Deltarune

Deltarune arrived on Nintendo Switch 2 on launch day and brought with it the long-awaited continuation of chapters that had previously been released piecemeal and for free. The game is loosely connected to the same author's previous title, but takes place in its own world: the protagonist Kris and his classmate Susie fall into the Dark World, where they become the heroes foretold by prophecy, and together with Prince Ralsei set out to close a fountain threatening to flood reality with darkness. It may sound like ordinary fantasy, but the game very quickly makes clear it intends to do whatever it wants with genre conventions.

Battles combine a turn-based system with elements the genre doesn't usually have. On your turn, you pick actions like in a classic RPG; on the enemy's turn, the screen turns into a miniature action game where you dodge incoming projectiles with a heart. On top of that, most encounters can be resolved without violence: every opponent has their own way of being calmed, amused, or persuaded, and the game carefully remembers how you've behaved. Alongside this there's a great deal of puzzles, side characters, and scenes that shift from absurd comedy to unexpectedly heavy moments.

Technically the game is modest, built on pixel art and simple animation, but that's exactly what suits it on a handheld console and lets you play it in short bursts. Its real strength is the music: the author composes it himself, and individual motifs return in different arrangements to carry the emotion of a specific moment. Reception was extraordinarily warm, and the franchise has long maintained one of the most active fan communities around, which is remarkable for a project built around a single creator and a small team of collaborators. Today Deltarune is one of the few games that manage to be funny, playful, and unsettling all at once, and on Switch 2 it's one of the best reasons to take the console along on your travels.