Nintendo's long and prestigious legacy in the gaming space has come as a result of creative choices, helping the company's games and consoles stand out from the crowd. Despite targeting a broad gaming audience, hit titles from decades-long franchises such as Mario, Kirby, and The Legend of Zelda have successfully reinvented their formulas on the Switch.
There is no shortage of safe titles on the Switch designed with inexperienced audiences in mind, which is great for growing the medium, but longtime fans are always looking for games that surprise and delight. Here are some of the best outside-the-box experiences you can play on Nintendo's hybrid console.
8 WarioWare: Get It Together
WarioWare defined the mini-game collection back on the Game Boy Advance with an in-your-face style and a brutal time limit that forced people to think on their feet. The original title is available as part of the Switch online expansion pack for those interested in checking out a simply surreal single-player experience. But multiplayer madness is arguably a better fit for the series as the rapid-fire microgames and impressively weird mixed media visuals are the perfect accompaniment for a funny and memorable get together.
The biggest addition to this title is the ability to control games with unique abilities. Everyone gets a choice of characters from the WarioWare series that use different, accessible control schemes with the option to either work together or against each other to beat unexpected challenges. The addition of new controls adds a much-needed challenge for veterans of Nintendo's strangest ongoing series.
7 No More Heroes
Suda 51 is an auteur associated with the zaniest character action games on the market, which, considering Bayonetta and Devil May Cry pioneered the genre with excessive over-the-top styles, is a tough feat to achieve. Every title in Suda's signature No More Heroes series is available on Switch with remastered visuals. They follow the adventures of otaku Travis Touchdown, who defeats intergalactic threats with a lightsaber knockoff.
There's a ton of effort put into the immature artistry of these games, from the toilet save points to the up-and-down motion controls used to recharge the beam katana. The offbeat humor contrasts the colorful, lavish animations in a way that feels truly unique. No More Heroes goes one step further yet by expressing deep, philosophical topics through boss dialogue. For some, these wildly different, clashing themes can cause sensory overload, but for others, this silly series fills a niche like no other.
6 Katamari Damacy Reroll
For those who haven't played these cult titles, Katamari Damacy is a game about rolling everyday objects into a ball that grows more substantial as ever-growing items get consumed into a homogenized ball. The mix of cell-shaded, pastel visuals and an award-winning J-pop soundtrack contrast the destruction of environments in a way that feels oddly satisfying.
The strange elements come into full effect during the story mode. In Katamari Damacy, the first game, it's revealed that the Katamari ball is being used to create new stars and planets after they were destroyed by the clumsy protagonist's father, the King of all Cosmos. During the quest to save space, a smaller story highlights a playfully naive family consisting of an astronaut, his wife, and his imaginative kids, who are more clued into the world and their surroundings than any adult.
In We Love Katamari (the second game), after the known universe has been saved, the god-like beings from the first game have received a lot of notoriety for saving the world and feel responsible for creating a brighter future to appease the human race. Alongside this, the game introduces a backstory that grounds these gods in a heartfelt manner that involves, of all things, boxing and overcoming childhood trauma, while maintaining a silly and upbeat tone that doesn't trivialize the subjects.
5 Deadly Premonition: Origins
When it comes to strange storytelling and offbeat mechanics, the uncanny adventures of detective York Morgan is an experience that embraces glitches and shoddy design alongside psychological horror and Western culture. Each weird element comes together to form an eerily serene vibe reminiscent of Twin Peaks, with both pieces of media having elaborate stories that mess with the audience in unique ways.
On the surface, Deadly Premonition may seem like a typical third-person shooter, but before long, the cracks of abnormality start to show. Voice lines about off-topic conversations crop up out of nowhere, missions with overly tedious objectives take on a 'so bad it's good' quality, and cutscenes are a masterclass in stilted dialogue, strangely captivating music, and low-budget imagery. The funny thing is, as broken and off-putting as each element seems on the surface, the deliberate attention brought to these details creates a horror experience that sticks in the mind, for better and worse.
4 Anodyne 2
Anodyne 2 is a one-of-a-kind experience that uses surreal imagery to tell a story about airborne viruses. There is a healthy mix of 3D exploration and 2D puzzle solving, as this Zelda-inspired adventure takes some of the best elements from the entire franchise, including size-based mechanics from Minish Cap, the harrowing storylines and environments from Majora's Mask and classic dungeon designs that wouldn't feel out of place in A Link to The Past.
Despite being a homage to Nintendo's flagship adventurer, Anodyne and its sequel flip the script on the hero's adventures by introducing sequences that stand out by breaking traditional gameplay conventions. Miniaturization is used to delve into the minds and bodies of almost every NPC to both solve puzzles and understand a new perspective surrounding such an imminent threat. The strange elements, such as the visuals, music, mechanics, and puzzle design highlight the existential dread looming over the world and its inhabitants in a visceral way.
3 Hypnospace Outlaw
Back in the 90s, the internet was full of sincerity. People were excited to check out this futuristic technology and express themselves for the world to see. Hypnospace Outlaw channels this vibe with a simulator that takes players through the radical world of the information superhighway. The awkward personality oozing from online message boards filled with gifs and outdated slang feeds helps people to develop connections with the game's quirky cast.
Your job is to bring in petty internet criminals by policing these lovingly crafted websites, but the gameplay doesn't linger on the ethical quandaries of these actions. It instead uses this mechanic to show new sides to these online personas when confronted with the law. This culminates in a surprisingly relevant story as it delves into the positive and negative repercussions of sharing personal details with an unknown audience.
If these subjects are a little too much to handle, it's easy enough to distract yourself by exploring through the vast array of funny Internet pages, collecting Pokemon knockoffs, and vibing with a media player filled with new classic songs.
2 Wario Land 3
Nintendo has developed a ton of platformers throughout the years. Most of the company's flagship series involve a healthy amount of running and jumping while targeting specific audiences. Wario Land is the antithesis of 2D Mario platformers; they often have a much slower pace and encourage experimentation with bizarre power-ups.
The third game in the series, available on Nintendo's online Game Boy service, adds metroidvania elements to the series, which encourages further exploration into the game's unique mechanics. Other staples of the series, such as mini-games and vibrant worlds, debut here, injecting elements of the WarioWare into a tightly designed platformer.
It's a shame that the rest of the series hasn't made its way over to the Switch or the fact that there hasn't been a new entry since 2008, but Wario Land 3 is considered one of the best games on the Game Boy Color, and it's great that there's an accessible way to play this gem.
1 Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits
There are a ton of bombastic Japanese arcade games that never make their way over to the West. These bulky machines are hard to port as each game has unique internal parts and external controllers to stand out in a sea of money-hungry cabinets. Luckily Ace Angler, Namco's lightgun-style fishing game, made its way to the Switch in 2019. It was a Japanese-only release, though a physical English cover version could be imported. However, even greater news struck when the sequel Ace Angler: Fishing Spirits released simultaneously in the east and west on the eShop at the tail end of 2022.
One look at the moment-to-moment gameplay and it's easy to see how chaotic the visual design is. Tons of effects fly seamlessly through the screen showing the effects of each rod; the untamed, dangerous-looking fish act erratically as their habitat is being disrupted; and there are tons of shiny things designed to invoke the endorphins. The motion controls built into the Joy-Cons and the tabletop display of the Switch's undocked screen emulate the arcade experience surprisingly well if you're craving arcade-perfect levels of sensory overload.