Super Mario Party comes out on Friday. It’s the series’ debut on Switch and the first main entry since 2015’s ill-fated Mario Party 10 on Wii U. It has 80 new mini games, one of which even utilises multiple Switches to create a shared, continuous screen.
What it doesn’t have is handheld mode support, the first in a handful of Switch games this season with hyper-specific controller demands that seem to run counter to the spirit of the Switch’s “play anywhere” mantra.
Super Mario Party supports up to four players locally, just like the first game did on the Nintendo 64 when it released in 1998. Whether docked and outputting to a TV or simply sitting with the kickstand out on a table top, you can play solo or with friends with everyone using their own Joy-Con.
As confirmed on the game’s Japanese web page, it doesn’t support the use of the Switch Pro controller or dual Joy-Cons mounted to the screen in handheld mode. In theory this is because various mini games require the Joy-Con’s HD Rumble and gyroscope features, but in practice it means the game can’t be played while on the go with ease.
This might be a small quibble in the grand scheme of things, but as someone who plays most of their Switch games during their commute and who is one of Mario Party’s few remaining diehard fans, it’s frustrating.
And it’s not the only game coming out in the next few months that seems to be struggling with how to adapt to the Switch’s portability.
The World Ends With You: The Final Remix comes out on October 12 and apparently only allows touch controls while in handheld mode. According to the game’s Nintendo webpage, the game offers Joy-Con controls or touch controls, but seemingly not a combination of the two.
When the original released on the DS in 2007, a combination of face-button and touch controls were used so that players could direct the game’s two main characters simultaneously. The new version of the game apparently offloads this hybrid approach entirely, with users in Japan—where the game is already out—noting that the Joy-Con controls stop registering once they’re attached to the Switch.
Unless the North American version is drastically different in some way, which based on reports from when the game was shown at PAX West it doesn’t, this means that in handheld mode it plays similar to the iOS port but with additional story content and a few other extra features.
Pokémon: Let’s Go, Eevee & Pikachu, which come out the month after, also have something wonky going on with the standard controls. While the game does not require motion controls to catch Pokémon, motion controls are utilised and can’t be turned off, a spokesperson for the Pokemon Company confirmed to IGN last week.
The company pointed out that using motion controls won’t impact people’s ability to catch Pokemon, but the video it showed to IGN to demonstrate this apparently showed someone playing the game in handheld mode with the Switch placed flat against a table, making it still unclear whether there’s any way to avoid motion controls altogether. (Splatoon 2 works in a similar way in handheld mode but in that game, there’s an option to turn them off.)
Kotaku reached out to Nintendo to try to clarify the quirky control schemes in each of these cases and the reasoning behind them, but the company did not respond.
Nintendo’s commitment to exploring new ways to play games is admirable, but the lack of options for defaulting to more traditional methods reminds me of the company’s refusal to make The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword playable without motion controls. Coming out late in the Wii’s life in 2011 no doubt didn’t help the game’s poor sales, but its unrelenting reliance on swinging your arms around to solve puzzles and defeat enemies probably didn’t help either.
Even now I’d love for an HD remaster of it to get ported to Switch, but not if it can’t be played in handheld mode.
Metroid Other M is perhaps the most infamous example of an otherwise interesting game hamstrung by weird control requirements. Its makers wanted the game to be easy to play, so they decided to make it utilise only the Wii Remote, ignoring the nunchuck portion and its thumb stick.
The result was clumsy and scared a number of people off trying the game. “Remote-only would have been fine as a default, but the game would have controlled better, and elicited less frustration, if it supported a second control scheme for those of us who prefer to do things like control movement in three dimensions with an analogue stick,” wrote Kotaku’s editor in chief Stephen Totilo in his 2010 review.
While none of Super Mario Party, TWEWY: The Final Remix, or Pokemon: Let’s Go’s control limitations are that glaring, they carry a whiff of the same obstinacy. For the Wii, a home console who’s big selling point was motion controls, lack of control customisation was perhaps more understandable, but given that the Switch is meant to be the system you can play anywhere however you like, I hope this new trend is just an aberration.
Comments
17 responses to “Some Of Spring’s Biggest Switch Games Are Shortchanging Handheld Mode ”
Great there go my plans to play TWEWY on the train to and from work…
Exactly what i was thinking. My only gaming time is on the tram these days.
Oh come on Kotaku you’ll love Super Mario Party for the Nintendo Switch because I’m keen to get my hands on Super Mario Party when it comes out on Nintendo Switch on Friday this week and if you guys are not interested in playing Super Mario Party on the Nintendo Switch when it comes out this week then it’s your loss.
If your listening Nintendo count me in I’m definitely signing up for your Nintendo Switch Online 12 month Individual Membership since you guys want to make more money to bring us more Nintendo Switch games that are currently in development and that we still need to reach our Nintendo Switch target of 20 million Nintendo Switch units by the end of this year.
Kotaku will like SMP because you are buying it?
Either this account is a bot or has the intellectual capacity of a peanut.
“The World Ends With You: The Final Remix comes out on October 12 and apparently only allows touch controls while in handheld mode.”
Why would you want touch controls when docked? Or am I reading this completely wrong?
it’s worded badly, they mean that you can only use the touch screen controls while in handheld mode, you can’t use a combination of both touch screen and joy con controls while you are in handheld mode.
a better way to phrase it would be “you are unable to use the joycons in the handheld mode while playing TWEWY, which could have been used for other functions in the game.”
Thanks!! Wow that does suck. Holding the Switch in handheld mode and being forced to use the screen is a weird choice.
The Joycon controls for TWEWY involve using the gyroscope to control a pointer on the screen, that control scheme simply wouldn’t work while holding the console, that’s why it’s locked to docked mode…
Yes the DS game used to have button controls, but that was when you had two screens and two character’s to control at once, that doesn’t exist in the single-screen versions of the game so you don’t need it anymore. there’s really no issue with what they are doing, it just sounds bad because you don’t get how the game controls…
I’m probably in the minority, but my Switch has never been played in handheld mode, docked only!
I’ve never used mine docked.
I saw stats, it’s mostly a mix but I’m a 100% docked player too.
Same; docked only. Any attempts to play handheld have been thwarted by the sun turning the screen into a mirror.
Can we also highlight how ridiculous it is that TWEWY is being sold for $70.
What? Really???? There goes that one for me then.
Kotaku, kings of the non issue
I respect Kotaku, really. However, if you’re going to use a game as an example, you should probably understand how the game is played before making your site lose face. I assume the author never spent countless hours using the stylus on TWEWY or using touch controls on IOS. I also assume the author believed buttons were somehow, ever integral to the game.
Before you use a title to make a ‘stretched point,’ you should know something about said title. Period. If the author could find a way to play TWEWY with buttons or a controller, insead of frantic motion that SHOULD be confined to a reasonable space for safety, I’d buy a drink for everyone on the staff. Until then, please check what you post before you turn others off to a game that could NEVER be played in a different way. Neku is disappointed in kotaku.
Expecting Mario Party to support handheld mode would be like expecting 1-2-Switch to. There could conceivably be some minigames that would work with it, but you know Nintendo are going to be focusing on taking advantage of all the joycons wacky features.