Nintendo games ever. And I know that we were all expecting a Mario, but this was like, probably in some ways, I don't want to say it was better, but it was nicer that they- It was better in some ways. No, no, no, no. Let me see what. That means that we're going to get an excellent Mario, but now we also have another like amazing 3D platforming game that can go off and do more things. Like we have more of the goodness now because we have Donkey Kong, but ANZA, which hopefully, you know, is just gonna be a thing forever now. So yeah, nice job, Nintendo. Congratulations. Okay, so I don't, I'm not being mean. This was a great year. Like there's, I don't have anything bad to say about this. The first party games were great. I also love Donkey Kong. I love many other things. I do just want to point out, looking at this list, a lot of this list is remakes and ports. A lot of it's remakes and ports. So I don't think it's bad because if you take all those off the list, the list is still really, really good. But like, like I'm looking at a physical list right now and I'm like, okay, Xenoblade, yeah, Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom, I guess the GameCube, whatever, these strings of letters that Logan has just put in the dock that I don't, I've had to keep asking what they stand for. You know, you should know by now. You've heard it so many times this year. It's the Super Mario Party, Jamboree, Nintendo Switch 2 Edition, plus Jamboree TV, hey, I got it. There you go, you got it. But yeah, Mario Galaxy, stuff like that. The list is shorter than we're making it out to be, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I think if we took all that out, it would still be a fantastic year. Yeah, and a lot of the things we got that are ports and remakes, we got two of the most requested of the generation from Nintendo fans. Xenoblade Chronicles X finally coming over from the Wii U. That was the last huge hit stranded there. There's still some not so huge hits, Star Fox Zero, Amiibo Festival, we don't need those. But Xenoblade Chronicles X was just this heralded game that finally made it over. Galaxy 2, they finally righted that wrong. They're not being included in 3D All-Stars. It came over, it's in 4K on Switch 2. It looks brilliant. So even though it is a lot of ports and remakes, I think they picked the right ones. You also know I'm a GameCube on Nintendo Switch Online Lovers. So that was a treat just for me. I was very happy to see the Wario game there the other day. Yes, randomly. Yeah. Which is a really weird, great, bizarre game. Treasure developed that, right? Yeah. Yeah, that always kind of blew my mind when it first came out. That was a nice surprise to see that there. Yeah, and we mentioned the GameCube. This whole lineup to me, first Switch 2s, first 6-mons, you've said it before, it's so GameCube. Like 3D Donkey Kong, sure, DK64 was on the N64, but it just has kind of that GameCube identity to it. And just that turn of the century, early 2000s feel for Nintendo game. I think both Legends, EA games feel very much like Pokemon Coliseum or those few console Pokemon games we got in the GameCube era. So that fits. Metroid Prime is a GameCube game. Now we have Prime 4 here. Kirby Aride is a GameCube game. We got a sequel to it 20 plus years later. I think that if you are a hardcore Nintendo fan who just loves all the series they put out, you're probably really happy with this lineup this year. And then when you talk to people that like Nintendo from Mario or Zelda or Smash Brothers, they're like, ah, the Switch 2 hasn't done much for me. But I think if you're totally crazy about this stuff like we are, I think it's a really, really solid lineup. Yeah, absolutely. I think for the people who maybe aren't that excited, they got Mario Kart. So there you go. That's the game that everybody wants to play. Even Mario Kart World is a little bit GameCube coded. I mean, I'm maybe making a stretch here, but I remember Double Dash being a really big deal. Double Dash. Because it finally had like, you could play Co-op if you wanted as opposed to just racing each other. And so that it had much more of a social aspect to it than a lot of the other Mario, I mean Mario Kart's always had a social aspect to it because you're always beating each other in Mario Kart. But like it was a different flavor of social aspect. And I feel like Mario Kart World is introducing a new flavor of social stuff to Mario Kart. I don't know, it's a little bit of a reach, but in the context of the rest of the year, I don't know. Yeah. Well, let's highlight some favorites from the list that aren't our winner. I wonder if you can guess what our winner is. It's already been brought up. It's Dragon Drive. Everyone knows it's just nice. Yeah, it is Dragon Drive. Jada's not here, but I did want to thank her on this episode for being the only one willing to play Dragon Drive with me during the review period this year. Yeah, great times. But that game's not bad. I stand by it. I stand by that that game's actually okay, regardless of what anyone else says. That's not my shout out though. Let's shout out some individual games. Seth, what was your favorite game from Nintendo this year that isn't our winner? That was, it was a game that I didn't expect to like at all. And that game, Kirby Air Riders. And I cannot say enough good things about Kirby Air Riders. It is absolutely the most GameCube feeling game, like, in since the GameCube, because it just feels completely off the wall. It doesn't seem like it should make sense. It doesn't seem like it should work. And it's chaotic. It's, it feels like just like everything's completely out of control. But therein lies the beauty of Kirby Air Riders because it is crafted so meticulously perfect. It has got saccharized, like just loving Godlike touch all over it. And it just is such a fun, weird game. Again, I didn't think I was going to like this game. If you asked me, hey, hey, Seth, what are you going to want to play more Metroid Prime 4 or Kirby Air Riders? I'd be like, shut your stupid hole. I am going to play Metroid Prime 4 forever. But no, Kirby Air Riders has captured my heart. It is my favorite Nintendo game of this year that's not Donkey Kong. But in the end, I'm hesitant to say that maybe it's more. But there are things about it that I like more. The