Nintendo Switch: 5 must-buy games for younger kids this holiday season

Miitopia

Is your kid the creative sort? Do they like coming up with characters for stories and making up lore for their action figures? Miitopia is gonna scratch that itch.

Miitopia is a very easy RPG (role-playing game) designed for younger kids in which you have to stop a dark spirit from causing chaos. It’s not a scary dark spirit, it’s just one of those “I want everything to be gloomy” types that used to plague characters like Rainbow Brite and the Care Bears in decades past.

The big joy of this game is that while most RPGs let you make your own character, Miitopia has you create EVERY character. When you walk into a town, it tells you about the six to eight characters that live there and you get to name them and design how they look.

You want the old lady that runs the weapon booth to be Betty White? You got it. The genie, you want him to be played by Shaq (or Sinbad, depending on your brain) you got it. You want the evil spirit that terrifies everyone to be played by the obnoxious children’s entertainer Jack Hartmann? Just me? Eh, still.

Long story short, the game is funny, the writing is always making jokes, and it allows your kid to be fully in control of the game’s entire cast in ways I’ve never seen before.

As an added bonus, your characters get strong when they learn to hang out and get along together so it also helps to teach your kids about taking time out to check on the people you care about. Bonus!