My Favorite Nintendo Switch Games

I'm not the biggest gamer, but I love my Switch so so much and have discovered some really cool games despite how rarely I play. Hopefully this'll be a nice break from my usual kdrama and book posts — and hopefully it'll help you discover some wonderful games to check out!

Night in the Woods

Night in the Woods is the second game I bought for my Switch, and probably my favorite one, to be honest. The premise is that the main character Mae - your avatar - has returned home halfway through college, and nobody understands why. This means living back in your parents' home, meeting up with old friends, and so many curious people wondering why you're doing what you're doing. It's a very chill game for the most part, and although it's essentially a story, you're living it through the actions of your character, moving around the town, and talking to different people. The friendships built feel genuine, and many of the scenes are extremely relatable, especially if you're a university student. I also love that this game isn't just reading dialogue like many story-driven games; it's actually moving your character around, solving puzzles and figuring things out, while also giving you the freedom to explore and play music with your bandmates, for example, if you want a break from the main storyline. Also, the story itself, when the game is all said and done, is actually pretty crazy — and I mean that in the best way possible. There are some very unexpected plot twists toward the end, and I may or may not have cried at all the love.

Mae just chilling with her friends. [Night in the Woods]

Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse

Have I played Broken Sword 1-4? Unfortunately not. Do I still adore The Serpent's Curse despite that? Absolutely.

I adore solving fictional mysteries - when I was younger, my favorite game on the Leapfrog Didj (actually a very cool system, despite what you'd think) was Nancy Drew: The Mystery in the Hollywood Hills - and so of course this game was right up my alley. It's a point-and-click style game, which is new to me on a console like the Switch, considering I usually play action games such as Mario and Spongebob on consoles and typically think of point-and-click games as something seen more on phones and PC games. But this game works beautifully on the Switch, and I am still blown away by how intricate the story was and how much fun it was to play! The game starts out with a simple murder in an art gallery, but the more you dig into the murder, the crazier things become. I don't want to spoil anything because the mystery is so cool, but suffice it to say that everything eventually boils down to an epic fight between good and evil. The art is gorgeous, and the characters are very interesting and actually quite memorable. I also love how there's so much backstory alluded to between several of the characters — if the first four games were available on Switch as well, you know I'd play them immediately.

The scene of the first crime. [The Serpent's Curse]

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

This one will come as a surprise to absolutely no one (except myself). I have never played Animal Crossing before in my life, and honestly, wasn't even sure I'd get the game when it came out. And then, of course, they came out with the ridiculously pretty Animal Crossing edition Nintendo Switch, which is why I'm sitting here in quarantine with two Switches under my roof. At that point, yeah, I was pretty on board with getting the game as well the day it came out.

Now, Animal Crossing is definitely not my usual sort of game, and I did not expect to love it. So color me surprised when it's all I did for the first two weeks after it came out. To this date, I have played it longer than I have played any other game on my system (and maybe more than I've played all of them combined as well). It's a tad difficult to describe the game, but basically, you have decided to live on a deserted island (this is the New Horizons edition), only to find out later that this costs money, and now you're in debt to a Mr. Tom Nook. So you have to earn money to pay it off, and then you can upgrade your tent to a small house, but now you're in debt again so you repeat the cycle. This basically happens over and over again throughout the course of the game, which is nice because it provides some simple but necessary goals to keep the game entertaining. While this cycle continues, you invite neighbors to your island, decorate the rooms in your house, and also decorate the island and turn it into your perfect, aesthetic utopia. There's so much more to it - seasonal activities; donating to and expanding your museum; visiting other islands, including those of your real life friends, creating outfits and art, etc. - but that's the game in a (very small) nutshell. It's actually crazy addicting — if I sit down to play, I'm probably going to stay for at least 2-4 hours, if not more (which is why I began listening to audiobooks while playing after a certain point). It's also especially nice during quarantine because it kind of feels like you're outside even when you can't go outside.

Social media low key ruined the game for me though — when other people's islands are so pretty and organized in a way that mine will never be, what even is the point of playing? That plus my short attention span meant I took a couple months break from the game, but I went back in the other day and was surprised to find that it's still fun to visit my island! My favorite thing about this game is probably that you can play it at your own pace, and that it never ends — you can take however many breaks you want because your island will always be there. You just have to stomp on all the cockroaches that have decided to take over your home in your absence. Re-visiting Sanditon (that's my island!) last week truly did feel a bit like coming back home.