You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/xiaomi-12t-pro.2161/

Xiaomi are a name that have quickly moved to the forefront of phone makers thanks to their wide range of devices at usually-affordable prices. Sticking with their yearly schedule of an upgraded flagship to end the year, we check out the Pro flavour of the 12T to see what’s new this time around.

If you’ve been keeping a keen eye on the review box lately, you’ll know we recently covered the Xiaomi 12T, the base model of the phone I have with me. There’s actually a lot of cross-over between this device and that one, with the two key changes that I’ll be focusing on being the improved camera and Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset. From the screen to the charging speeds and aesthetic, everything else matches up with the 12T, so I’d encourage you to give that review a read before looking at this one for a fuller image.

• https://gbatemp.net/review/xiaomi-12t.2140/

To give a brief overview of my general thoughts though, this phone is fantastic. I’ve previously covered the Redmi Note 11 Pro+ 5G from Xiaomi as a really sleek midrange device, and it’s great to see the strong points of that shining through here with the added performance you would expect from a flagship offering. MIUI remains an incredibly clean and responsive Android skin with plenty of available customisation via the built-in theme manager. Both the 12T and 12T Pro have also been promised three major OS updates and four years of security patches, which is a nice assurance to have given the rate Xiaomi put out phones. The question quickly moves to whether you’d want to be using this phone for four years, and honestly, there’s not much I can say against it.

Now £700 isn’t necessarily a budget phone, but it is a relatively affordable flagship device, especially for the chipset you’re getting. In terms of performance, the Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 is phenomenal, and able to handle even the highest of emulation hurdles. As I discussed in a recent post, this was the big draw for me with the 12T Pro, and having it setup for emulation and some of the trickier high-end Android games is a really pleasant experience. Switching the default launcher up to something more controller-friendly and throwing it into a grip gives you an absolute emulation titan, and this is something you can explore even with this as your daily driver using the Second Space feature.

Second Space is something I’ve generally overlooked in previous devices, allowing you to launch into an entirely separate Android configuration by using a different password at the lock screen. You can even have two different default launchers. Using this, you could have MIUI and your usual day to day setup on hand, while also getting a dedicated and isolated gaming setup. It’s a neat feature that can take away a bit of the Android emulation clumsiness without compromising your day to day usage.

To give a brief overview of what it can take on emulation-wise, Citra MMJ has run everything I’ve thrown at it at x3 native resolution and speed up options enabled. AetherSX2 has no trouble running Shadow of the Colossus at 720p, and Dolphin MMJR can even tackle games like Mario Galaxy without having to disable your cursor if you’re happy to play at native resolution. I’ve even managed to play some Switch games thanks to the in-development Skyline Edge emulator, though it is still very much a work in progress. To put a Geekbench score to it, you’re looking at a single-core score of 1308, and a multi-core score of 4186, which is fairly standard for the SD8+G1.

The other half of the 12T’s Pro moniker is of course its 200 MP camera, a relatively hefty upgrade from the base model’s 108 MP variant, at least on paper. As a bit of a photographical novice, I quite enjoyed using the camera, and there is a relatively impressive amount of detail that can be captured when you bump it all the way up to the highest quality picture taking. As phone cameras continue to get better though I feel much more of the experience starts to fall on the software, and it’s here Xiaomi really stand out. You have an assortment of really intuitive AI-enabled options to complement your more standard editing suite. My favourite of these is by far Xiaomi’s ProCut feature. Only available for pictures taken in the 50 MP or full 200 MP mode, ProCut looks at your original image and gives you a number of crops, each with a different aspect ratio or primary subject. Though it can do a decent job of reframing any picture, you do need as focal point to get the best results.

With the phone shipped to me with an EU charger, I took it upon myself to head to Xiaomi’s UK storefront and pick up my own 120W brick to see if the promises made in terms of its fast charging were all they were saying. To give you a brief overview of the Xiaomi store experience, it’s quick and easy. The plug and cable came to £40 with an additional £5 delivery. It was posted on the day I ordered it and turned up the day after. You usually would get this with the phone assuming you’re buying in-region, but if you happened to find yourself in a position like mine, is it worth spending the extra £45? Yes. 120W charging is wild, and completely eliminates the routine of leaving your phone plugged in overnight. With 0 to 100% taking around 18 minutes, I plug it in while I go for a shower and know it’s ready to go for either a day of usage, or a day of gaming in my case. Both the 12T and 12T Pro don’t feature wireless charging, but when you can charge it as fast as this, it feels like a redundant feature anyway.

So can I recommend Xiaomi’s 12T Pro? I can, undoubtedly so. You have an incredibly strong flagship device with the hardware to support both daily use and some pretty heavy gaming. With security patches promised for the next four years, my only real question is how such fast charging will affect battery life in the long-run. 120W charging only debuted last year, so we’re left trusting what we’re told from Xiaomi themselves. I’m hoping it has what it takes, but only time will tell.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/retroflag-handheld-controller-for-switch.2154/

Back when the Switch was originally announced, I had a vast assortment of miscellaneous excitements, each fuelled by the then-unique design. A dockable tablet with detachable controllers as a concept is phenomenal. You could have an entirely modular and upgradable platform between the dock, controllers, and tablet; the possibilities were endless for unique controllers, and docks that could provide power boosts when playing on the TV. In the end, my excitements remained just that. Nintendo never really iterated on the Joy Cons, and the dock is still just a block of plastic that’ll output HDMI and little more. My dreams of unique Joy Cons to match the company’s greatest controllers are all but up in smokes, at least officially speaking. While Nintendo sticks to its guns and holds tightly to its original designs, third parties continue to develop and iterate, and now we’ve finally arrived at my dream design with Retroflag’s very non-specific Handheld Controller for Switch. I’m in love.

Now there’s actually a good bit to break down here. On a surface level, we have a beautifully nostalgic translucent purple shell that’s designed to wrap around the Switch, interfacing with it via a USB C port at the bottom and being recognised as a wired Pro Controller. You have all the buttons you’d need for a Switch controller to work, with both sticks clicking in for a third input, and one additional button available for some nifty features we’ll go over later. Looking at the dimensions it’s 273mm wide and 110 tall, which is relatively comparable to Hori’s popular Split Pad Pro, if not a good bit sleeker in design. It’s got a really premium finish and holds both the standard and OLED Switch tablet well thanks to it overlapping the frame of the console on the left and right, as well as small clips on each side that catch the Joy Con rails.

