I was supposed to do a write up on this yesterday, but I forgot.
Anyway, I had the opportunity to attend a Switch event in my city on Friday.
The first thing I noticed was the amount of people that turned out. It was a pretty considerable amount, honestly. I guess their marketing is working.
I was able to play;
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- Splatoon 2
- 1-2 Switch
- Arms
- The Legend of Zelda: Breath of The Wild
(Snipperclips was there too, but I ran out of time, unfortunately.)
The first thing I played was Mario Kart, and the first thing you notice is how bright the screen is on the Switch. There was hardly any glare, if any at all, and it was incredibly easy to see what was going on. The Switch itself, despite being tethered to something for security purposes, was incredibly comfortable to hold.
Next was Splatoon 2. I was terrible at it, but the Joy-Con slotted into the grip was a great controller. It took a couple minutes to get used to the button placements, but after that, it was incredibly easy to use. It doesn't look like the most comfortable thing to use, but it genuinely feels great in the hands.
Next was the game that I was most apprehensive about, 1-2 Switch. At this point, I was only able to play the "Quick Draw" mini game.
Damn.
It was good.
Despite the game not really looking like all that in trailers and such, you need to play it. It's incredibly competitive, and stupid fun. Like, ridiculously fun. We found ourselves going back to that booth the most during the day.
Next was the game that I was most excited to play, Breath of The Wild. Unfortunately, you only got 10 minutes with the game before you had to come off (while walking into the venue, you were given a card with a time on it; this was the time you were allocated to play BOTW). Despite the short amount of time, and me not being a huge Zelda fan, I thought the game was amazing. The representative who was talking to me as I was playing the game told me that the massive section that I was playing in was only 2% of the full game. Unfortunately, there were a few frame drops in the demo, but the representative told me that this wasn't the final build, and was basically the Wii U, E3 version of the game ported to the Switch. I also had an opportunity to try out the Pro Controller. It was great. Incredibly comfortable to hold, and definitely one of my favourite controllers. It felt a lot like an Xbox One controller, actually. The only minus that it has is probably that it has digital triggers instead of analogue.
Next was Arms, which had a huge line. My absolute first impressions were that it would be sort of like Wii Boxing, but it really wasn't. It was definitely worth it; my favourite game there. Hell, I'd say that this is the game you'd want with your Switch. With 2 players, the action is incredibly fast paced and competitive, and the game is incredibly easy to get to grips with. The controls aren't very difficult to learn, and you can really string together some complex techniques after playing for a short amount of time. This game is probably the reason I'll forgo a Pro Controller when I end up buying a Switch; I'll buy an extra set of Joy-Con instead so I can play Arms with someone else.
The Arms line was so long, that we had less than 15 minutes to try anything else, so we hit up Mario Kart again (as that line went by the fastest, due to 7 people playing at a time). I came 2nd.
I was taken out by a Blue Shell on the last few corners of the Animal Crossing track.
Thanks, Luigi.
Anyway, before we ran out of time, we decided to hit the other two 1-2 Switch games that were being showcased at the event, which was "Ball Count" and "Milk".
Ball Count really showed off that "HD Rumble" thing that Nintendo were talking about in the conference. That stuff about you feeling water and ice cubes inside of the Joy-Con? They weren't kidding. It genuinely felt as though small balls were rolling around the inside of the controller.
I got it right both times I played.
Finally, we played the "Milk" game. It's weird, to say the least, but it still managed to be incredibly fun. After playing the three 1-2 Switch games, I'm really considering buying it, just for parties. It's honestly a really fun game to play, but I'm still not sure if I want to pay upwards of £45 on what is pretty much a tech demo.
Overall, I think Nintendo really have a winner in their hands with this one. It's priced well, the games are incredibly fun, and the marketing is off the charts compared to what they've done previously.
Waiting for this to come out got a whole lot harder.