Nintendo Year in Review 2025

It's the final Year in Review post for 2025 - and this time, it's Nintendo's year in review, which they actually put out in January instead of December, so it should account for my entire year's worth of stats. And the good news is that I played a considerable amount more Nintendo than I did last year, but then again, I did set the bar remarkably low.

2025 brought with it the Nintendo Switch 2, which took a second to obtain (including the delivery person driving aimlessly around my complex for a couple minutes and deciding "Maybe we'll let somebody else try tomorrow") but ended up being a great time.

Let's take a look at my highlights from last year's time spent playing Nintendo.

Gameplay Totals

I matched last year's total of 16 games but nearly tripled my hours played. That's a decent job of bouncing back, if you ask me.

Top Games

1. Pokémon Violet - 19 hours
2. Mario Kart World - 19 hours
3. Fitness Boxing 3 - 15 hours

"Pokémon Violet" coming out on top came as a bit of a surprise until I remembered that I told myself that I could only purchase the new "Pokémon Legends: Z-A" if I beat "Violet" first. Challenge accepted and completed.

I'm not necessarily a big "Mario Kart" guy - I enjoy it, but I'm not hardcore like some people - but "Mario Kart World" was fun and is a great game to play with the family. I spent a lot of time trying to track down all of the costumes for each character. I'm still a couple short, though, which irritates me.

Another year of "Fitness Boxing." This one is a Top Games mainstay because it's the only game that I play on a near-weekly basis. I'm bad and miss a week from time to time, but it's a nice way of getting some extra movement in.

Gaming Trends

A decent balance of game types. I accept.

Monthly Breakdown

As you can see, I got the Switch 2 in July. October was the month in which I challenged myself to beat "Pokémon Violet."

Favorite Game

My Nintendo game of the year is Mario Kart World. I really had fun with it, especially playing with my oldest son. There is a decent amount of stuff to do, from tracking down alternative outfits to collecting things in the open world, not to mention racing for glory across its handful of official cups. I also like the new ability to adjust races to start on one course and transition into another. Thanks to its extreme replayability factor, a lot more Mario Kart lies ahead for me and my family in 2026.

Top Games of All Time

One really cool feature in this year's Nintendo Year in Review was the ability to look back at previous years. Nintendo even provided a full breakdown of my top games over the past eight years, when I first bought the Switch 1.

Here are my top 20 games of all time:

1. Animal Crossing: New Horizons - 217 hours
2. Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 61 hours
3. Mario Golf: Super Rush - 50 hours
4. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 45 hours
5. Pokémon Shield - 41 hours
6. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - 40 hours
7. New Pokémon Snap - 40 hours
8. Pokémon Violet - 34 hours
9. Pokémon Brilliant Diamond - 33 hours
10. Pokémon Legends: Arceus - 30 hours
11. Super Mario Odyssey - 29 hours
12. Luigi's Mansion 3 - 21 hours
13. Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 - 20 hours
14. Metroid Dread - 20 hours
15. Mario Kart World - 19 hours
16. Fitness Boxing 3 - 16 hours
17. Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu - 15 hours
18. Mario Tennis Aces - 15 hours
19. Pokemon Legends: Z-A - 13 hours
20. Donkey Kong Bananza - 13 hours

Past Years Comparison

• 2025
• Games played: 16
• Hours played: 103
• Top games: "Pokémon Violet," "Mario Kart World," "Fitness Boxing 3"
• Game of the year: "Mario Kart World"
• 2024
• Games played: 16
• Hours played: 38
• Top games: "Fitness Boxing 2," "Sid Meier's Civilization VI," "Super Mario Party Jamboree"
• Game of the year: "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate"
• 2023
• Games played: 23
• Hours played: 169
• Top games: "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope," "Metroid Dread"
• Game of the year: "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope"
• 2022
• Hours played: 140
• Top games: "Pokémon Legends: Arceus," "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope," "Pokémon Brilliant Diamond"
  
• 2021
• Hours played: 189
• Top games: "New Pokemon Snap," "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," "Mario Golf: Super Rush"
• 2020
• Hours played: 235
• Top games: "Animal Crossing: New Horizons," "Mario Tennis Aces," "Pokémon Shield"
• 2019
• Hours played: 56
• Top games: "Pokémon Shield," "Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3," "Pokémon: Let's Go, Pikachu"
• 2018
• Hours played: ~85
• Top games: "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate," "Super Mario Odyssey," "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild"

