A single game is all it takes, with apologies to Dua Lipa: it can open up entire new hobbies or be the title that finally makes you realise how good a single genre can be. The most obvious candidates here are sports titles, because you’d be surprised at how good some are.
For example, my eyes were opened to the fact that not even the far right cared about my career after they petulantly refused to send me a single death threat after I wrote an article praising female athletes and EA Sports FC 24. More seriously, I have spent hours reading about ancient Chinese history and that’s thanks to the Dynasty Warriors series.
I would make a joke about what Grand Theft Auto made me do, but I’m too scared of Jack Thompson (editor’s note: did you really need to link that?)
The point is, by playing one game you can end up doing something you’d never thought; a gateway into a whole new world you never thought you’d end up interacting with. So without further ado, let’s begin.
1. Mario Tennis Power Tour: Tennis
A game that seems to have gone underrated, but yes, this big ol’ beating heart of mine pumps for tennis as much as gaming and this is the finest example of a great sports title. Released for the Game Boy Advance back in 2005, this is a low-key pick for the game that most needs to be added to Nintendo Switch Online.
It’s just a tennis RPG, made by Camelot, the creator of Golden Sun, it doesn’t even feature Mario until very late into the story. Yet it doesn’t need to, it’s a fun RPG in which you happen to mainly play tennis. The mechanics are really solid, the moments which dip into fantasy are obvious and it’s just a fun experience. It’s great on the tennis front, the RPG format is inspired and it’s comfortably the best game based on the sport that I’ve seen.
The story is very grounded as well, I can see how this would inspire players to check out more of the professional circuit. Unfortunately, this writer is too poor to afford any of the more recent tennis games like Top Spin, although Virtua Tennis was a solid franchise back then.
Yet if there’s a game to make you want more of tennis, it’s Mario Tennis Power Tour.
2. Final Fantasy X: JRPGs
This article isn’t about the best games, it’s about the least flawed. If you’re trying to get someone into something new it isn’t necessarily about the highest peaks, it’s about finding the games with the fewest elements that might put someone off.
X is easily the title in the Final Fantasy series that ticks that box. The graphics on the remastered versions hold up, so does the battle system and it’s a shame we didn’t get more of this style in the series. The story is an utter classic and yes it’s the hardest to criticise. VII has the graphics issue, the Remakes have the problem whereby it helps to have an understanding of the original, XII is complicated (it’d require an essay) while XVI is perhaps too dark and gritty for some. Having said that, I’d argue that the peaks of all of those games are higher than X’s.
If people prefer a more action JRPG approach, then I could have written almost the same entry about Tales Of Vesperia.
3. Bloodstained – Ritual Of The Night: Metroidvanias
Another genre I love to pieces, even if I find it hard to write about at times. It’s generally pretty niche, even if the likes of Hollow Knight have done admirably well to try and shift that. I could have picked a lot of titles here but Bloodstained gets the vote for the same reasons that a lot of fans might have found it tiring.
This was a game made by former Castlevania series producer Koji Igarashi, so he effectively made a tribute to what makes the genre so good. None of it is all that original, but it feels like a greatest hits title, which is why it gets the nod. It incorporates the best ideas from the best games, the graphics are great, the story does enough which the genre can honestly be poor with at times, and again all the great ideas are here.
Series veterans might not like it, again they’ve seen pretty much every idea here in different games, but for a first timer this is your game. I hope they make a proper sequel to this, it had everything I love about the genre.
4. Dynasty Warriors 8 Xtreme Legends Complete Edition: Warrior-Style Games and History
Okay, so this is a two-in-one entry, but both involve recommending the same game, well not quite but you’ll see what I mean. The genre has had a lot more attention since applying the formula to different series and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
a. The Warriors: One Versus 1000 – Genre
In terms of the genre, this will be different if you have a major attachment to any of the numerous series it’s crossed over with. Hyrule Warriors didn’t do enough for me, despite being a fan of both series, but it pushed the genre to a wider market. Fire Emblem Warriors is great but again, the ‘universes merging oh wow’ story had got old at this stage. Samurai Warriors, the Sengoku-era-focused sister series of Dynasty, struggles with a lack of English voice acting thus making the story much harder to follow in battles, which is more of a pain for gameplay than you’d think.
