The biggest story to come from the release of Nintendo’s latest juggernaut of a console, the Switch, isn’t about the games, or the playing experience. It’s about the taste.

Nintendo, realising that the games themselves are the size of a postage stamp and as such might be a choking hazard, decided to coat them in a chemical compound — denatonium benzoate. It’s one of the most bitter compounds in existence. Ever bitten your nails, and chewed through that clear nail varnish that tastes like chemical backwash? That’s what Nintendo Switch games taste like. Why is this noteworthy? Because within hours of this scoop hitting the web, critics and journalists all around the world were jamming the damned things in their mouths.

Nintendo is a surreal company. Their business practices are legendary for being unique, sometimes baffling, and always culturally significant. This story — of people stuffing critically lauded games right down their gullets to see how bitter they are — is VERY Nintendo. But what of the console itself? Every few years, this often impenetrable company gives birth to a new gaming platform. Sometimes, it’s a game-changer, an empire builder. And sometimes it fizzles out like a freshly-toasted Goomba.

Enter Nintendo Switch

If you still have no idea what the shit a Switch even is, here’s the elevator pitch: you have a sleek, flat, light tablet with a screen about the size of that block of chocolate you said you’d eat over three days but crammed down on the way home from the store. On either side are two thin, minimalist controllers. So basically, it’s a clean, fast handheld gaming tablet. That is until you click it into the dock hooked up to your TV, and unclip the controllers.

Now, in just a moment, the game you were playing is on your big screen, and the Switch functions as a traditional console. It’s mobile gaming and home console gaming in one very sexy package. Is the clip-and-unclip, game-and-go thing a gimmick with any practical applications? Well let me tell you this: you can very easily play Zelda on your telly (unclipped), then continue to play remotely on the toilet… dealing with what you’re fairly sure are denatonium benzoate-induced shits.

The Switch has some less appealing sides to it too. It’s a tad pricey; in Australia, it’ll cost you $469.95, and it comes with no games at all. The only launch titles available are The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild ($89.95), some digital downloads of indie games (many of which are already available on other platforms), and 1-2 Switch ($69.95) — the equivalent of the Wii launch title Wii Sports. The other flagship title, Super Mario Odyssey, won’t be out until late this year.

Then, there’s the controversy surrounding Nintendo’s vague online service, which will require a paid subscription to play online at all. PS4 and Xbox One both do this, but in their cases, you get free games every month. Nintendo will give you a loan of a vintage Nintendo game (Super Nintendo, NES, etc) for the month… at which point you’ll have to buy it if you want to keep playing it. The service doesn’t go live until Autumn, and will apparently have a companion app on your phone for chatting with friends in your party while playing. But if you’re on your phone, why not use Skype, or Discord? Why tease us with a month rental of a game? Why is Nintendo acting like Christian Grey doling out sex morsels to a needy submissive?

So after almost 50 hours straight of playing with my Switch, pile-driving through the launch titles and, yes, sucking numbly on my $89.95 copy of Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, how do I feel about the damned thing? Has it crashed, or will it soar?

The battery life while playing Zelda — which clearly taxed the system — was about three hours. It also doesn’t come with a way to charge the remotes other than plugging them into the dock. So, short of finding a USB adapter and hooking it up to battery bricks or flying on an airline that lets you charge devices, long-haul flights might be a bit tricky. Regardless, the ability to bounce from room to room in your house while playing is certainly useful — it’s an impressive feat of engineering.

Also, the dock sitting in front of my TV into which I now gingerly slot the Switch isn’t the most gentle mistress; overuse can lead to scuffs on the console, especially if you tend to slam it back in angrily after losing a round of the excellent indie title Snipperclips.

The Games

So let’s say you’re now considering getting the Switch, but are concerned about the lack of games. True, the only superstar launch title is The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, but my god, what a launch title. The latest Zelda title is part Studio Ghibli, part Skyrim, part Dark Souls. It’s a watercolour painting come to life, and has a genuine sense of adventure and isolation that no Zelda game has ever really managed to evoke (though Wind Waker had its moments).

If you don’t know anything about Zelda games, don’t worry. It’s a series in which somehow, over and over, an elf named Link awakens and has to save the land of Hyrule with the aid of Princess Zelda. It’s a series that doesn’t need to pile on the lore, and Breath of the Wild is incredibly freeing in that respect.