fact that it is just something you can just like, pick up, play a couple of games, put it back down again, or you could just play for like four hours in a row going down a random highway and picking, you know, what path you're going to be. Yeah, absolute, just chaotic nightmare scenario of a game, a concept that's executed so perfectly and with such love and craftsmanship. It is just, ah, man, what a surprise, a lovely, wonderful surprise Kirby Air Riders has been for me. Yeah, it feels like a dream that this game still exists and is as awesome as it is. It is also one of my favorites. I would have picked it as my shout out, Seth, if you hadn't. It is my favorite besides Donkey Kong, Bonanza. I'm still playing it and it's just to me, it's like a playground game where if I was a kid who I grew up with Kirby Air Ride and I was talking to my friends about a sequel, it's like, yeah, and you could have 16 players and you could play online with people around the world and I could be the chef on whatever car I wanted and I could design my own car and sell it to people around the world. And you can do all of that in Kirby Air Riders. Like this is the game where if you're listening to this and like you have young kids and they're getting a switch too for Christmas, get them Kirby Air Riders. It will be one of their favorite games of all time forever because I just think it has that infinite replayability that kind of just do whatever you want, make your own stories nature. It's just, it's a perfect sequel. I'm so happy that this is the direction they went this year. Did either of you try this one out? Brian, I know you said you were going too, but I don't know if you ever did. I have not yet, no. Maybe I will tell Santa to come through. Yeah, I think you should. And figure that out. Yeah, but it's phenomenal. I read by one here from you. What's your first party pick? Pokemon Legends CA. Which is a game, like I had to think about it for a second because I actually haven't picked it back up since the review, but when I started thinking about it again, I was like, oh, I did have a great time with this. I think I've just been so busy ever since then with all these other games I'm trying to get to. Yeah, Pokemon's just really, really struggled to find its identity in the console, like home console era since it moved off of being a purely handheld series. And I think it's still not, I don't think it still has 100% found its footing and certainly not if you compare it to like the high highs of the handheld era. But I thought this was really, really good. And I think Legends CA was a little bit divisive, but I loved the fact that they shrunk down the size of the world and then filled it with actual stuff to do. Yeah, Lumio City isn't pretty, but when there are so many actual, it's very dense with things to find and things to do and things to climb and interesting Pokemon hanging out over here. Like the fact that it looks sort of vaguely ugly just sort of dissipates for me because I'm just enjoying what I'm doing, which is finding and catching Pokemon, which is the fun of Pokemon. I thought the writing was really good. I really liked the characters in this. I haven't played the DLC yet, anything around to it, but I'm kind of excited. My friends have been playing it and they've been really excited. I've heard some of the new Megas they added in the DLC are pretty ridiculous. I already liked pretty much all of the Megas that they added for this, the base game. Megastarmy is nuts. I love it when they get really stupid with it. It's so good. Oh, I wanted to talk about that one. It was Leafs and Dean. It looks like Majora from the end of Majora's Mask is what it reminds me of. It's running around like, it's crazy. It's really cool. It does, it's so silly. There's actually, there's a quest towards the end of the game where you basically join a Starmie cult and you have to have a Starmie with you and they basically go out and like yell at the moon. I don't remember what they're doing or the stars or something. It's the stars. And you have your Starmie with you. And I saw somebody figured out a way to mega evolve their Starmie and then bring the mega evolve Starmie into the cut scene with them. Which is so good. A lot of little touches like that are really fun. A lot of the side quests, a lot of the goofy characters. Pokemon is very good at humor writing and they have been for a while and I don't think they often get their laurels for that but these games are actually quite funny and ZA carries on that tradition. So yeah, I had a really good time with this. I need to get around to getting back to it because I think I sort of put out of my head what a good time I had but yeah, ZA is all right. It's okay, we're getting there. It's one of the only Nintendo games I didn't finish this year but that's more because they released like four games in two months and I reviewed the other three besides this one. So I'm gonna go back to it maybe over the holidays. That's why I didn't get to Kirby's air riders. It was a crazy fall cadence. Every two weeks they dropped something. That is unbelievable. It's a really, really nice job. Padding out after the April direct, we're all a little worried because these things didn't have dates. We didn't see anything of Kirby or Hyrule. Are they really gonna make it this year? And they all did. Everything did make it this year and it led to a very busy fall but I thought ZA was a cool idea too. Just a really different look for a Pokemon game. I appreciate the legend series a lot for trying different things and criticize Pokemon for a long time for totally just resting on its laurels and doing eight gyms again, elite four, champion, new region, new starters, whatever. But the legends games really going for something different. I really, really like. That's good. They're good. Brian, hell is frozen over because you like a Hyrule Warriors game. I never thought that would see the day. Yeah, same. And it's a bummer because I mean, I guess it's not a bummer because I love this one but I've always tried to get into these games. I love all things Zelda as I've well documented on this show. And I really thought Metroid Prime 4 would be the game for me. And I like it. We might talk about it later. But this game Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment completely