The Switch 2 hands-on Bananza
We played it! It’s good! A cow can Mario Kart!
Hello there! What a week it’s been. We got so much exciting information about Switch 2 and its games, only for it to be mostly overshadowed by negative price reactions and tariff talk. Is $700 too much for Switch 2? I’d say it’s a reasonable price given the tech, but it obviously still sucks if anything over $500 is simply past your budget for silly luxuries, and that’s the case for a lot of people right now. Is $120 too much for Mario Kart World? That one’s even harder to swallow, but looks to be the unfortunate reality for many AAA games as everything continues to become more expensive.
But! Let’s not dwell on this abstract analysis too long, because Alice and I were actually both in New York to play the Switch 2 with our own four hands. From Mario Kart to Metroid to virtual robot wheelchair basketball, we did it all (plus more than 50 hours travel in five days) and are here to tell you our thoughts. In fact, for this week only, we’re suspending our usual format to focus entirely on the upcoming console.
The Nintendo Switch is all grown up
By Tim
Much has already been written about the Switch 2’s specs, so here I really want to focus on what it’s like in the hands. It’s obviously a bigger system, but my brain immediately accepted it as a Switch; it feels very similar to play.
Sticks and shoulder buttons are bigger, and although there’s no contoured grip it did feel less crampy to hold. I also gave it a bit of a flex and I think that the magnetic Joy-Con system has resulted in a much less creaky hold than the old sliding rails. It feels like one solid unit until you cathunk those boys out with the eject buttons.
And speaking of which, the Joy-Con 2 are much bigger, and playing with one in each hand felt quite different. The coloured part that goes inside the unit when attached adds a lot of width, so those with small hands may struggle. And yet, playing with a single Joy-Con sideways feels much better, thanks to the size and the bigger SL and SR buttons. HD Rumble has also had a notable overhaul. It’s stronger, but also feels more defined. Hopefully more third parties will take advantage of it this time.
I was expecting the move back to an LCD to be a disappointment but, although I didn’t compare the Switch 2 side-by-side with a Switch OLED, I was pleasantly surprised.
The display is bright but the colours are excellent and there’s plenty of contrast between the blacks and the highlights. Given that it’s bigger, 1080p, HDR and has a variable refresh up to 120Hz, I expect this screen to blow the Switch OLED’s out of the water for everything except pure black representation.
And finally, shout out to the pro controller and the charging grip, which are better and look cooler. Most notably, they both have a pair of rear grip buttons that sit flush with the back and feel great, ready to be programmed to whatever function you don’t want your thumbs to do.
Horizon: Mushroom Kingdom
By Alice
The Switch 2’s major launch title is basically a Mario Kart version of Forza Horizon. Mario Horizon, if you will. Reader, I cannot describe the sound I made when Mario Kart World was announced during the Nintendo Direct. There are three main components to Mario Kart World:
The regular races and grand prixes (now with up to 24 players)
A knockout mode where the bottom 4 players get eliminated at certain checkpoints
Open world exploration, because all the race tracks are connected
We got to play a few elements of this at the event: a regular race, a knock out race, and do a little exploration before the knock out race.
Exploring was fun, but in the little section before the race there weren’t any quests or anything, so it was just wandering around to see what was there. Useful for scouting short cuts, or playing without the threat of competition (which might be good for little kids), however not quite the Horizon dreams I had had. There may be quests in the proper free roam mode.
The regular races were awesome. So many new power ups, that I’m still not sure what most of them do despite playing as many races as I could get away with in the time allowed. There’s going to be heaps to discover.
The knock out race was my favourite, however. It was chaotic, it forced everyone to switch up their race strategies, and the stakes felt higher. I’m not sure if it’ll have the same feeling when you’re not in the same room as the 23 other races (and that seems difficult to organise anywhere other than a big event), but I can’t wait to find out.
Having all the circuits connected is such a great idea, and exploring Mario Kart World Pangea will likely reveal so many secrets and hidden stuff that I am really psyched for June.
Mouse mode engaged
By Alice and Tim
I really love that Nintendo decided to show off the mouse controls with Drag X Drive. Wheelchair basketball, much like wheelchair rugby, is hardcore. Not for the faint of heart. Just an incredible sport that should get so much more attention. Using the two JoyCon as mice is really the perfect way to represent the sport, too. It felt so satisfying to play. Difficult, both technically and physically, because it’s learning a whole new kind of muscle memory and it’s also just super hard. But it feels like a game that I want to become good at.
