Nintendo Switch release reactions
Just for fun, given that we're probably on the eve of the announcement of the announcement of the Switch 2, a look back on some of the online reactions when the first Switch was first detailed, pricing and all.
First, we have this (in)famous neogaf thread.
I don't see that happening. With that price, that paywall and that game line up, I see it below 40M after 5 years. Maybe even below 30M units.
With that price point and lineup? Fuck no.
Eventually if they drop the price big and have a lineup worth a shit maybe they can recover. Maybe. But starting off this bad doesn't inspire me with confidence.
On Reddit, the reception was equally as negative in volume, but the tenor was more reserved
Watched the presentation and was surprised at how little they did to promote the value of purchasing the Switch at $300.
Of course, fans will buy it at any price, but many consumers are gonna see two confirmed launch titles, a paid online service from a company with no proven record in that regard, and Nintendo's history of lackluster third party support and sparse releases. Consumers are liable to perceive better value in Sony's or Microsoft's offerings.
What large games they did show (Zelda, Mario, Xenoblade 2, etc.) looked good, but really not digging the console itself currently. Not a good value proposition.
EDIT: The more I try to inform myself, the uglier this whole situation looks. This console just doesn't look good.
The games from in-house Nintendo look fantastic, it contrasts so starkly with what I posted above. I don't get it. Hardware and all such related services are not their thing at all, not even remotely.
Some opinion pieces as well
The Nintendo Switch is going to be a flop.
Sorry, but it’s true, and what’s ridiculous about the whole thing is that it’s a result of Nintendo making exactly the same mistakes that turned the Wii U into a disaster – an astonishing lack of games and a price that’s too high – £280 – given said astonishing lack of games.
I’m curious if these people ended up purchasing the Switch. I felt disinterested in it at launch and never bought one. There are simply some gamers that aren’t into it. It’s going to be easy to find them for any console release. And the internet loves to promote negative opinions over positive ones whenever possible.
Interestingly, the perspective on almost none of the posts on neogaf or reddit are from that of a personal, subjective view. Instead, almost all of them are from essentially the perspective of a market analyst - neogaf users loves to have sales numbers, for instance.
It's certainly true that the Switch isn't the subjective preference for a lot of people, but "the switch's 5 year sales numbrs will be under 30m global" is an objective, falsifiable prediction.
It feels like they're hiding their personal opinions behind numbers.
That seems to be an oddly common thing nowadays. I've noticed it a ton in discussion about music, particularly regarding pop and rap, which is a strange shift from Internet music discussion 10-15 years ago, where huge sales numbers were often seen as a bad thing. Movie discussion has the same thing, possibly even to a larger extent as there are much fewer mainstream releases. Everyone generally wants the media they like to do well, but I don't recall people being anywhere near as invested previously or tying their opinions on quality directly to sales numbers.
Personally, I worry about the numbers cause I want stuff I like to succeed and spawn trends of similar things I might like.
I wish the latest dnd movie or dreddd had been more successful and secured sequels.
Marvel was so successful that it - I think - negatively affected everything around it, consuming all the oxygen for itself and less successful clones or wannabes. As someone who wasn't keen I wish it had been less successful for this reason.
I mean, the previous Nintendo launches had not gone well. The Wii U flopped, the 3DS had some very rocky early days until some price cuts (even if in the long run the 3ds recovered, I'm sure Nintendo would have loved selling more units at the launch price).
I think there was also probably more optimism for premium mobile games and tablets in 2017 and had they took off that would have been bad news for the switch.
It's easy to laugh at in retrospect when we know how things turned out, but it wasn't a unjustified guess.
But instead if you wanted premium games on the go, the switch basically had a monopoly until the launch of the steam deck (and as much as I love my steam deck, it's clear the switches smaller form factor has more mass market appeal)
The smaller size and weight of the Switch honestly doesn't get talked about enough (at least in my circles). If you can handle a Steam Deck no problem, great! I have tiny baby hands and even just the weight itself is really keeping me from picking one up. An embarrassing amount of my hours on the Switch were accrued while in bed...
It's not even a hands thing, I've got piano fingers and trying to play a Steam Deck held up like a handheld is awful. There's so much fatigue and I'm trying to anchor my hands against the thing just to get leverage; it's pretty aggravating. I've got a newborn right now and I just don't want to use my Deck when she's nap-locked on me.