To stop beating around the bush, what we have here is a controller grip that’s clearly inspired by the GameCube controller, and as I’ve commended Retroflag for in the past, they’ve done a brilliant job with the theming. Both analogue sticks feel great, and feature the growingly-popular magnetic hall effect sensors to avoid the drifting that’s plagued the vanilla Joy Cons. The D-Pad feels really nice, and definitely feels larger than the original GameCube controller’s. Each button feels great to press, with the plus and minus buttons, as well as the home, screenshot, and extra button being clicky; your usual face buttons by contrast have a satisfying travel distance to them. There have been some liberties taken to modernise the layout and bring it in line with what Switch games are expecting you to use, adopting the diamond-shaped ABXY over the GameCube controller’s own style. On top of this, we get a set of shoulder buttons and a set of digital triggers. I’m a little sad they didn’t jerry-rig something together to make the Switch think this is an actual GameCube controller so they could add analogue shoulder buttons, but I can imagine that’d add a number of restrictions that wouldn’t make sense given it’s only really Super Mario Sunshine that’d actually recognise them.

While I am on board with the modern take on the GameCube controller’s design, there are a few things I’m disappointed to see from this transition. Perhaps the most obvious of these for the eagle-eyed GameCube enthusiast is the lack of notches in the plastic surrounding each of the analogue sticks. It’s hard to really say whether this is a negative, since Switch games are probably expecting you to have full motion on both of your analogue sticks in oppose to being limited to an odd octagon. Even thinking like that though, I do think it’s a missed opportunity. Both analogue sticks just feel too close to the original, with this missing piece adding an initially-foreign sensation to the mix. Though an even more minor criticism than the lack of notches, the matte finish on the face buttons didn’t quite sit right with me at first, with the GameCube controller buttons being glossy. I will say that after using this controller for a week or so now, I’ve come on board to both of these discrepancies from the source material, and I do understand it can’t be exactly the same. With how close it is though, you’re overtly aware of anything that’s even slightly off.

I have been mentioning a special button, and it adds my favourite feature of third party controllers: rapid fire. If you hold the special button down and press any other button, the button will then have the hold mode rapid fire enabled. This means that if you hold the button down, it’ll act as though you’re mashing it. To give you an idea of how fast the mashing is, I decided to boot up Mario Party Superstars and start a game of Mecha Marathon. The aim here is to mash A and B as much as possible in 10 seconds. I managed to max out my score at 70m, so it seems plenty capable. On top of the hold mode, there is also a toggle mode that you can turn on by holding the special button and double tapping the button you want to enable it for. This will enable rapid fire regardless of whether you’re actually holding the button, and can be toggled on and off easily by just pressing the button.

The special button also has an additional feature in enabling you to remap buttons on the fly. The idea of this is a good one, but it is ultimately a useless feature for a reason I never expected: the controller is detected as an official Pro Controller by the Switch. What does this mean for button remapping? It means you can do it using the Switch OS itself, instead of having to rely on weird on-controller button combinations. On top of this, the controller even features motion control, though your use for this will likely be limited for handheld play. While the controller itself is perfectly comfortable, it doesn’t make for the best experience when playing a game like Splatoon 3 that expects you to be rotating the controller to aim efficiently. The one feature it’s missing versus an official Pro Controller is NFC support, but I don’t believe this is even possible to include with a wired controller, with even official Pro Controllers not allowing NFC usage with wired input enabled.

You do also get some rumble features here, with the controller vibrating to indicate when turbo functionality is turned on or off. It does also naturally work as you’d expect with Switch games. The one I looked at in particular was Splatoon 3, knowing it has a good variance in rumble strength between actions like swimming in ink and launching missiles. Though it can feel a little weak for the most subtle vibrations, it is noticeable and does enhance the larger experience. It has some of the subtlety you’d expect from HD rumble, even if it does fall slightly short on the strength.

Though the controller takes up the Switch’s USB C port, there is a USB C port on the bottom of the grip itself, allowing the Switch to be charged while you play. The only reason you’d need to take it out of the grip is if you wanted to dock it, since the additional bulk and slightly-repositioned USB C port would get in the way.

All in all Retroflag’s Handheld Controller for Switch is a hit with me. It looks great, feels great, and has all the features you’d realistically want from a Switch controller. With the only feature it’s missing being NFC support, I can highly recommend picking this up if you happen to see it in stock. At $70 you’re looking at a premium price, but I truly do believe this is a premium product to live up to that.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/pokemon-scarlet-violet.2153/

I’ve been playing Pokemon for as long as I can remember. Starting with Yellow in days gone by, I’ve been with the series for all its highs and lows, and I’ve always found something to enjoy. Since the 3DS games in particular, I’ve sunk thousands of hours into catching them all several times, breeding competitive Pokemon and battling with them, as well as exploring the non-official fun that can come from randomizers and an assortment of self-imposed challenges. It’s a series that means a lot to me, and one I continue to look forward to playing as each new release is announced. Do Scarlet and Violet meet the expectations that come with such excitement though?

Starting out in the Paldea region, you’re given the chance to customise your character before being shown a presentation about your new school: Naranja (Orange) Academy in Scarlet and Uva (Grape) Academy in Violet. Though nothing necessarily revolutionary, the customisation options on offer are the best we’ve seen to date in the series. Outside of the hair styles, which are largely reminiscent of what was on offer in Sword and Shield, you can now customise your character’s facial features. It’s no Mii Maker, but I do appreciate the individuality you’re able to inject from the outset. The presentation that follows your initial setup is a little dull but it does do well in its aim to get the majority of the exposition out of the way before you actually start playing, and ends somewhat strongly by introducing you to your game’s legendary Pokemon and the mysteries surrounding it. And with that, you’re free to start your adventure. Or at least the brief introductory portion of it anyway.

Unlike other Pokemon games where you’re tasked with becoming the champion right out of the gate and get distracted by evil organisation or football hoodlums on the way, Scarlet and Violet offer you a degree of freedom by laying out exactly what it has in store for you from the start. You can think of the games as five sections: an introduction, three central storylines, and a conclusion.

The introduction serves its purpose well in giving you time to meet the central figures to each of the game’s paths, as well as getting you started with your legendary Pokemon of choice: Koraidon in Scarlet and Miraidon in Violet. Meeting a legendary Pokemon at the start of the game isn’t necessarily anything new, with Pokemon like Tapu Koko being shown in the first hour of Pokemon Sun and Moon. What is new however is that Pokemon joining you from the start and becoming a character that grows as you progress. While at the start of the game you find it weakened and somewhat feeble, it has a personality beyond being a sprite you can interact with at the end of the game to catch. It’s refreshing, even if I still do find it a bit strange that you ride it like a motorbike instead of using it in battle. For your playthrough of the game, the bulk of your time will be spent jumping between the central plots, each offering a different style of gameplay to accompany its narrative.

