I love me some feel good games so I made a video about my favorite ones! Let me know in the comments if there’s anything that bothered you about the video so I can improve for my next one.
Transcript:
I finished Dragon Quest Builders 2 recently, and despite some pacing problems, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The building was fun and the world felt well-realized. But my favorite part of the game… was the sheer optimism of the whole experience.
You’re the last builder, tasked with rebuilding the world and defeating the Children of Hargon, who seek to destroy everything. Your character gives hope to the NPCs of the various islands, and they improve themselves. They learn to go against the Children of Hargon’s rule of “no building”. You even convince some monsters to disobey their own leader and join your side. It’s just an all around a fantastic experience.
There’s more to this game than I can even describe though. The aura of the game just brightened me up. I became so invested in making these people I recruited feel good, that I loved to build kitchens, bedrooms, and even bathrooms for them. Whenever you finish a room, everyone in the town runs to you and starts clapping as they drop hearts all around. Walking around the towns I built, seeing everyone cater to their own needs, puts a smile on my face.
And I don’t feel like we have enough games to fill that type of experience, y’know?
It seems like most games nowadays feature dark or conflict-heavy tones. Even if it’s a multiplayer game, a lot of them are built for a competitive playstyle, which I believe goes against the feel-good nature of game I’m looking for.
I wasn’t sure if this observation had any basis in reality, so I looked at the best selling games of the past 5 years according to NPD. I highlighted the games that I thought were intense or dark a majority of the time. Of course, that’s not really an objective thing you can measure; I’m just trying to get a baseline.
Okay so here’s what I came up with.
The grayed out games are sports games. I didn’t think I should count them because they sort of exist outside of the core gamer market. Sports games just do their own thing.
Anyway, 28 of the 37 games listed here I believe to feature dark or conflict-heavy tones or are heavily competitive. That’s three quarters. This doesn’t mean that optimistic or positive games aren’t coming out, it just means they aren’t breaking the top 10 very often.
It’s unfortunate, because I think we could do with more cheerful games. You have some developers working on games like that, but when the best selling games of the year is dominated by games like this, why rock the boat and try and make something different? Gamers have shown they like bleak stories. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good intense thriller. Especially when the games are as good as they are nowadays. But I also like to have a tonal palate cleanser every now and then.
And the first developer I look to for experiences like that… is Nintendo. Mario, Pokemon, Animal Crossing, are series that are dripping with optimism. I could talk about the upbeat Jump Up, Super Star in Super Mario Odyssey or tranquility of talking to your neighbors in Animal Crossing New Leaf, but I want to focus on another Nintendo property.
What series could I be speaking of? Well I’m sure you were screaming at the screen when I didn’t mention it earlier.
I’m going to talk about one of my favorite feel-good series of all time…
Rhythm Heaven.
Now if you’ve never heard of Rhythm Heaven before, I don’t blame you. It’s one of Nintendo’s more underrated properties. It’s as simple as it looks. It’s a bunch of short games that you play to the rhythm of the music. If it reminds you of WarioWare in any way, that’s because this series is developed by Nintendo SPD Group 1, who also did WarioWare.
Anyway, all the games in the series are great. But I want to specifically talk about Rhythm Heaven Fever for the Wii.
The soundtrack in this game is sublime. Especially the vocal tracks. I’m a sucker for songs with cheesy lyrics, and Rhythm Heaven Fever has those in spades. I wish I could just play them in their entirety here, but I don’t think that’s a good idea. Check the description for links to some of the best ones.
And it’s not just the soundtrack that’s amazing. The visuals are a huge part of the appeal for me. They complement the upbeat music quite well. So many of the characters are just adorable. Look at this monkey. Or what about these seals? Gaze upon Karate Joe and his cat.
The series is pretty funny too. Just like Wario Ware, it has its own weird sense of humor. For example, there’s a mini game where you’re just pressing the buttons in rhythm with a bunch of marching birds. It’s a nice, simple minigame. A bunch of birds keep coming in, until they practically cover the screen. Then this happens.
How great is that? Another one of my favorite bits is with Karate Joe. In the scene I showed with his cat earlier, it cuts away to other minigames, but at the very end of the song, it returns to him. He’s in a silhouette and the cat is gone. The lights come on and he makes this… uh… face.
It’s just the perfect mix of weird and funny. Why was the entire universe that the bird was in, also located in its eye? Why was Karate Joe making that face? These bits of humor happen too quickly for you to question or make sense of. And it doesn’t want you to think about it for too long. These moments are just there to give you a chuckle.
And that’s what Rhythm Heaven is so good at. Whether it’s making you tap your foot, smile at the cute characters, or laugh at the funny scenes, it’s all about giving you a good time. It doesn’t have any grand goals of teaching you a lesson in morality or lecturing the player with a political message, it’s only goal is to make you happy.
And there’s no other Nintendo properties you can say that about. Yep, I’ve covered literally every feel-good series by Nintendo. This video is ov-…
Oh wait, I forgot about Kirby-.
Ahhhh you thought I wasn’t gonna talk about Kirby, didn’t you? I could never forget the pink sphere of pure optimism. He’s THE cute Nintendo character.
I think the charm in Kirby is how simple he is. Look at the intro to Kirby’s Adventure. He’s a pink circle with two eyes, and blobs for feet and arms. Nothing more, nothing less.
And his games complement his cute aura. The story in a lot of Kirby games boil down to something as simple as “Oh no! King Dedede stole Kirby’s cake, better chase after him!” And along the way you’ll meet friends to help Kirby get back his sweet treat and save the galaxy. The cutscenes of Kirby interacting with his friends in The Crystal Shards on the Nintendo 64 are so adorable.
Awww look at him blush
And with the most recent entry in the series, Kirby Star Allies, it’s become even more wholesome. You can throw hearts at enemies and they’ll become your friend and fight alongside you. There’s something heartwarming about seeing Kirby team up with a Waddle-doo, Chef Kawasaki and a Knuckle Joe.
But the developers went a step beyond that. They made Kirby’s old friends and enemies recruitable and playable as well. You can have a team with King Dedede, Marx, and my boy, Bandana Waddle Dee. (please add him to smash) You can recruit so many of Kirby’s friends and foes from the past, this game really feels like a celebration of the series.
Unfortunately, I don’t like playing the Kirby games that much. I don’t think they’re very interesting mechanically. Yeah, there’s a lot of characters to play as and abilities to use, but just walking around the level isn’t as fun as it is in New Super Mario Bros or Donkey Kong Country. They have a lot more going on for them, movement wise.
That doesn’t stop me from enjoying the games though. I’ve completed a few Kirby games in my day, despite my lack of interest in the gameplay itself.
And for a while, I couldn’t really tell you why that was. After playing Rhythm Heaven for the first time somewhat recently, I realized how much the emotional tone of the game affected my perception of it. I liked Kirby almost wholly because of its cutesy design.
I appreciated the dark tone of games like The Last of Us in the past, but I never stopped to think of the appeal of having a purely optimistic and wholesome experience. Rhythm Heaven and Kirby helped me realize that there’s a space for games that radiate pure positive energy, to just put a smile on your face when you’re feeling down.