With the end of the Switch's lifecycle finally upon us (sort of), there seems no better time to look back on its immense library and see which games defined this generation. In this episode of Stone Age Gaming, Kris picks a small handful of the digital games that made this possibly his favorite generation ever.

Check out Part 1 here. 

Transcript of the video

Hi there, Kris from StoneAgeGamer here, and welcome back to Stone Age Gaming. Since the Switch's life, well, you know, last, couple weeks ago, our last episode, I started going through my favorite Switch games ever, like the ones that really defined this generation, because the Switch 2 is likely coming soon, so the Switch does seem to be winding down. At least it did until the day before I recorded this, when there was a new Nintendo Direct announcing Nintendo Switch One games coming in next year in 2026. So, whatever, I'm sticking with this, regardless of the fact that the system really isn't dead, I think the generation is ready to move on. We've got a Switch 2 coming out, the Direct hasn't happened yet as of this recording, but I'm very excited about it. But I'm going through the games that define this generation for me personally, and there were a ton of them. This whole Nintendo Switch has got to be one of my favorite systems ever at this point. and there were so many just outstanding original games. But last time I focused on ones that I have physically, there are so many that I don't have physically that really mean the world to me, including, well, the ones that I'm going to talk about here today. So without further ado, here's volume two of the best of the Nintendo Switch. All right, here we are, and this is my Nintendo Switch, and I put together this folder just to kind of collect most of the games that... just meant the world to me on this platform that I unfortunately don't own physically either because they don't exist or because I have you know I missed my chance and now they're stupid expensive and there's a couple of surprising ones on here I'm sure you're looking at the screen looking at I don't know a certain horse-headed fellow and being like why on earth is that there but trust me I have a story so let's start at the top they're mostly in alphabetical order and we're going to start with Animal Crossing New Horizons. I was a, I loved the GameCube game when I came out. And I spent a ton of time with that. And I spend a lot of time with the DS game, which was great. And I skipped the Wii one entirely because I just didn't feel like I was ready for another Animal Crossing. But then the New Leaf came out on 3DS and I was like, oh, this is fantastic. So when this game came out, like right at the height of the pandemic, it just could not have come out at a better time. And I obsessed over this one. I know a lot of people talk about the features in New Leaf, how New Leaf is just such a better game, New Horizons is trash, I think those people are nuts. Like, yes, New Leaf has some stuff that I wish New Horizonts had, and yes, new horizons has a bunch of limitations that I don't think need to be there. That said, the bigger inventory, the way the museum looks, I fell into this one so much deeper than I had the previous ones. And yeah, I'm sure the pandemic played some part in that, but this was the only one that I finished the museum in. I just loved the way they streamlined, you know, giving fossils instead of having to mail them away like you did the original game. I loved the expansion of the inventory slots that just made everything feel so much better. I liked the island motif and building up my town based on that. I just love Animal Crossing. I wish there was more for the villagers to say, I wish there was a more stuff to do once you kind of finished doing the basic tasks like it seems crazy to me that there isn't a more of a reason for me to come back to this game. That said, I put it just an obscene amount of hours into playing this game and so did the rest of my family. My kids were old enough to, you know, get in on my town as well. And my wife got in on the town. This was our first Animal Crossing game and we all just had a blast. building the town together and collecting weird objects and decorating our houses and paying them off and watching meteorites fall down and we just had so much fun with this one and i really can't wait to see what they do with this franchise next because you know there's going to be another one there has to be this has become one of their biggest titles so i'm pretty jazzed about it love love animal crossing and new horizons next i'll just talk real briefly about arcade archives specifically that they finally did Nintendo stuff, um, because this is, uh, the official arcade versions of Nintendo games have not been made available, uh like ever, and no, this Donkey Kong version is not perfect, this does not have the weird sound changes every time Mario steps his- his footsteps, but it's an officially- it's officially licensed version of the original arcade Donkey Kong that I can purchase, uh and I grabbed this and Donkey Kong Jr in Donkey Kong 3 and both Punch-Out games. Even though the