Top 5 Best Family-Friendly Nintendo Switch Games (2020)

The holidays are nearing, and our time to shop for presents is limited. And we all know when December hits, packages can take a fair amount of time to arrive. If you wait too long, you might not get all of your Christmas shopping done in time. If you’re wanting to buy a new Nintendo Switch game for your family, and want to make sure its good for the family AND fun, keep reading! Today, I’m going to give suggestions for five family-friendly games you can buy for your household this holiday season!

Animal Crossing: New Horizons

Anyone who reads my blog knows I LOVE Animal Crossing: New Horizons! But for those of you who haven’t played Animal Crossing: New Horizons, it’s a game where you get flown to a deserted island and you save up money so you can make your island and home what you want it to be. You make money by selling fruit, bugs, fish, and sea creatures! You also invite lots of cute animal villagers to come live on the island with you! Nintendo is always releasing free updates for the game as well, which really increases the value of the game since you’re always given new things to do! It’s a really fun game, and pretty simple for even the youngest of children!

The only problem I can think of if you’re buying this game for your family, is that you might have a sharing problem. Animal Crossing: New Horizons only allows you to make a single island on your Nintendo Switch. Even, if you have multiple users on a Nintendo Switch, you can only have one island per Nintendo Switch. So, everyone who plays Animal Crossing on a singular Nintendo Switch has to share the island and be willing to not have the island EXACTLY what they want it to be. But if you can get past that, or your family doesn’t mind sharing an island, then I highly suggest you get this game! Animal Crossing: New Horizons’ popularity is confirmed by the fact it has some of the best selling rates of all the Nintendo Switch games. Between March and August of 2020, over 22 million copies were sold! I promise Animal Crossing: New Horizons is worth it! If you’re interested in buying Animal Crossing: New Horizons, you can either download it off of the Nintendo eShop or you can buy a copy off of Amazon.

Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

I’ve been playing Mario Kart since day one. In fact, probably the first game I ever played was Mario Kart: Double Dash! Mario Kart is a great family game, and every age group can enjoy this game! In my opinion, the newer Mario Kart games are A LOT less intense, and the newer Mario Kart games are more forgiving than older Mario Kart games. As a result, it means that if you are terrible at racing games, you can still do really well in Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and still have fun! This is a great game the whole family can play together, and the variety of courses you have to choose from is crazy! There are a total of 48 courses, and twelve Grand Prix events you can participate in. There are also a total of 42 characters you can choose between! So if your family loves the Mario universe and wants to try a racing game, I’d for sure recommend Mario Kart 8 Deluxe! If you’re interested in buying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, you can download it off of the Nintendo eShop, or you can buy a copy off of Amazon.

Luigi’s Mansion 3

Poor Luigi, he never gets a break. Luigi’s Mansion 3 released on Halloween in 2019. But I still know lots of people who don’t own Luigi’s Mansion 3, despite owning a Nintendo Switch. If your family loved the original Luigi’s Mansion or you just think Luigi is the coolest, then you need to buy Luigi’s Mansion 3! This game provided me and my husband at least 20 hours of Story Mode gameplay the first time we played it! And I still go back and replay the game over and over again! One of my favorite things about the Story Mode in this game is that you have the option to do co-op (once you get Gooigi)! The co-op mode is honestly really fun! My husband and I loved not having to take turns playing this game, and playing together made the game easier! There’s also other game modes in Luigi’s Mansion 3 where you can connect with others (who have the game as well), and you can either work together or compete to eliminate ghosts!

In my opinion the original Luigi’s Mansion is a little scary for kids. I remember when I was seven I was terrified watching my dad play Luigi’s Mansion. I couldn’t enjoy it until I was older and knew the game was just pretend. But I feel like Luigi’s Mansion 3 isn’t as scary. The ghosts are less malicious and more silly, which results in the game being a lot more kid-friendly. So if you’re worried about your children being scared while playing this game, you’ll probably be okay! I say probably because I can’t speak for everyone’s children. But I was a total scaredy cat as a kid and I feel like I would’ve been okay playing Luigi’s Mansion 3. If you’re interested in buying Luigi’s Mansion 3, you can download it off of the Nintendo eShop or you can buy a copy from Amazon.

Super Smash Brothers Ultimate

The entire Super Smash Brothers series is a blast! I have loved all of the previous Super Smash Brothers, and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate does not disappoint! Once you unlock everyone, you’ll have dozens of characters to choose between! More likely than not, your family’s favorite video games characters will be playable! Plus, Nintendo is always releasing more characters through DLC! The DLC characters do cost money if you want to play with them, but they’re not too expensive. And some of them might be pretty tempting for your family, like the Minecraft characters! What’s great about this game, is up to eight people can play at a time! So if you have a larger family, you don’t have to worry about taking turns! Everyone I’ve ever talked to loves the Super Smash Brothers series. If you love several series of video games and want to fight as your favorite characters, I highly recommend this game! If you’re interested in buying Super Smash Brothers Ultimate, you can download it off of the Nintendo eShop or you can buy a copy off of Amazon.

Super Mario Party

This is a great party game for gamers young and old! All you need is one joycon for each player! For those of you unfamiliar with the Mario Party series, you pick your favorite Mario character and then compete in challenges with the other players. This game is set up like a board game, and the goals for each different map are easy to understand. Everyone I’ve ever talked to has loved playing Mario Party! So if you’re looking for a great family night activity, I can say with positivity that this game will be a HIT! If you’re interested in buying Super Mario Party, you can either download it off the eShop or you can buy a copy from Amazon.

That’s it for this post! Thanks for reading! I’m planning on posting a lot more soon, so keep an eye out for upcoming posts. What are some games you’re buying as gifts for Christmas? Let me know in the comments below!

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