Animal Crossing New Horizons
Image: Kate Gray

Another busy week draws to a close and the weekend beckons. Over the past seven days some little-known minnow in Nintendo's IP portfolio received an anniversary update, we got a glimpse of what a hypothetical raytraced Breath of the Wild could look like in 8K, and we're gearing up for yet another significant anniversary on Sunday. It's now time to put your feet up and get down to some quality gaming while it's still winter outside, no? Yes, it's time to discuss our weekend gaming plans.

Members of the Nintendo Life team have done just that below, so feel free to give our entries a read and then join in with your own via our comment section. Enjoy!

Liam Doolan, news reporter

This weekend I'll be celebrating the Animal Crossing: New Horizons anniversary...in ah, Animal Crossing; New Horizons! At the moment I'm also still busy trying to collect all of the Super Mario items - the Warp Pipe is very handy when it comes to island travel.

Apart from this, I'm curious to investigate Kaze and the Wild Masks. After reading our own review on the site by Stuart Gipp, I simply can't resist when he's drawing comparisons to the Super Nintendo classic Donkey Kong Country and saying it's an "absolute pleasure" from beginning to end. Perhaps if I get some extra time I'll even check out the new Hatsune Miku puzzle game that got a surprise release on the Switch earlier this week. That'll probably do me for the next few days.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Ollie Reynolds, reviewer

Hey folks! Hope everyone's doing well. I'm carrying on with my playthrough of Pokémon Blue this week, and still thoroughly enjoying my time with it. I genuinely forgot about so many moments during the game, it's making me feel like a 10 year old all over again!

Elsewhere, I've decided to crack on with a bit of Animal Crossing: New Horizons since it's managed to pull me back in again, and I've also got a bit of an urge to replay Super Mario 64. Maybe all this talk of Mario's untimely demise at the end of the month has me feeling a bit sympathetic towards the little guy…

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

This weekend is going to be chock full of me attempting to hold myself back from time traveling and getting all of the Sanrio villagers and items in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. I’ve also been on a bit of a Picross S5 kick, and have also been jumping back into older games that I’ve yet to completely finish (Paper Mario: The Origami King, Luigi’s Mansion 3, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the Pokemon Sword & Shield DLC, and Ring Fit Adventure). I could really use a relaxing weekend of digging into my backlog, and I’m seriously looking forward to it.

Kate Gray, staff writer

This week has been a busy one, even though I've just been mostly sitting at my desk, so it's been tough to find time for games - so this week's "what are you playing" is going to look VERY similar to last week's!

Later Alligator came out this week, though, and half of the team that made it is SmallBu, a husband-and-wife animation team. They're my absolute favourite animators, so I was so excited to finally get to play the game on the Switch. My review probably says all this already, so apologies if you have to read it twice!

In other news, I've been playing more Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town, and the more I play, the more I like it. Thank goodness reviews aren't based on the first ten hours of a game. Oh, and Valheim. It's this little game, you probably haven't heard of it, it's about Vikings...

Gavin Lane, features editor

This week I took delivery of a rather fetching Game Boy Advance with a new IPS screen and a natty white bezel. With this in hand, I intend to celebrate the GBA's 20th anniversary with Kuru Kuru Kururin, Sabre Wulf and perhaps a little Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2.

That's the intention. The reality will likely involve bouncing a small child to sleep with a Joy-Con in each hand while I plough through the remaining puzzles of Picross S on the muted TV. Before you know it I'll have to pick up one of the other seventy-three Picross games Jupiter's released over the last four years! Paper Mario: The Origami King has also been keeping me company in the small hours — lovely looking game, that.

Gonçalo Lopes, reviewer

Quite happy to play Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning for the first time ever this weekend. I expect it t suck me into its fantasy world much the same way Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen did when it arrived on the Switch. On the Wii it’s blue skies and drama with Sky Crawlers: Innocent Aces and We Love Golf!, a game Jon made me buy. Curious to give Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse a go just to see how the Switch handles the original Halo game engine while I am reaching the cusp of 2027 in the 70+ months career in Wrestling Empire.

Game of the week is Hades, the fancy Switch exclusive physical edition. Now we can lick it!

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave us a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days...