We’re calling it right now: 2024 has to be the year when we finally hear about the long-awaited and much-rumoured Nintendo Switch successor. After all, Nintendo can’t keep a lid on its new hardware forever, right?
The Switch is entering its seventh year in 2024, and most consoles generally last around that long before their successors are announced and subsequently released. This pattern holds for the PlayStation and Xbox, for the most part, so Nintendo will most likely follow suit.
Of course, without an official announcement, we can only speculate, but the fact that the Switch is starting to show its age, combined with dwindling releases for the console, means Nintendo must surely be gearing up for the Switch 2 in private.
Recent releases like Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Super Mario RPG are excellent, of course, but they don’t feel like huge system-sellers (with the possible exception of Wonder).
January 2024 won’t be the month to convince us that the Switch isn’t about to be replaced, either, since there are just a small handful of games landing on Nintendo’s platform this month.
Regardless, here are the best Nintendo Switch games arriving for the machine in January 2024.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown (January 18th)
- Genre: Action-Adventure
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown casts you as Sargon, a Persian warrior who must delve into the depths of the mythical Mount Qaf in order to discover the fate of the kidnapped Prince Ghassan.
We’re guessing that Sargon himself isn’t the Prince of Persia the title names, which is intriguing; a Prince of Persia game that isn’t about the Prince himself, or rather doesn’t star him as the protagonist, is a fun new direction for the series.
Speaking of fun new directions, The Lost Crown deviates from recent Prince of Persia tradition (well, relatively recent, at any rate) by being a side-scrolling platformer rather than an out-and-out 3D action platformer.
You must traverse a series of rooms filled with traps and puzzles in order to rescue Prince Ghassan, and you’ll also need to contend with The Immortals, a group you once called friends.
The world features Metroidvania-style interconnected design, so you can return to rooms you’ve previously visited and solve puzzles you missed the first time around.
In a handy feature that we immediately know we’re going to miss in other games, you can also screenshot certain rooms, showing you puzzles you couldn’t solve before so that you can decide whether to try again with new abilities later on.
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank (January 19th)
- Genre: Action
If you haven’t played Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, then this rather strange little indie “franchise” (for it is such now that there are two games) might be difficult to explain.
On the surface, these games are Zelda-style top-down adventures with a mixture of exploration, combat, and talking to NPCs to help solve their problems to make up the core gameplay loop.
However, they’re also irreverent comedy games that train a skewed eye on gaming culture in general, as well as a range of other topics, so it’s all executed with a wink and a nudge, so to speak.
If Turnip Boy’s particular sense of humour doesn’t gel with you, then you might struggle to find a foothold with Turnip Boy Robs a Bank, but if you loved Tax Evasion, you’re likely also going to love this one.
It looks to feature many of the same gameplay conventions as the previous game, albeit tightened up and with a few extra tools and gimmicks thrown in for good measure.
This is definitely one of those sequels that’s intended for fans of the original game, but there’s nothing wrong with that, so if you’re a fan of Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, consider this a hearty recommendation for its sequel too.
Another Code: Recollection (January 19th)
- Genre: Adventure
Now here’s a remaster that it’s fair to say not many people saw coming. Another Code is a relatively obscure adventure game from the early days of the Nintendo DS, so to see it reappearing on the Switch is a genuine surprise.
Not only is the first game getting a remaster on Switch, but the followup, Another Code: R, is also joining in on the fun, so you’ll get to experience two lost puzzle-adventure classics for the price of one.
These games revolve around protagonist Ashley Mizuki Robbins, as well as her ghost friend D. Together, the two must explore Blood Edward Island in order to discover the truth behind the disappearance of Ashley’s father, as well as to help D recover their memories.
That’s the setup for the first game, at any rate. The second game takes on a different narrative focus, but telling you what that focus is might spoil the first, so we’ll just say that an entirely new mystery awaits you in the followup.
Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy (January 25th)
- Genre: Adventure
The Ace Attorney games are a curious mixture of familiar and exciting. They offer courtroom drama at its finest, together with investigative mechanics that feel just on the right side of challenging.
For the most part, Ace Attorney won’t tickle your brain in the same way that games like Return of the Obra Dinn or The Curse of the Golden Idol might, but they’re still robust, excellently-written mysteries that offer plenty of opportunities to feel smug about yourself.
This trilogy collects the three adventures that have apparently been loosely termed the Apollo Justice trilogy, although the latter two games also star mainstay Phoenix Wright and his apprentice Athena Cykes.
The first and third games in the trilogy revolve around Apollo himself, though, and they’re also the strongest offerings, with the middle game Dual Destinies suffering somewhat from an inconclusive and unsatisfying ending.
Thankfully, Dual Destinies still has plenty of great storytelling to offer, as do the other two games in this collection, and you can enjoy them all with improved visuals and lots of extras if you pick up this re-release.
