Almost seven years into its lifespan the Nintendo Switch remains the best gaming device on the market today. Not only is this console/handheld hybrid home to Nintendo’s consistently great first-party games, but most of today’s best independent games also wind up on its storefront. Meanwhile it boasts a deep (and always expanding) library of both classic and obscure games from the ’80s, ’90s and ’00s. I don’t always bring the Switch with me when I travel, but I always have that option, and knowing that almost the entire history of Metroid games can be just a few feet away from me every minute of every day, no matter where I am, is somehow comforting. Even its technical limitations in comparison to today’s other consoles and gaming PCs gives the Switch an advantage; its games don’t really get bogged down in trying to push the graphics envelope, and they don’t try to blur the lines between movies and games as much as, say, the latest Xbox or PS5 blockbuster. Nintendo’s originals are some of the best and most elegantly designed examples of pure play, while smaller studios that create less commercial and more interesting games than the major corporations make the Switch’s library one of the broadest and most diverse any console has ever seen. If you only own one current gaming box, the Switch is probably the pick to click, as 2023 proved once again with a bevy of great new Switch games. Here are our picks for the best Switch games of 2023.
20. Fire Emblem: Engage
Fire Emblem: Engage is quite similar to Awakening in its reverence for the franchise’s past, but instead of a coda, it’s a song of celebration. Instead of going bigger than the massive Three Houses (something I struggle to imagine is possible), Engage went the opposite direction. Inspired by many of the franchise’s older entries, Engage has a single campaign that can be completed in a modest 20 or so hours with few missable units, greatly curbed social elements, a smaller hub area, and a more classic, black-and-white story. It would again include many characters from previous games, only this time they would be integral parts of the gameplay, appearing as mentor-like spirits that give your units new abilities. Initially, I found this prospect exciting. As games have had to become more and more of an event to succeed, it seemed refreshing to have a game from a major series release with less fanfare and fewer bells and whistles.—Austin Jones
19. Disney Illusion Island
Disney Illusion Island places iconic characters Mickey, Minnie, Donald and Goofy in a brand new world home to a host of original characters that could easily support sequels or spinoffs, with a meta script that can be genuinely funny and never takes anything too seriously. When the worst thing you can say about a game’s writing is that it’s occasionally too clever, it’s basically a ringing endorsement. Disney stalwarts and fans of classic cartoons will find references to Mickey Mouse shorts from the ‘20s up through today; you don’t need to know any of that to understand and enjoy the story, but if you get a kick out of Easter eggs, you’ll probably appreciate them. What really sets Illusion Island apart from most Metroid tributes is that it doesn’t have traditional combat. You can’t directly attack anybody in this game. It’s teeming with weird creatures trying to hurt you, and your only recourse is to evade and avoid them. That means the series of power-ups you’ll gradually unlock are all motion-based, with no weapons of any kind. It gives us what it promised: a light, fun Metroid-style game with multiplayer, built around Disney’s most beloved characters, and that’s ideal for younger players and their friends and family. You’d have to be seriously goofy to find any fault with that.—Garrett Martin
18. Cassette Beasts
Cassette Beasts, an “’80s vibe Creature Collector turn-based RPG” developed by Bytten Studio, is the latest of a subgenre of RPGs inspired by Pokémon, and blurs the line between several of them in order to seemingly provide the best of all possible worlds. If you can imagine what those DS-era Pokémon games looked like, then you’ve already honed in on what Cassette Beasts looks like, which delights in this now-retro style. In Cassette Beasts, the monsters you fight and capture are, like its inspiration, drawn from elements of the real world and nature. At one point, a moth that throws out gusts of winds and hands in equal measure did battle with a crab-like street cone called a Traffikrab, which conjured a traffic jam to slow me and my allies in battle. Much of the nuts and bolts under the hood of the game function identically enough that picking up Cassette Beasts is a breeze, but its visual language and tone are distinct enough to make you think twice about writing it off.—Moises Taveras
17. Fae Farm
Fae Farm is one of the latest releases in the exponentially expanding farming sim genre and, at first glance, it perfectly melds the cozy world-building genre with the storytelling I so deeply desire. Fae Farm follows the story of the player after they shipwreck on the island of Azoria. Here you find a quaint farming community that’s suffering a magical storm that brings strange creatures and threats to the island. On the island your job is to build your farm, support the town, ward off dangerous magic, and, most importantly, romance other characters—which isn’t actually most important to the gameplay, but it is in my heart. Fae Farm is a beautifully rendered farming simulator that competes with the best of its genre.—Maddie Agne
