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No time of the year lends itself better to gaming than the summer months. With few major releases on the horizon (not to mention sweltering heat and humidity), summer offers gamers of all stripes the perfect opportunity to relax indoors and finally start up one of the titles that have been languishing in our backlogs. That’s exactly what the Nintendojo staff intends to do this year; for the next several weeks, we’ll be embarking on a journey through some of our backlog games, offering our thoughts as we work our way through them. What games do the staff plan on finally playing this summer? Read on to find out!
Nicolas Vestre
My Wii and Wii U backlogs know no bounds. I still have Lego City Undercover, Pikmin 3, and New Super Luigi U in shrink wrap, despite owning them since the day they were released. But the one game that I regret putting off the most is Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Despite being a massive Donkey Kong Country fan (several months ago I achieved absolute 105 percent completion on Donkey Kong Country 3‘s hidden TUFST mode), I just never got around to playing this gem. This summer, I would love to thoroughly complete this simian romp, and I refuse to use the Internet to help me find any of the secrets.
But before I do that, I promised myself I would finish the final two games from Kirby’s Dream Collection, namely, Kirby’s Dream Land 3 and Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards. I’ve waited quite a bit longer than Tropical Freeze to finish those titles. The only game standing in the way of that is Little King’s Story, where I’m about a quarter of the way through. Somehow Little King’s Story took precedence over these two more pressing games, but as I’m typing this, I’m seriously considering putting my kingly conquest on hold so I can finish these more important games (and hey, it goes well with Backlog Summer). Yes, I’ll start playing Kirby’s Dream Collection as soon as I finish getting the Platinum Trophy on Tearaway for PS Vita.
If, by some miracle, I finish Kirby’s Dream Collection and Tropical Freeze by the end of the summer (I’m a very slow gamer), the next two titles in my backlog would be Sonic Colors and Wario Land: Shake it!, both on Wii. But that’s another story. For another day.
Super Mario Maker and Yoshi’s Woolly World are months away, anyway…
Andrew Hsieh
Look, I know I’m supposed to be playing Xenoblade Chronicles. I bought it on Wii and played until my eyes bled, and still didn’t finish it. Then I bought it on the 3DS and… well… I haven’t done anything with it. So maybe that’s a lost cause. Maybe it’s because just thinking about all those side quests is making my head spin. Either way, if I don’t play it, I’m $40 in the hole, so… maybe I should get started?
Otherwise, I’m going to actually play Animal Crossing: New Leaf properly. I just remade my town, and this time (he says) I’m definitely going to play more than ten hours of it. That’s being conservative, but I never really did do much about it when I first played– oh sure, I spent a lot of time catching expensive bugs on the island, but I didn’t even get the coffee shop. It’s embarrassing, frankly. SO THIS IS GOING TO BE THE SUMMER I FINALLY GET BACK INTO ANIMAL CROSSING.
Or not. Because I’m supposed to be playing Xenoblade Chronicles. What have I gotten myself into?
Marc Deschamps
Ah, the return of Backlog Summer! Last year, I had a blast playing through The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD which I got through Nintendo’s free game promotion with Mario Kart 8. This year, I’m playing through another freebie: Yoshi’s New Island. I picked it up as my platinum Club Nintendo reward, and, so far, I am loving it! Outside of our review here on the site, the game received a mixed reaction overall. I’m not really sure how, though. Maybe it’s the fact that I haven’t played the original in over a decade, or the fact that I never played Yoshi’s Island DS, but the game is just a fantastic little platformer. The levels are short enough that I can crank through a couple in a short amount of time, and that’s a huge blessing when there isn’t enough time to play.
My backlog right now overall is just ridiculous. This summer, I’d like to hack away at it a bit. I never did finish up Majora’s Mask 3D or Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, though I was pretty close to the end of both games. I’d like to finish at least one of those two games before I move on to something new. I bought the Nindie Humble Bundle, yet haven’t played any of those games. I knew it would be a while before I could play them, but it was just too hard to pass up that deal! I’ve wanted to finally give The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past a real shot (I’ve barely ever played it), but I have Bayonetta 2 sitting on my shelf, and the only reason I even opened that was for the Club Nintendo points. Not to mention Disney Infinity 2.0, which I did play a little bit of, but haven’t played much at all since I got it for Christmas. I have just about all of the Marvel figures and I’ve barely put any time into it!
