Adamsburg
The whole Animal Crossing series is about building a new life and a place to "stay".
Aimūlli
Živena, also known as Živa, is a goddess of life and fertility in Slovak and Slavic folklore. I thought she had a passing resemblance to Culdra, the goddess of the Culdcept series. I picked the first (Japan-only) 3DS game because Culdra's on the cover, and it's the only game in the series that was unquestionably published by Nintendo.
Arirang
Rocketman. Rocket = Space Launcher.
Also a good way to give representation to some of Nintendo's obscure and forgotten early arcade games.
Bagrovor
Sakura
Momoko, simple enough soundalike pick. I knew right away when I saw the title that I would be looking among some Japan-only deep cuts. They confirmed before Moisantia by the way.
Balearica Island
Couldn't resist the irony of "a good day" being represented by the game about Conker having a bad day. Not truly published by Nintendo by the way, except in Australia, but it felt fair given Rare's closeness to Nintendo in that era.
Begonia
Nova = star phenomenon, felt thematically appropriate. I also thought the weird animal mask guy in the music video looked kinda like Peppy, the rabbit character from the game.
Belvist
I had already assigned Eternal Darkness to the entry Belvist confirmed at first, which fit even better (Miloš can reveal what it was if he wishes). But I kept it since it still worked pretty well with the change to a haunted mansion song, since that's basically what happens in the game (albeit less ghosts and more Lovecraftian horror).
Biflovatia
Boombox, chick chick
BOOM.
I also love the obscurity of the tons of bits-browser games, couldn't resist using it when I could.
Bigicia
Leyla
Blue,
Blue Storm.
Calypso
The music video's theme of diving and swimming in the ocean worked well with Octopus, and I wanted to get a token Game & Watch game in somewhere.
Cherniya
Tsunami = Disaster.
Comino
One of the main characters of the game is "Freya", just like the singer.
Cydoni-Gibberia
Funk/Funky
![Cool :cool: :cool:](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7)
One of my favorite deep cuts too, a game featuring the mascot of the Nintendo Power magazine in the US.
Dalisska
Should be clear if you paid attention to the entry, Olivia feeds on dogs to stay in the corporeal world. I know it's dark, but it was the obvious choice.
Doire
Aside from both the game and the artist containing "hammer", the game was literally known as "Hammerman" internally during development, like the first word of the band. I know David's disappointed about getting a cancelled game (I thought it was a cool deep cut, and I had a plan for how to deal with it in the semi results had it qualified), so if I had to pick something else, let's go with Vermin on Game & Watch.
Effiland
In Snipperclips, you solve puzzles by cutting out shapes from objects and your friends, basically "erasing" those bits from them.
Emsfrynt
Dora, Pan
dora.
Endórë
Song title means "Sweet Symphony". A song about music, a game about music, fairly straightforward pick.
Fervorosia
Visiting the four "elemental lighthouses" is one of the main objectives of the game.
Griffin Empire
Tilt 'n' Tumble.
Halito
"Ocean", naturally. I also thought the game title captured the feeling of the music video very well.
Insomnéa
"Wild girl" (or woman rather) might be used to describe Bayonetta herself.
Joseyeon
Doshin the Giant is a game in the god simulator genre, where you usually play as a large and/or omnipotent being to help (or terrorize) the "people of god".
Kadis
"Expresso" is a character in the Donkey Kong series, an ostrich animal buddy. Donkey Kong Land was his second appearance, and I picked it over Country solely for the sake of OG Game Boy representation.
Kamandé
The song is from Nightmare (also known as Atmosfear), a board game that incorporated VHS tapes that would be playing during the session. In Spirit Camera you hunt ghosts using the 3DS's AR camera function. They're both cross-media horror games.
Kordavian Islands
It's a traditional Mexican song, so I picked the game for its Aztec-inspired aesthetics, a different kind of Mexican tradition (although one is of course more indigenous than the other).
Lacrea
Digital Native,
Digidrive.
