With the upcoming Switch 2 presentation, I've noticed a lot of people starting to get a bit reflective about their time with the original Nintendo Switch, and yeah, I get it. This wasn't my first Nintendo console, but it's definitely the one I've been the most invested in, and the fact that it's been around for a whopping eight years is truly impressive. So I wanted to look back on the Nintendo Switch, all eight years of it, and my relationship with it. The highs, the lows, and how I ultimately feel about the Switch going into the new console.
2017: I remember how hard it was to be a fan of Nintendo in 2016. They really weren't putting out much, to the point where that was when I really started to turn to indie games to get my gaming fix. It wasn't until near the end of the year when we got our first glimpse of the Nintendo Switch, and we really didn't know what to make of it at the time. It looked so fresh and cool, and some of the games they showed off looked exciting like the new Splatoon and 3D Mario games, but there was still this lingering fear after the Wii U era. Was the name too stupid? Was the concept too gimmicky? Would this be enough to save Nintendo? Or would it just be another Wii U?
In January, I woke up to a lot of Switch news, having slept through the pretty late Switch Presentation. There were so many incredible-looking trailers to games like Breath Of The Wild and Super Mario Odyssey, along with some cool new stuff like Snipperclips and a new Bomberman game. We learned about the IR camera, the HD Rumble, the return of motion and touch controls, it felt like this ultimate Nintendo system. At that point, I was fully on board the Switch hype train, and I just knew I had to get this thing day one. There was still a bit of fear that everyone would reject the Switch just like they did the Wii U, but it generally felt like the air around this console was a lot more positive. But little did we know that 2017 would end up being one of Nintendo's best years of all time.
The Switch launched with a pretty light launch lineup, but I still ended up getting four games right off the bat: Breath Of The Wild, 1-2 Switch, Snipperclips, and Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove. Despite its small size, I honestly think this was a really great launch lineup because it managed to check a lot of boxes. Breath Of The Wild was game that didn't really grab me much at first for how different it was from the other Zelda games I was used to, but it definitely did its job as this big open-world powerhouse that truly showed how much the Switch was capable of (and I'll talk more about it later). 1-2 Switch has like no content, but it was still a cute enough tech demo that showed off the console's quirkier features like the HD Rumble. Snipperclips was the big sleeper hit for me, being an incredibly fun, silly, and charming puzzle game that sold me on the potential the Joy-Con had for multiplayer. And while I already had Shovel Knight on the Wii U, being able to play it on a handheld with a much better screen was a real game-changer, and the new Specter Knight campaign absolutely ruled.
Another perk of the small launch lineup of the Switch meant that every new release felt like an event at the time, even the smaller indie games. Games like Fast RMX, Kamiko, Blaster Master Zero, the Wonder Boy III remake, and Snake Pass were given a much larger spotlight which is great since those are all awesome games. If they had come out now, with the Switch boasting one of the largest game libraries ever, they'd probably all get lost in the shuffle by comparison. But we eventually got a bunch more great Nintendo releases, each about a month apart. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in particular ended up being yet another one of the Switch's biggest system-sellers, being a pretty much perfect remaster of one of the best Mario Kart games, fixing all of its biggest issues like adding a proper Battle Mode and improving the roster slightly. I wasn't expecting it to be one of the best-selling games of all time, but considering I'm still playing it a decade later, I can't say it doesn't deserve it.
Soon after that, we ended up getting Splatoon 2 and ARMS. Splatoon 2 was yet another colossal banger from Nintendo this year, and got so many people into the series who didn't have a Wii U. While I did have the original Splatoon and I did enjoy it, it really was 2 that made me a rabid fan of the series, between its more polished presentation and campaign, wider weapon roster, the addition of Salmon Run, smoother stage cycle, and of course, the introduction of my beloved Off The Hook. ARMS, on the other hand, is often looked back on as a bit of a flop since it didn't make quite the same splash as Splatoon, but it did sell pretty well at the end of the day and has a lot going for it like its slick presentation, fun character designs, and unique Virtual On-inspired gameplay. However, I do think ARMS was a bit too hard to grasp to really hit it big as an competitive sport, and the fact that it was sandwiched between two of Nintendo's biggest competitive games of all time didn't help.
After that initial influx of games, 2017 did slow down a bit, but there was still a lot to love. We got some really great third-party and indie games Sonic Mania, Cuphead, and Hollow Knight, and Nintendo surprised everyone with a surprisingly great tactical RPG that crossed over Mario with the Rabbids. E3 that year was a joy, with Nintendo refusing to hold back with announcements of new Kirby and Yoshi games. And then, 2017 ended with two bangs: Super Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Playing Super Mario Odyssey for the first time was such a magical experience for me, I was only familiar with the linear 3D Marios so being able to explore these massive worlds with such freeform movement was such a joy. I didn't get Xenoblade Chronicles 2 since I wasn't as interested in the series at that point, but it did end up being the best-selling Xenoblade game and the argument can be made that XC2 is the game that helped elevate Xenoblade from a cult classic to a headlining Nintendo franchise. And the soundtrack is godly, like even by Xenoblade standards.
When looking back, 2017 wasn't even the most jam-packed year for the Nintendo Switch in terms of quantity, but it was perfectly calculated so that every game felt massive. I mean, Breath Of The Wild and Super Mario Odyssey are both once-in-a-generation games and they came out on the same year, and that's excluding MK8D and Splatoon 2 which are both top-tier games for me as well. The argument can be made that Nintendo blew their load too early, that no other year could possibly top the time we got so many mainline titles in their biggest franchises back-to-back like this, but I think this was necessary to make the Switch a success. There were a few stumbles along the way, the launch Switches had a few bugs, the menu UI was pretty poorly-received, and of course there's the infamous Joy-Con drift, but the sheer quality of the games we were getting more than made up for any hitches. At the time, it felt like the Switch was as good as gaming could ever get.