You're making me think I should pick Odyssey back up, honestly.
It's interesting to me how polarizing the Switch is from a handheld perspective. I begrudgingly own a switch because there were some exclusive games that enticed me enough to buy, but I have never been able to comfortably use the switch handheld and only use it plugged in.
I don't have gigantic hands, but I feel like the Steam Deck is significantly nicer to hold and use despite being larger and heavier. With the Switch, the weight is too much for the thin, non-contoured shape. It is almost too dense for how thin it is if that makes sense. Also the tiny buttons and not-quite-a-d-pad button cluster really make it unpleasant to use for me.
There is a very, very small chance of me buying a Switch sequel this time since my fears of the first one bore out completely.
I think the main advantage the Switch has is that it's a lot lighter. I have pretty small hands and can still reach the buttons on the Steam Deck (though I'd probably suffer performance-wise if games ever started using the back buttons heavily), but I do sometimes get weariness or numbness in my hands if I play for too long in the wrong position. The Switch is less ergonomic, but also much lighter, and I can disconnect the joycons and prop the Switch up on a table to change my position if I do get tired of normal handheld mode.
That said, I get way more use out of my Steam Deck. I'd probably have finished more of my Switch exclusives if I could easily stream them to my Steam Deck.
I can totally see where you're coming from - it's been many years now (I got my Switch late 2017 around when I got my first "real" job and with the release of Xenoblade Chronicles 2) but I do remember a significant period where the handheld mode just made no sense, after many years of previous handheld consoles (3DS and DS, PSP, ye olden Gameboys...). I also hate the joycons.
I'm wondering if my recent memory of the Switch's comfort is skewed because I've been playing a lot of games that don't require fast or complicated input. They also tend to be games that I rather not play while sitting at my PC even if they are available there.
Unfortunately the asking price of an OLED Steam Deck is a bit much for me with the weight in mind, so lowkey am hoping SO ends up getting one so I can try before buying :')
edit: I'm actually being reminded of when I finally caved and bought an N3DS at the XL size since Nintendo at the time claimed they were not going to release the standard size N3DS in the US. Going from the standard to the XL made my hands really unhappy lmao. I "got used to it" after several hundreds of hours of Monster Hunter and I barely even remember the initial issues I had with the size... which doesn't mean either the 3DS or handheld Switch are ergonomically designed by any means; just easy to forget after many hours assuming the issues don't actually contribute to health issues like carpal tunnel
That's funny, I ended up with a standard sized 3DS for free because my friend kept getting hand cramps with the standard size model. So I snatch up Link Between Worlds and start playing and then... hand cramps!
I don't doubt you! I have hands that were smaller than some of the 4th/5th grade students I tutored back in the day, so more compact form factors tend to work better for me... but most of my friends had issues even with the 3DS XL's form factor haha.
I basically got lured to the switch by Mario and Zelda (and was disappointed with the latter), and then stuck around a bit for the Xenoblade series. At this point, the switch is just an occasional Mario Kart machine for my kids unless a new Xenoblade game comes out (March 20th!).
I didn't buy one at launch because I didn't really get having a console that could do both docked and mobile duty when I could just play 3DS games on the go. It sounded like it was going to compromise the console's power.
I did buy Breath of the Wild for the Wii U during the release, though! That same weekend my wife got horribly sick from something and we wanted to keep a very big Broadway outing, so she power-slept for some absurd amount like 36 hours in the weekend to feel better. As I was playing, I wanted to be mobile and by her side to grab things. Then I realized I if I plugged the Wii U into a wall in the middle of the apartment, the range would let me bring my tablet anywhere and play it in bed or move out whenever she needed it! Wowee!
In the middle of doing this, it finally clicked that the Switch was a stupid-good idea and I got one within the year. I'm gonna grab the next model solely for Pokémon Legends ZA when it inevitably gets announced for it.
It definitely did compromise the console's power. BotW and Mario Odyssey are optimization miracles compared to many other releases: Animal.Cross8ng has long load times, the Pokemon games are oft derided for myriad reasons, and even Kirby and the Forgotten Lands relegates anything remotely in the background to like 8 fps to keep things responsive. And those are big Nintendo names! Coupled with Nintendo's notoriously limiting approach to online play and there are still many very legitimate reasons to criticize the Switch.
