Two strategy titles and the Switch 2’s mouse controls: Testing this great feature where it matters most

As I mentioned in my review of the Nintendo Switch 2 hardware, one of the most impressive features in the Switch 2 is the ability to use the right Joy-Con as a mouse pointer. I fully expected that to be a dinky, silly gimmick, but as it turns out, it’s actually excellent, being both precise and comfortable.

For me, this meant one thing in particular: Strategy games are more viable on Switch than we’ve seen in strategy titles on consoles. In recent years, developers have come far in enabling strategy gaming on consoles. Where previously you needed to boot up your PC to play Age of Empires 2, the game now functions really well on console, as we saw with the PlayStation 5 port. Despite this, it’s still hard not to wish there was a mouse involved… which is exactly what Nintendo has delivered.

So with that said I downloaded two strategy games released at launch for the Switch 2 to test them out: Civilization VII and Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition. Here are my thoughts on them both:

Civilization VII

The Switch 2 version of Civilization VII is a significant improvement over the Switch release. Where the Switch release was locked to “tiny” map size, the Switch 2 version has larger maps, and the developers have made good use of the screen size and better resolution to make the UI less jarring to navigate.

Read our full review of the game here.

The mouse pointer is the really big feature, however, and it works really, really well. The click zones are large, and the game uses the same two-button layout that the PC version of the game uses. The only sore spot is the zoom and pan controls, with zooming locked to the right thumb stick, which is inconvenient to access in mouse mode, and the other Joy-Con offering the best option for panning around the map, but that’s not quite as intuitive or comfortable as WASD key layouts. This is, perhaps, a good sign that while Nintendo may have had FPSers and other precise action games in mind when designing the mouse controls, I don’t expect them to be a perfect replacement for mouse and keyboard. It is likely that the best application of these mouse controls will be strategy games with relatively minimal required inputs.

Still, Civilization VII is an excellent demonstration of just how good mouse controls can be and the game is significantly better than the Switch 1 release for it. Unfortunately, while the interface and UI is now an order of magnitude better, nothing can hide the fact that Civilization VII is just not very good. I hadn’t played it since launch, so I took this opportunity to dig in and see what the patching has achieved over the last few months, and it’s still not good. I don’t think anything can fix the way the game soft-resets with each era and effectively splits one campaign into three. It’s just broken game design.

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition

Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening, unlike Civilization VII, is an already excellent game. Unlike Civilization VII, the improvements for the Switch 2 release are relatively mild. It does look marginally better. There is a new scenario, and there are some new features like “Decisive Battles” when the biggest clans clash, and more traits for leaders to obtain. Finally, this version of the game has all the DLC in it, making for a seriously weighty package that will take many dozens of hours to play all the way through.

Read our full review of the game here.

Still, it’s a milder update than Civilization. It’s not like the original Nobunaga’s Ambition release only featured Kyoto and its immediate surroundings, after all.

Additionally, the mouse pointer doesn’t work quite as well as in Civilization. What Koei Tecmo seems to have done is grab the exact same mouse inputs as on the PC, and while it works, that mouse pointer is tiny to look at/for on the Switch 2 in handheld mode. Additionally, all the icons are just a little small and finicky to click on. I still prefer mouse controls to the button controls (which you can revert to), but this can be an early lesson to developers that if you’re going to implement mouse controls, make sure you account for the fact that people might be playing on tiny screens.

Also, this happened just once, but it is a bug to watch out for (possibly): At one stage, the game reverted to button input and stopped recognising the mouse at all. The fix just required me to drop into the options menu, but for a moment, I thought I was in serious trouble because the settings stuck when I quit out of the game and re-entered. It hasn’t happened a second time, though and I’ve played for dozens of hours now.

Is this an essential update? Not really. I would argue that the Switch 1 version of Civilization VII isn’t worth playing, and so if you are going to play the thing, you should upgrade. Nobunaga’s Ambition is already an excellent game, but you’re not getting much extra if you already have it and all the DLC on Switch. There’s also no upgrade option like there is with Civ VII, so you’d need to shell out for a full-priced game if you wanted those mouse controls.

But then, on the other hand, I’ll still be playing Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening a year (and longer) from now. Meanwhile, I’ve already gone back to Civilization VI on Switch. It might not have the mouse control options. It’s just a vastly better game.