Our family has a Switch and we just got a Switch 2 for Christmas. My 9 and 7 year old have a few games such as Mario Cart, Smash Bros, Mortal Kombat, Kirby Dream Buffet and maybe one or two others. They are asking for more and I plan on renting some from the library so they can test out, but I wanted to ask the pros: what are your kiddos playing?
Suika game is very cheap and fun. Other good games are Animal Crossings, Hello Kitty Island Adventure and Mario Party. Disney Dream light Valley is also worth considering.
I’ll have to check out the Suika games, thanks for the recs! 😁
Untitled Goose Game!! We loved it. And Minecraft gets the most consistent play time in my house.
They have Minecraft as well but don’t seem to play it often. We will have to revisit that one!
Super Mario odessy, untitled goose game, and Spyro
Oh, god, my kids went through a phase with the Untitled Goose Game. To the point where my oldest has a sweater with the goose carrying a knife. Teenagers. But it's a cute game, and a challenge if you're not familiar with it!
I hear the goose game is fun, adding that to our list! 🤩
Seconding Animal Crossing and Hello Kitty Island Adventures. My 8 year old loves Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Luigi’s Mansion 3, both of which you can play local 2 player on.
Just a tip starting out on Animal Crossing - you only get one island, and whoever is the first to play is the “owner” of the island. The other account holders can live on the island but they don’t get to decide the big things like island name or progress the game in the same way that the owner does. My son is our island owner, and my husband and I have characters that live on the island. Depending on what your kids are like, have a think about whether a parent is the island owner, or whether one of the kids is ok to have that role without it impacting on the other kid.
In contrast, Hello Kitty Island Adventure each kid can have their own save file an their own island (and from memory I think each player account gets 3 save files, so can have 3 islands each). It’s more story-driven than Animal Crossing, which has a game progression but is more of a go-at-your-own-pace kind of game.
With Kirby and Luigi, when you play in 2 player mode Player 1 is the main character (Kirby/Luigi) and Player 2 is the sidekick (WaddleDee/Gooigi). This is great for cooperative play (especially during the battles) but Player 1 will always control where the characters are going (Player 2 gets zapped back to Player 1’s location if they go off screen) so that’s something to keep in mind.
Oooh good tip for Animal Crossing, I appreciate that!
No worries! We were really lucky that we only have one kid old enough to play Switch, so the island owner was never an issue for us, but I’ve seen friends’ kids have power struggles because of which kid started the game (also there are lots of stories on r/AnimalCrossing about couples splitting up and the one that doesn’t own the island having to start over!)
Pokemon!! There are a ton of them lol Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu (or Eevee) is super fun to play together. My son really gets into Super Mario Maker where you can make your own Mario levels.
“Make your own Mario levels”?? That sounds so fun!
oh yeah my son gets really into super mario maker on occasion and daughter is obsessed with the pokemon games!
my 11yo is obsessed with minecraft and any kirby game, but both he and the 14yo enjoy animal crossing (which is set to receive a major update mid-january, including extra features for the switch 2), catlateral damage, botw/totk, untitled goose game, stray, spiritfarer, shantae, chicory, celeste, undertale, and
there's this platformer with a really unique art style that's about restoring color to the world i think? but i can't remember the name of it and google isn't helping.it's called gris, 11yo wanted nothing to do with it but 14yo found it rather interesting.