After Nintendo of America launched its ‘Screaming Deals‘ sale earlier this week, we knew it wouldn’t be long before Europe followed suit.
The ‘Halloween Sale’ is now live for those in Europe, with delicious discounts on a boatload of titles available until 1st November. So, naturally, we have assembled the following list to make things a little more manageable.
Below, you will find every game in the Halloween Sale that we rated a 9/10 or higher, plus a personal pick from all the games that fall below this review bar. We’ve listed things alphabetically and given the discounted price, so you know what you’re paying for each.
As ever, if you’re looking to grab some eShop credit before diving in, we’ve got you covered with the following links from our store.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
£9.99 (-23% off) £12.99
Alien: Isolation is a survival horror masterpiece and straight-up one of the very best horror video games ever released.
It’s a nerve-wracking affair — a slow, methodical game of cat and mouse against a brilliantly clever recreation of one of cinema’s most infamous killers — but if you’re up to the task you’ll find one of the most satisfying gameplay experiences in the genre; a brilliant and beautiful homage to one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time.
Feral Interactive has done a stellar job with this Switch port and the excellent motion controls and inclusion of all previously-released DLC only go to sweeten the deal. This is essential stuff for survival horror fans.
£14.69 (-30% off) £20.99
Developer Shared Memory’s stated goal was “to craft complete experiences that will be playable long after the world loses its internet connection,” and screen after screen, Animal Well excels in delighting your eyes and giving your brain something to stew on.
It’s a riposte against a culture of post-launch updates in favour of a meticulously crafted, singular vision with potentially years’ worth of discoveries baked in. By all indications, Animal Well delivers on that long-term promise and does so with a one-of-a-kind elegance.
£8.74 (-75% off) £34.99
BlazBlue CentralFiction Special Edition may have arrived a few years late on Switch, but that delay didn’t dull the sharpness of its 2D fighting package.
Not only does it give the Ragna saga a proper send-off with a story mode that’s so rich in character development it could be a full anime season in its own right, but it offers a staggering number of modes to keep you playing long after the credits roll. It runs silky-smooth docked or in handheld modes and runs like a dream online.
The lack of an English dub still rankles, and new adopters are going to have to do a lot of research to understand what’s going on, but it’s well worth the effort.
£4.49 (-75% off) £17.99
BlazBlue: Cross Tag Battle is an utterly accomplished 2D fighting game. It’s bursting with content and featuring the visual spectacle of combat that uses up every single trick in the book. A few strange decisions aside, this title is a must for fighting game fans.
Even if you’re not a fan of any of the franchises represented in this game, you most certainly will be by the time you’re done with this stacked fighting package.
£14.99 (-40% off) £24.99
If Blue Prince were only about finding Room 46 and nabbing your inheritance, it would be a neat little puzzler with some fun twists along the way. For those who dive in headfirst and keep track of everything else it throws at you, however, it is so much more than that.
Rarely has a game made us feel more clever, more lost, and more elated the deeper into it we ventured, and still some question marks remain over its deeper mysteries. Minor technical drops and a lack of cross-save aside, this remains a superb achievement and one of the finest head scratchers we’ve had the pleasure of playing.
£15.74 (-30% off) £22.49
It looks like The Witness and it plays a bit like StreetPass Garden, but Botany Manor blooms into something that’s not only entirely its own, but also something quite special. Don’t let its cosy aesthetics fool you — Botany Manor is packed with nicely challenging, well-designed puzzles, and isn’t afraid to tackle heavy subjects, too.
£9.19 (-60% off) £22.99
Chained Echoes is a wonderful mash-up of ’90s JRPG tropes, masterfully woven together to produce an experience that feels simultaneously nostalgic and fresh. A well-paced story, unconventional progression system, tactical combat system, and expansive world all come together to make for a game that is shockingly one of the very best RPGs that we played in 2022.
Really, there’s no place where it feels like Chained Echoes drops the ball, which is all the more impressive when you consider that the vast majority of it was put together by one person. It stands as a shining example of everything that makes RPGs great.
