 Hey everyone, welcome back to the Nintendo Prime Podcast. It's been a couple weeks. It has. Um, I think you can forgive us for a small break from the Nintendo Prime Podcast because the Switch came out and we just kind of made an executive decision that we just want to play the Switch with a little bit of free time we have. Yep, yep, that is true. Um, because what else is it, what else are we going to talk about? I mean, the Switch is kind of what's happening and to get a full conversation going about it, we kind of need to get some experience with it. Alright, so, uh, this week, obviously I am your normal everyday host, the guy that does everything at Nintendo Prime, Tender off a chance. Obviously we have our usual co-host, your Mr. Eric Moore. Hell. And we're doing something a little different this week. For the first time in a long time, we have a third person on the podcast, YouTuber Mason of Delfino. Hello. Yes, he is here. Some of you guys might remember him from our only episode of Zelda Inqueries so far where he didn't talk much because he doesn't know as much about Zelda as he does about everything else in Nintendo. Right, right. So, we figured you know what? He's probably better fit on the podcast. Probably. Probably. Nintendo in general is my thing, Zelda not so much. Yeah, so, uh, we will talk about a little, a little, a little unknown game called Breath of the Wild later. Yeah. I'm sure all three of us have some experience. Oh yeah, okay. Oh yeah, okay. No, I'm good, I'm good. You're good there, you're good there. But we are going to talk about, the very first topic I want to talk about has to do with the Switch itself. And basically what is our initial impressions and takeaways? Mason, let's start with you. All right, so needless to say, within the last couple of years this hike just built up and up and up and finally we learned what the thing was and oh it's the Switch now. And then all of a sudden it snuck up right behind us and it launched. So, we're all really excited obviously and just to think that finally I have it, it was a very hype thing. I was more hyped for it than I was with the Wii U and then as time went on and playing and stuff, I'm really, I fell in love with this thing. I'm sitting right beside me in my hand right now and it feels so smooth. And the Joy-Cons are the most insane things ever, specifically with One Two Switch, I don't know if we'll talk about that later or not. But just to let that be known, that is insane. Very interesting controller design. It's very sleek and the whole portability aspect is amazing. I took Zelda with me and telling the other day I'm like, this is insane. I'm not even at home playing this and just straight up this thing is dope. I mean, it's a great little layout they have going on here with the Joy-Con grip so you can kind of have a controller thing in itself or you can take it on the go or you can play it with the Joy-Cons, they're all controllers or all this stuff. They really, really went overboard with the features of this thing, I think. And I mean, it's a little overwhelming at first but it's incredible. I love it. Well, that's good. Obviously, the Switch itself is a very enticing system. For anyone who wants the same experience when the game was at home on a TV or on the go. Now, I know that Sony tried pulling that off at the Vita. The games natively on the Vita didn't really live up to say the PlayStation 3 or PlayStation 4. And their solution to streaming PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 games didn't really work too well because it was limited to Wi-Fi connections and streaming over Wi-Fi. And when you take your device out of the house and say you're at McDonald's and you're on their Wi-Fi or at a hotel Wi-Fi, it just didn't really work that well. So Nintendo kind of said, well, the problem is that everything is an L1 system. So here's the Switch. Brilliant little marketing campaign they've done for this little device. And I think the first thing I had to say when I unboxed this bad boy was, man, it's small. Yeah, it is. I did not expect it to be that small. I've seen people hold it at conventions and all this stuff. And I'm just like, yeah, but it looks like it's Wii U tablet maybe bigger. No, not really. It's smaller. Very sleek, light, surprisingly light. Yeah. And I think what's most fascinating with me about the Switch is I have like every control configuration there possibly is. Obviously I got the Joy-Cons. I actually have a second set of Joy-Cons. Me too. In the video I got my blue Joy-Cons on, that Nintendo Prime blue. But I got the original gray set of Joy-Cons, which is what. Eric's holding up over here with his Switch he's setting up. So he's got the gray and I got that exact same system and then I got the blue Joy-Cons. And it's kind of interesting to have two sets of Joy-Cons. There isn't really too many games that take advantage of that outside of like Snipper Clips and Just Dance, which I own both of those games. So it has been kind of cool having four controllers for that. But I also have like the Pro Controller, because I heard so many people say that this is the way to play Zelda. And I kind of agree. Not so much that the Joy-Cons feel bad, but once you have the Pro Controller, that's when you start to realize just how much better this control setup is than the Joy-Cons for the type of game Breath of the Wild is. But that being said, I've had no issue with any of the control setups. And that includes that really strange one that everyone's been complaining about, you know, where you hold the Joy-Cons sideways, even without the Joy-Cons grips on there, or the Joy-Cons, what are those things called? The things you slide on to get the raised buttons. It's the Joy-Con wristband, I think, or something like that. Yeah, so even playing this way, having to touch like this, I did a bunch of hours of Snipper Clips playing with the sideways Joy-Cons without those things that I'm with my girlfriend. And we had no issues. Our hands never cramped. And