The skinny on Switch 2’s thin mouse controls
Plus Magic in space, Nintendo Direct, and Killer7 turns 20.
Hello there! It’s another happy Nintendo Direct morning, assuming that you had set your expectations appropriately for a random August “partner direct”. No major face-melting announcements but some nice filling-in of the rest of the year if you like your games Japanese and weird and/or RPGs. In addition to reminding us about game we’ve already seen, the Direct revealed a Pac-Man World 2 remaster, a brand new Katamari game, Persona 3 Reload, Yakuza Kiwami I & II and Octopath Taveller 0 all coming this year. And for next year, Monster Hunter Stories 3 and original HD-2D action-RPG Adventures of Elliot. Also interesting were some of the games coming to other platforms that were confirmed for Switch 2, including survival horror Cronos from Bloober Team. It will be interesting to see how these perform on the tiny new tablet.
This week in the newsletter we’re testing out mouse controls on the Switch 2, diving into the new Magic the Gathering set, and running down some July game anniversaries.
Mouse mode engaged
By Tim
Allowing each Switch 2 Joy-Con to act as an optical mouse is a cool idea, but is it going to take off? A month into the system’s life we’ve seen a few different ways to implement the feature, but at this point I think it’s fair to say that anyone hoping to play all their games at a desk with a PC-like interface may be disappointed.
The most traditional-style mouse controls I’ve tried so far have been in shooters Cyberpunk 2077, Metroid Prime 4 and Fortnite, but it definitely feels a little off. For starters your left hand isn’t on a WASD but holding a left Joy-Con, which is a new posture to get used to. But the shape of the right Joy-Con is also far from mouse-like. You need to hold your index and middle fingers straight along the controller to rest on the shoulder buttons, while your ring and little fingers curl with nothing to rest on and your thumb sits awkwardly on the analogue stick. I couldn’t lift it at all unless I adopted a very specific thumb-and-middle-finger vice grip further back, and then I’ve only got one finger on the clickers. The Joy-con can also tilt since the surface contacting the ground is so skinny.
Games getting weirder with the mouse controls fare a bit better, for example Deltarune and Bravely Default both have specific mini-games that use it, making the control scheme a temporary challenge rather than something you need to use all the time. The motion-sensing of the Joy-Con gives you options for control not present in a regular mouse, which is interesting. However I was not impressed after my time with Drag x Drive, and I’m not confident Nintendo will find many innovative ways to use the mouse given the decades of refinement the control method has had on PC.
The most obvious use case is in games with any kind of point-and-click interface. Mouse controls have been added to Civilization VII, Kinutsi-Gami, Nobunaga’s Ambition and No Sleep of Kaname Date, as well as the original Switch’s Game Builder Garage. In this sense, mouse is a great addition to touchscreen and pointer controls for letting you play how you like. But this week Nintendo also added Mario Paint to its SNES app, a game I must have played for hundreds of hours, and it made it clear to me how distinct the new mouse controls are. The rapid swipe-and-lift motion I’m used to just doesn’t work, and the buttons turn off if there’s no contact with the ground; it feels like you have to be slower and more careful.
An inevitable third-party accessory shaped like a regular desktop mouse, which you can insert the Joy-Con into, will solve a lot of these problems. The question is, how motivated will developers be to keep utilising mouse controls in their Switch 2 games?
What to play
New mouse aside, Mario Paint is still totally playable and remains an excellent collection of silly creativity tools. If you’re on Switch 1 you can even plug a USB mouse in to play. Nintendo’s added mouse support to Mario’s Super Picross on the SNES app too. I’d argue it’s better with the controller, but options are always good! Add Mario & Wario next please.
New to Game Pass this week is the early access version of Obsidian’s Grounded 2, an online co-op survival sandbox inspired by Honey I Shrunk the Kids. It may be early, but you can already farm and ride bugs, so it sounds pretty good. Keep an eye out also in the next few days for Farming Simulator 25.