I didn't get it until SSBU came out and won't be getting the Switch 2 until it similarly has something to make my investment worth it compared to the PC and consoles I already own.
Oh and I literally never use it in handheld mode. It's frankly a huge negative for me, I'd rather have the opposite of a Switch Lite so it could have better cooling and more robust Joycons.
Sorry - I mean that was my prevailing thought at release, not that I was proven wrong. You're right, it totally did and still does.
I do maintain that I just don't care when the game is good enough, I guess. For Pokémon Scarlet/Violet's barren, boring overworld I found the disappearing cliffs and slowdown inexcusable; for Legends Arceus I glossed over the distant 1 FPS Zubats because I enjoyed everything else going on in the foreground.
If you're always using it docked it's well worth getting the pro controllers, but I feel you on preferring a less mobile and more robust system.
I do have pro controllers. Annoyingly, twin Joycons is the best way to play some games (like Super Mario Odyssey) because they use exclusive motion controls that only work with discrete hands.
I almost bought one for my wife but it was solely for animal crossing at the time and when we found out your world is per switch and you can't make more than 1 profile/world without buying a second switch, we abandoned the thought of it
...but the Switch can have multiple profiles?
The Switch can have multiple profiles, but one Switch cannot have more than one island for Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
You can have at least four different players on the same island, but that's it - it's the same island, the same village, the same villagers, etc.
Oh. I could see some people wanting that, but that wouldn't be what I would want.
Yes, but in Animal Crossing New Horizons specifically, each profile on the same console will share the same village. You can make your own character and buy your own house, but it's all the same island you share together. All players will essentially be tied to the hip in terms of progress in the game, decorating your island, what animals live in your village, your museum collectibles etc. The first person to play the game will also be the "admin" who has extra permissions that the other players in your family won't have. The only way for a family member to make their own Animal Crossing save that's truly their own progression, unlocks, and customization is to buy a new Switch.
That was such a dumb decision. I'd been prepared to insta-buy AC:NH on release day as pandemic relief for my kids until I discovered that the islands is shared and only one gets to be the admin. I immediately foresaw major fights between them over how to run the island, and decided not to get it.
Some time later, my teen went ahead and bought it with his own allowance. Sure enough, it proved the apple of discord that I'd feared it would be. E.g., he liked everything planned and ordered on a sort of urban grid, while his younger sisters preferred a more naturalistic look. As the admin, he also unilaterally restarted the island one day without discussing it with anyone else -- ooh boy, that was a row.
The idea of a shared island is actually pretty cool. But forcing that, not so much. If they'd allowed, say, three shared island slots per Switch, I think it would have worked much better.
I thought it was really dumb. I had every Nintendo console until Wii which I thought was dumb too. But I was also at an age where I didn’t keep up with new games as much. I thought Wii U was even worse. And then the switch looked like a joke after.
Honestly now I don’t really know why I thought that anymore. I borrowed a switch from a friend to play Zelda. And then bought one when I got a new job to celebrate. I love it! I enjoy it a lot more than my steam deck. I thought I would never use it he portable mode, but I go through lots of phases in life that I only use it in portable mode.
One thing is that the catalogue of games compared to Wii and Wii U in general is just a lot better to me. Obviously Zelda, Mario, and Smash were just fantastic, especially compared to the Wii U iterations in my opinion. But then hollow knight and all the other incredible indies just shined. Of course all of this has been said countless times already
I bought mine when I had a multi-week hotel stay over a holiday weekend in another country. I knew I would just be sitting alone in my hotel room so I got it just because it was small and convenient for that specific scenario.
I still don't like the idea of the console that much and I really do try to avoid playing it in handheld mode, but I have played mine quite a lot while docked, simply because there are games I want to play. Otherwise, I am disappointed by its lack of power, even considering that it was cheaper and frees developers to focus on gameplay more than graphics. Too much lag, choppiness, etc.
I ended up stumbling into a used cheap one, and I basically played a few hours of BoTW, Mario Party, Smash, then went right back to the PC to play all my other games.
The only things the switch had going for it was portability and Nintendo exclusives. And I'm more or less over those at this point. I could pay $100 to Nintendo or $20 for Tactical Breach Wizards and get the same level of enjoyment.
I always hated how hard the switch was to grip, which is why the Steam Deck was a 100% win for me. The proper fit to my hands and not-shitty joysticks more than made up for the heft.
