If you have not already listened to this category’s podcast, these are the final results, so this will spoil the course of the discussion on that podcast! Be warned!
The Winner
Weapon Schools (Rise of the Ronin)
Look. I wrote a whole three paragraph version of this before talking about, like, Absolver and Virtua Fighter and Master of the Flying Guillotine and so on. But really, I was putting a lot of words to the very simple appeal of the weapon schools in Rise of the Ronin. You know that part in the Princess Bride where Inigo and Westley are fighting, and they’re talking about the various swordplay techniques they’re using and how they counter each other?
“You’re using Bonetti’s defense against me, ah?” “I thought it fitting, considering the rocky terrain.” “Naturally, you must expect me to attack with Capo Ferro!” “Naturally, but I find Thibault cancels out Capo Ferro, don’t you?” “Unless the enemy has studied his Agrippa- which I have!”
It’s that scene turned into a gameplay system with nine primary weapon types and forty-seven schools across those weapons in total. What else do you want?
-Six
The Runners-Up
Weather (Death Standing 2)
I have never been a very long-term planner. Call it the ADHD, call it the depression, call it the chronic illness that has a bad prognosis (and in regards to which I have been extremely lucky!), or probably call it all three, but if you look out more than six months in my future I can’t see anything. It feels fake, speculative fiction rather than the life I will have. This happens to me in games, too: I can set some goalposts for things I want to achieve, but I can’t draw a big plan out. My brain rebels against the task of setting that much of the future in concrete.
Is it mere validation, then, that I enjoy systems like Death Stranding 2’s weather so much? Draw a route from A to B, with detours based on the terrain, dodging known bandit territory, and still the weather will lay you low. Climb a mountain, and a blinding snowstorm will blow you off course- literally, pushing you away from your intended course. Plan on fording a river only for it to overflow, surging with a vicious current ready to hurl you downstream. And the gate quakes… well. I don’t care what you had in mind, when the ground beneath your feet without warning turns to paranormal tar, with otherworldly beasts surging out of its depths bearing a clear and unflinching animosity, the plan is null and void.
“No,” I guess is the answer. It’s not just that it validates me for failing to make a plan. It’s that the truest form of a game is found when it asks you to come up with a new answer to its questions. In improvisation, with scripts torn away, we find the heart of what the gameplay systems can show us.
-Six
The Grand Bazaar (Story of Seasons: The Grand Bazaar)
I remember growing up frequently visiting the Farmer’s Market in Southern Maryland, and I had not realized this aspect of farming was just not present in many farming games I have played. Riffing off of the designs of the original Harvest Moon release, you simply placed your crops into a big dumb wooden box and got you money at the end of the business day. This is fine for a SNES farming game accidentally inventing a new genre, but in 2025 there is room to grow.
While Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar is technically a remake of the DS title, it makes so many changes that the Switch release is functionally a new game. At the center of it is the eponymous Grand Bazaar, where you cannot just drop your wares off in a box- you can flip some things to vendors but your big money maker is the Saturday market where you gotta sell your stuff. It’s a mechanic that informs so much of the core game that to list all the ways would be dizzying, but the main point is such: you feel so much more like a farmer in a community in ways previous games could only gesture towards.
There are shortcomings which hold the system back a bit, but there is an untapped potential in such a simple system. A proper follow up to this game with more nuanced selling mechanics would be welcome, but in the meantime it provides a very solid foundation to build a charming game off of.
-Kyrie
Duels (Dynasty Warriors Origins)
For a reboot that’s all about taking the original’s pacing and turning it up several notches, the duels in Dynasty Warriors Origins are a fantastic system. Rather than treating mid-level bosses like they’re simply officers with a larger health bar and an army surrounding them, duels are quick, one-on-one affairs that treat the fight’s momentum as both fighters’ health. Winning a duel results in a flashy execution from Ziluan, and the assortment of soldiers circling you all fly back, as if the finishing blow was badass enough to send a literal storm their way. And once all is said and done, you’re right back on your horse, full-on sprinting to rescue the next officer in trouble. After all, Ziluan only knows one speed!
-Jen
That’s it for Day One of the Gimmick Awards 2025! We’ll be back tomorrow with Six’s Best Of 2025 article, and then our Best Toolkit category on Thursday- plus three more weeks of Awards besides. Please stay tuned!
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