caught me off guard because I've never been into the Dynasty Warriors games before and I've attempted to get into all of the Hyrule Warriors games and for whatever reason, I mean, some of them didn't really run very well. This was the one that just clicked and it had, you know, local couch co-op. So I got to play with my seven year old and we rolled credits on the game together. And it was just like, it's just this like kind of just crazy power fantasy. And it's, you know, it was really cool playing another entire Zelda game that isn't really about Link. You know, you've got this kind of like Link stand-in who's like a robot, but other than that, yeah. Can I stand with that guy? Yeah, I can't stand him either. It's really funny how the Koroks like, you're my best friend. It's like, I just had him. I just had him talk to you the entire game. Literally can't talk. And I don't know, there was just something really fun about like launching power moves against big bosses and, you know, fighting like fire hynoxes and all this. It's just this like very, it's a very truncated version of the things I love about Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom blown out into this really fun arcade game. And I don't know if you're listening to this or watching this and you've tried to get into these games before and they didn't click, this might be the one that does it for you. And I can't specifically say why I loved it so much, but it's just got this really fun loop to it. I feel like the levels are better designed. They're less bloated. The whole like fighting waves of enemies thing doesn't feel as monotonous as it used to, I think. Like just as it starts to feel a little bit tedious, they move you on to another challenge, another task. And it runs really well. It looks really good. The music is fantastic. Like a lot of the characters you get to play as are characters that you never get to play as in others all the games. And yeah, it's just really special. And I was really impressed with it and I hope they make another one. Cause yeah, I'm on board now. That's yeah, that's really great to hear. I've always loved these games. Age of Imprisonment is a really good one. And for me, what it is, is just, here's a theme park of some of your favorite games of all time. It is Tears of the Kingdom is, I mean, Tears of the Kingdom is goofy as heck also. But just taking everything that game did and said, yeah, well now Minoru like creates, like uses a water hydrant to like wash the mud off of 300 Bacoblins at one time. And then you summon this catapult to launch them all at a giant Hinox and then you kill it. It's just crazy. And it just goes completely off the rails. And it just has so much fun with all of the mechanics that Tears of the Kingdom introduces and remixes them in ways that fit the Warriors gameplay like Zelda using recall. So she fires out a projectile and then she calls it back and it hits them all a second time on the way through. And that's just so rewarding. Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there, integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time from startups to scale ups online, in person and on the go. Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you. Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup. Bowser is back. Ha ha! Bowser! Bowser! Yeah! Everyone calm down. The Super Mario Brothers can take care of the kingdom. Let's go. On April 1st. Code, pack our things. Woo hoo! The galaxy is waiting. Ha ha ha! Who is this? Special! So some cool dinosaur just shows up and he's now part of the group. Cool. The Super Mario Galaxy Movie. Only in cinemas April 1st. So I love Hyrule Warriors Age of Imprisonment but if there is one big criticism I have to make, it is an absolute failure to me that Ganondorf is not playable in this game. Like you have the coolest design you've ever had. You have the perfect playground to unleash him in and they just didn't do it. And that is so sad to me. I guess it wouldn't really make lore sense. The Warriors games don't need to make sense. That's what they're for. I mean they have like a robot link. Make a robot Ganondorf. I don't freaking know. Yeah. Man, that sucks. I didn't know that. Age of Calamity made up a version of Ganondorf just so you could play as him as like an end game reward. And then, yeah. And then Imprisonment doesn't have one at all. Which is sad, but it's still a really, really good Warriors game. I am going to shout out Metroid Prime 4 Beyond as my pick. Which is, yeah, it's a bit of a controversial one right now but I love it. I still really, really love this game. I think it is very easy to look at Metroid Prime 4 and more than what it isn't. Which, and that's fair. I totally get that or complain about some design issues that are all there. But I really love a lot of what this game is. And what is there? I love venturing through the ice belt and turning on this abandoned laboratory and seeing it come to life. And the music that kicks in as you make your way back up. I just think that's fantastic. I think the Morph Ball tunnels and platforming is really, really awesome in this game. And it just feels fantastic. They nailed the physics of what it feels like to roll up in a ball and these new tether platforming things that it has and the puzzles that come from it are really, really fun and really good. I just love little tiny moments like in Volt Forge when you jump down onto a platform and that platform breaks and you see Samus's hands come up and she like tries to balance herself. Like these little touches that I think are very Metroid Prime and very, very good. And it has a ton of warts and it has a ton of issues and it's patched together in a lot of places. I think this is like Frankenstein's Metroid. But I think there is so much to love about it still even within all that and Retro Studios still did manage to bring it to life. And I love so much of what it does right. Brian, you haven't been on the show since this game came out and I know you finished it too. Yeah, I would say I'm on the more positive side of this than some of my fellow NBC co-host haters. No, to be completely blunt, this is one of the more complicated experiences I've had playing a big AAA first party or really any video game in a long time. I totally agree. Yeah, it is, I think it's pretty rare