I wanted the switch to do well. I loved the concept. I was skeptical Nintendo could ask 300 for what was essentially a handheld (in fact I had to check the neogaf quote wasn't me lol. But I don't tend to guess sales numbers. Though I think I expressed I thought it was a good idea but the price would tank it). I was glad to be wrong. And yes, I bought it, twice (got suckered into an OLED when they came out). I just made sure it had at least a few games I really wanted before I decided to go in on it.
You see this reaction a lot when it comes to things that target a general audience.
Geeks will over-analyze it and because they have zero self-awareness will assume their personal lack of interest means nobody else will be interested.
Another famous example is declaring Avatar 2 will totally flop because it didn't generate a million obnoxious online communities where geeks incessantly argue about every scene and meme every line into oblivion, which totally means that "it didn't have cultural impact". Geeks just refuse to see that general audiences don't think/behave like geeks, so they misunderstand the situation.
I'm sure most people saying the Switch will flop never actually got one, they bought a PS5 or built a powerful PC, because that's what they are interested in. But their 10 year old nephew did get one, as did their sister because she really wanted to play Animal Crossing or whatever. And they simply weren't on reddit arguing about the switch release, so you didn't see their opinion represented.
This is what I found most hilarious about one of the comments OP posted:
Yes, that’s a “many consumers” thing and not just people who hang out in online forums discussing games. I bet most people wouldn’t even know what you mean by third party games for a console
Everybody had very low expectations based on how badly the Wii U flopped. And anybody with half a brain could have seen its failure. It released in 2012 with specs comparable to that of the Xbox 360 which released seven years prior. Top that off with 8 gigabytes of internal storage space which is comparable to that of the original Xbox (or 32GB if you went with the Premium model, which honestly wasn't worth the £50 higher price tag), and a bulky Fisher Price looking gamepad that was mandatory to even play the damn thing.
On top of this, remember the Angry Video Game Nerd episode on the Sega 32X where he complained about the Genesis and its combined addons taking up three power sockets? The Wii U also needs three: one for the console, one for the tablet gamepad and one to power the external hard drive you'll need if you intend to buy any games digitally, since SD cards aren't supported outside of Wii Mode, and trying to use an external drive without its own power source is going to result in a lot of instability and crashing issues.
Everyone's initial skepticism towards the Switch was understandable, but Nintendo had an ace up their sleeve that nobody else could really offer: portability. At that point the PS Vita was already dead in the water and Microsoft had no such Xbox equivalent in the pipeline. Nintendo had a home console that could also function as a handheld system, which was groundbreaking for the time. They also came right out of the gate with one of the best Zelda games to ever grace a home console. Breath of the Wild was about as iconic as Ocarina of Time was back in 1998.
It will be interesting to see how the Switch 2 fares, with the Steam Deck, Legion Go and ROG Ally now on the market.
This had basically nothing to do with the failure of the Wii U. Again, nintendo especially isn't targeting anyone who cares about this stuff. They've also shown that devs will deal with a lower power device.
Actually, I remember a lot of publishers wouldn't even touch the Wii U with a barge pole because of its technical specs. This includes the developers of several major game engines.
Crytek's lack of support for the Wii U was a big reason why Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric flopped. The TLDR is that BigRedButton bought CryEngine licences expecting to develop a Sonic game for the PS4 & Xbox One, and were blindsided by Sega into developing a Wii U exclusive title.
What I think turned many towards the Switch (aside from phenomenal 9 digit sales numbers) was portability. It was arguably the first handheld system that could run console quality games with minor to moderate graphical downgrades. The closest we've come to that in the past have been bastardized console ports of previous gen games i.e. Super Mario 64 DS.
I don't think Nintendo has anything to worry about so long as they keep their control over the IPs that people come to expect from Nintendo devices, and that those IPs enjoy a good reputation (which they currently do). The Switch has very old hardware and its age is showing. Even something as simple as "your previous console but more powerful" would be a compelling argument to get one for the sake of a better gaming experience on the games they already play. Get new Zelda, Pokémon, Mario and co. games on the console on top of that and it'll be an automatic money printer so long as the games themselves aren't commercially a catastrophic failure to the point of hurting the brand as a whole.
