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Photo by Neilson Barnard/Getty Images for Nintendo of America 'The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild' running on the Nintendo Switch and played with a Pro. ( Breath of the Wild itself played fine, though the short demo of the game's beginning didn't really let me sink my teeth in, so I'll hold off on any other judgment calls.) Certainly, its functionality may be dependent on the cartridge in the console, and it was apparent Breath of the Wild was meant to be primarily experienced on a television screen at 1080p, 60fps. And despite the crisp HD picture without hiccups, more detailed visual cues were difficult to read. Without the support of the Grip attachment, simply using both thumbs on the analog sticks and index fingers on the triggers felt awkward. Getting at both triggers of one side proves difficult and actually put a bit of fear in me as I felt like I could perhaps lose a handle on the expensive tablet. Precision movement can turn clunky, leading to a few fatal tumbles for Link. I never felt my hands were too big for a controller until using the Joy-Cons on the sides of the Switch. However, the limitations of the format did bubble to the surface. Just like that, as advertised, a console-turned-handheld in an instant.
#A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS PRO#
Halfway through the demo, I put down the Pro Controller, slid the Joy-Cons into the side of the Switch and pulled the console from its dock.
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Handheld Mode is at once revelatory and frustrating with a game like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Of course, at the center of the Switch is its most intriguing innovation: using a Nintendo home console like one of its handhelds with the Joy-Cons attached on either side of the system. However, not only is it not as tactile as its competitors, it does not come packed in with the console, costing an additional $70.
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Essentially a flatter Xbox One controller, the Pro offers more space for the hands as well as a D-pad which the Joy-Cons lack. The Pro Controller as well picks up the slack when the Joy-Cons feel too small or not accommodating with a particular game. "The Joy-Con just opens up a lot of possibilities for an interaction that you wouldn't be able to have if you were just an individual with your handheld," Scibetta said. The Joy-Cons offer a number of ways to play games: together in the Grip attachment to resemble a more traditional controller separately to use freely in both hands slid into the sides of the Switch console itself and the myriad of ways to employ the extensive motion control capabilities, like in the surprisingly satisfying spring-loaded boxing game, Arms, in which you hold the Joy-Cons vertically, move about the ring by twisting your wrists and toss curved punches with a swing of the arm. For both Mario Kart and Snipperclips, the two included Joy-Cons are tilted sideways to resemble bite-sized SNES controllers. Much of the heavy-lifting is done with the Switch's new Joy-Con controllers.
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However, nagging questions abound following the weekend, like its paid online functionality done entirely through a mobile app, the minimal storage space available out-of-the-box, the scarcity of launch titles, the ever-present questions about third-party support, the $299 price tag for its hardware not including additional expensive controllers or a pack-in release, its dated graphical fidelity in comparison to the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 and even where it fits in the increasingly homogeneous world of gaming and tech.
#A LINK BETWEEN WORLDS SOFTWARE#
And unlike the company's previous two home consoles, the Wii and Wii U, software developers need not tailor entire gameplay systems around gimmicky tech. Its elegance comes from not only its versatility in a multitude of spaces and the controller options present therein, but the ease of which "switching" occurs. Simply put, the concept works in practice. That's really the core concept behind the Nintendo Switch." "Now it can be really the same: same game, pop it out, you're off and running. "It used to be you had to decide, what's my gaming experience going to be like for this location versus another one," said Charlie Scibetta, senior director of corporate communications for Nintendo of America.