With just a few days left of Nintendo’s ‘Hits for the Holidays’ eShop sale, there is still time to grab yourself a bargain before 5th January. For those using a European eShop, you have until 12th January.
15 Best of the Rest in ‘Hits for the Holidays’ eShop Sale
With hundreds of games on sale, it can be a difficult to know where to start looking!
We’ve got you covered for games under $5/£5/€ 5 in our 17 Favourites for Under $5 in ‘Hits for the Holidays’ eShop Sale.
Want to know you’ve got some help, then check out the games in our 20 Favourites with Guides in ‘Hits for the Holidays’ eShop Sale.
This selection is the best of the rest, all scoring our highest rating – see what treats you can find to start the New Year.
BAKERU
Oracle Saitaro and his Festival Troops are using a bizarre festival to take over Japan. Bakeru travels to 47 Japanese prefectures to free Japan from the grip of evil spirits!
Battling with drums and transforming into fairy tale heroes led James to give BAKERU ‘Two Thumbs Up’:
In the end, BAKERU is a delightful adventure packed with charm, offering a whimsical journey through a beautifully crafted world. The expansive levels, rhythmic combat, and fun driving segments keep things varied and engaging, while the game’s attention to detail and love for Japanese culture makes it feel like a heartfelt tribute to the country’s folklore.
Although it may be on the easier side, the game’s feel-good vibes, family-friendly graphics, and enchanting world more than make up for it, whether you’re exploring the large 3D levels, collecting tidbits of real-world history, or engaging in tight, fun combat, BAKERU is a game that’s easy to love. For those looking to unwind and enjoy a whimsical adventure, especially on sadder days, this one’s an absolute treat.
There’s a free demo, if you want to try before you buy!
30% discount: US $27.99 (reg $39.99) | UK £24.49 (reg £34.99) | EU € 27,99 (reg € 39,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
BROK the InvestiGator
In a futuristic “light cyberpunk” world where animals have replaced humans, privileged citizens live under a protective dome from the ambient air pollution while others struggle to make a living on the outside
BROK the Investigator won James’ Best Hidden Gem 2023:
I didn’t think the combination of point-and-click and brawler gameplay would work, but BROK the InvestiGator smashed all my cautious expectations. Also, it is a refreshingly original game that provides flexibility to the player, whether you want to enjoy it casually or prefer a more challenging experience.
I myself have become a bit tired of the point-and-click genre, but BROK changed my mind. This is thanks to the creativity and multiple ways to tackle the game’s puzzles. This is probably one of the few games in this genre I see myself easily returning to again. BROK is brilliant overall and easily a contender for Game of the Year. Do not miss this one.
Want to know more, check out the demo.
60% discount: US $9.99 (reg $24.99) | UK £8.79 (reg £21.99) | EU € 9,99 (reg € 24,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Cassette Beasts
Welcome to New Wirral, a remote island inhabited by strange creatures you’ve only dreamed of, nightmares you hopefully haven’t, and a cast of brave folks who use cassette tapes to transform for battle. To find a way home you’ll need to explore every inch of the island, and record monsters to your trusty cassette tapes to gain their abilities!
Get ready to hit those buttons in Cassette Beasts:
In short, Cassette Beasts is a fantastic game with plenty of charm, great gameplay, and a groovy soundtrack. I could highly recommend it to anyone who loves playing a great game. The narrative aspects should keep a playthrough for about 8 – 18 hours, but those who wish to collect all the monsters and complete all side quests could expect to be playing for up to around 50 hours. There is plenty to do in New Wirral, take the leap of discovery and become a Cassette Beast Ranger!
40% discount: US $11.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £10.79 (reg £17.99) | EU € 11,99 (reg € 19,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a top-down adventure game in a coloring book world where you can draw on anything. Use your painting powers to explore new places, solve puzzles, help your friends, and change the world!
Featuring on both Paula and Mina’s Best Games of 2021, Paula rated this masterpiece ‘Two Thumbs Up’:
Chicory: A Colorful Tale is a delightful adventure. It has an intriguing story, innovative gameplay mechanics, well-written characters, engaging puzzles, and a heart-warming story. Now that the game has been released on the Nintendo Switch, I think it’s found the perfect home. I highly recommend you give Chicory: A Colorful Tale a try. If I could, I’d give it four thumbs up. I love it!
50% discount: US $9.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £8.54 (reg £17.09) | EU € 9,49 (reg € 18,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami
Aggretsuko meets Return of the Obra Dinn in Duck Detective, a cozy mystery game about a down-on-his-luck duck searching for answers in a sinister sausage-based conspiracy.
