It’s been a whirlwind week for Nintendo fans. On Wednesday, the company fully lifted the lid on the Nintendo Switch 2 with a perfectly executed Direct presentation. That moment of elation gave way to anxiety as players sorted through the console’s controversial new pricing strategy. Then came complete panic as President Donald Trump’s freshly announced tariffs on foreign imports caused Nintendo to postpone preorders for the system in the United States. You can’t blame Nintendo fans for feeling a little stressed out right now.
The saving grace of all this is that the Switch 2 is still slated to launch on June 5 and it’s bringing a ton of exciting games along with it. At a press event on Wednesday, I went hands-on with nearly a dozen Switch 2 games, from first-party heavy-hitters to Switch 2 Editions of old favorites. I’ve posted my impressions of several games throughout the week, but for the sake of ease, I’m rounding them all up in one place. Curious about just how good Metroid Prime 4: Beyond is? How does it feel to drive a wheelchair around with mouse controls? Is Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour really worth a few bucks? You can find all those answers right here.
Mario Kart World
More than any game I played on Wednesday, my opinion on Mario Kart World has bounced back and forth. In my preview, I noted that it was a lot of fun but lamented its massive price tag. Now that I’ve taken a step back from the initial sticker shock, I’m finding my excitement again. I really enjoyed the slice I played, which retains the core fun of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, but places it in on a grand scale. The elimination-style Knockout mode especially sticks with me, as it let me race through a tense gauntlet of interlinked tracks. I’m still thinking about my narrow loss to Bowser and eager to get back in to avenge it. I especially want to see more of its open-world as I only got a taste of freeform exploration that didn’t quite tell me enough about what players can do in the world. Mario Kart World feels like its brimming with possibilities that I barely discovered during my playtime. I’m ready for another lap.
Donkey Kong Bananza
I’ll be honest: I have no idea what kind of reception Donkey Kong Bananza will get when it launches, but I love it already. The ape’s first 3D adventure in decades was a delight to discover for the first time, as I was dropped into an open-ended and fully destructible world full of shiny things to collect. It reminded me of playing Super Mario Odyssey for the first time and fluidly jumping from moon to moon in between experimenting with my cap. Replace the T-rex possession with environmental smashing that shows off the power of Nintendo’s new system, and you’ve got a recipe for a game that both feels uniquely Nintendo and like its own thing entirely. It’s vibrant and bubbly, but powerful and full of attitude — almost like something from the GameCube era.
Metroid Prime 4: Beyond
After playing through Metroid Prime 4: Beyond‘s introduction, I don’t want to see another second of footage. The snippet I played was so impressive that I’m ready to go in blind and see what Retro Studios has been cooking up all this time through fresh eyes. The long-awaited game feels like a return to Metroid Prime, but with the worldbuilding scope of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, now better realized on more capable hardware. The battles were tense, the tease of its big bad was exciting, and the whole thing looks gorgeous. What impressed me most of all, though, was its great showcase of mouse controls for first-person aiming. The setup worked remarkably well, giving me the kind of pinpoint accuracy I’ve only ever experienced on a PC. You really won’t believe what the new Joy-cons are capable of until you get hands on with Metroid Prime 4 yourself, trust me.
Drag X Drive
Another great demo of the mouse-cons, Drag X Drive was one of the most delightful games I tried on Switch 2. Sure, it’s a fairly simple game that feels like a Nintendo Switch Sports minigame spun off into its own thing, but it makes a great case for dual mouse controls combined with gyroscopes. I played (and won) a three-on-three game of ball at the show, a feat that required me to learn how to use the mouse quickly. Though its tutorial confused me initially, I took to the controls once the buzzer rang and found myself sweating a bit as I moved my hands across a table to pilot my wheelchair around the court. It’s fun and physical, adopting the same design philosophy found in Arms, but in a more appropriately scoped package. It won’t be the next esports game, but it’ll be a fun way to teach your friends how to use the mice.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is certainly the odd one out of the new first-party games I tried. That’s because it’s more of a digital instruction manual than anything, which has been gamified in a very Nintendo way. Over the course of 10 minutes, I’d take some quizzes on the system’s new feature, pilot a spaceship round with mouse controls, use the power of HD rumble to pinpoint a frequency, and more. It’s a cute way to show off the system’s features and it’s even got a bit of progression that hooked me, as I aimed to set high scores in each minigame to unlock more. I still just don’t understand why it’ll cost money instead of coming with the system at launch. I can’t picture many people buying it, which is a shame because it’s a cute concept done well.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
The event had a few Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of classic Switch games on display, which gave me a great sense of just how powerful the new system is compared to its predecessor. The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was the perfect showcase for that. Within seconds, I was impressed by how much smoother its visuals look and how well it all runs with a better framerate. I noted that it almost looks surreal, as if you’re watching a video of someone who has jailbroken the Switch version and unlocked its framerate on PC. I’m not sure if that’ll convince me to start my adventure over again (I’ve already put over 100 hours in), but I know I’ll be trying it at least one time to see how it feels to fall all the way from the sky down to the depths in a gloriously high framerate.
