Author: AJ

Nintendo’s attempt to make a stunning platform, both console and handheld-hybrid was a quite impressive and bold move in today’s gaming industry.

I bought my Switch day one, without pre-ordering it, without any intention on buying one in the first place. I stood there in my place of employment, I said “I’m not going to buy one. I’m not going to buy one…” so I bought one. Complete impulse and hype of the moment, seeing customers flood in the doors to buy one.

Now that I’ve owned it for a little over a month, I’m ready to give my review.

Day one: I was so excited and hated myself for dropping almost $400 un-budgeted dollars on this thing, but there was a part of me that wondered if this was going the path of the Wii U. But, I unboxed it, set it all up, popped in my Breath of the Wild cartridge and let it do its thing.

The Joy-Cons: Unwrapping the controllers, and snapping them into the console for the first time was actually really satisfying. Then popping them out and putting them in the controller grip was also very satisfying, the noise was on par with some ASMR, like, unexplainable. It was very strange holding a controller that felt like a box, but I got used to it after about an hour. I didn’t realize initially how much technology Nintendo put into these little things– the red one having the home button and IR blaster, the blue having the capture button, each with their own motion control accelerometers, vibration motors, individual or synced pairing, and a plethora of other things, I was impressed from a technological aspect, however once complaints starting rolling in with connectivity issues, and button and joystick wear, I thought to myself “Oh no, I just bought the biggest blunder of 2017…” but, to this day, it’s been fine with no issues.

The System itself and the Dock: It was oddly small the first time I saw it out of the box, almost as big as some phones I’ve had it the past. I looked around the system, saw the nicely laser printed logos, and federal regulations, A KICKSTAND! and a decent machine for gaming, from a tablet perspective. Then I noticed a heat sink on the top, granted I knew this thing was going to probably heat up, but that worried me. “What if I’m taking it somewhere and it overheats because the vent is blocked? God forbid I keep that in sleep mode in my bag.” But I haven’t had any issue with that, either. Granted my thought process with it was a little extreme, but I consider all angles when I buy a new thing. But it was fun to slide down into the dock for the first time just like you saw in the commercials, that smooth decent into the dock, then they effortlessly took the Joy-Cons off the system while docked to play 1-2 Switch, that was not the case for me. I almost barbarically ripped the system out of the dock the first time I tried that. But I’ve changed my methods.

Performance: I was quite surprised at the Switches performance. Small, but pretty powerful. Granted it’s rocking a custom Nvidia chip, 8-core processor and 4GB of LPDDR4 RAM, which after I read this, I fully understood the need for a vent. Booting up The Legend of Zelda for the first time made this evident that this machine was no slouch. Grass-filled plains, volcanic rock valleys, enemies, shrines, towers, enemies, a full desert region, ENEMIES EVERYWHERE, and the happy people of Goron, all in a seamless open-world to explore, I didn’t have too many issues in this department. It did have some FPS drops, but not as many as Just Cause 3 or any other game to that effect. So, all-in-all I was pretty satisfied with that.

Software: Okay, now this is where I find fault with the console, granted its only been out for a month, I wanted more launch titles than just Breath of the Wild. Now, you can’t always get what you want, but I found myself a little burnt out at the 23rd hour I spent in the game. The Nintendo E-Shop is a little lackluster, and the salvation of my time with the system is going to be Mario Kart 8: Deluxe Edition, for the time being. Although the Binding of Issac and Fast RMX seemed like good alternatives I didn’t really feel like investing in. I almost broke down to buy Lego City Undercover but couldn’t bring myself to do so. And when Nintendo said “Virtual Console” I was expecting more like GBC, N64, NES, SNES, GBA, and the like, but instead found myself looking at NEOGEO games with some disappointment. And as far as the system firmware goes, its snappy, simple, and easy to navigate with no complaints.

Overall, it’s too early for me to give a hard review on Nintendo’s newest system, but I’ve been mostly pleased up to this point. It’s only a matter of time before I’m playing it more than my Xbox or PS4, when more third-party development starts to kick in and I’ll be playing Skyrim in a remote location, even though I already bought the Special Edition for my Xbox One. Now, when they’re able to make the Witcher 3 portable, THAT is when my Switch will need to prepare itself for maximum use! I give the system my personal score of 7/10.

Thanks for reading! I will try to stay current and relevant on my articles and try to release them in a consistent manner. But until next time, Stay Golden and thank you for sticking with us on this journey into being a great gaming site!!