One thing that I found interesting was how easy it was to take the mouse controls off the table and onto my lap. Definitely playing on my legs put me at a disadvantage compared to using a table (like keyboard and mouse vs controller level of disadvantage). However it gave me hope that Nintendo doesn’t expect me to just suddenly put a desk in front of my couch. I only played two games of Drag X Drive, so I’ll need a lot more time with it to see if my initial assessment is correct, but it’s my second most anticipated game from the Direct and I can’t wait to dig into it further.
The other major use of mouse mode was in Metroid Prime 4. The tracking felt great, helped by the fact that the game was running on a TV at 120 frames per second. But if you’re used to PC first-person shooters there will be a learning curve. Your thumbs and index fingers are still working sticks and shoulder buttons, you’re just dragging your right hand instead of using a second stick, which broke my brain a bit.
And Prime doesn’t work like a regular shooter; you’re constantly holding the left shoulder to lock the camera, so the mouse movement becomes about hitting specific targets and not about turning or looking. That said, I did adjust to it. Best of all, you don’t have to toggle mouse mode with a button press or a menu. You just put the Joy-Con down on a surface to activate it, and if you pick it up the game snaps back to motion aiming. So you could easily use mouse mode just in the situations you wanted.
Here’s looking at you
by Alice
Another feature Nintendo announced is the “C” button. “C” stands for “GameChat”, where friends can talk to each other over a game, see what everyone else is playing, and even see each other. Like Zoom for Zoomers. It’s likely not a feature I’d regularly use unless there’s another lockdown, but the more exciting part of the announcement is that the camera can also be used for motion controls. I’m really interested to see if that actually takes off. Obviously, both Xbox and PlayStation have tried to make camera controls happen with the Kinect and PlayStation Eye, but it never quite stuck. Having played Mario Party Jamboree Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV with the camera, I think Nintendo is the perfect company to try and make it happen. If camera motion controls are ever going to take off, this is their moment, because Nintendo has always been able to embrace the whacky and make it work.
However, it suffered a lot of the same issues that the Kinect did. When playing, it would occasionally just stop recognising my movements, leading me to lose the game. I was doing all the right things, it just wasn’t seeing me. And this was in controlled conditions.
That said, the Kinect and PlayStation Eye were expensive add ons. With the Switch 2, you can use almost any decent camera, lowering both the barrier to entry and (I think) people’s expectations. Plus it opens up a lot of fun merchandising opportunities (pictured above is the Hori camera, shaped amazingly like a piranha plant).
I want camera controls to work, they’re what make Just Dance proper fun, and open up a lot of future possibilities for Ring Fit Adventure. Whether this is their moment is up to Nintendo.
Open world punchapalooza
by Tim
Donkey Kong Bananza was a lovely surprise, as I had convinced myself that a new 3D Mario would be in this slot. DKB has big Mario Odyssey vibes, both in presentation and in the way its levels are open and filled with hidden objectives to uncover. Yet while Mario had an established 3D move set to expand upon, his one-time nemesis hasn’t been in a 3D platformer for a quarter of a decade, so things were a bit less familiar.
DK can run, jump, grab and roll around as you may expect, but if you mash X, Y or B he can also punch upward, forward or down. It’s a wild and unique setup, designed so you can tunnel forcefully in any direction through the highly destructible levels.
Smashing stuff is definitely fun, but what I only really got a hint of in the demo was the goal or purpose of it all. Some surfaces are harder and require more punching, or you can rip up some exploding rock and throw it. If I dug too deep I was able to reach an entirely different level, but the demo blocked any further exploration. A counter seemed to be keeping track of gold and gems I found, but for what purpose I can’t say.
It’s very possible that once I see the hub world and progression, and have a better idea of the overall objectives, everything will fall into place. But with just the two demo areas it wall felt a bit strange. I burrowed in random directions to find hidden treasures, but will there be ways to actually detect them or will you have to dig methodically? Every hole I bored out seemed to stay permanently. Does it refill eventually or will every level end up empty? Are they built procedurally?
Questions aside, Nintendo has earned our trust on this one and seeing DK back in action was amazing. He game is wonderfully animated and runs great considering everything that’s going on. The camera did get stuck pretty much constantly, but it’s entirely possible that endlessly digging is not the way you’re supposed to play.