Nominees for Destructoid’s Best Switch Game of 2023

destructoid.com:

There are very few years that aren’t “winners” for Nintendo. You can set your watch to the publisher putting out at least one Game of the Year nominee annually. Now, it’s time to decide the best of 2023.

Obviously, all eyes are going to be on Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. As a follow-up to Breath of the Wild, it was expected to deliver: But I don’t think anyone could have anticipated just how much it would iterate upon the fantastic framework we already got with the launch of the Switch in 2017. People may have been worried that Tears would operate like an “expansion pack” to the 2017 modern classic, but those fears were completely unfounded.

We also got a new Fire Emblem game, another Pikmin entry (which might be the best one to date), a slick remaster of a great Kirby title, a killer Xenoblade Chronicles DLC, and Paranormasight. 2023 was packed and succeeded in hitting us across the head with a steady stream of prior-delayed games at once.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder has been called “the best Mario game since Super Mario World” by many and is the perfect prescription for folks who have been burned by the constant deluge of the “New” subseries series. Although most Mario games are shoo-ins for nominations, this one feels different.

Any given Fire Emblem game is going to appeal to certain types of people, but this one grabbed me really early on. It helped that the DLC leaned into the whole “all-stars” angle, and brought multiple generations of the series together in one bright and accessible entry.

I can’t say enough nice things about Pikmin 4. When I was playing it, I couldn’t stop. There’s so much to do and explore, and just when you think it’s over, the game completely opens up. Oh, and it’s still incredibly cute.

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