10. Celeste

Celeste is a wonderful indie platformer game that tells a tale of personal struggle and addiction. You will also die a lot, like a few times in each new room. Your goal is to use your jump and dash abilities, alongside the room layout, to make your way through an area. Then do it all over again. The pixel art style summons memories of “Nintendo hard” from 30+ years ago and the gameplay matches. The modern twist is that you can simply immediately respawn and try the room again. The net result is a game which hits a perfect balance of new and old to produce an experience you won’t forget.

I’m going to hijack this entry to discuss how massively the Switch benefited from the indie game boom of the late 2010s and beyond. If I were making a list of my top 50 games of all time, I bet at least 20% of that list would be indie games from this era, games that released and ran wonderfully on the Switch with the added benefit of being playable in handheld mode. Celeste, Guacamelee 2, Hades, and Sifu are some examples here and, spoiler, there might be others on this very list!

9. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

This is more of a “respect the game” situation than a personal choice for me. I really do enjoy Smash and this is likely in my top 10 in terms of Switch playtime, but I’ve never been quite obsessed with the series. I never shelled out for the DLC characters, for example. Smash is Smash. It is a wonderful fighting system that has been refined into near perfection over each Nintendo console generation and Ultimate is the, for now, peak of those efforts. It lets you beat up many of your favorite video game characters with different favorite video game characters. The customization options allow you to create incredibly silly matches full of item drops or serious, tournament style play which ensure there is plenty to do here no matter how serious your interest in getting good is.

8. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

One of the best series of all time hits a new high. The character and course lists are both massive. The game was supported with a ridiculous amount of DLC; 48 additional tracks!!! I’m not convinced that this is my personal favorite entry in the franchise, but it is really difficult to argue that it isn’t, objectively, the best. It is also one of the very best selling video games of all time. Sometimes it’s better to not overthink things; Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is easily one of the 10 best Switch games.

7. Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze

DKC is one of my favorite series of all time and Tropical Freeze is a brilliant expansion of the ideas of the original, and Returns. It packs more creativity into single levels than many platformers do in entire worlds. Yes, the side-scrolling 2D platformer has been done countless times, but, for my money, this is among the very best the genre has ever produced. Nothing groundbreaking in terms of gameplay, simply a refinement mixed in with wonderfully creative visuals is enough to lift this to the top of the genre.

6. Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening/Super Mario RPG

These two are related, right? If you stretch enough, you can see they are both beloved 90s top-down games from iconic series which both received full-blown remakes on the Switch. Good enough for me! Link’s Awakening is my favorite 2D Zelda game because it is way more constrained than ALttP; there is very little “where do I go next?” to be found. The new visuals are great and the whimsical story is such a sidestep for Zelda, you can’t help but to love it.

Super Mario RPG is a perfect JRPG. Mixing in timed button presses into the turn-based combat is a great Mario-ization of the genre and games which copy it successfully are among my all-time favorites. This full remake changes a few things, but the core of the game remains and shines alongside the charming, memorable characters you meet along the way.

5. Metroid Dread

Who saw a new 2D Metroid coming in the Switch’s lifespan? It had been over a decade since Other M, which many people would like to forget existed, and prior to that 2002’s Fusion was the most recent original 2D Metroid game. That’s a long time. Dread came out of nowhere and absolutely delivered. Somewhat ironically, the dread part of Dread, being chased by mostly unkillable robots, was the worst part of the game. They succeed in making you nervous and tense, but it is questionable how much fun they are. The rest of the game, however, absolutely shines and is a fantastic throwback to 2D Metroid games with the appropriate modern upgrades. I love Metroidvanias, which is a weird term to use when talking about an actual Metroid game, and Dread might just be my favorite all-time in the genre.

4. Death’s Door

Death’s Door is an indie action adventure game that feels like a dozen different 90s games you played and love but manages to forge its own unique feel. It is a top-down sword slashing game with dungeons, light puzzling, and great boss fights. If this is ringing Zelda bells; that’s the intent. The twists the game adds in magic and healing are wonderful, as is the art style and the world the game creates. Yes, I think this is a better game than Link’s Awakening. No, I won’t apologize for that. It hits many of the same basic notes but has unique twists and has a perfect sub-10 hour runtime. It’s a wonderful experience from beginning to end. Full review here.

3. Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild/Tears of the Kingdom

It’s impossible not to link these two. Yes, the TotK introduces an absolutely wild crafting (is that the right term? Fusion? Engineering?) system which somehow multiplies the freedom players have in BotW by about 1000. However, the games take place in the same world, look pretty much the same, and feature the same core mechanics. No, I would not want to ever play them both back-to-back (that’s about 450 hours to complete both games, according to HowLongToBeat). These open world 3D games blew away many concepts that had become core to the genre, mainly the Ubisoft “map vomit” style of exploration through objectives. BotW is an all-time game because it lets you do absolutely whatever you want from, almost, the start. Want to head to fight Ganon two hours into your game? Go for it! The true choose-your-own-adventure gameplay offered here is amazing. TotK took the concept and expanded it in wild ways. Plus, in TotK you can build airplanes.

2. Cuphead

If there is a running theme on this list it is probably that I tend to love games which provide modern takes on old staples. In fact, every single game included is either from a 20+ year old series or directly, intentionally invokes games of similar ages. It should be no surprise then that Cuphead is another throwback, this time heading WAY back to the early Disney days with its marvelous art style pulled straight from Steamboat Willie. The art is the instant draw of this game, and it can’t be overstated how amazing it is and how nothing else looks anything like it, but that wouldn’t matter much if the gameplay didn’t hold up. The majority of Cuphead plays out in boss fights. No levels, no throwaway enemies, you simply start on the boss. These each have multiple phases and play out much like a schump or bullet hell game. The game is brutally difficult, I believe the death count of my first playthrough was in the 1,500-2,000 range. It’s an exercise in slowly learning patterns, improving, adjusting, overcoming, and breathing a massive sigh of relief when you finally beat the boss. Then immediately start the process all over again on the next one. There is variety within the formula; in some levels you are an airplane and others are 2D action platformer side-scrollers. Put all of this together and you have one of the best games of all time, and you can go download it on Switch for $20 and play it while laying in bed. What a time to be alive!

1. Super Mario Odyssey

3D Mario games might be my favorite game series of all time and Odyssey felt like the crowning achievement of the category. The game takes Super Mario 64’s large-level approach, expands to much larger levels with a lot of space to explore, and tops it off with a wild variety of moons to find in each. Possibly my favorite part about this game is getting dropped into a new level and seeing how, despite being able to go anywhere you want, the game naturally draws you in certain directions and the moons start popping up if you keep following along. You can also choose to ignore the natural design flow if you want, and you’ll still find a bunch of moons anyway. The gameplay is top notch with perfect 3D platforming action and some short burst 2D sections to hit the nostalgia. A ridiculous 880 moons are available to find in the game, but only a fraction (124) are required to beat the game. Odyssey packs a lot of post game content, much of which is among the best the game offers, certainly the most challenging bits. 

Whereas the majority of the post-SM64 3D Mario games tried to take the series in new directions, Odyssey feels like a culmination of lessons learned in the 20+ years that passed between the two. Odyssey is my personal choice for the crowning achievement on the Switch and stands as one of the greatest games ever made.