After Nintendo’s intriguing hour-long live stream on Wednesday, we now know a lot more about its follow-up to the phenomenally successful Switch. But how does the Switch 2 play? After the online presentation, I got to spend about four hours road-testing the new console at a press event in the Grand Palais, Paris, the box-white exhibition hall adorned in Nintendo red and lined with rows of high-end TV screens and Switch 2 consoles. There was also a 90-minute roundtable with three of the masterminds behind the console: Tetsuya Sasaki (hardware design lead), Kouichi Kawamoto (producer) and Takuhiro Dohta (director). Here’s what I learned.
The games
Mario Kart World
The headline feature here (playable cow aside) is Knockout Tour mode, which replaces the traditional three-lap circuits with hefty sprints across a sprawling world map. There are 24 racers, double that of its predecessor, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. As you progress, large checkpoints emerge on the horizon and at each of these the bottom four racers drop out. This continues until the final stretch, when the final four duke it out for first place. Think Mario Kart does battle royale. It’s intense. It’s exciting. It runs incredibly smoothly and will reinvigorate even the most hardened – dare I say jaded – Mario Kart player.
Elsewhere there is a more traditional Mario Kart experience where everyone gets to finish the race. You’re still sprinting across some configuration of a world map – one moment you’re driving through Boo’s cinema, the next you’re hurtling through a Toad-branded manufacturing plant. Tweaks from the previous game include: a few new weapons, skidding feels less agile, the tracks feel less claustrophobic and they’ve styled Waluigi like Steven Van Zandt.
Super Mario Party Jamboree
Mario Party is Nintendo’s party game franchise – board games, mini games, screwing each other over, players taking it far too seriously … you get the drill. This series has always allowed Nintendo to showcase the quirkier aspects of its hardware, and the camera works well in the mini games I played. I enjoyed the goomba-catching mini game (named Goombalancing Act): you stand in front of the console and camera, then marvel as you’re projected on to the TV, now with a red pedestal on your head; as goombas begin falling from the sky you bob and weave to catch, stack and balance. The player with the most goombas at the end wins.
Elsewhere, there’s a squatting/standing decision based game (I can already see the camera being incorporated into the next Ring Fit/Wii Fit title) and a game that rewards those who move and shout the most, making use of the inbuilt microphone (this one might quickly grow old). It’s all very reminiscent of PlayStation’s EyeToy. The mouse functionality gets a run-out too – tagging Bob-ombs with spray scans is the standout (you literally shake the Joy-Con like a canister when you run out of spray).
At the roundtable we’re told that Nintendo developed the microphone to remove unwanted external noise, but the sound of clapping will still get picked up, to allow the full emotion of the experience to come through. Nintendo is clearly trying to keep the spirit of local multiplayer gaming alive at a time where people are more isolated and less inclined to leave their homes. There’s an option to have your friends appear via camera at the bottom of your screen too. Being able to look people in the eye as you stab them in the back at a digital board game – that’s what makes life worth living.
Drag x Drive
Drag x Drive is Nintendo’s combination of Rocket League and wheelchair basketball. You hold the Joy-Con in “mouse mode”, one in each hand, and then manouvre as though you’re operating a wheelchair. There’s a tutorial which takes some getting used to and at times it makes your arm ache a bit, but thankfully the game itself is less taxing and much more about smaller motions and precision. If you don’t have a table in front of you to use the mouse then it’s designed to work on your lap. I gave this a try, but quickly became conscious of the fact that I was a 35-year-old man furiously rubbing his legs under a table.
And the rest …
There have been concerns that the more iterative approach to the new Switch marks a new age for Nintendo, one where its less weird. Well, look no further than Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. Picture the Switch 2 on its side, then enlarge it to the size of the airport, then turn buttons into kiosks with digital receptionists that you can explore: essentially it’s a playable guide to your console through the medium of mini games, explainers, tutorials and quizzes. It is more fun that it sounds … just.
In Donkey Kong Bananza you run around and destroy a lot of rocks. Maybe it was just the early levels I played, but it feels as if it skews toward a beginner audience. It looks amazing though. Then there’s Metroid Prime 4. The opening sequence was playable here and all I’ll say is it looks and feels exactly like Metroid Prime Remastered (complimentary) but slightly more vibrant, cinematic and busy, with mouse functionality for those who play their shooters that way.
The hardware
The Switch 2 is more of an iterative hop than a grand redesign. The focus is on pragmatic changes that improve quality of life. It’s a wider model than its predecessor, and though it feels sturdier it doesn’t feel that much heavier in handheld mode. The bigger screen pops, as you’d expect; and it all looks very sleek and less like a toy. It all feels like marginal gains, but together adds up to a much slicker, more modern device.
The Joy-Con feels more durable, weightier than their predecessors and more comfortable to hold, with bigger buttons that are less awkward to press (the shoulder buttons in particular). I wasn’t able to test out the magnetic attach/detach aspect, but I was able to detach the thin case that goes over the edges once they’re no longer docked in the system – what a relief to no longer be messing about with those cheap black sliders. As for the dreaded Joy-Con drift, we were told during the roundtable that the new models have been designed from the ground up to account for bigger and smoother movements.
The pro controller feels exactly as it did before, albeit with joysticks that feel slightly more durable and comfortable. I have minor concerns about accidentally hitting the new buttons at the base of the controller in the heat of karting battle – accidentally firing off a premature red shell maybe – but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. In the developer roundtable it was also confirmed that Joy-Con and pro controllers from the previous generation would be compatible with the Switch 2 (though presumably with some obvious restrictions on functionality).
A note on the performance of the Switch 2: in my four hours’ playtime I remember seeing one loading screen. That was for Cyberpunk and it lasted maybe five to 10 seconds. I only had a few minutes to play, so immediately began shooting Night City cops to start a riot – and my brief impressions are that the hardware coped pretty well with the ensuing carnage. Likewise for Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. I immediately loaded the save marked Korok Forest and sprinted under the Deku Tree, witnessing the forest for the first time without a single frame dropping.
The verdict
Whether or not Nintendo can convince diehard fans like me isn’t the question here. Nintendo has often struggled with following up its triumphs in the home console market, lurching from runaway success to squandered opportunities. When the original Switch came out in March 2017, it was off the back of the dismal performance of the Wii U, a device that sold 13.5m units in its lifetime. Its job was to move devotees on from a failing system and convince casual gamers to come back. Nintendo has a different job this time around: it now has to convince perhaps the largest install base in its history (150m units sold and counting) to make the switch (I’m sorry) to its reasonably similar new model. It’s a big ask for Nintendo, and in this climate of home console uncertainty, for the entire industry.
