Welcome to February 2024, and to the first (proper) eShop Selects of 2024. We’ve changed things up a bit for 2024 — alongside our picks for the best eShop game, we asked you lovely readers to choose your favorite eShop-only game of the month, but with a twist.
Staff and contributors at Nintendo Life decide on the top three by an internal vote, all from eShop games we’ve reviewed on the site that were released that month. However, readers will now get to vote on the best game on the eShop that we haven’t reviewed. And we’ll be revealing your January 2024 winner today at the bottom of the article.
Let’s not hold back, then!
Honorable mentions
Here are the games that didn’t quite make the cut — from our own vote and the Reader’s Choice poll. We’ll list second and third place here for your picks. And while we don’t usually include 6/10s, we wanted to give Turnip Boy a shout here for being a fun game — even with the Switch port’s issues.
Nintendo Life’s honorable mentions
Reader’s honorable mentions
Created by novelist Nico Saraintaris and artist Fernando Martinez Ruppel, Bahnsen Knights is the third game in the Pixel Pulp series, and it might just be the best. Blending the Choose Your Own Adventure-books with stunning, ethereal pixel art, Bahnsen Knights is a short, if wild ride, and we scored it 9/10 in our review.
Before the World of Assassination trilogy, Hitman: Blood Money was often cited as the pinnacle of the series. All of the different options and world-class stealth gameplay mechanics are intact here, even if the game certainly feels its age in some areas. We gave this one an 8/10 in our review.
A cute version of Papers, Please with the style and humor of Monkey Island? That’s what Lil’ Guardsman is going for, and it absolutely delivers. Blending its inspirations with an original narrative, Lil’ Guardsman is a lil’ gem on Switch, and that’s why Nintendo Life staff have declared it the first winner of the eShop Selects votes. Don’t forget to read our review, where we scored it an 8/10.
eShop Selects Reader’s Choice winner (January 2024)
Squeaking out on top with 21% of the votes, you picked Arcade Archives Rainbow Islands as the Reader’s Choice winner for January 2024! Sometimes, you just can’t beat the classics. And Hamster has done a consistently amazing job of rereleasing classic games on the Switch. Charming and challenging, Rainbow Islands is just as beloved today as it was in arcades over 35 years ago.
< Nintendo eShop Selects – December 2023
How we decide our eShop Selects top three: As we reach the end of every month, the Nintendo Life staff vote on their favorite titles from a list of games selected by the editorial team. To qualify for this list, these games must have been released as a digital-only Nintendo Switch eShop title in that particular month, and must have been reviewed on Nintendo Life; we select the qualifying games based on their review scores.
Staff are then asked to vote for three games that they think deserve to sit right at the very top of that list; first choice gets 3 points, second choice gets 2 points, and third choice gets 1 point. These votes are then tallied to create a top-three list, with the overall winner taking that month’s top prize.