By far the most traditional of the questlines is Victory Road. Here you face off against eight gym leaders scattered through the region, before challenging the Elite Four for the rank of Champion. Before being able to challenge a gym leader, you have to complete a short gym challenge. I quite like how these challenges have evolved from generation to generation, moving away from just having to fight a given number of trainers before the head honcho steps up. While some of the pre-leader challenges do feel a little lacking, I had a good time with the majority. Your reward for beating each gym is, as you might have guessed, a badge. Like usual, the more badges you have, the more high-levelled Pokemon will obey you. Unlike previous games though, this does include Pokemon you’ve caught yourself. The wording used by the game suggests badge count only impacts the obedience of Pokemon based on the level they were caught. For example, if you have one badge, Pokemon caught up to Level 25 will listen to you. If you catch a Pokemon that’s Level 25 and train it beyond that, it does still listen to you. To put it to an extreme, I trained a Pokemon to Level 100 and it remained disobedient for the remainder of the game, so there are some unseen limits in play. I do like this adjustment as a whole though. With you able to access some high levelled encounters from the start of the game with a wrong turn or three, it does a good job of disincentivising catching and using these in oppose to training your own party.

Next up on the block is Path of Legends. This is a somewhat new aspect to the series where you team up with a companion to challenge larger than life Titan Pokemon for the legendary Herba Mystica spice they just so happen to be guarding. It’s here you connect with Koraidon and Miraidon and see some of their power return as you fell each of the five titans. As you progress, you’re given further movement options while riding them, making the world easier to navigate and unlocking areas you couldn’t access before.

Finally we have Starfall Street, the route where you systematically dismantle the enemy organisation of the games: Team Star. On offer here are five encampments. To take down one of the five leaders, you have to first enter their camp and beat up 30 Pokemon using the new Let’s Go mechanic within a set timeframe. The Let’s Go mechanic lets you send out your Pokemon to fight with others in the overworld without triggering a standard fight. It’s much faster and really useful for some quick training when you’re not in the mood for constant battle transitions.

In isolation these three plots are fine, but where I think they really excel is in encouraging you to move between them in oppose to just focusing on one route over the others. While the stories don’t really intertwine in any meaningful way, the rewards you get for progressing do. At least if you ignore Starfall Street. With the other two, you find yourself either completing gyms to enable you to catch higher level Pokemon, or defeating Titans to enable you to get to new places to then encounter those higher level Pokemon. It’s a simple relationship but it does work well. I just wish Starfall Street really had a place in it. You don’t really get anything meaningful out of this oddball third route, and I struggle to justify its inclusion outside of it being an obligation of the series to have some bad organisation that needs to be stomped out. To its credit, it’s one of the more down to earth teams we’ve seen from the series, and the story behind it was enjoyable. It just didn’t fit into the larger game well in my eyes.

Unfortunately this encouragement to move between plotlines in the open world is somewhat sullied by the lack of Pokemon level scaling throughout your adventure. Now I can understand certain aspects of the game not scaling to your progression if you’re wanting to have an in-game universe that makes sense. The Titan Pokemon might have their own strengths, and Team Star really has no obligation to use weaker or stronger Pokemon to suit your needs. Where I find flaw is in the fact the gyms don’t scale to your level, more so when the leaders themselves talk about how they have stronger and weaker teams on hand. Not to mention your rival continually picks a new team out for however many gym badges you have. It’s a wasted opportunity to make an open world feel more open. While you can somewhat guess what level things will be by their relative position on the map from where you start your adventure, it just feels like it’s missing that added spice of freedom that really makes an open world thrive. I can applaud the effort of letting you challenge any gym, camp, or Titan Pokemon in whatever order you want, but with a lack of level scaling and little in the way of level indication before going in, you can find yourself frustratedly entering areas too early or accidentally skipping over content that should be to your level. It’s as though an odd middle ground was chosen between a linear path and freedom of choice where the strengths of neither are fully realised.

One of my favourite new features for Scarlet and Violet quite surprisingly comes from the multiplayer components. For the first time in series history, you’re able to open your world in its entirety to up to three friends locally or online. Through the Union Circle you can invite people using a code to just hang out and go about their day with no real restrictions on what they can do. You can progress your story, beat up gyms, and have quick and easy access to trading with those present. Where things get a little weird is in how Pokemon are spawned in for those playing on different versions. When I first went online, I had assumed that if a Violet player was hosting, every person in the Union Circle would only see Violet Pokemon spawn. This wasn’t the case though, with my primary Scarlet save seeing the standard Scarlet spawns. It happened by coincidence when hunting for a shiny Pokemon with a friend that I started to see their Violet Pokemon spawn in. It turns out that no matter who the host is, Pokemon will spawn for each player appropriate to their game, with everybody able to interact with the Pokemon once they’re spawned in. It’s an incredibly odd system but it did end up leading to some fun as we travelled across the region together in search of spots to spawn each other the Pokemon we were missing to complete our Pokedex. This is about as close we’ve seen to an official Pokemon MMO, and while it might be fairly small in scope, we really did have a blast. The in-game camera also let us pull poses and customise our profiles to commemorate the good times.

You can also share picnics with friends, this feature expanding and streamlining the camps from Sword and Shield, as well as integrating a few other features commonly seen elsewhere. When you go for a picnic, you’ll set down a picnic table and send out all the Pokemon in your party to play. You can throw a ball for them to chase around and give them a wash, but the most impactful features come from sandwich making and the new breeding mechanics. The breeding is simple to explain. There’s a basket at the foot of the table, and if you have Pokemon that can breed in your party, you might just find an egg there waiting for you. It’s incredibly convenient to have a traveling daycare with you, and really easy to get what you want by just clearing out your party and leaving in the two Pokemon you want to breed. Instead of eggs being generated after a number of steps, they’re now generated using real time. Without any bonuses, this can take up to a few minutes for just one egg. It sounds worse than the daycare couples of old, but there is a saving grace: sandwiches.

Sandwiches do everything. With the right combination of ingredients you can boost encounter rates for one type of Pokemon, make it easier to catch Pokemon, get more experience, find eggs quicker, and even find more shiny Pokemon. The bonuses you get from eating a sandwich last for 30 minutes, which is often more than enough time to accomplish what you set out to. With Sparkling Power 3, the power that boosts your chances of finding shiny Pokemon, I come away with up to three Pokemon at a time. Going back to breeding, Egg Power 2 boosts the rate eggs appear drastically, with me usually coming out with 60 or so eggs from 30 minutes of periodic checking. It’s a flexible and relatively fun system that can be explored with friends. Assembling a sandwich with four pairs of hands is hectic in all the right ways, with everybody able to contribute ingredients and walk away with the same bonuses; it’s really handy for those recipes that might rely on rarer ingredients.