2018: 2018 was a much slower year compared to 2017, and is primarily known for its abundance of Wii U ports. Just to count, we got rereleases of Tropical Freeze, Treasure Tracker, Hyrule Warriors, and Bayonetta 1 & 2 all this year. It's actually kinda funny because in terms of pure quantity, Nintendo technically put out more Switch games in 2018 than in 2017, but when so many of them were ports and smaller titles, it didn't feel like as much, especially if you're like me and never owned a Wii U. Honestly, I do think some Nintendo fans were a bit harsh on this "Wii U port" era of the console. If you had a Wii U yourself, it's easy to overlook just how few people owned that thing. DKC: Tropical Freeze, Treasure Tracker, NSMBU, even Mario Kart 8 were all basically new games to like 95% of Switch owners. However, for my own personal experience, I can't deny that there were some dry spells this year.
Thankfully, as I've mentioned many times before, 2018 was a phenomenal year for indie games both old and new. Celeste, Iconoclasts, The Messenger, Yoku's Island Express, Minit, all stellar games that were still able to get a decent amount of recognition since the Switch was still somewhat new. But we also got some pretty big Switch rereleases like, oh I don't know, Undertale. If you were willing to branch out, the Switch still had so much to offer with its game library and it had only been two years. It also quickly became apparent that the Switch seemed to have this magical power to put a spotlight on games that probably would've gone under the radar elsewhere, and that especially applies to Nintendo's series themselves. That being said, I can't exactly say that was always a good thing. Enter... Kirby Star Allies...
So, I've talked about my thoughts on Kirby Star Allies and none of that has really changed. This is a game that was intended to be a big year-long anniversary event for Kirby fans specifically, stuffed to the brim with fanservice, lore drops, and playable characters from across the series. But since it was also the first mainline HD Kirby game and got released on the Switch at the peak of its hype, it was also experienced by a lot of non-Kirby fans who ended up hating it for its admittedly basic campaign. To this day, I still see people rag on it as one of the Switch's low points, and that does sadden me a bit because Star Allies has given me so much joy. Even during its fairly barebones launch, I loved Star Allies right. I loved the combat, I loved the ally team building, I loved the lore and characters, I loved all the fanservice, I loved the multiplayer, I loved the music, I loved the sidemodes like Guest Star and the Ultimate Choice, and I loved the Dream Friends. The hype cycle of learning about all the playable cameo characters and especially that free Heroes From Another Dimension was really exciting, it truly felt like a big anniversary celebration and a reward for sticking with the series all this time, and that whole year of getting invested in the ever-evolving story of Kirby Star Allies is a time I will remember very fondly. Like, there was a time period when KSA was straight-up my second favorite Kirby game, and while it has dropped quite a bit in my ranking since (it's now my least favorite of the modern games), it still offers so much that I can't help but look at it as a core pillar of the Switch's library.
Now onto less controversial topics, Nintendo Labo, I guess? Okay, so Nintendo's Switch lineup as a whole is somewhat lacking in the kind of wild, gimmicky experiments that populated the Wii and DS eras and as someone who grew up then, I do kinda miss them. But every once in a while, Nintendo did put out something that felt especially off the wall even by their standards, and a great example is the Nintendo Labo. These were these cardboard structures you could build and slot your Joy-Cons into to play specialized games with, like a fishing rod or a steering wheel. I actually got the first Nintendo Labo kit and it was fun for what it is, there's definitely a cool novelty of being able to control a game using a cardboard model, but it was pretty lacking in replay value as most of the games it came with were fairly simple and light on content. Still, I appreciate Nintendo Labo for how strange it was even if it didn't make the biggest splash, or at least not at the moment.
Around the middle of the year, we got Mario Tennis Aces which was... ehhh... Like, it's a fine enough arcade sports game and from what I can tell, a lot of people really vibed with how it expanded the mechanics of the Mario Tennis formula, but it was the first big Switch release to kinda let me down with its overall lack of content and polish. Aces would start the trend of Mario Sports games on Switch being pretty weak, but it was at least the best of the bunch. Thankfully, soon after, we got Splatoon 2's DLC campaign, the Octo Expansion, and it was amazing. If Splatoon 2 got me into Splatoon, then Octo Expansion was what made sure I would stay a fan. The tight and challenging level design that pushed Splatoon mechanics to their limits, the engaging world-building and character work, the jaw-dropping finale, the sleek 80s-esque aesthetic and phenomenal soundtrack, Octo Expansion is easily the high point of the Splatoon series up to this point and frankly manages to surpass just being a DLC campaign, instead feeling like one of the Switch's biggest releases of the year all on its own.
Oh yeah, but then we got the launch of Nintendo Switch Online this year and it's still very divisive. And like, I get it. The online functionality of the Switch was not especially great, and while the ability to play retro games was a decent incentive, the launch lineup of NES games was very slim and the slow drip-feed strategy meant it took a while for NSO to feel legitimately worth it. It is great to have a lot of Nintendo retro classics on my Switch to play whenever I want and NSO did help me discover a lot of gems I wouldn't have otherwise noticed, but at this point, I have other methods I'd rather use to play older titles. So yeah, my take on NSO remains pretty mixed. It's cheap enough compared to the XBOX and Playstation and I still feel like I get enough perks like the Game Trials, pfp customization, retro titles, and of course the basic online support that I don't mind paying for it, but it definitely stands up as one of Nintendo's worse-handled features during the Switch era.