Super Punch-Out is only the Japanese one, which kind of irks me because I miss the English voice-overs that the North American arcade version had. But still, that I can have these games on a home platform. The original arcade Mario Bros. has always been one of my favorites. I can play that officially on a console. It's one of those things that you just can't make up how exciting that was to me. I love That arcade archives was able to tackle these games with Nintendo and I don't know maybe we'll see more of them someday And I'm pretty sure there are a couple other Nintendo Arcade games out there that haven't been Ported to switch or any other platforms yet that I'd like to see it We might have a little sheriff on here or something who knows but yeah There's a lot of neat history there, but the fact that these exist at all. I think is marvelous Alright, this is bomb chicken. I Know this game exists physically, and I'm sad that I don' have it I had never heard of Nitroam before, and I just, I can't remember where I saw it. I think I just saw a trailer for it or something when I was perusing the eShop before it became flooded with absolute nonsense. But Bomb Chicken is so good. This game is sooo good. And I was absolutely obsessed with it for a decent amount of time. I beat it and it was so much fun. You play as this like really goofy looking chicken that's trying to escape a facility where they make chicken products like KFC and you poop out bombs you just like stack up these explosive towers of bombs together it's such a clever game it's got such a great look to it and it is so so much fun I absolutely adore this game and I more people should play it it's so good it's so good and Nitro wound up doing the shovel knight dig so like they I haven't seen them do anything since Shovel Knight Day. which had that great look to it i like to dig i know didn't blow me away the original way the original shovel knight did um but still regardless bomb chicken phenomenal game absolutely love it okay next up we have blossom tales so here's the thing about blossom tales i love the story behind the game where this uh studio worked real hard on making this game and they didn't make any money on steam but then they dropped it on nintendo switch at just the absolute right time and it made them a bunch of money. and now the studio is doing great, and they made a Blossom Tales 2. So I love that story, but also the game itself really stuck with me. It's very much a Zelda-like game, traditional Zelda- like, Link to the Past kind of stuff, but it's got a really cute narrative, the writing is really well done, the puzzles are fun to solve, the combat is pretty decent. but it's just overall a really delightful game. It doesn't jump into this like, life-altering 10 out of 10 territory because it doesn't have to, it's, it, it just good as it is and I greatly, greatly appreciate it. I think the game is well worth playing as is its sequel and I can't wait to see what the studio does next. Now, moving right along here, I'm realizing that I forgot one if I'm going alphabetical here and I need to find it right now. Because if I don't, I'm gonna forget about it by the time I make the next video. And I can't believe I went right past it. Where the heck is it? Oh, you stinkin' alphabetical order. I have way too many games. There it is. Celeste. Holy cow. How did I put this thing together without talking about Celeste? So Celeste is a phenomenal game. Celeste, it's one of those ultra hard, almost like Meat Boy style games where you're doing a- side-scrolling platforming stuff and you got to do it really quick and really precise and there's a bunch of harder and even harder levels the B sides and the C sides and the D sides and who the hell knows the music is phenomenal the narrative is what really grabbed me because it's it you know it seems like it's just a game about trying to climb a mountain but it's a game about making peace with yourself and overcoming depression and there is a part in the game where you literally play through your character having a panic attack. that just, it's one of those times where I just had to stop after that sequence was done being like, I can't believe I just did that, that's pretty wild. This game really, really floored me in just about every respect, and I know there's all sorts of stuff surrounding its legacy since then, including the original creators not getting along with each other anymore, but regardless this original game, the character of Madeline in particular. uh, just really resonated with me, and I didn't think it stuck the landing perfectly, because there was this really, really impressive point toward the middle of the game where you meet somebody else who's going through a similar bout of depression, and you wind up working towards getting better, and this guy does not. He gives in to his demons and becomes a literal demon and is chasing you around to some, again, incredible music, and I really liked the message that you can't save everyone. Like, no matter how much you may want to, when it comes to depression, you really need to take care of yourself. When it comes mental