16. Oxenfree II: Lost Signals
More characters and conversation options fill in the gaps of what feels like a slimmer and tighter sequel, and are smart ways to build on the fairly grounded and simple foundation laid out by the original without bloating the sequel. Camena comes across much more believable than Edwards Island (a tourist trap with zero tourists) without filling the screen with bustling towns and scores of characters that would’ve felt out of place in this story and world. Importantly, none of it really bogs down the experience, which satisfyingly runs its course in about six to seven hours and delves further into what’s been going on in and around this town before the events of the games and since the original title. Oxenfree II, despite its proclivity for confusing jumps and skips in time, loops, and detours into other dimensions, is as direct a sequel as you can make to one of the most impactful games of my life, and I’m glad for it.—Moises Taveras
15. Drainus
Drainus is an apt name for a shoot ‘em up. With its arcade lineage, this is a genre built on draining the player—originally of their quarters, later of their patience, stamina, and mental well-being. Shmups are all about the marriage of repetition and escalating tension, where you do the same thing over and over while somebody steadily twists a knob that amplifies every aspect of the game. If you’re a total neophyte or just a casual fan who remembers the genre’s heyday in the ‘80s and ‘90s and want to see what’s happening in this space today, Drainus is the best recent shmup for you to dip into; originally released for PC in 2022, it arrived on the Switch early in 2023. Deep-in-the-weeds shmup lifers absolutely need to give it a shot, too, even if they ultimately might nitpick it to death. I don’t know how highly I’d recommend it to rank-and-file players who aren’t interested in or familiar with the genre, but if you’ve ever been curious about shoot ‘em ups, Drainus is ready to devour however much time you put into it. It might’ve come out last year originally, but it’s clearly one of the best Switch games of 2023.—Garrett Martin
14. Chants of Sennaar
Imagine if Journey was explicitly about the Tower of Babel. Chants of Sennaar doesn’t follow too directly in the footsteps of thatgamecompany’s modern classic, but it’s just as cryptic and beautiful, with a similarly red-garbed lead character. As its Biblical inspiration suggests, you adventure up a tower whose residents speak a different language on every floor. They can’t communicate with each other, and at first you can barely understand them. You have to puzzle out what their words mean through context, conversation, and repetition, while also contending with occasional stealth sections that can ruin your journey if you’re not careful. Sennaar isn’t perfect, but it’s a unique, fascinating game that sets you loose in an unknown civilization and trusts you to learn your way through.—Garrett Martin
13. Super Mario RPG
Super Mario RPG comes as yet another installment in Nintendo’s crusade to remake and remaster its past titles. But, with its Square Enix flourish, Super Mario RPG is also possibly the most unique, most polished product of this crusade. Square Enix original characters bring a new flavor to the standard Mario cast and pushes those usual characters into new roles—with Bowser as a protagonist and Princess Peach as a healer, for example. While the game can drag at times between battles or cinematic moments, on the whole Super Mario RPG is a good example of the videogame remake genre.—Maddie Agne
12. The Making of Karateka
This interactive documentary painstakingly tracks the design of the classic 1984 computer game Karateka. It shows, in exacting detail, how Jordan Mechner created the kung fu fighter, exploring Mechner’s work on both Karateka and his unpublished earlier games through contemporary video interviews, original design notes, correspondence, and multiple iterative prototypes. It reveals the give-and-take between Mechner and his publisher while showing how the then-college aged Mechner’s vision and mindset changed throughout development. Originally released for the Apple II in 1984, Mechner’s game was a bestseller that broke ground for cinematic technique in games, with a clear storyline, cut-scenes, an original score (written by Mechner’s father, Francis Mechner), and editing and cinematography inspired by films. It’s also an early influence on the fighting game; it consists of a series of one-on-one karate fights, similar to Karate Fight and Yie Ar Kung-Fu, which were also both released in 1984. Karateka is like a playable ‘70s kung fu flick, complete with a shocking twist ending if the player isn’t careful. This playable documentary is a brilliant piece of work, a must-play for Karateka fans and anybody interested in game design, and one of the best Switch games of 2023.—Garrett Martin
