I Ditched My Nintendo Switch for a Week to Game on Apple Arcade — Here’s What Happened

For the past week, my Nintendo Switch sat idle while I spent my free time exclusively playing games on my iPad on Apple Arcade. I was expecting to itch to pick up my Switch, but I may have under-estimated Apple’s mobile gaming platform.

After the vast majority of the best titles on Netflix Gaming were removed in July, I lost some of my excitement for mobile gaming. In an attempt to rekindle that, I decided to give Apple Arcade a second chance, but my expectations were pretty low. Netflix Gaming used to have some of my favorite games, like Hades and Death’s Door.

Those games, combined with the superb Razer Kishi Ultra controller, made mobile gaming on my phone an even better experience than gaming on my Switch Lite. How could Apple Arcade fill that void? Better than I expected, as it turns out. In fact, it might be the most underrated mobile gaming platform around.

Replacing my Switch games with… Apple Arcade?

My week kicked off by powering down my Switch and opening the App Store. Initially, my goal was to find games on Arcade comparable to those I tend to play on my Switch Lite. (Typically I leave larger and more demanding games for my PC.)

So, I was on the look out for games like Animal Crossing, Breath of the Wild, and Slay the Spire. Of course, Nintendo titles aren’t getting iOS ports any time soon, but I found some games that came pretty close.

Apple Arcade: A cozy gaming paradise

Apple Arcade has games in nearly every genre you could want, but a large chunk of the library is casual titles or games that are geared more toward kids. There's one area where it really shines, though: cozy games.

Hello Kitty Island Adventure is a perfect example. I’m genuinely shocked to say it, but this is one of the best games on Apple Arcade. It’s not one I would usually play, but it had such good reviews I had to try it, and I ended up enjoying it more than Animal Crossing: New Horizons. It has its quirks, but it's nice not having to pay off a home loan or worry about making money.

Similarly, I couldn't get enough of Outlanders. I tried this game back in 2020 not long after it initially launched on Apple Arcade, and it remains one of my favorites.

It's a low-poly, laid-back resource management sim that's simultaneously relaxing and challenging. The original got a PC release in 2023 and the sequel is now available as an Apple Arcade exclusive.

There are also plenty of other games I'd count in the "cozy" genre that I didn't get to or didn't play much of, like Stardew Valley+, Tamagotchi Adventure Kingdom, Wylde Flowers, Alto's Adventure Remastered, Japanese Rural Life Adventure, and Disney Dreamlight Valley (more on that one later).

A surprisingly solid selection of RPGs and ports

RPGs were another category where Apple Arcade exceeded my expectations. For instance, at the time of writing there are three solid Final Fantasy ports on Arcade, including FFIV: 3D Remake, FFIV: The After Years, and FFI. Each ran flawlessly on my iPad with an Xbox controller.

There’s also Oceanhorn 2: Knights of the Lost Realm, which looks like a love letter to Zelda from the first cutscene. It’s not on par with Breath of the Wild, but I had a good time with it, enough that I’ll probably continue playing. Oceanhorn 2 is a fully-fledged RPG that’s much more ambitious than I’d expect from a mobile game. In fact, it initially launched on Apple Arcade in 2019, and got a Switch port afterward in 2020.

I was also impressed with Fantasian, which has a really unique design that was made with physical dioramas. Like Oceanhorn 2, it's much more impressive than I typically expect from a mobile game, and definitely worth checking out if you enjoy turn-based RPGs.

Finally, there's also a pretty strong selection of ports of PC games, many of which I already liked and was happy to see on Arcade. Those include Balatro+, Slay the Spire+, Dead Cells+, Trials of Mana+, and Limbo+, to name just a few.

By the halfway point in my week on Apple Arcade, I had downloaded over a dozen games to try and realized I was going to have more to play than I could get to in a week. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t bored without my Switch.

The issue of hardware on iOS and iPadOS gaming

Unfortunately, gaming on Apple Arcade has its frustrations, although they're mostly minor. For instance, most of the games I tried support landscape mode, which is by far my preferred layout, but there are some, like Japanese Rural Life Adventure, that only allow you to use portrait mode. That makes them pretty much unplayable with a controller.

Speaking of controllers, support is hit or miss. Some games work fine with touch controls, but I find using a controller more comfortable. There are plenty of games on Arcade with controller support, but even among those games, there are quirks. For instance, Trials of Mana+ uses the Switch-style button layout, which was confusing to adjust to with my Xbox controller (I couldn't find any way in the game settings to change my control layout).

The one major issue I ran into was when I tried to play Disney Dreamlight Valley. This was the only Arcade game that ran genuinely bad on my iPad. To be fair, I'm using a 10th gen base iPad, not an M-series iPad Air or Pro. The few AAA games on the App Store are not eligible to download on my iPad, but Dreamlight Valley is. It technically runs, but the performance was so buggy I couldn't get through more than 15 minutes of it with a controller or touch controls.

I didn't have issues like that with any other Arcade games, but it's still worth keeping in mind that the Apple device you play on will impact performance. You'll generally have the best experience on devices with larger screens and M-series chips.

Conclusion

Will Apple Arcade replace my gaming PC any time soon? No. Could it dethrone my Switch Lite as my go-to choice for portable gaming? Surprisingly, yes. Of course, that won’t be the case for everyone. Your mileage on Apple Arcade is going to depend heavily on the types of games you prefer and the Apple device you’re playing on.

I would suggest Arcade most for casual gamers, fans of cozy gaming, and families. There are a handful of remakes of older games and some good RPGs, as well, but not quite enough to compete with the RPG library on the Switch.

On the other hand, the casual and cozy titles on Arcade are surprisingly good, including a couple I enjoyed even more than comparable Switch titles. Plus, if you’re sharing your iPad with your kids and want a library of micro-transaction-free games for them, Apple Arcade is a great choice with lots of kid-friendly titles.

Overall, Apple Arcade might still be a little rough around the edges, but it offers more value than expected with a solid selection of games, from cozy casual titles to fully-fledged RPGs.

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