to get a game like this these days that takes big swings, misses a bunch of them, but also like has some really high highs. And that was really common back in the era when Retro started making Metroid Prime games, right? Like you look at the GameCube era and like it was pretty common to have a lot of games that during that era that were like, this is a really solid, there's some really solid groundwork here, there's some really cool stuff. There's some really great boss fights or mechanics or whatever, but there's a bunch of stuff that like really drag it down too. And so I think that like a lot of people aren't used to that. And this is not me giving, you know, the game a free pass or giving excuses or anything like that. But I think that we sort of collectively have landed on a very binary approach to the way we consume anything, right, where it's either it's terrible garbage or it's the best thing of all time. And I think this game is neither of those things. And it's occasionally both of those things. And it's the best garbage of all time. It's the best garbage of all time, IGN, put that on the box. Our frothing demand increases or whatever. No, I found myself really in love with it. I was in love with a lot of what this game was doing. And then also found myself really frustrated with a lot of it. And, you know, I think had I backtracked one more time, I probably would have broken me, right? If there had just been one more monster closet where I had to fight the same bag of enemies over and over and over again towards the end of the game, it would have broken me. I think that there was very clearly, and maybe I'm just projecting this here, but it felt to me like at one point, Nintendo was like, okay, guys, pencil's down. Like get the game out. And it did feel like there's a lot of cool stuff in the last third of the game, but that's when it basically just kicks into like, it becomes a lot more linear. And I think that like, I think about the first impressions I had walking onto like those first few alien planets and just how gorgeous they are and how good it felt to be in this world again and shooting things and scanning things and all that. And then there's a bunch of design decisions that I wasn't as in love with. But like ultimately, I'm just really happy this exists because I think that it's really cool that this game from a series that I love so much, specifically the Prime series, right? Like I've always loved Metroid, but it was really cool to see this game happen. It had Rocky development. It switched developers, you know, mid or basically like a year or two into the after it had been initially announced eight years or something since we saw the first logo at E3. And yeah, I don't know. What a logo. Yeah, there's just, we read and we write so many stories here at IG and about canceled games and shuttered studios. And so when a game actually makes it to the finish line like this, warts and all, like Logan said, it's a miracle. And so I'm not exactly like, I don't really know where it goes from here. I don't know if they'll get another shot. I really hope so because it feels to me like they laid the groundwork down, right? Like they've got this thing running on Switch 2 and Switch, it's gorgeous. They've got a ton of assets done already. They've got, you know, mechanically it's all sound. I wanna see what the next one looks like. And I understand that it probably won't be for a long time. And I'll probably, you know, I'll gladly take a 2D Metroid while I wait. But I'm happy that this game exists. I have a lot of issues with it, but it is a miracle that it's even here. And it's, you know, I was telling you this Logan, I'm old enough and Seth, I know you are too. Where we've seen like the getting the band got back together legacy sequel thing all the time, right? We've seen it for like some of the funniest movies you've ever seen, got a sequel and 20 years later. And it's like dumb and dumber too. Did we need that? Blues Brothers 2000. Exactly. Do we need those things? I don't know. I don't know. And so when something- Oh no, Blues Brothers, no, we did not need them. I don't, we definitely didn't need that. I didn't even watch that, but I'll trust you. But I'm happy that these guys got together and they made another Metroid Prime game. And I hope we get another one someday. And so yeah, kudos to Retro. Some of your stuff really, really drove me crazy. But there's a lot of really cool, beautiful, incredible stuff in here. And I'm glad it exists. Brian, you talked about things not being a binary, like super good or super bad. Logan, you and I were talking about this in private the other day too, but like, games also exist in the context that they get released in. And Metroid Prime 4 has kind of a lot of expectations put on it. Like some fairly and some unfairly, I think. Like this game, like you said, Brian was announced so long ago. And even before that, it was something that people were wanting and anticipating in their hearts. And so people put so much on this game, not just because the original Metroid Prime was such an incredible classic, but because people as they get older, start looking back on their favorite games from their childhood with rose-colored glasses. Like, I mean, we're all guilty of it too. And so everybody was wanting Metroid Prime 4 to be the Metroid Prime they were imagined in their heads from years ago. And I think when it wasn't exactly that, I think a lot of people were not super happy about that. And that feeling is super valid. And also, you know, Metroid Prime 4 is its own thing in its own time and it's okay to be that. Yeah, yeah, well said. Yeah, I love what you said about Nintendo telling them to put their pencils down because I think that 100% the game I think was going in a direction that it obviously didn't make. And then all of, I would say all of the things that I don't like about it that feel padded out are because that they just couldn't, you know, finish the game that they had originally set out to make. And then they had to add all these things that I didn't like because the scope had just gotten too big and they just didn't have the time before. So, yeah. Yeah. And it's funny, I've been talking to Perilot about Prime 4, he finished it over the weekend and he was texting me and he's like, I can't wait to see what's in