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Discussion Best RPGs on Switch, nominations and voting thread, Spring 2023 edition (results are in! See threadmark)

PixelKnight

Observing the process
Pronouns
He/Him
Hi everyone, and welcome to the Best RPGs on Switch vote, Spring 2023 edition!

It’s going to be set up in the style of the hidden gems thread - to nominate a game, simply make a nomination post about it, and the ‘Yeah!’s of the community will act as a voting mechanic.

To make a nomination post, check the directory below to see if the game has already been nominated (go give it a yeah if so!) If not, make a fresh post and list the name of the rpg you’d like to put up for Fami’s consideration in bold, and add at least a paragraph of your thoughts and a piece of media (either a review, an image, a video, a piece of music or something, your choice!). Feel free to write as much or as little and make it as snazzy as you like within those limitations, I’ll add the first one below as an example.

Please only make one nomination per nomination post or we won’t know which title all those lovely yeahs are for. I’ll add a directory with links to all nominations in the post below too, so everyone can see at a glance what has already been nominated- any later duplicate posts will have their yeahs discounted in the final vote. However, feel free to chip in and reply with commentary on the nomination posts anyway- just use the template to mark up if something is an official nomination post to make it easy for everyone (and particularly me!) to keep track.

I’ll add up the scores at the end of April and make a fresh thread for the winners.

FAQ-
“Why this thread now?”
In the last 18 months or so we’ve had a pile of critically acclaimed rpgs added to the Switch library, so I thought it might be worth seeing where they fall amidst the popular perennials.
“But PK, I need even more rpg chat!”
Come find us in the fami rpg thread !
“Should I tell my friends on Fami to come vote in this thread so my favourite wins?”
Yes.
“When are you gonna stop raving about Octopath II!”
No further questions at this time, thanks :D


To lead us off I’ll pick perhaps an outside runner as an example, and leave the nominations posts for the big hitters to others. If you’ve already made a nomination post, please let a couple of members add some more before adding new ones, particularly on page 1, but there’s no limit to the number of nominations you can make really- the yeahs will tell the story in the end, and if anyone wants to talk about stuff that already has a nomination, that’s fine too, just don’t frame it as a nomination post.

Cut-off point for the yeah count is end of April, so there’s plenty of time, the directory should help cut down on duplicates and reduce the advantage of those on the first page too.
 
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For Fami’s consideration…
Monster Hunter Stories 2

I found this rpg to be both really uplifting, and an improvement on the first one. At heart, it’s themes are a well-trod path of friendship and adventure. But it also navigates through the MonHun themes around the balance of the environment better than the main games do (‘go make me a hat out of that Wyvern minding its own business!’). The main characters are ‘riders’ who raise monsters from eggs and develop bonds with them, all of the creatures being smaller, cuter versions of the bestiary from the mainline games. However, it also doesn’t take the easy route of casting the hunters themselves as the problem. It’s a fine line to tread when you have a range of allies to choose from, but the big selling point for me is just riding and flying through some beautiful environments, looking for monster nests and hoping for a rare creature. Some start with stronger genes than others and you can tinker with them, adding fresh abilities and powering them up. Combat expands on the originals slightly more random paper-scissor-stone affair, and it really brings out the strength of what’s an original combat system. Spot the tells and you can lock down even powerful enemies before mounting up as monster cavalry and unleashing the most ridiculous of Saturday-morning-cartoon special moves! If I were to sum it up in one word it would be ‘refreshing’, it’s so full of colour, fun and adventure.

 
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Are these limited to one per person? Because that's like... impossible, lol, there are so many good choices! I'll probably start with one and see what happens after that, maybe nominate more as needed later!
 