Near the end of the year, we got Super Mario Party which I honestly kinda liked. After a rough patch for the series, this game was NDCube's pledge to take Mario Party more seriously and bring back the original formula and by all accounts, they did succeed for the most part. It introduced some interesting if unbalanced new mechanics like the ally system and character dice, it had a stellar lineup of minigames that utilized the Switch's hardware excellently, it boasted an impressively polished presentation, came with a ton of fun sidemodes, and yes, it did bring back the classic gameplay once and for all. There was one problem though and it's that the boards are kinda crap. Super only came with four boards, all of which are really small and simple which meant that it ended up feeling more like a baby-step in the right direction than a fully confident leap. With further sequels improving on Super in so many ways, I feel like people tend to pass this game off nowadays and I get it, but it'll always have a place in my heart (especially for having Sizzling Stakes, the greatest minigame of all time).
But after this fairly uneven year, Nintendo still made sure to end 2018 with a bang: Super Smash Bros Ultimate. The hype cycle for this game was insane, it was being pitched as the ultimate Smash Bros game, bringing back every prior character and almost every prior stage, and adding so many more. It had a Story Mode, it had smoother gameplay, a better menu, a massive pool of customization options, the list goes on. And yeah, I'd say it lived up to the hype. Smash Ultimate is easily my favorite Smash game to this day, it perfected the Smash Bros gameplay, it has so much content that makes it insanely replayable, and the sheer amount of fanservice for all the franchises it's representing is staggering. And that's not even getting into the DLC hype cycle where we ended up seeing characters like Banjo-Kazooie, Minecraft Steve, Sora, and even indie darlings like Shantae, Cuphead, and Sans as Mii Fighter Costumes. There was a good few years where this was right up there with Mario Kart and Kirby Star Allies as one of my most-played Switch games, and I always whipped it out whenever I had friends. Nowadays, I haven't really been playing Smash as much, it feels like everyone I know is more into the competitive scene than I am, but this is still a game I'll always appreciate.
So overall, 2018 was a bit weaker than 2017. It had less truly stellar hits and a few more flops, but the Switch hype was still there in full force and between Star Allies, Octo Expansion Smash Ultimate, and the countless indie gems coming out, I was still eating better than I ever had been with the Wii U.
2019: 2019 hit the ground running with a pretty exciting Nintendo Direct, which announced a new Mario Maker, a Link's Awakening remake, and revealed a bunch of exciting E-Shop games like Tetris 99 and Boxboy & Boxgirl. Honestly, this year as a whole was probably the year Nintendo was most active in terms of putting out smaller E-Shop releases. Tetris 99 while not my thing personally was obviously a massive hit for its chaotic and inventive take on the formula, Boxboy & Boxgirl was a great HD culmination of the series, HAL also eventually released Super Kirby Clash which was a solidly improved sequel to the 3DS' free to play Team Kirby Clash Deluxe, and most exciting of all, we got a Nintendo-indie collab in the form of Cadence Of Hyrule which was such a cool fusion between 2D Zelda and Crypt Of The Necrodancer. While I felt the Switch's lifespan as a whole definitely could've used more small-scale projects like this, 2019 at the very least had no shortage of them.
The Nintendo Labo was also still trucking along as we ended up getting the pretty awesome Nintendo VR kit. This was the first time since the Virtual Boy when Nintendo would be experimenting with VR and while the final product felt more like a Google Cardboard than an Oculus, I still think this was the best Labo kit for a variety of reasons. The VR Kit game itself felt more robust, with more modes, a dedicated game builder, and an entire submenu with 64 little minigames to mess around with. But on top of that, several games like BotW, Odyssey, and Smash Ultimate got Labo VR support so there was actually a reason to use the Labo VR outside of its designated game. Alongside this, Nintendo also released Ring Fit Adventure which was a more adventure-focused exercise game coming off the heels of Wii Fit. I didn't get it myself, but it became a very big hit especially during the pandemic next year so I'm sure it was great.
In terms of the actual big releases, though, 2019 did start somewhat slow. The first thing we got was a pretty barebones port of NSMBU which I predictably did not get, and Yoshi's Crafted World. So this is another Switch game that I think gets a bit too much flack, it's not as good as Woolly World but it's still a really fun and inventive 2.5D platformer that ranks among the upper echelon of Yoshi games. Being able to toss eggs into the foreground and background adds a level of exploration that even Woolly World couldn't reach. There are certainly issues like the mid soundtrack and tedious 100%, but these aren't deal-breaking flaws by any means and I think as a whole, Crafted World is still a really charming and fun platformer that made for a good early game in 2019. A while after that, we also got Fire Emblem: Three Houses which ended up becoming the best-selling strategy RPG of all time, like it genuinely made a huge splash to the point that even I, hater of strategy RPGs, considered getting it. As far as Nintendo is concerned, Three Houses was the game of 2019 and its impacts both positive and negative can still be felt today.
But while everyone else was enjoying/debating the story of Three Houses, I got Super Mario Maker 2 which is mostly a great sequel to one of my favorite Wii U games. Sure, it lacked the Amiibo costumes but considering all the added mechanics and features like slopes and the 3D World theme, along with a very fun Story Mode and more robust online. Not having reliable touch-screen controls was a real shame compared to the Wii U version, and the level algorithm is frankly a lot worse in this one, but overall, this is still generally a step-up from SMM1 in my eyes. Around this time, we were also getting a lot of pretty neat third-party and indie games as well. Sonic and Crash both got kart racers, Armored Core and Ace Combat alumni teamed up to make a... pretty mid mech combat game in Daemon X Machine all things considered, Katana Zero and Pikuniku were both stellar in polar opposite ways, a Monkey Ball revival was on the way as was a genuinely good-looking Yooka-Laylee sequel, there was definitely no shortage of things to be excited about this year even if there wasn't really anything I was getting insanely excited about at that point.