11. A Space for the Unbound
One of the best trends in the modern videogame industry is that it feels like works from all over the world are finally getting their due, allowing developers to tell stories about their own specific cultural experiences. An excellent example is A Space for the Unbound, a narrative-focused adventure game from Mojiken Studio set in ‘90s Indonesia that uses gorgeous pixel art and a cast of sympathetic characters to paint an achingly particular picture of this time and place. We follow Atma and Raya, two high schoolers who uncover a strange phenomenon that threatens their small town. Over the course of this story, it’s hard not to internalize every corner of this neighborhood, from the local arcade full of Street Fighter references to a bridge foregrounded against an impossibly vibrant sky, these backdrops dripping with nostalgic details that make them feel pulled from memory. However, more than just delivering an idealized vision of the past, this well-rendered setting ties us to the emotional journey of its cast, building towards reveals about the dark feelings lingering in their hearts. It may be a slow burn early on, but it all culminates in a powerful climax that thoughtfully handles depictions of mental health issues like depression, making for one of the most moving finales in recent memory.—Elijah Gonzalez
10. Sea of Stars
Sea of Stars taps into heaps of the nostalgia for a bygone era of RPGs, conjuring and bottling this magic that made me fall in love with the genre to begin with. For me, it’s the next Golden Sun, but to others it could be the next incarnation of a Breath of Fire or Chrono Trigger. At the end of the day, this ultimately means that it’s a tale of friendship featuring an eclectic cast of playable characters (spanning the pair of Solstice warriors, an assassin and more) set in an isometric RPG with a kinetic battle system. It’s literally colorful, with wonderfully intricate pixel art that puts the biggest games’ artistic direction to shame. Its story, a humdrum coming of age blown up to world-ending proportions, is sweet, if basic. And then Sea of Stars does what its developer, Sabotage Studios, does best and zag where everyone else would zig.—Moises Taveras
9. Dredge
Dredge is over before you know it, in part because it’s genuinely a short game, but also because it kind of wraps you in its eldritch tendrils and doesn’t let go until you’re done with it. I’ve rarely played a game with a more satisfying and simple loop in an intriguing and dubious world I just wish I could’ve seen more of. Between the cults (yep, this game has got those too) and the sort of unexplained nature of Why This Stretch Of Sea Is Like This™, I think it’s actually a world ripe for even more exploration. But even if nothing more should come out of it, Dredge is a wonderful experience in smooth sailing over choppy (maybe even supernaturally charged) waters.—Moises Taveras
8. Pikmin 4
The passion and splendor behind Pikmin 4 is underscored by its horrors. Castaways, including young children, are besieged by nasty carnivorous creatures and forcibly mutated by deranged leaflings. To save them, you must venture out at night when the already horrifying creepy-crawlies of the world go berserk and charge your base. Pikmin 4 would not be as gorgeous of an experience without the brutality faced within; to watch 10 or so Pikmin be impaled, eaten, or flattened in less than a second to absolutely no fanfare is to realize these moments, too, possess a certain serenity. The uncomfortable pain and sadness of Pikmin counterbalances an appreciation for my own toil and the nuance of approaching problems not only creatively and cleverly, but as perfectly as possible.—Austin Jones
7. Metroid Prime Remastered
I’m usually reluctant to put remasters and remakes on lists like this, but this year’s surprise release of Metroid Prime Remastered deserves recognition. The original is one of the two or three best Metroid games ever made, and an all-time Nintendo classic, and the fact that the remaster only needs to make a few minor changes to upgrade it for the modern day only underscores how excellent its foundations are. This is a vital piece of gaming history that has barely aged a day in over 20 years, and one of the best games of 2023 for the Switch.—Garrett Martin
6. Super Mario Bros. Wonder
One of Super Mario Bros. Wonder ’s major new additions to the Mario canon is the Wonder Flower. It’s a big blue bouncing flower that triggers a psychedelic hurry-up state called a Wonder Effect that warps the level and its characters in weird and unpredictable ways. Wonder Flowers can incite some of the most hallucinatory and memorable sequences in recent Super Mario history, which help make Wonder one of the most unique games in the series’ long history. A perfect example: in one early level, the Wonder Flower turns a legion of Piranha Plants—those Venus Mario-traps that pop out of vines in the Mushroom Kingdom—into a veritable chorus line right out of musical theater, with an elaborate song- and-dance routine that’s one of the most unexpected and charming things I’ve seen in a game in years. Moments and details like these have made Wonder an unpredictably refreshing new spin on the most basic Mario-isms, and the first side-scrolling Mario game that could be considered genuinely revelatory in about 30 years.— Garrett Martin
