2019 Switch Year in Review

12/18/2019

In 2019 I hit 3 major life milestones: I had my first kid. I turned 40 years old. And I played more hours of video games in a single year than I had since High School.

I never would have thought that I could pull this off, but there were two things going into this year that I was unaware of: newborns sleep a lot, and you can get nearly an hour of playtime in each day by commuting on the Metro North from New Rochelle.

Most played games

• Fire Emblem: Three Houses. This might be the best Fire Emblem game ever. It's certainly the most dense. This turn-based strategy RPG offers three different Game of Thrones-style storylines, each of which can take close to 100 hours to play through. Picking the house that reminded me most of the Starks in Winterfell, I went with the Blue Lions. I look forward to guiding the other two houses in the future.
• Splatoon 2. This is a 2017 release, but I still played a lot this year. I've been trying to achieve 100% the Octo Canyon single player campaign, and I still play a lot of online multiplayer as well. I haven't even started the Octo Expansion yet. This could wind up on my list again in 2020, despite the last Splatfest having passed.
• Nintendo Enterainment System - Nintendo Switch Online. I'm old school! I revisited both the Legend of Zelda and Zelda II, the Super Mario Bros Games, and StarTropics. And I played games like Kirby's Adventure and Adventures of Lolo for the first time. The Rewind feature is indispensible, as it erases the "quality of life" shortcomings in such ancient games.

Best of the rest

• Xenoblade Chronicles 2. I completed the main campaign last year, and played through the Torna: The Golden Country expansion in the Spring. This is an insanely complex JRPG, but it's a ton of fun and has a great story. I also prefer the battle mechanics in the DLC to the original.
• Yoshi's Crafted World. If you've played Yoshi's Island before on SNES (availble in the Switch Online app), this game will feel familiar. This version is infinitely more accessible, quite simple at times, but rewards completionists looking for a serious challenge. I don't know if I'll ever beat all of the bosses in the hardest modes.
• Luigi's Mansion 3. The best Luigi's Mansion game ever made. My only regret is that I did not play co-op, where Nintendo invested heavily.
• Super Mario Maker 2. I played this for about thirty hours and never built a single thing. For me, it was more about seeing other's content than creation. This game probably made me smile the most, with most popular levels having some kind "I can't believe they thought to do that!" moment.
• Tetris 99. I used to think I was good at Tetris until I played this. I've only won once.
• Link's Awakening. A charming remake of the Game Boy classic, but you're better off playing Breath of the Wild or even a Link to the Past in the SNES app.
• Candence of Hyrule. Another Zelda game! What a year. Despite the fact that I don't love proceduraly generated content, this was a lot of fun. It's impossible to dislike a love letter to Nintendo's rich music history.