They say that happiness equals reality minus expectations, and, unfortunately for these eight Switch games, reality landed nowhere near what was expected. It’s hard to blame the critical and community reception for some of them, but not all of them are bad. Some just aren’t what people were hoping they would be.
So we’ve ranked them by the size of the gap between promise and result, from the mild letdowns to the ones that stung most or didn’t justify for the cost. Consider this your reminder to check your expectations at the door. Here, Peach takes the lead in a theater full of costume-themed stage plays, including a detective, a mermaid, and a swordfighter.
If you love Princess Peach and enjoy dressing up dolls — which, same — this may sound like a good conceit. Critics largely enjoyed the charm of the outfits granting Peach various abilities, but found that as a gaming experience it was “pretty, if shallow.” Others found that the game was short, without offering much of a challenge to justify its $60 price tag. Princess Peach: Showtime! only lasted between four and 10 hours and lacked some quality-of-life mechanics, like the ability to backtrack or jump to specific points within the game.
Even though Showtime! seemed like it was going to be a full, dynamic action-adventure game, it mostly used just two buttons (A and B) for extremely basic actions and jumps. Got: One even thinner than the Game Boy Color version The idea for this game is good on paper: What if golf, usually a fairly leisurely sport, were a race? Speed Golf does bring an unique, energetic twist to the action, asking you to sprint across the course to each hole while your opponents do the same.
The trouble with Mario Golf: Super Rush was …everything else. The developer, Camelot Software Planning, launched the game with only six courses and a short adventure mode. Somewhat puzzlingly, it decided to ditch the familiar timed swing mechanics for a more randomized alternative.
The game has since been expanded, but at launch felt a bit lacking next to the Game Boy Color Mario Golf. Motion-controlled sports games are difficult to do well. Especially when there’s one well-made, very popular game — Wii Sports — that has set the standard for the genre.
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