 Before this video starts, I need to let you know that I have a t-shirt. I never make merch, I never make t-shirts, but I wanted to commemorate the huge effort that making 30 eShop videos and reviewing 300 eShop games was. So, I have made this. It's the beat'em ups eShop tour shirt. Kim designed everything on the front and it is gorgeous. And then with the help of Screenwave, we turned it into a band shirt. So, the back actually features the dates of all 30 of my episodes and where I was when I filmed them. I love this t-shirt and I love what we've created here. So, let's talk about 10 of the best eShop games. 10 eShop games worth buying. That is something I have said all so many times. But today isn't just another 10 that released recently. Today is the best 10. My absolute favorite 10 eShop games from all of the years that I've been making these videos. I have a spreadsheet that a fan made actually and thank you so much that has all of the games I've ever reviewed. And I went through them all and I didn't recognize most of them. I've got to be honest. I've been doing this for six years. But I found my favorites and I voted on them again and again and again with myself just trying to figure out what my actual 10 was and how to rank them. It was a nightmare but I'm pretty comfortable with it. I better be. I made a whole t-shirt with these 10 on it. Initially I thought I would replay them all and review them again here in 2023. But then I thought wouldn't it just be more special as we take a look back at all of these games to also take a look back at where I was when I reviewed them the first time. I also rewatched all of my reviews and for the most part I wouldn't change anything I said. I would just change how I said it. I used to scream in my videos and I don't know why. I hope you find a game today that you actually like the look of and you might go and play. I also can't stress enough that for a game to qualify for this video today I had to have reviewed it in an eShop video. Hades for example which easily would have been number one today but it never was actually in an eShop video so it's not on the list. Although that does segue us nicely into the special mentions. Hades of course my number one but then also Return to Monkey Island, Grindstone. I did not expect to get so addicted to that. The Ori games. Mini Motorways was a little hidden gem classic for me. Metroid Prime of course. The Shovel Knight games. Cult of the Lamb. Cuphead. Enter the Gungeon. Thimbleweed Park. Thimbleweed Park was one of the first games I fell in love with on the Switch. Neon White. TMNT Shredder's Revenge. Bug Fables. Golf Story. Far Loan Sales. I feel like I'm one of the only people that even played that game but it was so good. Katana Zero. My friend Pedro. Tourist. Hob. And even Hellblade. I can't believe that game runs on the Switch as great as it does. So many of these special mentions and my list game today have gone on to get collector's editions, physical releases but back when we talked about them they were digital only. Hope to make a big splash on the eShop and they really all did. Okay I'm gonna get started but with all that said I really want to encourage all of you to go into the comment section below and leave your top 10. I know you have your own list so please share them below. Coming in at number 10 on the list was initially number 9 but I switched it so that we didn't start with a clip from like 2018. By golly gosh I don't want to see that yet. So number 10 in a video I released on March 8th 2023 is inscription. Throughout my break in January out of all the games I played it was inscription that left the biggest impression on me and I've been dying to talk about it. I'm not intended. I love card games and my first thought going into this one is that I was about to experience another rogue like card game and I was excited to discover new mechanics and build the best deck possible and get addicted to it but very quickly I realized things were not as they seemed. It started when I noticed that one of my cards seemed like it was trying to communicate with me. The words on the card were calling out for help and on further inspection I realized it was indeed sentient and wanted to help me plot a scheme to escape the hostage situation we were both apparently trapped in. You see I wasn't allowed to leave this room or the game. Neither were the cards. This is when it began to sink in. Things like the points I earned for winning battles were given to me as human teeth and I was allowed to tilt the scales in my favor if I offered up my own teeth or even my body parts. Every defeat just meant we reshuffled and had to start again. That's when our capture asked me to grab something from the other side of the room and it's here where I found many clues and objects scattered about. With no way out of this room I was forced to keep playing in hopes of finding a way out. Through all the craziness that happens there is legitimately a really fun card game in here too. In fact at times I wish some of the craziness would slow down so that I could just enjoy the card game. Inscription left a huge impact on me. I was thinking about that game for weeks after I finished it. I almost gave it its own video but ended up putting it into an eShop video probably because of time but also I like to review these games in my lists. Alright I can't put it off forever we're gonna go into January of 2018. There was a few games