Impressions from a 1 week Switch owner

Note: Apparently I forgot to post this last week. This post was intended to be up on March 11. I apologize for the error, and will post two articles some week in the future to keep up my once per week schedule.

Hey so remember back in January when I said I wasn't going to get a Switch "anytime soon" because of how thin the launch line-up was? Yeah, oops, I own a Switch now. Last Saturday, one day after the Switches release while everyone was scrambling to find one, while spending time with a friend, he mentioned that a local Amazon Books had a lot of Switch's in stock. I called them, and apparently they still had "about two or three hours worth" of Switch's left, which struck me as an odd way to quantify it. We headed over, and when we got there we saw...this:

That picture depicts, by my estimate, several dozen Nintendo Switch consoles, and probably well over 100 copies of the main attraction, so to speak: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

So I got one. Strike while the iron is hot, as they say. After about a week of it, I can at least say that I don't regret the decision.

Before I go any further, I should mention I've been using my own personal Switch almost exclusively in the "handheld" mode, which both of the joy-con controllers attached to the side and working as a very large and powerful Game Boy Advance, as opposed to the tabletop mode using the included kickstand or docked mode on a television. I have tried all three, and will list my thoughts on all of them in a moment, but just know that's where most of my experience lies.

Hardware

The first thing to note is, the comfort of the controllers is a mixed bag. Playing games, by which I mean Zelda, while the Switch is in portable mode feels comfortable, but playing with the joy-con grip that gives you a more traditional controller felt very cramped, like my hands were positioned too close together. Holding the joy-con separate from the console or grip, with one in each hand, did work, but I didn't use it much: The ability to do that is as much a novelty as it seemed during the January press conference. Some people noted discomfort caused by the fact that the analog sticks and buttons are in a vertical column, rather than offset, along with the positioning of the + and - buttons, but personally I had no such issue, potentially because I have relatively large hands. Also because I have large hands, holding a joy-con sideways and using it as an individual controller sucks! Ignoring the fact that pieces of the controllers are positioned in the middle of the thing, it's a more severe version of my issue with the joy-con grip, where my hands are too close together and it sucks to use.

The screen on the Switch, I should note, is pretty good. It's decently large, and while it may be slightly lower resolution than most televisions are outputting these days I can barely notice for the size of the thing. My one issue is more of a grim omen: I kept the Switch in my bag for a little bit, and after barely any time, I pulled it out and saw a scratch on the screen. Not a major one, you can barely even see it unless you know where it is and hold the Switch at the right angle. But it does make me wonder if the screen is damaged easily, and it's something I'm somewhat worried about going forward. This is compounded by reports that docking the switch for television play caused its own scratches, which I have not personally experienced.

A lot of the pieces of the Switch detach, and all of these points feel kind of bad. I'm a little worried, though at this point nothing has happened, that whenever I accidentally push on the bottom of a joy-con while it's attached to the console (like, for example, whenever I turn it on) I'm going to pop it out of position since it shifts just enough to be worrisome. The included wrist straps for the individual joy-cons have the opposite problem, where they lock in so tightly that it takes a disconcerting amount of effort just to get them off. This is multiplied tenfold if you slide the wrist strap on backwards, which is very easy to do since the straps are in fact reversible and can be used for either joy-con. In my experience, there was slightly more than typical resistance, which then slid past where it's supposed to stop and ended up hanging off the side:

When the wrist strap is put on incorrectly like this, it's even harder to take off than usual. I was very worried I had broken a friends controller for a mistake so easily made! Also of worry: The kickstand on the Switch, used in its "tabletop" mode, feels like it is going to snap off whenever I pull it out. It's a thin piece of plastic which is supposed to "snap" into proper position, but the resistance required for that "snap" just makes it feel like you're going to snap the kickstand in half. Not that the kickstand is much use anyway: The angle it holds the Switch at is so steep the only time I actually used it was when I was lying on a couch to go to sleep, with the Switch at eye level on a coffee table in front of me.

If you plan on using the tabletop mode often, there are better third-party kickstands available that even lift the console up so you can charge while you play. And you will need to charge while you play, if you're not already: I've lost count of the number of times I've been playing Zelda and the console decided it was time to go to sleep because the battery was too low. This is not a console I'm going to be able to keep at my desk and only charge periodically, which is unfortunate.

Software

Regardless of any praise or concern with the hardware, the Switch would be a failure without it's games. The lineup is slim, at the moment, but Nintendo was smart enough to give it one of the best games I've ever played: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. In my mind, the praise the game has received is absolutely accurate. No Zelda game has given me this sense of a world, of a place that I'm actually going to, before. No game makes me feel like I have such a freedom to approach most situations. The story in the game, while sparsely told, is fascinating, of recovering from a loss that was supposed to be a victory.

For a long time, I thought I knew what the feeling people who praised Ocarina of Time were talking about, even if I thought they were exaggerating. That those feelings of exploring and adventuring were more a byproduct of a fancy new kind of game (woah, 3D!) than anything actually in the game. I thought that. But now that I've played Breath of the Wild, I know the feeling personally. It's an astounding accomplishment, and the only mark against it in terms of helping the Switch is that the game is also available on Wii U, in a version which is only marginally worse (similar performance issues with a slightly lower resolution).

I'll also note that, if you have someone to play it with, Snipperclips is another game you should absolutely add to your collection. The multiplayer puzzler is very charming, and some of the puzzles were decently challenging. Me and my friend had a lot of fun bumbling through the levels trying to cut each other just so. I can't imagine it works very well by yourself, but if you have someone to play it with, I absolutely recommend it.

Before I wrap up the software section, I should also note that it is incredibly easy to get accounts for foreign countries on your Switch. All you have to do is make a Nintendo account on their website, set it to being in whichever country you like (most likely Japan), and link it to an account on your Switch. Voilà, you've got access to a foreign eShop and all the games within! I've got one for Japan, and to be honest it hasn't been super useful just yet: Every game that interested me has since been released officially in the US eShop, and I can't imagine I'll ever get an 80 dollar Nobunaga's Ambition title that's in Japanese only. But if anything comes out in Japan that isn't available in America, I'll have access to it for the first time in my life, and that feels super cool.

Final Thoughts

I'm digging my Switch so far, I won't deny that. But the worries many have expressed with screen damage, controller connectivity (I've yet to experience the left joy-con desyncing, but as I mentioned I've mostly been playing in handheld mode), some of the flimsier-feeling aspects of the console, leave me pausing at giving it a full recommendation. Not to mention, I'm still riding high on Breath of the Wild, and I'd praise the Atari Jaguar if it had a game this good on it.

Honestly, my feelings on the Switch have not changed much: Unless you really want to play the new Zelda, and you don't already own a Wii U, I'd pass for now, at least until more information regarding the issues that have been reported come out. But if the flow of games remains steady and Nintendo makes...ANY comment on peoples issues, then I think the Switch is in for a much better time than it's predecessor.