by mento
The Nintendo Switch has been a fine refugee center for the many Wii U games worth a darn, but now that the 3DS eShop has closed up, uh, eShop what's to be done with all its many fine system exclusives? Oh, the Switch doesn't have two screens? I'm sure the Ninty Boffins (not a British alt-rock band) can work around that, and if they can't maybe they should factor that into the Switch 2's design. Might as well put the billion dollars they're going to earn from Tears of the Kingdom towards something productive.
Either way, I just want another opportunity to play most of these since it's going to get tough to find them soon (or impossible, in the case of the digital-only games):
Showing 1-10 of 20 items
A well-rated RPG with a fully customizable team of heroes and features like HQ development and romance sidequests, developed by portable RPG experts Imageepoch. Without the eShop, the only place you can get an acute Code VFD is the red light district.
A Japan-exclusive action-adventure/action-RPG similar to Ico with an enormous pedigree of talents behind it, and one of the few tri-Ace games to yet see a localization. Might be a safer bet for the ailing RPG developer than another new Star Ocean from scratch.
The first three BoxBoy games were 3DS only (the fourth, BoxBoy + BoxGirl, was exclusive to Switch instead) and I'd be interested in picking up the second and third specifically in some kind of compilation since I missed out on them. Simple visual style, simple mechanics, but an ever higher level of challenge required to solve its shape-forming puzzles.
Bravely Default II was a Switch and PC release but the first game and its direct sequel (Bravely Second) are still stuck on 3DS. They're considered some of the best RPGs on the platform so I'm hoping they'll get a bravely second chance.
As with BoxBoy!, Pushmo was an early champion of the 3DS eShop digital-exclusive library and with the eShop gone so has most of the Pushmo series. I've played the first Pushmo, but Crashmo and the further sequels Pushmo World (a Wii U exclusive, also in a similar boat re: a discontinued marketplace) and Stretchmo are some quality puzzle-platformers I missed out on.
A detective adventure game starring that yellow mouse that can do electricity real good. Now that it has a Ryan Reynolds movie and is expecting an imminent sequel, seems like there should be a more convenient means of playing it.
Between the endless Laytons and Yo-kai Watches, Level-5 spearheaded what was essentially a high-budget Game Jam for the eShop which saw a number of imaginative, smaller-scale projects like Attack of the Friday Monsters and Crimson Shroud. I've been hoping for a full compilation on Switch, since I only bought about half of them.
One of Game Freak's many diversions between Pokémon releases, HarmoKnight is a rhythm-platformer with a significant degree of charm. I wonder if the modest success of Hi Fi Rush might create some small ripple leading to the resurrection other rhythm-based action games.
Rumors suggest we're getting a big sequel or remake to this Kid Icarus reboot any day soon, now that Sakurai's freed himself from the sweatshop forcing him to add every fan-mandated character that exists to Smash Bros. Ultimate. No idea yet what sort of RSI-inducing special control mechanism it'll use.
There's quite a few 3DS-exclusive Kirby games, so I just went with the one with mech suits. FromSoft's Armored Core 6 is right around the core-ner after all, and after that every major developer will be yelling at their most famous properties to get in the robobot.
