Nintendo’s latest hardware may lack surprises, but it’s a confident follow-up to one of its best ever – here’s our full Switch 2 review, including everything you need to know about the system

For a company that feels destined to reinvent the wheel with its hardware offerings with each generation, there’s something a little flat about the Nintendo Switch 2. Where the N64 added an analogue stick, the Wii added motion controls, and the Switch moved to a handheld/home console hybrid, the Switch 2 is a much easier ‘elevator pitch’.

“It’s a Switch, but better” isn’t the most exciting statement to make, and yet after almost two weeks with Nintendo’s latest console, I’m thrilled that it marks a refinement of a formula I fell in love with in 2017.

Is it the most powerful console around? No (it’s not even the most powerful handheld) but when you boot up something like Mario Kart World that you can’t play elsewhere, it really doesn’t matter one jot.

While there are flaws, however, it’s not stopped me picking up the console every single day, often to replay titles I’ve played elsewhere. And, if you don’t own a PS5 or an Xbox, it’s going to blow your mind getting to play the likes of Cyberpunk 2077 and Hitman on the go.

Playing with power

While the original Switch was never marketed as being a powerful console (its hardware was a little behind the curve even when it arrived in 2017), its ability to, ahem, switch between two forms was a breath of fresh air for the industry.

And, while there has been some revisionist history going on(all of you folks moaning about Zelda at 30 FPS didn’t care about it when the console launched), it was strange to see Nintendo talk a great deal about visual fidelity in its April Nintendo Direct.

Estimates put the Switch 2 at around 10 times the power of the Switch 1, and it doesn’t take long to believe that for yourself. Powering up, it’s the little things.

The store actually loads pretty quickly, while the UI is much clearer. And yet, these are really foundational things Nintendo probably could’ve ironed out across the Switch generation. Still, holding off does mean moving from Switch 1 to Switch 2 is a jump you’ll never want to have to make in reverse.

We’ll come to gaming performance shortly, but let’s talk displays. Switch 2 marks somewhat of a regression from the Switch 1 OLED in that it reverts to an LCD panel, and while we’re 99% sure we’ll see a Switch 2 OLED in a couple of years, it’s not something you’ll miss all that much.

Sure, the Switch 2 shows dark greys which really should be blacks, and the contrast isn’t quite as stark, but when you’re playing Mario Kart World at 1080p, at up to 120 frames per second, it’s hard not to say the tradeoff was worth it.

Plug it into your TV, of course, and the Switch 2 can output at 4K. The dock actually helps push the performance even further, but resolution isn’t everything.

We’ll be talking in depth about The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom later this week, but while they’re now playable in 4K and with locked frame rates, you’ll still notice some older-looking textures.

Back to Night City

That brings us to games, and one in particular, which we were fairly sure would never run on a Nintendo console: Cyberpunk 2077.

Let’s make this super clear and say that if you have any other way of playing Cyberpunk 2077, be that on a current-gen console or a capable PC, you’ll get more impressive visuals.

And yet, the work CD Projekt and Nintendo have done here is nothing short of wizardry. Walking the neon-tinged streets of Night City on a handheld while you’re actually sitting on the train feels like it would have been a pipedream when you consider the state in which Cyberpunk 2077 launched in 2020.

The game isn’t alone, either. There are some fantastic ports to be found here. Street Fighter 6’s graffiti-infused style pops on Switch 2 and looks gorgeous in motion, while Hitman: World of Assassination packs a whole host of exotic locales to stalk and murder your way around in a device you can fit in a (large) pocket.

These games look better on PS5, sure, but just as with Switch 1, I can see myself buying games again for the novelty of taking them on the go.

Still, that brings up the elephant in the room: the rise of handheld PCs like the Steam Deck or ROG Ally. It’s a market that grows month by month, and feeds into a major narrative surrounding Switch 2—its price.