As nice as the "laptop crammed into a portable console's shape" class of devices the Steam Deck made popular is, you cannot play the games people are going to want to buy a Nintendo console for on these machines. Sure, emulation and digital piracy exists, but that won't threaten the sales of new games on a current gen console (even if Nintendo are clearly afraid of it happening given their scorched-earth policy on that front). The only thing I think has a chance to hurt them, short of the games themselves being absolute flops, would be a generalized collapse of the video game industry (... which to be fair is not out of the realm of possibility at this point), and even then they'd be in a better position than most to build it back up. It wouldn't be the first time they pulled this off, after all.
You're right that Nintendo have an incredibly strong line-up of exclusive IPs which Sony could only dream of.
They've also been very reluctant to follow the more cancerous trends of the industry, such as mass layoffs, predatory business models, loot boxes, pumping out annual sequel after sequel. Even their transition to mobile gaming was a bit half-arsed and was clearly something they only dabbled in due to shareholder pressure.
I think there is going to be a video game market collapse soon that will affect many AAA publishers, but indies and Nintendo will be largely unaffected.
Seeing those negative predictions make me chuckle a bit. Just the fact the Switch would be their main console seems like it'd guarantee a large number of sales since its main titles would go there. It's not even a matter of Nintendo loyalty, I knew I'd buy a Switch someday just for Pokémon and Animal Crossing. And Nintendo's first-party games are sparse, but you can usually expect a certain level of quality. They've earned the loyalty.
Though given Nintendo's historic lack of support for third party titles, I can get some of the initial hesitation and skepticism in regards to the lineup. It also had a disadvantage over the past consoles by lacking backwards compatibility with the previous generation, so a lacking lineup would be an issue. I spent a fair amount of time playing GameCube and GBA games on my Wii and DS when I first got them.
Nintendo making it easier for third party games to get on Switch compared to its other consoles definitely gave it a big boost. The ability to play those games on a portable console is just too enticing for a lot of people.
Given the glowing reputation of the first party games that came out on the Switch, I'm pretty sure they could ride out the upcoming gen just with their IPs even if literally no other studio showed up to publish games on the Switch's successor, at least assuming they don't screw up the games themselves. The one black mark would be the most recent games having performance issues that not even the general public could ignore due to how weak the Switch's hardware is by today's standards... which Nintendo can actually leverage as an opportunity to get the ball rolling on selling its successor by pointing out that it will have more powerful hardware, allowing the player's existing games to run better. Get at least one first party game with online appeal to last the entire lifespan of the console like SSBU and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe did for the Switch and Nintendo can just sit back as the console prints infinite money for the next decade.
The target market for the switch and arguably most consoles is “parents buying for their kids”
Power per dollar doesn’t matter and whisper the word Zelda and you move a million units.
The switch being the portable “shut up and leave mommy alone” machine was brilliant and as always people who think they’re the target market because they understand the technicals got it wrong.
I’m wondering if the switch 2 will just be a power boost or if they’re going to do something to iterate on the modularity
The initial reactions were right, their online service does suck, and I barely played it when they didn't release games for it (Nintendo recap said I only played 1 game this year). They just also happened to have years where they did release a lot of stuff. I think they are also still best in class as a mobile console. The switch dock and their controller ecosystem (drift and all) adds an insane amount of value that my Steamdeck just doesn't have.
I really think that there was an incredibly amount of forward thinking with this console. It's sales numbers being boosted by an extreme act of god is just icing on the top, but it earned a lot by just being an overall good product.
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
To be fair, looking at the comment thread that sentiment was far from unanimous. Plenty of people correctly predicted it had an appealing feature set.
Most people knew it would be big. It’s just a famous piece of internet lore.
I bought a Switch...for $40 from my friend. It had a broken joystick, which I fixed. He gave me a bunch of game cartridges too. This was after he had been gifted a new one.
...I would not pay more than $40 for a Switch.
I beat Outer Wilds and got about half way through Dark Souls Remastered. Played some other games and got bored quickly. Haven't touched it since.
Happy to take it off your hands for 40 bucks 🙂. Seems like you haven't tried any of the good first party games on it. Mario Odyssey is amazing, BOTW is pretty great. I've done most of my gaming on the Switch the last 5 years. Mario wonder is also a blast. The casualness of just picking up the console and starting is a huge pro for me. No need to plan ahead or take over the room with the TV like when playing on the PS5. I have quite a few gaming options, but the Switch is still my most used.
