Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour Review

When I first played the Nintendo Switch 2 at the New York Experience event, I didn’t even play Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour — when there’s Mario Kart World, and the more-whiles-away Donkey Kong Bananza and Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and more to check out — you pick those over what is ultimately itself an “experience”. Then I was offered the chance to play the game again at another event, and you know what — it is kind of fun, but in the most corporate, clinical way you can think of. 

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is a collection of tech demos and mini-games, it’s a hidden item game, and it’s a digital instruction manual all rolled into one. You start the game by picking an avatar (it doesn’t matter which), and you’re ushered into the Welcome Tour — a gigantic Nintendo Switch 2, all open and apart, yours to explore. You’ll explore the left Joy-Con 2, the right, the Pro Controller, the Camera, the Joy-Con straps, and ultimately even end up in the guts of the machine. 

Along the way, you’ll collect stamps and medals. Stamps are required to move from one area to the next — each area being a part of the Nintendo Switch 2 or an accessory. Stamps are hidden in little pedestals at points of interest — buttons, vents, and heat pipes — and they’re not visible, so you’ll need to wander around to find them. You’ll need to collect them all to advance to the next area, and while they’re never too hard to find, it ultimately just ends up with you wandering around hoping to trigger them in the later stages of the game. Luckily, you don’t need all of the game’s next commodity — medals — to completely advance through the game.

Medals are required to play the game’s tech demos and mini-games. Now, don’t confuse the two — Nintendo’s iron fist of branding is apparent here as it drills this into you every time. We get it, the copywriter was really worried we’d confuse the two.

Medals are required for both demos and mini-games. The demos are just that — simple experiences that demonstrate the technical capabilities of the system. All of the demos range from interesting to “yep, well I know how that works.” Some unique Nintendo Switch 2 features like HD Rumble 2, the mouse controls, and the 3D sound demos are quite good at showing what the console can do. Others, like the HDR, framerate, and VRR demos, are also great as basic 101s for the technology. The Super Mario Bros. 4K demo shows how far Nintendo has come, with the entire first world being played across the full screen — and oddly, it’s the only bit of playable nostalgia in the entire game. 

Mini-games are the most “game” part of Welcome Tour, and like everything here, all use different parts of the Nintendo Switch 2’s technology to be played. Games like Dodge the Spike Balls using the mouse are challenging, the digital Twister-like game where you have to hold as many fingers on the screen as possible in place, and Speed Maze are all truly great fun. We’re not talking about deep gaming experiences here — they are just mini-games — but there’s fun to be had. Oh, and even with a 120Hz screen, the Guess the Frame Rate game continues to befuddle me. Once you go above 60fps, it’s all the same for me.

The weakest part of the package — and thankfully one that’s truly skippable — is the Insights. These “fun” facts, littered around the map, are indeed interesting in parts, but they’re also split into three to five different little cards per fact, and you have to wait for all these slow animations to play. Nintendo is clearly proud of the tech in the Nintendo Switch 2, and so they should be — but I don’t know how many people, aside from those who bought a Switch 2 on the first day, are going to care that much or sit around to go through them all. I’d rather just play the with the tech, in the demos.

What’s really impressive, though, is how Nintendo has mapped out the Nintendo Switch 2 in all this fine detail—both inside and out. Every port, every bump, every notch is there. Sure, they’re Nintendo and they made the thing, but this is some really detailed stuff.

You’ll notice I’ve gone this entire review without talking about the price. For full transparency, Nintendo did provide us with a review copy of this game — we would have bought it regardless to review it.

The problem with Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour isn’t that it’s not fun, or charming, or an interesting showpiece for the technology in the Nintendo Switch 2 — it nails that brief. It’s just the entire tone of the presentation that Nintendo has completely missed the mark on. It’s like your mate handing you his phone and saying, “Hey, watch this,” and that “this” turns out to be 15 minutes long. It’s not something you want to watch if it’s pushed on you — nor would you pay for that.

Nintendo could have packaged all of this up instead as a nostalgia-filled way to show how older games and properties can be played using new tech — like the Super Mario Bros. 4K demo — then it’s less of a lesson. The “final boss” of the game is a quiz covering everything you learned while playing.

We used to read instruction manuals in the back of the car on the way home for fun — we didn’t buy them, they weren’t as complex as this — but we’ve already been sold on the Switch 2, so we don’t need convincing again. There are worse ways to spend the same money Nintendo is asking for this, but there are also better.

Rating: 3.5/5