The Switch 2's Mouse Controls Are Nintendo at Its Most Playful

Yesterday, Nintendo finally announced its successor to the Nintendo Switch, fittingly named the Switch 2. I already wrote about my general experiences with the console, where I talked about how it's mostly boring, but probably the right move on Nintendo's part. Still, I wanted to take a moment to call out one part of the console that definitely isn't boring: the mouse controls.

When you take one of the Switch 2's controllers, the Joy-Con 2, off the console and put it on its side, it becomes a mouse-simple as that. If you're playing a compatible game, you'll instantly see a cursor pop up on screen, and right away, you'll be playing as if you were on PC. Rotate the controller to be upright again, and you'll be back to a more traditional setup.

This is akin to a magic trick. Despite consoles generally being easier to set up than PCs, and more often played from more comfortable positions like the living room, certain genres have eluded them for a while. These include shooters, strategy games, and other titles that benefit from quick and precise pointer movement. There have been attempts to fix that before, like with motion controls, but having gone hands-on with the Switch 2's mouse mode, it's easily my favorite so far.

Suddenly, the comfort of consoles and precision control of PCs don't need to be at odds anymore. There are a few drawbacks, which I'll get into in a moment, but I was surprised how well it worked overall.

Take Metroid Prime 4. This series started off on the GameCube, with shooting almost entirely relegated to an archaic lock-on system. Then, it re-released on the Wii and later the original Switch with improved motion controls, but those could get tiring after a bit. Now, with Metroid Prime 4, it plays just like any other shooter (OK, the lock-on is still there if you want it, but you get my point).

That's huge. Granted, an exploration-based series like Metroid doesn't necessarily need to cross that threshold, but it worked nearly perfectly in my time with it, and represents so many possibilities for the Switch 2. Now, the Nintendo port of Call of Duty or similar titles might not be some compromised alternative when you don't have any other systems; it could be the best way to play, barring the PC. And this goes double for genres like strategy games, which often skip consoles altogether. Civilization VIII on the Switch 2 felt exactly like controlling it at my desk.

But even if those more traditional use cases elude you, the mouse controls are the one place in the Switch 2's design where you can see Nintendo's classic playfulness at work. About a month after the console's launch, the company is set to re-release its latest Mario Party game with an enhanced port for the Switch 2, and as I saw first-hand, it took the opportunity to go all-in on the mouse.

In a pre-release hands-on with the Switch 2 version of the game, I got to use mouse controls to play a convincing substitute for air hockey, a classic mouse avoider game, plus two mini-games that actually do things you can't do on a normal mouse.

The first had me spray painting objects with the Joy-Con, then quickly shaking it to refill my paint canister. It wasn't the most robust experience, but it did show off one benefit to just tossing mouse functionality on an existing controller-you can use the controller's other functions, like motion controls, in tandem with it.

This was more noticeable in a stacking mini-game I played, where I had to use the mouse pointer in combination with the Joy-Con's gyro to make a taller block tower than my competitors without knocking it over. Throw in some oddball shapes, like a Yoshi stuffed animal, and it was great fun.

Credit: Michelle Ehrhardt

But perhaps the most noticeable example of Nintendo doing something new with the mouse was in Drag X Drive, a basketball game that sees you controlling a player in a wheelchair. With its crude graphics and mocap-feeling animation, it definitely had tech-demo vibes, and I'll leave it to others more versed in the topic than me to talk to the representation of disabled athletes. But I will say that it might be the only game I've seen played with two mice at once.

In the game, you place both Joy-Con 2 controllers in mouse mode, then use your left hand to control your left wheel, and your right hand to control your right wheel. Honestly, it got tiring pretty fast, but it did feel shockingly accurate to the few experiences where I've been in a wheelchair (although, again, I'll leave the real judgment there to experts).

It's also another good example of the mouse controls combining with another Joy-Con feature, in this case vibration. The controllers did a great job of simulating my wheels' drag on the ground as I turned them, which helped me know what needed moving where, and made controlling my character fluid enough that, yes, I was able to dunk.

All this said, this playfulness has me equal parts excited and worried. As much as I'm excited to see that new play experiences aren't entirely dead on the Switch 2, mouse controls will only thrive as long as developers use them. Given Nintendo's past history with accessories like the Wii MotionPlus, I worry that they'll quickly fall by the wayside following a few of its own first party releases.

There's also some physical discomfort to acknowledge here. The Joy-Con 2 technically have capabilities normal mice don't, yes, but they also lose out on ergonomics. They're much thinner, so I have to grip them with a very tight claw style that's not natural to me, and pressing the face buttons on them while using them as mice can be a bit of a challenge at first. I'd love to see the ability to map the right stick to face buttons instead, but we shall see.

Still, this is one feature I can't be mad about-if only because I'm still holding out hope that it may eventually lead to Nintendo DS and Wii U emulation in Switch Online. Playing games made for these consoles on other devices has always been a bit difficult because of their unique touch controls, even on mobile. But with a big screen TV and a mouse pointer taking the place of a stylus, we may finally have the perfect answer to this longstanding problem. I'm beaming, as I'm sure the dozen other The World Ends With You fans are.