Picnics aren’t the only evolution we’ve seen since Sword and Shield though, with Tera Raids improving on the raid battles that were introduced in Galar. Much is the same here. You have a team of four people against one large Pokemon with an inflated health bar. What’s different this time is that the raid Pokemon is terastalised, this being the new battle twist for Scarlet and Violet. Though it has its intricacies, the important part is that it changes a Pokemon’s defensive typing, and adds an additional type to its offensive typing. What this means for raiding is a certain level of intricacy in planning what’s best to take down a threat in finding what can hit its new defensive type hard without being taken out by the Pokemon’s standard moveset. The raids feel much more dynamic with there being no set turn order, and the additional options in being able to cheer are definitely appreciated in helping keep team members alive. I was also positively surprised at how much a challenge the hardest difficulty can be, and I’m looking forward to future events with even harder opponents.

When all is said and done and the plots have converged and reached their conclusion, you might wonder what’s left for you in the great region of Paldea. In previous titles we’ve seen battle facilities, additional storylines, and even whole regions in the case of Gold and Silver. Paldea is much less fortunate, with less to do than even Sword and Shield’s base game. Once the curtain has fallen you have the region to explore as you wish, but there isn’t really anything new to do with it. To my resounding disappointment there isn’t even an iteration of the Battle Tower on show, which is to my knowledge a first since its introduction in Pokemon Crystal. In its place you have a reskinned gym leader rebattle rotation in the form of a four-battle tournament that can be replayed. There’s no real competitive aspect here and very little in the way of farmable replayability. I recently went back to Pokemon Omega Ruby and spent hours in Battle Maison customising a competitive team to account for as many of its hijinks as possible. It was a great time that I was hoping to replicate in these new games, but all I’m left with in terms of content is catching Pokemon and participating in online raids to farm for rare items. I enjoy it now, with a chunk of my time being spent shiny hunting, but I just can’t see the longevity here without Game Freak announcing a significant update sooner rather than later.

The last major positive aspect I wanted to mention is the game’s soundtrack. As something I often overlook in reviews, I feel a lot of games fall into the category of having background music that just sits in the background. It’s there, but you don’t really notice it. And that’s not a bad thing. It adds flavour and doesn’t need to stand out, but that isn’t the music of Scarlet and Violet. This music is an absolute series-high, and I encourage you to give it a listen if you haven’t already. From the overworld to the battle themes, everything feels so alive and fitting. I don’t know how much more I can really say on the subject, but I did at least want to give it a mention for how much of a positive impact it had on my overall experience.

And then we have the elephant in the room. Or the Donphan I guess. Performance and visuals. I feel like I barely need to address this point since it’s perhaps what the games are most well known for at this point, but it is definitely not good. The framerate shifts between 30fps at its best and around 20fps at its worst. This part isn’t ideal, but it’s not as bad as games like Arc of Alchemist that actually made me feel nauseous. If it were just this performance as a negative point, I don’t think there’d be half the uproar there currently is. But that isn’t where it ends. The games look bland, the textures are low quality and clearly tiled in many areas, animations run as low as 2fps for NPCs and environmental features. Perhaps the worst offender is the aggressive pop-in of both scenery and NPCs, including the interactable Pokemon in the open world. While the shiny hunter in me can appreciate a quick way to spawn and despawn Pokemon, it doesn’t make for a good experience, especially with Pokemon appropriately scaled in the overworld. I can’t count the times I’ve run into a tiny Floette seconds after it appeared as a speck on my screen. On top of this you have a slurry of bugs that can range from amusing graphical glitch to performance slow-downs and ultimately game crashes. I do want to stress that as a fan of the series, these aspects haven’t been enough to put me off playing. In the week I’ve been playing I have completed the Pokedex, spending around 90 hours playing Scarlet and a further 10 on Violet. My own tolerance to this kind of thing should be no excuse however, and a company like Game Freak should be held to higher standards. Pokemon Scarlet and Violet as a whole are another step in the right direction, but at this point I find myself saying that for every new entry we see. It is a step in the right direction but by no stretch is this the quality of game we should be seeing for a series like Pokemon.

With some luck we’ll see patches in the coming weeks and months to correct the bugs and smooth over the performance, but whether you’ll enjoy this game will in my opinion come down to your tolerance to such things. I can genuinely say this is the most fun I’ve had with Pokemon in recent years, but whether you’re as willing to accept its flaws as I can is a matter entirely unto itself.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/ivoler-aluminium-steam-deck-dock.2133/

Since the first batch of orders came in, the Steam Deck has been a hit. Offering the handheld PC gaming dream for the price of a Switch, Valve did what no other company could and (eventually) delivered on an experience previously reserved for the big-budget enthusiasts able to throw money to the likes of GPD and AYA. With decks now in hand, the focus shifts to getting the experience possible, and a natural starting point is a dock.

With the announcement of Steam Decks being readily available also came the release of Valve’s official docking station. Coming in at £80, it gives you three USB 3.1 ports, a gigabit ethernet port, and two outputs in a HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.4 port. It’s got everything you’d need, but to Valve’s credit, it isn’t your only option. The Steam Deck plays nicely with third party docks, with the company going so far as to assure you of such on the official site. If you don’t need two outputs, or if you’re just wanting something a bit cheaper, there’s options out there, and one of those options is what I have with me today.

Ivoler is a brand I have never heard of, but I can say they got their dock right. In all honesty, there isn’t much to get wrong. Taking a number of design cues from the official product, you have a relatively familiar look that features a cradle for the console, with a non-detachable cable coming from the back of the dock to act as the point of connection to the Deck. You have much of the same offerings as the official dock, with three USBs, a gigabit ethernet port, and a HDMI 2.0 port. It should be noted the USB ports are USB 3.0, and not 3.1, which is a slight downgrade, but not a killer. The HDMI output is capable of 4K at 60Hz, but I’d be surprised if you were really wanting that kind of performance out of the Deck. It’s nice to have the option if you happen to be using it as a secondary PC and wanting to watch things in high quality though.

The choice of material for this specific variant is aluminium, and feels incredibly sturdy and really quite premium. Aesthetically it looks great on a desk, and even if you’re not always using the Deck docked, it’s great to have a place where the handheld can just sit on the desk without it being in the way. For this premium finish, you’re looking at paying £50, which is a fairly decent saving on the official product. If you’re looking for something more budget, ivoler also offer a plastic dock that lacks an ethernet port, and a HDMI 1.4 port (capable of 4K/30 at max) at a much more budget £30.

