Welcome to the holiday season! It’s the time of year where video game developers start pushing out game after game after game to compete for a chance to end the year with a bang. This first week in November has a pretty good lineup of Switch releases, and it only gets better from here.
Here’s our list of can’t-miss new Switch games for the week of November 1, 2021.
The Legend of Tianding
Based on the legend of Liao Tianding — a real Robin Hood-like folk hero who fought the Japanese when Taiwan was under Japanese rule at the turn of the twentieth century — The Legend of Tianding is a sidescrolling beat-’em-up action game that puts you in the shoes of Taiwan’s most famous outlaw. Power up your moves and use Tianding’s fast-paced Kung Fu fighting technique to take down the Japanese colonialists.
I’d never heard of Liao Tianding, but this game’s eye-catching manga art style looks amazing, the combat looks fluid, and the exploration looks fun. I can’t wait to see how The Legend of Tianding unfolds.
The Legend of Tianding releases on November 1 for $19.99.
World War Z
The popular zombie-shooter World War Z is making its debut on the Nintendo Switch this week.
If you haven’t played World War Z before on another console, it’s a third-person shooter that’s based on 2013’s action/horror film of the same name. Shoot your way through hordes of zombies and try to survive the literal zombie apocalypse happening all around you.
If you’re into these kinds of games, you’ve probably already played World War Z. But if you’re an interested newcomer, keep in mind that this is a port of a 2019 name, and it doesn’t look to include any of the additional DLC that has been released since then. Unless you’re dying to kill zombies on the go, add this one to your watchlist.
World War Z releases on November 2 for $39.99.
Just Dance 2022
The Just Dance games are a known quantity. If you like them, you probably think that rhythm-based gameplay for chart-topping hits is fun. If you don’t like these games… well, you probably think they’re annual mindless cash grabs from Ubisoft.
Either way, you’re right.
At my house, the annual Just Dance game makes for an easy holiday gift and gives us another party game when friends come over. It also helps that it’s not a $60 release, coming in at the mid-range $49.99.
With a title like this, what you see is what you get. Just Dance 2022 has the same dance gameplay Ubisoft has been delivering for years, but it comes packed with 40 new tracks, including Imagine Dragon’s “Believer” and Ciara’s “Level Up.” If you have kids, the game features eight “kid-friendly” songs in the Kids mode.
Just Dance 2022 releases on November 4 for $49.99.
A Boy And His Blob
I’ve been really looking forward to A Boy and His Blob. If the title sounds familiar, you might remember its inspiration. This new game is a reimagination of the 1989 NES puzzle-platformer, A Boy and His Blob: Trouble on Blobolonia. There have also been several versions of this game and even a few sequels over the years.
This year’s A Boy and His Blob is a charming love letter to the original, including some truly beautiful hand-drawn animations. Looking at the screenshots, the game almost looks like illustrations from a kid’s storybook. The detailed backgrounds are a really nice touch.
If you like 2D side-scrolling adventures — or you’re just really into blobs — you can’t miss A Boy and His Blob.
A Boy and His Blog releases on November 4 for $14.99.
The Prince of Landis
The last game to make our watchlist this week is The Prince of Landis, a 2D adventure and puzzle-solving game that’s purported to be based on “true events.” The Prince of Landis has you play as Evan, a young kid growing up in Landis, Oregon, in the 1980s.
As you explore the town and interact with its inhabitants, you realize that Evan has a pretty rough go of it. His dad belittles him, schoolyard bullies beat him up, and he doesn’t have any friends.
When Evan happens upon and befriends an alien — remember when I put “true events” in quotation marks…? — he learns how to stand up for himself.
The Prince of Landis promises a character-driven story that combines a visual novel with a puzzle-solving adventure game. At under $10, The Prince of Landis is an easy impulse buy.
The Prince of Landis releases on November 5 for $7.99.