when the Switch first came out that really sold me on trying all of these indies on the eShop. For that reason Fury will always have a very special place in my heart. I want to come right out the gate swinging and talk about one of my favorite games that was released in 2017 and that's Fury. On one side you have a twin stick bullet hell style game and on the other side you have sword play that relies heavily on parrying. Every battle in this game is just one big boss battle and I love it so much. The gameplay is actually pretty simple there's only four things you really have to worry about attacking with your sword, parrying with your sword, shooting and dodging and that's hard when you just have everything being thrown at you. This game reminds me so much of something like Dragon Ball Z both in the gameplay where you can be zipping around each other dodging and parrying and attacking and going so crazy that if anyone was watching you it'd be like Krillin watching Goku and Self Fight and not really not knowing what the heck's going on. Every time you take down one of the boss's health bars he goes into the next stage where things get more difficult and more amped up and you rinse and repeat until you manage to actually take him down but a pro tip master that counter if you can master the parry and you can get good at it the rest of the game will actually be fairly easy as easy as this game can be. In between the really intense boss battles there's this walking stage where you just casually walk in fact you can even choose to auto walk where you just sit back and watch this character walk that contrast between extreme action where you're just sweating and frustrated and you just want to pull your hair out because you keep dying and then all of a sudden there's just an auto walk and you're just kind of taking in the scenery there's such an extreme contrast but I love it and while I'm calling down it's amping me up for the next fight it's such a nice contrast and give and take so if you're up for a challenge and just a really great game as I said one of the best ones to come out of 2017 I'm really happy Fury's on the switch. You see what I mean though about the yelling why was I screaming? I'll give you some behind the scenes here of 2018 Kim and I had just moved into our first place together we just started living together it was a very small one bedroom and a living room situation we both worked out of that living room and I filmed a lot and I screamed every time and Kim hated it talking to all my friends about audio I was always like how do you guys never peak your audio why is my audio always peak Kim was like because you're screaming I didn't see it I thought I was just being energetic I don't know what's more cringe the fact that we're going back to July of 2018 or the fact that Hollow Knight is actually so low on this list it's number eight hey what's my favorite what's my favorite game on this list Hollow Knight is an absolutely gorgeous 2D Metroidvania game that critics and gamers have been praising ever since it released early last year finally finding a home on the Nintendo system it plays as beautifully as it looks whereas in most games if you're low on health you would possibly retreat and find more of it in Hollow Knight you regain health by engaging in combat and defeating enemies this mechanic encourages you to stay in fights and battles longer than you otherwise would and take risks where otherwise you wouldn't have a lot of people like to compare this game to Dark Souls because of course they do if a game's brutally hard it's just like Dark Souls but there are other similarities in this game like when you die you have to go and then find the shadow version of yourself where you died and then get your coins back kind of like in Dark Souls also different enemies have different attack patterns and learning how to fight them in this game gets easier and easier as you learn those patterns for example the first time you find a thing it might kick your butt but then once you start to learn how to beat it it becomes a lot easier and the next time you see that thing you can beat it easier than you did the first time okay i will admit this game is actually pretty much a 2D Metroidvania Dark Souls game but more fun i like this game a lot more there are loads of different power-ups and abilities to unlock as you play and this is just one of those games that needed to come to the Nintendo Switch you can't have the library the switch has and not have Hollow Knight find a home amongst all its other Metroidvania pixel art 2D side scrolling brethren it's a really great game and i highly recommend it why did anybody watch me back then i don't know how i kept fans after whatever that is i think Hollow Knight is one of the games i do wish i could re-review and maybe one day i will do a video re-reviewing a lot of these i think the words were right but i don't think i really captured how special that game is in my video i don't know why we can't get out of 2018 apparently all the best e-shop games released that year but celeste how could i not so i'm going to start with celeste celeste takes place in the wintery snowy region that is canada as i'm sure a lot of you have already heard this game has a reputation for being a very hard platformer and i knew that going into the game i also knew the story which revolves heavily around depression and anxiety as a driving point and that immediately resonated