Functionally the dock does what it says on the tin. You pop your Steam Deck in place, plug it in, and then either leave it to charge or play away on an external monitor. It’s compact to the point where you can realistically include this in a portable setup if you want to play on a bigger screen on the go. I have a portable gaming monitor and this goes perfectly with it when I’m popping into my parents’ house. There’s very little to fault here, but I would have liked to see a detachable cable connecting to the Deck in oppose to the one that’s built into the dock. Having such an integral part being non-replaceable just seems like a waste when it could’ve been a smaller USB C to USB C.

At £50 I wouldn’t necessarily call this a budget pick, but it’s a nice middle ground between the official offering and ivoler’s cheaper variant. It’s a clean design that I’m happy to have sat on my desk, and if you’re in the market for a dock, I can tell you this one works great.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/retroflag-fc-joy-con-charging-dock.2104/

Nintendo’s hybrid console has been a hit since it launched back in 2017. Featuring a tablet design with detachable controllers for quick and easy multiplayer gameplay on the go, it’s become the go-to for many for couch co-op and rooftop parties. But what do you do when your Joy Cons run dry? Nintendo expects me to walk all the way to my Switch console and slide in the controllers, it’s preposterous. And if you have more than the two provided Joy Cons for the additional multiplayer possibilities? For those too lazy to approach their Switch dock or just have too many friends for their own good, Retroflag are here with a solution. A stylish solution at that.

Now Retroflag are no strangers to the stylishly faithful Nintendo-themed accessory market. I’ve personally looked at their Game Boy themed Raspberry Pi handheld, as well as their brilliant NES cartridge SSD enclosures. Both lived up to the hype and even now I look on both happily. They’ve carved out a great name for themselves in terms of making something that looks great, and is genuinely functional. I’ll say in this instance they’ve definitely nailed the theming as always, but outside of the somewhat contrived use case listed above I’m struggling to see exactly what their market is.

To avoid further beating around the bush, this is a product that does as it advertises and very little more. I can’t call that a bad thing when the idea itself is so simple. You slide your Joy Cons in the side of the Famicom-themed device, and they charge. While the controllers are charging, the power switch and reset button light up to show the status of their respective Joy Con; when the light goes out it’s fully charged. I’m a little sad to see the power switch doesn’t actually function as a power switch, but they did make up for this somewhat by having a functional cartridge slot along with eject slider. The cartridges themselves open like GBA cartridges by sliding the front face down, and act as storage for up to four Switch games. I like it a lot, even if it does mean I will in fact have to approach my Switch after all if I want to use the Joy Con dock to its fullest potential.

Thematically they really did nail it. In both size and weight you’re looking at something close to Nintendo’s mini console series. Were it not for the Joy Cons sticking on the side, you might genuinely mistake it for one of them too. There’s nothing particularly standout of gaudy here either, outside of the red indicator lights mentioned earlier. You plug a USB C cable in the back of the unit and it just works. It’s a genuine challenge to pick apart and find flaws in such a simple product executed well.

Is this dock for you though? If you happen to have more Joy Cons than you do Switches to be able to store them in, I can see some utility here. For what is probably the majority of Switch owners who only own the two bundled Joy Cons, it’s hard to recommend it just for the lack of real use. It’s not so much the dock’s fault as it is the problem it’s trying to address. It’s something I’d be happy to receive as a gift and have on hand, but perhaps not something I’d buy myself. Retroflag did a great job, I just kind of wish it addressed a bigger issue. Even if this just fitting in another port to be able to charge a Pro Controller too.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/powera-moga-xp7-x-plus-bluetooth-controller.2084/

For as long as I can remember I’ve had a fond place for handheld gaming. Growing up in a house with two siblings and parents not keen on seeing yellow rats beating up psychic children, it was always hard to find the right time to hook the GameCube up to the TV. Instead I’d pick up my GBA and go into a world that was entirely my own. It was brilliant, and it was always with me. Times have changed and technology has moved on, but even now I find myself looking ways to keep my gaming on the go. At the highest end I have a gaming laptop, and then a Steam Deck, Switch, and 3DS depending on how much space I have allocated to a given journey. Outside of these gaming-oriented devices though, I like so many others always have a phone. Maybe it’s time to use it to its fullest potential.

So I’m no stranger to mobile controllers, this isn’t my first rodeo. Having previously used a Razer Kishi to middling reception, I’ve played with cheap MFI controllers and grips that wrap around official Xbox controllers for an authentic Xbox feel. Authentic because it’s an actual Xbox controller. Here I have a bit of a middle-ground between the Kishi’s wrap-around design and the form factor of an Xbox controller with PowerA’s latest MOGA-branded controller, the XP7-X Plus.

Taking it out of the box for the first time, I’d be remiss for not mentioning just how odd it looks. It’s like if somebody threw a door wedge in between an Xbox controller, and reminds me of HORI’s Split Pad Pro peripheral to join them together. While it does look odd for its wideness, I am really fond of the overall aesthetic and just how the controller feels to hold. Discounting the wedge, the controller matches almost perfectly to the real deal in terms of size. There’s no real learning curve or hand position to adjust to, if you’ve used an Xbox controller before you’ll feel right at home. It’s not a perfect match though, with there being some good and some bad on show.

Starting with the good, the analogue sticks feel absolutely delightful. They do appear marginally taller than the Xbox Series controller I have on hand, but thanks to the textured thumb grips I do prefer them. The view and menu buttons (I had to Google the actual names for these, I would usually just call them start and select) are much clickier than the Series controller, and the face buttons feel almost identical. I have no complaints with the bumpers, and the controller even features two mappable grip buttons that can be whatever you want them to be. Really my only complaint comes from the triggers. They aren’t satisfying and feel as though I should be able to press them more than I can. It’s very similar to the Kishi’s triggers in that respect. The D-Pad is definitely passable, but a definite downgrade if you’re used to the Series controller, or even the Xbox One pad. D-Pads are very much a thing of preference though. I like very tactile ones with the Series controller being my all-time favourite. This is a bit mushier, but not so much that I wouldn’t use it for a platformer or something similar. The wedge that sits in the middle of the controller also detaches to fit the phone, but it also serves a secondary use as a stand for larger devices. It’s a neat idea but realistically only has two angles it can be positioned in. I wish it were a little more flexible, but it’s nice to have.