Are these limited to one per person? Because that's like... impossible, lol, there are so many good choices! I'll probably start with one and see what happens after that, maybe nominate more as needed later!
I’d like everyone to have a chance to get their favourite on the first page, but there’s no limit on total nominations per person. Please just use one nomination per post and maybe let others get a post or two up in between yours. Once we’re on page 2 feel free to add as many as you like :)
 
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For Fami's consideration...
Xenoblade Chronicles 2

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If I were to pick my absolute favorite RPG on Switch, I'd go Persona 5 Royal. And I think that I might prefer the original Xenoblade just a smidge over XC2. But to me, both of those games are much more associated with other platforms, while the quintessential Switch RPG has to be Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

There has been a LOT said about Xenoblade 2, so I won't go super deep other than to say: For me, Xenoblade 2 is one of the comfiest, most special RPGs I have ever played. The battle system is complicated and takes a while to get going, but once it does, it GOES and is my favorite battle system of the Xenoblade trilogy by quite a good margin. The same can be said for the characters and story. Xenoblade 2 is, in many ways, a slow burn: The early parts of the game are quite relaxed and ease you in, introducing you to the world, the characters, the combat, and the flow of the game, and while this can be off-putting especially since the tone is often goofier as well for a while, I think it works really well in the long-term: Xenoblade 2 uses that foundation to build up to a fantastic second half and conclusion over the course of the entire game, and it leads to a more satisfying overall experience than, for example, XC3 IMO which I found much more up and down.

The towns, the environments, the MUSIC... just everything about this game speaks to me, and it's one of those games I love just spending time in, even just wandering around Torigoth or Uraya doing random sidequests. It's definitely debatable if it's the best game in the series, or on Switch, but it's the one I would choose to nominate for this topic.
 
For Fami's Consideration...
Octopath Traveller II.
Yes, I'm sure you are all very shocked.

As for the why, well you can also check my posting history (I'm not excatly subtle about it). Especially that thread where I keep buying the same soundtracks except not really.

 
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For Fami's consideration...
Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade 2 is my top pick. So much fun exploring the maps and finding all the little secrets. The music and locations are fantastic too. There are many other fantastic rpg’s on Switch but if I had to pick one it would be Xenoblade 2.
 
For Fami's consideration...
Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade 2 is my top pick. So much fun exploring the maps and finding all the little secrets. The music and locations are fantastic too. There are many other fantastic rpg’s on Switch but if I had to pick one it would be Xenoblade 2.
Already nominated, sorry! Would you like to nominate another game instead? You can also add yeahs to as many as you like.
 
For Fami’s consideration:

NEO The World Ends With You

NEO The World Ends With You is a dream sequel to the best DS game and its design ambition is perfectly aimed to succeed on Switch. While NEO proves extra satisfying for fans of the first game, its story smartly primarily focuses on a cast of new characters to make it welcome to everyone and an excellent script brings the characters and world to life. The combat and character growth in NEO is super engaging as you equip every character with pins/abilities that level up through use that are mapped to face buttons. A wide variety of enemies offer satisfying challenges and good play that builds and maintains combos powers up devastating ultimate team up attacks. What makes this game so cool is that the more you pour yourself into NEO, the more rewarding it is as taking on more challenges and dipping into its many systems like eating food constantly gives you more interesting rewards at a faster pace. I have to give one final shoutout to the absolutely incredible soundtrack that blasts out awesome songs through every last inch of your adventure and adds so much personality to the game. Every RPG fan needs to play Neo The World Ends With You. It’s a masterpiece.

 
For Fami’s consideration…
Shin Megami Tensei V

This is how you do it. This is how you evolve the series. This is how you make an entry better than the predecessor in every way. SMT4 was limited by its hardware on but that wasn't its only problem. Dungeons were too small, characters could get annoying and limited demon fusions in a massive compendium made it pretty tedious. Well, somehow Atlus managed to fix them all in the next entry, the fifth game! It's semi open world, lots of massive zone to explore. Lots of platforming, exploration and collectibles that easily suck you in this world. Grim but also mysterious setting fits much better to the series than school setting of the 4. And no chatty budies, you rarely interact with other humans. On top of that fusing demons better than ever, almost every pair of demons give you something and most of the time it's good. Perfectly balanced, that underleveled demons you obtain earlier in the game never go to waste. And the story... Honestly, it's one of the best in the whole series, spinoffs included. A war torn Tokyo, it's so grim even the buildings are depressed.

SMT5 is a pinnacle of JRPPG genre.

