Fortunately, Nintendo Life readers are on hand to send in suggestions for games they think deserve their flowers. This time, we’ve got 32 Switch games, old and new. We might not be able to vouch for them personally, but they’ve brought someone joy enough to write up a short recommendation, so take a scroll below and check out the trailers for a better idea.
Thanks to everyone who sent their recommendations – there’s a poll at the end to vote for the games here you’ve enjoyed the most. Let’s crack on in alphabetical order, shall we?
Pak-Man kicks things off this time: “Every city-builder fan needs to know about Against the Storm.” They’ve gone a little (a lot) over the word limit but, as you’ll see, several readers have taken brevity to the extreme with their recommendations. So it all balances out:
Against the Storm is a fantasy city-builder with a “rainpunk” aesthetic. (It’s always raining, and the type of rainy-season and collection of rainwater features prominently into your strategy.) You need to manage the needs and wants of the various species that have come to live in your city, raising their happiness so they’ll become better workers, giving you the resources to build better things for them, and so on. The graphics are beautiful, the setting is captivating, and the music is wonderful.
So far, so good. Where the game shines, though, was the decision to make it a roguelike.
We’re all tired of the word “roguelike” by now, but when it’s applied to a city builder like this one, something incredible happens. I’m a long-time city-builder fan, and the momentum of those games always seems to die down once you get your city to a certain level of self-sustainability. You’ve built everything you want to build, your city is operating at key efficiency, what’s left to do? The game becomes boring. This is where the roguelike element comes in. In Against the Storm, you’re meeting the demands of a never-seen Queen. She’ll send you missions and monitor the happiness of your citizens. Make her upset, or take too long to meet one of her demands, and it’s game over. Time to start a new city. Make her happy enough, and it’s also time to build a new city, but with some bonus materials and perks to take into your next city. This means you never quite reach that boring self-maintenance phase, and you’re always in that exciting, “Time to get a new city off the ground” phase. In true Roguelike fashion, successful runs also give you the ability to unlock new permanent perks and buildings, so every new city is a little bit more complicated than the one before it. I’ve been playing it on PC for years now and it never gets old. I can’t recommend it enough!
Havenn goes nuclear for Atomicrops:
It’s a farming roguelike set on the last patch of fertile soil in a nuclear wasteland. You grow mutant corn, cabbages and more to feed a village outpost. At night, you’re tasked with protecting the plants from waves of hungry garden-themed bosses. There’s an eclectic mix of weapons, from spring-loaded leeches to potato grenade launchers – plus you can marry townspeople that will come defend the farm by your side! The game is tough-as-nails, but its bizarre pixel art and catchy pseudo-folk soundtrack along with dozens of collectible “Atomicats” have kept me coming back to play a run for years!
r_p_trzy is a Bad End Theater-goer:
Just an ingenious new way of great storytelling. I wouldn’t say earth-shattering but I’d say it’s a unique spin on proven methods. And the art, characters and music really rise to meet the creativity.
Joe Crane calls Barony “amazing, a dungeon crawl with four-player split screen co op.”
I play this every chance I get with my 8 and 6 year olds. We are waiting for my 4 year old to get a little older some can have a full team. My kids scream with excitement when Shelob appears and argue who gets Bilbos sword and ring if we manage to kill her. Since I’m playing with kids we are still learning things, locking spells work on mimics, lock picks disarm trapsnot just open chests, if you combine certain items with different classes you get different results andmuch more. There are over a dozen classes and about as many races to combine. I don’t know why this game doesnt get more love, it is almost my most played game on my Switch and I am pretty sure it will end at the top sooner then later. Please check it out, this game deserves attention.
“A great game that everyone needs to check out is Battle Train,” says tapdancingtommy, “a deckbuilding duelling experience that takes place on a grid-like board.
You’ll have to take out your opponents’ stations before they destroy yours, by placing train tracks and using other abilities. The result is an awesome board game come to life, with a funny game-show story to match, voice acting, and Cartoon Network-style art direction.
FishyS is a fan of Be Brave, Barb, “an auto-walker gravity-bending puzzle-platformer.”
The optional collectibles double as bad jokes, as one expects from the creator of the Dadish series. The official description includes the phrase ‘Questionable therapy’ which doubles as the plot of the game. Extremely simple concept but fun and creative, with one bad jump flinging you off into the sky. Short cute levels, perfect if you just have a few minutes to play a game and want to use your brain a little but not too much.
Munchlax rates Out of the Blue Games’ Call of the Sea:
A narrative puzzle game by the developers of American Arcadia, which sees terminally ill 1930’s housewife Nora journey to a Lovecraft-inspired take on Tahiti to search for her missing husband. The game essentially plays like a series of escape rooms, in fully 3D environments. Many of the puzzles are surprisingly complex, but are satisfying when you solve them. 5 hours long and fully voiced, it is worth the £16 asking price.
topsekret has a thing for this TGC:
I would strongly recommend Cardfight!! Vanguard Dear Days 2 to fans of TCGs and deck-building games! It’s a digital version of the real-life TCG, Cardfight!! Vanguard.
Dear Days 2 is a traditional RPG-style TCG game where there’s a story and you naturally get more cards just by playing (no microtransactions). You could easily spend hundreds of hours testing out and perfecting your decks. While it is a sequel to the original Dear Days game (also available on Switch), you can definitely start with Dear Days 2, which has a much larger card pool.
sketchturner has high praise for CATO: Buttered Cat, saying it’s “easily one of the best puzzle games I’ve ever played.”
Though having a silly meme as a premise, it actually takes the concept and runs with it in genius ways.
You control two “characters”: a piece of buttered toast that can only jump, and a cat that can only walk. Together, they can fly. You have to use their abilities both separately and together to navigate increasingly brain-twisting levels.
The levels start out easily approachable but turn into something where you feel like the smartest person on the planet once you solve it. Thankfully, levels are bite-sized challenges (often only one screen), so even when hard, they’re never a marathon test of patience.
The game introduces new mechanics in each world, which radically change the game and keep things fresh.
This game is a formidable brain challenge for sure, but it always feels doable and the puzzles never feel redundant. Truly an overlooked gem!
FX29 wants us to hit rewind on this one:
One game that fell under the radar is COGEN: Sword of Rewind. It’s an action side scrolling game where you fight robots and you gotta use your reflexes along with memorising patterns. The game is basically a Mega Man Zero clone, the main character uses a sword like Zero and has a high difficulty similar to Mega Man Zero.
It also has sands of time type gameplay where anytime you get hit the game lets you rewind time to before you get hit. Overall a fun but difficult game that should leave you satisfied until Capcom finally makes a new Mega Man game (fingers crossed).
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recastanho keeps it brief, and to be fair, the trailer for Deathwish Enforcers does enough talking:
Sunset Riders spiritual successor.
Quite.
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