Looking at connectivity you can use the XP7-X via Bluetooth, which will realistically be your primary way of using it with your phone, or via Micro USB. While I am really sad to see Micro USB on a 2022 device, it is a neat option to have. You also get an incredibly cursed USB C to Micro USB cable in the box that I can’t help but be amused at.

Probably the most interesting feature on show is the inclusion of a wireless charger within the controller. If your phone supports it, this means you can be keeping it going for longer while you game with no cables required. I adore this as a feature, even if my Android phone of choice doesn’t support wireless charging. I did get to test the wireless charging by throwing my iPhone 13 Pro Max in the grip and it worked perfectly. The controller unfortunately doesn’t work with iOS devices, but I’ll be very interested to try an iOS model should it come out in future. The wireless charging can be toggled so if your device doesn’t support it, it won’t be using the resources unnecessarily.

Perfectly fitting my 13 Pro Max with a relatively bulky case, it’s very likely the XP7-X will accommodate your device. Thanks to the grip being U shaped and leaving the top open, it also handles tall devices really well. Putting this to what I would call the ultimate test, I threw my Surface Duo in and found myself amazingly amused at the monstrosity I had created. Though it looks odd, it did show me how well the controller handled thinner devices. It gripped the phone incredibly well, and didn’t really wobble. I can’t see many other people wanting to put a Surface Duo into this, but it bodes well for people with thin devices.

In actual use, the XP7-X is just as simple as an Xbox controller. Once connected by Bluetooth, everything works out of the box for apps like Game Pass or GeForce Now. Emulators naturally work great too, with the setup being about as simple as any other standard controller. It’s worth saying that the grip buttons can’t be mapped as unique buttons though, them instead having to be one of the available Xbox buttons. This comes down to the fact the button is mapped on the controller itself. It’s not an issue for game streaming, but if you like having hotkeys handy on emulators you might be disappointed.

To me the XP7-X is the best way to transform your phone into an on the go gaming handheld. Between its fantastic form factor, its built-in wireless charging capabilities, and its ability to double as a USB controller, it’s a brilliantly versatile pick for any Android gamer. I’m just waiting for the iOS version now.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/fire-emblem-warriors-three-hopes.2078/

Oh boy here we go again. It’s Warriors, it’s Fire Emblem, it’s Fire Emblem Warriors! I want to get my usual Warriors disclaimer out of the way from the start to just avoid wasting time. It’s a Warriors game, you know what I’m going to say. You hack, you slash, and I’m fairly sure you already know whether you enjoy the base gameplay. With that said, let’s get into it.

This is Fodlan, but not quite as you know it. Completely separate from the events of Three Houses, Three Hopes starts the story before the upstart professor Byleth gets the chance to meet the house leaders and join them in their respective ambitions. Instead we get to catch a glimpse of Byleth’s mercenary days as the Ashen Demon, and pip them to the post in meeting the house leaders. What this ultimately does is splinter the timeline and take us on an entirely new journey. It’s a really interesting premise for a second game set in Fodlan and provides a lot of creative liberty in the writing to build on the lore of its predecessor and give screen time to characters that previously fell into the shadows. To this end, the game spends far less time on the common events of all three routes, instead opting to devote as much of the game as possible to the new and unique events. This avoids a lot of treading water for people already familiar with Three Houses, and while it does spoil a few events, keeps the majority of its strategic predecessor to one side so as not to ruin it for those who happen to pick up Three Hopes first. I would say knowledge of Three Houses enhances the overall experience, but the plot comes together in a way where it’s not as necessary as I thought it would be. You have three core routes to sink your teeth into here, and with my first playthrough clocking in at 30 hours, that’s a lot of content for those wanting it.

While the core gameplay is characteristically Warriors as I said at the start, I do feel the game should be commended for just how well it blends in elements of the Fire Emblem franchise. The original Fire Emblem Warriors game did this by introducing a degree of strategy in being able to order inactive units to areas of the map to complete objectives by themselves, but Three Hopes takes this union of genres to another level. It really does just feel like Three Houses if you take out the classroom elements.

Your cast of characters, much like Three Houses, is entirely dependant on your choice of house. Every character has a preferred class and path of progression, but you’re entirely free to ignore this and customise your army to your liking. This is a stark change from the original Fire Emblem Warriors where each character had a locked in moveset, many of which being duplicates of an already-limited cast of characters. I personally like being able to use my favourite characters and pick and choose which weapons and classes I like the most to pair with them. It ultimately means your moveset choices are limited by the number of classes in oppose to the number of characters, and this works well in the context of a Fire Emblem mashup. If like me you become attached to certain characters, you can work towards mastering each class to keep the gameplay feeling fresh without having to pull out your undesirables just because they have that one unique weapon you might want to try out.

Support ranks and conversations return, and for fans of the Fodlan cast you have an absolute encyclopaedia of additional interactions. I was religious in viewing these at the start of the game, and the writing is just as good as its predecessor. I won’t lie though, after 30 hours I did find myself just skipping them to get rid of the notification icon on my menu. The support conversations aren’t a large part of the game for me, but knowing I can just go back and watch them later anyway I didn’t feel too bad. On top of support ranks, you also have a new variant of the teatime minigame in the ability to go on expeditions with your allies. There’s not really much to say here if you’re familiar with teatime. You go on a little date and a picnic with a character of your choice to boost your support ranking and stare at their face up close for a bit. Again this isn’t really for me, but it’s also entirely optional, so it’s not something I’d really hold against the game.

Moving past character interactions, Three Hopes has a lot to keep you busy between your Warriors hacking and slashing. Your camp serves as a constant base of operations as you progress through the story, and has characters littered around it to talk to. On top of this, you have a number of facilities to aid you, each providing a useful function that can be upgraded using resources. Between upgrading facilities, training characters, and forging weapons, you find money and other resources stretched unless you’re willing to grind out maps on completion. Being a fan of older and more linear Fire Emblem titles, I’m actually really fond of this thanks to the additional level of strategy it adds to the game. It naturally doesn’t play quite as heavy a part as it might have in a game like Shadow Dragon, where you can find yourself rationing out your best weapon due to limited uses, but it still pushes you to make decisions for yourself to progress in a way that’s most meaningful to you.