 
For Fami's Consideration

Persona 5 Royal

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This is the highest rated JRPG of all time (and the highest rated JRPG on the Switch) and there is a reason for that. it is one of the greatest games ever made, and in terms of JRPG design, it is literal peak perfection. I have spoken at great length about this game before, and its merits - from the incredible art style to the fantastic soundtrack, the battle system which makes turn based battles so dynamic and quick they may as well feel real-time in this; eye popping UI, excellent cast of characters, a gameplay loop polished to a sheen that is so addictive it can keep you addicted for very literally 100+ hours. Some very relevant central themes to its narrative, arguably the best dungeon design in any RPG ever, and so much mechanical depth and player agency. Persona 5 was a good game verging on the edge of greatness but stumbling at the last moment because of its own foibles; Persona 5 Royal takes Persona 5 and elevates it into the masterpiece it was always meant to be. If you own a Switch (if you own any system really, since it's on everything at this point), you must play this game.

 
For your consideration
Monster Hunter Rise

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Few games can match the thrill of Monster Hunter. Taking down beasts ten times your size that can fell you in seconds is a primal feeling, made all the more rewarding by how hard you have to work for it.
Challenging but never unfair, Monster Hunter Rise demands a lot from the player, but gives so much in return. Its core combat and crafting loop offers hundreds if not thousands of hours of satisfying content, with deep customization that allows the player to tailor their character to their play style.
Like the creatures that roam its primeval world, Rise is wild, uncompromising, and utterly magnificent.
 
For Fami's consideration:

Divinity: Original Sin 2

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Ever play an RPG and wonder why the enemy who's standing in water doesn't take more electricity damage? Or wonder what would happen if you teleport an enemy into a pool of lava?

Well, wonder no more! This game brings incredible free-form turn based gameplay, use a rain spell to douse a burning ally or wet a group of enemies so that your friend can blast them with a lightning bolt to stun them. Toss an oil barrel at an enemy to slow them, then set it on fire! The game has a fairly steep learning curve but once it clicks, there's really nothing like it.

You'll follow the overarching plot of the game (your character can become the next god-king, but you need to beat some other less reputable folks to the punch), and you can also follow the individual stories of each of the pre-made characters who you can ally with. The overall story isn't anything mind-blowing but the setting and individual sub-stories can be quite moving and at times thrilling. The nice thing is the variety that they all afford you, completely different locations, they can unlock brand new abilities, tons of unique dialogue.

But the gameplay is the star of this game, it's so incredibly satisfying to come up with a perfect strategy to demolish an encounter that seemed completely impossible only a few minutes ago. The level of freedom in how you approach battle really is staggering, I haven't seen anything like it in any other RPG.

Give this game a try!
 
For Fami's consideration

Atelier Sophie 2

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Just going to quote myself, this game was perfect for the 25th anniversary and it's the culmination of the classic atelier (as in not Ryza) in all aspects. And of course the music is a banger and overall, Atelier needs more fans

Gust really going all the way to make one of the best games for the 25th Atelier anniversary. From the start it gives you everything you would need to synthetize good items with the link system, you can make loops very early and very easy (just 2 items), no waiting for NPC to unlock smithing or armors, and even duplicating is as easy as choosing the item and quantity and paying (so no more waiting for the item to be in stock or using another currency like Ryza), it was clearly made for the hardcore fans of the series while adding a lot of QoL for begginers.

The battle system is also very good. I always like it when they let you use all your party in a dynamic way (like Xeno 3), and the twin system action makes the battles better allowing you to change party members without losing turns and buffing/debuffing the party / enemies. Even if you don't fully exploit the alchemy system, battles will always give you aditional options to complement the items effects. For the story the main quest is simple and direct (no bad guy appearing suddendly at the end) but I think the important part it's that it complements nicely the events of Sophie 1 (which was kinda weak in that part) having young Plachta and Ramizel and knowing more about them, filling some of the gaps of their past. So if you never played the older ones (and they give you a recap of what happened in one) you can still play this one.

For the presentation Gust doing their magic, the fantasy landscapes works very well considering it's a dream world and they continue to do an awesome work to show it properly on the switch (it even has a graphic performance mode now). There are also some neat effects like when it's raining and you use the gravity stone, the water dropplets floats around you. They clearly have put work on understanding the hardware since Lydie/suelle and it's one of the best looking games on Switch. And the music, oh the music, just when you think Gust Sound Team can't make better battle themes, they just go harder

 
For your consideration
Xenoblade Chronicles 3

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Taking everything that makes the series so beloved, from epic landscapes to a sweeping soundtrack, Xenoblade 3 sets itself apart with its more intimate focus on the relationships between its characters.
Some of its best moments are quiet little exchanges, like a character noticing that a team mate is anxious and making them tea. The main cast are built up in layers of capable facades and coping strategies masking their inner vulnerabilities, and the way these peels back as they bounce off and rub off on each other makes for a beautifully well rounded ensemble.
By the time the ending arrived, I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends, and I'll never forget them or the journey we took together.
 
