25. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 6.08 million

This beautiful Switch remake of the classic Game Boy entry rebuilds everything from the ground up. On top of the beautiful new art style, it added modern conveniences, a dungeon creator, amiibo support, and lots of little quality-of-life improvements whilst infusing every single square inch of Koholint – every secret passage, Piranha, Pokey and Pig Warrior – with a level of detail and depth that totally reinvigorated both its timeless story and classic Zelda gameplay for a whole new generation of gamers.

If there's anything holding The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening back, some minor frame rate issues might prove jarring for some players. Others may not even notice, but if you're sensitive to dropped frames it's possible you'll find yourself distracted from the otherwise absorbing gameplay. It's a little thing, but with the heritage of technical wizardry behind the Game Boy original, it is a noticeable chink in this game's otherwise glistening armour.

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26. Mario Tennis Aces (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 4.28 million

We’re used to seeing Wii U games transfer to Switch, but for Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash to have moved across without a substantial makeover would have been disastrous. Mario Tennis Aces, wonderfully, is anything but that – it’s a superb arcade sports game that’s generous with its suite of player options and only occasionally guilty of being a little cheap in its Adventure Mode. The presentation is spot on, and the core tennis action is absorbing whether you’re trading simple strokes or firing off special shots. Some animations and voice overs are identical to Ultra Smash’s, but everything around them has been overhauled to quite splendid heights. This is something of a Switch Port Plus, then – not quite a whole new experience, but so improved as to be near unrecognisable.

27. Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of March 2022): 4.22 million

Compilation games like Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics always have a variety of hits and misses depending on your own personal taste, but there's a wide enough variety of board, card and action games here that you're sure to find a number that will appeal to you. Everything's presented with charm and warmth (terribly-written cutscenes aside) and there's an enormous amount of content on offer, whether you plan on playing solo or with others. The perfect game for if you're stuck indoors with the family? Quite possibly.

28. Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 4.12 million

There's no doubt about it, Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is one of the most refined and enjoyable platformers money can buy. The levels are all beautiful, the characters move with fluidity and brilliant responsiveness, and the inclusion of Funky Kong brings balance for those who have less experience with brutally tough platformers. It’s so well-made that it’s almost too well-made; there's an absence of a certain 'rough-and-ready' charm found in Rare's original DKC trilogy. You know you're splitting hairs when your biggest complaint is that a game is too polished, though. After beginning life on Wii U, Donkey Kong’s Switch debut is streamlined, rewarding, and immensely good fun; any fan of 2D platformers simply has to get this game.

29. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of January 2022): 4 million

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity uses Omega Force's Dynasty Warriors format just as the team's first foray into the Zelda universe did, but borrows a layer of Breath of the Wild's polished presentation and story which elevates it in our eyes. Boasting a large cast of familiar characters — each with their own movesets and weapons — it gives you the chance to fight the Calamity 100 years before the events of BOTW.

Performance could be better in some parts (dramatically better on occasion), but frame rate drops didn't affect our enjoyment of this Hyrule-based hack-and-slasher. It's a treat to spend some quality time with the Four Champions, and while Age of Calamity is obviously riding on the coattails of Breath of the Wild, we certainly enjoyed our time with this quasi-prequel adventure.

30. Kirby Star Allies (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 3.98 million

Kirby Star Allies is a fun, relaxing game that does a good job of showing off what makes the main Kirby series so great. The slow pace, diverse powers, beautiful environments, adorable enemy designs, and light difficulty ensure that this is an enjoyable ride from start to finish. But with that being said, there’s a lingering sense that HAL was a little too keen to play this one safe, and the lack of new ideas may come as a disappointment to series veterans. It's not the Mario Odyssey or Breath Of The Wild of the Kirby series, then, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a bad game. If you’ve never played a Kirby game before, this is a fantastic place to jump in, but long-time fans will find little to get their pulses racing.

31. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of March 2022): 3.91 million

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD introduced a raft of technical improvements and quality-of-life updates that revitalised the Wii game. The alternate button control scheme totally worked if you still couldn't get on with the motion controls, the graphics got a sensitively-handled HD overhaul, and a once-bothersome sidekick was streamlined into something altogether more useful. Yes, the locking off of instant travel behind the official amiibo was a misstep, but beyond that issue, this was a great remaster of a divisive game.

32. Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 3.82 million

As soon as Switch launched it seemed like the perfect console for Fire Emblem. Portability and strategy games are a marriage made in heaven, but being able to throw the battle on the big screen in HD gives Three Houses a scope that wasn't possible on the diminutive 3DS.

Three Houses added new strings to the series' bow, though, with the Garegg Mach Monastery providing a Hogwarts-style academy to explore and enjoy as you build those ever-important relationships with your characters from the Black Eagles, Blue Lions, and Golden Deer. It's clearer than ever before that the key to the franchise is its ability to evoke feeling for your units through canny writing and charismatic characters; Three Houses created the perfect environment to foster and develop the students in your chosen house. Indeed, the huge number of options open to you, not to mention the alternatives closed off with each choice you make, might make Three Houses an intimidating prospect, but it excels in forging a vital and worthwhile experience whichever house you pick or route you take. And you don't need to buy another game to go back and travel the road not taken. Take that, Fates!

And if that's still not enough for you, there's always DLC. Did somebody say four houses?

33. 1-2-Switch (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 3.63 million

1-2-Switch does a great job of showing off the unique feature set of the Switch and its Joy-Con controllers, but it's seriously lacking in long-term appeal. When played with a group of friends or family members it's a proper hoot, and has the same social gaming appeal that made Wii Sports a living room tradition for so many households all over the world, but there's no escaping the fact that many of these mini-games lack longevity; some are so basic that they fail to maintain your interest past the first go, no matter how inebriated you and your pals happen to be.

For a retail game, 1-2-Switch feels a little anemic, and would have been much better suited as a pack-in title. Nintendo has countered this stance by claiming that it couldn't bundle the game due to cost, but including a download code with each Switch sold wouldn't have incurred any real physical expense – beyond lost retail sales, of course - and that would have been a sensible trade-off when you consider how solid an advert this game is for the system. How many people were sold on the Wii's merits simply by witnessing Wii Sports at a friend's house? By refusing to bundle 1-2-Switch with the base system, Nintendo has missed out on the kind of exposure that marketing simply cannot buy you; as a stand-alone release it feels too fleeting and ephemeral, but as a free pack-in it would arguably have been much more appealing.

34. Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2021): 3.34

Paper Mario: The Origami King tries to do something different with its combat system and, to be honest, we aren't really feeling it. That doesn't mean the rest of the game isn't thoroughly entertaining, however, and while the puzzle-based battles aren't quite what a new Paper Mario game needed, they aren't so awful that everything else shouldn't be experienced as a result. It still isn't the new Thousand-Year Door fans will have been hoping for, but it's still one of the funniest games in the series and it's got a truly likeable companion character, and while the combat is far from ideal the fact that we still thoroughly recommend the game regardless should speak volumes.

35. Pikmin 4 (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of September 2023): 3.33 million

Pikmin 4 is a sumptuous strategy adventure that serves up tons of fun for returning fans of the franchise whilst also adding lots to entice new players into giving it a try. Oatchi is the star of the show in our eyes, a very good boy who is woven cleverly into the core of the puzzle action. Series-best dungeons, a hugely inventive overworld, night missions, Dandori battles, and post-credit goodies only sweeten the deal. Yes, the co-op is disappointing, and the campaign's not gonna be challenging enough for some diehard fans, but overall Nintendo has nailed it here, serving up a magical Pikmin adventure that we reckon could see the series finally getting all of the attention it fully deserves.

36. Super Mario RPG (Switch)

Lifetime sales (as of December 2023): 3.14 million

Super Mario RPG is here in all of its weird, wonderful glory for a new generation to experience, and sets a new standard for how to do a faithful remake right. Delivering a beautifully preserved, pure experience for fans of the original and an accessible entry-point for genre newcomers, the game's infectious charm, writing, and polished gameplay do so much to elevate this beyond what might have been merely a simple RPG starring Mario.