Best Nintendo Switch games deals during Amazon Gaming Week
Overview & Key Takeaways
Nintendo's first-party Switch game sales during Amazon Gaming Week include Fire Emblem and some of the console's best
Switch first-party games rarely go on sale, which makes Nintendo's selection of Amazon Gaming Week sales a red-letter event. More than a dozen of the company's biggest and best games of the last five years is discounted anywhere from 33% to 40%, including Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Platinum's best action games, and a nifty little Square Enix remaster. We've rounded up the best deals below. Note that these are all for digital copies, not physical.
[Ed. note: Prices taken at time of publish.]
1 Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo Games/Nintendo
After the questionable handling of branching paths in Fire Emblem Fates, Intelligent Systems tried again with Three Houses with much better success. It's a twist on the common "church bad" story where everyone's bad in some form or another, even the ones trying to do the most good. But you have to pick a side anyway and deal with the (often tragic) ramifications of your decision. Three Houses also features one of the series' most flexible class systems and more ways to tailor your army as you see fit, adding even more layers of strategy to every encounter. You can get Three Houses for $39.99.
Image: Nintendo
Don't let the twee-sounding name and slow-burn mystery story fool you. The Smiling Man is a disturbing tale of the kind that makes you double take just to make sure this is actually a Nintendo game. It's also one of the best stories the company's ever put out — and, equally important, less obtuse than the Famicom Detective Club remasters that came before it. You might get stuck in Emio, but you always have the tools necessary for moving forward. You can get this one for $29.99.
3 Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 bundle
Platinum almost perfected the art of campy action with Bayonetta and then made it even better with Bayonetta 2. The eponymous witch uses a combination of magic and hair (no, really) to put a range of otherworldly monstrosities in their place, and neither heaven nor hell can keep her down. And both games manage to tell surprisingly strong stories that turn Bayonetta into a complex, multifaceted character.
You can get the bundle for $39.98 or buy them separately for $29.99 each. Bayonetta 3 is also on sale for $39.99. It makes some questionable choices as it wraps up the witch's tale, though the action is still top-notch.
4 Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp
Image: Nintendo
Intelligent Systems might be best known for its work on Fire Emblem and Paper Mario, but the first two Advance Wars games are among the studio's finest. Advance Wars is the antithesis of Fire Emblem. Individual units are expendable, and when they get destroyed (assuming you have the resources), you can just build more. Battles are about resource management and good unit placement more than powering up specific characters and steamrolling entire armies with them. Re-Boot Camp smooths out the rough edges of the original two games and makes them easier to enjoy, too. You can get it for $39.99.
5 Live A Live
Image: Square Enix/Nintendo
This one's technically a Square Enix game, but Nintendo published it. LiveALive is a piece of Square history and a precursor to the "let's make a game with multiple separate narratives" philosophy that guides Octopath Traveler. It spans multiple epochs like Chrono Trigger, so there's a ninja story, a wild west hero, a valiant little robot, and so on, and it uses an innovative grid-based combat system that makes positioning more important than you usually saw in classic RPGs. It's also one of the best uses of HD-2D yet. You can grab it for $29.99 during Amazon Gaming Week.
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6 Metroid Dread
A screenshot taken from Metroid Dread
Image: Nintendo, MercurySteam/Nintendo
MercurySteam refined its action-oriented approach to Metroid: Samus Returns into an art for Metroid Dread. It might not be as existential as the title's second part suggests, but the combat design and boss fights are some of the best in 2D and 3D Metroid. Samus is the ultimate badass here. And if you're interested in the story that started way back in the first Metroid, you'll find a worthy conclusion in Dread. It's also going for $39.99.
7 Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
Image: Omega Force/Nintendo
Three Hopes is a big improvement over the first Fire Emblem Warriors, in part thanks to a story that feels less like cobbled-together fanservice. It's a retelling of Fire Emblem: Three Houses where events take drastically different turns after a mercenary who isn't Byleth makes a pact with a god who isn't Sothis. It's not cannon — unless Fortune's Weave plays off some of the plot twists later this year — but it is a well-executed "what if" scenario. The musou-style action is much better this time, too, with stronger emphasis on character strengths and more complicated mission designs that necessitate planning who tackles which objective and when. Three Hopes is down to $39.99 during Amazon Gaming Week.