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Fami your consideration

Paper Mario: The Origami King




Great characters, great visuals, the best video game soundtrack ever made, incredible boss fights, a fun and engaging (if controversial) turn-based combat system, an emotionally damaging story; what more could you ask for?

 
Fami your consideration

Paper Mario: The Origami King




Great characters, great visuals, the best video game soundtrack ever made, incredible boss fights, a fun and engaging (if controversial) turn-based combat system, an emotionally damaging story; what more could you ask for?


I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread about RPGs?

yes I am joking
 
I'm sorry, I thought this was a thread about RPGs?

yes I am joking
Between TOK and how much I'm looking forward to FF16, I guess I must have a thing for RPGs that Real RPG Fans™ don't think are actually RPGs.
 
For Fami’s consideration

Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age: Definitive Edition

For me this game is the most, well, Dragon-Quest-style rpg it could be. It takes everything I’ve ever loved about the series and gets it (mostly) spot on. In turn full of heart and humour, melancholy and tragedy, heroics and losses, it’s like a warm bath of an rpg. An adventure for the ages, not afraid to turn things on their head and show a new perspective even as it celebrates its own traditions (although a couple of them are pretty tired at this point). The turn-based combat is elegant, everything just works, but it’s the story that drives you onwards to new realms and new heights of adventure. Every moment of silliness and poking fun at the ludicrous is matched by darkness in the shadows, and in turn it doesn’t revel in the latter, it’s not afraid to give that darkness a good kicking too. It’s a long game in three acts, and while the third act is effectively badged as a post-game which gives players a jumping-off point, it really does round off a lot of things (literally bringing some full circle) to play it the whole way through.

I’ll add Tim Rogers review here as his passion shines through and it’s a really entertaining half hour:

 
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For your consideration: Skyrim Anniversary Edition.




One of the best Ports on Switch, the game itself is getting on in age, but is still the standard bearer for the immersive sim type RPG that Bethesda is known for.
Every time you start a new character and try to convince yourself that this time you're going to play a wizard, only to end up as a stealth archer a few hours down the line, the game engulfs you in a stark and intricate world with an insane amount of interlocking systems.

The performance on Switch is very good. The graphics are decidedly better than on 360, even if not as good as on PS4.

If you decide to jailbreak your Switch you can even install mods.
 
For Consideration:

Triangle Strategy



Square had been known for some of the best strategy rpgs in FF Tactics and Tactis Ogre but it seemed like that was behind them. But then in 2021 Triangle Strategy was announced and released a year later. I believe what makes Triangle Strategy a fantastic rpg are the characters. Throughout the game you can see and feel the distress these characters were encountering, with no moment of rest they faced betrayal, underhandedness and manipulation in a grander war for power. While some story beats were heavily scripted, the choice of sacrificing an ally or a group of people to avoid conflict leads to "survival's guilt" and a bitter taste in your mouth. Are some of the villains cartoonisly evil? Very, but it forced the player to deal with that extreme so when you made decisions it would not feel as you "solved the problem", but rather "what is it this time?". Ost is fantastic, the composer Akira Senju (who did Valvrave, I love this stupid anime) nail the dreading feel of the game just with the theme of the game. Combat is also great, while there is a lack of character customization found in similar game (FE, Tactics, etc), I felt it gave each character (main or not) a unique presence and role in the strategy. While not as highly touted as other SRPGs, I think TS managed to tell a compelling story with interesting characters and great combat

I really enjoyed this game last year and would like to revisit to get the other endings.
 
Every time you start a new character and try to convince yourself that this time you're going to play a wizard, only to end up as a stealth archer a few hours down the line, the game engulfs you in a stark and intricate world with an insane amount of interlocking systems.
Rofl, the first time I tried not to do that and it didn't end well.
 
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For your consideration: Nier Automata

Become As Gods. Game of the YoRHa. (The End of YoRHa.) What more needs to be said?

