Nintendo Switch 2 Review

The Switch 2 is a Switch but bigger and better in nearly every way, with all of its successes and most of its faults accounted for. Its hybrid nature is still just as good of an idea today as it was eight years ago, and a lot of its best games benefit massively from the beefier tech inside it that allows for 4K, higher framerates, and faster load times. But all of that feels more like Nintendo getting back to treading water as the Switch started to fall a little too far behind what people expected from their games rather than providing a compelling reason of its own for you to pay 50% more for this upgrade. The new Joy-Con take an impressively creative swing at giving you that reason, but while its innovative mouse controls are a game-changer on paper, they’re so ergonomically uncomfortable to use in practice that I can still feel the strain in my arm as I record this. The end result is a console I really like for all the same reasons I loved the original Switch, but one that’s also left me strangely underwhelmed. It’s a step up that’s vital if the Switch 1 is the only way to play games that you have access to, but currently feels about as exciting as a long overdue phone upgrade for anyone with other options.