When it comes to difficulty, the best I can do is describe it as fine. You start with three levels in Easy, Normal, and Hard, each being swappable on the fly if you find yourself feeling too strong or too weak. I found that early on, Hard difficulty just made the game take too long, with enemies sponging hits to a degree that I wasn’t having fun. This is made worse by the fact each chapter is ranked, requiring you to beat a set number of enemies and beat the map within a set time limit to get a one-time reward. Once you get going with the game this evens out a lot, but the starting few chapters can be quite off-putting if you happen to hit that wall. The game does actually feature a fourth difficulty option to mirror Three Houses in its Maddening mode, this unlocking exclusively after completing the game. Maddening is an appropriate title, with enemies in the first chapter being around Level 120. For context, the level cap in this game is 255, and my strongest character came out to around Level 70 when I finished my first play through. Surprisingly though, I had a blast going straight into Maddening. Between the stat boosts I had fed my main party along the way, as well as the weapons I’d refined, that gap of 50 or so levels was somewhat evened out for a challenging experience that was deceptively not maddening. For those not wanting to go through this however, the game does provide you with the option to level down your cast when moving into New Game Plus. This means you can go through a fresh route on a more standard difficulty setting without completely overwhelming every map. It’s great to have both options available.

Though I won’t talk about it in depth for obvious reasons, I do want to say how much I enjoyed the overall plot. It’s different to Three Houses, but it’s different in a way that doesn’t necessarily stray from any of the established lore or knowledge you might have brought with you. It feels like a supplementary experience that explores a “what if” timeline that’s sparked by something as small as a different mercenary meeting the lordly trio. The Warriors environment also proves to be a fantastic match for the war-torn story, with almost all of the game naturally being in this setting. It does feel as though there are fewer twists and turns when compared to Three Houses, but it’s certainly not without a few of its own to keep you invested.

One last point I did just want to touch on in brief is how the game looks and performs on Nintendo’s hybrid wonderkid. I did previously praise the game when looking at the demo for how well it ran, and I am disappointed to say this doesn’t carry into the full game as well as I’d have liked. The camp area in particular seems to tank the game’s framerate more than any of the battles, which is really quite odd. For the most part the battles do seem fine, but on some of the larger maps with a lot of effects on-screen, you will see dips and stutters. It’s not perfect by any stretch, but it is definitely playable. Graphically the game looks characteristically ‘Switch’. You know the console you’re playing it on, and it doesn’t try to really push the boat out. It’s rough around the edges, but not offensively so as to detract from the larger experience.

All things considered I do feel this is a new peak for Warriors mashups, and an absolute gem of a title for Fire Emblem fans wanting some great writing and a rest from the aggressive strategising of the main series. This is a trip back to Fodlan that ticks all the right boxes for me, and it’s a game I can happily recommend to any fan of Fire Emblem or anybody looking for their next Warriors fix. It’s brilliant.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/mario-strikers-battle-league-football.2068/

Football. The sport where you kick a spherical ball across a field and try to get it into a rectangular metal cage. It’s one of the most recognisable in the world with fans in the tens, hundreds, maybe even thousands. Football! Frankly I’ve never got on with it. There’s just not enough there in its raw form for me to sit and watch 20 or so people for 90 minutes at a time. Though your FIFAs and Pro Evolution Soccers never hit home, there have been a few series that take the basic premise of football and twist it so magnificently that I couldn’t help but be intrigued. You have Inazuma Eleven that has flashy moves and intense strategy. You have Behold the Kickmen that takes the basic rules and just makes up the rest. And then you have Mario. You have Mario and friends brutally slamming each other into an electric fence. You have your favourite colourful cohort taunting, scowling, and scoring. You have Mario Strikers, and after more than ten years it is back and kicking.

I may not be in love with the sport it bases itself on, but my oh my have I missed Mario Strikers. It’s a beautiful meld of chaos that blends so well into an easy to pick up control scheme. It never felt so much like a game to master as it did a game to just play in short bursts and have a good time, and I think it did brilliantly in that regard in both of its previous iterations. It’s not to say there was no skill involved, more that the chaos often overtook it in a way where you were either on board with it or just not having fun. I was always in the former group. Battle League is different, and I still don’t know if I can say it’s a positive step for the series.

Going straight into the game will probably feel alien for series veterans. It sure looks like Mario Strikers, but it really doesn’t feel like it. The chaos is dulled and the game gives you far more control than it ever has to manoeuvre the field and get the ball where it needs to be. It just feels odd, and I think it’s because I just haven’t put enough time into the game to come to terms with it. You have individual buttons for using items, shooting, ground passes, and air passes. Then with the ball you can also use dodges, and without the ball you can tackle. You can even charge and aim your shots to specific parts of the goal to slice through the defence. It’s neat. Everything has an optimal timing that provides you with satisfying feedback and increased power when you nail it, but even doing everything right it just doesn’t have the same impact as previous titles. It feels toned down to the realm of somewhat realism and it can really feel dull at times, especially in your first few hours when you’re learning the basics. It does get better as you start to land those weird and technical shots, but even after two weeks of somewhat regular play it still hasn’t gelled with me the way the other games did. I don’t think the gameplay is inherently bad. It’s just different. It feels like it’s designed to keep you engaged by a drive to improve, where the others were better framed as games to pick up and play, and then put them back down. In my mind this would be fine if the game did more to actually engage you; there’s just not enough content to come back to for you to meaningfully improve the way the game wants you to.

There are six cups that all follow the same structure. Match after match, and your reward for completion? A new character maybe? Coins. Coins to buy gear to augment the stats of the ten available characters. It’s not as though the previous Strikers games had all that much in the way of unique content themselves, but both of them had larger rosters and meaningful unlockables. Everything just feels lacking here though. You have no sidekicks, with your team being wholly the captains of previous games… With the exception of Toad and Yoshi. I guess they’re seen as a species more than actual characters? The biggest sin of all here is the replacement of Kritter as a goal keeper. Boom Boom just suck sucks, and lacks all the flair and personality of his crocky counterpart. I can only hope more goalies get patched in with the regular updates, but I’m not holding out much hope. The stadiums also seem somewhat lacklustre, even if there is an interesting idea on show. At the start of the game, you can select a stadium. Your opponent also selects a stadium, with the two being smashed together for a visually impressive spectacle. But that’s all it is: a spectacle. These stadiums have no impact on the actual gameplay, which feels like a missed opportunity. Even if it were relegated to its own game mode, I’d have liked to have seen some kind of stage hazard put in place to up the ante. It’s just a step away from realising its potential. 

Much like with Switch Sports, if you’re buying this game, you need to be buying it to play online. That’s where your real replayability is going to be for a good while until something more is patched in down the line. To the game’s credit, the online feels really great. You get the odd blip which can be frustrating when a lot of the gameplay is reliant on timing, but as a whole it works well.

