Well, for this post I thought I would do something a bit different, as I fairly recently bought a Switch 2, which is the successor to Nintendo's original console, which is of course hybrid console that can be handheld and also docked to use on a TV or monitor.
So, I thought I would share my thoughts on the console and also the recent Nintendo direct that was released yesterday (at the time of posting or writing this).
THOUGHTS ON THE CONSOLE
Well, as for the console itself, I am quite impressed with the Switch 2 overall with its fairly big screen and also the joy cons, which I found quite unique having not owned the first Switch console. However, I have largely used the console docked on my TV and with the Pro 2 controller, which is an excellent controller albeit a bit too pricey at £75 (how much??!!). I know a large appeal of the console is use it as a handheld but I found it a bit large and unweildy for that purpose athough I have used it with the stand and the joy cons separate and quite enjoyed it that way.
THE SCREEN
I also liked the screen, which is quite colourful and fairly vivid although the screen itself is actually very prone to scratches, so I instantly bought a screen protector to prevent this from happening, which can be seen a drawback of the console. Alot of people also have criticised the screen for appearing to suffer from motion blur a little despsite being 120hz but again there are hardly any games that currently support this resolution.
NVIDIA's DLSS
The console does however boast the usage of Nvidia's DLSS technology however it is a more scaled down version of the PC variant of the technology. DLSS also appears in very few Switch 2 games so far with only Hogwarts and the racer game, Fast Fusion coming to mind that support it. What is more confusing however is there are still games that utilise AMD's FSR upscaling tech and its earliest variant, FSR 1, which is easily the worst version of FSR. I found this puzzling however that an Nvidia powered console would even use FSR in the first place but oh well! I just hope future Switch 2 games will provide further support for DLSS however and make improvements to image quality.
GPU POWER COMPARISON TO PS4
One notable thing about this console however is that doesn't come near the power of the current gen consoles with Sony and Microsoft and only has a fraction of the Series X and PS5, which given its current price point at almost £400 makes it a bit too expensive. It does however sit somewhere between the power of the PS4 and PS4 Pro and comes fairly close in power to the Series S and despite the lack of horsepower compared to the current offerings, I still found the Switch 2 to be enticing enough all the same mainly as I am a big fan of playing games across different platforms. Despite all this though, we are still very early into the life cycle of the Switch 2, so it remains to be see how it will fair with future games and past releases that are yet to be ported over to the console.
USER INTERFACE
As for the system's use interface, I quite like the layout of the Switch 2 as its quite logical and looks pleasant enough and is pretty easy to navigate. The Nintendo eShop is also quite good for browsing with some decent offers on sale for plenty of popular titles even if some of them are quite pricey at standard retail price. I did think the online account prices were actually pretty reasonable and quite cheap compared to other platforms offering a year's worth at £17.99, which is excellent value although I am aware for add ons, you do pay a bit more. The news section I felt wasn't the best, as I didn't provide any updates on future Nintendo directs and in fact it didn't even notify me of one until AFTER the fact (Well, I think!).
GAMING PERFORMANCE
As for the game performance of the Switch 2, so far I have to say I am fairly pleased with it but there is still definitely room for improvement and this comes down to the limitation of the original Switch's hardware and backward compatibility. However in the Switch 2's defence, it does a pretty solid job at boosting the performance of backward compatible titles and any games that run poorly on the original console are now running much smoother. However, this also highlights an issue to do with many titles, which are often locked at 30fps such as Doom Eternal, the GTA trilogy, Dark Souls Remastered and the Witcher 3 to name a few that I have tried so far, plus some of these titles are still only at 720p. There are thankfully still some games that have an unlocked framte rate, which now run much smoother and are close to or even locked at 60fps such as Resident Evil 5 and Doom 3 that I tried that are very smooth and look impressive at 1080p.
