Nintendo Switch: 5 awesome, family-friendly games coming in 2021
As a parent of two kids, five and seven, I know it can sometimes suck to find games. I wrote the book on it. Well, technically I wrote the article on it. More often than not, people will design games for children knowing that kids do not possess the buying power to make returns, often knowing that parents will just think their kids aren’t being grateful. Personally, the only time this has ever benefitted me was when the recent Bakugan came out on Nintendo Switch and it was so impossibly bad that my children both lost all interest in something that was costing me a ton. They lost interest in the toys, shows, and the entire franchise with how bad the game was.
Luckily, 2021 looks to be the kind of year that fixes that. Pokemon is dropping both a New Pokemon Snap and cute remakes of Pokemon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl. But there are also a ton of cool games for kids that are flying completely under the radar. Here are a couple of blips you might be missing.
Miitopia
Developed by Nintendo
Releases: May 21st, 2021
Miitopia was recently mentioned in a massive Nintendo announcement earlier this year where Nintendo dropped about 30 different upcoming titles so you may have missed it, especially if you didn’t understand WHAT you were seeing.
A remake (with a ton of newly added features) of a game of the exact same name that originally dropped for the 3DS years ago and I absolutely loved it. The only thing that made me sad about it was that I couldn’t share my experience as I was confined to the small screen of the 3DS.
In Miitopia you make a ton of Miis, Nintendo’s trademarked avatars, and place them in the roles of various characters you’ll encounter. Your party, the villain, the NPC’s are all going to be characters of your own creation. Don’t think it will be all at once though. When you first start, a villain has torn through the world removing the spirit from everyone as well as their faces. As you go through the world, you’ll find enemies that have captures their spirits, and freeing them allows you to then, create that person.
You’d think it would get old but as your game fills up more and more with familiar faces, the game becomes funnier and funnier. For example, my main villain was an evil wizard that shared both the name and face of Shaq. It made me laugh every single time he would appear to torment us.
As your party progresses, you unlock a ton of fun classes. A character wearing a cardboard tank suit, a pop idol, a cat person, a scientist that makes concoctions mid-battle and so much more alongside traditional classes like heroes, mages, and healers.
And your character performs better depending on how they’ve been getting along. Sending them gifts and having them do activities together means the difference between your characters helping each other and getting into an argument midbattle that distracts them both, causing them to lose a turn.
The story never gets heavy and is filled with a ton of lighthearted, silly moments that work out like bizarre scenes that probably wouldn’t be so funny if it wasn’t for the fact that the characters involved are people in your life or random meme-characters you’ve created. I personally loved watching my kids’ virtual characters bicker with each other constantly. I know I should have gone for an escapist fantasy where they got along wonderfully, but I can’t wait for them to see what happens when this game comes out this May on Nintendo Switch.