I tried BOTW and beat two bosses, then got absurdly tired of:
Also, overall, game pricing is fucking absurd on Nintendo. I've gotten far better mileage out of 5-20 dollar games on Steam.
Absolutely beautiful low poly game though.
Agreed on the ease of use vs TV/PC though, gaming in bed is great. That can be done with a Steam Deck or Legion Go just as easily though.
I treat my switch like a virtual board game. What I mean is that I like to play local multiplayer games with friends on a couch, including their couch or an AirBnB couch. The switch really is the only solution if you want to have something like that. The few amazing single player games and handheld aspect only add to the portability aspect.
I wonder what the Switch 2 will offer that would make me consider switching.
I'm curious what folks would consider the premium Switch titles. Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom for sure, but beyond that, what would you tell someone just picking up the Switch to go out and buy?
I find myself wanting to play my Switch more, but I never feel like there are titles I have to have out there, and sometimes the games I do grab end up feeling lackluster (like Mario Strikers, which I do love but the online play is half-baked to be VERY generous, and Super Mario Party, which never expanded beyond the four boards offered on release).
Games beyond those I've already mentioned that I'd consider THE Switch games to get:
There's also Mario Kart 8 (but was initially a Wii U title), Link's Awakening remake (originally GameBoy), Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door remake (GameCube), Metroid Prime remaster (GameCube).
It's probably true that this is happening with other consoles too, but it's striking to me that so many of the best games on a console are remakes or remasters from earlier eras.
Anyway, like I said, I do like my Switch and want to play more, so what are y'all's favorites on the console?
edit: can't believe I forgot Mario + Rabbids! Genuinely surprising combo of elements that really works.
I'm a broken record about it on here, but I always plug Legends Arceus if you have or had any passing interest in Pokémon and bounced out at some point from the games getting stale. It focuses on catching as the primary overworld mechanic and it revitalized the series for me. Feels like what you wanted Pokémon to be like when you were five.
I think one of the best features of the switch has become the insane 3rd party support. There's a ton of titles from all sorts of genres that basically launch only on PC and Switch.
The other Nintendo franchises I'll vouch for are Splatoon and Fire Emblem. They each had two entries on the Switch. I think both Splatoon games have there merits over each other. With Fire Emblem the general concensus seems to prefer 3 Houses, but I think Engage has better enthusiast appeal in it's gameplay.
+1 for Fire Emblem. It's the main reason I bought a switch. I think they are both good games but Engage is definitely more accessible and replayable.
Splatoon 3, easily. Most of my time on the Switch is easily Splatoon 2 and 3. Though it is officially at the end as far as new content and events go, because a new one is probably on the way for the new Switch...
I really enjoyed the Super Mario RPG remake (I'll admit that there's some nostalgia factor, having beaten the original on the SNES). And Echoes of Wisdom, though short and based on the Link's Awakening remake engine, was a Switch original that I had a lot of fun with.
I've had my eye on Super Mario RPG. Don't see a lot of people talking about it!
The staff roll on the ending after you beat it has my all-time sure-fire "happy place" music (video game or otherwise):
Happy Parade, Delightful Parade (SNES)
Happy Parade, Delightful Parade (Switch) (by the original composer!)
(Music-only on those links, so they shouldn't really be spoilery, but of course they're best in context.)
Even before the remake, all these years after the SNES version, it tends to be my instinctive go-to for random whistling. And whenever I'm glum, listening to it is guaranteed to cheer me up at least a bit, if not put a smile back on my face. It's one of the most unironically cheerful pieces I've ever heard.
I think the version of Okami on Switch is the definitive one, simply because you have the ability to use the touchscreen to draw the glyphs if you so choose. That's another remaster to add to the pile. (If there were a Wii U version, that would have been better IMO; you'd have the ability to draw on the gamepad while still having the game display on a large TV screen, but I'm one of the few who loved the Wii U in that way.)
As far as exclusives, I agree with Metroid Dread and Pikmin 4. I'd also throw Yoshi's Crafted World into the ring.
Non-exclusives, I'd say Ghost Trick and the Ace Attorney compilations: all remakes, but some of the AA games were never before released outside of Japan, or released only as a digital 3DS title (impossible to acquire these days in legitimate fashion). Hades is also a great time.
Pikmin 4 was my first Pikmin game and I really, really enjoyed it. It was also a lot longer than I thought it would be.