Super Mario Party Jamboree + Jamboree TV
The Switch 2 Edition of Super Mario Party Jamboree is a little more content-loaded than Tears of the Kingdom. During the event, I got to try a handful of mouse-controlled minigames to see how the new Joy-cons can reinvent a series that’s been done well over a dozen times. That control scheme might just be the kick the series needs, as all of the games I tried felt fresh. One tense game had me guiding Toad through an electrified maze, carefully mousing him around electrified walls. Another had me pulling my hand across a table to let a toy car loose into a goal as my opponents on the other side tried to smash into me. Each game was fun, creative, and responsive, making the double dip feel worthwhile. I didn’t get to try it all either. The event also had some camera-controlled minigames on display. I didn’t have time to squeeze them in, but judging by the constant yelling and laughter from attendees, they seem like a hit too.
Cyberpunk 2077
Tons of third-party developers were in attendance to show off their games running on Switch 2 with varying degrees of success. Cyberpunk 2077 was on the positive side of the spectrum, showing how well its Phantom Liberty DLC runs on Switch 2. No, you’re not getting PS5-levels of quality here, but the Switch 2 is more in line with the Steam Deck than you’d expect. It still retains the game’s impressive lighting and rich world detail, even if the lines are a little crunchy and the framerate tops out at 30 or 40fps (possibly 45fps in the final build) depending on which graphics setting you choose. The one thing I didn’t get to try was mouse controls, which feels like they’ll be an ideal way to play judging by Metroid Prime 4: Beyond‘s impressive demo. Cyberpunk 2077 has never been much of my thing and I doubt the Switch 2 will change that, but I’m glad to see a powerhouse holding its own on the tech. Also, I’ll give a shout out to the new Pro Controller here too, which I used to demo the game. It’s still a comfortable fit in my hands and I’m already liking its new back buttons, which don’t feel controls I’ll accidentally trigger thanks to their modest size and placement.
Split Fiction
I’m a little more torn on Split Fiction. My demo was undoubtedly impressive, don’t get me wrong. I was looking at a brand new, next-gen only co-op game running on a Nintendo device and that’s a feat. I really could notice the visual downgrade here on a big TV, thigh, as the visually slick game is fuzzy here. It’s not so far off from Cyberpunk 2077, but that game is sure to wow in handheld mode where its flaws will be less noticeable. Split Fiction is more of a big screen game built for couch co-op, so Switch 2 doesn’t feel like the idea platform for it at the moment. That said, this is the kind of game that’s perfect for those who love Nintendo games but want something a little more adult, so it’s a harmonious fit for the console otherwise, and it does run well on it all things considered.
Civilization 7
I only stopped to demo Civilization 7 for a few brief minutes, but that’s all that I needed to test my theory on it. When watching the Direct, I imagined that the mouse controls would be an ideal fit for the strategy game. That was indeed the case. As was the case with Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, I had access to pinpoint accurate controls here that made it easy to navigate my map. The rest of the controls felt surprisingly natural too, with things like zooming in and out of the map making total sense on the Joy-cons. Not only that, but it looks and runs great too, which is impressive for a somewhat intensive PC game. If Switch 2 is probably the last console you want to play Split Fiction on, Nintendo’s new system is the best one to get it on next to PC.
F-Zero GX
I ended my demo event by giving one of Nintendo Switch Online’s upcoming GameCube games a spin: F-Zero GX. There’s not too much to report here other than the fact that the racing game is still fantastic all these decades later. It’s as fast and tense as ever and it benefits from widescreen support this time around. This was also the one time I was able to get my hands on the Switch 2’s new GameCube controller, which feels exactly like the old one. I’m particularly nostalgic of the GameCube because it was the first console I owned growing up that truly felt like my own, so take my excitement here with some bias (though well-deserved bias, in my humble opinion).
The Nintendo Switch 2 launches on June 5.
