Console launches are funny business. While they’ve somewhat always signified the start of a new console generation, at the end of the day, a large chunk of the money for these products comes from FOMO. Whether it’s just being the person with the latest gear wanting to show off, being a hardcore fan of the brand, or even being a scalper hoping to also profit off the FOMO, there’s still a lot of value when it comes to a console’s launch lineup. One game that isn’t getting much love is Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and it has to do more with buying principles than it does the actual quality of the game’s content.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is in the vein of launch experiences like Astro’s Playroom with the PlayStation 5, 1-2-Switch with the original Switch, and Nintendo Land with the Wii U. The “game” is designed to showcase the capabilities of the Switch 2, just like those aforementioned titles did. The caveat is, much like 1-2-Switch before it, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is not a pack-in title. At that, unlike 1-2-Switch, Welcome Tour isn’t coming in at $50. It’s $9.99 and can only be purchased through the eShop.
Money and value stuff aside — and I’ll get back to this at the end — while Welcome Tour has its similarities to those other pack-in and launch titles, its approach to gameplay through education arguably makes it the most interesting of every game before it.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is exactly what the title says in different ways. It’s an experience that tells you almost everything there is to know about the Switch 2 while giving you a tour through the hardware’s interior and exterior in fine detail, too.
There’s really nothing special or interesting about this minigame where you use the mouse to safely avoid these spike balls, but it was addicting nonetheless.
The game begins with you selecting a tiny avatar that’ll eventually tour a giant Switch 2’s various components. Beginning with the left Joy-Con 2, you’ll be running around its surface collecting stamps by interacting with every button or feature you can find. If you have all the stamps in Area A, you can move on to Area B, and so on. The stamps are fairly easy to find, but there’s quite a few tricky ones, too. On top of that, there are also a bunch of lost and found items that you can turn in at the first information desk. The problem with that is you can only hold one lost item at a time, and the worst part is they’re about as useful as Korok seeds.
You’ll also find activations that’ll either have playable demos or quiz sections that you earn medals from. “Progression” in the game is determined by the checkmarks you have in each area, along with the medals you’ve amassed for taking part in games and quizzes.
While some are forgettable, a lot of the interactive sections you’ll come across are actually a joy to play. The first section in the game has a simple minigame that has you take control of a UFO and avoid getting hit by spiked balls using the Joy-Con 2 as a mouse. If you get the highest tiered score and come back with more medals, you can play a harder version of the game that requires you to collect coins while avoiding those spikies.
Another pretty cool minigame and teaching point came at the Switch 2’s screen area, where you learn about what 4K resolution is really all about. In this game, you play through World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. in a very tiny plain of the screen just to see how that resolution compares to the full real estate of a 4K screen. As you make Mario run from left to right, the gameplay area extends, but even when you get to the flagpole at the end, you still aren’t taking up a significant fraction of the screen. It really made me grow to appreciate the visual differences in 4K versus SD gaming.
Once you’ve explored every nook and cranny of the left Joy-Con 2, you’ll be exploring the Switch 2 screen, followed by the right Joy-Con 2, and then you’ll get to tour its inner workings — and that was actually quite a surprise to me when I played. The surprises continued when I found out you also get to explore attachments and peripherals like the Joy-Con 2 Straps, Switch 2 Dock, the Joy-Con 2 Grip, the Switch 2 Pro Controller, and even the Switch 2 Camera. The problem is you also get your share of unsavory surprises when it comes to exploring some of these areas.
The educational aspect of the game actually has some interesting tidbits, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to binge it all for the sake of finishing it.
They aren’t required for general gameplay, but if you’re a completionist, you’ll need the Switch 2 Camera and either a Joy-Con 2 Charging Grip or Switch 2 Pro Controller if you’re looking to experience everything there is to see and do in the game. So let’s come back to price. The camera is $50 while the charging grip is $40 and the S2 Pro Controller is $85. So in addition to the $10 this game costs, if you wanted to do it all, you’ll have to dish out another $90 to $135 and tax to make that happen. Not ideal. I didn’t buy a camera, so I didn’t get to do everything.
Bringing it back to general gameplay, I also really enjoyed the educational aspects of it when I wasn’t overdoing it. In all honesty, while I’m not as amazed about the Switch 2’s magnets as other people, it was still fascinating reading about how they work. Getting tested wasn’t so bad either, but they could’ve been more forgiving for the time you’re taking.
Before activating the quiz sections in the game, you have to read every informational kiosk that pops up, and after a while it can get boring because there’s just so much of it. It would’ve been a more pleasurable experience to just have all that info available upfront, but the reasons why they’re all in more digestible tidbits is understandable from a gameplay standpoint. Still, it does seem to add an unnecessary amount of time to something that should be quick. On that note, when you take a quiz, if you get one question wrong, you automatically fail. It’s nice that the game tells you exactly which kiosk you need to review before taking it again, but two out of three or giving us the ability to score three out of four would’ve also saved some time.
Let’s wrap this up by going back to value. Yes, I’m a fan of Nintendo, and yes, a copy of this game was given to me for review (which I’m not going to apologize for, as that’s extremely rare for a small, independent site), but anybody would be foolish to say that Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour isn’t worth the sum of its parts. For all the enjoyment and cool information you can get playing this game for two hours, it’s absolutely worth more than the $10 you’ll pay at Starbucks or any fast food joint for whatever you want there. Should it have been a pack-in, especially after Nintendo “took the $30 hit” with the Mario Kart World bundle? Yes, probably, but after spending considerable time with it, I wouldn’t criticize anybody for spending $10 on Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour at all.
