When the Nintendo Switch launched in 2017, our expectations were high. The hybrid console instantly felt like a dream console, and the fact that it would launch with a brand new Legend of Zelda game was a good sign that Nintendo was ready to support it with high quality games. The bar was high right out the gate — and Nintendo cleared it time and time again over eight memorable years.

The Nintendo Switch era isn’t fully ending anytime soon, but it will take a backseat to the age of Switch 2 on June 2. That impending date has left us reflecting on the bounty of games we’ve gotten on the platform since 2017. Third party developers returned to Nintendo in a big way with ports that helped widen the Switch’s library, but the console’s real calling card has been its exclusives. We got Nintendo’s studios at the top of their game here, reviving a wide swath of forgotten series while giving old standbys some of their best installments ever. Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem, and more all made the Nintendo Switch a must-own device, and that good will is sure to spill over to Switch 2.

The main products include game controllers and accessories compatible with PlayStation, Nintendo, Microsoft, Android & iOS, PC and other game platforms.

STK-7040RG

STK-7041

STK-7043

STK-7052P

STK-7052P

STK-7053

STK-7037B

STK-7037A

STK-7047

10. Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is remembered as 2020’s defining pandemic game, but Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics was just as important in my household. The simple collection pulled together tabletop games like Checkers and Shogi into a tactile and tightly design package that was custom built for bored families. It’s the least flashy game on this list, but it didn’t need to be. I personally spent hours upon hours playing Mancala with my partner at this time, which I’d never really tried before Clubhouse Games. The package did such a great job at explaining the rules that I ended up buying a real Mancala board after a week. Clubhouse Games‘ ability to teach and culturally contextualize 51 different games earns it a spot on this list among some mascot-filled heavy hitters.

9. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope

When Nintendo first announced that Mario was crossing over with Ubisoft’s Rabbids, it felt like a joke destined to become weird history. That wasn’t the case, as Ubisoft created a surprisingly great tactics game with Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It was the start of a promising series that wouldn’t take long to fully realize its potential. Mario + Rabbid: Sparks of Hope builds on everything its predecessor did so well, doubling down on its action-packed turns that let players pull off so many moves at once. That was largely thanks to a reworked movement system that did away with the first game’s grid for something a little more flexible. The end result is the Switch’s best tactics game and a real contender for the best Mario spinoff ever.

8. Ring Fit Adventure

Perhaps more than any game on this list, Ring Fit Adventure is a prime example of why Nintendo’s knack for innovation is so commendable. It would have been easy to make a motion-controlled fitness game, ala Wii Fit, on Switch that just asked players to mimic exercises. Rather than settling for that, Nintendo created its own pilates ring and turned it into a controller for a full-scale RPG. Ring Fit Adventure is a brilliant approach to the fitness genre, one that understands that gradually building your muscles isn’t that far off from an traditional RPG grind. The little fights add up over time so long as your patient enough to keep up with them. It’s an inspired bit of game design from Nintendo that turned out to be a much-needed force for good during the years of social isolation that defined the platform.

7. Super Mario Bros. Wonder

It’s not surprising to see several great Mario games on a Nintendo console. What is more surprising is to see a stellar 2D Mario game these days that feels just as exciting as a 3D one. That’s what we got with the surprising Super Mario Bros. Wonder, a reinvention that the 2D Mario formula so desperately needed. Rather than aping the tired nostalgia of the New Super Mario Bros. series, Wonder gave Mario an expressive makeover, colorful new enemies, and a slew of creative wonder effects that completely spun the idea of a traditional platforming level on its head. While it doesn’t quite have the staying power of Mario’s best adventures, Wonder does a fantastic job at rediscovering the magic that made Mario’s first games so appealing in the first place.

6. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

The Switch era gave us several surprising collaborations with Koei Tecmo, both Zelda and Fire Emblem into Dynasty Warriors-like Musou games. These have been some of the Switch’s most niche exclusives, but they aren’t ones to ignore. That’s especially true of Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. The Breath of the Wild pseudo-prequel takes players to the days before Calamity Ganon’s reign over Hyrule as Zelda tries to assemble an army of fighters to stop the impending disaster. The result is Zelda’s take on Rogue One, playing with history to tell a thrilling piece of alternate history that gave us the best characterization of the series’ titular princess ever. And of course, slashing up thousands of moblins in between all that is a cathartic joy all its own.

5. Emio – The Smiling Man: Famicom Detective Club

I’d wager that you won’t find Emio — The Smiling Man on a lot of lists celebrating the Switch’s library, but the eerie narrative adventure deserves its flowers. A surprising comeback for Nintendo’s Famicom Detective Club series, Emio tells a dark, mature story about a bag-faced serial killer stalking a quiet Japanese town. The tale plays out through a slow, grounded visual novel about childhood trauma and the ways that kids suffer in silence. It’s a deeply effective slow burn that still sticks in my mind today. And if nothing else, it’s a great example of how niche franchises thrived on the Switch thanks to Nintendo’s willingness to take more risks with its most forgotten franchises.

4. Astral Chain

Nintendo wasn’t the only company committed to making great Switch exclusives over the past eight years. PlatinumGames was the system’s third-party RPG, giving us the fantastic Bayonetta 3 as well as its surprisingly charming spinoff. Astral Chain might just be its crown jewel, though. The cyberpunk action game had players slashing through demons with both a cop and an entity chained to them. That concept opened the door for an experimental battle system that had players juggling two people at once and using the chain between them to perform maneuvers that weren’t just about pressing the right buttons. It’s one of the Switch’s most original games and one I’m hoping to see revisited on Switch 2.

3. Splatoon 3
It took Nintendo three tries to really perfect its Splatoon series over a seven year blitz, but the final result is fantastic. Splatoon 3 is an excellent, fully-featured multiplayer effort that I wish more games would take notes from. It’s not just that it has a great suite of fun online modes. It also sports a killer campaign, a creative card minigame, a tense PVE mode, and even a worthwhile roguelike twist in its excellent Side Order DLC. Splatoon 3 proved that Nintendo’s inky series really can do it all, justifying the company’s aggressive push to make it a top franchise in the Switch era.

2. Bowser’s Fury

Super Mario Odyssey might be thought of as the Switch’s great 3D Mario game, but Bowser’s Fury isn’t far behind. Included as a pack-in game alongside a port of Super Mario 3D World, Bowser’s Fury imagined what a true open-world Mario game could look like. It created one fully traversable set of islands made up of transitional platforming levels that players can fluidly jump into. It’s not just a fun experiment with form, but an excellent, compact Mario game in its own right that I imagine paved the way for Mario Kart World in some way. We might look back on Bowser’s Fury and see it as one of the series’ most influential games by the end of the Switch 2 era, mark my words.

1.The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

What can you say about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that hasn’t already been said. The open-world didn’t just redefine the Zelda series; it changed the way developers approach the genre, period. With more open-ended gameplay that was less about looking at a map and more about fluidly exploring a world, Breath of the Wild felt like the start of a mental shift towards making games about discovery again. We saw its formula taken to new heights in Elden Ring and even smaller ones in indies like A Short Hike. Within eight years, it felt as foundational to gaming’s DNA as Super Mario Bros. Tears of the Kingdom may have expanded on that idea even more, but Breath of the Wild still earns its spot at the top for its elegance and clarity of ambition that’ll keep it at the top of “best games of all time” lists for the next few decades.

Honorable mentions: Bayonetta 3, Cadence of Hyrule, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Mario Party Superstars, New Pokémon Snap, Pikmin 4, Pokémon Legends: Arceus, Snipperclips, Super Mario Maker 2, WarioWare: Move It!, Xenoblade Chronicles 2