However, the final stretch of 2019 did come with two of Nintendo's best games of the year back to back: Link's Awakening and Luigi's Mansion 3. The Link's Awakening remake is such a good reimagining of one of my favorite Zelda games, maintaining everything that made the original so powerful while adding in countless quality of life improvements, more content, a vastly expanded soundtrack, and a cute toy-box artstyle that was divisive at first but grew on pretty much everyone over time. As for Luigi's Mansion 3, it ended up being an incredibly fun adventure game that took all the best aspects of 2 and fused it with the structure of the first game making what felt like the ultimate Luigi's Mansion game at the time. It also boasts, to this day, the best-looking visuals on the Switch. LM3 still impresses me so much with its animation quality, it genuinely looks like a Pixar movie at times.
Sadly, 2019 ended with a bit of a whimper as the year's biggest game was Pokemon Sword & Shield. This was obviously a very successful Pokemon game financially and did end up becoming one of the console's best-performing games, but it's also easily my least favorite mainline Pokemon game. The limiting route and town design, bland and empty Wild Area, shoddy visuals, obnoxious tutorials, mindless difficulty, and very mid story make for a pretty mediocre game outside of a few positive elements like the character and Pokemon designs along with the soundtrack. Despite initially seeming like an exciting transition into full 3D for the series, the end product played it really safe in ways I found pretty disappointing. Alongside Sword & Shield, we also got the last Mario & Sonic game and it was... fine. It looks great and the story mode is really charming, but it was lacking in side content which leaves it in the middle of the pack for me. Better than Rio and Sochi for sure, but not on par with the series' best.
So overall, 2019 was definitely a packed and busy year. Between the many first-party games, E-Shop titles, and third-party and indie releases, this year had a lot more to think about. However, in hindsight, it didn't feel like there were as many truly impactful bangers as the last two years. My favorite game of 2019 was a remake of a Game Boy game rather than the big new entries of franchises like Mario, Zelda, Kirby, or Splatoon. 2019 was ultimately a consistent year, but I'd still look back on it as one of the Switch's weaker years.
2020: 2020 started pretty unassuming enough, as we ended up getting a pretty great remake of the first Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game early on along with having a new Animal Crossing game on the horizon. However, you know what happened next, a worldwide pandemic hit trapping us all in our homes and seriously disrupting the game's industry. As a result, 2020 was a pretty sporadic year in terms of game announcements. Nintendo didn't have any directs and instead announced stuff out of the blue which ended up leading to a lot of tough dry spells, and things would only get worse from there.
Thankfully, despite the pandemic, Nintendo started the year off strong with New Horizons which came out at the perfect time. Nowadays, Animal Crossing fans are pretty split on this game for its relative lack of content and focus on customization over being a town sim, but at the time, New Horizons was an absolute phenomenon that played such an important part in helping a lot of people deal with the pandemic, so I really can't look at the game as anything other than a big success. Personally, I really like the increased social aspects and the abundance of customization in New Horizons, it was a fun evolution of the Animal Crossing formula in a lot of ways and seeing the wacky island and house designs people would make was a joy. I did fall off of New Horizons eventually like everyone else, but that's more because I just can't commit to an Animal Crossing game in general. Still, I will always have a soft-spot for this one for coming at just the right place at the right time. The influence of New Horizons truly just usurps Nintendo itself.
Sadly, aside from that game, 2020 eventually revealed itself to be a pretty rough year for Nintendo. The fact that it didn't feel like we were getting games as frequently meant there were a lot of downtime that allowed some of the console's cracks to start showing. The competitive scene of several of Nintendo's games were going through quite a lot to put it lightly, more and more poorly-optimized ports were coming out and doing the Switch's hardware a disservice, it became very apparent that the Switch hadn't gotten any UI updates or even themes are several years, and Nintendo also tried a bunch of limited-time releases that got massively criticized for pretty good reasons. While I personally was still very much enjoying my Switch, it started to feel like the sentiment around the console was shifting a bit. The sense of hype that permeated 2017 and 2018 had worn off, and like a lot of things, the years from 2020 onward just felt a bit more innocent.
However, when I look back on 2020, I realize that Nintendo actually put out quite a lot of stuff to my surprise. Like with 2019, we were getting quite a bit of solid E-Shop titles. Some Nintendo employees put out the cute, free Jump Rope Challenge which is honestly one of the most charming things they've ever done. HAL made some more E-Shop games as well like Kirby Fighters 2 and a console port of Part-Time UFO. And of course, with Mario's anniversary that year, we also got stuff like the short-lived Super Mario Bros 35 and the strange Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit. Not all of these E-Shop games were bangers, but they did a solid job at filling up the space especially in the latter half of the year.
Around the midpoint of 2020, we ended up getting a really good remaster of Xenoblade Chronicles which cleaned up the visuals, fixed up the UI, adding a bunch of quality of life improvements, and added an entire DLC campaign. I actually ended up getting XC:DE and while I never beat it due to its sheer crushing length, I still really enjoyed my time with the game and can definitely understand why the series became such a big hit. Alongside this, I actually ended up rediscovering Breath Of The Wild out of boredom and ended up sinking dozens of hours into finally beating it and doing all the shrines. Of all games, BotW was the one that really helped me through the pandemic and I'm glad I was finally able to realize why it was so widely praised. And just in time for an upcoming Warriors prequel too... right?
For the second half of 2020, we'd mostly get games announced just a few weeks before release. Clubhouse Games got a pretty neat sequel that was fun for a while if a bit forgettable. Paper Mario got yet another controversial entry in the form of The Origami King, but you all should know by now that it's one of my personal favorite entries in the series. Even as someone who still liked Color Splash well enough, the improved character work, exploration, and soundtrack for TOK did a lot to get me back into the Paper Mario series. At the time, it felt so cool to get a more earnest story in a Mario game (little did I know this would be a constant in a few years). We also got a stellar port of Pikmin 3 which solidified it as my favorite game in the series, and then we got Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Calamity which... uhh... was a massive disappointment. Despite how impressively it converted Warriors gameplay into the BotW style, the realization that the story was going to be an AU crossover rather than an actual prequel as it was advertised left a very bad taste in my mouth.