I've got like long fingers and big hands. She's got small hands. We had no issues playing that way. I know some people were like, oh, it looks awkward, it looks uncomfortable. And yeah, when you first hold it, like I'm holding the one that's most uncomfortable, that has the control stick in the center right now. And it feels uncomfortable when you first hold it, but after a couple of hours, you forget you're off center and everything. Everything just feels natural, and it works. And I'm never looking down at the controller to find buttons. And I think that's what surprised me the most, because that was the one control scheme I was absolutely worried about. I'm like, who the heck is going to play Mario Kart locally with just two of these things? And now I get it. It can be done. Even putting on those extra raised button things, which I don't have right next to me right now, they help and make it a little more comfortable. But I don't know, for me, lack of comfort is where I get fatigued while I play, right? It doesn't matter if it's awkward for me to hold it. It matters how it feels when I'm holding it for a couple of hours. And if it just eventually melds into my hand and I don't get cramped, there's no fatigue, so it works. I think that's what surprised me the most about this system is just the one thing I didn't think it was going to do well, it did well. So my initial impressions are just, it works. Everything that I wanted this system to do, it does. It does it beautifully well. So before we get into maybe what issues we have, Eric, what were some of your initial impressions? I really haven't played it a whole ton. While work, work, work, work. Yes, but I have actually never played it outside of portable mode yet. So I actually, my docking station is still in the box. Which means you haven't experienced FPS drops in the breath of the wild. Yeah. But no, everything you guys have said has hit the nail right on the head. It's very nice, very sleek. Well, and this is interesting because I think all three of us might have slightly different use cases for the system. Like for you, you're always on the go between work and coming over here to do recordings and stuff or just in general, you're on the go a lot. So it's really nice having that portable factory. Playing a home console, like a AAA game like Breath of the Wild on the go is an amazing thing. Whoever thought that we'd be doing this anytime soon, especially with traditional controls. Yeah, there's some good looking games and tablets, but you don't have the traditional controls. It's sort of by accessories and trying to make it work. And it just doesn't feel right. And then you have me, where I'm doing lots of live streams. So like I've been playing primarily docked, but I have done going on docked one because I want to know what that's like. And two, like if I bring it up to my bed, it's just weird concept where I just take the game with me and I'm in bed with my girlfriend. And she's just saying breath of the wild, she's like, hey, you want to play some sniffer clips? And I'm like, all right. I mean, my girlfriend wants to play a game with me. I don't want to say no to that, even if it means putting down Zelda. So it's one of those things that are very interesting. We have different use cases where I've been doing a lot of live streaming, a lot of recording because I'm trying to get my breath of the wild review done. And just a lot of traditional playing and you've been on the go a lot. Mason, what's been like the primary method you've been using it? Well, the thing is I go to my dad's a lot. So I usually have been taking it there. Just that's been maybe twice it's at launch. But sometimes I just lay on my bed and use handheld mode, or I'm either in my bed just all snuggled up playing it on my TV. Or I'm downstairs with the joy cons playing one two switch. You know, it's just like literally anything. There's so many combos and I'm kind of, I would say I'm kind of more of a diverse player with it just cause it's like, I like to take advantage of everything it has to offer. I think, you know, and it's just I'm still learning it. So it's just cool to be able to experience it finally after all this time. So I guess I'm just still trying to figure out where I want to keep it, you know, but mostly I've been playing it in handheld mode all day. So if that counts for anything. No, and that's what's nice about it. Like I haven't had a chance to play much handheld on the go because I'm driving everywhere. I have kids and so it's just kind of the way it is. Maybe I'll get a chance to do some handheld mode tonight if we have to make a Walmart run. But it's just one of those things where I am completely enamored by the fact that I have one system that does everything now because I was always kind of one of those people who figured, oh, I'm going to play mostly docked, right? I'm going to use it as a home console. And I know a lot of people out there are buying this being like, oh, I don't care that like the dock might scratch the screen because I'm just going to leave it docked. I'm never going to take it anywhere. And I was like, that's what you think until you have it. Yeah, you'd be surprised. And you're like, oh, I got to pause the game to go to the bathroom. No, you don't. Let's pick it up and go. Click, click, take it with you. You don't need to stop playing. That's the beauty of the system is Nintendo spent all these years telling you you need to take a break from gaming and now they're saying, nope, bring it with everywhere you go. Yeah, I'm surprised they haven't created like a steering wheel accessory to literally connect it to the steering wheel of your car so you could try to play it while you're driving. I know. That would be the next thing to do too. What is different as they are? It's amazing but it's also a terrible idea. Unless one stick lets me drive the car, the other stick lets me drive the car for real life. That needs to be a thing. That's nice. We've all had a pretty positive experience.