Currently free on Epic Games is Legion TD 2, a party-based wave tactics game. In a couple of days it will trade off with hilarious card-based storyteller Pilgrims, from the Machinarium and Samarost devs.
Bricks, Boards and Beginnings
by Alice
There’s a new Magic the Gathering set out this week and it’s so good, friends. Edge of Eternities is fantasy space themed, and for lore nerds there’s a lot to love. Lots of story, to the point where Wizards of the Coast is now showcasing the narrative on the MTG website more neatly and prominently.
That’s not what I’m coming to Magic for, though. I’m here for the weird combos, and the big creatures that make more big creatures, and for that kind of thing this is the most fun I’ve had deck building with a new set in a long time.
For example, Exalted Sunborn is a 5 cost White card that doubles the number of tokens you make. Given how much token generation there is in this set, that is going to be dangerous. There’s also a big focus on Landfall effects, which do useful things whenever you play a land. Given that’s something you do most turns, that’s quite helpful. The reprint of Shock Lands (dual lands with extra features) is another thing that’s going to be welcomed.
The highlight for me, though, is that I got to play and then use possibly the most ridiculous card to hit Magic in a long time, and it was exactly as fun as I hoped it would be.The Dominion Bracelet is a Legendary Artifact - Equipment that gives a creature +1/+1, and if you pay 15 - the creature’s power, you can take target opponent’s next turn. You control their creatures, their hands, everything. You have the whole turn for them. I attached this to an 11/11, took my opponent’s turn, did a suicide mission with all their creatures, and then killed them in my next turn. It’s the perfect card for only children who are bad at taking turns. It was incredibly satisfying, and fun, and felt vaguely illegal, which is always the sign of a great card.
For those interested in the core mechanics of the set, there are space ships that you have to crew, similar to vehicles, only more complicated. However, screw spaceships. I want to play all my opponents’ turns. This is shaping up to be a great set, and I can’t wait to see the decks people build with it.
Retro Esoterica
by Tim
Here are some games that celebrated a major anniversary in July.
Now 20: Killer7 This was the video game that introduced the western gaming public to the surreal and anti-establishment stylings of game auteur and pro wrestling obsessive Suda51. Though he had directed a number of games in Japan, this was easily his biggest worldwide exposure by this point, and would be followed up a few years later by the legitimate mainstream success of No More Heroes. Killer7 has a delightfully impenetrable plot, a scary found-footage vibe and a stylish cel shaded look, though its gameplay was tough to adjust to at the time and would be hard to go back to now. You can switch between a number of assassin personas and run through on-rails levels like an old-school adventure game, but punctuated with frustrating first-person shooter segments. The arthouse presentation and strong narrative concepts hold up though, and were well ahead of their time.
Now 35: Dr Mario I have no idea how Nintendo arrived at this concept. Falling block puzzles were a big deal and this is the first of many the company would make, but the road from “we need a new Tetris” to “Mario is a doctor who throws pills into a bottle to kill viruses” is unclear. It would make more sense if he was throwing them into someone’s body, but there would still be questions. Regardless, it’s a brilliant puzzle design with some all-time-great music, and both the NES and Game Boy versions (released simultaneously) have rightly been kept alive across many subsequent Nintendo systems.
Now 40: Hang-on Designed and programmed by Sega legend Yu Suzuki, Hang-on used the brand new 16-bit Super Scaler arcade board to produce a convincing 3D effect, in a time when almost all video games were 2D scrolling affairs. Of course the behind-the-vehicle perspective seems pedestrian now (and there wasn’t much to the gameplay either, you stepped up the gears to reach top speed and moved left and right to avoid exploding on obstacles and rival racers), but it was a major innovation at the time. The cabinet also kicked off the craze of motion-controlled games; the standard unit had a set of handlebars you tilted, while the deluxe version was a full motorcycle you sat on and leaned left and right to steer, with the monitor integrated into the front.