Speaking of disappointments, we also got a lengthy Mario anniversary direct near the end of 2020 and it was kind of a mess. On the bright side, we got a 3D World port complete with an entirely new campaign announced, along with a collection of the first 3D Mario games complete with the never-before-rereleased Sunshine. I had never played Mario Sunshine before so 3D All Stars was a great way for me to experience it at the time. However, this presentation also came with those aforementioned limited-release announcements along with Mario Kart Live which really didn't help Nintendo's case much. Despite how much was announced it, there was still this prevailing sense of disappointment since most of what we were getting were ports, gimmicks, or games that wouldn't even be around in a few months.
And ultimately, that's the problem with 2020 for the Switch. In hindsight, we did get quite a lot of really good games this year. New Horizons, Xenoblade Chronicles DE, Pikmin 3 Deluxe, Origami King, PMD Rescue Team DX. However, it was all spaced out so much that it became a lot easier to notice all the bullshit as well. I'm glad this year still managed to give me some of my best Switch memories, but I also can't say this was one of the better ones by any means.
2021: Thankfully, 2021 was a big improvement from my recollection. Right off the get-go, Nintendo was hitting the ground running again with a proper direct for the first time in ages, and we ended up getting a lot of really appealing Switch games close together across the whole year, along with an increased amount of indies and third-parties now that the worst of the pandemic was starting to be behind us. Chicory, the Toree games, Deltarune: Chapter 2, a stellar Quake remaster, admittedly pretty shaky Sonic and Super Monkey Ball ports, this year had quite a lot to be excited about.
Early on, we got the Super Mario 3D World port and it was yet another one of the best Switch ports. The gameplay of base 3D World was vastly improved by your increased speed and movesets, and it also came with an entirely new campaign in the form of Bowser's Fury. As I've said before, I don't think Bowser's Fury really stands on its own as a full release, it's a bit too easy, short, and raw for that. However, it was an incredibly fresh, replayable, and polished little experiment that made a lot of people even more excited for the future of the series. And combined with 3D World, it made for a perfect Mario package containing both linear and open-world gameplay.
Beyond 3D World, though, the first half of 2021 was admittedly a bit shaky. We got some stellar ports like Miitopia and Skyward Sword HD, the former of which enhanced the appeal of the 3DS original with a vastly improved Mii maker, and the latter of which systematically fixed all of the original's flaws. Namco put out a new Pokemon Snap game which, while bloated, still stood out as easily the prettiest and most polished 3D Pokemon game on Switch. However, we also got Game Maker Garage which was Nintendo's attempt at packaging the Labo's game maker toolset as its own game, but it suffered from poor online support. And soon after that, we got Mario Golf: Super Rush which is easily one of the most underwhelming Mario Sports games for having most of the same issues with Aces but only amplified. This first half of the year wasn't necessarily bad since there was still a lot coming out, especially compared to 2020, but it was still a bit slow-going.
But then, the second half of 2021 came with one of the best streaks of games in the entire Switch generation: Metroid Dread, WarioWare: Get It Together, and Mario Party Superstars. All incredible games releasing pretty much back to back in the span of about a month. Metroid Dread easily ranks among the Switch's best games, it was an absolute miracle project that managed to end up becoming one of the best games in the series almost effortlessly. Get It Together ranks as one of my favorite WarioWare games for its wide array of modes and options, increased focus on the cast, and the surprising level of experimentation that its core gimmick offered. And Mario Party Superstars was NDCube finally showing they could nail the Mario Party formula, offering up a highly accessible, briskly-paced, immensely polished and loving throwback to the original N64 titles that still holds up as one of the best games in the series. I can't understate just how euphoric I was in late 2021, it felt like I was being constantly surprised by games that surpassed my expectations more and more.
That being said, there were still some issues. Late 2021 is when we got the announcement of the controversial NSO Expansion Pass which made you pay extra to play Genesis games, N64 games with hit-or-miss emulation quality, eventually GBA games, and a variety of DLC packs. I can't exactly lie and say I hated the Expansion Pass like everyone else, it helped me discover a lot of Genesis and N64 games I wouldn't have played prior, but the price hike did feel very steep especially early on when there weren't too many games. Though it did come with Happy Home Designer which I did quite enjoy. This year also came with another poor Pokemon game in the form of Brilliant Diamond/Shining Pearl, but I didn't get that one and often forget it even existed so I don't hold it too much against the year personally.
So yeah, 2021 did have its low points like the NSO Expansion and Mario Golf, but from my own personal experience, this was the most I had been invested in the Switch since 2017. Between the stellar ports in the first half of the year, and the constant string of bangers in the second half, 2021 had a ton of games that appealed to me specifically which really helped to win me back on the Switch off the heels of 2020. And with the first ever 3D Kirby game on the horizon, it felt like things were only getting better...
2022: Let's get the obvious out of the way. One of 2022's first major Switch release was Kirby & The Forgotten Land, one of my favorite games of all time. I've rambled about this game enough, you know I'm a fan. It was a perfect translation of Kirby gameplay to 3D with inventive level design, a cool post-apocalyptic setting, slick combat, and a stellar story and soundtrack. If Star Allies was a satisfying conclusion to 25 years of 2D gameplay, Forgotten Land was the game that charted a bold new direction for the series and I couldn't be more excited to see where it goes. Around the same time, we also got Pokemon Legends Arceus which was... gasp... an actually good Pokemon game by Game Freak? Sure, it was still pretty unpolished, but it was an incredibly fresh new take on the formula that played out more like a Pokemon take on Monster Hunter. It was really addictive and well-paced, had a shockingly developed story, and felt like a proper step forward for Pokemon.
