Best Multiplayer Second Place Third Place

Adventure Time: Explore the Dungeon Because I Don't Know! is much more than a licensed game with a silly name. Taking cues from classic multiplayer dungeon crawlers, the game provides a huge one hundred floor dungeon for players to explore together. The Adventure Time charm is present throughout the game. Enemies, locations, bosses, and more all come directly from the show. This includes many smaller and one-off characters covering the majority of the series. Each of the characters players can choose from has its own unique attack and characteristics, allowing a well balanced group, or some classic fighting over favorites. What's most impressive about the game is that it manages to be long and challenging without being overly complex. It's easy for pick up and play multiplayer with just a basic attack, sub-weapon, and dodge as the primary tools of battle.

Once players dig in past the easy first few sections, stats for each character can be upgraded, the sub-weapon selection becomes vast, and unlocked new characters add tons of variety to keep things fresh. Traps, status ailments such as one making characters hug each other, boss encounters every ten floors, and increasing hordes of enemies constantly keep players on their toes. It may not have an online persistent world with raids and deep customization, but Adventure Time reminds us of the simple joys that couch co-op RPGs did and can still provide. So, come on grab your friends, and travel to some distant lands with Jake the Dog and Finn the Human. The fun will never end!

As a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG, it would have been rather embarrassing for Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn if it didn't do well in this category. Fortunately for everyone involved, it succeeds quite well in providing a great multiplayer experience. While some quest content is restricted to single-player play, most of the real meat of the game is focused on forming groups with others, and FFXIV offers quite a nice range of ways to team up and have some fun.

It offers an organized "Free Company" guild system, informal "Linkshell" chatrooms, a Duty Finder for quickly building a random team to run through a dungeon, and a Party Finder for organizing a less random team for all kinds of content. It even surpasses many of its biggest competitors in this regard, thanks to the Level Sync and class changing features that let people play together regardless of level difference or the needs of the party. Sadly, no number of good features can really get rid of the fundamental problems brought on by playing with random Internet strangers, which prevents FFXIV from taking a higher spot. Still, running a dungeon with a good group is always fun.

Though Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate has the most compelling single player content the series has yet seen, it's still all about the multiplayer. The latest game does not disappoint, with a vast array of monsters to hunt, materials to collect, and weapons and armor to craft. A whole new higher rank of monsters has been added compared to the original version, so even veteran hunters will have plenty to tackle. Integration between the 3DS and Wii U versions of the game provides plenty of ways to play with other hunters, though online play is limited to the Wii U version. It's an incredibly deep and engrossing multiplayer experience, and partially due to this fact it can still be an extremely intimidating experience for newcomers. It's easy to see why Japan continues to be enamored with this challenging action RPG series.

by Michael Apps, Nathan Schlothan