the last dungeon. And I'm like, there is not one. Like, you're not, no, you're going right now. Like, don't get too excited. But no, it is messy, but I think something that as it settled in more, it's like, man, I said this two weeks ago on the review episode, Prime 4 feels like a 2011 Wii game. And I think some people will hate that and some people will love that. I love that. Like I miss that style of Nintendo game. I love open world games. I love the Nintendo open world ones and these new directions they're going in. But I have felt this whole, this missing thing of a linear lock on action adventure game that has some stupid backtracking that you don't want to do. It's like Skyward Sword. It's like Twilight Princess. It's like Metroid Prime 3. And this, it's that, it is that. And I found a lot of comfort food in that and something that this is the games I grew up playing where games exactly like that. And so, no, Prime 4 doesn't push the series in crazy new groundbreaking places, but it is a sequel to Prime 3. And I think as that is what is the takeaway, that's profoundly disappointing to some people. But to me, I will take a lot of things away that I absolutely adore about that game. Yeah, it's, I also, I think it's one of the best looking Nintendo games ever made to. Oh, for sure. It's the best looking, I think it's number one. I generally have like a presence when I fly on airplanes to be left alone and don't talk to me. And I had multiple people. Isn't that all the time? It's all the time, yeah, generally. I just put up like this barricade. No, I had multiple people on two, I mostly put this game in handheld mode on two cross country flights. And I had multiple people tap my shoulder or come over and be like, what, what is that? Like, cause it had literally come out that morning. I loaded it and I flew across the country. And I had people being like, is that a Nintendo Switch? I'm like, it's a Switch too. And they're like, what is that game? Like, I don't think people are used to, like it's just a really pretty game. It looks amazing in handheld mode. And then I played like 12 hours in the air and in my hotel. And I came back and I put the Switch in the dock and put it on my OLED TV and was like, oh my God, this is, you were, oh, you're beautiful baby. You were there the whole time. Like, yeah, it's really, really pretty, you know? Nothing will ever top that moment of like the first time you saw like the, you know, the water drop reflections on Samus's visor and stuff like that. But, you know, this is a really gorgeous game. And yeah, great art direction. It goes a long way. Yeah, I had to just marathon this game for the review. And so I got up really early on a Saturday morning to play through it. And I got through the tutorial in Fury Green. And so I was going to Volt Forge and I had my cup of coffee and I'm in like my dark office on my big 4K monitor. And I pop out of the Morph Ball tunnel into Volt Forge, Samus transforms and you just see like this lightning bolt strike this distant tower. And I'm just, this is a Nintendo game. Like, it looks like this. It, yeah, it is gorgeous. So warts and all, I love you Metroid Prime 4 beyond. Let's quickly highlight some third party games cause we do got to talk about our winners. So we'll quickly go through our favorite third party games with your Brian, what's your pick? I think I chose fantasy life, which again, a game I was not expecting to like. I know that there was a 3DS, there was a 3DS version of this game or not a version. There was a game in the series on 3DS and I skipped it. And so this is one of those games. It's, you know, it's very chibi, cute, cutesy, like action RPG. And I think I just wanted something just, not necessarily mindless, but something kind of hack and slashy, like every now and then I get in one of those moods where I'm like, I just need to see like the little bar go up and yeah, I just need to level up. There's so many bars. There's so many bars. So many. And like, what's interesting about this one specifically, this is a, this is like a very like slimmed down JRPG, right? It's also got just really, really interesting job system. And so you can basically choose between like a dozen or so different jobs and you can level all of those up. And each one of those has different sort of responsibilities in the open world areas. And yeah, like, I don't know. I found some of them not as fun as the others, but like fishing was really fun being like a, you know, what a logger or whatever the guy that's there's a guy that breaks rocks, you know, it's just, it's great. It's a good time. And yeah, I wasn't expecting to like this. I don't care about the story at all. It's nothing to me. It means nothing, but I just loved playing this game. I played it for like 60 hours, beat up everybody, you know, leveled up and got cool swords and stuff and outfits. And yeah, it's a really fun game. It runs really well on switch too. So check it out. Cool. Seth, how about you? I mean, we already know what I was going to say. Ball pit for life. It's the best game of the year for me. I love it. Tom thought I was just being, he probably threw my ballots in the trash for game of the year because I put ball pit for everything, including best movie. But no, I love, I love this game. You know, the city part of it could have been better. In fact, if they do a ball pit too, that's kind of all they need to improve. And then it might be the perfect game. Like, yeah, I love this game. So many people who I was like, dude, you got to try this. Four or five days later, it would be like, I wish you'd never told me to play this game because it's all I do now. Like, I have a friend back home. What up, Lish? He texted me, he's like, I'm going home on my lunch break and playing this game. Like, that's how obsessed he was with it. He would take his lunch hour, go home, play for 59 minutes, get back in his car and go back to work. Like, it's just such a fun, just, it's wonderful. It's delightful. And everyone should play it. And they're going to have three free updates, new characters, new balls, because everybody loves that. And then I don't remember what the third one update was, but they're just going to make new pits. New. Sorry, everyone. Yep. I appreciate how deadpan you were. They're putting an extra. Yeah. Cool. An extra silent