Final Thoughts

Overall, it was a decent and fun year of Nintendo for me. Granted, the Switch is not my primary console and it is often dominated by my oldest child, but I like to get in some time every now and again. I've got a bit of a backlog right now, with games like "Donkey Kong Bananaza" and "Pokémon Legends: Z-A" just sitting there, waiting to be played, so hopefully I'll be able to continue chipping away in 2026!

*****

We finally did it! That's the end of our 2025 Year in Review posts! What were your top Nintendo games of 2025? Any recommendations for the upcoming year? Let us know in the comments below, on Twitter (here and here) or on Facebook.

Until next time!

Nintendo Year in Review 2024

Guys, this is going to be a sad, sad little post. It's honestly pathetic, but I have to write it up anyway. For posterity. I did not play very much Nintendo this year. Sort of. I'll explain.

As I explained last year, Nintendo only tabulates its stats through the end of November, so - just like last year's report missed out on a lot of my "Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" and "Mario Wonder" play time - this year's report is missing a significant amount of my time on the Switch for 2024. And that's a real shame, because I had been putting in WORK on "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate" before Christmas, just to find out that none of that time was being tracked. Great. Honestly, I probably played more in the first two and a half weeks of December than I did during any other entire month of the year, so I'm quite bugged by my recap for 2024. It... doesn't look good.

But I'll give it to you anyway because I know that there are so many of you out there who are dying to find out what I've been playing. Let's break it down.

First Game of 2024

You're going to start sensing a theme here.

Gameplay Totals

Only 38 hours?? I played more on my top game of 2023 last year than I did in all of 2024 combined?! That's just disappointing. I am disappointed in myself, and I am truly sorry. I promise to be better next year.

I might be better than that in January, just for the sake of it.

Top Games

So my top game of the year is an exercise game. How many people can say that? I am proud that this indicates that I have tried my best to stay active, which is great.

But "Civ 6" was my second most-played game of the year (four hours) and I played it for like three and a half hours on my birthday in November, so that's... impressive, I guess?

I played "Mario Party Jamboree" a handful of times after we gave it to our son for his birthday in late October. It's a great game and will probably be a highly played game next year, once it has a full 11 months of availability for my Year in Review.

Gaming Trends

I assume that "Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise" counts as "action," "boxing" and "training."

Monthly Breakdown

I can thank my birthday for this. I had planned on playing a bunch of Playstation on my day off but ended up playing the "Civilization VI" on the Switch most of the afternoon. This probably accounts for a lot of my "Mario Party" play time, as well.

[December was not calculated]

All Games Played

• Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise
• Sid Meier's Civilization VI
• Super Mario Party Jamboree
• Pokemon Violet
• The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
• Super Mario Bros. Wonder
• New Pokemon Snap
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate
• Trombone Champ
• Mario Party Superstars
• Mario Golf: SuperRush
• Mario Strikers: Battle League
• Dorfromantik
• Pokemon Cafe ReMix [Editor's Note: This must have been Stockton.]
• Super Mario Odyssey
• Luigi's Mansion 3

Observations:

• I play a lot of Mario games, I guess.
• I started playing "Fitness Boxing 3: Your Personal Trainer" once it came out in December, so "Fitness Boxing 2" is now a thing of the past. RIP. It served me well.
• "Trombone Champ" is a very strange and somewhat funny game that really annoyed my wife for a couple days. It only cost me like two bucks, so I thought it was worth a shot.

Favorite Game

There are two or three games that could probably qualify as potential games of the year. "Mario Party Jamboree" is incredible, but I don't think I played it quite enough in 2024. Watch out in 2025, though! I think that there is one correct choice for me this year, all things considered.

And the winner is...

Please do not underestimate the fact that my December stats were not counted. I had a couple video game nights with my neighbors where we played "Smash Bros.," then I went home to beef up my stats on my own console. I believe that I have now played with every character at least once, which is something that I couldn't say a month ago, and I even came up with a new preset for match rules that made the game way more fun for me. Once January 1 rolls around here in about seven hours, I'm going to crush some more "Smash Bros." to solidify its status as a game I love in 2025.

