Snag these modern classics if you haven’t already
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Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge
If you’re a newcomer to the Nintendo Switch, or perhaps you’re buying for someone who needs a boost to their game library, it’s always wise to snag the console’s best games when they go on sale, as they rarely do. Best Buy is listing several games that I consider to be must-play experiences for $20 off — both in physical and digital formats. Other retailers, like Amazon and Walmart, are honoring the price cuts, too. Better yet, there’s a range of games included in this sale, suiting people who want a shooter, a turn-based strategy game, or a good ol’ 3D Mario platformer.
Super Mario Odyssey is an inviting and delightful take on the traditional 3D Mario game, giving Mario a throwable cap to vastly extend his move set and to possess objects to get around levels. If you’re fatigued by open-world games that have lots of objectives, it may be refreshing to play this, where your only goal is to jump, climb, and collect shiny things.
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The keystone Mario title for the Nintendo Switch, Super Mario Odyssey, doesn’t disappoint. The latest installment in the Mario franchise brings plenty of fun, new mechanics, and ample charm. Read our review.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the turn-based tactical title that I mentioned earlier. The game essentially has two parts: one that feels like a spin on a Persona game, where you’re building relationships with your students-turned-warriors, and the other part that sees you taking on foes in interesting battles that never overstay their welcome.
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Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a remarkably deep, turn-based strategy game. Its turn-based battle has never been sharper, and the characters and plot are memorable. Read our review.
Splatoon 2 is an off-beat, unique third-person shooter where you play as squid-like humanoids who shoot paint at each other. This game has clever weaponry (sort of akin to Ratchet & Clank), and similar to Super Mario Odyssey, its story mode offers a simple structure, letting you zone out on your way to the goal (which in this game’s case is sniping a lot of enemies).
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Splatoon 2 is likely the most colorful shooter you’ll ever play. The multiplayer-focused game has players dousing maps with a variety of weaponized painting tools, ranging from paint rollers to airbrushes. Read our review.
And, of course, you should buy The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. It was released alongside the Switch, but as my colleague Sam Byford wrote on the game’s five-year anniversary, it set an extremely high bar as an immersive, open-world action game that competing titles have struggled to meet. If you’re a Zelda fan, you’ll probably gobble this up, but new players should have a great time, too.
Amazon is, once again, selling its third-generation Echo Dot smart speaker for next to nothing, with a couple of strings attached. You can get the charcoal-colored speaker for $1 so long as you’ve never owned an Echo device on your Amazon account and so long as you sign up for one month of its Amazon Music Unlimited service, which costs $7.99 monthly for Prime members and $9.99 each month for non-members.
Your total will come out to $8.98 at checkout if you’re on Prime or $10.98 for non-Prime members. And, just so you know, the streaming service subscription will be set to auto-renew each month, so keep that in mind.
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This puck-like Echo Dot is the third generation of Amazon’s smart speaker. It offers better sound than its predecessor, a compact design, and all the smarts that come with owning an Alexa device.
A three-pack of Blink’s wireless Outdoor cameras costs $159.99 at Amazon and Best Buy, down from the usual $249.99 cost for the bundle. This price drop matches the big discount that occurred in mid-February. These cameras run on AA batteries, and the company claims that you’ll get two years of use before needing to replace them.
The camera system includes a complimentary 30-day trial to Blink’s subscription that lets you record, view, and save clips. It costs $3 per month per camera after that or $10 per month for unlimited cameras. Alternatively, if you’d prefer a local storage solution, you can pick up the Blink Sync Module 2 for $34.99, which can save clips and photos from up to 10 Blink cameras.
A few other deals you might dig
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