Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour - Review

The Nintendo Switch 2 has finally arrived and with it comes a number of games, some of them are brand new and some of them are just brand new to Nintendo players. One release tucked away behind them all is the Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, which is less of a game and more of an exhibition. Is this this truly welcoming, or is it nothing more than an overpriced tour?

Before we get any further in, it must be pointed out that this is not a game, this is an informational release that does contain some mini-games. Wii Sports was something similar, but it focused more on the ability to play the games, there for understanding the Wii’s unique controller. If you are coming in here for 100 mini-games, like you get in Mario Party, then you are going to be left disappointed. If, however, you are coming in here, hoping to learn all about the Nintendo Switch 2, then there is perhaps some enjoyment to be found here.

Right with that done, what is this all about? Honestly, it feels like Nintendo took the ‘Developer Asks’ series that they release and just made it interactive. The ‘game’ is broken down into areas, much like you might see at Comic-Con, PAX Australia or even Nintendo Live. These areas all focus on a specific part of the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, so the main body, the Joy-Con 2, the Nintendo Switch 2 Dock and more. As you begin you will be given free reign to wander around the Left Joy-Con 2, and eventually you will begin to gain access to the other pieces around this exhibit. Now I say free reign, but there are only a few things you can do in any area and the number varies depending on the equipment in question.

For the first area, your options are learning about the various technologies inside the Joy-Con 2, playing some mini-games or doing some tech demos. The latter is the more interesting, because it is less about graphics or scores and more about understanding. These are the sorts of things that I would expect to see at Scienceworks in Melbourne, or Powerhouse in Sydney. The demo in the first area is to highlight the HD Rumble 2, where you can feel the difference between simulated events, based on how the rumble works. The games on offer are more rounded, giving you multiple tiers to climb and while you might unlock the higher tiers, you won’t be able to play them until you prove your metal by collecting medals across the whole thing. These demos and games are fun, they are the most game you are going to find in this release, but there is nothing here that is something you need to experience.

The remaining aspects of this area, and all the areas, are the kiosks and quiz stations. The kiosks act more like placards you might see in front of some art at a museum, you can walk up to the capture button and when you interact with the kiosk there, it tells you what it is. Some of these have more details, some are quite basic and while I would say unless you have never held a controller before or even seen one, you should bypass them, you do need to see everything in order to progress. The other aspect are the quizzes, which as you might have guessed will test your knowledge of things you have just read about. When you activate one, you will get a series of cards appear, each one having a little knowledge about some of the functions around whatever the quiz is about. Once you have read them you can take the quiz and yeah, that is it really. The stamps you get from touching everything, are the only thing that matter for progression, the rest is just nice to clear from the checklist.

That is perhaps the real problem here, there is nothing that you need to do, yes getting stamps to unlock things is important for progression, but there is nothing in any additional area that is important to see. What perhaps makes this even more pointless is that you need to have a lot of extra stuff to really experience everything. One of the games is all about VRR, which is fine as the Nintendo Switch 2’s display supports that, so you just have to hold it in your hand. Another one however, requires a 4K display to play and this is not a ‘4K display to experience it in full’ thing, but rather if you are without a 4K display, you can’t experience the game. I don’t think there has ever been a game released, that requires you to have specific things to experience it all. Sure, games made for Nintendo DS would use the microphone, but every single Nintendo DS machine had one built in, you did not have to buy one.

Unless you are going for the top score, or all the medals in the mini-games and demos, even going at a slow pace can see you complete this within a matter of hours. Now there are some fun nuggets of knowledge hidden away in here, especially when you climb inside some of the hardware, but they are nothing that an internet search couldn’t tell you. If you are a Nintendo completionist then you likely already own this, but if you are looking for something else to enjoy between races in Mario Kart World, then I would look elsewhere. There is nothing bad about this, there is just a lot of bland and your money would be better spent elsewhere.

The Score

7.0

Review code provided by Nintendo

The Pros

Some of the tech demos can really showcase how much the system can do

The mini-games do ramp up in required skill, which will test you

The Cons

The information delivered is nothing that can’t be found by an internet search

Everything is bland, there is nothing fun going on and it constantly takes forever to do anything