If you have two Switch consoles between you, you can even link them up to fire cannons or splice together fruit from one screen to another – a neat addition that shows how much potential the Switch has for new kinds of play. The eleventh in the series, Super Mario Party undoes some of the missteps of recent years and brings back the competitive edge, with a bunch of new modes, fresh new minigames, and added layers of strategy to bring the party all over again. Is this the Nintendo Switch's definitive party game? The Mario Party franchise has been running for 20 years and almost as many entries, pitting an eclectic mix of Mario characters against each other as they compete in a virtual board game. The Nintendo Switch version even supports motion controls, if you fancy setting yourself more of a challenge in the online arena. The game makes its fortunes selling cosmetic items or letting you choose your own character – rather than randomly selecting one – but there’s no obligation to fork out. Cross-play also means you can compete with players on their Xbox One, PC, PS4, or on mobile. Publisher Epic Games constantly tweaks and improves the service, bringing in new modes and items to make sure there’s always something new to try out too.Īnd it’s played by everyone from 10-year-olds to full-grown adults, and apparently the Canadian rapper Drake, so don’t worry about not fitting in. Ok, so, technically Fortnite doesn’t require Nintendo Switch Online – like any free-to-play game on the console – but it’s a must-have for anyone into online competitive gaming.įortnite is a stupidly successful take on the battle royale genre, which drops 100 players into a shrinking map and lets the chaos ensure, with neat building mechanics and plenty of llama-based humor to make it stand out from the crowd. There's now a huge number of NES and SNES titles, including Soccer, Tennis, Super Mario Bros 3, Ghosts 'n Goblins, Excitebike, Tecmo Bowl, Star Fox 2, Kirby Super Star, and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. And even the solo titles – Donkey Kong, The Legend of Zelda, and so on – have been updated for more connected play, meaning you can swap between Joy-Con controllers with a friend or enjoy voice chat over the Switch smartphone app while you take a trip down memory lane. Not to mention different viewing options if you want that more authentic arcade machine feel.Īctual two-player games here Ice Climbers or Balloon Fight are perfect for a nostalgia trip with your buddies.
There's no Virtual Console this time around, so you're reliant on Nintendo leasing you the retro classics rather than letting you buy what you want at any time.Įven so, these games have been lovingly remastered with plenty of pleasingly modern features to let you pause, save, and reload each NES game at any point during play. Let's be honest, the main selling point of Nintendo Switch Online is probably the NES and SNES collection that comes bundled in.