There has been much debate about Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour since it was announced as a paid game. Despite the clear love and care that’s gone in, its nature as a tech demo – and comparisons to the PlayStation 5’s Astro’s Playroom pack-in – led to calls for it to be free. But after getting hands-on with the game during a recent Nintendo preview, Welcome Tour went a lot of the way towards justifying its cost.
Its price point (AUD $15.00) will remain an obstacle for most Nintendo Switch 2 buyers, but I understand now what Nintendo is going for, and how it aims to achieve it.
The game is pretty much what it says on the tin: an introduction to the technology backing the Switch 2, with a focus on showing off the console’s capabilities. You choose a tiny avatar to roam a giant-sized Switch 2, and discover all sorts of activities and knowledge across the console’s surface.
What to expect of Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour
Travelling through Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, you can take stairs down and across, to explore a many-layered virtual console. Speaking to tiny humans at kiosks, you can take on quizzes about the Switch 2, where you learn from information sheets, and then regurgitate that knowledge. If you’re somebody who balks at exams, look out. But if you relish an academic challenge, then come on in.
The real draw, beyond these quizzes, is the mini-games dotted along the Switch 2’s surface. Each is designed around one aspect of the Switch 2, highlighting just how much this console is a leap above its predecessor.
In one mini-game, you need to use mouse mode to figure out where vibrations are originating from, on a map. You quietly, calmly drag your mouse over this space, feeling the intensity of vibrations shift and change, using your analysis to pinpoint where the vibrations are strongest. If you win, you get a medal. If you pinpoint exactly where the vibration is strongest, you get three medals.
And that’s really how Welcome Tour incentivises your exploration. For every quiz you get right, you get a little tick. For every mini-game you complete, you get a medal. As you accumulate medals, you’ll unlock new and more complex mini-games. It might be a trick to encourage engagement, but it certainly worked on me. I became an absolute fiend for those medals the longer I played the game, to speak to its moreish nature.
Standout mini-games
There was plenty of mini-games where my hunger for new medals was served. One mini-game is all about figuring out how many frames animate a moving object. It’s the clearest illustration I’ve ever seen of how frame rates work, and it was great fun figuring out when objects were zooming past at 30FPS, 60FPS, 120FPS, and so on. With a bit of logic and some guesswork, I was able to get through this one, and I found myself learning a lot, too.
Another stand-out mini-game is an adaptation of Super Mario Bros. that’s designed to show off screen resolution. At first, the mini-game is fairly small on screen, but as you travel along the main level’s path – up and down pipes, across blocks, the screen expands until you’re playing a bright, widescreen course. I played through this mini-game a few times to get all the unlockables, and it’s a very nifty little inclusion, with some all-important synergy with Nintendo’s past.
One more mini-game that stood out was more of a tech demo, but one that I was still talking about long after my preview was over. In one of the hubs in Welcome Tour, you’ll find a “maracas” demo. This lets you shake the Joy-Con 2s to replicate the feeling of shaking a maraca – but it’s not only sound that’s replicated.
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It also replicates the feeling of beads rolling and shaking around inside a wooden oval. You can also flick on a secondary setting to have those beads turn into rubber balls – and it was frankly shocking to have that texture and weight replicated so well in-hand. I’m sure there’s all sorts of technical know-how that can explain how it’s done, but at first touch, it was magic.
All of these experiences paled in comparison to my favourite of the Welcome Tour package, however – a mini-game I can only describe as like being Twister for fingers. In this particular mini-game, you’re given a virtual board, and instructed to place your fingers on coloured circles (the console is placed flat for this game).
What results is a silly little game where you’re tying your fingers in knots to make the correct moves, while notes on screen warn, “You’re slipping, you’re slipping!!” It’s all very good fun – and particularly funny when you try to cheat with the help of a friend, and still end up losing.
The complete package
There are plenty of joys like this to be discovered in Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour. It’s a fun and funny little game that provides ample information about the Switch 2, while outlining its biggest and most impressive features. With every new mini-game, it inspires thought about how these features might be used in future games.
That said, I can certainly see why there’s debate around this being a paid title. While it is joyful in parts, it’s still very much an advertisement for the Switch 2 and its capabilities. I learned a lot about the console. I had short bursts of fun across some wacky mini-games. At the end of the preview, I left keen for more.
The debate around Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour will likely rage on. But it all boils down to a simple issue: do you find joy in the smaller things in life? For the joy it brought me, this little game justified itself, in my mind. Whether it was finger Twister or shaking a maraca, I absolutely enjoyed my time with it.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour was played as part of a preview day held by Nintendo. To attend, Leah J. Williams was provided with flights to Melbourne.
