My first thought is - get indie games you love to play on PC so you can have them on the go - that’s one of the two best reasons to get a Switch; playing your favorite games in handheld mode. The other reason is exclusives like Fire Emblem, Mario, Metroid, Zelda, Smash, Animal Crossing, and the like.
Off the top of my head, games from the former category worth grabbing:
Invisible, Inc. Battle Brothers Fell Seal Darkest Dungeon Pathway
(Any) Steamworld game (Heist and Quest are my favorites) Spelunky 2 Hades Dead Cell Stardew Valley Into the Breach Into the Gungeon Undertale Hollow Knight
And etc.
For the second category, my favorites on the system (that I can’t play anywhere else):
Breath of the Wild Mario vs Rabbids Mario 3D + Bowser’s Fury Mario Odyssey Fire Emblem Three Houses Cadence of Hyrule Mario Kart 8 Metroid Dread Animal Crossing
and Etc.
Not every Nintendo first party is going to be for you, just like not every Sony or Microsoft first party game is everyone. So just go for the franchises based on the previous ones you enjoyed. If you enjoyed the previous 3D mario games, the new ones on the Switch (Odyssey and 3D World+Bowser’s Fury) sound like they are excellent. If you liked previous Mario Karts and haven’t played one in a while, it sounds like Mario Kart 8 is excellent. (I ran into the “haven’t played one in a while” problem, I loved Mario Kart 64, one of my favorite games on that system, but when I played Double Dash on the Gamecube, it felt like I was just playing the same game again; there was nothing necessarily wrong with that, but I’d already spent a lot of time playing it the first time). Zelda, I’m not sure about. Opinions are really split at Qt3 about that game. I got it anyway, to try it out for myself to see where I land on that one. Obviously if you didn’t like the Smash games, the new one isn’t going to change your mind. Same with Mario Party. So I’m staying away from those.
I use the Switch much like @Scotch_Lufkin – for indie games that are more convenient for me to play in short bursts in a portable / hybrid format, and for Nintendo exclusives.
If you’re looking for something different… might I direct you to this exhaustive thread on a Switch-exclusive Japanese train management sim? :)
I use the Switch for everything.
Indie games, new games, FPS, weird strategy games, old console games emulation, old arcade games emulation (with online, mostly cheat-free, leaderboards!), classic shmups, manic shmups, adventure games, picross, CRPGs, JRPGs, dungeon crawlers, puzzle games.
The only exception is flight simulators.
My 2.75 year old loves playing. Mario Kart is aces for this. There is auto steer and auto accelerate, and he loves playing against his siblings. He even plays by himself sometimes.
Animal Crossing, Lego games, and Zelda also are games he can dither about in and enjoy himself. Katamari Damacy is one I have for PS2 he also enjoys.
My 4 year old is really behind on learning language. A friend of mine with a 3 year old is saying his kid is behind too, and that his doctor is saying it’s one of the results of kids not socializing with other kids during this Covid year.
But anyway, all that is to say, when I watch things with him with language (like Sesame Street), he seems to want to imitate that and speak more. But he keeps finding these chick (baby chickens) shorts on his Amazon Kids tablet with no speech, and after watching those, he only wants to speak in nonsensical exclamations and grunts, just like in that cartoon. I wish I could find that fucking cartoon in the tablet and ban it.
Anyway, I was trying to picture most Nintendo games like Mario, and I think there’s very little English spoken in most of these games, so it wouldn’t be good to play it in front of him, it will only encourage him more to speak only in grunts and exclamations instead of learning a language.
Does Nintendo have any games in which characters speak English? Lots of it?
My 4 going on 5 year old was behind on speech. She’s actually improved a lot over the last year. We just got her in with a speech therapist, which has. been all over Zoom call. Its done wonders.
Actually, irony, my 2 year old seemed a little behind. When his older siblings went back to class in person, he actually started speaking more. The last month his speech has gotten much better.
I think this may largely be due to not being able to rely on his siblings for speech. All this to say each situation is different.
One thing we do is enforce words. If they want something they need to ask and use words. If they point and grunt I’ll tell them ‘use. your words’, and if they don’t I’ll walk away and let them cry. Its effective.
For the etcs, I’d add:
Xenoblade Chronicles 1 & 2
Astral Chain
Bayonetta 2
Monster Hunter Rise (though it’s coming to PC early next year)
Golf Story
Link’s Awakening
Zelda Skyward Sword HD
Pokemon Sword/Shield
and imminently, Shin Megami Tensei V (hopefully)
I’m sure there’s more I’ve forgotten, plenty of great stuff on Switch!
There’s a lot of great games mentioned in this thread, but most aren’t really suited for short-burst gaming. That said, one great thing about the Switch is that you can put the console to sleep without closing the game and then resume exactly where you left off, which should make the more epic titles manageable even when playing an hour or less at a time.
As far as specific games, I don’t think anyone has mentioned The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa, which rules and might fit the time constraints if you play it one in-game day at a time. Also, I’ve been enjoying playing rounds of the new Mario Golf—which take well under an hour—as a good ‘chill and decompress’ activity.
I actually didn’t know these games were available on the Switch. Maybe I should borrow my son’s device and check them out, been hearing about them forever.
Well FML. My Switch has had this issue for a couple weeks now, where it would stop recognizing the right joy con when it’s attached (I play 80% portable probably). No issues if I play with the joycons unattached.
Through mucking about with de-syncing the joycons, restarting the Switch, the steps Nintendo lists, it would eventually come correct. But I guess that stopped yesterday. Just won’t effing recognize!
So… the responsible thing would be a repair. The irresponsible thing would be buying an OLED Switch.
So can anyone recommend a service that pings me when an OLED Switch becomes available somewhere?
I’m going to reply to myself here because I often see people on this board tell others how AMAZING Steam is and how bad Nintendo is (along with Epic, Sony and/or Microsoft) with regard to “sharing” videogames.
The Switch works just like Steam. You can only play one game at any one time via your account. The slight difference being you can’t share your library of games (I assume) with other people on the same device if it’s not the primary device, but since only one person can ever be playing at any one time, that’s sort of moot anyway. Just sign into the main account on secondary devices and play the game. *shrug*
I know this now because I set up my account on a Switch Lite this weekend that I own alongside my TV-based Switch. Download games, download the saves (if needed) and it phones home to see if someone else is playing on a different device.
This really is the same as it works anywhere else for the most part, so despite all the claims it is somehow inferior or inconvenient or whatever, it is just fine. If you have three or more Switches in your house, then yeah, buy a cartridge, but even so everyone could have the primary Switch profile on their machine and use that one to play all those games as long as only one Switch is playing it at any one time. And again, that’s exactly how Steam handles this. I haven’t tried it on PlayStation lately, but I think that’s similar. If you want multiple users to play at the same time, you need multiple copies of games in 2021.