However, past this stellar beginning, 2022 quickly became a lot more polarizing. Nintendo announced a DLC for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe after all the years called the Booster Course Pass which would include 48 tracks from across the series, which sounded awesome at first until we all collectively realized these tracks would be backported from Tour, lacking the same level of detail and polish as the base game. The BCP was still a ton of fun to follow and most of its tracks are still a joy to play, but it definitely felt cheaper than I was hoping for. Soon after that, we also got two of the most disappointing games in the Switch's library: Mario Strikers: Battle League and Nintendo Switch Sports. Mario Strikers 3 was a very disappointing sequel despite its gorgeous visuals as it seriously lacked content like every other Mario Sports game, and overcomplicated the mechanics in what used to be one of Mario's most accessible and arcade-y sports games. As for Nintendo Switch Sports, it replaced the Miis with far less interesting substitutes and turned the Wii Sports format into a repetitive live service grind. It's a shame too because I was really excited for both of these games, but they just ended up being massive let-downs.
The next few months weren't all bad though. Xenoblade Chronicles 3 came out and while I didn't play it, it looked great. And soon after, we also got Splatoon 3 which I did play and ended up loving. While I still prefer 2 overall for a variety of reasons, S3 was still a great entry in the series that added some neat mechanical changes, vastly expanded on the hub area, added a bit more customization elements, made Salmon Run more accessible, and offered up a far better campaign. On top of that, a sequel to Mario & Rabbids came out shortly after and while it took me a while to get around to it, I actually think it's a big improvement on the original in so many ways. While not every game to come out this year was entirely my cup of tea, I can't deny that Nintendo was still putting out some bangers in 2022.
However, the year ended with what was probably the biggest whimper so far in the form of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet. Coming off the heels of Legends Arceus, it seemed like Game Freak was legitimately improving their craft and learning the Switch's hardware, but then comes SV which turned out to be an unpolished, poorly-optimized mess of a game. Nintendo rarely ever greenlights games that are this buggy which made SV come off as that much more shocking. It's a shame too because from what I can tell, this game did have a lot of really cool ideas and a vastly improved story over Sword & Shield, but the level of polish needed to make it something truly special was just completely lacking. While Switch Sports and Mario Strikers were both disappointing, at least they were smaller titles. But Pokemon SV was the big headlining holiday game for 2022 and it left a really bad taste in my mouth by the end, even if it did end up selling predictably well regardless.
As you'd expect, most of my favorite games of 2022 ended up being third-party releases and indie games. We got a Klonoa collection which was absolutely nuts, I got to try out the Mega Man Zero legacy collection and got into the franchise as a whole, Live A Live got a gorgeous remake, and Sonic Team released Sonic Frontiers which isn't exactly a great game but it was an incredibly important one for the future of Sonic as a series. But what's most surprising is that a lot of my favorite Switch games of 2022 were games I didn't play in 2022. Freedom Planet 2, Curse Crackers, and Spark 3 in particular are all incredible indie gems that didn't end up getting Switch ports until one or two years after they released.
As a whole, 2022 ends up feeling like a really polarizing year for me. It contains some of my favorite games of all time, let alone on the Switch's library, but it also had some of the console's biggest disappointments. So even with the high highs, 2022 was kind of a middling year for me as a Switch fan, it felt like I was starting to lose a bit of that love I had for the Switch as the year went on, as the many small issues it had were just piling up too much for me. I was even starting to feel nostalgic for the Wii U, even despite its short lifespan and myriad of dry spells, I missed all the weird social features and one-off experiments Nintendo was doing out of desperation at the time because it was at least kinda charming. In hindsight, this wasn't even all that bad of a year, but in the moment, it felt pretty rough.
2023: But thankfully, 2023 was a big step in the right direction. This year was undeniably the biggest Switch year since 2017, offering up many big entries in Nintendo's larger franchises like Mario, Zelda, and Pikmin. And once it became apparent what was coming out this year, I quickly got very excited about what was to come.
The year started strong with two very impressive re-releases in Metroid Prime Remastered and Kirby's Return To Dream Land Deluxe. Metroid Prime getting a shadowdropped remaster by Retro Studios themselves with massively redone visuals and twin-stick controls for $40 was absolutely one of the best surprises of the year. It not only made for pretty much the definitive version of an already near-perfect game, but it also brought back everyone's faith in the massively delayed Metroid Prime 4 since it showed Retro Studios absolutely still had it. Return To Dream Land Deluxe, on the other hand, is a port I've ragged on quite a bit for some balancing changes it's made, but from an objective standpoint, I've also made it clear that it's still an insanely impressive port that went above and beyond in so many ways. A combat-focused side campaign centered around Magolor, a vastly expanded minigame mode that finally fulfills the potential of a Kirby-themed party game, a harder Extra Mode and True Arena, new abilities, a fully-redone engine, RTDLDX is so unnecessarily extra in so many ways.
And not too long after, we also got the long-awaited sequel to Breath Of The Wild and it was... not great. Yeah, I've made it clear that I do not like Tears Of The Kingdom and I don't really want to reiterate my thoughts on it too much. I thought the building mechanics were a slog, the story was a mess, I hated having to re-explore a barely changed Hyrule, and all the new areas felt undercooked. Even though it sold insanely well and got critically acclaimed and all, the release of TotK almost felt like the last straw after a string of disappointments involving the Switch. Sure, Metroid Prime Remastered was awesome but it was still a port, TotK was Nintendo's big game of the year and it let me down hard. But thankfully, Nintendo had a second big game slated for 2023, Pikmin 4, which was a much more satisfying and impressive experience. Even if I have a number of small gripes with it and wouldn't hold it up as my favorite Pikmin game personally, Pikmin 4 is an incredibly impressive and massive entry in the series that fixed up pretty much all of my gripes with Pikmin 2 and then some, making for a game I sunk a ton of hours into when it came out.