conditions, you've got to take of yourself, and you can always put all of your energy into helping the people around you no matter much they may need it, because you may not be able to save everybody. And in the end of the game, that character winds up being okay, which I thought was kind of an odd betrayal of that particular moment that I thought was really well put together, but regardless... Celeste is a phenomenal game and it has earned its reputation. So, I've never finished Cuphead, because I'm just not good enough, but this is one of those games that, it's animation style, kind of took the entire industry by storm. This show wound up getting a freaking Netflix show or whatever, which was pretty neat. This game really took off, but, this one holds such a special place for me, because this was like, this was an Xbox thing, and this game kind of feels to me like one of the marks of... uh... microsoft's turn into just being like you know what we're gonna put games where we think they'll sell uh... and you can say what you will about their strategy which has been uh... divisive to say the least they're in a really weird place in the industry right now but cuphead is on all platforms and it did really well on switch and it performs incredibly well on swich and it's such a fun game with such a neat esthetic and uh... i think it really Put a lot of emphasis on how great 2D hand-drawn animation can be in sprite-based gaming, which there is another game on this list that we probably won't get to until the next video, but you were starting to see some of this stuff pop up like, you know what, 2D games can actually look stunning. If you put in the effort, you can make 2D Games look outstanding. And people have been doing this kind of thing for ages, but this was the game that really kind of blew that up as far as public visibility, I think. It's a game that means the world to me, and I'll never finish it because I just don't have the patience, but I'm most of the way through it. I think I got like three-fourths of the ways through the game before I just hit a wall and was like, I just can't, I don't have the reflexes anymore, I'm too old. Okay, this is a big one, this a huge one, This is daddish. If you ever listen to the Stone Age Gamer podcast, you've heard me talk about these games before. A friend of mine, Mike, recommended this game to me on a whim. He said it was pretty cool, and he had no idea how much I would fall in love with this game because he thought it was alright. I became just full on obsessed with it. Daddish is a masterpiece. And I don't use that word lightly, I'm not joking, I am not being facetious, or if I'm even using that word right. I honest to goodness think the Daddish trilogy, the one, two, and three are genuine gaming masterpieces. they are not complicated at all. They have simple, bright, easy-to-read visuals, they have incredible personality, and astoundingly good writing. These games crack me up every time I play through them. They're just too fun. You are a radish who is a dad, daddish, and your goofball children run away and you have to find all of them by just doing basic obstacle courses. You can move and you have a double jump, and that is it. That's what Dadish can do. There are occasionally vines you can climb on, and like springboards you can bounce off of, but your abilities are just a double jump, that's it. And the entire game is just clever level design, expertly crafted around this basic, basic mechanic, and it works so well. It is one of the most relaxing games. No, maybe not always relaxing, because the game can be pretty intense as far as how difficult it is, but it is just, it's perfect. It's just. platforming perfection just about and it's a they all three of them are a joy to play there's also daily daddish which is a one level a day kind of thing which is super cool and there's daddish 3d which is an interesting experiment but I do think the three main 2d games are way way better you can get them all in the daddish collection right now which I highly recommend seriously this This is one of the defining games of the Switch generation to me is the Datish Trilogy. It's too dang good. All right, sticking in mostly alphabetical order here, we have Dandara. So this game I got after Celeste, and it was one of the first games that I had played that really messed with gravity. I had play VVVV on 3DS and fell absolutely in love with that one and wished with all of my heart that someday I could play it on my television. But in the meantime, I found this game on the eShop. This was this is in the early days of the switch that I thought had a really interesting look to it, and I wound up trying it, and I still don't think I've ever played anything quite like it. Your character can't walk, you just jump. It's been years since I've played it, and I think they've done some really significant updates to it since then, including a really useful map function that I wish existed when I played through it the first time. So you just point this arrow in a direction, and you leap to the next flat surface. Like the whole game is just these Series of leaps and the and you