My Nintendo Switch Year 2023

Nintendo lets you view your year in review for the Nintendo Switch now. I've never shared this before, but thought that I should make the extent of my addiction public to create awareness. In all seriousness, there is no big surprise here, since I've been quite busy playing Zelda this year, as you can see. I'm also still regularly playing Animal Crossing: New Horizons, mostly just a daily check for anything new, but this accumulates.

May is looking crazy, I wonder what happened there? Well, the combo of rushing both through Breath of the Wild again and starting Tears of the Kingdom was overly excessive. I won't ever do that again, but this was a special circumstance with a new Zelda coming out that gets unannounced connectivity to the previous title, which I had only completed on the previous system... Luckily, I had already started one month earlier with fixing that mistake, which is why I had so much activity there as well.

You can also observe how my motivation hit a low in late summer, though I've also been on vacation for about three weeks during this time, where I haven't played much. But I really was burnt out from playing the same Zelda world so much and I can still feel that. October then saw a big boost in play time again, but this was really a mix of things, including Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. But it's also where I have made the last larger steps in Tears of the Kingdom, finally wrapping up the story in November.

Anyway, here is the list of every game that I've played for more than ten hours on the Nintendo Switch in 2023, with links to the corresponding articles on this blog, in case you want to read more about the experience:

1. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (374 hours)
2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (171 hours)
3. Animal Crossing: New Horizons (135 hours)
   
4. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (61 hours)
5. Fire Emblem Engage (56 hours)
6. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon (47 hours)
7. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (44 hours)
8. Super Mario Bros. Wonder (25 hours)
9. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (16 hours)
10. Metroid Prime Remastered (16 hours)
11. Death's Door (12 hours)
    

I've started the year with replaying both Link's Awakening and Death's Door on the Nintendo Switch, two of my favorite Action Adventures that are just short and sweet. Then came Fire Emblem Engage, which I still I have to finish, but this is true for absolutely every Fire Emblem game in my collection. And I had made some good progress, before I got interrupted by Metroid Prime Remastered and Bayonetta Origins in March and early April, which were both very wholesome and a good excuse. The latter is even my sleeper hit of the year.

The Booster Course Pass is really what made me play Mario Kart 8 Deluxe so much throughout the entire year and I hope that this might continue in 2024, but probably not. If there's no more new content, it won't be able to compete with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate in the multiplayer department for me, which I keep playing because I like the gameplay and I truly want to get better at the game, so it was mostly just practice and no novelty.