£8.54 (-50% off) £17.09
As an adventure game, Chicory: A Colorful Tale is quite sincerely up there with the very best of the genre.
There’s plenty to see and do and a full completion run will probably take you 25-30 hours. The characters and their travails are rich and likeable, the game’s sense of humour is generally inspired, and it’s all very sweet without being sugary-twee and talking down to the player. It’s also an affecting little tearjerker that will definitely strike a chord if you make art, and almost certainly will even if you don’t – so long as you’re capable of pretty basic empathy.
Chicory is simple to play but impressively long and complex, with perfect controls, performance and visuals. Throw yourself into painting the world and you’ll be left with a game that’s very much your own and speaks to you directly – a beautiful marriage of mechanics, themes and visuals.
£6.39 (-60% off) £15.99
While it’s a shame that there are fewer games here than in other Konami collections — we’d have loved to have seen NES title Contra Force or the now-extinct WiiWare title Contra ReBirth — the ones included in the Contra Anniversary Collection are universally brilliant. The 8-bit and 16-bit Contra games are among the finest examples of the run ‘n gun genre, and to have almost all of them included in a single release and emulated flawlessly is an absolute treat.
Whether you’re a fan of the series or a curious onlooker who’s always wanted to see what the fuss was all about, this is essential.
£3.24 (-75% off) £12.99
We really like Crawl, and we’d bet our collected stash of gold and wrath you will, too. A dungeon-crawling hack-and-slash affair with roguelike elements, one player is the hero trying to get through a dungeon and the others play as monster-controlling ghosts attempting to kill said hero and take their place.
It’s an everyone-for-themselves free-for-all, yet there are opportunities for frantic 3v1 co-operative play — a necessity when all the non-hero ghost characters must take joint control of bosses the hero faces. It’s great fun in single-player thanks to some aggressive AI, but that consistent danger takes on a new dimension when you and three of your friends are jostling for XP and that all-important killing blow.
Competitive couchplay doesn’t get much better than this on Switch.
£3.59 (-80% off) £17.99
A roguelike at heart with a rhythm-game soul, Crypt Of The NecroDancer is a sublime experience that’s a must-play for fans of the genre(s).
Its upbeat, uptempo take on dungeon crawling is infectious, and there’s enough content here to last even the savviest of spelunkers for many, many dance-fuelled dives into the depths. If you’ve never tangoed with the NecroDancer, this fully-featured Switch edition is the perfect way to jump in.
For anybody who never played this but loved the Zelda spin-off Cadence of Hyrule and was left wanting more, what are you waiting for?
£3.49 (-81% off) £17.99
Death’s Door is a modern classic, utilising old gameplay ideas in a new setting to make for a short and sweet experience you won’t want to miss. The snappy combat, rewarding exploration, and relaxing music will stick with you once you’ve finished, and while it may not have anything ‘new’ to offer, Death’s Door is so high quality that you’ll hardly have time to think about its lack of innovation.
Any fans of Zelda or Soulslike games will adore this – Acid Nerve has crafted an experience that’s absolutely worth your time and money.
£1.89 (-80% off) £9.49
Detention is another horror classic that deserves a place on your Switch. Its story has an important message as it introduces themes through the eyes of a child that only escalate the horror.
Through a terrifying atmosphere, chilling ghouls, and a soundtrack that will sink its teeth into you, Detention is a suitably horrifying title that needs to be experienced firsthand.
£3.72 (-75% off) £14.89
Dusk is one hell of an impressive piece of software and possibly the single best Unity port to Switch we’ve ever seen, sidestepping typical performance problems and delivering a brilliant experience of a brilliant game. It’s not as good a game as Quake, but almost nothing is.
There’s a relatively limited arsenal of weapons – they’re all great, but there’s no iconic gun here, just your usual pistol, shotty, assault rifle, explosives, et al. We’re being churlish with our criticisms here, though – ultimately, Dusk is another absolute cracker in Switch’s FPS roster.
