Virtual Boy 1
Image: Ollie Reynolds / Nintendo Life

Well, what a lovely surprise! Our local Royal Mail representative knocked on the door today and delivered a curious-looking box, and it turns out that it's none other than the Virtual Boy accessory for Nintendo Switch Online!

Yes, it seems like a whole bunch of people – in the UK, at least – are receiving their retail Virtual Boys early, and so we were lucky enough to get our very own purchased unit.

We've already gone hands-on with the peripheral and app over at Nintendo of Europe in Frankfurt, so you should definitely check that out if you want a few thoughts on the experience itself.

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Of course, we've still got a few days to wait until the Virtual Boy - Nintendo Classics app launches (17th February), so we can't really get a whole lot of use out of the headset just yet. What we have been able to do, mind you, is see what Super Mario Odyssey's VR mode looks like, and yeah, it's pretty wild stuff.

The main point is that it works – to a degree. Booting up the VR mode in Odyssey lets you view stages just like you could with the Labo VR set; just pick up the Virtual Boy and move your head around, job done.

The main issue is that you can't really control Mario at the same time, so unless you're willing to fashion a really big rubber band around your head to keep the headset locked in place, it's not an ideal solution.

It's also worth pointing out here that Nintendo offered a statement to confirm that Labo VR won't be officially compatible with Virtual Boy, but given these limited tests, we're of the mind that it will at least function to a certain degree. We'll be able to confirm one way or the other when the app itself launches. [Update: It does.]

As standard, the Virtual Boy comes with a red lens filter, which means that Odyssey had this weird, almost retro-inspired presentation clearly geared toward the upcoming NSO app. It's actually quite cool in practice, but we should note that you can quite easily remove the red lens from the headset, leaving you with a pair of clear lenses that look remarkably similar to Labo's.

With the red filter off, Odyssey looks just like it does when played with Labo, but again, moving your head around while controlling Mario unfortunately isn't really possible with the Virtual Boy.

Otherwise, it's, well... a Virtual Boy! I never owned the original, given that it never came out in the UK, so I can't really comment on the feel or heft of the thing, but in terms of presentation at least, it's a dead ringer.

It's pretty easy to lift the visor up to slot the Switch 2 inside, and the set also comes with an added bit of plastic to allow your original Switch to fit. Similarly, although removing the red lenses took a little bit of force at first, it was very easy to do once it's been taken out at least once.

We'll have a lot more coverage for you when the Virtual Boy app drops on Nintendo Switch Online next week. For now, we're going to clear a bunch of space off our office desk and display with pride.

Have you received your own Virtual Boy yet? Will you be ordering one anytime soon? Let us know with a comment.