Want to curl up on the couch with your partner or buddy on a weekend night and play games, but when you open the eShop and see a screen full of discounted games with names you've never heard of, you can't figure out which ones are "fun for two people to play together." I bet you've run into this situation more than once.

I have too. So lately, my habit is: don't open the Switch first, open the StarBar App first. Unlike the official store, this place has few ads and more straightforward info. Today, I'll walk through my actual steps from last weekend as a demo. The goal is to find a Chinese-language game that's just right for two players and not too hardcore.

Step 1: Start from the "Switch Game Recommendations" entry

The app's homepage is clean, with few push notifications or pop-ups. I scroll straight down to find the "Switch Game Recommendations" section. Note: this isn't the kind of column where editors casually toss in a few first-party titles; it's dynamically updated based on popularity, ratings, and community discussion volume. I see a few familiar names in the top spots—The Legend of Zelda is there, of course, but that's not our target today. I need something we can play together in the living room.

After tapping into the section, I immediately see the category filter tags. Instead of directly clicking the "Two-Player Co-op" main category, I first tap the "Two-Player Switch Games" tag. The list under this tag is pretty refined—it's not just a brute-force keyword match, but a compilation of reviews left by community members after they actually carpooled and rented together. Games without reviews end up far down the list.

Step 2: Don't be too greedy with filters

My first move was to lock in the language: only select "Chinese version." Then I changed the player limit from "2+ players" to "2 players, same screen." Many games claim to support multiplayer, but it turns out to be online-only, making it wasteful to buy two digital copies. I want the kind where you plug in a dock and play together.

After filtering, I got about 18 results. The first one was Unravel Two, followed by Two Point Hospital's two-player mode? I hadn't tried that before, so I made a note. These games also frequently show up in the "Nintendo Game Recommendations" popular list. I hesitated a bit between It Takes Two and Unravel Two. The former is more famous, but the latter has a lower learning curve—you don't need both players to have advanced skills. For someone co-oping with me, Unravel Two is more practical.

Step 3: Use "Indie Game Recommendations" to decide if it's worth buying

I don't fully trust Metacritic scores to decide whether to buy, because some games are hit-or-miss. In StarBar's "Indie Game Recommendations" section, you can read honest reviews from players with over 30 hours of playtime. For example, a long review under Unravel Two pointed out a big issue: "When two players share the screen, the camera occasionally zooms out too far, making details hard to see." This isn't a bug—it's a design limitation. If one player is slower, they can easily fall off in tight spaces and have to restart, which can test your patience. Knowing this, I felt more grounded; it's not a blind buy.

Also, in the "Game Encyclopedia," you can see a few video clips—not official trailers, but 30-second real gameplay recordings from players, which give a direct look at the visuals. The worst thing about two-player games is when they look great on the surface but are a mess to actually play.

Step 4: Payment and price can be squeezed further

StarBar itself offers family membership sharing and digital game purchases. I casually checked the price of this game. On the eShop, it's nearly $50, but here I found carpool rental options for about one-third of that. It's not the latest big title, but we'd finish it in a few weeks anyway, so renting and then not needing to buy made sense. This kind of choice is common and reasonable in the community.

However, I noticed a practical issue: rental memberships have limits on usage count and time, and some "niche but high-rated" games don't support this sharing method. For instance, I wanted to carpool It Takes Two, but found that this landlord only does carpools for popular blockbusters. Niche indie games take a week or two to get resources. If you're in a hurry, you might just have to buy directly.

Final: My conclusion is actually simple

Throughout this whole process, I barely used a search engine or scrolled through those ad-heavy "game rankings." I did everything sitting on my living room couch—from finding Switch game recommendations to finally ordering the membership, it took less than half an hour. If I had just browsed the eShop's built-in lists, I might have already bought three games that look great but have no one to play with.

Next time you want to find a reliable two-player Switch game, just follow these steps. The truly great experiences are often not in the most prominent spots on the homepage. And you need a sufficiently direct channel to help you find them.