What can we play now that we’ve finished Breath of the Wild?

August 30, 2019 7:22 PM

What game should my husband and I play on the switch now that we’ve finished Breath of the Wild?

My husband and I like to play Zelda games in the evening. We recently finished Breath of the Wild. He runs the controller and I comment and we collaboratively solve puzzles.

—I don’t care about fighting monsters. If there were and option to skip all boss fights, that would be great.

—I liked the puzzle game/exploration aspect. But I don’t want a pure puzzle game. (Per metafilter recommendations, we bought Baba is You, which is great, but feels like work.) Some story would be good.

—we only have a switch (because I want to be able to project the game on the TV, so computer games are out.)

—we did all the expansion stuff in BOTW, except for some of the dumb “fight monsters forever with no gear” quests. And having defeated Ganon, it seems like there’s less point in just running around.

posted by leahwrenn to Computers & Internet (14 answers total)

Captain Toad
posted by porn in the woods at 7:40 PM on August 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Rime is beautiful, touching, and full of puzzles. It's a little bit laggy on the Switch, but it's still well worth playing.
posted by burntflowers at 7:44 PM on August 30, 2019 [2 favorites]

Yoku's Island Express is a short, charming 2D exploration game with a really fun pinball-based mechanic in place of typical combat. There are some simple puzzles but the gameplay is mostly exploration and secret-finding. It has great music and a light story. It occasionally goes on sale for half price in the eShop. There's a free demo that's worth trying out.
posted by mbrubeck at 8:03 PM on August 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Would the Skyrim port for the switch be a good fit? (I would say "Bethesda games on PC only, so you can play with the bugfix mods" but I am led to believe this one is playable...)

Spyro Reignited drops for the switch on 03 September. I played the PS4 version and it's sweet. This is the first three Spyro games from Insomniac (i.e., the good ones) remade faithfully and with obvious love for the source material.

If you have a games PC, there are ways to project games on the TV! Aside from the obvious (an HDMI cable), there are solutions like Steam Remote Play.

I really liked Little Dragons Cafe, but that may be a game tailor made for my weird tastes...
posted by sourcequench at 9:58 PM on August 30, 2019

The Phoenix Wright games are the best for this. So fun and you can logic the lying witness testimony!
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 10:49 PM on August 30, 2019 [1 favorite]

Undertale!
posted by J.K. Seazer at 11:15 PM on August 30, 2019

Skyrim sounds like a bad fit, since you don't like fighting. That game has less puzzles than BOTW, and a lot more fighting and talking to NPCs.

I haven't played it, but the HD release of Ōkami looks beautiful and is probably right up your street in terms of puzzle and story balance.

Are you interested in taking part in playing a bit more? Snipperclips is a really charming puzzle game for two players, and the learning curve is really well designed. Highly recommended.

If you want a full story + puzzle experience, harking back to the classic Lucasarts games of old, then Thumbleweed Park is fantastic fun, and will have you both scratching your heads trying to solve the mysteries, and laughing hysterically at the characters and wonderful dialogue.
posted by 0bvious at 6:24 AM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Okami. It has combat but it’s abstract, paintbrush-based combat. Beautiful, long and fun game.
posted by mattholomew at 7:17 AM on August 31, 2019 [1 favorite]

Super Mario Odyssey? It has a small handful of "boss" fights, but they're pretty easy, and 99% of the game is exploring vibrant, exotic worlds and solving hundreds of inventive mini-puzzles. The mechanic that lets you take the form of other creatures (including their powers) adds a lot of fun, too.
posted by Rhaomi at 11:56 AM on August 31, 2019 [2 favorites]

I haven't had a chance to play it yet (mostly because I'm suspecting that it's a mediation on death), but The First Tree might be up your alley.

Dragonquest Builders is maybe a little too on the side of Minecraft, but it does have fun exploration elements.
posted by past unusual at 1:12 PM on August 31, 2019

Perhaps Unravel 2? Link to trailer that contains the intro cutscene, thus plot spoilers. You play two tiny yarn, um, guys who help each other across obstacles. It's a side scroller, couch co-op with shared screen. You can both play semi-independently or let one player take control.
I like it a lot, there's a good difficulty arc, with hidden items and levels if you want the challenge.
I haven't played the newest Yoshi game for the Switch, but that might be a good option: here's a link to a 2-player demo.
posted by queseyo at 12:07 PM on September 1, 2019

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is a fairly decent Zelda knockoff.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 5:25 PM on September 2, 2019

West of Loathing, it's hilarious and great fun, highly recommend.

West of Loathing is a single-player slapstick comedy adventure role-playing game set in the wild west of the Kingdom of Loathing universe. Traverse snake-infested gulches, punch skeletons wearing cowboy hats, grapple with demon cows, and investigate a wide variety of disgusting spittoons.

Talk your way out of trouble as a silver-tongued Snake Oiler, plumb the refried mysteries of the cosmos as a wise and subtle Beanslinger, or let your fists do the talking as a fierce Cow Puncher. Explore a vast open world and encounter a colorful cast of characters, some of whom are good, many of whom are bad, and a few of whom are ugly.

Features:

• A sprawling open world, chock full of danger, quests, puzzles, and mysteries
• Lush hand-drawn black and white graphics
• Thousands of jokes, gags, and goofs
• Crunchy turn-based combat (but only if you want it)
• Liberal use of the Oxford comma
• Over 50 hats
• Disreputable saloons
• Several gulches
• A drunk horse

posted by zinon at 2:09 PM on September 3, 2019

Response by poster: Update: we played Rime, and it was exactly the sort of thing I was looking for --- nice graphics, no monsters, interesting puzzles, and inventive storytelling -- although the ending was a little distressing. No problems with the graphics quality. We played part of Okami, and it was ok, and we may go back to it, but not quite what I was hoping for. (We also played Oceanhorn 2 on Apple Arcade, and it was...ok but not great.)

Thanks everyone, and I'll still take other suggestions!
posted by leahwrenn at 11:23 AM on December 26, 2019 [1 favorite]