![]() Nintendo has form in this area, over and above Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. From the tactile yoink of pulling up turnips to the following of complex paths to the discovery of a plethora of hidden areas, every little motion, every angle feels deliberate, and every element of the level feels purposeful and precisely crafted. ![]() Restriction often breeds creativity, and Captain Toad has that in spades, elevating what could be an enormous, frustrating needle in a haystack to a taught, finely-honed game of hide and seek.įrom its very first level, functioning as a tutorial, showing you the ropes, it teaches you that you need to fumble around, run your fingers over its edges, to shift your perspective to find the game’s secrets. Perhaps it was a limitation of the development of the game, or maybe it was a deliberate design decision, but Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker wouldn’t work in anything like a coherent fashion if it took place in large levels, or worse, an open-world environment. ![]() What makes Treasure Tracker such a joy is the fact its levels are restricted to diorama format. And Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker – a “B” tier 2014 release for the maligned Wii U, given new life on the Nintendo Switch and 3DS in 2018 – is one of the best. Ultimate, some of the best Nintendo games are actually found in the “B” tier, with Kirby, Yoshi, Luigi’s Mansion, and Paper Mario. For all the grandeur of Breath of the Wild and the scope of Super Mario Odyssey and the remarkable longevity of Mario Kart 8 and the sheer ridiculousness of Smash Bros. But in many cases, video games make the best dioramas of all.ĭon’t believe me? Consider Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. It’s not something you’d think would translate well to video games, their environs sandwiched as a thin layer, compressed between light source and glass. There’s universal power in a good diorama, then, in the ability to rotate, and lean in, and snoop, and nudge, and look under, and peer behind. It was a strangely unifying moment for an island that doesn’t tend to get along, making another, smaller island out of ordinary household waste like tissue boxes and toilet roll tubes. And for a glorious few months in 1993, children’s TV institution Blue Peter instructed the nation in making a papier-mâché diorama of Tracy Island from Gerry and Sylvia Andersen’s Thunderbirds. The nerds of this nation are no stranger to model making, gathering around their altars of felt grass and sponge trees, of model railways or tabletop campaigns. That doesn’t mean we can’t be fond of a good diorama, mind. We do have school houses with ridiculous names, though. (While we’re at it, Americans, we also don’t have swim teams, letterman jackets, cheerleaders, pep rallies, or any discernible school spirit of any kind. We know of them, sure – American media has made certain of that, with everyone from Lisa Simpson to Eleven from Stranger Things making their little shoe box scenes – but they’re just not something that happens in our schools, generally speaking. It might surprise our American readers, but we don’t really make dioramas at school in the UK. From Bad North to Captain Toad, from Townscaper to Tunic – why do video games make the best dioramas? ![]()
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