know, obviously a little bit of combat as far as like shooting things It's extremely clever came it is so so good. I I was I was just floored by this one when I played through it and I tried to recommend it to everybody who had played Celeste because this came out around the same time on switch and Celeste was just blowing up in popularity and I was like when you're done with that one, you've got to try this game It's a bit different but it's like a exploratory metroidvania type thing. And if you like those kinds of games, this is really unique and you've got to give it a try. And I don't know how many people did, but I was so impressed with this one. And it's one of those, you know, Switch experiences that I'm never going to forget. Next up, Donut County. This is, this game had been recommended to me a handful of times and it was in comparison to Katamari Damacy, which is one of my all time favorites. So that was a pretty bold move to compare that to Katamari, but when I finally did give in and play it because I didn't do it at first, similar to when I was talking about Sayonara Wild Hearts in the last video, it did in fact floor me. Donut County is so good, and its soundtrack has a lot to do with it. It's got some really great writing, but it also has just such a good soundtrack and a really simple gameplay loop similar to Katomari. You're a hole in the ground and you move it around and the more things fall in the hole, the bigger your hole gets, the more you can get to fall down the hole. You clear a stage by getting all the things to fall down the whole. It's completely nuts, again, it's just brimming with ridiculous personality. I could not love this game more, I've played through it like twice I think, and it's just a hoot. And it's got a raccoon as one of the main characters. It's great. Okay, everybody want to switch. Oh, I can't believe I have to talk good about this game again. Every single time I have say good things about this game, I get a little sick inside, because its presentation is just foul. This horse character, MC Horus, or whatever they call him, is the worst. this game on the surface is just garbage, but I got assigned to review it for Nintendo Force magazine and uh, so I had a bunch of people over because they said it can go up to 100 players. So I think we had about 10 people over and you can use Joy-Cons or you can use your cell phones to play these mini games and if we didn't have the most fun imaginable while playing this, the one game that sticks out of my mind more than the and find colors. So whatever space you're in, the game would give you a color, and this was one of the modes you had to play with your phone. So it would access your camera, and you would have to take a picture of something that was as close to that color as you could find. And here I am in my basement, where I have all my video game collection out, and these eight or nine other people running around, and we're all looking at different game art boxes to try to find something that is that exact color. It was so much fun. ridiculously competitive when you get the right crowd of people together because you know you're splitting the teams and you know the way it goes back and forth and handicaps you when you're doing super well it's really clever it's so bad it's, so embarrassing to look at sometimes but if you want a party game they just it's just one of the best party games i've ever played and i hate to say that because the original one two switch i think is it just It makes me angry. I can't believe how good this game is. Alright, I'm gonna stop talking about it now. Alright, i'm gonna do the rest of this row. Just shapes and beats, holy cow. This game is amazing. I've never cared about a square more in my entire life. This game so, so effective in its storytelling. Just based on, just from its music. Its soundtrack is unbelievably good. It's... filled with all kinds of, I think, EDM is the word for it, electronic dance music. I don't really know the terminology because I'm old and lame, but the music is so freaking good and this game's really hard. You're just a little square and the game is just shapes and beats. Everything is little geometric shapes and you move around, but it's telling this story of this like some sort of evil pink something that's destroying your world and you're fighting against it. as you go through and you meet other shapes and bad things happen to them but then you can save them and the game defies description. It's unbelievable. I really cannot say enough good things about it. It is one of the best games on this platform and I don't think it exists physically? I don' know. Maybe it does and I've just never seen it but it wouldn't surprise me just because of the music. There's so much music in there. I assume that... some of the rights might be hard to get. I don't know. I don't have enough about it or its history. I just know that this game, this game in particular right here, is one of the very best games on this platform, which is really saying something because there's so many games on Switch, but just wow. I'm just an absolute wow. Play just say if you have any