MatiMati
Song title means "The Noble Savage", a description I thought could be very loosely applied to Donbe, the blue-haired main character who looks like a caveman. Very much a stretch, but it let me slot in a Disk System game somewhere.
Moisantia
Pit, the main playable character of Kid Icarus, is an angel.
Mormadorei
Telenova,
Teleroboxer.
New Acadia
The song is about the singer's encounter with a woman in Rio who lived on "Madureira Street". The step wasn't far from that to the "meeting people on the street" aspect of StreetPass.
New Bander State
Call in the Wind, Wind Waker, should be fairly self-explanatory. I had a hard time deciding if NBS or Redwood Republic should get this game, but finally landed on NBS because the song and game titles felt more synonymous.
Öösingimäed
Title means "The Bathers". The Stafy/Starfy series is full of underwater creatures, who I guess you could say are always taking a bath. It's also a very cartoony/cutesy game and I thought it fit well with the happy and playful atmosphere of the song.
Orangualia
The main character of the game, Lip, wields a magic flower wand called Lip's Stick (famous as an item in the Smash Bros. series). It looks a bit like a daisy, so you might be able to call it a "magic daisy".
Oussou Empire
In the game, you have silhouettes of various shapes that you are meant to find by looking around a 3D space through different perspectives. The game pretty much asks "where are they?", which I figured is close enough to "who are they?" in the context.
Perryfornia
Alison Wonderland, Alice in Wonderland, but of course. One of a bunch of very weird Nintendo-published games on GBC based on properties such as Disney.
Pyreica
Wretches and Kings. WretchKings. Wrecking.
I do not count this as a Mario game for the sake of one-game-per-series.
Rahasia-Diati
Not that clear-cut, but Togepi as a character gives off "runaway princess" vibes, especially when escaping labyrinths as it does in the game. My first pick was the arcade game Sky Skipper, because of the word "sky" and how the game has you look for other runaway royals, but I changed it near the end because I wanted some Pokémon representation.
Redwood Republic
The most far-fetched of them all, and probably the last game that was decided. At the point when I was contemplating whether to give Wind Waker to RR or NBS, my alternate choice for NBS was an F-Zero game, because there's a world in the first F-Zero called "Death Wind", and NBS' song title sounds like it could fit in with F-Zero X's soundtrack (the track "Devil's Call in Your Heart" comes to mind). It was also one of the last few major Nintendo series I hadn't used yet, as well as a personal favorite that I really wanted to slot in. For that purpose I went with X on the N64 for the sake of console balance. When I ultimately decided NBS was more optimal for Wind Waker, I thought "what the heck, I can apply the same reasoning with RR for F-Zero X if I squint hard enough" and simply swapped them.
Reym-L-Dneurb
Song title means "It's the point of the sword", fairly close to the game's subtitle "Art of the Sword". I went with the European name "Hana Samurai" rather than the American "Sakura Samurai", because there was already a lot of sakura with Bagrovor's game and the nation Sakuralia.
Roseland
A key part of the game is Luigi going to sleep and Mario entering his dream world. Although I'm not sure the song actually suggests going to bed for sake of sleeping, I guess the connection is still fairly clear-cut.
Rumia
A very tricky one to pick for, but instead of trying to match the song meaning I simply thought The Lost Vikings would be funny to include overall, with the loose connection of having vikings for a traditional Swedish folk song. Okay, I maaaaybe broke the rule of basing it on entries and not nations a little bit here, since it felt apt to give Orian a Blizzard game (yes Anna, I considered giving you this one too). As mentioned in the semi results, not actually a Nintendo game, only connected by Nintendo doing a licensed distribution of the SNES version in Europe. I wanted to avoid using too many such games, but would allow a few if it felt appropriate or I ran out of other options.
Sakuralia
Rhythm Nation, Rhythm Heaven, the titles are pretty much synonyms. So obvious, it was probably the first one I picked.
