As I stood in a crowded room alongside fellow journalists where we all stared dumbfounded at a talking horse on a giant television screen feeding us instructions, it felt like I was joining a cult. We obediently followed directions, took hold of the Joy-Cons handed to us, and slowly competed in fun new games. Nintendo has made a fittingly bizarre sequel to its underwhelming Switch launch title that far better understands the modern appeal of party games. This is less a showcase of the hardware and more of a sanitised Jackbox Party Pack with a far more absurdist visual direction. Better yet, it works.
Over 100 people can play Everybody 1+2 Switch at any given time, although this heavily depends on the type of game you choose. Using a mixture of Joy-Con or smartphones linked up to the console through Wi-Fi, games can range from blowing up balloons hoping they don’t pop after reaching a certain size, deflecting ninja stars using an imaginary sword with a room full of combatants, or just answering general knowledge quiz questions. While we only saw a handful of minigames during our hands-on session, there seems to be over 100 tucked away in the menus, all of which come with different permutations depending on how many players are present in each session, and what sort of games you decide on.
Games can be played in 20, 40, or 60 minute sessions as a roulette machine randomly hops between different minigames while assigning points to the winning team. You can either assign your own teams or have them split randomly, each player represented by cute little bubbles floating around the screen containing selfies or pictures of your choosing. The whole affair is complete and utter chaos, but it’s easy to understand and wants everyone in the room, from your nan to your dog, to feel included. Nintendo pitches this as a surefire hit for gatherings of friends and family when you can't be bothered to pull out a board game or go through the hardship of sticking a film on. I’ll be honest, it might be onto something.
Our first game asked for us to hold the Joy-Con against our bottoms as we faced away from an opponent. We needed to shift our hips alongside the controller in the vain hope that we’d knock them off the pedestal and secure victory. It’s fast and frantic, with players swapping in and out at a constant pace until they earn a certain number of points. Next was the balloon game I mentioned earlier; you’re shown an outline of a balloon before it fades away and you have to match the shape without going too far. If you do - it pops. Deflecting ninja stars using sound cues emanating from the Joy-Con is just as fun, although I’m not entirely convinced of its accuracy. And not just because I got hit over ten times after several tries.
Musical chairs is the most absurd, but it does require your smartphone to be connected to both the console and a web browser, which is easily done by scanning a QR code that pops up on screen. You must hold two thumbs to your phone display and drop to the floor right as the music stops. Slow players will be eliminated until one remains. I was very bad at this, but still cheered on my friends from the sidelines. We also played a game that asked us to take pictures of objects in our environment that fit the colour displayed on screen, which turned into a sudden scramble for the right subject with varying results of hilarity.
While Joy-Con mode is limited to eight players, it still feels like more than enough to capture the ludicrous pace Everybody 1+2 Switch is going for. You can’t put ‘cum’ as the answer to every single minigame like in Jackbox, but it absolutely captures the same laugh-a-minute energy. Games like this are perfectly replayable in party settings, and the low bar of entry resonates with the casual audience that Nintendo has otherwise rejected in recent years. I would go for this over Mario Party, even if it contains similar amounts of bullshit sometimes.