Also, it’s big. Really big. Open world games (like Red Dead Redemption, Skyrim, Watchdogs 2, etc) are basically playgrounds filled with charming busywork; you can gravitate towards the main story if you want, but you can also treat it like a sandbox (which is often what they’re called: sandbox games). Breath of the Wild is legitimately big enough to get lost in, and given that Link has just woken up after a 100-year slumber and has no idea what the hell has been happening, you feel just as out of it as he does. You’re constantly trying to find high ground, trying to get your bearings, trying to use your odyssey to get powerful enough so that when you face off with Ganon, you don’t get squashed by a bug. I compared it already to the works of Studio Ghibli — Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind — but honestly, there’s time where you’re so vulnerable and scared and close to death that it feels like a minimalist anime spin on Mad Max.

Critics and players alike are almost universally united in their love for this game, which is rare; I’ve yet to meet a single person who’d give it any less than an enthusiastic nine out of ten. The sense of adventure it manages to imbue you with is palpable. Which is good… because the other launch title, 1-2 Switch, does anything but that.

The joy-con controllers, designed for the Switch, have many unique capabilities (they’re so fine-tuned with motion sensors that for the first time since the original Wii, you no longer need an awkward sensor bar balanced above your TV). 1-2 Switch plays less like a game, and more like a tech demo made to show off the joy-con controllers. The problem here is that it contains 28 cheesy, depthless mini-games. That’s it. The idea is that you and friends will throw a party and run around like maniacs playing these games, but honestly, it just comes off like a poor man’s Jackbox. And you’ll definitely feel poor after shelling out for it. At $69.95, the pricetag is at best baffling, and at worst insulting. What’s more, the entire premise of the game is this: 28 asinine party games, presented like this:

So if you’re down with in-game acting that would make the churchiest camp counsellor look like Ryan Gosling by comparison, by all means drop $70 on 1-2 Switch.

Then, there’s Snipperclips, charming little co-op indie title Just Dance 2017, a handful of vintage Neo Geo games, and a smattering of other small digital downloads. The only other game on the Switch store that screams “buy” other than Zelda is the souped-up Shovel Knight, which looks and sounds like vintage NES Mega Man but is actually a brilliant, funny, clever, tight platformer/RPG with a gradually unfolding story that I’ve fallen in love with.

So, Wait. Should I Get It?

That’s a tough question. Nintendo have made something very special here, but we’re in the eye of the storm. Nobody has had their hands on this thing long enough to know anything other than first impressions.

Reviewing the games that are out is easy. Zelda? Stunning, staggering, sublime. A must-play. It’s on the WiiU, Nintendo’s last console, but isn’t quite as swish visually on that. 1-2 Switch? Bewildering and overpriced. The console itself is sexy as hell, feels good, sounds good, plays well and seems to be everything Nintendo said it would be — but until we get more games, it’s kind of up to you.

This is why it sucks that Nintendo haven’t come out the gate with a tidal wave of great titles. Nintendo games are a genre unto themselves. People like first-person shooters, RPGs, racing games, Nintendo Games… And you can only get the latter on Nintendo consoles. So, if given the choice of having just one gaming platform, people rarely pick Nintendo. Why would they? There’s not enough range of games to play. They pick something else, then, if they can justify the purchase, they swing for a WiiU, or a Switch.

Just bought the nintendo switch ? pic.twitter.com/SPbE0edUU4

— deondre lamont (@dresvibe) March 5, 2017

I sincerely hope Nintendo are relentless with their releases over the coming months and also re-think their janky, archaic subscription scheme. I love Nintendo. I can’t not love them. Where else am I going to play mind-bending masterpieces like Breath of the Wild? Or the new open-world Mario game? Or Splatoon 2? Nintendo have a magical, unshakable grip on the dopamine centres of our brains. If they’re true to their word, and if they let the Switch live up to its potential, we could be in for a big, wonderful party over the coming years. Here’s hoping that when we think back on the Switch, it leaves a good taste in our mouths.

Literally.

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Paul Verhoeven is host of Steam Punks on ABC3, and host of the weekly gaming podcast 28 Plays Later. He tweets from @PaulVerhoeven.