X in the middle. So we'll see how that goes. I hope that trend dies next year. Stop putting X in the middle of your game title. It's so, it's so stupid. Also, because sometimes you have to say it and sometimes you don't. So it could be cross X or silent. Or A. Yeah. Yeah, it can be all. What'd you say, Ruth? Key. Kingdom Hearts. Unchained key? No, not Kingdom Hearts. Multiplication, that's math. Yeah. Times, balltime spent. Rhett, how about you? Your favorite third party? Hall of Night's Elk Song, of course. My gosh, I love that game. I got so into it. An interesting thing that I've learned about myself in maybe the last, I guess like four or five years is that I actually really like games that have a reputation of being quite difficult if the design is such that it will teach me. Like there's some games that are just hard to be hard and I don't mess with that. Like I'm not out there playing I wanna be the guy or anything like that. But like this and like the original Dark Souls, Elden Ring, stuff like that where it's difficult but it does such a good job of teaching you. And if you're patient and focus and pay attention you will feel like you're getting better and then you will actually get better and then you will conquer challenge after challenge. I love that about the first Hall of Night. I love that about Silk Song. I devoured this game, I played through the whole thing. I think I beat almost every boss if not every boss that I possibly could. I got the true ending, all of that stuff. I didn't, it's like 109 or 10% it's some weird percent it 101% I don't know what it is. I didn't do that, I was still a little low but it's a beautiful game. It has an incredible soundtrack. Just like Hall of Night, the platforming is like so wonderful and tight and well designed and it's never unfair. Like the From Soft Soul series are kind of funny because sometimes they are very unfair but they can equally be unfair in your favor or the enemy's favor. And so sometimes some nonsense will happen that will result in you just getting smashed through a wall and then sometimes a boss will just tip off a cliff and it'll be fine. These are never like that. Like Hall of Night and Silk Song are both so completely fair. Sometimes it doesn't feel that way but they are and I love learning every single fight. I love practice, maybe not growl, growl can suck it but all of the other ones just feeling myself getting better and better and feeling like that rush of actually conquering something whether that's a boss or some of the platforming challenges are pretty ridiculous. I did the Mr. Mushroom side quest that last climb. But yeah. I wanna watch that video. I love Silk Song so much. You can, I mean, if you go to Blue Sky I had a series of posts where I was screaming about it so you can see that. You can also follow my play through of Baby Steps for the same kind of energy. But yeah, I was so, I was a little worried because this is another game that had so many expectations put on it just like Prime Four. And I think for some people it similarly did not deliver because I think people, like Hall of Night when it came out was revolutionary. This is more improved Hall of Night. It is not revolutionary. I don't think anything could live up to the expectations that were on Silk Song specifically. And I think some people were disappointed by that. Some people were disappointed because they forgot Hall of Night was hard. That was a whole wild discourse. But I was worried that I would also be disappointed when it wasn't revolutionary because I thought going in, maybe I don't want more Hall of Night. No, it turns out I do. I loved it so much, Silk Song rules. Man, I forgot Mario jumped, what a disappointment. Now my favorite third party game of the year. I'm not gonna talk about it too long because I wanna get into our winner. Dragon Quest one and two HD2D remake. Just phenomenal industry standard for remakes, gorgeous stuff. The love that two got in this Dragon Quest two got, it is now a lot of people's favorite in the series. It is a transformative remake for what used to be easily a bottom three entry for most people in this series. It is incredibly cool. And it now acts as this finale to a trilogy because the order is three, one, two, whatever. Just play them in that order, it's fine. But it's super awesome. So highly recommend this. Gorgeous on Switch two, perfect game to just like play and handheld during the holidays. Like while sipping coffee or Coke or whatever, it's awesome. But let's talk about the winner of the best Nintendo game of 2025. The nominees on IGN were Donkey Kong, Bonanza. Hey, these two, Hollow Knight, Silk Song, Kirby Airwriters and Mario Kart World. And the winner is of course Donkey Kong, Bonanza. So let's wrap up the year. Okay. Am I talking, wow, that was really good. Wow, that was really good. Oh my gosh. Let's wrap it up talking Bonanza one more time here to end 2025. Seth, that was a great impression. So I'll throw to you first. Well, what a delightful surprise this was. Everything about it is so charming and wonderful. The redesign, remember when everyone was like flipping out? Cause like, ah, they've, what? Look what they did to my boy. They were so loud. Nobody has ever been more wrong. No, he's so fluffy. I love him. He's incredible. If you didn't like that, I don't, go to lenscrafters.com and get your eyes. Get your face? Get your eyeballs fixed because it's weird because if you go back and you look at the old Donkey Kong design, it's like, oh, okay, I get it now. Like a hundred percent. Like that. I hate the old Donkey Kong design. Oh, no, sorry. How old? No, no, no, sorry. The last one, like the end, like I love the 90s to like now. I hate that design. I think it's hideous. I'm so glad we're here. Okay. Cause like the Donkey Kong 94, like the, all the art and aesthetics around Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. That I feel like that's what they were channeling. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's the like, right. Get in line. All I can think about is how much better Donkey Kong looks now. So yeah. The, the, like everyone but you. Zebra. I love Zebra. He's so good. He's so weird. Zebra. See, he was, Snake was the only one for me that didn't really hit and, but like, if I had one, like, I don't even know if it's a complaint, but it did feel like it was just a little bit too long, but that also sounds stupid to say now that I'm saying it out loud. So I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I made a fool of myself in front of everybody. No, I'll throw this out there to sort of redeem you, Seth. When you and I were on the home stretch of that game, we were desperately trying to finish it in time for an NBC episode. I also was like, man, this ending is really long, but then I sort of recalibrated and I'm like, if I was playing this at sort of a normal pace, it would not be as long. So I'm realizing that now. And you know what? It makes up for it with the surprise that it does in the end and like such a cool like end battle and like, yeah, what, what a delightful and well earned. You know, I'm glad that this one, the best Nintendo game. It would have been like, man, there would have been riots if we hadn't been monkeying around. Yeah, this just, it remains such a special game to me. I played it three full times this year, played a ton of the DLC. I just adore Bonanza so much. And I've talked about it to death this year, but something I don't know if I've like fully really talked about something, a small thing I love about it is just, how I feel like it's whole journey is so well thought out with it being this, this journey to the center of the earth. And just like, the way you fast travel is by punching a gong. Like it's just that core mechanic of punching. It's like, yeah, you punch this gong and the reverberations summon this eel that slithers around inside the tunnels of the earth to bring you wherever you want to go. Like that's just such a good detail. Could have just been a basic fast travel, but it's not. It's that and how each banana like is summon, it is generated and then it drops down. Just continuing that constant downward momentum of this game where you don't get the moon for completing the challenge. You have to go see what's next to collect the banana. And I just love that detail. They even do a clever little puzzle with it, which drove me crazy before I had figured it out. Like this one banana that drops down somewhere you didn't know you could get to to find it. It's just really smart. I love the dives between each layer with DK and Pauline where the story is built out. And that's just another thing that they didn't have to do that, but they did add this little cute gameplay filled transition that just further cements its theme of just going deeper and deeper to the planet core. And I just think it's, it's so cohesive and brilliant in that way that I think is pretty underrated. Yeah, their dynamic is so good. It is. Yeah, they're the best. They remind me of like putting my daughter to bed every night and it's just like, honey, go to sleep. We have a big day tomorrow and it's like, hey dad, how big can bats get? And you're like, dude, I love you. Just please just go to sleep. Like that's Pauline every single time you take a nap in that game. No, the thing about that game that I don't think any video footage will ever really properly depict is that it has one of those things that like sort of and we don't have a good term for this, but that kind of intangible game feel thing, right? You're just like, when you are controlling this character and smashing stuff, it is one of the best feelings in the world and you could not even think about it. And like someone could be talking to you and you'll just destroy an entire level and be like, man, that felt really good. And then it just, it encourages you to do that, right? Like this mechanically, this game feels phenomenal. And it's like, if you've only seen screenshots or just videos, like I implore you to somehow get your hand on the controller and just run around and smash stuff for five minutes and see how you feel. Cause I have a feeling you'll love it and you'll be compelled to do everything that this game has to offer. What Brian said, I love dig. I love dig, I love to dig. I love to punch, I love to dig. It's just fun. Everything you guys said, I think I'll add that I'm a banana collector in Odyssey. I liked getting the moons. Now I like getting the bananas. Something that I think a lot of, we sort of had this attempt at a renaissance of open world 3D platformers a few years back, the stuff like ukulele and there were a few others around that same time. And what I think a lot of them missed about the older ones is the intentionality of a lot of the level design. Like so much of it just felt like sort of randomly scattered around so that you had things to jump on and do. But every single banana in this game has like something that is woven into the level to challenge you a little bit to get it. Whether it's finding it in a specific place and reading like certain environmental clues to let you know that there's something there. If it's a platforming thing, if it's getting past enemies, whatever it is, it just feels intentional and it feels like seamlessly built into whatever the context and story of that level is. And Nintendo, or Masters at This, Retro is very, very good at it and apparently, oh sorry, not Retro, sorry about Metroid. The Odyssey team has been Masters at This, as we know from Mario Odyssey. And yeah, they don't miss. I freaking love finding bananas. I love Dig. Yeah, just it's phenomenal stuff. And I just think that I'm so happy they made this game. Like we talked about Kirby Airwriters earlier. I'm so happy that this wasn't just Odyssey 2 or the next 3D Mario. Do I want that? Yes, but that feels like a given. There will always be more 3D Mario in our future. They're not getting rid of Mario. No, he's not going anywhere. But DK, we didn't know. And we were annoyed on this show 12 months ago about how little this guy was getting. Oh my gosh, it's an HD remaster of a game that was already ported to 3DS. That's crazy. And then we get This, and it's just incredibly special. And there's so much love for Rare in this game, for Retro in this game, for the arcade original in this game. And it's something entirely new at the same time. I think it's just, it is one of the all time Nintendo grades to me. Logan, since it's the last episode of the year, I'm gonna get a little, you know, whistful or whatever. Oh, I was gonna do that next. Okay, cool, no, no. Going to New York City with you to cover the Switch 2 debut