Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Review (Switch 2)

In total now! “It should have been packaging.”

Or, if it was just not on the table, free for the first year. Or free with an online subscription Nintendo Switch. It is painfully obvious for everyone, but Nintendo that the payment of this specific software further behind the already widespread console is an error.

And it’s a shame that more people don’t feel it, because it makes you feel good in your important investment in the equipment. Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is a peaceful and in -depth exploration of the system, taking you around and inside the device, its controllers and the peripherals (some sold separately – more on this subject later), and highlighting its different characteristics and new features. He is the holder of the platform celebrating and plunging deeply into his technology in a way that seems unusual but also very Nintendo.

In some respects, the objective of granular technology here is a necessity. Switch 2, by its nature, is an iteration on a theme, so if you want to charge a heavy sum for something superficially “the same but greater”, what better way to highlight each Upgrade in a fun game and filled with hide-and-seek demonstration that breaks down all of this?

And the developers really break it all down. You run around the capacitors, on printed circuits cards, batteries and a myriad of tokens and components that seem to be modeled extremely faithfully. It is Nintendo demolish practically its equipment so that you do not have to do it, and be remarkably frank in some respects. There are different examples of “we have done our best” while discussing the challenges faced, for example, with the dispersion of heat and the optimization of the longevity of the battery. There is no breast beat of the console wars here; Everything is very deleted. It is essentially an iwata asks / asks the developer’s interview in the form of a game.

The game itself takes the form of an explorer and isometric case on foot. You control a jogging person (or run if you maintain “B”) around an oversized switch 2 and accessories supported and presented in a huge park. Or are you tiny and the normal size switch? It is never specified, but apart from the warm welcome journey, you run around virtual equipment while the real equipment throws a new audiovisual and haptic comment. It is a particularly excellent showcase for HD Rumble 2 – I only hope that the developers take the time to implement it properly in other games.

Tampon rally bases appear when you approach the components and progress of doors between areas. So, to access the main console, you must locate 18 stamps on the Joy-Con left, etc. Quite simple, although some less obvious presents a challenge, generally when the button or the port is on the underscore underside and you hunt the base.

Then there are the mini-games, with several variations of the same grouped game on small exhibitions through the equipment. Everything is very “Switch 2 Experience” for anyone who attended these pre-launch events. There are more than 50 games and beat them wins medals to unlock harder variants.

Some, of course, are better than others. The in mouse mode are in general more difficult and / or frustrating. Removing the stains with a gratoir of paint was much more difficult on my leg or the arm of the sofa than on a table (where I put on the straps of joy-con and first tried the medals); My turn or a cushion worked well with other games, however. If you hit a wall with one, continue. You can instantly deform everything you have visited by hitting “X” to raise the menu and selecting it, a real boon.

Elsewhere, you will hunt floating pixels, pulling balloons, coloring in the lines, guessing the angle of the kickstand – all kinds. Only one mini -game – brewing: floating frustration – is downright bad (it is up to its name), and although there is nothing here, you are likely to shoot again once you have finished the game, it is all effective in demonstrating the possibilities of your new brilliant console.

On this theme, and beyond the field of appropriate “games”, 14 technical demos highlight neat functions and functionalities, allowing you to test the qualities of noise reduction of the integrated microphone, to make sound effects of Joy-Con, and much more. The 3D sound demo with the helicopter is a particular highlight, but they are all fun to play. My children absolutely loved the sawing of newspapers, shake the maracas and get along with robot voices. The HDR demo did not amaze me, but these are cool toys with which to play. Who would not want to revive a motorcycle with a joy-con?

Beyond thatDozens of information offices contain multiple choice quizs testing your knowledge of the boards of directors nearby. It is here that Nintendo in detail on the comments and design reasons, and in all honesty, it is incredibly interesting for anyone with a penchant for the game equipment.

The questions of light quiz are not trying if you pay attention to the slides, although it is fun to imagine a world where “love” or “glue” hold joy-con. They gradually become more difficult when you travel inside the console, but there is generally a comedy response, two vague possibilities and good evidence. Get a wrong question and the relevant insight is reported, so that you can quickly jump and repeat.

Doing information on information is not the best way to digest it, and they have become repetitive to the end. One of the names named “ using electricity ” is not as blindly as it may seem, but the title made me laugh. You do not have to do the quiz stuff either, and along the way, there are lost goods to find, a charming NPC writing, cute moments when you are traded through the screen, and a bunch of nostalgic nodal nintendo History.

There are also “only worthy of reference” warnings when showing Joy-Con animations which are torn from the console and other unanctuated actions, but Welcome Tour looks like Nintendo which is refreshing and surprisingly confident. I cannot imagine any other holder of the platform in this kind of forensic details for fear of red level embarrassment on the line. This could even help appease fears of another joy-con drift, because the new mechanisms present very well here.

There is insurance to invite this type of control; Admirable pride for work. “I cannot believe that they show us as much as they are,” explains one of the NPCs of milling, and I can only agree. It is a quality product.

And surprisingly long. Due to the strange delay of 10 days before the game data is displayed on your profile, I cannot say exactly how many hours I spent opening everything and getting almost all medals, but it must be seven or eight (and at least one of them was devoted to the mini-game mini-double-mouse-to-mouse ball games). There are 12 “zones” in all, going from the top of the left joy in the system itself via the quay, the Joy-Con handle and the straps, and even the peripherals which do not come with the system-in particular the camera, the pro controller and the Joy-Con wheels.

If you don’t have these things? You can always win “accelerated medals” via a nice little SOS tour, so progress is not kept behind them. However, access to a handful of mini-games and demos are Blocked effectively if you do not have the required equipment (the camera, a stamp that has the ‘GL’ / ‘GR’ buttons and a 4K TV).

For me, it’s nothing too upset – there is so much to do, and what is the alternative? Even these experiences entirely? – But it is another Straw on the back of the camel if you are already irritated by the cost. It also highlights another inevitable aspect of Welcome Tour: in addition to being part of the instructions manual, in part demo, it is also an ad for these beautiful accessories that you doesn’t pick up. Again.

There is also an undeniable look to see the virgin material to this resolution, without skin cells and dust particles and pets and matching household trash that attach to the time you remove the packaging. The welcome visit is deliciously, sterile fetishist, with magnificent specular reflections on the logos when you cross them, close -ups of sparkling ports and bright sticks. He tickles the same areas as Sony Astro In some ways, although it is much more a museum piece.

He does a fantastic work to highlight the design chops and the consideration found in all aspects of Nintendo products, from 0.05 mm height adjustments to individual facials to the tiny tab on a single foot of the quay, which means that it will slide (rather than overthrow) if you accidentally draw it with a connected cable.

In the end, Welcome Tour is a modest price ($ 9.99 / £ 7.99), despite the wider economic context surrounding the launch of Switch 2 and the general upheaval of pricing across industry, which makes the charge feel like the last straw. For your money, however, there is a surprising amount of Bang.

So, once again, then: This 100% should have been packaging. But the software itself? It’s great.