5. Saltsea Chronicles
In its portrayal of a society based on mutual entanglement, Saltsea Chronicles resists the temptation to sever its beautifully drawn post-disaster world from reality and make it pure fantasy. Instead, mentions of the world before — our world, it turns out — drip through. Throughout it echoes the philosophies of anarchist and socialist thinkers, as well as existing and pre-existing collectivist societies. In linking the Saltsea archipelago to our world while also making it meaningfully distinct, the game resists becoming an allegory and becomes a story in and of itself. It extends beyond being a mirror for contemporary society and instead becomes an illustration of an alternate path forward, another way we could approach the same issues of climate change and environmental devastation that make up the characters’ pasts and presents. In the same vein, Saltsea Chronicles is interested in the injustices that arise when you attempt to construct a wholly non-hierarchical society. It chooses not to structure post-Flood Saltsea as a perfect utopia, instead noting repeatedly and often the ways it fails. In my time with the game this was what impressed me the most: its commitment to realistically presenting the challenges that would be present in a society that’s nominally about fairness and mutual input. People get greedy and claim power anyway, people leverage non-hierarchy to be in control. And less maliciously, people are forced into a controlling role despite their wishes, because of other people’s expectations and desires. —Emily Price
4. Cocoon
Beyond its visual strengths, one of Cocoon’s most fascinating aspects is how its mechanics amplify the mind-expanding qualities evoked by its aesthetics. Just as you’re getting a read on certain repetitive, game-y patterns, such as when a monster encounter or additional power are likely to materialize, things veer off course as the puzzles become increasingly interesting. As its challenges become more complex, they also become increasingly based around cosmic proportions, causing us to feel the odd metaphysics of this space slide around in our gray matter as we undergo a miniature metamorphosis. It’s a genuinely cool effect that feels like the underlying purpose of this endeavor.—Elijah Gonzalez
3. Venba
This short, bittersweet visual novel / puzzle game hybrid examines the immigrant experience through the crucial cultural bedrock of cooking. Set across three decades in the lives of an Indian family who’ve resettled in Canada, Venba is yet more proof that games have the unique capacity to engage us emotionally in ways that other mediums can’t. Like the best meals, Venba ends too soon, but it’s so rich and fulfilling that it’ll leave you satisfied.—Garrett Martin
2. Thirsty Suitors
Thirsty Suitors is a rich narrative that carefully and truthfully deals with culture, family, LGBTQIA+ issues, relationships, and self-expression. You meet and interact with a diverse range of characters in terms of race, personality, and gender and sexual identity, and each are developed and dealt with in their own unique ways. The plot introduces a number of different stories for Jala Jayaratne to unearth and resolve. When you’re trying to repair familial relationships, save Timber Hills’s skateboarding scene, and reconcile with exes, it’s hard for each of those stories to develop in complex and evenly-paced ways, but Thirsty Suitors does its best by giving every story its own focused element that defines it and supports the other stories.—Maddie Agne
Jala is the cool and alternative skater girl I dreamt up when I was younger and wondering what my type was. She’s a vision. She also eschews many of the tropes of romantic characters in games, who are sometimes flattened by the need to be appealing to players by being the multi-faceted protagonist of the story. Sometimes Jala is even unlikeable, lending her dimensions that make her feel like a real person. Rather than turn me away from her, it only solidifies the crush I’ve developed on this character who skirts the line between reality and fantasy wonderfully.—Moises Taveras
1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Tears of the Kingdom looks like Breath of the Wild, sounds like Breath of the Wild, and even plays like Breath of the Wild, and yet it’s so fundamentally different that it’s almost impossible to confuse the two. The sequel to our favorite game of the last decade expands greatly on the original’s map, introducing both upper and lower levels to trek through, and also introduces an Erector Set-style construction toolset that gives you an extreme amount of freedom to experiment and explore. Many love it more than Breath because of that freedom, while others (uh, like me) think it overcomplicates the elegant, immersive beauty of Breath just a little too much. Still, it’s an absolutely amazing Zelda, one of the best games for the Switch, and a clear-cut favorite for one of the best games of 2023.—Garrett Martin