Polvasti

Isn't this a port of a platformer from 1997? Why the heck would it need a Switch 2 edition for "improved performance"? Shouldn't the Switch 1 already be able to run a game from the nineties flawlessly?

@somnambulance

This list goes to show that more curation is needed when making these types of lists. How many games aren’t getting exposure because X game released on Switch 2 even though it released years ago on another platform?

By this logic, ports of older games released on the Switch could never make it to the "best Switch games of the year" list, because it's not like they could be included on such a list before they were actually ported to the Switch. IMO an excellent port like Cyberpunk 2077 deserves to be on the "best of 2025 for the Switch" list, because that's the year it first became available on the console. Also, for people like me, whose only or primary gaming platform is the Switch, 2025 is the first time we actually got to play it. So it's among the best games of the year for us.

According to some earlier interviews Larian has a new game in development, and it's supposedly a completely new IP, so not set in the Divinity world. I guess they could be lying about it and it really is just Original Sin 3, but I kinda doubt that.

I wish would make a new version Original Sin 2 for the Switch 2, though. The Switch 1 version runs well, but the resolution is quite low, which makes the image blurry. A 1080p or even 4K Switch 2 version would be appreciated.

@OmnitronVariant It's not "objectively worst platform" you can play Cyberpunk 2077 on, since the game was also released on Playstation 4, and PS4 never got the Phantom Liberty DLC, whereas with the Switch 2 version it's included in the package. Also, some people prefer the ability to switch been docked and handheld modes over 4K graphics; personally, I have a PC that could run Cyberpunk in 4K but I still prefer to play it on the Switch 2 because of that reason. So for people like me the S2 is an objectively better platform for the game than a PC.

But if we're talking only about exclusive games which "could not be done on Switch 1", why doesn't Bananza count for you? That game's physics and particle engine could not have run on the Switch 1, the developers have pretty much confirmed it. Similarly, Age of Imprisonment could not have been done on the Switch 1 with such a level of detail and running at 60 FPS (which matters in a fast-paced action game like this one), since its Switch 1 predecessor struggled with 30 FPS despite having less detailed graphics.

@OmnitronVariant I don't understand why you need to exaggerate so much to make your point. I've played Cyberpunk on the Switch 2 for a 100 hours now, and it's not "barely functional" but a solid port. It runs at steady 30 FPS for most of the time and the very occasional framerate drops don't really affect the gameplay. The image quality is also very good at 1080p; of course it's not 4K, but you couldn't run a game of this magnitude at 4K on a portable device. If you really think a game like this is "barely functional" and "looks and runs like *****", then your standards for Switch ports are impossibly high, and you should just stick to playing games on non-portable devices.

@Krambo42 AFAIK, this game has an autobiographical story about what football meant to its main developer when he was a kid in Ecuador in 2002, when the country qualified for the FIFA World Cup for the first time. So obviously he can't change his personal history or the history of Ecuador to make it about baseball or hockey.

@OmnitronVariant

The fact that they look almost identical bar minor performance differences is yet another example of how I'm still waiting for something to release on Switch 2 that makes me think "this could not be done on Switch 1".

So games like Cyberpunk 2077, Donkey Kong Bananza, Star Wars Outlaws, Age of Imprisonment, etc. are not enough for you? None of those could have been done on the Switch 1.

Still busy playing Hades II, haven't really been playing anything else since its physical version came out last month. It's definitely gonna be my game of the year for 2025.

@Troubbble

Who knows. Maybe it's just because the Switch 2 launch was somewhat weak...and if people aren't continually hyped about Nintendo, they don't have much reason to visit this site.

In that context, there isn't necessarily much to be gained saying "that game you were looking forward to isn't great" when you could just as easily turn 5's into 7's and 7's into 9's and keep the hype train rolling.

