I can't be the only one who's loving Emerald Rush, right? It isn't perfect—I'm not sure I want to be doing math while playing Donkey Kong—but the way it makes you really pay attention to the levels is making me appreciate their design on a much more granular level. It's easy to miss how clever they are when you're blazing straight from one banana map marker to another, but when you take in everything they're doing, there are a ton of interesting little scenarios for you to experiment with. The level of attention I'm having to use to understand what's going on is making me appreciate the aesthetics so much more too. This game is gorgeous.

@Secret_Tunnel

Still haven't gotten to it! I hope to someday, but I want to replay the whole game at 100% first, which will probably be over the summer.

Started my third playthrough of this the other night. This is now my third-most-played Switch game, behind only BOTW and TOTK.

Emerald Rush really perfected this game for me. Advanced movement tech and the upgraded sonar trivialize the level design. You can roll-jump-roll-punch your way past any interesting obstacle and beeline straight to whatever collectible is on your map. Even through walls! But if you want to master Emerald Rush, you need to actually understand the puzzle of how these environments fit together, and it turns out the solution is absolutely beautiful. God-tier level design, maybe the best Nintendo's ever been.

Canyon Layer is interesting. It doesn't really introduce any new mechanics and it goes on for quite a while. It's probably the least interesting layer in the game. But there had to be a sprawling, vertical world full of secret caverns that you could really sink your teeth into at some point. It's a necessary inclusion.

Almost every other level is phenomenal. I was disappointed on my first playthrough at the simplicity of the chemistry engine ("snow cools fire again?"), but the way the game uses its different terrain types for physics interactions, on reflection, reveals truths about the core gameplay in a way more interesting way. I just played a challenge level last night—which I had previously ruined for myself by roll-jump-roll-punching past everything—where you need to dodge spinning lasers by jumping over them while you're on stone, digging under them while you're on dirt, clapping up a pillar to hide behind while on concrete, and quickly navigating between all these different slices of terrain by running over jump-inhibiting mud. It's a scenario that's way, way cooler than, say, making puzzles out of metal terrain that conducts electricity.

I won't quite call it the greatest game ever made. Bowser's Fury's interconnected structure and whimsical aesthetics resonate with me a bit more, and BOTW and TOTK were revelatory enough that I still give them top marks even as their flaws become more apparent to me as I revisit them. Bananza is grungy, claustrophobic, and yellow.

But it's a masterpiece, a masterpiece I tell ya, it totally integrated all the lessons from the past ten years of Mario and Zelda games and it's mind-boggling that it's apparently the junior team's project while the more experienced devs work on the next Mario.

@Secret_Tunnel

"But it's a masterpiece, a masterpiece I tell ya,"

Super agree. It is probably my favorite recent gaming experience just after BotW. I can't wait to do a second playthrough myself, to 100% everything, and I still haven't gotten Emerald Rush!

It will probably have to wait until wintertime again, as there's too much to do outside in the summer, but I definitely want to make it a point to play again.

Rolled credits on my third playthrough.

It's funny, after my first playthrough I described the game as "slippery," like the point of it was eluding me. Now I understand why: I hadn't engaged with the level design at all. Bananza sings when you understand its levels. When you actually pay attention to what the game is trying to show you, there's a lot there. A never-ending stream of whimsical moments. And I'll say it again: Emerald Rush is brilliant for forcing you to get it in the way any hard arcade game forces you to engage with its mechanics.

The only reason I don't officially put it in my Top 5 games ever, right behind OoT and BOTW/TOTK, is because I know I might be falling victim to recency bias. But honestly, my love of this game has been a slow burn, so I don't expect the trend to reverse.

I saw someone speculate today that gaming's "classical era" may be over. I'm not sure I agree, but Bananza feels like the perfect encapsulation and celebration of Nintendo's past 40 years. Where BOTW was a shaky first step into unknown territory, Bananza is the refined pinnacle of Mario's past.