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For Fami’s Consideration: Final Fantasy VII

Yes, I’m aware that I’m an old fogey on this site, but I can’t just sit by idly as one of the greatest RPGs, nay, GAMES, of all time goes unmentioned. What more needs to be said about the game that hasn’t already been said? The game is considered a game changer for RPGs, with a memorable story, incredible music, and some of the most iconic characters in video game history. It almost single handedly put the PS1 on the map, and many, if not all, of the RPGs already mentioned in this thread wouldn’t even exist without it. I’ve played the game countless times, but every time I go through it I appreciate something different about it. I’m probably one of the few on here that remembers the launch of this game in North America. It was the only thing my friends and I talked about for weeks. It was THE game of 1997.

The game changed my life, and it deserves to be mentioned among the greatest RPGs on the greatest video game system of all time.

There are a plethora of songs I could choose, many among the most iconic video game themes ever, but I’m gonna choose an under the radar one that doesn’t get enough love. Here is “Heart of Anxiety” (or Anxious Heart, as it will always be known to me):

 
For your consideration
Xenoblade Chronicles 3

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Taking everything that makes the series so beloved, from epic landscapes to a sweeping soundtrack, Xenoblade 3 sets itself apart with its more intimate focus on the relationships between its characters.
Some of its best moments are quiet little exchanges, like a character noticing that a team mate is anxious and making them tea. The main cast are built up in layers of capable facades and coping strategies masking their inner vulnerabilities, and the way these peels back as they bounce off and rub off on each other makes for a beautifully well rounded ensemble.
By the time the ending arrived, I felt like I was saying goodbye to old friends, and I'll never forget them or the journey we took together.
My favorite RPG of the past decade-plus that isn’t Disco Elysium.
 
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For Your Consideration: Disco Elysium - The Final Cut

The most mechanically innovative, thought-provoking, moving, haunting, beautifully written, hilarious role-playing game in many a year, arguably ever. Play an amnesiac cop working a case at the ass-end of a revolution, in the decaying wreck of a city that once represented the splendor of a nation. Attempt to approximate the behavior of a functional human being as all the various parts of your psyche bicker and argue and attempt to influence your every move. Uncover Revachol’s revolutionary past, and the history of the world, and the true nature of the great Pale mist that is slowly, irrevocably consuming the planet.

Follow leads! Take drugs! Noodle your way into a political alignment! Befriend your new partner, Kim, the greatest sidekick in the history of gaming (though he would never admit to it). Most importantly, uncover what it was that drove you to the most shattering bender in the history of benders, and try to find a way to make yourself whole again.

25 hours of great writing, rich characters (both in- and outside your head), gorgeous artwork, and thoughtful, evocative worldbuilding. There’s never been a game quite like it, and given what’s happened to the Studio in the last year or two, there probably never will be. Dig in.

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For Fami's consideration - Harvestella

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This is the video game equivalent of warm blankets, this is a cup of your favourite tea in RPG form, and your most beloved plushie crystallized into yet another Square Enix hit. Harvestella sports so much in the atmosphere department that it cannot be overstated: Warm, inviting colours, a soundtrack to die for, cosy towns and an impeccable sense of ethereal ambience.

Beneath it all lies an engaging RPG that combines faming sim elements with a dungeon crawling framework and it becomes a wonder. It became engaging and addictive to settle into the rhythm of harvesting crops and gathering my pals to raid a cavern, only to head to town to spend the night in bed, wondering what adventures would await me tomorrow. There's depth here, as well as incentives for one to engage in multi-faceted mechanics in order to come out of the aforementioned cave in one piece.

The characters, likewise, are extremely likable, to the point of me wanting to jump into my OLED screen and hug them. You play as a silent protagonist of a gender of your choice, and you are able to engage with both the core cast as well as various NPC's to your heart's content. Your roommate Aria, who takes a sort of center stage in the game's, well, surprisingly wild plot, is a well-rounded character that carries that role well. During my playtime, I felt like the fellow party companions I met along the way became like friends, and I was thoroughly incentivized to engage in their side-stories, with Istina and Emo being standouts for me. Cres, the local doctor, was a person I always was delighted to meet, and Aria herself managed to really make me engage in the main story on a whole new level. For me, Harvestella was a bliss to play through, where all of its aspects come together to form an amazing game, comfortable enough to wear the "among the best RPG's on Switch" badge that this thread is about.
 