What about all the other gaming sites which gave Octopath Traveler 0 a similarly high rating, such as Destructoid, Gaming Trend, Noisy Pixel, PC Games, Digital Chumps, RPG Site, etc.? They are not particularly focused on Nintendo, so what reason would they have to give this game a better review than what it deserves? The Metacritic aggregate score for all versions of the game (Switch, PC, Playstation, Xbox) is 84, which is pretty much in line with the 9/10 score given by Nintendo Life.

@Troubbble

Portraying this as a close-to-perfect title for the new Switch 2 is verging on grifting.

Are you implying Square Enix paid Nintendo Life for a positive review, or what's your point? Is it really that hard to believe that reviewer simply liked the game (which I presume you haven't even played yet) a lot? Several other publications have given this game a similarly positive review, so are they all taking part in this grifting?

30 party members feels like it's way too much. To me, the best part of the previous two games was how well fleshed-out your 8 party members were and how deep their storylines felt, but I'm guessing with such a large roster this game simply can't have similar depth to its characters?

The game looks nice and I do like 2D Metroids, but first-person shooters aren't really my thing, so I'll probably skip it. Especially after having read the reviews about how irritating the NPCs are.

@Fighting_Game_Loser

I see most of European gamers don't have good tastes

UK is not really representative of Europe as a whole, though. For example, Nintendo has been way more popular in some other European countries ever since the NES era.

I don't care about Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (the amount of fanservice in it is way too much for my taste), but I would definitely love to see a Switch 2 upgrade for the first and third game.

Glad to see Hades II on the top of the list. It really is the best game I've played on the Switch 2 so far.

Since Age of Imprisonment is quite a plot-heavy game, I'm actually glad that they didn't add Sonia as a playably character. For obvious reasons it would be quite weird to play story missions as her. I already disliked the convoluted way they included "Link" in the game even though there was no need to, so hopefully there'll be no more playabler characters added who have no reason to be there. (So no more BotW/TotK characters added via time travel shenanigans, please!) I felt similarly weird unlocking Calamity Canon in Age of Calamity and playing as him, as the narrative justification for him switching sides was incredibly flimsy.

If we're talking about long-awaited sequels to mid-00s action/adventure games, they did manage to make a sequel to Psychonauts 16 years after the original, and it was awesome, one of the best games of this decade... So I guess nothing's impossible, though I have much less faith in Ubisoft being able to pull it off than I had with Double Fine.

@Jeronan

They have never added any Pokemon game ever and probably never will.

They have added 4 Pokemon games to the N64 library.

I had thought this would be the first From Software game I'd try since the first Dark Souls, but like so many others here in the comments, when I found out it's a competitive online multiplayer game I stopped caring about it. I like playing casual couch co-op games with friends, but I'm quite slow to learn the ropes of tough games like the ones From makes. I prefer to do that learning at my own pace, and I have zero interest in getting my ass kicked by some random teenagers from the internet. Maybe one day they'll produce a new Switch 2 game for single players, and I'll gladly buy it, but this one I'll be skipping.

@Axecon We got a new Switch 2 Zelda game just two weeks ago, and I don't think Age of Imprisonment is aimed for any younger audience than Prime 4.

@Teksette It's actually "Metoroido Puraimu", if you really want to get pedantic. There's no syllabarys for two-consonant combos like "tr" or "pr" in Japanese.

I'm glad I preordered the physical copy, though I didn't even know it comes with all this extra stuff before reading this article. The Switch 1 physical versions of Hollow Knight and Celeste also included a neat little paper manual in the manual slot, I wish more publishers would do that. It's such a nice bonus, especially for us old folks who still remember the days when all video games came with a manual.

@Rizla What does this article have to do with politics? It's a fact of life that queer people exist in the world, just like straight people do, and that some queer folks relate to certain characters, just like straight folks do. Nintendo Life has often had articles on cosplayers, fan artists and other fans of video game characters expressing their fandom, yet I haven't seen people like you complain about them before.

