The slightly obscure Nintendo DS title Cory in the House recently surged in popularity, driven by a meteoric rise in user reviews. As of January 15, 2026, it stands as the third highest-rated game on the review aggregate website Metacritic. It sits between Metal Gear Solid 3 (and a re-release of Metal Gear Solid 3) and right below Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, which holds number one.
So why did this boring, licensed shovelware title become an overnight sensation? Why do copies now sell for thousands of dollars? The internet remains a magical, unpredictable place.
The Era of Terrible Licensed Cash-In Games
Disney Channel aired Cory in the House from January 2007 to September 2008. This spin-off of That’s So Raven follows Cory Baxter and his father to the White House after his father accepts the job of Executive Chef to the President.
The show featured safe, relatable humor typical of its Disney-ilk, aimed at pre-teens watching after school. While the show earned decent ratings, production halted after lead actor Kyle Massey suffered an injury during a stunt. The 2007-2008 writers’ strike followed, forcing the show’s cancellation. Most people forgot the series, except for a growing fandom of anime fans on the then-new platform YouTube.
Cory in the House Claims the Title of Best Anime
Ironic appreciation for the show grew in early 2007 due to a YouTube video titled “Top 27 Anime Boobs.” The video used clips and the theme song to drive its jokes. This sparked a running gag that labeled Cory in the House as one of the best “anime” of all time. Community members frequently recommended the show to fans unfamiliar with the joke.
Around this time, the Nintendo DS game launched as a soulless shovelware title. Professional outlets ignored the low-effort release. The game sold poorly, making physical copies rare. The joke soon spread to the game itself. Fans wrote detailed, satirical reviews comparing the title to AAA hits like Bioshock or Red Dead Redemption.
The meme reached 4chan’s /v/ board, where the community rallied to game various search engines. They made Cory in the House the most requested strategy guide on GameFAQs. Eventually, the group swarmed Metacritic and pushed the game to the 4th highest-rated spot on the site.
Is the DS Game Even Good?
It’s bad, really bad.
Best described as a light adventure or stealth game with simple puzzles and mini-games, it was developed by Handheld Games, a studio known for quick, low-budget licensed IP titles.
A Kotaku interview with the studio’s lead technical artist Aiko Segawa revealed the game was made in just three months, mostly reusing assets and code from the developers previous game. The studio produced so many similar titles that Segawa had completely forgotten its existence until he saw his kids reacting to a speedrun of it. He described development as “hellish” and that at no point was anyone trying to make a video game that could even remotely be described as “fun”.
2026 – The Rise of Cory in the House
While the meme continued in small pockets of the anime fandom, the joke had mostly died out by 2010. For a long time, the world moved on from Cory in the House.
That changed when the indie French JRPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 swept the 2025 Game Awards. The title took the ceremony by storm and won a record-breaking nine awards. This constant praise caught the attention of the cynical side of the internet. These users saw “normies” falling in love with a genre that rarely gets mainstream attention.
In the days that followed, internet discourse about the title spread quickly, aided by allegations that some art in the final game was created by AI or that a French developed game shouldn’t even be categorized as a JRPG. As usual, review bombing the title became a common way for gamers to express their irritation at the game. However, site admins on metacritic quickly countered by removing low effort reviews. Meanwhile, fans of Clair Obscur countered by leaving positive reviews. The discourse quickly added review counts to the game, a metric that metacritic uses to determine where the game should be placed in the rankings, and eventually the back and forth boosted the game to the number one spot on the site.
Those against Clair Obscur pivoted onto a new strategy: they would boost another title until it displaced Clair Obscur. Due to its popularity in the 2000’s, Cory in the House became the prime candidate as it was still relatively higher on the ranking list. And it was a game so dumb that everyone could appreciate the gag.
Does it Mean Anything?
In 2026, a terrible game based on a forgotten TV show—which was never rebroadcast due to the lead actor’s legal issues—is about to become the highest-rated game of all time. You shouldn’t spend hundreds on a physical copy, but it remains a fascinating relic of a time when the internet was funny for the sake of being funny.
Ultimately, this experience reveals a truth about user-generated reviews. While we often look cynically at professional reviewers, most critics want to give an earnest impression of their experience. In contrast, nuance is not in the cards today. Hive-mind groups can easily take control of these tools and weaponize them to fit an agenda. At the end of the day, though, I am happy to see Cory in the House take its place in video game history.