Nintendo Life
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Hello July! We’re in the full heat of summer now, which means we’re halfway through 2023. What a year for video games so far, eh?
That means that it’s time to look back at June for this month’s eShop Selects. A lot of us are still playing Tears of the Kingdom, of course, but we’ve had a solid one on the eShop front, helped by the many summer gaming showcases and a Nintendo Direct.
If you’re a shmup fan or a fan of little sentient plants, then this is an especially good month for you. Let’s look at those honourable mentions before we jump into the best of the best…
Honourable Mentions
We told you shmup fans would be happy. The Switch is the home of the shmup and we got two (technically more) really good ones this month. Plus a long-awaited collection finally dropped on Switch and it’s really good.
Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo
Well wasn’t this a nice little shadow drop during the June 2023 Nintendo Direct? A physical for this (and its sequel) are coming later in the year, but that’s months away — hence its inclusion on the list.
Pikmin is Shigeru Miyamoto’s pride and joy. It’s a delightful little RTS-type game with cute little plants and unusual wildlife. The Switch version is a little basic in terms of a port, but simply having all of the mainline Pikmin games on one system is a great prospect. Pikmin 1 is the one with the timer, so you have to race against the clock to escape the planet with the help of the Red, Blue, and Yellow Pikmin.
We gave the Switch port an 8/10, so if you want to get ready for Pikmin 4 later in July, then this is a great place to start.
Publisher: Nintendo / Developer: Nintendo
The Nintendo Life team has spoken — Pikmin 2 is better than 1! There’s a lot of debate on whether 1, 2, or even Pikmin 3 is the best. You can get all of them on Switch now, though, so why not find out for yourself which one’s your favourite?
Pikmin 2 adds two more types of Pikmin — Purple and White — and removes the timer from the first game to make for a more casual experience. There are caves and underground areas to explore, which is often where you find the items you need to pay off your debt. You can also hop in and play a game of multiplayer in this sequel.
What’s the takeaway from all this, then? The Pikmin series is great. Pikmin 2 is great. We scored the Switch version an 8/10, just like its predecessor.
Publisher: Capcom / Developer: Capcom
Many were understandably excited when Capcom announced it would be remastering Shu Takumi’s (of Ace Attorney fame) DS cult classic Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective. And guess what? All these years later, it’s still drop-dead amazing.
Ghost Trick is full of personality, brilliant writing, and fantastic puzzles. You’re trying to solve the mystery of your own murder using your ‘ghost trick’, the ability to return to four minutes before death to change the person’s fate. That’s all we’re going to tell you about this masterpiece. If you missed this on the DS, or on mobile, or you’re an Ace Attorney fan, this is a no-brainer.
Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective is one of the best games not just on the eShop, but of the entire year, and we scored it a 10/10.
< Nintendo eShop Selects – May 2023
How we decide our eShop Selects top three: As we reach the end of every month, the Nintendo Life staff vote on their favourite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released as a digital-only Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month, and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select the qualifying games based on their review scores.
Staff are then asked to vote for three games that they think deserve to sit right at the very top of that list; first choice gets 3 points, second choice gets 2 points, and third choice gets 1 point. These votes are then tallied to create a top-three list, with the overall winner taking that month’s top prize.