Somehow, we've made it halfway through the year — congrats on surviving 2025 so far! Now that many of us have a shiny new console in our hands, we've got a lot to look forward to.
But before we look at the future all starry-eyed, it's time to look back at the year's very best for the first six months. Sure, the Switch 2 is a highlight, but we've had months of excellent Switch 1 games, and many of us are sitting on a backlog as tall as a skyscraper now we can't put down our Mario Kart Worlds or our Cyberpunk 2077s.
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The team here at NL, along with some of our fabulous contributors, have shared their favourites on Switch and Switch 2 from the year to date. We've got giant mechs, fast cars, space sobbing, and a quite and busy life to get through.
What are you favourite games so far on Nintendo's consoles? Share your thoughts in the comments and by voting in our poll at the end of the article!
Stealing time and Magnolias (Alana Hagues, deputy editor)
It's the end of June and, once again, I'm lamenting that I haven't spent more time with Switch games. This happens every year, but that kind of statement sounds even more ridiculous when you've played a lot of remakes and remasters and spent over 100 hours on Xenoblade and Hello Kitty each, right?
There's another game that is going to join that elusive 100+ club, and I'm head over heels in love with it. I knew what I was getting into with Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time (I never played the 3DS one), but I've sat down multiple times and lost hours just by doing stuff. It's a game that was made in a laboratory specifically for me, and I'm scared for my free time.
Something a little more condensed that I ended up adoring is Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist. I played Lilies and it back-to-back and the sequel is a huge step up; the movement and control options are divine, the combat is more polished, the bosses are extremely fun, and the map is excellent. It's an almost-perfect concoction of Metroidvania ingredients.
X marks the spot (Gavin Lane, editor)
Since we found out that Switch 2 might give old games a performance bump, I found myself ghosting the console to an extent, sitting tight until the successor dropped and I could bathe in the super smooth frame rates and 'silent' updates that sees Switch 1 games reach their full potential. And now it's here!... and I'm predictably buried under Switch 2 games now (several of which are excellent, but they'll get their props from other people here).
Yep, I've gone and curtailed my S1 sampling quite a bit having dipped back into various Wii games — Hi, Rock Band! Hi, Excite Truck! Hi, Rhythm Heaven Fever! — in recent months, but I'd like to give a shoutout to two games at different ends of the size spectrum: Xenoblade Chronicles X, and Please, Touch The Artwork 2.
The former got its due acclaim at launch, and while I'm only (!) maybe a dozen hours in, it took that long to really click with me, and I'm now gagging to return and finish it off. The latter is a minnow (which I reviewed, in fact) and while it's not an earth-shaker, it deserves a mention here at the very least as a great little amuse-bouche among the obvious titans.
Oh, and while we're on games I reviewed, I'll give Welcome Tour a nod, too. From the tone of coverage elsewhere, it's hard to understand what some people expected from it (and backlash to the pricing is an obvious factor), but from my perspective? As I said, it's like an Iwata Asks interview in interactive form; I don't see how anyone who's ever enjoyed one of those could dislike it! As ever, different strokes.