Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker
Captain Toad’s puzzle-like gameplay first appeared as a mini-game in Super Mario 3D World. You played as the titular Captain Toad as you navigated small, obstacle-filled levels in order to collect stars. The catch was that you couldn’t jump. Your only way of being successful was moving around the camera to figure out how to get around everything and uncover secrets.
Like almost everything Nintendo puts out, it was simple but highly engaging. As you progressed, the levels grew to be more complex and included new obstacles as well as threats for Captain Toad to contend with. The best part was that the game wasn’t treated like an afterthought. It was a full-fledged game with power-ups and put Captain Toad at the forefront, no longer was he just going to sit in the background. The amount of creativity that went in was befitting of Nintendo and at less than full price (the game was released at $40), it was certainly a steal.