So Dynasty Warriors 8 (no, please, spare my fingers, you can read the full title above) gets the nod. It’s a great compilation with a tonne of content, English voice acting and I feel like starting with the original series gives an appreciation when seeing the later series applied to the style of gameplay.
b. Chinese/Japanese History
My 11-year-old self would be pretty happy that this was the subheading, yet he still loved the history. There’s a reason that Romance of The Three Kingdoms era in China and the Sengoku era of Japan have been covered so much by so many different games, books and films over the years.
The stories that underpin them are incredible. With Dynasty Warriors 8, you have a very wide telling of a story that covers not far off 100 years. It has the twists and turns that deserve its legacy and Dynasty Warriors 8 is the most thorough telling of the story that they’ve done.
The one asterisk here is that the original Samurai Warriors is the best for the Japan history. It had a dark and gritty tone that later titles failed to match. In fact, it’s telling of the Seige Of Osaka battles are still, tonally, the best battles the series has ever produced. The later games feel reluctant to delve into that level of hopelessness which made them so memorable.
5. EA Sports FC 24 (FUT Mode): Learning About Football
So another sports one, but bear with me. This mode effectively inspired my piece from a long time ago for one simple reason: by getting into it, I learned an absolute tonne about female players. Having done a season sometimes reporting on one Women’s Super League team some years ago I already knew more than most, but this mode is an incredible learning tool.
See, it’s like a Pokemon game but with cards representing players. You either earn them in challenges or build up coins through playing games to buy them to strengthen your teams. Players work best with people from either the same country or the same league and club. So to get the best team you need to know the best players of those three categories.
EA Sports are also usually pretty spot on with their evaluations. So effectively you accidentally end up teaching yourself all about who the best players are for each club, country and league, which makes it so much easier to go along to a game in real life because you’ve already done your homework.
Out of all of these entries, this is the best example of accidentally teaching yourself. It’s brilliant.
6. Call Of Duty Black Ops Cold War*: First-Person Shooters
Since getting into the franchise in 2020, with 2019’s Modern Warfare, this is easily the best title I’ve played. The modes it has online, which is honestly the only place you’ll go to, are the perfect mix of silly and serious. Getting murdered too quickly? Fine, pretend to be a box on Prop Hunt. Want to just cause anarchy? Well then go and play Sticks ‘N’ Stones and howl with laughter as you reset the leader’s score with seconds to go. The serious shooting mechanics are brilliant, as are the selection of levels.
* This has one big problem, as while I played this title long after the next two titles in the series had been released, it does have the issue of how many people play it. I haven’t in a while, but then this is comfortably my most-played title on any PlayStation console ever so I don’t know if the playerbase is still worth it. That’s a damn shame, because no other subsequent Call Of Duty has matched the sense of fun this game had. That’s the asterisk, and I will pray that the upcoming Black Ops title quickly addresses the silly element quickly.
7. Kirby Air Ride: Kart Racers
This is the game that most needs a remake from the GameCube era, sorry Smash fans but it’s true. This was the peak of kart racing games and it isn’t close. Three modes, all of them outstanding. Top Ride was like very old racers, with the whole course on one screen and often very silly, Air Ride your standard Mario Kart-esque stages and City Trial, which is the racing form of Smash Run from Super Smash Bros 4.
Every mode stood out and had a lot to unlock, Air Ride was a brilliantly fun twist on typical racing while City Trial should have seen the explosion of a new genre of racing. You race around a City, try to pick up new karts or power-ups, and explore while wonderfully maddening events play out, all with the end goal of winning the final game after the end of exploring the city. This was utterly brilliant.
8. Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Open World Games
Okay, yes, this is also a JRPG, but it’s my list and I make the rules here. You’re into the sixth post now reader, you’re ride or die with me now so deal with it.
This game is utterly massive and yes while it’s not quite an open world exactly, you are restricted a lot, I feel like any area you are given access to is utterly massive compared to most games so I’ll slot it here. I’m also a bit more vindicated here as I didn’t play Xenoblade Chronicles 1 or 2, nor do I intend to.
This game just works, it has a surprisingly dark story with naive characters who make sense within the tale. The fighting is a lot more interactive and full of action than the first two and the world itself is just stunning. I bought this on a whim, yet I couldn’t believe I was playing this on the Switch. Every nook and cranny is incredible to explore and you can easily get lost doing that instead of the story.
If you want an introduction to games with insanely large worlds then this holds your hand enough to gently enjoy it without ever being overwhelmed.