This fall, my list is only going to get bigger. Today, I pre-ordered Yo-Kai Watch and Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer. I already have Super Mario Maker on pre-order, and I know I’m gonna pick up the new Fatal Frame and Yoshi’s Woolly World on day one. I’ll try to hold out until Christmas for Star Fox, though! I’m getting buried under unplayed games over here!
Robert Marrujo
My backlog is also pretty epic, and as such it starts to give me a headache when I think of what I have yet to complete. To start, I’m planning on powering through 999 again. My first couple of times completing that game resulted in rotten endings, and it’s been preventing me from moving on to Virtue’s Last Reward. It’s the second title in the Zero Escape series, and with the third game coming next year I want be all caught up when it finally releases. I figure it’ll be a nice change of pace from all the Smash Bros. and Splatoon I’ve been playing, if nothing else.
Second on my summer to-do list will be Skylanders Swap Force. I finally broke down and started collecting the figures and playing the games after Nintendo and Activision announced Donkey Kong and Bowser would be in Skylanders Super Chargers. This is the first bundle I purchased, but I have yet to beat the game, and I already have two more waiting in the wings. Between the two Zero Escape titles and this, there should be enough variety to keep me entertained! So look forward to hearing about both over the next few weeks.
Craig Harnett
I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I still have the special edition of Super Smash Bros. for Wii U still boxed with the Mario Amiibo included. I know, I know. I feel so dirty! I promise to open this in the next few days and get right on it. I’ve had it for a few weeks now but the UK weather suddenly decided to go tropical (UK definition of tropical is anything above mildly warm, by the way), so I have been enjoying the sun as much as I can.
One game I have been meaning to get back to for a long time now, though, is Donkey Kong Country Returns for Wii. I was at least halfway through the game until the day that greedy old me decided to purchase the shiny new Wii U. As most of you will know, the option to do a data transfer from your old Wii is given on start up, which I happily did, only to find that somewhere along the line the save file had become corrupt on Wii U and completely wiped on the original Wii. Well, just imagine my reaction. The air was blue that day, let me tell you! So, I have always said to myself that when I finally do go back and complete Donkey Kong Country Returns, then and only then will I treat myself to Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. Sort of a punishment and reward all rolled into one. Wish me luck.
Jon Stevens
Having had a rather busy year, the number of titles that I bought and intended to play (or never even got around to buying) has slowly continued to rise. Now that the summer is here, I’m finally looking forward to getting to play some of them.
I finally opened up Hyrule Warriors this week (a Christmas present) and have just finished the first level of it. I still haven’t finished the grand prix mode in Mario Kart 8 beyond 100cc, so I’m really looking forward to playing that too, and I haven’t even looked at the DLC for that yet! Splatoon is a game that I was really looking forward to, but just never got around to buying (although I played the weekend demo before launch), so that is something that I plan to get soon. I’m also interested by Yoshi’s Woolly World, but may hold off getting that until I have finished some of the other titles on my list.
Outside of my Wii U, there are plenty of games on my PC that I haven’t gotten around to playing– Steam sales have been a wonderful curse for me! I’m eagerly awaiting the next episode of Telltale’s Game of Thrones series, for example. I also just bought the X-Com: Enemy Within expansion pack and Watch Dogs (which I’m still optimistic about), so am trying to find time for those. Oh, I also started The Witcher 3 a while ago and just haven’t gone back to it.
Sigh. It’s going to be a long summer…
Anthony Pelone
Now that I’m out of college, I’m embarking on clearing through what’s actually massive backlog. This isn’t exclusive to summer, as I’ve devised a schedule all the way through December. A good chunk of these are games I’ve already played to completion, but this time I aim to push through 100 percent completion. Such titles for this summer include Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Star Fox 64, and Donkey Kong Country Returns. This is mainly for reviews on my personal blog (Leave Luck to Heaven), but I’m planning on doing Retro Scopes for them here in between.
As for games I haven’t played too much…I did play through Hyrule Warriors last fall, but never got to completing that awesome Adventure Mode, let alone purchase any DLC. I’m quite excited to start back on that again next week, as it seems there’s still a bunch of content to munch through. I also purchased Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate a couple months ago and will finally start that next week too! It’s my first time with a Monster Hunter, so I’m hoping my love for cats will prevail.
Are you planning on playing through any of your backlog games this summer? We’d love to hear about your progress through them in the comments!