remote interest in rhythm based games, play this game. It's that good. All Katana zero is up next this one here Um, this was a kind of a surprise to me and I think I got it, I think I got a for review or maybe I picked it up because I saw it in one of those Devolver digital bouts of insanity that they have around E3 time. Uh, but this game is one of the coolest games I think ever played. And I don't think it's ever going to get a sequel cause I don' think Devolvers does sequels very much, but, um, I hope it does because the story kind of ended on this weird If I remember correctly, almost time-travelly, it took place in the future kind of cliffhanger. I don't know, man. This game melted my head. It's a really fun game to play. You're this ninja assassin type person, and it's 2D pixel art visuals that I'm sure you're looking at on the screen right now. But it's kind of hard, and its really, really good, and I can't... It just blew me away. It's one of the most memorable experiences I've had on this platform. It just blow me away." All right, the last one I'm going to talk about for this video, as you can see there's plenty more, but the last, another one might be a little bit of a shock, Kirby's Dream Buffet. I love Kirby games. I love kirby games. I used to love Kirby Games a lot more, back in the old days. The original Dream Land, Dream Land 2 and Game Boy, Adventure on NES is my favorite, all the way up through Nightmare in Dreamland, which is a remake of Adventure. on Game Boy Advance, I think was kind of where I started to fall off, but I really loved the old Kirby games, and as much as I had tried to get into them after that, they just never really stuck with me anymore until the Switch, which I'll probably talk about Forgotten Land at some point in the not too distant future. Um, this, uh... The Switch really got me back into the Kirby games and I'm trying to go back and play a couple of the more of the ones that are on Nintendo Switch Online, like Amazing Mirror, just because I really like Kirby games. This one's a little bit of a different animal. This one is, Kirby's Dream Course is actually one of my favorite games, Dream Course, is a phenomenal game if you've never tried it, it is on Nintendo switch online, it's a Super Nintendo game, it basically Kirby mini-golf. Started life as I think special tea shot and just kind of a the different thing and they put a Kirby license on it And all the Kirby things to it and really the game really came together then right regardless so Kirby's dream buffet is your one of Your Kirby because there's multiple Kirby's and you roll around because you just you're just a little ball And you're rolling around trying to eat as much as you can and the more you eat the fatter you get and the goal Is to be as fat as possible by the end of your little series of races, because it's like a racing game, but also like a combat game almost, because you have to ram into each other and try to knock the food out of each other to not be as fat. This game deserves to be, I can't believe this isn't local 4 player, it drives me up the wall that this only goes to 2 players locally, because if this was 4 player this would get as much play in our house as Mario Party and Mario Kart, like, it's that good. It is such a fun, fun loop. and its soundtrack is a celebration of the entire Kirby series, like, there's new interpretations of music from Kirby's pinball land for crying out loud. There's all kinds of stuff in this soundtrack that absolutely rules if you've been playing Kirby games for ages and ages. But this game is too much fun. I'm sad that it doesn't exist physically, I'm so, so angry that it's not for players locally, but we do still play this game pretty often because it's just, it's too much. It's too. Much fun! It's one of the most enjoyable multiplayer games on the Switch. If you've skipped it because it looked like a I don't know a Fall Guys ripoff or something or just because it's one of the 50 bajillion Kirby games on this system. Don't overlook this one. It's a really really good game There's not a ton to it content wise like there's a bunch of stuff to unlock, but it's just you know cosmetic Outfits and stuff the actual gameplay loop is so freaking good in this game It's just it's a blast to play with friends. So there you go. That's that's the first dive into the digital-only stuff that really defined the Switch, and well, that's that. at the world to me, but there's still so many more to talk about, and this has been really fun, so I'm going to keep doing these for every couple of weeks, because I think it's a blast just looking through these games that were just super awesome and talking a bit more about them. So with that said, thank you everybody for watching. If you like what you saw here today, please follow, comment, like, subscribe, share, let us know down in the comments what Nintendo Switch games defined the generation for you. What digital-only games do you wish you had physically? Uh, and well, anything else that you feel like sharing, thank you very much again for watching. On behalf of all of us here at Stone Age Gamer, keep playing games.