Kotaku’s Weekend Guide: 4 Great Games We Can't Wait To Get Back To

Play it on: PS5, Switch, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Playable”)
Current goal: Defeat the Great Dinosaur Kacchindonga

The Patapon games on PlayStation Portable are the kinds of things they don’t make anymore, in part because dedicated gaming handhelds are now a thing of the past. There’s just not enough money in paying a studio to develop an exclusive trilogy of bespoke rhythm strategy RPGs for your under-powered portable hardware nowadays. Which is a shame. Making that fact sting a little less is being able to finally enjoy the first two Patapon games on modern platforms in HD. New generations need to know what they missed out on.

The bold, simple art style really pops and the music is even better than I remember it. If you pick up the collection, you should skip right to Patapon 2, which is essentially a beefed up and expanded Ultimate Edition of the first game, unless you’re a diehard fan and want to squeeze every last hour of drum-thumbing goodness out of both games. Grinding hunts to upgrade your little armies and take down tanking bosses with perfectly executed marching medleys still hits. Even if you don’t plan on playing it at all you should buy it so we might someday, at long last, get Patapon 4. Of course, we sort of already are. Original designer Hiroyuki Kotani is making a spiritual successor called Ratatan and it’s coming to Early Access later this month. — Ethan Gach

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Survive

MGS3 is a good game. It’s a great game, even. There, I said it. Even though constantly changing my camo and dealing with nature in this game really tests my patience, it’s still the kind of stealth challenge that could summon me to my ruin. And even though this story, I dunno, ain’t my thing, goodness if it isn’t entertaining. And while the Master Collection’s version may not feel like the MGS3 I played in the ‘00s, it, and MGS3 broadly, still has that alluring Metal Gear magic.

Read More: Playing Metal Gear Solid 3 Without Pressure-Sensitive Buttons Is Giving Me Literal Phantom Pains

There’s a remake of this classic title arriving next month, and I’m really interested to see what MGS3 can be in 2025. I’ve a feeling folks might find the game harder than they might remember it. You can really draw a line from MGS3 straight to Death Stranding. Managing battery meters, suppressors that wear out, needing to constantly tend to your inventory, what you’re wearing, what’s in or out of your backpack, dealing with stamina—MGS3 was doing this stuff long before Death Stranding was a baby in a pod.

So to wrestle once more with a game that’s often left me feeling very prickly, and to get a dose of the original’s magic before the remake, I’ll be jumping into the fictional Russian jungles as Naked Snake yet again. — Claire Jackson

Play it on: Switch 2
Current goal: Indulge in another dad game

I bought Donkey Kong Bananza on day one, but I haven’t booted it up yet. I got distracted, okay? Cyberpunk 2077 got a new photo mode update, and you think I wouldn’t reinstall that shit and spend hours doing a gay little photoshoot across Night City? Now that I got that out of my system, I’m going to see what Donkey Kong and the young Pauline are up to. I’m ready to put my Switch 2 through its paces. I’m gonna break shit, I’m gonna make shit. I’m gonna eat some bananas, probably. I had to have paid half a grand for this thing for something, right? — Kenneth Shepard

Play it on: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, Switch 2, Windows PCs (Steam Deck: “Verified”)
Current goal: Discover what the hell this game is

What a wild time to be a gamer of my age. Donkey Kong and Pac-Man were two of the first gaming icons I could recognize as a kid. I can still remember the distinct music and sound effects of their original outings filling the smoky, neon-lit air at the arcades of my youth. And this week both of these legends, now in their 40s, got brand new games. I’ll definitely be playing Bananza as well but I have a pretty good idea of what Bananza is. The thing about Pac-Man’s new outing, Shadow Labyrinth, is that it looks so different from your typical Pac-Man game. That’s neither inherently good or bad—I’ll never forget 2006’s Bomberman: Act Zero giving its beloved cartoonish hero and charming gameplay an “edgy” makeover, to disastrous results. But at the same time, I’m very open to shakeups of the Pac-Man formula. I consider 2007’s Pac-Man: Championship Edition and its 2010 follow-up, Pac-Man: Championship Edition DX to be masterpieces. And succeed or fail, it’s clear that Shadow Labyrinth is, like those games, trying something new.

I’ve deliberately avoided reading anything about it or watching any recent trailers because it’s rare that I get to go into a game having little knowledge of what to expect. Can Pac-Man still surprise me, more than 40 years after we first met? — Carolyn Petit

And that wraps our picks. Happy gaming!