Does this version have an option to give the main character more practical clothes? I've always been interested in giving this one a try, but the ludicrous fanservice with her design is so off-putting, I don't want to play through the whole game like that.

I love the Kirby platformers, but racing games are not my thing, so I won't be getting this one.

@FrenchVaniIIuxe So according to your logic the same-gender romances, which have exactly the same cutscenes and dialogues as the straight ones, warrant a higher age rating for the game because of... reasons? It never ceases to amaze me how irrational homophobes can be.

Why does the controller have to have those ugly dates in its handles? Are they supposed to be the launch dates of all Nintendo consoles? And if they are, why does a "retro" NES style console have the launch date for the Switch 2?

@The_Nintendo_Pedant I totally understand being upset if a game has some significant narrative or gameplay content relegated to a paid DLC, but based on its description this villain DLC seems to be just a few fun bonus stages for Sega fans that have nothing to do with the main game or its story. So probably won't miss much if you just stick with the base game and ignore the DLC.

I already have a Switch 2, I'm not gonna pay 500 euros for another one.

I've never played any Pokemon games. When the first ones came out in the 1990s, I was a teenager and they felt like kids' games to me, so I never got on board the Pokemon train. And now that I'm in my forties, I feel it's a bit too late to get into them anymore. I've got the Monster Hunter Stories and Persona games to scratch that monster-collecting JRPG itch when it hits.

Years ago I remember reading reviews of The Wanderer: Frankenstein's Creature which said the Switch version has some bugs that made parts of it unplayable. For example, here's what The Digital Fix had to say about it back in 2020:

This strange movement bug kept happening, making it excruciating to move the creature to get items I needed. I would have to twirl around, madly pressing ‘A’ in an attempt to interact with the object I could barely get to, and it all came to a crashing halt when I physically could not get to a corner of a room I needed to in order to complete the level. I rebooted the game countless times and it would not work, again, I looked at a walkthrough to see if I was doing things in the wrong order and I was definitely not.

After a few more attempts of me trying to move to the corner, and the creature continuing to turn away, I was left defeated, and I have to say a little bit angry. I understand bugs are a thing, but it is so disappointing when I couldn’t actually finish the game, and if, by some miracle, I reboot it again and it works, this happened so often during the game, it took me out of the narrative too often and made the game so infuriating to try and play.

I am aware this is just my experience with the game, but I did take the liberty to look up some other Switch reviews to see if similar things had been said, and there have been a few reviewers who have said similar things. Some even tried to play the game on a range of different Switch consoles and came across this movement bug time and time again, so this is not an isolated issue with my copy of the game.

I wonder if this movement bug has since been fixed?

This has a been on my Steam wishlist for a while now, but I'd definitely be more interested in having it on the Switch. Too bad there isn't a S2 version though, I'm not sure how well it'll run on the original Switch. I'd rather play it on the new console with no significant visual downgrades.

@Daniel36 I'm pretty sure at least some of those new elements in this update were done after Marvelous received player feedback on them. As someone who's been a bit frustrated with a couple of the things this update fixes, I'm glad they've listened to feedback. And while I think Guardians of Azuma is lovely game, it's true that the postgame after the main quest is not particularly exciting, especially when it comes to battles and social links. So I think it's great they've added some new content to ameliorate this instead of saving it for the sequel.

Added a new development zone to Summer Village which you can access after reaching Village Level 8.

This is much appreciated. The space for all your stores, buildings, fields, etc. in Summer Village is ridiculously small compared to the other three villages.

It's not comparable to the delight of finding all your old horses from BotW in your stable in TotK, but old save bonuses are always appreciated.

@StuTwo

I think that Nintendo might well have truly understood the fact that the appeal of Metroid is (and always has been) 100% heavy metal and 0% anime.