£1.99 (-75% off) £7.99
Evergate is a wonderfully designed puzzle/platformer that starts off strong and goes from strength to strength over the course of its campaign. Every new world you encounter here adds a new twist to proceedings, gradually becoming more complex as it layers mechanics on top of one each other, enabling you to experiment and come up with your own unique ways to bound across its intricate levels.
Speed-running here, for us, feels like it was tacked on for no real reason but, besides this one little misstep, this really is an essential purchase for puzzle/platforming fans and a standout example of its genre on Switch.
£9.44 (-30% off) £13.49
Fast Fusion may not have the most comprehensive collection of tracks, but it’s easily the most accomplished entry in Shin’en Multimedia’s series so far. The new jump ability adds a new layer of strategy to the gameplay, while experimenting with the fusion mechanic to find the perfect vehicle is a joy.
The occasional grinding to save up money can be a momentary drag, but if you’re after something a bit more ‘hardcore’ than Mario Kart World, Fast Fusion is a no-brainer, and an absolute must-buy.
£11.89 (-30% off) £16.99
FAST RMX is as good as the Wii U original and then some.
Updated visuals, more tracks, more vehicles; it was an utterly outstanding launch title for the Switch and it holds up very well to this day, keeping the futuristic high-speed racing game alive in the absence of a modern, flagship F-Zero game. With the console’s ability to allow multiplayer on the go rolled in, this is without doubt essential for racing fans with a Switch.
£8.99 (-50% off) £17.99
Fight’N Rage is one of the must-own action games on Nintendo’s console. Its surprisingly deep and satisfyingly weighty combat engine, combined with three strong and varied player characters and a host of cleverly-designed enemies, elevates it above the usual button-mashing experience perhaps expected of entries in this genre.
It’s got an excellent arcade mode that branches off in various directions as you make your way to the final boss battle, as well as a ton of unlockable modes and extras to keep you coming back for more. Whether you’re a learned fan of old-school beat ’em ups or you just like pummelling the life out of mutant punk pussycats and monkeys dressed as Bruce Lee, you owe it to yourself to experience what Sebastian Garcia has created here; it’s easily one of the best beat’em ups we’ve played.
£2.29 (-80% off) £11.49
The fact you’ve been able to play Grim Fandango Remastered on your TV and in handheld form elsewhere for years doesn’t matter one bit, because this gem of a game is still as enchanting and evocative as it was the first time you popped open that oversized cardboard box back in PC in 1998.
Here and now on Nintendo Switch, this port looks and runs noticeably smoother thanks to Double Fine’s deft adjustments, so whether you’ve already joined Manny on his afterlife odyssey or this is your first time among the dead, Switch’s library is 100% better for its inclusion.
£3.59 (-80% off) £17.99
Huntdown is a delightfully detailed and expertly crafted throwback to old-school run ‘n’ gun arcade shooters.
The 16-bit graphical style is immaculately recreated whilst adding lots of modern bells and whistles to proceedings, including a fantastic soundtrack and audio design, optional CRT filter, and an arsenal of heavy-duty weapons that chew scenery and enemies to pieces as your bounty hunter makes their way from boss fight to excellent boss fight.
The flow of levels may be quite repetitive but the moment-to-moment gameplay, overall sense of fun that comes from the level of carnage you can dish out, surprising amount of hammy spoken dialogue, and constant pop-culture references all combine to make this one an easy recommendation, and another excellent addition to the Switch’s action catalogue.
£4.49 (-75% off) £17.99
Invisible, Inc. is a brilliant little tactics game, right up there with Into the Breach and XCOM – if not even better. The bite-sized structure belies a deceptively complex and meaningful game, where all your decisions ultimately mean something significant for that final desperate attack.
If you enjoy stealth or tactics games – or you’re simply looking for a way into either genre – then Invisible, Inc. deserves your attention.