The original 1-2 Switch was a launch title for the titular console, a party game assortment of various mini-games that was basically a tech demo showcasing the Joy-Con controllers, except it wasn’t a pack-in title, being sold for full price. It got middling reviews, was immediately overshadowed by games such as Breath of the Wild, and no one cared about it ever again. Until now, when Nintendo somehow decided that it needed a sequel, for reasons unclear. Even if Nintendo just needed a quick game to fill in a gap during the release schedule, you’d think they’d go with virtually anything else. It didn’t help that it was first announced mere weeks before its release, and then reports surfaced saying that it bombed in playtesting, seemingly dooming the game even further. But with all of this against it, how does the finished game actually hold up?
Well, here’s all you need to know: less than twenty minutes into a standard two-player round, I found myself thinking “I never want to play this game again.” And just for comparison, one of my contender’s for the year’s worst games includes Devolver Tumble Time, the first truly awful game by Devolver Digital (sorry) that’s basically little more than an overly-simplistic mobile puzzle game designed to try and con paid microtransactions out of players via methods such as impossibly slim time limits, operating under the thinnest layer of satire. And yet I was able to stick with that game for hours before giving up, which is more than I can say for Everybody 1-2-Switch! Let that sink in.
To be honest, though, part of the reason behind my immediate disdain for Everybody 1-2-Switch! was its presentation. And it goes beyond the host, the horse-masked Horace, which comes across as desperately looking for cheap laughs. Honestly, he was one of the least offensive parts. There’s just this level of forced cheerfulness, obnoxiousness, talking down, bad acting and more that I’ve only previously seen in ’80s VHS party trick guides for kids. And it’s not like the game at least has impressive visuals to look at, with a majority of the graphics consisting of little more than still photos.
But what about the actual games? Well, despite being a sequel to 1-2 Switch, Everybody 1-2-Switch! drops any actual showcases of the Joy-Con’s capabilities, outside of maybe a hide-and-seek game where you hunt for a second Joy-Con by using buttons to make it vibrate in different ways. Instead, all the games that use the Joy-Con consist of little more than a bunch of basic motion control games that wouldn’t feel out of place in a discount Wii game from fifteen years ago. Most of them aren’t truly awful, but rather uninteresting. One game sees you making a bunch of hand motions in order to attracts aliens, one is basically just “Red Light, Green Light” where you run in place (presumably included because someone high up at Nintendo saw Squid Game), and one just has you doing squats whenever an instructor says “squat,” and not to do it when they say a different word, namely “squash” (they didn’t even seem to come up with a second word to trick players with).
Everybody 1-2-Switch! basically ends up exchanging Joy-Con focused games for games playable with the use of smartphones this time around, with a good chunk of the games playable with either phones or controllers, and a handful exclusive to mobile devices. Perhaps not surprisingly for a new feature, the mobile-exclusive games tend to be the only interesting ones in the whole lot, such as a game where you use cameras in order to hunt for real-life objects matching certain colors, and one where you take down notes while memorizing ice cream orders in order to properly answer questions afterwards. It’s at least somewhat amusing stuff, even if it does comes across as Jackbox Lite.
But even if you do find a couple of games to your liking, a selection of only seventeen games makes for slim pickings overall, and once you’ve played any game for the first time, you’ve basically seen all it has to offer. The only real replayability level comes from the fact that in order to play any mini-games on their own, you have to first play and unlock them in a regular game, where you rely on random selections added to a wheel. The only two extra modes are different version of the quiz and bingo mini-games, which kind of make sense in that they’re the easiest games to play on both controllers and phones without any fancy gimmicks…but they’re also the most boring games in Everybody 1-2-Switch!
The bingo game is…well, just bingo. Full card, attempt to fill a line. The quiz game, meanwhile, feels patronizing to any casual players who may be interested in something like this. It does have different categories, but it consists of embarrassingly simple stuff like guessing of statements like “The season that comes after summer is…autumn” is true or false, or being given two pictures of a chick and a duck and being asked to guess which one is the duck. You can customize your own quizzes in its separate mode, in case of parties or larger gatherings in general, which is a nice touch, but it’s too little, too late.
That said, though, one might say that Everybody 1-2-Switch! is meant to be played with larger crowds, where its more fun. If so, though, I would like to know why A. You would even bother with the smaller two and four-player games, B. why this game doesn’t have any sort of online play, especially since only a couple of games seem to be dependent on all players being in the same room, and C. why anyone would even think “the game begins to get good with a large group” is much of a plus to begin with, given that it sounds similar to the “it begins to get good after ten to twenty hours” excuse. The second one is particularly baffling, seeing as how the game boasts a 100-player mode, but unless you may pull ninety-nine people out of nowhere or have a huge event coming up soon, it’s basically useless.
But yes, there arguably could be some fun had in playing the game with a large crowd, but the same could be said of doing the Macarena, or watching any comedy in a packed theater, where laughter can be contagious. Without the allure of a crowd, though, this is just a collection of weak mini-games with a poorly-paced structure. Another reason why things in Everybody 1-2-Switch! get unbearable is the fact you can’t skip any introductions or tutorials, even if it’s for the most basic games or ones you’ve played before, or explanations like “Whoever wins a game gets a point, and the first to so many points wins.” Needless to say, it’s a design flaw that gets annoying, combined with any breaks certain games take in order to tabulate point totals, which feels unnecessary. Despite the games being quick, they somehow still fill like a slog, and are one of the main reasons that this a party game that will likely leave you with less friends afterwards.
Closing Comments:
If you’re looking for good party games on the Switch, you can do and have done better. If you’re looking for good games on Switch for casual players or kids, you can do and have done better. If you’re looking for good games on the Switch for multiple players…you get the idea. Everybody 1-2-Switch! is a game with no real reason to exist, and its lineup of mostly boring, overly simple, poorly-presented games fails to justify its existence. Moreso than its predecessor, you can easily skip this game, and your parties will be the better for it.