Console launches are funny business. While they’ve somewhat always signified the start of a new console generation, at the end of the day, a large chunk of the money for these products comes from FOMO. Whether it’s just being the…
Console launches are funny business. While they’ve somewhat always signified the start of a new console generation, at the end of the day, a large chunk of the money for these products comes from FOMO. Whether it’s just being the person with the latest gear wanting to show off, being a hardcore fan of the brand, or even being a scalper hoping to also profit off the FOMO, there’s still a lot of value when it comes to a console’s launch lineup. One game that isn’t getting much love is Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour, and it has to do more with buying principles than it does the actual quality of the game’s content.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is in the vein of launch experiences like Astro’s Playroom with the PlayStation 5, 1-2-Switch with the original Switch, and Nintendo Land with the Wii U. The “game” is designed to showcase the capabilities of the Switch 2, just like those aforementioned titles did. The caveat is, much like 1-2-Switch before it, Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is not a pack-in title. At that, unlike 1-2-Switch, Welcome Tour isn’t coming in at $50. It’s $9.99 and can only be purchased through the eShop.
Money and value stuff aside — and I’ll get back to this at the end — while Welcome Tour has its similarities to those other pack-in and launch titles, its approach to gameplay through education arguably makes it the most interesting of every game before it.
Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour is exactly what the title says in different ways. It’s an experience that tells you almost everything there is to know about the Switch 2 while giving you a tour through the hardware’s interior and exterior in fine detail, too.
There’s really nothing special or interesting about this minigame where you use the mouse to safely avoid these spike balls, but it was addicting nonetheless.
The game begins with you selecting a tiny avatar that’ll eventually tour a giant Switch 2’s various components. Beginning with the left Joy-Con 2, you’ll be running around its surface collecting stamps by interacting with every button or feature you can find. If you have all the stamps in Area A, you can move on to Area B, and so on. The stamps are fairly easy to find, but there’s quite a few tricky ones, too. On top of that, there are also a bunch of lost and found items that you can turn in at the first information desk. The problem with that is you can only hold one lost item at a time, and the worst part is they’re about as useful as Korok seeds.
You’ll also find activations that’ll either have playable demos or quiz sections that you earn medals from. “Progression” in the game is determined by the checkmarks you have in each area, along with the medals you’ve amassed for taking part in games and quizzes.
While some are forgettable, a lot of the interactive sections you’ll come across are actually a joy to play. The first section in the game has a simple minigame that has you take control of a UFO and avoid getting hit by spiked balls using the Joy-Con 2 as a mouse. If you get the highest tiered score and come back with more medals, you can play a harder version of the game that requires you to collect coins while avoiding those spikies.
Another pretty cool minigame and teaching point came at the Switch 2’s screen area, where you learn about what 4K resolution is really all about. In this game, you play through World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. in a very tiny plain of the screen just to see how that resolution compares to the full real estate of a 4K screen. As you make Mario run from left to right, the gameplay area extends, but even when you get to the flagpole at the end, you still aren’t taking up a significant fraction of the screen. It really made me grow to appreciate the visual differences in 4K versus SD gaming.
Once you’ve explored every nook and cranny of the left Joy-Con 2, you’ll be exploring the Switch 2 screen, followed by the right Joy-Con 2, and then you’ll get to tour its inner workings — and that was actually quite a surprise to me when I played. The surprises continued when I found out you also get to explore attachments and peripherals like the Joy-Con 2 Straps, Switch 2 Dock, the Joy-Con 2 Grip, the Switch 2 Pro Controller, and even the Switch 2 Camera. The problem is you also get your share of unsavory surprises when it comes to exploring some of these areas.
The educational aspect of the game actually has some interesting tidbits, but I wouldn’t recommend trying to binge it all for the sake of finishing it.
They aren’t required for general gameplay, but if you’re a completionist, you’ll need the Switch 2 Camera and either a Joy-Con 2 Charging Grip or Switch 2 Pro Controller if you’re looking to experience everything there is to see and do in the game. So let’s come back to price. The camera is $50 while the charging grip is $40 and the S2 Pro Controller is $85. So in addition to the $10 this game costs, if you wanted to do it all, you’ll have to dish out another $90 to $135 and tax to make that happen. Not ideal. I didn’t buy a camera, so I didn’t get to do everything.
Bringing it back to general gameplay, I also really enjoyed the educational aspects of it when I wasn’t overdoing it. In all honesty, while I’m not as amazed about the Switch 2’s magnets as other people, it was still fascinating reading about how they work. Getting tested wasn’t so bad either, but they could’ve been more forgiving for the time you’re taking.
Before activating the quiz sections in the game, you have to read every informational kiosk that pops up, and after a while it can get boring because there’s just so much of it. It would’ve been a more pleasurable experience to just have all that info available upfront, but the reasons why they’re all in more digestible tidbits is understandable from a gameplay standpoint. Still, it does seem to add an unnecessary amount of time to something that should be quick. On that note, when you take a quiz, if you get one question wrong, you automatically fail. It’s nice that the game tells you exactly which kiosk you need to review before taking it again, but two out of three or giving us the ability to score three out of four would’ve also saved some time.
Let’s wrap this up by going back to value. Yes, I’m a fan of Nintendo, and yes, a copy of this game was given to me for review (which I’m not going to apologize for, as that’s extremely rare for a small, independent site), but anybody would be foolish to say that Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour isn’t worth the sum of its parts. For all the enjoyment and cool information you can get playing this game for two hours, it’s absolutely worth more than the $10 you’ll pay at Starbucks or any fast food joint for whatever you want there. Should it have been a pack-in, especially after Nintendo “took the $30 hit” with the Mario Kart World bundle? Yes, probably, but after spending considerable time with it, I wouldn’t criticize anybody for spending $10 on Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour at all.
by Danreb Victorio