Serenes
The song is from the PlayStation game Wild Arms, with a heavy Western-inspired theme. Wild Gunman of course has a very similar title and is also Western-inspired. Although the NES game is probably a lot more well-known, the original 1970s electro-mechanical arcade cabinet that inspired it was definitely the more tempting choice.
Šilček
"Tame". Taming, or domesticating, monsters is a big part of the Monster Hunter series. I picked the spinoff Monster Hunter Stories over the main games because it was published by Nintendo in most regions, while the series overall is mostly published by the developer Capcom. And hey, it looks cuter.
Sundfør
The song is from the action RPG game Genshin Impact, which started as a mobile game. Dragalia Lost was also a mobile action RPG (and so far Nintendo's only mobile game based on an original IP).
Svobodnia
Song title means "wave to me", at least according to some person on the internet who wrote a lyrics translation, I don't actually know Lithuanian. In the game you basically play minigames by waving your hands in front of the DSi console's camera.
Szimbaya Kingdom
Mostly picked simply for the general "rock" theme, but you can extend it to "and His Comets" being a nice parallel to "with the Band". Being a major classic rock song, it also doesn't feel far-fetched that it could be played in various bands' jam sessions.
Tamausia & Deltannor
Psychic (PSI/PK) powers play a major part in the Mother/EarthBound games. Not the same thing as psychopath, but the words are related. The games are also very trippy and weird, and kind of psychologically disturbing at points. EarthBound was picked over the other two for the sake of recognition, and using "Mother" for that song might've been taken the wrong way.
Tanoiro
Eu
Fui Eu,
Fūin no Tsurugi. Game is often translated as "The Binding Blade", but I went with the original title for the soundalike. Some extra justification with the titular sword having fire powers, and the music video containing pyrotechnics.
Tcher-Racoi
This one was a stretch. The song title means "doll", and the main character of the game, Marina, is a robot, I figured both are a type of artificial human-like objects. Marina also shakes her enemies, which I connected with the part in the music video where the singer is hanging by strings and shaken around like a puppet. Another game that is questionable if it belongs under the Nintendo umbrella, but they did publish it in all regions outside Japan.
Tír an Abhainn
The song and video has a kind of streetpunky attitude to it, and the lyrics showcase a conflict (even of it's just one person making petty, boastful digs at the other). I thought it'd fit well with a game that is all about pointless brawls between punks on the street.
Tonallán
Another soundalike. Ama
polas,
Polarium. I did look for something that could fit with poppies, but nothing really worked.
Trollheimr
Song title means "around holy mountains" (or rather it's about fells, mountains that go above the tree line). Mountains are, of course, often covered in snow (and snow features heavily in the video already), and the whole game is about scaling icy/snow covered mountains.
Tuzi
The game is a unique sports title with story elements, where you haggle (real money) with a dog in a baseball store to get the best deals on his mini games. The dog's children play a major part, and I thought "puppy sport" could fit well enough with "Cub Sport".
Tybalteva
Title means "pyramid of dew". I wanted something with pyramids for this one, but Nintendo doesn't have a lot of Egyptian-themed games aside from isolated levels and I wanted to save Ketzal's Corridors for Kordavian Islands. The game has a major desert theme, so I thought "it'll do", and I think it has at least one pyramid in it somewhere.
Ugaly
The titular Pikmin creatures are basically sentient walking flowers.
Utopolis
A helix, a spiraling shape, felt close enough to a "loop". The entry and the game also both have rather abstract aesthetics. I used the European title, because the American "Magnetica" obviously wouldn't work as well.
Vylkuzeme
Mostly just because both titles contain "The Last", I also kind of included it (and Emsfrynt, both games from Operation Rainfall) as compensation for not using a Xenoblade Chronicles game anywhere. Since the song is based on The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, an open world RPG, another RPG felt like the best choice. Also, The Last Story does have dragons!
Yaponesia
Song's called Echo, game's subtitle is Echoes, some slight Metroid tokenism, nothing more to it.