From the latest fun-filled escapades of Mario, Donkey Kong and Link to complex, literary titles such as Octopath Traveller, here are the games that get the best out of Nintendo’s console

Splatoon 2

A novel and lively take on the shooter genre that has you splattering urban arenas with bright ink, switching between human and squid forms to swim around in the resultant sea of colour. The funky 90s street-style aesthetic perfectly complements the fun, frenetic play, and it’s had so many updates since its release that you are constantly getting more for your money.

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Super Mario Odyssey

Mario sets off to run and jump around little planets again, each a self-contained ecosystem of puzzles, challenges and weird inhabitants that Mario can temporarily possess with his hat. A truly joyful, fizzily creative game that revels in the pleasures of movement and surreal humour.

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Curiouser and curiouser … Hollow Knight. Photograph: Team Cherry

Hollow Knight

Delve into the bowels of a lost kingdom populated by cute undead insects. Hollow Knight is dark but never dismal. As you roam the halls of deserted palaces or burrow beneath the earth to where the real horrors live, discovering new abilities to help defeat weird enemies or reach new strange places, your curiosity about what happened here grows and grows. A game that worms its way into your subconscious – the excellent sound design and animation are noteworthy, too.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate

A fighting game so madcap and maximalist, so crammed with recognisable and obscure characters, references, stages, music and items, that it could be better described as an exhaustive tribute to video game history in its full chaotic, colourful glory. Best played with friends in the same room, where it becomes a catalyst for rivalry and laughter.

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Mario Kart 8 Deluxe

Some of the best fun you can have with two or more people in the same room. Mario Kart is fun for skilful players and newcomers alike: forgiving car handling and zany items mean anyone can have fun hauling Mario, Bowser et al around its brilliant, gimmick-filled tracks, but mastering the nuances of power-sliding and finding shortcuts separates the champions from the rest. One potential downside: the jazzy music will infest your brain.

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Facebook Twitter Pinterest Climb every mountain … The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Photograph: AP

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

A game so good that everything else suffers by comparison. Breath of the Wild gives you unrivalled freedom to explore a long-neglected, unfailingly beautiful kingdom while teasing out the mysteries of its past, and fighting with whatever weapon comes to hand. In every valley, on every shore, atop every mountain there is something interesting to find.

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Mario vs Rabbids Kingdom Battle

A bizarre, lovable strategy game born from an improbable meeting between an Italian game designer at Ubisoft and Mario’s creator Shigeru Miyamoto. Mario and a group of cosplaying rabbits battle invaders in the colourful Mushroom Kingdom. Fun, unusual, and well-suited to short bursts of play.

Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze

The world-famous gorilla and his chums thump about the place, collecting bananas and swinging around on a tropical island recently invaded by cutesy arctic wildlife. Tropical Freeze looks colourful and modern with its Pixar-esque graphics, but it has the heart of an old-school 2D platformer – and the Kongs have momentum that makes timing your running, jumping and ground-pounding harder than it first looks. A fun challenge.

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Celeste

A tricky platformer about a girl trying to climb a mountain, with an endearing message about persistence and self-acceptance. You’ll want to conquer this tough expedition for the sake of the main character as much as yourself. Celeste has perfect movement, limited to a run, a jump and a dash, endlessly recombining these three actions in an inventive array of eerie pixellated levels.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Chess-like … Into the Breach. Photograph: Subset Games

Into the Breach

Like chess, except the pieces are an array of tiny mechs with different abilities and insectoid aliens intent on wrecking Earth. The chessboard is a tiny diorama of buildings, rivers, mountains and threatening creatures, and keeping everyone alive requires total, intense concentration. A round might last 10 minutes or an hour, and when you fail – as you often do – it’s usually down to a single poor decision. Luck and skill combine to create miniature tales of last-ditch heroics, and make hours disappear in efforts to save the world that inch closer and closer to success.

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Undertale

Unlike any other game you’ll ever have played, Undertale is a lo-fi role-playing game in which you play a child trying to find their way out of a monster-filled underworld. Instead of killing monsters, however, you can talk to them. Befriending or subduing creatures sends the story in different directions, and the game’s oddball, rather sweet sense of humour recalls SNES-era weirdo games such as Earthbound.

For more Nintendo Switch recommendations, have a look at the best indie games for Nintendo Switch.