This quacking adventure made it into Mina’s Best Games of 2024:
Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is one of the best kid-friendly games I’ve ever played. It seems like something that would be super fun to play with some older kids who are comfortable reading and with deduction. While I had some issues with the game, overall, it was such a fun experience. Duck Detective: The Secret Salami has good music, amazing voice acting, fun interactions, and just a good storyline and feel. I love this from my bill down to my webbed feet!
20% discount: US $7.99 (reg $9.99) | UK £7.19 (reg £8.99) | EU € 7,99 (reg € 9,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Magical Delicacy
Play the young witch Flora and discover a bustling town in this Metroidvania-inspired wholesome cooking game. Cook meals and potions in your customized kitchen by carefully selecting the right ingredients. Navigate the town in casual platforming to meet the townsfolk, take up their orders, and learn about this world of magic.
Magical Delicacy cooked up a treat for Kalina:
Magical Delicacy is easily one of my best games this year. I can’t think of anything big that I didn’t like, and I look forward to playing it again.
20% discount: US $19.99 (reg $24.99) | UK £17.99 (reg £22.49) | EU € 19,99 (reg € 24,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Mineko’s Night Market
A narrative-driven, social simulation adventure game that celebrates Japanese culture. Craft whimsical items, eat delicious snacks, and ultimately enjoy all the cats!
Kalina thoroughly enjoyed this purr-fect adventure:
I’ve been waiting for Mineko’s Night Market for quite a while. I can’t say I am disappointed by the result. It is a cozy little game with charming characters and locations, and it’s come just in time for the cold rainy days of Autumn.
40% discount: US $11.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £9.59 (reg £15.99) | EU € 11,99 (reg € 19,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Moonstone Island
Moonstone Island is a creature-collecting life-sim set in an open world with 100 islands to explore. Make friends, brew potions, collect Spirits, and test your strength in card-based encounters to complete your Alchemy training!
Shining a light on Moonstone Island, Mina concluded:
Moonstone Island is everything I wanted from a little farm simulation that’s also a Pokemon battler that’s also a deck-based system. It is everything I didn’t even know I wanted; the graphics are beautiful, the soundtrack is soothing, the animations are polished, and the artwork is stunning. I love Moonstone Island and think you will love it here too.
30% discount: US $13.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £12.59 (reg £17.99) | EU € 13,99 (reg € 19,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
NAIRI: Rising Tide
Dive into a narrative filled with charm, adventure, and adorable animals. A colorful hand-drawn world teeming with unique characters awaits!
Explore a lively oasis city filled with charming characters, forgotten ruins and ominous conspiracies in the second chapter of NAIRI, a narrative puzzle adventure about Nairi’s perilous quest to save her family.
Yvonne rose to the challenge of solving NAIRI: Rising Tide!
It’s been six years since the first game surprised us. Home Bear Studio has been hard at work making the sequel NAIRI: Rising Tide! another wonderful entry. So much attention to detail, giving instructions and hints in beautiful drawings. Lovely hand-drawn scenes and relatable characters. Wonderfully intricate puzzles and a storyline that could easily carry the story by itself.
I love this game so much that I decided to buy the first one on Switch at a very attractive price as well. If you love puzzles combined with a great story, go for NAIRI: Rising Tide!
20% discount: US $11.99 (reg $14.99) | UK £9.75 (reg £12.19) | EU € 10,79 (reg € 13,49)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
The first game NAIRI: Tower of Shirin is also on sale:
60-75% discount: US $1.99 (reg $4.99) | UK £0.99 (reg £3.99) | EU € 0,99 (reg € 3,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Spelunky 2
Meet the next generation of explorers as they find themselves on the Moon, searching for treasure and missing family. Spelunky 2 builds upon the unique, randomized challenges that made the original a classic, offering a huge adventure designed to satisfy players old and new. Explore the game alone, play locally with up to four players, or, for the first time, join up with friends online to unravel its mysteries together (or battle it out in competitive Arena modes).
James dug deep to review Spelunky 2
I initially didn’t warm to Spelunky 2. When I first tried this on PC I found the entry difficulty level to be a bit too harsh even for someone who sunk so much time into the first game. But this time on Switch things really started to click and I was once again into the endless replayable gaming void of the Spleunky verse.
