Backlog Summer: 06.28.2014

Unlike the film industry, the summer months are generally a slow time of year for gaming. While the long stretch between releases can make the wait for the holiday influx seem almost unbearable, summertime also presents the perfect opportunity to catch up on some of the games we may not have had a chance to play yet.

That’s why, in lieu of our traditional Week: End Game: On, the Dojo staff will be embarking on a new feature called Backlog Summer. For the next several weeks, we’ll be playing through a handful of games from our own personal backlogs and recording our thoughts as we progress through them. Read on to find out what older games the staff will be playing through this summer!

Anthony Vigna

There are so many games that I’m opting to play for later over the summer, but the one I want to put all my energy into right now is Star Fox Adventures. If you follow my writing on Nintendojo, then you probably know that I’m a huge Star Fox addict. I especially have so many fond memories of Star Fox 64 and can quote literally every line said in the game!

Unfortunately, I remember hating Star Fox Adventures when I was younger for stepping outside the norms established by the series. Sure, I don’t mind unique approaches to established IPs, but we haven’t had a new Star Fox game in years at that point! So naturally, when I heard that a new Star Fox game was being made by one of my favorite developers, Rare, I wasn’t hoping for it to be a Zelda clone!

But a while back, I was challenged to alter my opinion of the game when I read our very own Kevin Knezevic’s Star Fox Adventures defense article. He made a lot of really good points that made me wonder if the game was really as bad as I thought it was. As a result, I wanted to jump into the game headfirst and establish a reformed opinion after all of these years. But guess what? After playing it for a few hours, I actually like it a lot more than I expected! It’ll definitely be interesting to see if my opinion changes, but so far, I’m finally digging Star Fox Adventures.

Marc Deschamps

With Nintendojo’s backlog summer kicking off this week, I decided to revisit The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. Well… the HD version, at least. Like many of our readers, I got it as part of Nintendo’s Mario Kart 8 promotion and figured backlog summer was the perfect excuse to revisit it. The game came out eleven years ago, at the tail end of my senior year of high school. This does make me feel really old, in case you’re wondering. Playing back through it is really going to be a nostalgia trip, though. While I really liked it at the time, the sailing and Triforce fetch quest were certainly a bit tedious. I’m hoping to see if these elements are as polished up for the HD version as I’ve been led to believe. Fingers crossed!

Nicolas Vestre

I’ve had Professor Layton and the Curious Village for several years now, and I just couldn’t get into it. I let my sister play it, and she breezed right through the game, something she normally doesn’t do. This left me a little bit bewildered, to say the least. I’ve tried at least a couple of times over the years to get back to St. Mystere, but it wasn’t until earlier this month that I started to dive into the game. I don’t know what changed, but suddenly I was devouring puzzle after puzzle– I couldn’t get enough! Now I’m nearing the end of the game (something I used to think would never happen), and I’ve solved more puzzles than my sister did in her file. I can’t wait to see the ending to this excellent game! Initially, when starting Curious Village, I was going to play Mario Golf: World Tour at the same time, just in case I experienced puzzle burnout, which never happened.

It’s been over twelve years since I rented Wario Land 4 for Game Boy Advance, so it’s a perfect candidate to play on Wii U over the summer. I’m hoping to tackle all the difficulty levels in the game, something I never did when I rented it so many years ago.

Robert Marrujo

My gaming habits always tend to be based on phases or moods. There will be periods where I’m hooked on a home console, or handheld, and whichever one it is, I’ll plug through my collection of titles for it and either play a favorite or something I never finished. With summer 2014 upon us, I’m finding that it’s probably going to be a Nintendo DS one, with a little GameCube mixed in. I’m keeping it simple though, with summer classes going on, so for now I’m going to be tackling a great gem in the GameCube’s library: Chibi-Robo. I enjoyed the 3DS Chibi, but I’ve been looking forward to playing the original.

I have a soft spot for the titles that Nintendo goes out on a limb to either make or localize. I thought The Legendary Starfy was solid, Eternal Darkness remains an amazing anomaly for the company, and Tomodachi Life is the latest, quirky gem to come from Nintendo, but all of these games are either one-and-done efforts or never to see a sequel beyond Japan. Chibi-Robo, on the other hand, has managed to be both odd and squeak out a couple of sequels, so I’m hoping that I enjoy Chibi’s inaugural outing on GameCube as much as his latest. I’ll be sure to keep you all posted as the days and months keep heating up!

Anthony Pershkin

Summer is my personal season of RPGs and JRPGs. Usually, I stick to very action-heavy games, because they’re quick and give me all I need even from very short play sessions. So, when I have more free time on my hands, I try to dedicate it to completing some 100-hour adventures. But it’s not happening right now, since I’m currently interested in completing Capcom’s Zelda games. Oh no, how I tricked ya!

After the recent purchase of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap on the Wii U eShop, I thought to myself that I finally need to complete this dusty part of my backlog. I played both Oracles games and The Minish Cap in the past, but I never managed to complete even one despite thoroughly enjoying the experience I’ve had with them.

I’m still not sure in which order I want to play those games, though. I might start with The Minish Cap, because apparently “backwards” is just my style. We’ll see how this goes.

Are there any older titles that you plan on playing through this summer? We encourage you to join us with your own Backlog Summer stories in the comments!