Data Source: https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/giovanni60310/nintendo-switch-games-reviews Tool Used: Tableau Public Link to Viz: https://public.tableau.com/app/profile/datawizardry/viz/NintendoSwitchGamesReviewAnalysis/Dashboard1

Very funny that the very first game released for the switch is the best one and no one has topped it, based on reviews

I wonder how much of that is simply culture... Nintendo games will naturally score higher, since they appeal to most people nostalgia (then again, BotW and Odyssey are by far the best game of those series, imo). Then, you have NIS America releasing niche/weird games like Disgaea, Ys, Langrisser, and publishing a bunch of indie games... also, who's PQube?

With that said, I'm definitely surprised to see BD&SP, Let's Go, and S&S so low, given how well all of the pokemon games sell.

Otherwise, more to the point of the graph, those axis are actually terrible. 9.0 -> ~9.7 on one side displaying data from 9.0 to 9.6 makes it look even more disproportionate than it already is. Similarly, 5.5 -> 7.5 for scores ranging 5.6 to 7.4 makes Sonic force look like a complete disaster when it's "only" 4/10 points below the #1.

I feel like making it a continuous range would've helped a lot... something like 3 -> 8 for weakest, and 8->10 for strongest.

> I'm definitely surprised to see BD&SP, Let's Go, and S&S so low, given how well all of the pokemon games sell.

That's exactly the reason: Pokémon is a massive enough brand to carry even lackluster products. Go on most forums related to the games and you'll commonly hear "yeah the reviews were terrible, but I bought it because it's still Pokémon."

>but I bought it because it's still Pokémon

Doesn't that also mean that the game's not terrible?

Because Monster Hunter also notoriously had some of the worst reviews for quite a while, without the playerbase giving the slightest shit as the games kept getting better and better, and only recently managed to swing the reviews with Worlds.

In Pokemon's case, there's a lot of stuff that they aren't adding to the game, but they're keeping the formula intact of encountering cute pokemons, capturing them, evolving them, and just having a fluid gameplay of monster catching. If anything, S&S' and Let's Go!'s attempts to shake things up would justify the low ratings.

Now, Scarlet/Violet definitely had their fair share of technical issues, which would imo warrant those bottom spots more than whatever got BD&SP in the dump.

The new Pokémon games are complete trash

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Thanks for your insights. I ended up removing zero from the axis because it was causing the distances between each game score to become not too noticeable. I let Tableau handle the setting of the axis range from there. In retrospect, I probably should have fiddled with that more.

Another thing I'll mention is that I had to setup a threshold for the number of votes that a game received. BoftW is super acclaimed, and has 1k+ votes. Funny enough, in third place was a game called Wreckfest, which I had never heard of. It had a score of 9.4, but only had 7 votes. I ended up requiring that the strongest and weakest games have at least 200 votes.

>in third place was a game called Wreckfest

Oh yeah... I played that. Probably on GamePass? It was actually quite fun, but lagged a bit at the time. Maybe not #3 of all Switch games, but easily in the top 300!

Because it's still one of the best party game, especially if we exclude indie titles?

Don't underestimate the effect of the target age group either. My kids aren't old enough write reviews but they liked Pokemon Shield. Plus it was their first "real" Pokemon game so they don't really have anything to compare it to.

Adults know how much money Pokemon earns and how much it costs to make amazing graphics, plus they've played all the previous games so they have higher expectations.

Removing zero from the axis was fine, almost no reviewers use the entire 10 point range for games. A 6/10 is widely considered terrible and a failure.

If strongest and weakest were shown on top of each other, it would be good to have them use the same range, though.

Dah! I just realized I should have reversed the gradient on the weakest performers. Warmer colors on sonic forces, and lighter colors on the longer bars, like Mario Tennis.

The new Kirby game is fantastic! I enjoyed star allies too, but not as much.

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Definitely need to add that nintendo games should be better optimized for the switch than ports or from other parties. Having poor performance quickly ruins the game for most people. And I think Pokémon games outside of the main ones certainly are more gimmicky in nature and thus don't do as well.

Skill issue

Pqube is mainly a publisher and not a developer. NISA are a mixed bag with Disgaea and so; but also publishing falcom titles too.

Why is Star Allies so low?

Xenoblade DE is 2nd i'm gonna cry