Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker grew out of a handful of bonus levels in Super Mario 3D World and turned them into a standalone game that ranks among the console's most beloved surprises. Captain Toad carries a giant backpack, which means he can't jump at all. Each level is a small diorama, a compact box full of stairs, secret passages, and enemies that you can rotate freely with the camera while searching for the path to the star at the top. Without a jump, the platformer becomes a spatial puzzle where the main weapon is observation and getting the order of steps right.

On top of this foundation, the game piles on a surprising amount of variety. In one level you pull and push pillars with a touch on the GamePad, in another you ride a mine cart shooting turnips, another level goes underwater, or the whole box tilts depending on how you turn the controller. Every box hides three gems and one bonus objective that's only revealed after your first completion, so even a small level holds up for several playthroughs. The difficulty is gentle, and the game never punishes; it relies on the pleasure of noticing something that was in plain sight the whole time, just around the corner.

Visually it's a toy in the best sense of the word, with colorful materials, soft lighting, and depth of field that turns the dioramas into something close to a model railway. The music is cheerful, jazz-tinged, and has its own catchy central theme, which the hero happily hums to himself. Reviews received the game very well, praising in particular that it never pretends to be more than it is, and yet never repeats itself. Thanks to its smaller scope and lower price, it became one of the higher-rated titles in the Wii U catalog and later released on other platforms as well. Today it's the ideal relaxing game for short sessions that anyone can pick up, and at the same time a demonstration of how a single limitation — the inability to jump — can be turned into an entire genre of its own.