• Published February 28, 2017

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On Friday 17 February, Nintendo invited press and a few select public VIP’s to the official prelaunch of the Switch. After so much speculation, not only did we get to see the Switch, but also had the opportunity to play most of its release line-up. So what’s it like?

The first thing I did when walking into the event was a straight rush to Zelda: Breath of the Wild (like any sane person would). Much to my surprise, nobody followed! Thus began my first hands-on with this incredibly marginalising console.

The first thing I want to make clear is that, so far, Zelda is FANTASTIC. I didn’t have too long with it, but the time I did have gave me a great overview of the mechanics: climbing trees, fighting enemies, hunting small cute animals for their sweet, sweet meat – which you can then use to make special buff potions or just heal yourself – coupled with the fact that the game’s art style is gorgeous. This is definitely one to keep your eyes on; it has the makings of a great RPG. Enough gushing about Zelda, how did the console itself perform? Well…this raises my first concern with the Switch; during my time with Zelda, there was a substantial amount of frame-drops below 30, often for quite a few seconds.

So what does this mean? Perhaps it was just because it was an early version of the game without the optimisations necessary to take advantage of the Switch; or perhaps it’s still an early version of the Switch itself that will receive further improvements before launch. Judging by the time before release however, this seems unlikely. I should further add that I only played Zelda in TV mode – playing it in handheld mode would probably see performance improvements.

The grips which attach to the Joy-Cons as (as seen here) are a lot smaller than they look.

What about the controllers? I used the Joy-Cons on their square controller dock and quickly realised that this would soon become a very uncomfortable experience. The grips which attach to the back of the Joy-cons after they slide onto the square controller, are small which you wouldn’t think would be a problem when used in this layout (since they had no reason to be small as you can’t use them without the square dock). The Joy-Con themselves have smaller than average buttons which often feel hard to press, but there is enough space between them that I never accidentally pressed more than one.

Next I moved on to Splatoon 2 and with it, both the pro controller and handheld-mode of the console. Good news, the pro controller is great and has a really nice weight to it.

When I tried the Switch in handheld-mode, I was firstly surprised by how light it was and secondly how small; I would say it’s about 50-75% the width of the Wii U’s tablet controller and around about the same length. Honestly, it wasn’t difficult to hold and I never felt uncomfortable while doing so. I also didn’t experience any performance issues here, at least.

Lastly I played around with 1, 2, Switch! Nintendo’s new party game that exclusively uses the Joy-Con’s HD rumble and movement controls.

I must say, this is where the most surprising feature of the Joy-Con came into play; one of the games requires the two players to each hold a Joy-Con and move it around, pretending that it is a wooden box with balls rolling around inside of it. You then have to guess how many balls are inside the box based on the way they feel. And man, did they really feel like they contained balls! It blew my mind how well the HD Rumble translated in this way and I am really excited for what mechanics other games can come up with to make use of this tech.

All in all, I’m horribly conflicted. I really want to like the Switch, but I honestly think there are some major problems which may cause its downfall. The fact that it seems to be another under powered Nintendo console; which costs almost the same as a PS4 – thereby excluding it from being chosen based on its mobile performance alone – might be its death knell…especially when it comes to third-party titles.

Editing done by Azel Viljoen.

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TheStrangerHAZ

Tech Editor / Gaming Author at Geek Node

Gamer, programmer and pc masterrace-er, my heart has pumped all things digital for longer than I can remember. I firmly believe that if you want to see the best of human ingenuity and passion, you need not look further than your local group of gamers.

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Article Tags: A tv shaped like an apple · ARMS · featured · Joy-con · Nintendo Switch Pre-release event · Switch · Switch South Africa · Zelda: Breath of the wild

Article Categories: Events