For Fami's consideration - Harvestella

QjMs382.jpg


This is the video game equivalent of warm blankets, this is a cup of your favourite tea in RPG form, and your most beloved plushie crystallized into yet another Square Enix hit. Harvestella sports so much in the atmosphere department that it cannot be overstated: Warm, inviting colours, a soundtrack to die for, cosy towns and an impeccable sense of ethereal ambience.

Beneath it all lies an engaging RPG that combines faming sim elements with a dungeon crawling framework and it becomes a wonder. It became engaging and addictive to settle into the rhythm of harvesting crops and gathering my pals to raid a cavern, only to head to town to spend the night in bed, wondering what adventures would await me tomorrow. There's depth here, as well as incentives for one to engage in multi-faceted mechanics in order to come out of the aforementioned cave in one piece.

The characters, likewise, are extremely likable, to the point of me wanting to jump into my OLED screen and hug them. You play as a silent protagonist of a gender of your choice, and you are able to engage with both the core cast as well as various NPC's to your heart's content. Your roommate Aria, who takes a sort of center stage in the game's, well, surprisingly wild plot, is a well-rounded character that carries that role well. During my playtime, I felt like the fellow party companions I met along the way became like friends, and I was thoroughly incentivized to engage in their side-stories, with Istina and Emo being standouts for me. Cres, the local doctor, was a person I always was delighted to meet, and Aria herself managed to really make me engage in the main story on a whole new level. For me, Harvestella was a bliss to play through, where all of its aspects come together to form an amazing game, comfortable enough to wear the "among the best RPG's on Switch" badge that this thread is about.
I need to play this one day, the whole ‘cosy rpg vibe’ is my jam :)
 
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For Fami's consideration...
Bravely Default 2

I think that if you like Octopath or games like that you will probably like Bravely too. It has a great and fast battle system and a job system with pretty much endless possibilities. There are loads of jobs to discover and combining them to create overpower characters is part of the fun. The bosses can be very difficult but with the right setups they will become easy to beat. I loved every minute of this gem.
 
Surprised no one nominated this yet, so I'm back again!

For Fami's Consideration - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

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Fire Emblem: Three Houses is one of my favorite games on Switch period, and a game that has constantly stuck with me ever since its release. It takes Fire Emblem tactical combat and maps, and adds in a large hub zone in the Monastery along with a calendar system that puts everything on a limited time and adds in elements of time management and efficiency optimization. Couple that with an interesting and mysterious story that plays out over four different routes, excellent characters that are beloved (or hated) depending on what route you pick, and one of my favorite soundtracks of recent years, and you have a masterpiece of a game. Oh and did I mention the increased character customization, with multiple promotions and promotion paths?

There's just so much this game has to offer, and it's definitely on the list for best RPG on Switch.

(and long live upside-down Claude)
 
For Fami’s consideration…

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

For me, this game is just adventure distilled. Washed up on an uninhabited island, full of monsters, the small group of survivors you rescue one by one are building an outpost to protect them as they work on a boat. Meanwhile, Adol, being the professional explorer and adventurer that he is, heads out to chart the island while turning its inhabitants into a wealth of materials to make potions and equipment. The combat system returns from Memories of Celceta, with a three character party you can swap between at will, each character specialising in pierce, slash or crush damage that just so happen to conveniently match up to about a third of the enemies each. There are a handful of ‘dungeons’, being cave systems or specific areas, but most of your time is spent outdoors, and the first half of the game is really just pushing to explore and fill out your map as much as you can. The party is largely the same forgettable, generic tropes that Falcom has trod time and again and there’s barely any character development to speak of, but it kinda works when really most of the character development is in pushing the NPC survivors to all help get your community off the island together. Really the game is about exploration, charting a mysterious island under the open sky with some cracking tunes.