And after Pikmin 4, Nintendo started to enter quite the hot-streak. They were able to capitalize off the Pikmin hype by re-releasing the first two Pikmin games which meant every mainline entry in the series was now available on Switch, and we also got our first F-Zero game in ages, being a deceptively fun 99-player battle royale called F-Zero 99. Some F-Zero fans were understandably sad that it wasn't a proper 3D entry, but I genuinely think F-Zero 99 is the best 99 game to date and its focus on aggressive combat fits F-Zero's appeal perfectly. Around this time, Nintendo also released the Super Mario Bros Movie, their first theatrical film in several decades and it was... pretty fun, actually. Despite the hilarity of the cast announcements and the divisive critic reviews, the Mario movie was quite the crowd-pleaser and did a great job at bringing the Mushroom Kingdom to life on the big screen. And for Mario fans who were getting fed up with the series' increased disinterest in story-telling of any kind, it felt really refreshing to see a piece of Mario media that took itself a bit more seriously. But little did we know the domino effect the success of the Mario movie would end up causing.
Near the end of 2023, we got three pretty great Mario games releasing close together. Super Mario Bros Wonder was the big one, the first 2D Mario game since NSMBU which immediately pitched itself on being much weirder than its predecessors. It had a completely redone, more cartoony artstyle! It had entirely original settings and level mechanics! It had dialogue, and new enemies and characters, and a vastly expanded cast including Daisy and Toadette! It even had a new voice cast which is still quite divisive amongst Mario fans. And I get it, Charles Martinet is a legend, but after years of hearing the same reused voice lines, I think the new voice actors added to that feeling of freshness that Wonder had and they're all doing a great job. Props to Kevin Afghani for taking on a role as big as Mario, and it already feels like he's been settling into the role more and more over the last year or so. From what I can tell, the devs at Nintendo said they felt pressured by the Mario mvoie to make the game more interesting and expressive and it really shows. Super Mario Bros Wonder isn't just a fantastic 2D platformer, it also feels like a soft reboot of sorts for the Mario series as a whole asserting a desire to branch out, experiment more, and take itself just a bit more seriously, and I'm all for it.
Along with Wonder, we also got WarioWare Move It, which is a pretty solid throwback to Smooth Moves that uses the Joy-Cons more creatively than any other Switch game to date. And after that, we got a remake of Super Mario RPG, and an incredible one at that. This felt like an absolute pipe-dream since the original game was a Square/Nintendo collab, but we ended up getting a nearly pixel-perfect recreation that replicated the original's isometric artstyle super faithfully. Mallow was there, Geno was there, the writing was as sharp as ever even if it lacked some of the original's Woolsey-isms, it felt like no compromises were made here and that was just incredible. And that's not even mentioning some of the stuff that was slated for 2024 like a Peach spinoff and a freaking The Thousand Year Door remake. Like, I genuinely can't understate just how exciting it was to be a Mario fan in late 2023, it truly felt like the movie unshackled the series of all of the limitations that were holding it back in the 2010s.
Normally, that would have been pretty much it for 2023 though. Super Mario RPG was the last thing we got... but I ended up getting one last game at the very end of the year. Early in 2023, we got Bayonetta Origins, an experimental top-down metroidvania take on Bayonetta, telling her origin story (or at least her AU counterpart's origin story? I'm not super familiar with the lore) through a gorgeous painterly dark fantasy tale. Not being a Bayonetta fan, I only got Origins on a whim since I liked its style, but it ended up becoming my game of the year. It was so unique and experimental, from the way it told its story, to the way its movement and combat mechanics worked, to the way it slowly evolved from a fairly basic adventure game to the stylish character action we know Platinum Games for today. Even if I had some issues with a few of Nintendo's most successful games this year, they still managed to publish a game that resonated with me so strongly. I don't need Tears Of The Kingdom, when I can still get games like Bayonetta Origins.
At the end of the day, 2023 was a fantastic year all around. It just felt big, like we were getting multiple industry-defining games once again. At its best, there was a lot to love, from great ports and remakes like Metroid Prime and Super Mario RPG, to memorable new installments like Pikmin 4 and Mario Wonder, to brand new ideas like Bayonetta Origins. However, it didn't fully win me back after the bad taste 2022 left in my mouth and that's mostly because I didn't like Tears Of The Kingdom. The biggest Nintendo game of the year, and I thought it was a massive disappointment. 2023 was such a packed year that I still found a lot to love, and I'd still definitely call it one of the best years for the Switch, but my mixed feelings on the Switch remained and I still wasn't sure if I'd look back on it as one of my favorite consoles.
2024: With 2023 being such a big year and Nintendo visibly preparing for the launch of the Switch 2, we all expected 2024 to be a much slower year for the Switch and that's not entirely wrong. But just like with 2018 in the wake of 2017, the indie games seriously picked up the slack. It's hard to understate just how many indie bangers we got this year. Penny's Big Breakaway, Pepper Grinder, Antonblast, Grapple Dogs 2, and that's not even getting into all the rereleases like Freedom Planet 2, Spark 3, Pizza Tower, the list goes on. We even got some really cool third-party ports like Sonic X Shadow Generations and Castlevania Dominus Collection, so despite this technically being a "slower year", it felt like I was getting games constantly.
