I’ve always played games on desktops, never owned a console of any type. For Christmas, we had 500,000 JPY from grandma to spend on our eldest, and she wanted to play “Mario games”, so a Switch was bought.
Miitopia came with it for free, and we bought Mario Party to fulfil the request and give us something to play together. To my surprise, Mario Party hasn’t really clicked with the eldest, but she’s obsessed with the rather rubbish JRPG Miitopia.
I found the whole account creation and game download a surprisingly fiddly chore, but it’s been done now. I think I’m still not linked to online services fully? I don’t know. I guess what I want to ask is how to access game downloads that aren’t overpriced Nintendo products? Is there any equivalent of an indie games store or games on Switch, how do you get to them, and what do you recommend for a young’un? Coming from the world of PC gaming, with thousands of games at my fingertips, the Switch seems rather limiting.
The offers and sales are what to keep an eye out for. Everything that isn’t Nintendo will come down in price eventually. Got the original overcooked for under £2, the other day. Got bombed an for a bit more which I grudges but the kids love it.
The online account thing is soooo frustrating, I set it up a while back so may be Mia remembering but… Despite all being on the same switch only one user gets to be linked to the online without a family online acccount (at double the price).
Nah it’s free for the online store but charges you annually to play games online (which is what’s locked to a single user) or access the NES & SNES games
The online store is always available through the console and there are always games discounted - not first party Nintendo games though, they mostly stay full price. Tons of shovelware there but also lots of good indie games so worth curation/research. While discounts are often deep it’s also generally more expensive than Steam.
An annual online account in the UK costs about £20. That gives you access to a few dozen old games from both NES and SNES times, including all the classic Mario games including Super Mario World.
So if you think that she would click with even some of those it is worth a try.
First party Mario games - if you can still get it there was a 3 pack of SM64, sunshine and galaxy about a year ago. Also the switch specific Mario (odyssey) is great, as is SM3D world. And always Mario Kart which with driving aids can be played with any age. These will always be near full price - that’s the Nintendo way.
I would say a lot of the Nintendo switch games have kid friendly settings. Auto drive for Mario kart, no damage from contact in Mario bros u, 2nd player in Pokémon.
All of these are great at weening younger kids onto more complex controls.
I have played Bomberman which is great fun but I kind of feel as if it‘s for a bit of an older audience—YMMV.
I have so far escaped playing Overcooked but I hear good things from friends who enjoy it.
For an even older audience Diablo is one of my favorites on the Switch but definitely not for quite a few years for your kids. I played tons of Diablo on PC and was super-surprised to find myself enjoying it on a console. This works as local multiplayer on one switch with up to four players.
Aside from the multiplayer games there are some great games to be found
My favorite is also not one for the kids either: Zelda Breath of the Wild. Even I find the Blood Moon scary… but it is one of the best games ever made (across all platforms).
My nephew really enjoys Animal Crossing right now but except for visiting with other consoles this is not really multiplayer. But he loves showing off his island and what he is doing with it and for a long while my sister and him just took turns to play on their island (my sister now bought her own mini-switch to have her own island).
I am not aware that you could get games from outside the Nintendo store but there are a lot of indie games on there that are often on sale. The biggest problem is probably figuring out which ones are good—Steam interactive recommender and reviews at your fingertips is obviously much quicker to get some idea about a game.
Other than Zelda: BotW, Animal Crossing, Mario Kart and Diablo—which I already all mentioned—I have only played Hades and Slay the Spire for any amount of time on the Switch—both awesome neither for kids. PS: Pokemon, there are several pokemon games on the Switch that are much more kid-friendly than Pokemongo—as they are self-contained games that do not require running around busy streets
