Review: Everybody 1-2-Switch Is Cumbersome, but Enjoyable

Despite being a day one adopter of the Nintendo Switch, there was one game that I failed to check out at launch: 1-2-Switch. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild had all my time, after all. With its sequel now out, I had the chance to finally rectify that mistake and play the game a ton with my family. In the end, Everybody 1-2-Switch isn’t the finest minigame collection you can find on the platform, but it is still one of the more unique and interesting ones. Hosted by Horace, the strange and disturbing horse man, I enjoyed his personality and style that he brought to each run of this game, with his constant commentary giving it some light TV game show vibes.

The core options in Everybody 1-2-Switch are quite varied, with some allowing up to eight players using separate Joy-Cons for one of the main modes, and another letting smartphone owners also play for up to a whopping 100 players. I appreciate that both options exist, especially if you don’t have access to a ton of Joy-Cons. Within the games themselves, you can pick the team competition for varying lengths of time, such as 20 minutes, 40 minutes, and 60-minute sessions. In addition to that, players also have access to a quiz game mode, Bingo, and a handful of unlockable, standalone minigames.

Screenshot by Siliconera

With that said, I will admit that my family and I mostly stuck to the quiz and Bingo modes. The core team modes are fun, but their novelty wears off rather quickly. This is mainly because everything about Everybody 1-2-Switch is cumbersome in how it is presented and executed.

While I love Horace’s personality, he doesn’t have to explain everything every single time that we check out a game. Sure, I get that there might be new players who need a quick tutorial or practice, but there should at least be an option to skip all of the unnecessary window dressing. This pads out the time way too much, instead of focusing on what truly matters: the minigames themselves.

Screenshot by Siliconera

To Everybody 1-2-Switch’s credit, the minigames are fairly fun when you get into them. They are short-burst competitions that use the Joy-Cons in creative and surprising ways. One Balloon minigame might have you pretend like your Joy-Con is an air pump. You have to aim it like a pump and physically push it down like you are pumping up a balloon without blowing it up. On the other hand, there is a hide-and-seek mode where you physically have to hide your Joy-Con somewhere in the room. Then the opposing team has to use the vibration feature to see when they are getting warmer and closer to it to find it as fast as possible.

These fascinating ways of using the Joy-Cons is incredibly inventive, but it only impresses the first few times you play the game. Worse still, there are the expected skippable minigames that my family and I didn’t really want to play that much. There are only so many times that the Squats minigame, where you are supposed to squat on cue, is enjoyable, and the same could be said for the strangely-designed Jump Rope game.

Screenshot by Siliconera

Sure, Everybody 1-2-Switch has more than 40 minigames in total, which is a lot more than its predecessor. The problem with this is that many of them are repeats of other games, so the number is honestly a lot lower than it sounds. After a short while, waiting for so long to actually play the minigames ends up not being worth it, unless you have a ton of people over who have never played this before. Otherwise, you are better off just playing the quiz game or Bingo mode if you only have a couple of people with you . They offer streamlined and instant results of figuring out if it’s true-or-false or who will get the coveted Bingo first.

Without a doubt, there is fun to be had in Everybody 1-2-Switch, but it certainly feels like this game was made for larger settings. If you are a family or only have a few friends, there are better options to enjoy right now in the Switch like Super Mario Party. If you happen to be a streamer or teacher, you could get quite a lot out of the novel 100-player smartphone version, which works surprisingly well from my testing. Just know that the game may waste your time a bit too much with all of the tutorials and unnecessary rambling from the otherwise charming host. Everybody 1-2-Switch can be fun for a short time, as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into.

Everybody 1-2-Switch is available for the Nintendo Switch.