Top 5 Switch games we're looking forward to in 2019
Animal Crossing will rock our worlds
Nintendo's Switch has really come into its own in 2018. With the likes of Pokemon: Let's Go, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Hollow Knight, Dead Cells, Mario Tennis Aces, Octopath Traveller... the list goes on, but it's been a pretty stellar year for games.
On top of that, you've also got the NES Online Collection, a tidy selection of retro games which act as a nice incentive for grabbing the Switch Online subscription - which is also surprisingly cheap, it must be said.
But 2019 will be the year that Nintendo really has to prove itself. With the initial excitement dying down, and most of the major franchises having already received new entries, this coming year will see the big N having to find new ways to encourage players onto the platform, and digging a little deeper to find franchises people want to play.
On top of that, indies and third-party developers will also have a better understanding of how the system works, and what the audience is like, so they'll have a better idea of what games they can easily launch on Switch alongside other consoles.
This is all to say - 2019 could be very exciting indeed. So here's five games we know for a fact are going to be launching on Switch, and we can't bloody wait for them.
1
Animal Crossing Switch
Look, it's been too long since we had a "real" Animal Crossing entry. Nintendo may have beefed up New Leaf on 3DS in recent years, but after a string of disappointments with Happy Home Designer, Pocket Camp, and that god-awful board game on Wii U, the developer has a long way to go before we trust it again.
Still, how can you go wrong with Animal Crossing on Switch? All it needs to do is return to the old formula that made it great - live in a town, get financially crippled by a raccoon, run errands for everyone, and hit people on the head with a bug-catching net. Sorted.
Please, don't screw this up Nintendo. You know what the fans want. Just give it to us.
2
Metroid Prime 4
The Metroid Prime series was one of the finest examples of how to take a game from 2D to 3D, with the original GameCube game still holding strong in many people's top 10 games of all time lists.
While we're still waiting on the HD remaster collection to be announced for Switch (come on, Nintendo), we can bask in the joy of knowing that a fourth entry in the series is definitely coming, and will invariably be better than the absolute nightmare that was Other M.
Again, it's not hard to get this one right. First-person shooting, enormous worlds to navigate, tons of random stuff to scan. But please, please give us some more details soon!
3
Yoshi's Crafted World
It took a while, but Yoshi's Switch outing finally has a name - Yoshi's Crafted World. And it's called that because everything's made out of cardboard. Oh and it looks bleedin' gorgeous, if you didn't already know.
Yoshi games are always a good laugh, filled with bright colours, tough egg-based puzzles, and more leg-kicking than you can kick a leg at. So we can't wait to see what this one turns out like.
Plus, with Nintendo also focusing on its real-world cardboard worlds with Labo, there's a strong possibility we'll see some sort of crossover kit that lets you design your own levels with Labo stuff. That's just a guess - don't hold me to it.
4
Super Smash Bros. Ultimate DLC
OK, cheating here slightly, but any Smash Bros fan knows that a new character being thrown into the mix completely changes how it works - and with a whole bunch of new fighters due out over the next year, we can't wait to see what changes are made.
First off, we'll have Piranha Plant dropping in from February 2019 as a bonus to anyone who bought the game before the end of the year. He looks properly stupid and I can't wait.
Then Joker from Persona 5 will hit the stage, which is so weird it still blows my mind, and opens the door for literally any character to appear.
For my money, I reckon Travis Touchdown of No More Heroes fame is going to make an appearance - just look at how much Nintendo is pushing Travis Strikes Back. And as a total longshot, maybe Ryo Hazuki from Shenmue. I dreamed about that last night, so I've got a good feeling.
5
YIIK: A Post-Modern RPG
Let's round this off with a non-Nintendo game, and a personal favourite. YIIK is a post-modern RPG (as the name implies) which is a little bit Earthbound, a little bit Paper Mario, and a whole lot of weird.
You play as Alex, a hipster in 1999 who's just discovering the Internet, as well as trying to save a mysterious girl who gets kidnapped by space men in an elevator in an abandoned factory. It's, uh... it's a bit weird, not gonna lie.
But it also looks to be full of charm, wit, and love for its subject matter, as well as the games it's cribbing from. And - between you and me - I've been playing it a bit already, and I love it. Keep an eye out for this - it launches just a few weeks into January 2019.