with me and made me fall in love with the game as i do have depression and anxiety and i draw a lot of parallels to this game and i can see a lot of the hidden symbolism throughout the game you don't know what's going on yeah he is throughout the game your goal is to climb a mountain and as you climb the mountain it gets increasingly harder and sometimes it's made even harder still by having to face a coin of yourself in other words while you try and climb this mountain which is life it gets harder and harder as you try and fight with yourself and a lot of that symbolism definitely wasn't lost on me i managed to pick up on even the little hidden things that if you don't have depression you probably wouldn't even catch platformers like this aren't really ever known for deep complex stories especially not revolving around something as dark as depression you've had enough okay so i really appreciated that and as i said it really helped me fall in love with the game and connect with it so much more but fortunately you don't need to have experienced depression to enjoy this game the fast-paced gameplay is incredibly exhilarating with extremely tight controls and no matter how many times i failed i just wanted to keep on going keep trying to best myself pick myself up dust myself off and try again this game also has a fantastic soundtrack from fast-paced to slower methodical tracks there are so many reasons to play celeste no matter who you are and it will for sure be one of the best games you play in 2018 i guarantee it my review of celeste was fine i also wish i could tweak it a bit and not constantly remind the audience how depressed i am yes i i am glad i mentioned it in the video i just felt like i kept going back to it i kept talking about how the little hidden things you'd only see if you have depression i know that was a bit of a tough watch but the thought was there oh god i want to say thankfully a newer game as this video came out in october of 2020 but that's actually still three years ago huh where is the time going spirit ferro is number six spirit ferro is a cozy wonderful little game that deals with death stellar is a fairy master to the deceased who with your aid but friends and cares for spirits before releasing them into the afterlife you do this by helping the spirits with whatever they need to accept their fate and just move on already there are many different requests given from these spirits that will have you farm and mine fish harvest cook and even craft your way across the mythical seas featuring good or just the hand drawn and animated characters spirit ferro is a management sim that as you play will have you building things like kitchens to cook your food farms and even little guest homes for the spirits to temporarily live in there is plenty more you will create upon your ship and even more you can find and discover by sailing to other islands and exploring the world around you what this game does best is deal with its underlying themes of death and acceptance in a way unlike any other game has even attempted to before the story and dialogue is brilliantly written with believable characters and moments that will have you questioning your own real life purpose on this planet i grew attached to so many of my spirit guests and new friends and then right as i felt like i had finally gotten to know them it was time for me to help them move on and they were gone in a beautiful way by helping these spirits accept their own mortality the game in turn teaches you the acceptance of death itself to get chills i got chills when i wrote that and i got chills when i said that and if you weren't sold in the game already you can play call up with a buddy and your buddy gets to play as the cat so yeah buy it now is probably a good time speaking of just spirit ferro the game so talk about how much indies have done for me as far as expanding what i'm willing to play before the switch i was really a triple a guy i like my first part in nintendo games and as far as anything else i would play the next big blockbuster and i still do that but i fell into this whole of doing e-shop videos because at first i realized they did well in the algorithm so i kept wanting to find these indie games to play and i really started to realize how unique they were how fun they were and how many different kinds of experiences in gaming i could be having and it was a game like spirit ferro that i found cozy slow paced management sim style that's just not who i was at the time and i fell in love with it it opened my eyes to so many other new experiences since then and i think for that reason i remember it so much more fondly than even some games like hollow knight which of course i'm gonna love number five thankfully was only two years ago in march 21st 2021 and that is my all-time favorite beat em up game which is the name of this channel so you know it's gotta be high on the list scott pilgrim vs the world i don't really like beat them ups that much it's a long story don't ask but scott pilgrim vs the world the game has always been the exception to that role as this in my opinion the greatest beat em up of all time so imagine my disappointment waking up one morning and finding that it's v gone from the xbox live online marketplace and i couldn't play it anymore but all these years later thankfully the nintendo switch and other places saved this game and re-released it and i have to say i'm in less but love