What parents need to know
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is somewhere between a game, an instruction manual, and an advertising campaign.
The premise is this: you’re a Switch 2 user invited to a presentation on Nintendo’s new console. This presentation, which looks like what you would see if you ever visit a video game conference at PAX or Gamescom, takes place on a giant version of Nintendo’s new console and reveals in detail each of its specificities.
To progress through the tour, you must identify the different components of the console (for example, each button on each joy-con, or each socket on the console), answer quizzes and participate in certain mini-games or technical demos.
These mini-games and tech demos aim to highlight the improvements of the Switch 2. For example, the mini-game on 4K resolution requires a compatible TV and makes us play the very first level of Super Mario Bros, in its original resolution. Thus, the entire level easily fits on a 4K screen, which shows us the progress in resolution since the NES.
One of the tech demos (demonstrations but in which you can’t win or lose) highlights the new vibration in the Switch’s joy-cons, as you shake maracas. The technology allows us to feel the “marbles” of the maracas and creates a convincing illusion.
Details
Level of experience required
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Evaluation
This title is really intended for all audiences, and there is nothing scary about it.
Nothing to report.
The title requires a lot of reading, especially since we then have to pass tests about our learning.
Some games with the mouse function of the Joy-Con 2 require a good level of execution, but otherwise, the whole thing is rather easy.
We mentioned it in our review, and we’ll repeat it here, but it seems absurd to us that we’re being asked to pay for this hybrid between an instruction manual and adware.
Local game modes
Single player mode.
Online Game Modes
None.
Expansions/Add-ons (DLC)
None.
Our opinion
We will have to forgive ourselves here for our lack of originality, because the comment we are about to make is probably the most often repeated comment since the unveiling of Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and especially its price ($14.99 CAD/9.99€).
Yes, the software should be included with the console for free.
In interviews before the release of the console, Nintendo representatives promised us that once we played the Welcome Tour, we would quickly understand why Nintendo had decided to charge this amount to players, that the value would be clear.
We disagree. The Welcome Tour experience is enjoyable and has clearly benefited from a great level of care. But in the end, it’s a strange mix between an instruction manual and an advertising brochure, and it seems to us the most audacious to ask players to pay for an advertisement for the console they just bought.
It must also be said that this software in its very design is a strange beast. We sometimes wonder who we are addressing. The information is impressively granular, so much so that we think that only the biggest Nintendo maniacs could be interested. Have you ever wondered what kind of stitching was used to sew the top of the Joy-Con 2 wrist strap? Never mind, we’ll explain it to you anyway.
But at the same time, alongside ultra-niche information, we are also told that a Nintendo Switch 2 cartridge does not work in a Nintendo Switch 1, but that the opposite does. This is information that seems obvious to us even for the kind of fan who would pay $15 to know the hardware used for the U-shaped support behind the console (another piece of information on which you will be tested during the game).
We had some great moments with this weird title. The mini-game in which you have to reproduce the facial expressions of an emoji as faithfully as possible before the Switch 2’s camera is hilarious, and we hope to find it in a future Mario Party. Playing classic Mario in a level that takes up the entire screen is also very enjoyable and original.
And as video game maniacs, we’d be lying if we said that some technical details about the console’s design didn’t capture our attention. It’s fascinating to see all the attention to detail that goes into making a new console.
But in a world where Sony offers the excellent Astro’s Playroom with all Playstation 5, Nintendo’s proposal – which, let’s repeat, is more of an advertisement than a game – seems less than attractive to us.
Note: a code has been offered to us by the publisher for criticism purposes, but it does not influence our opinion.
