Nintendo Switch 2 Full Review… 5 Months Later!

A Retro Dad’s Honest, Overdue Look at Nintendo’s Newest Console (After the Honeymoon Phase Has Worn Off)

Five months.
That’s how long it’s been since the Nintendo Switch 2 hit shelves, caused global stock shortages, and forced thousands of dads to wait in digital queues longer than they’ve waited for anything since the day they tried booking concert tickets in 1998.

Five months is long enough for the hype dust to settle.
Long enough for the new console smell to fade.
Long enough for the kids to scratch the screen, lose the charging cable, and hide your favourite game case behind the couch for reasons still unknown.

But it’s also long enough to get past the shiny first impressions and properly ask:

Is the Nintendo Switch 2 actually good?
Was it worth the upgrade?
Does it live up to the hype?
Is it everything we hoped for… or is it another Joy-Con drift waiting to happen?

Grab a nostalgic snack (may I recommend a Capri-Sun and some poorly stored Fruit Winders), because today we’re digging into a full, brutally honest, slightly humorous, dad-approved review of the Nintendo Switch 2 — five whole months later.

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The Hardware: What Happens When Nintendo Finally Drinks a Protein Shake

Let’s get one thing straight: the Switch 2 is shockingly powerful… for a Nintendo console.

No, it’s not trying to fight the PS5 Pro in a dark alley.
No, it’s not built to melt eyeballs like a high-end PC.
And no, you won’t feel the need to turn on ray-tracing and take photographs of reflections in puddles.

But compared to the original Switch?
This thing is a beast.
A monster.
A glow-up of legendary proportions.

The jump from the OG Switch to the Switch 2 is like going from dial-up internet to fibre broadband. Or from a tiny 13-inch CRT to a massive flat-screen TV your wife says is “too big” but you know is “just right.”

The Screen? Absolutely Gorgeous

Nintendo finally gave us a next-gen display worthy of all those long train rides and late-night under-the-duvet gaming sessions.

Colours pop.
Lighting is richer.
Everything looks sharper — even older games converted with Nintendo’s mysterious upscaling magic.

After five months of using it, going back to the old Switch is like watching HD content through a fog of nostalgia, Vaseline, and mild disappointment.

The Build Quality? Surprisingly Adult

Nintendo went back to the drawing board, reinforced basically everything, and said:

“We’re sorry about the Joy-Con drift. Please forgive us.”

The new controllers feel sturdier.
The sticks don’t make you fear early death.
And the whole console feels like it can survive being dropped by a toddler — not that we recommend testing that.

And Performance?

Games finally run like they’re meant to.
No wheezing.
No fans taking off like a jet engine.
No frame drops that make Mario run like he forgot his inhaler.

In short:
Nintendo finally joined the modern hardware era, and it feels glorious.

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The Games: The Real Reason Anyone Buys a Nintendo Console

Five months in, the Switch 2 library is still growing, but we’ve got enough first-party titles to form early opinions — and Nintendo came out swinging.

New Original Titles Glow on This Hardware

Nintendo clearly designed its first-wave games to flex the Switch 2’s muscles without showing off too much. You can tell they’re holding back the heavy hitters (Metroid Prime 4, new 3D Mario, new Zelda), but what we’ve already got…

Wow.

Smooth framerates.
Crisp visuals.
Open worlds that load in seconds.
And — shockingly — fewer loading screens than any Nintendo console before it.

Backward Compatibility Is a Dream

Whether you’re replaying Mario Kart 8 Deluxe for the 400th time or revisiting Breath of the Wild yet again, everything looks sharper and loads faster.

Switch 2 handles old titles like a champ — Nintendo didn’t just keep BC; they improved it.
It almost feels like the console is smiling at you, saying:

“Hey, remember this game? I made it even prettier. You’re welcome.”

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The Features: Small Things That Make Big Differences

1. Improved Battery Life

The Switch 2 lasts much longer, finally letting you finish a full Mario boss fight without the battery warning popping up like a school report card you forgot to sign.

2. Better Online Features

The online service is still Nintendo Online…
which is to say it works MOST of the time.
But it’s noticeably better — less lag, faster loading, fewer moments of wondering if your Wi-Fi has betrayed you again.

3. The New Home UI

Nintendo cleaned up the interface into a sleek, modern dashboard that…
basically feels like someone at Nintendo opened a PS5 menu and said, “Write that down! Write that down!”

It’s clean.
It’s quick.
It’s not full of weird quirks.

We’ll take it.

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Five Months Later: What Annoys Us? Let’s Be Honest.

1. The Storage Options Still Make No Sense

Why does a new console in 2025 still come with storage that fills up the second you install a large game? Nintendo, my guy, you knew people would download stuff.

2. Some Features Still Feel “Nintendo-Like”

Which is a polite way of saying:
modern, but slightly confusing.

Some settings are buried.
Some features don’t work exactly how we expect.
It’s a Nintendo console after all — we knew this coming in.

3. Still No Built-In Themes or Folders?

Nintendo refuses to give us a proper theme system because apparently fun UI features are too dangerous.

We have a cutting-edge console…
and still no ability to organise our games into folders like it’s 2016.

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Five Months Later: What Impresses Us Most?

Consistency.
This might just be the most stable console Nintendo has ever launched.

No overheating reports.
No widespread hardware failures.
No sticks drifting into the void.
No hinge cracks.
No weird yellow tint issues.

For once, Nintendo didn’t release a console that feels like an engineering experiment held together by plastic and prayer.

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Final Thoughts: Is the Switch 2 Worth It?

Five months on, this is the simplest way to put it:

If you like Nintendo games, the Switch 2 is an absolute must-buy.
If you prefer powerful hardware above all else, you’ll still be impressed… though not blown away.
If you loved the original Switch, this is the logical, beautiful, powerful evolution we’ve all been waiting for.

The Switch 2 is Nintendo at its most confident — a system that embraces modernity without losing the charm, soul, and playful weirdness that made Nintendo special in the first place.

As retro dads, we grew up through console wars, expansions, cartridges, discs, and handheld revolutions. But the Switch 2?
It feels like Nintendo finally blending the past with the future — online features, better performance, amazing handheld mode, nostalgia-powered libraries, and first-party titles with that classic Nintendo magic.

Is it perfect? No.
Is it fun? Absolutely.
Is it Nintendo? In every possible way.

Five months later, the Switch 2 still feels like the console we always hoped Nintendo would make.
And in a world of increasingly complicated tech, endless subscriptions, and games that need 200GB installs, the Switch 2 remains something refreshingly simple:

A console that just makes you want to play.