i'm in love once again to start visually the game as a masterpiece with a beautifully animated and vibrant pixel art style that represents the original graphic novel art style perfectly cute characters and wonderful world design it's fantastic next the music oh my lord it's like the best part scott pilgrim is synonymous with its music so of course the game is pumped full of incredible pop rock chiptune beats composed by the band anam anamana gucci the entire soundtrack is just perfect catchy it'll get stuck in your head for weeks and it even topped billboard charts after it released as for the gameplay on the surface it appears as a standard punch and kick beat em up but it has so many extra layers the further into the game you play around the levels you can enter storefronts and purchase food or items these can heal you or be equipped to you boosting your attack in defense stats adding an rpg-esque element into the mix which is crucial as the difficulty level ramps up quick becoming almost insufferable early on unless you really utilize all the upgrades available to you just uh don't go spending too many coins buying up all the bread bread makes you fat bread makes you fat there are so many reasons why i consider this an e-shop gem but just the fact that it's such a fantastic game that we had no way of playing for so many years to get it portably on the switch out of nowhere it felt too good to be true there's a also topical because there's a new cartoon of that now and apparently it's very good july 11 2019 if you thought for a second that i wouldn't pass up the chance of putting link onto my t-shirt design and technically getting away from it from a legal standpoint because yes nintendo don't think too hard about this but i'm selling a shirt with link on it cadence of hyrule all right i recently reviewed cadence of hyrule in my video all about switch games i can't stop playing which was true until mario maker came out and then that just changed everything but regardless of that cadence of hyrule will still end up in my top five switch games of 2019 for sure so i won't repeat myself if you want to watch my review of the game you can go ahead and click here or there'll be a link down below or a link at the end of the video i actually forgot about this but i didn't actually review it in the e-shop video i had just reviewed it in its own separate video and decided to put it in the e-shop video and just point people to the other video it didn't feel right so i never did that again but i do kind of wish i did that again why didn't i do that with hades also it's not really the only reason why i put it in the video is to be on the t-shirt i loved crypt of the necro dancer so much and to get a zelda themed version of that was mind blowing the music was insane and it was just so much fun to play i remember going live on twitch the day it came out just trying to get the fastest runtime possible and i think i had like a 30 minute run in that game in my opinion best zelda spinoff made by a team that isn't nintendo that's ever happened it was 2019 when this next game came out goose game lucy goosey for some reason a tiny game about an even smaller goose took the world by storm and captured the hearts of everyone you are a silly goose that can hunk duck flap and most affectionately hold things in its beak or more accurately still things with its beak hide them and or taunt the humans with them and and that that that is the entire game screwing with people annoying the heck out of them and watching them try to deal with a goose that just won't leave them alone it's such wholesome hilarious fun i honestly couldn't tell you how many 30 second clips i grabbed of this game using the switches capture button to then go and choke him later and both of us would be laughing at this stupid little goose i think this might be the one actually where he goes to sit down it's just so stupid because it looks like it's what a goose would do the game not only manages to capture nintendo's own inherent innocence in their games but also it's just the perfect game to pick up and knock out a few to do tasks and then put back down for later or and this is actually my only complaint finish it in one sitting because it's only about a two hour game unfortunately it does have quite a bit of replay value to be fair but two hours it just left me wanting more i can't fathom it but i just love that this tiny two hour adventure about a tiny goose ended up becoming a solid reason to own a nintendo switch you know all of these clips have made me realize how bad my face rash was i just kind of accepted that's how i looked my cheeks were always so rosy red and sore it was only like a year ago i went to a dermatologist she was like yeah you have this and gave me a cream and now it's i'm not even wearing makeup now why did i look like that for five years another reason why goose game is so high on this list other than i loved it so much was it was weirdly revolutionary at the time it was such a simple concept it was so basic and everybody was talking about it it became a big stream hit and it's just a game about a little goose stealing some things it's so innocent and wholesome it really won my heart number two on this list how are we going at home am i close to your list are you baffled by mine eastwood a master class in pixel art design with every scene packed dense with detail and a catchy chip tune soundtrack that'll get suck in your