The Nintendo Switch is nearing the end of its life cycle, with the Switch 2 just around the corner. So it’s only natural that we’re reflecting on what is a bit of an all-timer game library.
The Switch is home to some of the best entries in Nintendo’s own series, with Mario, Zelda, and Metroid fans all very well served, but you can’t tell the story of the console without talking about indie games.
There have been hundreds of amazing indies to play on Switch (and the Switch 2 thanks to backward compatibility), with the hybrid nature of the console making it the perfect place to play them. Settling on three defining indie titles wasn’t easy, but you can’t argue with this lot.
Golf Story trailer (Nintendo Switch) – YouTube
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Golf Story
It may not be the most high-profile indie game on Switch, but Golf Story helped cement Nintendo’s console as the place to play indies for years to come.
Arriving a few months after the Switch launched in the spring of 2017, and as an exclusive to boot, Golf Story is a genuinely brilliant golfing RPG inspired (appropriately) by Nintendo’s cult classic Mario Golf game on the Game Boy Color.
The actual golf is of the top-down arcade variety, rather than anything approaching simulation, but the three-click system is executed to perfection, and in true RPG style you take on quests to gain experience that can be used to upgrade your abilities.
With its winning blend of varied gameplay and oddball sense of humour, Golf Story belongs in the Switch’s indie hall of fame.
Hades – Launch Trailer – Nintendo Switch – YouTube
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Hades
You can play Supergiant Games’ beloved roguelike action RPG just about anywhere these days, but it launched first on console on the Switch. And to this day, there probably isn’t a game on the platform more perfectly suited to handheld play.
If Hades has somehow passed you by, you play as Zagreus, son of that pesky god of the dead whose name is on the cover. Zagreus doesn’t much like life in the Underworld and the game revolves around his many, many escape attempts.
Hades is a randomised dungeon crawler in which you gradually ascend through increasingly difficult regions, getting plonked back at the start every time you die. This could become very tedious, if it wasn’t for the endlessly rewarding combat, superb writing and rather splendid art style.
The Switch simply wouldn’t be the Switch without this game.
Celeste – Nintendo Switch Trailer – YouTube
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Celeste
Ask a group of people what the best 2D platformer of all time is and most of them will probably name a game with the word “Mario” in it. But we’d wager that if you ask people who really know their stuff, at least one will insist that the answer is Celeste – and with good reason.
This wonderfully simple game, about a girl named Madeline determined to challenge her anxiety by climbing to the top of a mountain, is supremely difficult (there is an assist mode that makes it more forgiving) but masterfully designed.
Overcoming platforming sequences that at first seem impossible is never less than thrilling, and when you eventually do reach the summit, you’ll feel like a gaming god.
We sadly don’t have room to gush about the pixel art and the soaring soundtrack too, but they’re as good as everything else about this game.
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