Prior Years Comparison

Hours Played

• 2024: 38 hours
• 2023: 169 hours

Top Games

• 2024: "Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise," "Sid Meier's Civilization VI," "Super Mario Party Jamboree"
• 2023: "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild," "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope," "Metroid Dread"

Game of the Year

• 2024: "Super Smash Bros. Ultimate"
• 2023: "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope"

*****

What were your top Nintendo games of 2024? You can gather your stats here (for a limited time), if you haven't done so already. Let us know how you fared in the comments below, on Twitter (here and here) or on Facebook.

In the meantime, stay tuned for a couple more Year in Review blogs forthcoming in the next few days. Stay safe out there and have a happy new year!

Until next time.

Nintendo Year in Review 2023

Hello, and happy new year to you all. Thank you for joining us for another year here at The Underground. We're happy to have you.

Apparently, I have never done a "Year in Review" blog for my Nintendo Switch games. This isn't the first time such statistics have been available; I guess I just haven't felt compelled to post a recap of the stats until now.

Of course, I don't play nearly as much on the Switch as I do on my Playstation, and, at this point, my 3-year-old son basically owns the Switch (it is INSANE how good he is at some of these games, at his age - truly). With that in mind, I really don't play that much Nintendo these days, although I'd like to play more than I do, but... you know... priorities and Dad Life and all of that.

It is noteworthy that Nintendo calculated this information through November 30, 2023, so the entire month of December is missing, which means it didn't count any of my time jumping into "The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom" and "Mario Wonder" for the first time. I started both of those games in the closing days of December and haven't clocked a tremendous number of hours on either of them quite yet, so it probably wouldn't have affected much, anyway. (Both of those games seem fantastic so far, though!)

With no further ado, he's a little breakdown of the games I played and the fun I had in the year that was 2023.

First Game of 2023

And thus began my Switch gaming in 2023 - with "Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope." I had no idea what a Rabbid was nor why I should care, but I like Mario games and the XCOM-style gameplay looked fun, so I picked up the game and gave it a whirl, regardless of the fact that it's a sequel to a game that I never played. More on this game later.

Gameplay Totals

Honestly, I can't even believe that I have 23 Switch games, let alone that I played 23 Switch games. Also, many of those "games played" may have been on account of my son not having his own profile until at least half-way through the year.

Top Games

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Here's the deal with "Breath of the Wild": I bought it years ago, when it first came out, and I gave up on it. The breakable weapons were just too much for me to handle. I struggled to truly get into the game, and I knew that the trade-in value at GameStop was high, so I traded it back in. I always kind of regretted that because I had heard so many great things about it. Then, this year, I think on Prime Day, BOTW and its sequel, "Tears of the Kingdom," were "on sale" (by which, I mean that they were probably like $10 lower than retail value, which is a great deal, for Nintendo exclusives), so I bought both games. Yes, it's true - I re-bought "Breath of the Wild," like an absolute chump. After wrapping my head around the concept that basically every weapon in the game can and will break, I hunkered down and beat the game, in 47 hours, apparently. The hilarious thing is that, once you beat the main story on the game, it shows you your overall completion percentage. I was only at 12.48%, which is absolutely crazy. I spent all that time - and it's not like I was completely ignoring side quests and non-essential tasks, but you're telling me that I didn't even crack THIRTEEN PERCENT COMPLETION?!? That's absolutely insane. But hey, I guess that means that the game has a very high replayability factor, which can't be said about most games out there, so that's great. My final verdict on the game (or at least the 12 1/2 percent of it that I covered) is that I was wrong my first time around and I concede that this is a very, very good game.
2. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - A tactical, turn-based shooter. Mario with guns. It's wild. And guess what? The Rabbids aren't as annoying and stupid as I assumed they were going to be. In fact, I grew to really like playing with characters like Rabbid Luigi, Rabbid Peach and Rabbid Mario. I don't think this game is for everyone - some people probably wouldn't care for the turn-based aspect of it, many people may not love that Mario wields double pistols and Bowser can blow up enemies with a bazooka. But I thought this game was an absolute blast. My wife also got into it for a while, and (of course) even my 3-year-old wanted to take a crack at it. Perhaps one of the greatest aspects of this game is that you can turn the difficulty down to the point where none of your characters can take any damage (I didn't do that, but I certainly set it up that way for my son), making this a game that I can plop down in front of my little boy and tell him to go to town with it. If you're curious as to what this game is about, do what I did and check out some gameplay (Abdallah's family-friendly YouTube channel is what did it for me) and consider picking it up. I highly recommend it.
3. Metroid Dread - I had never played a "Metroid" game, despite knowing a little bit about the main character Samus Aran from the "Super Smash Bros." series. One day, whilst browsing the Nintendo Store, I saw that a demo of "Metroid Dread" was available. I downloaded it and played for a few minutes, determined that it seemed intriguing enough to play a bit more of, then picked it up on a good deal during Prime Day. Let me tell you: this was one of the absolute hardest games I have ever played in my entire life. Perhaps it would have been a bit easier on me if I had more experience with these games, but yeah. Man. Wow. This was so hard. About half-way through, I resorted to looking up step-by-step walkthroughs (many of which were not well-written and quite confusing, at times) just to ensure that I could get through the game as quickly as possible. In the end, it was a cool game and was quite fun during some stretches, but you better believe that the second I beat that game, I immediately uninstalled it and traded that sucker back in to GameStop to milk it for every penny that I could get out of it.