Splelunky 2 is a brick wall of difficulty. Some days I rarely got past the first cave system but darn, was I having fun. But when I least suspected it I discovered a new mystery or level I had never seen before. Spelunky 2 is a fantastic addition to Nintendo Switch and just like the first game, it will be hard not to sneak in a quick game every time I see its icon on my Switch dashboard.
60% discount: US $7.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £7.19 (reg £17.99) | EU € 7,99 (reg € 19,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Spelunky is also on sale:
60% discount: US $3.99 (reg $9.99) | UK £3.59 (reg £8.99) | EU € 3,99 (reg € 9,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Stray Gods: The Role Playing Musical
Play as Grace in a world where Greek Gods live in hiding among us and use your powers of musical persuasion to unravel the mystery of the Last Muse’s death.
Stray Gods: The Role Playing Musical was sweet music to Mina’s ears:
What a delight from start to finish Stray Gods was. Play it; you won’t regret it!
30% discount: US $20.99 (reg $29.99) | UK £17.49 (reg £24.99) | EU € 20,99 (reg € 29,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Tetris Forever
Unrivaled after four decades, Tetris Forever celebrates the original, genre-inspiring puzzle game that escaped from behind the Iron Curtain, onto the world stage, and into our cultural consciousness!
Tetris Forever was the winner of James’ Museum Award 2024:
Tetris Forever is a fitting tribute to one of the most beloved video games of all time. Even 40 years after its creation, the simple yet addictive gameplay of Tetris continues to captivate players. This collection highlights why Tetris has endured and hints at why it will likely remain a staple of gaming culture for decades to come.
For those interested in gaming history or even casual Tetris fans, Tetris Forever is a must-own. Digital Eclipse once again proves that this is the gold standard for preserving and showcasing video game legacies.
20% discount: US $27.99 (reg $34.99) | UK £23.60 (reg £29.50) | EU € 27,99 (reg € 34,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
The Battle of Polytopia
The Battle of Polytopia is an award winning unique turn based strategy game about controlling the map, fighting enemy tribes, discovering new lands and mastering new technologies. You take on the role as the ruler of a tribe and attempt to build a civilization in a turn based competition with the other tribes.
Paula jumped into the fray, concluding:
The Battle of Polytopia is not too simple, however, the system makes decision-making interesting and meaningful. The Battle of Polytopia would make an excellent starting ground for players who want to get into the 4X strategy before taking on other games in the genre similar to Civilization and such. The game is suitable for all ages and is family-friendly, a great starting ground to teach youngsters the skills of strategy gaming.
Have a go, check out the demo.
50% discount: US $7.49 (reg $14.99) | UK £6.99 (reg £13.99) | EU € 7,49 (reg € 14,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Venba
Venba is a narrative cooking game where you play as an Indian mom who immigrates to Canada with her family in the 1980s. Players will cook various dishes and restore lost recipes, hold branching conversations and explore in this story about family, love, loss and more.
Baked with love, lead Kalina to give Venba ‘Two Thumbs Up’:
Venba is a great game and has an even more remarkable story. It gives us a brief glimpse at what an immigrant family goes through, the hardships and the joys. Venba also gives us an idea of how difficult it is to find the balance between adapting, fitting in, and still hanging on to your culture. It also touches on the universal idea that our children will not lead the life we do. This game has much humanity in the interactions between Venba and Paavalan, them and Kavin, the family, and the outside world. There are also simple moments of humor and love that feel so real that they could be someone’s memory.
While Venba is short, it is also long enough to do what it sets out to do: tell us a story and make us want to hug our parents.
50% discount: US $7.49 (reg $14.99) | UK £6.74 (reg £13.49) | EU € 7,49 (reg € 14,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
Wayward Strand
Wayward Strand is a heartfelt interactive story, told in a unique and curious way. Play as Casey Beaumaris – intrepid teenage journalist – as she visits an airborne hospital for the first time.
Wayward Strand found its way into Elena’s Best Games of 2022:
This unique work of interactive fiction is realistic, relevant, and wholesome. Amazing voice actors and great writing have made the characters so real and got me to care about them.
Wayward Strand is a game about being there for people. Sometimes that involves being still and doing (seemingly) nothing. These are abilities I feel I’m losing in the age of smartphones. It can be hard to sit with someone in silence, especially when they’re suffering. But this game has given me a little nudge, a little practice, towards being present.
30% discount: US $13.99 (reg $19.99) | UK £12.59 (reg £17.99) | EU € 13,99 (reg € 19,99)
End date: US Jan 5th, 2025 | UK/EU Jan 12th, 2025
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