While the connection was fine, I do have complaints when it comes to matchmaking. When playing online you can play alone or with a friend, with each person able to bring two people per console. What this means is that you have the potential for some brilliantly chaotic 4v4 matches, which sound like fantastic fun. Where I find fault is in the game matching single players with same-system multiplayers. This is a game where the AI does you no favours, so having a teammate who can cover you while you charge a strike or even just gang up on the opponent as they’re moving really is priceless. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not fantastic at this game, but this takes what could be an interesting learning experience and warps it into a dissatisfying curb stomp. If you have a friend or two to play with, or if you’re happy to reject matches until you find your 1v1, there is still a good time to be had though. I do think this is the highlight of the game at the moment if you can work through the difficulties.

Mario Strikers: Battle League Football is a fun game that at the very least keeps the great spirit of its predecessors alive. It is fun. And though I say it almost as if reassuring myself of this, I do come back to it for a game or two when I’m traveling or have a spare moment. It’s fun, but it’s nowhere close to what the series was before this, at least not to me. If you’re wanting a game to play and to master that’s flashy and genuinely satisfying when you’re doing it right, this is going to be a series high for you. Strikers was just never that for me, and with the scaled back content at launch I would not be able to justify paying the £50 asking price. At something closer to £30 and when they’ve patched the rest of the game in I’ll be far more comfortable recommending it.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/nintendo-switch-sports.2057/

Wii Sports was an instant classic that needed no real explanation. It was an intuitive showcase of what the Wii’s new hardware was capable of and was packed to the brim with the spirit of Nintendo gaming. Fun and frantic couch co-op with a sprinkling of weirdness. When Nintendo launched their Motion Plus accessory we saw another sporting title in Wii Sports Resort, again here as a surprisingly content-packed tech demo to show the value of their newest toys. Since then, it’s been a bit quiet. Sure we saw the Wii U release of Wii Sports Club, but who really remembers that? You were back to the five classic Wii Sports games with additional online multiplayer, albeit originally releasing with an incredibly awkward payment model. While it tried to use the Wii U’s gamepad in interesting ways as Nintendo had previously done with the original Wiimote and Wii Motion Plus, there were already better titles out there that had already filled this role, and with both Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort still perfectly playable on a Wii U, the game had a lot to live up to, and somewhat fell flat.

Roll on the Switch’s launch in 2017. After Wii Sports for the Wiimote, Wii Sports Resort for the Wii Motion Plus, and Nintendoland showing what the Wii U’s gamepad could do in an incredibly fun assortment of games, Nintendo surely had something similar lined up for their brand new Joy Cons. Right? 1-2-Switch just wasn’t it. It was fun for five minutes and left in a drawer, and after seeing just how much variety and replayability Nintendo can stuff into a game like this with Wii Sports Resort, it felt like a kick in the teeth for those who went out and bought this for the full £39.99 retail price. What we wanted and what we needed was a Switch Sports, and even if we had to wait five years for it, it is here. And it’s still not as good as Wii Sports Resort.

So after the wait, just how much are you getting in this modern sporting package? Six sports: two returning in tennis and bowling, and four new in chambara, volleyball, badminton, and football (soccer for the non-UK folk among us). This is one more than the original Wii Sports, which is nice, but falls so vastly short of Wii Sports Resort’s 12. Each of these individual games do feel great to play and keep the spirit of the series alive. They also all come with online play, including a ranked league and a few interesting modes. Bowling has a really cool knockout mode where the bottom few players get eliminated every few rounds for a genuinely cool finale that feels like it has higher stakes than it really should. What keeps you coming back to the game is a loop of playing online, ranking up, and getting new stuff to customise your character with. While you’re doing these things it is genuinely quite engaging, but there is a key word in the previous sentence: online. Any and all progression is locked to playing online, and that really isn’t a great thing.

To clarify, you can play everything the game has to offer offline. You can play alone against computer opponents, or you can play with friends on the same console. It’s just as fun in isolation, but once you’ve done your one or two games, there’s nothing to keep you coming back. In Wii Sports Resort you had challenges associated with every game, and a number of interesting game modes to experience. Even in some of the returning games you’re missing content and challenges you previously had. There’s no 100 pin bowling, and there’s nothing that compares to Sword Showdown for chambara despite it being a brilliantly natural evolution of its predecessor’s sword-fighting game. Even the original Wii Sports had a number of medals you could win by perfecting certain practice games, and some were ridiculously difficult to keep you coming back and improve your scores. If you don’t have Switch Online, or even don’t have the most stable internet connection, I cannot in good faith recommend Switch Sports to you. Without an online connection, you’re looking at a Nintendo sports title with the same replayability as 1-2 Switch.

But let’s look past that for now; let’s assume you’re going into this with a NSO subscription and want to collect some accessories for your nice character and engage in the gameplay loop. Are the individual games good? For me some are great, and others fall flat. The game I was most looking forward to was bowling, as silly as that sounds. It’s simple and it’s been a staple of Nintendo sports titles. It’s always felt fun and surprisingly challenging to master. This iteration let me down in ways I struggle to express. It feels devoid of fun, and after five minutes of playing I found myself hitting strike after strike by just lining up a simple shot and throwing it at full speed. There’s no intricacy and the charm of its predecessors is nowhere to be seen here. You can’t even throw the ball backwards. What’s up with that? The knockout “battle royale” mode I mentioned earlier is a genuinely cool idea, but it needs more to it if it wants to be fulfilling.

Most of the other sports suffer from the opposite issue. Chambara feels great to play, as do volleyball, tennis, and badminton. But none of these modes have anything to do outside of their basic game. Tennis, badminton, and volleyball could all have challenge modes for holding rallies, aiming, or even weirder things like playing with a larger ball or having the net move. It feels like the smallest amount of effort could have been put in to add a significant amount of replayability and variety to games that really do feel great to play. In large, this is a game that suffers from the same major issue Mario Tennis games have faced for more than 15 years now; there’s so much in the way of refinement, but nothing to do with the polished blade of a game they’ve crafted.

Football deserves a special mention for using the leg strap in a neat way, and allowing you to actually kick the ball for one of its modes. For its more standard gameplay, I found myself really enjoying it for how wacky and out of control it felt. It’s like Rocket League if all the cars broke down. Again it would’ve really shined if there were some kind of challenge mode to go with it. An obstacle course or target practice would’ve been a great fit here.

There is still fun to be had. If you just want a game you can pick up with friends once every so often you’ll get your money’s worth eventually, even if you are sticking to what’s available offline. Switch Sports’ biggest issue is the shadow it finds itself living in and the expectations that have been setup that have just not been met. We’ve had confirmation that an additional sport, golf, will be coming in a free update later in the year. This is great, but the game really would benefit more from making the most of what’s already there. I can only hope we get this in an update too.