It’s the holiday season and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even an X Parasite. But then they all woke up because it’s shopping time. Bad news for all of us since X Parasites being awake means we’re all doomed, but before we wait for an intrepid warrior to come and save the day, let’s go over some gift ideas for the Nintendo-loving folks in your life. I’m going to break down my segment here into a few categories, highlighting cool merchandise, picks from my toddler, and more. Let’s-a go!

Merchandise!

First up is Super Mario Labyrinth, a board game from Ravensburger that is good for beginning board game players. The simplistic maze game features a wealth of Mario references as well as some rule variants that can make it flexible in its age range. My 3-year-old can’t take the heat of a full game of Labyrinth, but some of the simpler open-hand rulesets worked well for us. Bonus: if you live in Europe, there’s also a cool Pokemon Labyrinth!

There’s also Animal Crossing Monopoly, which does a thing I have appreciated in specialty Monopoly games. It changes the game’s rules enough to feel distinct. In a similar vein as the recent Monopoly Gamer, Animal Crossing Monopoly adds in fruit and item collection as well as New Horizons’ Nook Miles currency. It’s extremely cute and might pair well with the new Animal Crossing: New Horizons DLC.

Lastly, everything Nintendo is doing with LEGO is awesome. The LEGO Super Mario Question Mark Block has a lot of endearing Super Mario 64 references (despite those blocks not being in Mario 64) and the LEGO Super Mario releases this year featured the debut of LEGO Luigi as well as one of the coolest sets in the series so far: Bowser’s Airship. Also shout-out to the Sumo Tower.

Toddler Picks

These picks might not translate directly to every toddler, but for my 3-year-old, these are the games he has had the most fun with throughout the year.

First off is Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury, an early 2021 Switch release that my son was first fascinated with by exclaiming “kitty!” every time he saw the giant cat bell. Watching him make his way a little bit further in the both the remade Wii U and the Switch add-on was super rewarding. While he definitely had a little help from his parents and the wondrous invincibility leaf, he made it reasonably far into both games.

A game he saw no success with but was still delighted by was Mario Golf: Super Rush. If anything, his zest for mimicking Chargin’ Chuck’s celebration moves is a big reason why I remotely enjoy Super Rush. He doesn’t quite understand the concept of swinging or really the rules of golf, but Mario Golf is still a fun experience.

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD suffered a similar fate as Mario Golf, where his progression wasn’t grand but he still loved messing around in the world. Most of his time was spent on Skyloft, running around and finding rupees, talking to people, and periodically falling off ledges to his certain doom. It was still interesting to see how much my son loved interacting with the painterly visuals of this HD Wii remaster. Humorously, he did not take to Breath of the Wild and when I showed him that game, he insisted on going back to Skyward Sword.

Parts of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania quickly became mainstays for my son’s playtime. Specifically, he gravitated towards Monkey Baseball. His general interest in baseball was fed by the simplistic controls of the mini-game and he was bizarrely savant-like with his pitching. Like seriously. He’s shockingly good. His hitting wasn’t up to snuff, but we faced off against some computers together and had a good time.

While it’s an older game, I’ll always sing the praises of Northplay’s Conduct Together - an electric multiplayer-focused game where you try to deftly guide trains around tracks while avoiding crashes. My son certainly didn’t avoid crashes, but he had a blast with the train game. Also shout out to Northplay’s 2021 release Fly Together, which my son didn’t gravitate towards but I certainly did.

Cool Square Enix Stuff

I’m just making this a whole category because Square Enix had a lot of great releases on Nintendo Switch this year. The biggest surprise for me was Actraiser Renaissance, a remake of the beloved Super Nintendo game Actraiser. I was put off at first by the visuals of this Nintendo Direct-shadowdropped releases, but the deeper I got into it, I grew to love everything about this game besides the visuals. It feels like Actraiser on Super Nintendo, which means it’s a little janky but overwhelmingly charming. The story might get too chatty at times, but the tweaks and enhancements made to the stiff-yet-endearing side-scrolling action sequences and the simple blend of SimCity and tower defense all worked for me. Now go remake Soul Blazer next.

Another Square Enix surprise was Dungeon Encounters - a mechanics-driven dungeon crawler from Final Fantasy luminary Hiroyuki Ito. The simple tabletop-esque setup has a lot of depth under its straightforward veneer. The combat borrows a lot from Final Fantasy’s vintage turn-based outings while the dungeon floor exploration is reminiscent of a series near and dear to my heart: Atlus’ Etrian Odyssey.

Other Square Enix games that I’d recommend are SaGa Frontier and Legend of Mana - two remasters of PlayStation games from more than 20 years ago.

Indie Games!

To conclude, here’s a rapid-fire list of neat indie games on Switch that get my full recommendation.

• Dodgeball Academia: An excellent dodgeball RPG that is anime in the best ways.
• Axiom Verge 2: Stellar sequel to one of the best Metroid-likes out there.
• Overboard!: Extremely clever time loop game where you try to avoid being found out for murdering your husband on a boat.
• Sky: Children of Light: It’s free-to-play Journey. Just go play it!
• Stonefly: A chill mech game with a touching story and novel mechanics.
• Draknek Bundle + Bonfire Peaks: Disclaimer aside (friend of the site Syrenne McNulty worked on these games), just a great set of puzzle games.
• Blue Fire: One of the best 3D Zelda-ish indies I’ve ever seen.

There are way more than those out there, but those are ones that stood out to me on Switch.