3 best RPGs to play on Nintendo Switch 2 – and none of them are Zelda
Here are three top class adventures you can take anywhere
The original Nintendo Switch’s hybrid nature made it perfect for role-playing games, allowing you to immerse yourself in huge virtual worlds while sitting in front of your TV, and then taking them with you wherever you went.
The Switch 2 offers the same thing, but better. It’s significantly more powerful, so AAA fare that couldn’t get off the ground on Switch can now flourish on the newer console, while the larger screen means gaming on the go is more immersive than ever.
There are already a wide variety of RPGs in the Switch 2’s library – not least the Zelda games – but I’ve focused on three of my favourites so far.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined
Square Enix is steadily making its way through remaking the Dragon Quest games for a modern audience, and with the RPG series turning 40 later this year, it’s a great time to get stuck in.
The latest release is Dragon Quest VII Reimagined, and as the Dragon Quest games are all standalone adventures you don’t need to worry about feeling lost if you’re jumping in at the seventh entry. It's the second remake of a game first released for the PlatyStation in 2001.
In a series of famously lengthy games, Dragon Quest VII in its original form was one of the longest – to its detriment, some would argue – but Reimagined strips away much of the fat and gets things moving much more quickly.
Everything about it is incredibly charming, from the doll-ified look of Akira Toriyama’s iconic character designs, to the beautiful dioramas you explore, the orchestral music, and the plethora of different accents in the voice cast.
Dragon Quest VII Reimagined is the dictionary definition of a classic JRPG, so expect lots of turn-based combat, villages whose problems it always falls on you to fix, and an overarching narrative about a bunch of kids saving the world.
But, it looks great on the Switch 2 in both docked and handheld mode, and feels like it was designed to be gradually chipped away on Nintendo’s console.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time
If you’ve enjoyed dabbling in cozy games like Animal Crossing in the past but secretly wish it would occasionally let you hit things with a sword (hey, no judgement here), then boy do I have the game for you.
A long-awaited sequel to the original Fantasy Life for the 3DS, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is a slick hybrid of RPG and life sim, and one of my favourite Switch 2 games to date.
There is a main quest, but it’s not particularly interesting and is in no way the main appeal of this game. Rather, Fantasy Life is about engrossing yourself in the game’s 14 unlockable “Lives”, which are what it calls classes. These range from riffs on your classic RPG classes, like Hunter and Mercenary, to totally combat-free vocations such as Cook, Woodcutter and Artist.
You can swap between your unlocked Lives at will, and while none of them are mechanically all that deep, they’re nearly all fun to master.
Fantasy Life might lack the personality of an Animal Crossing, but I find it a lot more enjoyable to actually play, and the perfect game to gently grind away at on my Switch 2 while I half-watch something on TV.
Cyberpunk 2077
If the Switch 2 has a miracle port in its library so far, it’s surely Cyberpunk 2077.
CD Projekt Red’s open-world action RPG frankly has no right to run as well as it does on Nintendo’s latest console. Sure, anyone wanting to experience the game at its best should still be looking to play it on a monster of a PC, if possible, but I’ve spent hours in this version of Night City without even thinking about expensive graphics cards.
Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 includes the base game and the excellent Phantom Liberty DLC, and as a launch game for the system, CD Projekt made sure to stuff it with all the flashy console-specific features it could.
That means you get full support for motion controls and even the new mouse functionality baked into the Switch 2’s Joy-Cons. In that sense, it’s arguably the most fully-featured console version of Cyberpunk 2077 you can buy.
When it first launched in 2020, Cyberpunk 2077 was a technical disaster, and it took a while for it to shake off all the negative press. And while not as widely beloved as the studio’s other big RPG, The Witcher 3, it still offers one of the richest and most compelling virtual worlds you can spend 50+ hours in.
Phantom Liberty might be even better, and all it’s all waiting for you in the Switch 2 version.
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