However, I would have to say that this brings me to an issue with the Switch 2 and backward compatibility being an issue in itself as there are very few Switch 1 games that offer updates other than a few exclusive titles such as the Legend of Zelda, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. So, this leaves many games waiting for a 60fps patch update or even a resolution bump and this could take possibly months to ultimately update in order to take advantage of the Switch 2's improved hardware, which is pretty frustrating when you are left with the Switch 1 version for so many existing games. In fact I've played so many games at 30fps on this console, I've almost forgotten what 60fps looks like lol(!) and that is the most annoying part as this console is so much more capable than the original but its being held back by the limitations of its predecessor.
So, in some cases, the Switch 2 is pretty impressive in its ability to brute force previous games limited by the original Switch but in other cases its still handicapped by them. So, ultimately moving forward we are going to need to be patient and see if Nintendo will provide updates and patches for its existing catalog. However, there were reports in the past that Nintendo was not giving out software developments kits (or SDKs) to some developers, which would prevent them from being able to port their games to the Switch 2 or provide updates for this, which might explain one or two things regarding the lack of updates.
So, overall I am impressed with the Switch 2 but we are still too early in its life cycle at this stage to fully appreciate its capabilities and also the current catalogue for specific Switch 2 games is still pretty sparse. In time hopefully this will change but in the meantime, I think we will need to be patient for the console to reach its potential.
JULY NINTENDO DIRECT THOUGHTS
Moving onto the Nintendo direct, which was broadcast on 31 July, it gave a short presentation, which was a partner based one rather than a general one, so there were not many Nintendo exclusive titles mentioned.
However, despite much hype being around this direct, it turned out to be a big disappointment personally and many Nintendo fans alike were frustrated by the lack of release dates for some previous titles mentioned in the opening direct for the console. The direct itself instead focused on titles I was mostly not interested in such as Dragonball Sparking Zero, Adventures of Elliot, Once Upon a Katamari and camp fire simulator called Chillin by the Fire all of which had graphics that did not showcase the power of the Switch 2. Then there were tiles like EA Madden NFL 26 and NBA Bouce, which again were not really interesting to me, as I am not keen on sports games.
To be fair there were still some games of interest such as the Yakuza games, which Nintendo are keen tio port the whole Yakuza series over to the Switch 2 and this one definitely looked impressive visually and sign of what the Switch 2 can do. Star Wars Outlaws also might be worth a look as a game but I have to admit visually it looks pretty underwhelming and rather soft as they must have had to make some signigicant cutbacks to its visuals to scale it onto the Switch 2, highlighting the new console's limits. Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisoment looks intriguing as its part of the Zelda world and an RPG but it didn't even have a release date! Last of all is Chronos: New Dawn, which is a sci-fi horror game that has Dead Space vibes and looks pretty impressive and was the title that really intriguied me the most, so I might check that out sometime once its out in September.
However, the biggest disappointment of this direct was the lack of release dates for already confirmed games specifically the likes of Elden Ring, Final Fantasy VII and the already mentioned Hyrule, Age of Imprisonment. It was also disappointing to not see some of the rumours confirmed such as The Witcher 3 getting its Switch 2 update, which would have been nice as well as the addition of potential other games like Death Stranding although Microsoft are to confirm some games coming to the Switch 2 soon as well as the PS5, so that would be separate to the directs. There is to be a reported general direct happening in September though, so I guess we might get release dates for these games by then but we'll just have to wait.
So, overall I felt this direct was really lacklustre despite one or two interesting titles and its also frustrating to see the lack of existing 3rd party Switch games not get updates although I guess they do want to target their own platform exclusives first before prioritising 3rd party titles. But for me personally, I felt the majority of this direct might as well have been aimed solely at the Switch 1 rather than the Switch 2, as there wasn't a great deal other than a few titles that appeared to promote the Switch 2's capabilities and in the end it left me disappointed. If however you were excited by what was on offer here overall, that's great but for me, like many other people, I just hoped for more.
Anyway, so that's it for my thoughts on the Switch 2 and the Nintendo direct and I will be back soon with another review post of sorts.
So, until then its bye for now!
