Finally, a review on a Super Mario game! That’s what you’re thinking, right? Whether you are or not, you should be excited. This is the EIGHTEENTH game in the Super Mario series. I haven’t quite played them all, but out of the ones I have played, this is my second favorite, and my fourth all-time favorite videogame. That’s saying a lot.

This Super Mario game is a 3D platformer released in 2017 for the Nintendo Switch. In most cases, 3D platformers have a playable hub world, where you walk into a door, for example, to choose which “world” to go to next. In this game, there’s an Odyssey ship instead!

In this game, the different worlds are called Kingdoms. You have the Cascade Kingdom, the Sand Kingdom, the Lake Kingdom, the Wooded Kingdom, etc. In each Kingdom, you are to find and collect the “power moons”. They are the equivalent of the stars in the other Super Mario games. You must find enough power moons to power the Odyssey ship to fly you to the next Kingdom. Your overall goal, just like any other Super Mario game pretty much, is to finally make it to Bowser, defeat him, and save Princess Peach.
​
What makes this game unique to the other 3D Mario games, is that Mario has a companion named Cappy. Cappy is Mario’s hat. Mario can throw Cappy at certain objects and enemies which ultimately allows Mario to completely take control of that object/enemy. Mario can then use this to his advantage to help him get to a power moon, or whatever his goal is at that time.

Oh, and Mario can change into different outfits in this game too. How cool is that?!
 
Rating: E10+
Price: $59.99

Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the newest of the, now five, main Animal Crossing games, having just come out in March. If you’ve never played one of these games before, you’re missing out! It’s suitable for kids of all ages, me being a kid in my twenties, I thoroughly enjoy these games as well and have more hours invested into it than I'd like to admit.

The Animal Crossing games have a lot of realistic qualities to them. You have a house, that starts out as a tiny one-room home, which you must pay off by selling sea shells, bugs, fish, clothing, you name it. You acquire these items by fishing, catching bugs, searching the beach for shells, etc. Although, you don’t have to pay off your house if you do not want it to be expanded. You can focus on decorating your town with different types of trees, planting and watering flowers, or you may want to focus on donating all of the different fossils you find to the museum and having a completed museum. You can spend your time in these games however you like.

Now, more specifically, New Horizons has a few new features the other ones do not. To start, you take a trip to an uninhabited island, and decide to stay there and start your new island life with a couple other villagers, as they’re called (they’re basically your neighbors but they happen to be animals). You work to improve your island by pulling weeds, fishing, and catching bugs to earn bells (money). You use your bells to pay off your home and to keep expanding your home, to buy furniture for your home or furniture to sit outside all over your island. You also use bells to pay for bridges and inclines which you need to explore other parts of the island. As you beautify your island, other villagers will begin to move to your island, and you will keep unlocking abilities like being able to change where rivers flow and adding paths/roads wherever you like.

This game can be very educational for little ones. It may teach them to be friendly to their neighbors, to be responsible with their money, it teaches them about each and every fossil, bug, and fish you donate to the museum, all while they’re having fun!
 
Rating: E
Price: $59.99

​Nintendo’s Ring Fit Adventure for the Nintendo Switch came out in October of last year in hopes to get everyone sweating a little bit. Now you may be thinking, “Really, another fitness game?”, but trust me, it isn’t your average fitness game.
​
Nintendo really did a genius thing here. This game is considered an action-RPG, meaning you are still taking the role of a fictional character. In the story mode, your main quest is to defeat the bodybuilding dragon named Dragaux. During your trek to ever finally reach him, you walk/jog/run along a path, up staircases, through marshes, etc. with your occasional enemy along the way which you fight using different simple exercises. How does it know what movements you’re doing? The game comes with a ring-con and a leg strap. The right joy-con clicks onto the ring-con and the left joy-con slides into the leg strap. The Switch system recognizes when the joy-cons are moving, therefore knows what movements are being made.

There are, however, other game modes besides the traditional story mode. There is the mini-game (quick play) game mode, and the custom workouts game mode. If you have little ones at home, the mini-games might be most enjoyable for them. The custom workout mode consists of different workouts for each muscle group. You can customize your workout plan to fit you.

For the time being, most everyone being at home the majority of the time, this would be a great game to try out. A fun, easy way to get some exercise while staying home with your family. 
 
Rating: E 10+
Price: $79.99
​