event. And we're up super early in the morning. We see this direct, and there's a Donkey Kong game in it. And we were just like, what on earth? And then the doors open up and they let us play it. And I believe it was the only one that you and I went back to and played again. And we just would not, we were up until like two o'clock in the morning till Lirius, recording shows, writing, all this other stuff. And I don't know if we told the story, but we got locked in, not locked out, but we've got locked into the IGN New York offices. And it was really late and we hadn't had any food or anything like that. We were just eating like snacks from, and we're just up writing. And we're like, if we leave, we can't get back in. What do we do? Yeah, and so it was just a really fun trip. And going from not knowing that that game existed to finding out about it, to playing it, to a couple weeks later, you reviewed it, that was just such an awesome, like that was, it was just so cool. Like it's so, I don't know. The amount of times that we've all been covering this industry or playing video games, if you're just a fan, you hear about a game, we just talked about Metroid Prime, right? It was eight years, you have to wait between the logo reveal and playing it. And finding out that this existed, and then a few months later, having it on my Switch 2 was just one of the greatest feelings. It was so, so cool. I think it will forever be a defining game of my career for that reason, for what you just laid out. It's just very, very special and was very, very fun getting to do that. And just an amazing year for Nintendo and for this show. So that is 2025 in the books for Nintendo Voice Chat. It has been an awesome year. And I wanna thank everyone individually real quick. Reb, you're always such an awesome part of the show. And thank you for fulfilling the Rooftop Wine Party Dream on Switch 2 launch week at IGN Live. That was just super fun. And I will not forget it. Anything you wanna say as we wrap up the year? Oh, I didn't know I was gonna be asked to say something. Play more indie games. Yeah, play more indie games. On your Nintendo Switch, it's a great place to do it. There's so many, yeah. Seth, thank you so much for passing the torch to me this year and having the confidence in me to host the show that I, as you used to always say, I'm forever in your debt and I'll always appreciate it so, so much. And thank you for staying on as part of the show. It's just been fantastic. Thank you for doing such a freaking kick-ass job as the host of NBC. I have never regret. I think I reached out to Brian and I was like, should I suggest Logan? And Brian agreed with me. With the exception of you going to New York to play Donkey Kong with El Tano. Like that's the only time I was like, ah, what have I done? But yeah. I took in the John Peter 2, man. You really missed out. But anyway, so what you get when you quit the show? I mean, well look. Quitter's never to never get anything. I hope that 2026, I don't even hope. I know 2026 is gonna be an even, like this show has done nothing but improve. And so I'm really looking forward to just what our show has, but also like what Nintendo is throwing our way that we get to talk about next year. Yeah, absolutely. Brian, you already mentioned it, but the Switch 2 premiere was like the most exciting week I've ever had at work. And it was such a blast covering that with you and Red who we missed very much. It was just unforgettable. And I wanted to thank you for buying me the crueler at that convenience store. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, to all of you and Jada and all the other awesome co-hosts we've had on the show this year, it's been awesome rocking with you all. I've been doing this for a very long time. Next year will be my 17th anniversary at IGN, which is insane. Congratulations. And this year, I'm just, I don't know, I'm very, I'm just really proud of all the cool stuff we got to do sort of collectively. And I just had so much fun. I had so much fun and the NBC audience is always so positive, they're so awesome. I got to meet a bunch of you at the Nintendo store when we went to film like a tour video there when they opened up at San Francisco, it was just, you know, a city I moved across the country for this job. I was just there at the store the other day. There's NBC fans working there. Like it's just so cool. It's so cool. I got, you know, I did this awesome one-on-one sit down with with Pear. I got to do a bunch of really cool stuff with Logan and all of you. I flew to Florida and talked to Shigarumi Emoto for a half an hour. Like there's just all this stuff that I'm just like, this is, I talked to Paul Rudd about Super Nintendo. Like this has been a weird, been a weird crazy year for Nintendo. Yeah, a landmark year. And so, and I'm probably forgetting stuff. So yeah, thank you all for listening and for rocking with us and for everybody on the show and making the show and Logan, you especially. Yeah, man, you're killing it. You're all killing it. You're all great. I love you all. Thanks so much for your kind. Logan, thank you for being an incredible host. It's been a really good year. Oh, thank you. Thank you for being an awesome panel. Thank you to Tom for filling in this week behind the scenes and several times throughout the year. And I played, what is, I played so much ball pit. I am ball pit. Yeah. And next year, switch to pro. No, don't do that. I got a shout out, Tyo, for working hard behind the scenes all year as well. And to Jada, who couldn't be on this week, but she's an amazing part of the show. And we'll see a lot of her next year too. And of course, thank you so much to our awesome audience for listening and supporting us all year long and for accepting the ushering in of the plant era. I'd seriously honor and a privilege to do this show every week. It is the highlight of my week and we work really hard to make it one of the highlights of yours as well. I hope you all have an awesome recharging end to 2025. We cannot wait to see you back here in 2026. But for now, that is all the time I've got. I got to get back to playing Animal Crossing New Leaf on my Nintendo 3DS. Have an amazing rest of the year and we'll see you next year with more Nintendo voice chat. The only place you can. Get the thing. Get the thing.