Hence the very heavily anime "I'm not sure about my feelings about my 'baby metroid' and melodrama with 'Adam'" stuff goes out and the very heavily metal "it's a woman in a metal suit with a big gun on her arm fighting skeletal alien dragon pirates whilst riding a power bike" stuff is very much in.

Er, isn't the power bike in this game clearly inspired by one of the most famous manga/anime of all time?

@DarthXenos Thanks for the link! The back panel is still useless to me, but at least that package is a bit cheaper than the one that includes the front panel too.

I wonder why Jsaux don't sell those Joycon grips as a separate product? I have no need for the protective case, but I'd love to get the grips 'cos they look nice and ergonomic. As it is, however, the only way to get the grips is to buy the whole package and pay for some extra pieces I'm never gonna use.

So if I understood correctly, the Switch 2 upgrades are only available if you buy this upcoming release, and those of us who are already own Mario Galaxy 1 as part of the 3D All-Stars compilation won't be getting the upgrade? So we have to buy the same game for the second time if we want the Switch 2 version?

Sonic does what Mario Karn't.

One of the simpler Crests in Silksong, the Wanderer Crest is aptly found in the Chapel of the Wanderer to the west of Bone Bottom. You'll need Cling Grip to get it as you'll have to grab the wall above the sealed door.

This is not strictly true. You can also bypass the sealed door by buying the 500 rosary key from the shop in Bone Bottom, using the key on the lock in the area above Bone Bottom, and then travelling to the Chapel of the Wanderer via the route that opens up. I got the Wanderer Crest this way without having acquired the Cling Grip.

@AJWolfTill Yeah, I guess that one particular case could be an artistic choice, but that doesn't change the fact that basic things like benches and fast travel stations also cost rosaries to unlock, which in no way adds a meaningful challenge to the game, because rosaries are mostly farmed in small amounts from basic enemies. Like I said, it just creates some extra meaningless busywork.

I don't mind these tweaks, but what I would really like them to change is the mechanic where you have to pay for everything. For example, your special weapons are not automatically replenished when you rest on a bench rather you have to pay for that, and if you don't have any money they won't replenish. And early on in the game there's a house with a shop and a bench inside, and you have to pay 30 rosaries every time you want to even enter the house. These kind of barriers don't add any interesting challenge to the game, they just increase the pointless busywork you need to perform in order to gather the required money. There was nothing like this in Hollow Knight.

@Bunkerneath The price for the S2 game key-card version is the same as the price of the digital version in eShop and Steam, so what's the issue?

@Bunkerneath By that logic every indie game that's released in digital format only should get a reduced score. Which would be absurd. The score is for the game itself, not for its distribution method.

@Sebazy This court case was about providing the tools for people to copy games that are currently available for everyone to buy in digital and/or physical format. So any talk of game preservation in this specific case is not really valid, since the majority of people who bought the MiG device were not using it for such a noble purpose rather than for copying games without paying for them.

@WheresWaveRace There are no professional reviews of the Switch 2 version of Cronos out yet, so presumably the publisher didn't send any review copies in advance. If I were to guess, it's because the Switch 2 version reportedly suffers from performance issues, and they didn't want reviews to point that out before the game was released.

@Smithicus

Dont get me wrong, I do like Hollow Knight, and Silksong is great. but I also feel like I am just playing very well made metroidvania games, and these are not the greatest games of all time or anything.

Why couldn't a very well made metroidvania be among the greatest games of all time, just like a very well made game in any other genre could? Hollow Knight is definitely among my top 10 video games of all time. (It's too early to say where Silksong will place in that list.)

Why the heck was that Scrambled Eggs game released as a Switch 2 title instead of Switch 1?

@OmnitronVariant None the ten Switch 2 games I've so far acquired for my library (which I listed above) are blurry or bad performing, so no publisher has "taken me for a ride". On the contrary, a publisher like Hello Games has been quite generous by giving me a significantly improved Switch 2 version of No Man's Sky for free since I already had the Switch 1 version.