But that's not to say Nintendo wasn't doing anything this year either, they actually put out quite a bit of really great stuff in 2024. Early on, we got the Splatoon 3: Side Order DLC which built on the Octo Expansion in unconventional and exciting ways, and also managed to be one of the few roguelites I actually enjoyed playing. It may not have been as perfect as the Octo Expansion, but it revived my love for Splatoon and reminded me of why I adored Splatoon 2's cast to begin with. Soon after, we also got Princess Peach: Showtime, a strange and experimental 3D platformer by GoodFeel focused around Peach. While it was pretty divisive for its easy difficulty, I still came away adoring it for how lovingly it pays tribute to theatre, its experimental and varied design, and the sheer amounts of detail and charm put into its characterization of Peach. Showtime is an impressively expressive game that, similarly to Wonder, introduces entirely new characters, species, and locations to the Mario series. It's the kind of game we probably wouldn't have gotten a few years ago, and I love it for that.
Soon after, we also got the aforementioned Thousand Year Door remake and I don't need to tell you how much of an impact it had on me. Just to recap, I actually wasn't huge on TTYD for a while due to a number of pacing and story-telling gripes, but this remake fixed so much of it while also managing to fuse the more serious story-telling of the original with the modernizations that the more recent Paper Mario games have made. It looks gorgeous, it's paced far better, and it made the legendary move of confirming Vivian as trans. The Thousand Year Door singlehandedly satiated any worries I had about the future of the Paper Mario franchise, and it vindicated pretty much every entry that came prior, both the classic and the modern ones. And frankly, this was a recurring trend in 2024. I already mentioned Sonic X Shadow Generations being a highlight, but it's really worth noting that Shadow Generations in particular showed me how much potential the Sonic Frontiers formula truly had at a time when I was really cynical about the franchise.
And then, of course, there's Echoes Of Wisdom. I was so anxious about this game since the burn from Tears Of The Kingdom was still fresh. But what do you know? I still ended up loving it. I thought the immersive sim and summoner combat was fun, I liked seeing more traditional dungeons return, the sidequests all felt satisfying to complete, the story had some genuinely touching moments and intriguing lore, the soundtrack was a vibe, it was just a really fun adventure game that reminded me why I loved the Zelda franchise to begin with. Once again, this year didn't have too many truly "big" games like 2023 did, but there also weren't really many disappointments either (unless you're an Endless Ocean fan). It was just a bunch of low-key, experimental, purely fun experiences filled to the brim with that Nintendo charm. And most of all, this year left me feeling really hopeful about a lot of my favorite Nintendo series. I'm excited to see where the Kirby series goes after Forgotten Land, where the Zelda series goes now that the Wild duology is over, where the Splatoon series goes with its fourth installment, where the Metroid series goes with the Metroid saga done with, and of course, where the Mario series goes with its new tone and direction.
Near the end of the year, we got two more big Mario games. Super Mario Party Jamboree was yet another step-up in quality for NDCube, being a massive package filled with modes, minigames, characters, and unlockables along with having the most refined board design and gameplay I've seen in years. While it wasn't as fast-paced as Superstars, it's absolutely a richer experience on pretty much every other level. And then we got Mario & Luigi: Brothership, the last of the Mario RPG revivals we got on Switch. This was yet another pretty divisive game for its slower pace and many differences from the other Mario & Luigi games, but I absolutely adored Brothership. Despite its rougher edges, it was just dripping with heart and style. Brothership was yet another example of the positive impact the movie was leaving on the Mario series since it managed to tell one of the most character-focused, thematically resonant, genuinely touching, and shockingly dark stories in the entire franchise. As I said before, I genuinely think Brothership ranks along with Super Paper Mario as the best Mario story ever crafted and that's something I did not think I'd be saying ever.
2024 was an interesting year because it didn't really have many big releases, especially from Nintendo, but what it did have was charm in spades. Both in terms of first-party and indie releases and re-releases, I had never bought more games than I did in 2024. Nintendo put out some of their most experimental work in years, we were getting an onslaught of incredible and surprising indie games, and there was an abundance of exciting ports and collections. There was so much in 2024 that appealed to me specifically, and it truly hit me that I was able to play all of it on that single console.
And ultimately, that's what will stick with me about the Switch. Yeah, it may not have the weirdness or aggressive charm of Nintendo's last few consoles, but what it does have is games, and a lot of them. The Switch has been my go-to console for eight years now and I feel like I've really taken that for granted. Like let's be real, the Wii U had its moments, but it didn't have anywhere near the same amount of pure bangers as the Switch did. At least a third of my favorite games of all time are playable on this damn thing, and it felt like every year came with multiple all-timer Nintendo games for me:
- 2017 had Breath Of The Wild, Splatoon 2, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, and Mario Odyssey
- 2018 had Kirby Star Allies, the Octo Expansion, and Super Smash Bros Ultimate
- 2019 had Super Mario Maker 2, Luigi's Mansion 3, and the Link's Awakening remake
- 2020 had Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Paper Mario: The Origami King, and Pikmin 3 Deluxe
- 2021 had 3D World + Bowser's Fury, Metroid Dread, WarioWare GIT, and Mario Party Superstars
- 2022 had Kirby & The Forgotten Land and Splatoon 3
- 2023 had Pikmin 4, Bayonetta Origins, and Super Mario Bros Wonder
- And 2024 had the TTYD remake, Brothership, Echoes Of Wisdom, and Mario Party Jamboree
The Nintendo Switch truly was the ultimate console. It had Nintendo's best new games, it had their best old games, it had the best third-party games, the best retro rereleases, the best indie games, the best cult classics, and I could play it all anywhere at any time with no setup required. There are things I wish Nintendo could've done better, smoother online, more expressive UI, a sturdier build, but nothing's perfect. Even my favorite console, the Wii, is like 70% shovelware. But now that we're moving onto a new era, I think I'm finally realizing just how good we had it. Hopefully, the Switch 2 can live up to its predecessor's sheer impact.
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