head for days eastwood is a story driven action adventure that seemingly borrows gameplay elements from zelda earthbound dragon quest final fantasy and it borrows story and art elements from studio ghibli but it all comes together in its own unique way to create something that is solely original on its own the story follows sam and john and new players both their relationships similar to that of joel and ellies the duo live underground in a community taught to fear the outside world they're told there's nothing up there but sam doesn't believe it determined to find her way to the surface john follows and they both end up exiled to the world above they follow the train which is always headed eastward through a series of different towns each with its own culture characters and story there's a nice blend of narrative driven cutscenes dungeon crawling with combat and puzzles often having to switch between sam and john on the fly to accomplish different tasks or traverse the environment safely ultimately ending with awesome boss fights in between all of that you can make some time for breath of the wild inspired cooking and some mini games you can find an old gaming machine where you can play another game a full old school dragon quest clone game that's really hard to beat and actually kind of fun i feel a lot of the story could have been refined and hacked away at to present a shorter more engaging playthrough and i only bring this up because it is so story heavy that i want you to know that before going into it this game is a game that as i said should be experienced rather than just shown to you i adore story driven games so it's no surprise that this one left such a huge impact on me but also so many of these games over the years have been this pixel art style this one by far was the most enchanting the way the pixels moved on every i want to say page of the game because it was so beautiful it was like a story book blew me away i'll say now more than ever it deserves this second spot with the new doc coming out it's a whole extra side story that you can play even if you haven't played the base game but if you have played the base game it's a nice little way to end the story of these two characters just living their life after everything they went through i feel like we crossed off a lot of boxes as far as what this one could be right we went through hollow night we did celeste so i don't think any of you will be surprised at what is number one stardew valley the next game on this list is arguably the most popular one that i'm sure a lot of you have heard of already and that's stardew valley stardew valley is a farming game inside a beautifully created vibrant world it's an rpg mixed with a farm simulator and it works so well grow your crops on the farm enter the mines to defeat creatures use resources you find to upgrade your equipment and find new areas to explore you never really know where your journey is going to take you next in this game but never feels repetitive there's always a mystery about it and i like that farm fight craft there's a lot going on in this game and a lot going on in the town too you can head into town and you can make friendships and relationships i'm not going to talk about it much more than that because we all know it's fun so we should all go out and play it you know what's so funny about me putting this number one out of all of my reviews and all my e-shop videos this is probably one of the shortest and i gotta come clean about that now october 27 2017 at that point i hadn't played it that much i was new to the switch and making these e-shop videos everyone was talking about stardew so i played it a little and i was like okay good enough i think three or four years later i remember i made a video about what is the most actual addicting switch game and it was all about me playing stardew valley because i had randomly picked the game back up again because i wanted to play something with kim and we both got lost in stardew valley for weeks if not months i stopped making videos for a while because i couldn't stop playing stardew valley i had that whole addicted to series for a while which i kind of stopped doing because one it was getting a little old and two people found negative connotations with it and me being addicted to things which i understood but if we were to talk about games i've been most addicted to on this console over the years maybe only next to dragon quest builders stardew valley i have probably put by far the most amount of time and animal crossing actually those are pretty close that's my 10 and i know there's probably a lot of games that i missed believe me i know because i'm sure i've reviewed them in the past but this was just the ones that really stood out to me the ones i have the best memories of these are the standouts they're also all the games i put on that t-shirt i took all of the things that i liked i made a montage of the actual characters and then i gave it to kim and i said can you just make this all one art style and she in the first take made this design i didn't put anything for a description on the shirt at first i was just going to leave it off and then the little squirrel card that she stuck in there she's so wonderful that's it from now this was a very special video and i love you all thank you so much for watching like comment subscribe i've been making a lot of videos lately okay and subscribe i'm making more appreciate it