Over five weeks have passed since I went hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2 in New York and whilst I spent an entire day with the console and its games, admittedly a mix of jetlag, and over stimulation stopped me from fully taking that experience in, but luckily I got to go hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2 in a much more relaxed environment in Melbourne over the weekend, and I came away even more impressed with the successor to one of my favourite consoles of all-time.
Whilst I had both my OG Switch and Switch OLED with me in New York, there was far too much going on for me to ever whip them out and compare them to the original console to give me as great of an appreciation of how much better the Switch 2 is, but in Melbourne, I was consciously using the handheld whilst referring to the original and it’s world’s apart.
The Switch 2 experience begins in a handheld area, where you have ample time to check out all of the hardware, but most importantly get hands-on with an untethered Nintendo Switch 2 and get a taste of its new, larger design and also the magnetic Joy-Con controllers. I knew from the second that I got hands-on with these in New York that they were a huge improvement and getting to spend more time with them over the weekend re-enforced that hugely.
Not only does the new magnetic connection make the Switch 2 lot more sturdy, the size of them is just so much better in the hands both when connected to the Switch 2 and when held standalone. The analogue sticks are larger and feel like they glide a lot easier than the first and obviously the side buttons have been hugely increased in size so they can now be used comfortable without a strap on them.
I again had both the OG Switch and OLED Switch with me, but I more wanted to compare the original, both in size, but also the quality of the LCD screen. In the hands, it’s noticeable larger, but I think that works in the favour for the reasons I’ve mentioned, as it’s the same thickness but the increased surface area helps the weight.
When it comes to the screen, I tested with the Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom intro and it’s a night and day improvement. The new LCD screen is a lot brighter, more vivid thanks to HDR support and whilst I’m still not sure if it’ll stand up to the OLED when it comes to inky blacks, it’s absolutely a lot closer to the OLED display than it is the original LCD.
The size of that new 8-inch display has also been a topic of discussion for those that think they were happy with the OG or OLED screens, but once you get it in your hands and boot up Mario Kart World, you’ll be so happy with how it feels in your hands. The larger screen just pops and absolutely immerses you further into the game.
I spoke at length in my original preview about all of the games that I played including Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza, but again, playing through all of those games now that I’ve had a month to take it all, I was able to just enjoy them without the over-excitement of going straight from their reveal into hands-on.
I had 2-3 more rounds of Mario Kart World’s Knockout Tour mode, and it’s going to be an extremely fun time for years and years to come. With the way that there’s 24 players on the course and the courses are intertwined, it’s the most exhilarating version of Mario Kart yet.
Similarly, I feel like I was able to get a much better sense for Donkey Kong Bananza. Whilst I spent a lot of my first demo trying to understand what was happening, this time around, I was able to do a lot more exploring and found some incredible little missions and areas that I never would have guessed were in the game from the first demo, so this has me incredibly sold on the concept.
Otherwise, I got to spend more time with mouse mode both in Mario Party Jamboree’s new modes as well as Metroid Prime 4, and whilst I was already sold from my time in New York, I was more focused on testing on my lap and other surfaces this time around and it works just as well. I cannot imagine playing Metroid Prime 4 in any other way, and the Mario Party minigames were super frantic and fun in a way that you just don’t get out of regular controls.
I also got to spend more time with Drag x Drive and actually play a match with people and it was fun and frantic on the level of Rocket League. I think this one will definitely live and die by its online audience (mainly depending on its price), but it’s a great showcase of the mouse controls and it’s nice to see Nintendo doing something with a new IP as well.
The other stand-out to me was again how well the Switch 2 performs. I got to play through Cyberpunk 2077 again, this time focusing more on vehicle gameplay and whilst there were a few small stutters, it’s very, very impressive how well this looks and runs on the Switch 2. Similarly, I got to play Hogwarts Legacy and obviously there’s a visual drop from that of the PS5, but it still ran super well and it’s night and day from the OG Switch version.
The Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of the Wild as well as Kirby and the Forgotten Lands were also great examples of how the Switch 2 performance helps games from the original Switch, making them run a lot smoother and also providing a noticeable resolution boost as well. Having my OG Switch with the games loaded up really helped show off just how much of a difference the improved fram erate makes.
All-in-all, going hands-on with the Nintendo Switch 2 again has me super excited for launch. Even if the launch line-up isn’t the best in Nintendo’s history, there’s a really great foundation laid with the console itself, and I think it’s only going to make for really great gaming experiences both from Nintendo and third-party publishers that just wasn’t possible on the OG Switch.
The Nintendo Switch 2 releases on June 5th.