Gaming Trends

Monthly Breakdown

I was on paternity leave in July. Looks like I crushed it.

[December was not calculated]

All Games Played

1. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - 47 hours
2. Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope - 21 hours
3. Metroid Dread - 20 hours
4. Fitness Boxing 2: Rhythm & Exercise - 15 hours
5. Luigi's Mansion 3 - 14 hours
6. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate - 10 hours
7. Mario Party Superstars - 9 hours
8. Mario Golf: SuperRush - 6 hours
9. Dorfromantik - 6 hours
10. Pokemon Violet - 3 hours
11. New Pokemon Snap - 3 hours
12. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe - 2 hours
13. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder's Revenge - 2 hours
14. Mario Tennis Aces - 2 hours
15. New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe - 1 hour
16. Cars 3: Driven to Win - <1 hour
17. Super Mario Odyssey - <1 hour
18. Disney Speedstorm - <1 hour
19. Pokemon Cafe ReMix - <1 hour
20. Pokemon Quest - <1 hour
21. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - <1 hour
22. Nintendo Entertainment System: Nintendo Switch Online - <1 hour

Observations:

• First of all, something isn't adding up. Earlier in the recap, it said that I played 23 games this year, but it only gave me 22 games in this section. Perhaps, one explanation could be if I played two different games in the online NES catalog, but I'm not entirely sure.
• Some of these games were definitely my son, not me.
• Thanks to my son for finally encouraging me to beat "Luigi's Mansion 3." It took me long enough (I somehow just slowly stopped playing it at some point back before the pandemic), but it really was a fun, very clever game.
• I am not positive that all of these hour totals are correct. If so, I am totally ashamed of myself for only playing a brand new Pokemon game for 3 hours in the entire last year. Truly, shameful and disgusting, and I will try to be better in the future. Also, did I truly only play "Mario Odyssey" for less than an hour in 2023? I distinctly remember trying to knock out a bunch of power moons, but could that have been all the way back in 2022? Who knows?

Favorite Game

I played some fun games in 2023. Not that many, honestly, and some of you can surely put me to shame with your stats. In the end, Nintendo asked me to pick my favorite game of the year. There could only be one...

And the winner is...

Congrats to Mario and the Rabbids crew for this illustrious award. This was honestly one of the most pleasant surprises in recent video game memory for me, so those were some hours very well spent.

*****

All right, gamers. Who else has checked out their Nintendo year in review? The website (click here) won't be up for much longer, but there's still time to go in and look at your stats!

What were some of your favorite Switch games and memories from 2023? Let us know in the comments below, on Twitter (here and here) or on Facebook.

We've still got the big Playstation Wrap-up blog coming here in the next few days, so stay tuned for that. Until then, as always, keep it here.