Review

Nintendo Switch review: The most fascinating video game console in years

Nintendo Switch
Nintendo Switch is released 3 March for £279.99

Will Switch be the great console comeback that Nintendo so desperately crave? That is the question that will persist as the intriguing home-and handheld hybrid console arrives on the market on Friday.

Following the commercial disappointment that was the Wii U, Nintendo scoured its hardware legacy to create what is, essentially, a greatest hits console. The simplicity and playfulness of the NES, the motion control of the Wii, and the portability and touchscreen of the DS.

Glimmers of Nintendo’s formidable history can be seen in a console that, typically for the Kyoto company, is quite unlike its competitors.

This is, essentially, a handheld tablet that can dock to your TV and switching between the two is instant and uncomplicated.

What it lacks in sheer technological grunt it makes up for with charm and innovation. Its party piece to either play at home or take on the go is a handy elevator pitch, but there is more to it than that, with its impressive, adaptable Joy-Con controllers lending it a sense of invention rarely seen.

Too idiosyncratic for an often risk-averse market? Perhaps. And question marks abound over pricing, strategy and a patchy games library. But purely in hardware terms, the Switch is a fascinating piece of work.

What’s in the box?

For the £279.99 price tag, you are getting the Switch tablet itself, the dock that connects the console to the TV, the left-and-right JoyCon controllers and a grip to snap them together to form a more traditional gamepad. You also get a HDMI cable and an AC adaptor that goes into the dock or the console itself.

It is quick and easy to get started, with Nintendo smartly running you through setup on the tablet’s screen before you connect the dock to the TV and slot the console inside.

Nintendo Switch
Nintendo Switch

Then, in a delightful piece of technological magic, the picture appears instantly on the big screen. Take the console out and it instantly reverts to the tablet. It is a simple thing at heart and, of course, ‘throwing’ mobile device content to a television has been done extensively before. But rarely with such little delay or effort.

The dock is little more than a small, black plastic box with a couple of sockets, and feels deliberately under-designed in order to slip discreetly by the side of the television.

The tablet itself is a simple, smart piece of kit, with most of its real estate taken up by its 6.2” screen. The SD-esque game-cards go in a slot in the top right, the Joy-Cons connect either side of the device with a satisfying click, a headphone jack sits on top, while extra memory can be slotted into a SD card slot under the kickstand used for ‘tabletop’ mode.

It’s all very neat, tidy and simple to use. The only compromise in its form coming with the charge socket on the underside, meaning you can’t plug the device in while using the kickstand. This is an irritation on a console that has otherwise been refined to an inch of its life, making sure that it retains accessibility while feeling like a premium device.

And it really does. The Switch is a world away from the chunky, toy-like plastic of the Wii U gamepad, feeling weighty and luxurious in the hands. The Joy-Cons, in particular, are a surprising delight. Essentially miniature Wii remotes, these motion-control equipped wands are bristling with buttons and features, and impress in whatever configuration you are using them in - attached to the side of the console, snapped into the grip or independently.

What isn’t in the box?

Most new game consoles harbour hidden costs in some form, but Switch’s modular nature means there are a slew of peripherals and extras you might want to consider. Which, of course, will bump up that already significant price.

Games aside, you will be able to get on with your Switch quite happily with the basic pack; you can charge the Joy-Cons on the side of the console, and splitting them up will allow you 2-person multiplayer on certain games. But in an attempt to drive that initial outlay below £300, it feels like a few corners have been cut.

Unusually for a Nintendo console, there is no pack-in game with the Switch (mini-game compendium 1-2-Switch was the obvious candidate), although it is worth noting that it is rare for other console manufacturers to do so either. But you will still need to account for at least one game in the starting price.

As for the kit itself, perhaps the most eyebrow-raising compromise is that the Joy-Con grip in the box cannot charge your controllers while you play. For that you will have to spend extra on a USB equipped grip (£24.99), which feels like the most egregious penny-pinching omission.

Elsewhere, the internal memory of the Switch is only 32GB which, if you are intending to buy games digitally, will not get you far at all. On the plus side, you can upgrade the memory simply by slotting in an SD card, which can be bought relatively cheaply… but still make for extra cost.

Other peripherals are more optional but startlingly priced. Another set of Joy-Cons will set you back an eye-watering £74.99, while the more traditional ‘Pro’ controller is £64.99. Although a quick word on that: the Switch’s Pro controller is quite possibly the best gamepad I have ever used; perfectly moulded to the hands, with chunky, responsive face buttons and analogue sticks. The only blot being the anachronistic digital (rather than analogue) triggers. It packs a formidable battery life between charges too.

User interface

One thing Nintendo tends to do quietly well is in the front-end menus of its consoles. They are usually quick, simple and afforded a characterful Nintendo flourish (think Pikmin delivering your downloads on your 3DS). Switch is no different, with a clean interface that loads almost immediately after powering on. And, as the physical games come on small cards rather than discs, there is no need for the lengthy install processes that have become the norm when starting a new game.

You can set up profiles for friends and family (with different parental settings) as you might expect, but a nice touch is that the menu can have all profiles accessible and will ask you who is playing when you start a game.

A Nintendo employee at the Switch presentation ceremony
A Nintendo employee at the Switch presentation ceremony Credit: REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

This means players in one home can dive into their own game of Zelda without wholesale switching of profiles or fear of deleting a housemate’s file. It has clearly been organised with families in mind, and makes the idea of sharing the console easy. There is also a breezily written and colourfully illustrated ‘News’ section which gives advice to players and parents about how to use the console. A thoroughly Nintendo touch.