A PS5 and Cyberpunk 2077 will cost you less than a Switch 2 with the game, so you’ll need to decide whether you want to trade off the visuals on a big-screen TV for the joy of a handheld.

And, if you have a powerful PC, you can play your existing library on something like a Steam Deck, which may make a handheld PC more suited to you.

Ain’t no party like a first-party

Still, if you’re here for Nintendo titles, there’s only one console to pick up. Third-party games aside, though, the current lineup of Nintendo’s own titles consists of Zelda upgrades and Mario Kart World.

We’ll have more thoughts on each, but if you really don’t want to splash out for a game or two to go with the system, titles like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet run drastically better on the new system.

Having sidestepped an entire generation of Pokémon titles because the frame rate gave me a genuine headache, Switch 2 means I can play them as if they’re new games. Should it have taken a £400 console to reach this point? No, here’s hoping more games get Switch 2 patches.

Just Joy, No Con

We’re still not entirely sure how Nintendo managed to make the Switch 2 the same thickness as the Switch 2, but it’s pretty comfortable to hold, even for someone with large hands like myself.

Still, the Switch 1 was pretty comfortable to play until you wanted to hand a Joy-Con to a friend, and that’s where the hand cramp began.

Thankfully, Switch 2’s Joy-Con are significantly larger and have much larger ‘rail buttons’, which means they’re much more enjoyable to use. Questions will remain about potential stick drift issues (no Hall Effect sticks here), but on the plus side, I love the new magnetic connection that feels more secure than the Switch 1’s sliding mechanism ever did.

With that said, I’ve still found myself reaching for the Pro Controller while I play in docked mode. The Joy-Con grip is fine (but the charging model still isn’t included in the box), but the latest model in Nintendo’s Pro family is infinitely more comfortable while also being quieter than its predecessor.

You can still use the older model, though, and you can use the Joy-Cons from Switch 1 for anything that doesn’t require them to be attached to the system.

If you do want to play with the controllers detached, the kickstand is fantastic. In fact, with the Pro Controller and the kickstand, I’ve got a new favourite way to play on the go.

And, while you’re on the go, you’ll get about two hours of battery life while playing Mario Kart World, and the USB-C port on top makes it much easier to charge while travelling.

Talk the talk

The new controllers all feature ‘C’ buttons that trigger GameChat, Nintendo’s long-awaited party chat functionality.

It still feels strange that it’ll become a paid feature in the coming years, but it’ll definitely act as a great way to get friends and family together.

Text-to-speech is a nice inclusion, while sharing screens is neat, too, although it does come with frame rate hiccups.

Speaking of which, the new camera attachment felt like a gimmick when it was revealed (or a suggestion that the console was being planned during a pandemic), but it’s a fun way to add spice to a Mario Kart session.

Seeing your rival’s face as they speed past is added motivation to get back to the front of the pack, but it’ll be interesting to see how many other games make use of it—Nintendo or otherwise.

No more question blocks

One of the biggest issues that the Switch 1 had was knowing whether or not you’d be getting the “full-fat” experience of a game ported to it.

For every seemingly-impossible release on the system (The Witcher 3) there were a dozen that were flat out awful (Ark: Survival Evolved). That means perhaps the best bit about buying a Switch 2 is knowing you should have to make fewer compromises with the games you run on it.

That could change as PlayStation 6 and a new Xbox shift into view, but for now, it feels that more so than any other Nintendo system, you can comfortably buy into Switch 2’s potential.

The Verdict

Despite having a launch lineup buoyed by a single first-party exclusive and mostly ports of games you can play elsewhere, the Nintendo Switch 2 is a huge step beyond its predecessor in just about every metric, including price.

If you want to play Nintendo titles, you’ve probably already ordered one, but if you’re looking for a way to play games on the go (and don’t have a burgeoning Steam library), I have no doubt that it’ll be a worthy investment in time.

For now? I love the Switch 2, I just want more to play on it.

4.5/5

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