A sequel to the Switch launch title, 1-2-Switch, might not have made it onto our bingo cards for Nintendo's post-Tears of the Kingdom 2023, but the rumours have been around for so long that we shouldn't have been all the surprised when Everybody 1-2-Switch! was announced with little fanfare in the early hours on a Friday morning. Except we were.
The first game delivered some harmless fun when the Switch was all fresh and new. It showcased some of the cool features that the console promised and filled a gap when there weren't all that many games available. But now, six years on and with enough games available to keep us going until the end of time, we couldn't help but wonder: do we really need a sequel any more?
We were invited along to a hands-on preview of Everybody 1-2-Switch! in an attempt to answer this very question and while we wouldn't say that we necessarily needed this follow-up, it has the potential to provide a good time nonetheless. At the event, we were only able to play through a handful of the 17 mini-games that are available in this sequel, but each provided a bite-sized chunk of fun, even if not every single one could be considered an instant hit.
Much like its predecessor, Everybody 1-2-Switch! is a party game that sees you going head-to-head against another team in a series of silly mini-games. The mini-games are new and this one includes a slightly off-putting horseman host named Horace, but apart from that, it's 1-2 business as usual.
While the launch title was all about showing what the Joy-Con were capable of, this second entry also throws mobile phone play into the mix, allowing up to 100 people the chance to pick up and play using a smart device instead of needing to have their own Joy-Con.
Right off the bat, this addition is a great one. The party genre ultimately boils down to cooperative play with a willing group, and this has proven difficult for Joy-Con-only games in the past (Super Mario Party, for example), where unless you have controllers to spare, some players have to sit out. Allowing a phone to take on the role of a Joy-Con is thus a smart way to get everyone involved without having to cough up an eye-watering £70 for the privilege of extra controllers.
What strengthens this mobile compatibility is how Everybody 1-2-Switch! uses the device's motion sensors to create a Joy-Con-like experience for all, rather than relegating mobile users to only a small subset of the games on offer. Four of the 17 mini-games can only be played with the Joy-Cons, leaving a choice of 13 titles up for grabs for those who don't have enough controllers to go around. On the flip side, four of the 17 minigames can only be played with a mobile phone.
Of course, regardless of how you play, a title like Everybody 1-2-Switch! lives or dies on the strength of its mini-games. This is a smaller package than the original (which came with 28 different game options), though this is reflected in the lower price point of £24.99 / $29.99 compared to the original's £39.99 / $49.99 full retail release.
As is bound to be the case in a party game like this one, some of the games are more fun than others, but in the six examples that we were able to see in our preview, we noticed more hits than misses. In the original 1-2-Switch, the best games were the ones that pushed the Joy-Con's features to the limit and showed what the kit was able to do — 'Ball Count' using HD Rumble to emulate several small balls in a box is an obvious example. While the level of innovation doesn't seem to be quite as big a part of the sequel, Everybody 1-2-Switch! once again excels when it makes the most of the technology at its disposal.
One game, 'Colour Shoot', tasked us with using our smart devices to take a picture of something that matched the colour on screen, while 'Musical Chairs' used motion controls to measure which player was able to sit on the floor the fastest once the music stopped. They might not be the most original concepts, but it was nice to see games with an objective other than "Let's see who can shake their controller the fastest".
Those do still exist — 'Balloons' will see you divided into teams, attempting to inflate a balloon to the right level before it pops, and 'Relay', which we didn't get to play during the preview event, is your standard "shake fast to win" affair — but we appreciate the variety.
What was noticeable across each of the games is that in Everybody 1-2-Switch!, Nintendo has attempted to make a party game for everybody. There are the physical tasks as mentioned above, silly WarioWare-like games such as 'Hip Bump' where your objective is to butt (literally) your opponent out of a ring, and then games with a less active objective such as 'Quiz Show' or 'Bingo' which offer a sit-down interactive experience closer to what you might find in a Kahoot or Jackbox game.
Of these lower-key games, we were only able to try out 'Quiz Show' — a pretty self-explanatory title where you use your phone to answer on-screen questions — but we could see how the variety of games has been catered to different audiences in an attempt to capture some of that Wii Party family magic that Nintendo hit on in the late 2000s.
However, Everybody 1-2-Switch! cannot quite live up to this greatness. We have only sampled a small taste of the games on offer so far and while many of these provided an all-out good time that we can see working in a party environment — 'Colour Shoot', 'Musical Chairs', 'Ninjas', etc. — there was an overwhelming sense that this lacks the longevity to become an instant party classic like Wii Sports or even Mario Party Superstars. Plus, of the 17 games on offer, several are just variants on a standard form. Both 'Balloons' and 'Ninjas' have multiple variants ('Balloons 2', '3', etc.) and we can see the format becoming tiresome after a couple of times around the same track.
Of course, these games are made by the group that you are able to play them with, and while those of us taking part in our preview could not match up to the camera-smiling confidence of the influencers who featured in Nintendo's recent 'First-Look Party' trailer, we quickly found that there is a lot of fun to be had with select games once you have all warmed to the idea and all let go.
The fact that this sequel has seen a price cut on its predecessor certainly makes it a more attractive prospect if you are looking for something to keep a group of up to 100 people entertained for an evening. But from what we have seen so far, we can't imagine that Everybody 1-2-Switch! will be going down in the history books of Nintendo's best party titles, even if it does have a literal horse in the race...