Published , by Donovan Erskine
Published , by Donovan Erskine
1-2 Switch was a weird product of the hybrid console’s early days, launching alongside the Switch in 2017. It failed to reach the same acclaim and financial success as previous in-house party games, which made the announcement of a sequel, Everybody 1-2 Switch!, bizarre. Released more than six years after the first game, Everybody 1-2 Switch! shows slight growth, but not enough to overcome the boring and confusing minigames that made the original title so remarkably mediocre.
Everybody 1-2 Switch! once again pits players against each other in a series of party games and challenges centered around the Switch’s unique hardware. Up to eight players can play using Joy-Cons, and for the first time, up to 100 players can compete at once through the new Smartphone Mode. This time around, your parties are hosted by Horace, a sharply dressed man wearing a plastic horse head.
I have to give Nintendo credit for doubling down on the weird and wacky nature of the 1-2 Switch franchise in its newest installment. Not only are you constantly following the orders of a talking horse man, but just about every person on-screen is bombastically goofy and over-the-top, which pairs well with wacky minigames that ask you to perform alien-summoning rituals and butt bump your friends. It wears its quirkiness on its sleeve and you know what? I respect it.
It’s a shame that Everybody 1-2 Switch’s appeal doesn’t go far beyond some colorful visuals and zany sense of humor. The sequel has a batch of new minigames to face off against friends in, and I can only recall one or two that I would actually whip out at a party without feeling an immense amount of shame. Everybody 1-2 Switch! commits the biggest sin a party game can make: it’s just unfun. Most of the minigames are so bizarrely contrived that I spent more time cocking my head to the side in confusion than I did laughing, smiling, or, you know — having fun.
As a trivia nerd, I was admittedly excited to see the inclusion of a quiz party when booting up the game for the first time. That excitement was immediately hampered when I realized that the game doesn’t ask you actual trivia questions, but instead wants you to provide a yes or no answer to pretty generic facts and sometimes outright lame “mind-bogglers.” For example, one of the questions about whether or not Mount Everest was the tallest mountain in the world — but “Everest” was intentionally misspelled. Good one! Luckily you can create your own questions, once you unlock the ability to do so.
There’s also a new Bingo Party mode, which is honestly fine. It’s kind of hard to screw up bingo, and if it’s your kind of game, you’ll enjoy competing with friends to try and be the first to get five in a row. It’s deeply ironic that one of the most boring “party games” is among the least bad that Everybody 1-2 Switch! has to offer. You know what really gets the party started? Bingo!
While the first 1-2 Switch was a mediocre party game that failed to leave the same impression as titles like Wii Sports, I always believed that its impressive use of the Joy-Con’s HD Rumble technology made it a decent showpiece for the Switch, and worth playing a few rounds of during the days where the Switch’s library was much smaller. Everybody 1-2 Switch! can’t even be given that grace, as the HD Rumble technology is far less impressive over six years into the console’s lifespan.
The new Smartphone Mode, which is essentially looking to emulate the Jackbox experience, is easy to set up and works surprisingly well for a Nintendo product. Playing the minigames with an iPhone didn’t feel much worse than doing it with the native controllers, and I found it hilarious that Nintendo lets smartphone users upload any profile picture and username to the game, ensuring it’ll be troll central and decent meme material for whatever groups decide to play it. I could totally see a middle school teacher loading this up for their students on the last day of school and everyone having a good time with it, all things considered.
I knew the writing was on the wall when Everybody 1-2 Switch! was announced in the same month that it was released, with little fanfare from Nintendo. Everybody 1-2 Switch! is fun in the same way that watching a bad movie is fun. If you’ve got some good friends together and everyone’s in a silly mood, you might have a good time throwing on Everybody 1-2 Switch and having a laugh at the absurdity of it all. But after about 20 minutes of this, most sensible people will ask you to close the game and launch Mario Kart, Mario Party, or even Switch Sports before they sink more of their precious time into Everybody 1-2 Switch!
This review is based on a digital code provided by the publisher. Everybody 1-2 Switch! is available now for the Nintendo Switch.