User Reviews

Nintendo have made similar things to 1-2 Switch, see Wii Sports and Nintendo Land. The difference between those two games and this one is that both Wii Sports and Nintendo Land were packed-in for free with their respective consoles and have quite a bit of content; 1-2 Switch is a full priced game with bare minimum content.

First with the positives, it's kinda fun for like an hour when drunk with friends and shows some cool things that the Switch can do but I doubt ever will (when will a game ever need a player to listen to how many balls are within the joy-con).

Now with the negatives, it has no personality with generic actors replacing any characters that could embed the game with some well needed Nintendo charm (I can't imagine seeing generic live action farmer appearing in Smash anytime soon), all the mini-games are generic, everything from opening a generic probably stock image safe to shaking up some generic brand soda the game lacks a personality in anyway. The lack of personality that just drips from 1-2 Switch is a real downer on the whole game. But the presentation isn't the only thing that is off with 1-2 Switch, the gameplay is what really sinks this ship. Every mini-game is kinda fun to play once but are so simple any repeated play is just awful. The games are boring and often don't even work (the shaving mini-game never seemed to work so it was up to pure luck as to who won that game). Out of the 28 mini-games as far as I remember only one of the games is actually single-player (which involves shutting up an annoying baby) so even playing the game relies on you tricking a few of your friends to play with you, and there is no quicker way to lose any credibility than pulling out a Switch and this game at any kind of social gathering.

To be honest if it wasn't for the heavy price tag this would just be a forgettable experience that I wouldn't even acknowledge, but the fact that this is sold for full price is actually insulting.

When I bought this game, I was expecting to play it with a few friends and my family, and that's how I played it primarily. Almost every game is fun (the primary exception being Baby) and almost every game is really responsive (the primary exception being shave due to the gyros not working well while the controllers have their face buttons facing straight up or down). As I said, it works well for groups of all sizes, and I'll have two reviews, one for small groups of 2-5 people, and one for groups 6+ people.

Small Groups: All of the two player games work well for small groups, especially if the other members have a way to get involved, even while not playing. The game Soda Shake is particularly good in small groups, though I personally prefer it with two people as it gets really intense towards the end of the game.

Large Groups: This is where 1-2-Switch shines. I played this game with a group of 15+ people in my college's gaming organization. It brought several normally shy or awkward people out of their shells, and led to some hilarious moments and fond memories all around. Almost every game was played that night (all but Baby and Air Guitar), and everyone enjoyed playing/watching the action. Games like Sword Fight led to massive cheers at the ends of particularly close matches, and games like Plate Spin left the audience in uproarious laughter. Even a game of Dance Off led to cheers and standing ovations at 1:00 am as someone had received a score of 9970, assuming that 9999 is the highest, that's really good.

All in all, 1-2-Switch is a great game. $50 is a bit much, but I'd say $40 is a decent price. If you have Amazon Prime as I do, or see it on sale somewhere for $40 or lower, definitely pick it up. It is well worth the buy.