I Am Buying A Silly Number Of Switch Games

In what is supposed to be a slow part of the year, I am filling my Nintendo Switch to bursting with new releases and ports.

Last week, I bought the Switch ports of sidescrolling action-adventure games Iconoclasts and Salt & Sanctuary along with the puzzle game Picross S2. I had enough self control to download a mere demo for the evasion game Flat Heroes. A developer code for Dead Cells set off the alert that I had to clear up some space on the 128GB card I’ve got in my system. I deleted Pokémon Quest

Switch owners who crave brand-new games might not be swimming in as many things to play. I’ve been using the system to catch games I missed on PC or that I’ve neglected on other consoles but can more easily play on Switch thanks to the system’s portability—good for subway commutes and late-night playing in bed while the babies sleep a room away.

That’s why I recently re-bought Hand of Fate 2 for Switch, even though I had it on PS4 and why I’ve finally found a system on which I think I can get into Enter the Gungeon and The Banner Saga, two other recent purchases.

Buying so many games makes it hard to keep up with what I even have on the system. I’m still only about five missions into Doom, only at the luncheon kingdom in Mario Odyssey and not quite done with Breath of the Wild’s expansion. The presence of Octopath Traveler and Xenoblade Chronicles 2 on my Switch are testaments to my unrealistic estimates about the number of minutes in a week.

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I’d been slower to buy Switch games in the spring. Then, my attention was diverted by games on my PlayStation 4. When I use a system, however, I find myself buying more games for it, and so I can trace my uptick of Switch game-ownership to several binge sessions in June of the puzzle comedy Sushi Striker and then becoming enraptured for most of July with the Metroid-style, Metroid-quality Hollow Knight

I expect a twist. The fall is the season of the biggest game releases, but I anticipate my Switch gaming will slow down then. Nintendo’s big fall offerings of Smash Bros, Mario Party and Pokémon don’t do much for me, a primarily solo gamer who isn’t a big fan of those franchises. I expect my attention will wander and that the many indie releases that have filled the Switch’s summer will abate as those developers avoid competing with big-name releases and wait for the next slow season. I could be wrong, but I hope I’m right. I need the time to catch up.