Nintendo Switch review: The best way to play games that don't exist yet

Because this is so seamless and because the console can charge via USB-C (meaning you can charge the console with the same external battery pack you use to charge your phone when the good-but-not-great battery runs out, assuming you have a USB-C cord), it's super easy to throw the console into your backpack and just take your games with you. And though portable devices like the 3DS and Vita have been around for years, the Switch is really something new and special in this regard since the games made for it, even the single player ones, seem to be designed to be shared with others. The day after the console launched, I was taking it over to a friend's house to show them why I was so excited about it, and I passed by an 8-year-old who had his own, playing Zelda while walking down the street.

The Joy-Con and other optional-but-necessary accessories

Another big selling point for the Switch, if you're to believe Nintendo, is the Joy-Con controllers. For me, they're not huge game-changers, and struggle to justify their $80 price tag. To be fair, they're impressive pieces of technology, but cool-but-unnecessary features like the IR camera and "HD rumble" have forced the price of the controller set to cost much more than the $60 you'll pay for, say, a PS4 controller. I don't want to knock HD rumble, it was stunning to experience the feature in 1-2-Switch for the first time and, say, shake a box around to figure out how many marbles are inside, or feel milk shooting out of a cow udder. But we're all paying top dollar for that kind of high-tech cow udder simulation.

The upshot is that when you buy a set of Joy-Con, you're technically getting two controllers. And though they really won't cut it for complex games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, I've personally found them pretty comfortable, and more-than-capable for less button-heavy games like Snipperclips and the upcoming Sonic Mania.

Once more games – fighting games especially – begin to come out for the console, though, it will become almost necessary to pick up a Pro controller or two (a bargain at $70 each!) since it's the only controller currently available for the system that actually has a proper directional pad. Oh, and if you want another dock for another TV in your house, that'll set you back another $90 for what is, essentially, a hollow hunk of plastic that allows you to hook up cords to your system. Sure, the general $300 price point is attractive at first, but realize that you'll likely need to drop a couple of hundred more if you're looking to optimize your experience (and that's even before you pick up any games for the system).

The big questions

Above and beyond the accessory nickle-and-diming, there's a lot of other unanswered questions about the Nintendo Switch that might be enough to scare off prospective buyers. We still don't know how Nintendo's new paid online service will work. The Virtual Console, Nintendo's shop for games from older consoles, isn't live yet, and there's no word from Nintendo on how it will work on the Switch – let alone an answer to the question of whether Virtual Console games bought on the Wii U will be playable on the Switch.

And finally, though it hasn't been my experience, it seems like this first wave of consoles have some issues on the hardware side as well. People have been reporting scratched screens from the Switch's dock, trouble with Joy-Con connectivity, dead pixels on the Switch's LCD screen, and poor Wi-Fi connectivity.

Now, most-if-not-all of these problems are relatively minor, and may be fixed by iterative hardware and software updates, but it must be asked – if all of these important questions are still unanswered, there's no way you should buy a Switch, right?

Why you should absolutely buy a Switch

Nick Robinson of Polygon.com recently posted a video that does a very good job at getting to the heart of what makes the Nintendo Switch special. Even though it really only has one consensus must-have game for it at the moment (The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, the best Zelda game I have ever played (though Snipperclips is, in my opinion, another must-play title, the best puzzle game since Portal)) it is, bar none, the best platform that has ever existed on which to play video games. If a game is coming out for both the PS4 and the Switch, why would you ever opt for the PS4 version when you'll be able to take the Switch version with you wherever you go?

Like so many Nintendo consoles before it, the Switch has attempted to make a case that power isn't everything – that there are important things that a console can do to improve quality of play above and beyond adding horsepower. The Wii attempted to make that argument on the strength of motion-control play and it was incredibly, wildly successful. And though I don't think the Switch's argument here is as strong as the Wii's was, it's incredibly convincing.

The verdict

The Switch is a must-have console, but it's not a must-have-right-now console. Unless you're really itching to play the new Legend of Zelda game, or the portable nature of the console appeals to you because, say, you travel a bunch, you'd be wise to wait a bit until games like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe and Splatoon 2 come out and Nintendo answers some of these lingering, burning questions. There are also, for us sports fans, exactly zero sports games for the console right now with the possible exception of the racing game Fast RMX. ARMS is on the way, as are FIFA and NBA 2k18 later on this year, but as of now, the genre hasn't really found a home here. Despite this, the fact remains that with the Switch, Nintendo has succeeded in creating a console that is, as of now, simply the best platform on which to play video games.