Elsewhere, most of the Switch’s console features were not available at the time of writing as its online servers were not turned on. It will be interesting to see how Nintendo’s paid online subscription service will pan out, given the sad passing of Miiverse, and what features we can expect in terms of the eShop and Virtual Console.

Games

The majority of my playtime thus far with the Switch is with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and 1-2-Switch. Two more different games you couldn’t imagine, but together manage to show off the various aspects of the console.

Breath of the Wild is magnificent; a gorgeous, vast adventure that has you exploring a fantasy world as a legendary hero. It is, in other words, a ‘proper’ video game with potentially 100 hours of content and is a pleasure to play either at home or on the move.

On that note, the battery life of an undocked Switch seems to fall somewhere between 2 ½ to 5 hours depending on how intensively you are using it. Which doesn’t sound a huge amount but compares relatively favourably with many other tablets and handhelds. Mercifully the console goes into sleep mode if the battery dies, giving you a certain period of grace to plug in and save your progress before it conks out completely.

You can tell that Switch doesn’t pack the technological grunt of its home console competitors, PS4 and Xbox One, when connected to the TV. Nintendo has long eschewed raw power for unique control styles and input, with Zelda outputting at 900p while in TV mode and lacking that sharpness of resolution that modern consoles bring.

Curiously, there was some minor slowdown in Zelda while in TV mode when the screen was busied with weather. Nothing that would spoil your enjoyment, but a niggle that wasn’t present when playing on the tablet, the screen popping with colour and vivacity. And, despite the lower resolution of 720p, on the smaller screen the game was considerably crisper.

Nintendo’s positioning of Switch as its next home console has somewhat disguised the fact that it is the most capable handheld games machine ever made. The adaptable Joy-Cons are a big part of this, offering full control and avoiding the cramped button layout that has niggled at even the very best handhelds. They are still a little more tightly packed than traditional controllers, with the button/stick layout more vertically aligned than usual. But it doesn’t take much adapting during play.

I would note that I only have slender hands, so someone with bigger paws might find it more difficult. But generally I have found the Joy-Cons a pleasure to use. There have been reports elsewhere of syncing issues (particularly with the left controller) which are too prevalent to ignore, but I personally haven’t experienced the issue.

1-2-Switch, meanwhile, shows off the Joy-Cons more idiosyncratic traits. It is a 28 mini-game compendium that makes use the motion control and ‘HD rumble’, players competing in sword-fights, dance-offs and, er, milking competitions among many other daft distractions.

These are a lot of chaotic fun, although many are interesting tech demos in their own right. One game has you tilting the controller to feel how many balls are simulated inside by the precise HD rumble. It picks up a subtlety in both motion and vibration that you won’t have felt in a mainstream console before and while they are ultimately small features, it gives you an idea of what is packed into the Joy-Cons and makes you hope developers will take advantage of their unique assets.

The Joy-Cons are a pleasure to use
The Joy-Cons are a pleasure to use
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For that, though, we will have to wait and see. Much has been made of the Switch’s slim launch line-up. As release has closed in, more games have joined launch day ranks, such as the excellent co-op puzzler Snipperclips and the heralded Shovel Knight.

In terms of big hitters, though, Zelda is currently your only option. But what an option it is. The Switch may find itself in the unusual position of having one the smallest launch line-ups in history, but the best individual launch game since Super Mario 64. Although Breath of the Wild also releasing on Wii U does muddy that issue.

As the year progresses, things start to look healthier for the library. Barmy fighter Arms and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be here by April. Splatoon 2 arrives in summer, while Super Mario Odyssey comes at Christmas. While just yesterday, Nintendo revealed an impressive slew of independent titles, including Stardew Valley, Thumper and Steamworld Dig 2.

Many of the games here will or have already appeared on other platforms, but the message that Nintendo will be opening its hardware up to smaller developers more than it has done in the past is a strong one. It is also reasonable to expect Nintendo and third-parties to announce new games following Switch’s release, particularly at this year’s E3.

Should you buy one?

“Expect”. That is the crux of the issue when it comes to buying a Switch at launch. This is, without question, the most fascinating video games console released in years. Its hybrid nature is a treat; seamlessly switching between its modes with a quiet flourish, from TV to a handheld screen that is crisp and bright.

The Joy-Cons, the adaptable facilitators of this whole operation, are a delight, carrying an impressive amount of technological heft on their tiny frames. It is the type of hardware that is a pleasure simply to handle, to explore, to play with.

Yet there is the sense that this is a ‘soft launch’. The immediate games library is not huge and some features are yet to be activated or finalised. Even Nintendo themselves, in an interview with the Telegraph, said that they saw Super Mario Odyssey as the Switch’s marquee title and worked backwards to figure out a solid release schedule that spanned the whole year. By the time our favourite portly plumber arrives on his new home, the library will be looking a lot more impressive.

WWE star John Cena gets to grips with the Switch
WWE star John Cena gets to grips with the Switch Credit: John Sciulli/Getty Images

As far as Day One is concerned, much will come down to if you are the type of person who needs to be on the zeitgeist with new technology and, more pressingly, how much you want to play the superior version of Breath of the Wild. To which the answer, I would suggest, is ‘a lot’.

There is some argument that such a game will swallow your time enough that by the time you are done, there will be more out there for Switch ready to play. Buying a video game console at launch is always something of a punt, but more than ever with the Switch, you are paying for potential. Of which, there is an enormous amount.

The Nintendo Switch will be on sale from Friday and will be available from retailers, including GAME, Nintendo and Argos, for £279.

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