The sun-kissed beaches, water and music make for a perfect summer game. Just listen to this soundtrack, it’s raw adventure:
 
For Fami’s Considerstion:

Trails To Azure

The last missing game in the ongoing epic Trails saga barely just arrived officially in the West for the first time this month. Like Zero before it, the brand new Switch edition of Azure serves as the definitive release of the game as well with enhanced graphics and performance, excellent new features, and plenty of quality of life bumps. While the royal treatment this game was given is nice, it’s the core game here that’s so worthy of love. Trails To Azure features one of the best and most engaging turn based combat systems on Switch, an awesome story that carries the full weight of four massive adventures and their world building behind it that is driven by lovable characters, a full country to explore stuffed full of engaging NPCs to follow, incredible music, and off the charts cozy vibes. What elevates Azure above the rest of the Trails games on Switch is that it plays for keeps in a way the others never do which makes the challenges and stakes for both characters and countries all the more meaningful. No RPG fan should skip Trails To Azure even with the few very rough edges it has. There is no video game series that operates on the level Trails does at its best.

 
For Fami's consideration:

Pokemon Legends: Arceus

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This game is a total and utter masterpiece in every regard possible. After ten years of consistent stumbles and missteps, fumbles that started to disenchant me as a long term fan of the series at the direction modern games were taking, and led me to wonder whether the series still held any appeal to me beyond the primal nostalgia I felt towards it, Pokemon Legends delivered arguably the purest, most well defined and executed take on its central vision yet. This game is incredible in every way, and was exactly the Pokemon game I had wanted for two decades, but never dared to hope I would get - a systemic open world Pokemon game with survival and real-time elements thrown in for good measure. I'm going to quote myself from elsewhere now, but to put it plainly. Pokemon Legends: Arceus is a total delight, an incredible revitalization of the Pokemon formula that delivers its best thought out, most daring and ambitious, and just overall, its best game in years. It is so marvelously, thoroughly, and comprehensively well designed, and so good at what it does, that it’s actually shocking that Game Freak (who until now have mostly made glorified handheld games) managed to get so much so right on their first go. It’s an incredible game that provides the exact kind of evolution of the formula that everyone has been dreaming of for decades now, but most had given up hope on by this point. It’s a dense, long, high quality adventure, putting the emphasis squarely on player driven gameplay loops, a game that manages to feel and be good not just “for a Pokemon game”, but, much like the series’ highest points to date, just be an incredibly compelling and addictive adventure by almost any metric. It has its issues that do exist, and honestly make me desperately wish the game had gotten just a bit more time in the oven – so that it could have ironed out that jank. But even though that didn’t happen, what we got here is so incredibly well designed and thoroughly compelling that the game overcomes those shortcomings and issues either way. A startlingly accomplished work of game design, Pokemon Legends Arceus is the game fans have been desperately hoping for for years, come to life at last – an incredible game that manages to deliver a fantastic experience.

This is my second favorite game by Nintendo on the Switch, second favorite game by Nintendo in almost a decade, third favorite Pokemon game ever, and one of my favorite games ever. Go into it and enjoy the world of Pokemon like never before.

 
I would nominate Labyrinth of Galleria: The Moon Society, but I’m not done with it yet and I’m not sure how much I can talk about it without spoiling stuff.
 
For Fami's Consideration...

Live-A-Live Remake
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Live-A-Live received the kind of glow-up every diehard RPG nerd wants for their cult fave, and is the rare instance where that glow-up was totally worth it and succeeded at recapturing the original vision thanks to a strict adherence to retaining the SNES aesthetic as much as possible through the gorgeous HD2D visuals and the snazzy voice acting. It's roughly the same experience with more information on the player's hand, and that's to everyone's benefit because Live-A-Live is and always has been a weird little gem that needed a little extra polish that it now has.

Every chapter does something interesting with the standard RPG format varying from cool gimmicks like Sundown Kid and Akira's chapters to full-blown genre crossovers with Matsu's fighting game tournament setup (complete with Street Fighter II select screen and quotes) and Cube's survival horror adventure that was Amnesia before it was cool. The individually short length means that every cool idea gets crammed into its given chapter before you face off against the boss and move on before culminating in one of the SNES libary's most brilliant twists and subsequent epic final chapter.

Live-Alive first came out in 1994 and nearly three decades later there's still not much like it.
 
For Fami’s Consideration:

Undertale

Gripping narrative with actual meaningful choice, fantastical locales, off the wall yet surprisingly deep characters, unique battle system that combined Dragon Quest with a Shmup, the best soundtrack of the last 10 years. What more needs to be said?!? Nothing because you just need to listen:

























 


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