Verdict
The Nintendo Switch 2 is a Switch but bigger and better in every sense, with all of the original’s successes as well as 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 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 game consoles rather than providing a compelling reason of its own for you to pay 50% more for this upgrade. The updated 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 are so ergonomically uncomfortable to use in practice that I can still feel the strain in my arm as I type 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 after actually spending time with it for a while. 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 feels about as exciting as a long-overdue phone upgrade in the larger scheme of things.
