Nintendo Life Best Moments 2023
Image: Nintendo Life

It's no understatement to say that 2023 has been stacked with memorable video gaming moments. Yes, the past 12 months might not have brought us new Nintendo hardware, but many of the games and announcements have been among the Switch's best — maybe even Nintendo's best.

With three bumper edition Directs, surprise drops, and games packed with great moments, our list of punch-the-air experiences grows longer the more we think about it. So, we have decided to share some of our favourites, the moments that left us grinning cheek-to-cheek or that elicited a small yelp of surprise (most of us are Brits, so such displays are a big deal).

Below, you will find our selection of Nintendo's very best moments from 2023. We have split the mentions into two categories to account for news/announcement moments and gaming moments — be warned, the latter contains some light spoilers for Nintendo's 2023 releases, so you might want to skip over them if you are still yet to play.

With a year as packed as 2023, we are sure that there are a handful of moments (possibly a very big handful) that we have missed, so have a read through our favourites, let us know which ones hit with you, and then take to the comments to share your own.

Happy holidays, everyone!

Best News & Announcements

Metroid Prime's Shadow Drop

Metroid Prime Remastered
Image: Nintendo

We had just about lost track of how long we've been waiting for Metroid Prime 4. So much so, that well-founded rumours of the original game getting a remaster seemed to be getting more unlikely by the day. And then...

As if Metroid Prime Remastered getting revealed during the February Direct wasn't enough, Nintendo went and shadow-dropped it at the very same moment. The game itself is, of course, magnificent, but that surprise announcement was truly one of the year's best. Here's hoping Prime 2 and 3 will get similar treatment soon.

Layton's Surprise Return

The February Nintendo Direct was fantastic for many reasons (some of which are mentioned on this very list), but seeing the teaser for Professor Layton and the New World of Steam, no matter how brief, was undoubtedly one of our favourite moments.

Remember, it was just a few years ago that Level-5 said it was ending global distribution, and now here we are with our beloved puzzle man making a comeback?! The surprise was unreal. Shame it's not coming until 2025, but hey.

Nintendo Switch Online's Game Boy Bonus

Getting Game Boy and Game Boy Advance Games on NSO featured on more than a few 2023 bingo cards at the start of the year — and in previous years, come to think of it — but its announcement in the February Nintendo Direct was a cause for celebration all the same.

Seeing the list of 'launch' games include the likes of The Minish Cap, Link's Awakening DX and Kuru Kuru Kururin (amongst others, of course) was more than we had hoped for and it reignited our Game Boy obsession all over again.

Tears Of The Kingdom's Final Trailer

Breath of the Wild's final trailer went down as one of Nintendo's best, so the fact that Tears of the Kingdom could even come close to matching its greatness (and maybe even surpass it) was really saying something. The music! The lore! The action! Sexy Ganondorf?! It had it all.

It would have to be a pretty special game to live up to that... although the critical consensus escapes us right now. We've gone and started thinking about Ganondilf again.

A New Mainline Mario Revealed!

The wait for a new Mario felt like a long one (2D or 3D), so seeing the initial reveal for Super Mario Bros. Wonder at the end of the June Direct was a feeling unlike any other. Sure, there had been some rumblings that Nintendo was cooking up something else for its mascot, but to see a game that was actually new (but not 'New') really was something special.

Let's not forget that this is the first time we got to see that expressive animation, the Talking Flowers, the Wonder effects! It was also the first time that we saw Elephant Mario, but you can't have too much of a good thing, we suppose...

Surprise! F-Zero 99 Exists!

F-Zero was one of those franchises like Kid Icarus and Star Fox that you hear people throwing around before a Direct and think to yourself, "Nah, there's no way." As it turns out, there was some way.

F-Zero 99 might not be the full remaster or new entry that many die-hard fans of the high-octane racing series were desperately hoping for, but it is F-Zero, and it is good. The September Direct announcement took us a little by surprise — "That's our baby. In a battle royale?" — but it was one of the few genuine surprises of the year, and one that we were pleased to see pay off.

Paper Mario Is On His Way

This is another one that had been bandied about a fair number of times in the past. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door on Switch had begun to feel like a pipedream before it unfolded in the September Direct earlier this year.

Of course, that 2024 release date means that we don't know whether it will live up to our expectations just yet (it probably will), but we are still pretty darn pleased with the announcement.

Best Switch Game Moments

Metroid's New Rain

Metroid Prime Remastered Rain
Image: Nintendo Life

The first time landing on Tallon IV in Metroid Prime Remastered was likely to be a different memorable experience for different people. For some of us at Nintendo Life, this was our first time stepping into Samus' first-person world and the moment was filled with excitement at what was ahead. For those of us who were more well-versed in the game, however, the excitement was over something a little more niche: rain.

The fact of the matter is that Nintendo had managed to make one of the finest-looking remasters we have seen on Switch, so seeing something as standard as rain look this good was really saying something. But come on, watching those droplets ping off of Samus' Arm Cannon really is ace.

Tears of the Kingdom's Epic Opening

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Intro
Image: Nintendo Life

There's no messing around with Tears of the Kingdom's opening. The black screens with 'Nintendo Presents', 'The Legend of Zelda', 'Tears of the Kingdom' are carried over from Breath of the Wild, yes, but they still ooze with confidence. This is a company that knows it has created a banger.

From there, it just gets bigger and better. The walking tour through the tunnels under Hyrule Castle, the gradually increasing music, the weird goopy stuff all over the walls (no, we didn't know about Gloom at the time). It's all just flipping awesome. Forget 2023, as we say down below — this opening is one of Nintendo's best. Ever.

The Master Sword Moment

Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Master Sword
Image: Nintendo Life

There are a lot of pretty special moments in the Zelda series, but (in our opinion) none of them come close to the spectacle of Tears of the Kingdom's Master Sword sequence. As if hurtling across the sky on the back of a dragon wasn't cool enough, you pull your sword out of its head?! What exactly this dragon represents is just an added bonus by this point.

We had so many theories about what the 'Tears' of the title might mean. As it turns out, they were our own.

Olimar's Shipwreck Tale

We loved Pikmin 4 from the second we laid eyes on it. Yes, it made some tweaks to the formula that worked so well in our beloved first entry and it was a little light on challenge because of it, but it was still brilliant.

You can imagine our surprise, then, to find a whole Pikmin 1-style bonus game bolted onto the end. With Olimar at the helm, no less! It really was the cherry on top of an already scrumptious cake.

THAT BIT in Sea of Stars

Sea of Stars
Image: Sabotage

It's all well and good treading lightly into spoiler territory, but this feels more like it should be an IYKYK situation. Of course, there are a couple of different sections that we could be referring to — a particular moment in one character's arc, a morality twist, a change in perspective.

In truth, Sea of Stars is full of memorable moments, and whatever "THAT BIT" means for you is a great pick!

Mario Wonder's Piranha Plants On Parade

We all knew that Super Mario Bros. Wonder was going to bring us some weirdness, but we didn't know just how weird until we triggered the Wonder effect in W1-2 and the level became a full-fledged musical. These are Piranha Plants, but they sing. And dance.

Our biggest fear going into Wonder was whether Nintendo would be able to move things on from the 'New' series. Piranha Plants on Parade washed all of those worries away.

There you have a handful of our favourite moments from 2023, what a year it has been! Which of the above was a standout for you? Fill out the following poll with your top picks and then take to the comments to let us know of any that we have missed.

What is your top Switch moment of 2023?