Drag x Drive is a new and unique oddity from Nintendo built entirely around the Nintendo Switch 2. It’s an online multiplayer game, situating players in 3v3 wheelchair basketball matches and minigames, all within an arena. Simultaneously pinnacle and anti-Nintendo design, Drag x Drive is an interesting project filled with game design you won’t find elsewhere… but it’s also lacking that charm and ambition the company is known for.

One of the Switch 2’s biggest features is the ability to manoeuvre the Joy-Con 2s on their sides as if they were computer mice. Where we’ve had exclusive games that use this as a cursor and pointer mid-party game chaos, Drag x Drive is the first to truly go for emulating an exact feeling with this new control scheme. To move about on a course or throughout a minigame, players must use a pair of the Joy-Con 2s to simulate wheeling their avatar along. This means you’re essentially dragging the controllers backwards to propel yourself further and zip around.

It’s here where I really have to give props to Nintendo. Rarely do we see disability represented in games, much less those in wheelchairs. It simulates navigating a wheelchair well: when a rebound off a backboard sees the basketball flying across to the other end of the court, you’re often taking chase, dragging the Joy-Con 2s back and forth speedily and precisely to pick up speed and reach the ball first. In these little moments, you’re really in it. Seeing an opponent on the other side of the court from you also chasing you for possession is a tense thrill. Positioning yourself and pausing for a beat before you lift up one of the Joy-Con 2s and take your shot to the ring and perhaps juking a challenger in the process, letting off a cross-court pass when a teammate has an opening… you’re immersed when you’re in the throes of a match.

Drag x Drive matches are only three minutes long, resulting in a faster and more frenetic pace. Shots and passes are flying all over the place, as players try and make anything stick and increase their team’s score whenever the opportunity arises. There’s also room for flair, too: each court has half-pipe borders that players can use to soar off of, getting airtime allowed for mid-air shots or even dunks that add a fraction (0.1) to the 2 or 3 points you’d already be getting. Everything is chaos, and the game sings with this feeling. What this means is no one match is the same. Following a private online session with fellow games press and Nintendo representatives, some matches saw me and my team tidying up with a 14-0 score, while others saw us in an upset defeat or just scraping by, winning a match with a buzzer beater and being ahead by just 0.1 of a point.

Taking the matches offline or in smaller batches of groups, there’s a healthy dose of bot difficulty options to work with. The catch here is that you can’t do matches with just you and one other friend. Drag x Drive dictates that the player vs bot count has to be 3v3 at a minimum. I’m already doubtful I can convince one friend to pick up a multiplayer game as niche and high-concept as this, but only being able to do private friends sessions if there are at least 3 of us feels like a tall order. Gone are the exciting possibilities that could come from 1v1 matches.

That’s where I’m most hesitant about the future of Drag x Drive. Nintendo is a company known for making some of the most beloved, bright, bubbly and wonder-filled gaming series; Mario, Zelda, Kirby, Splatoon… the list is endless. This is very noticeably not that, though. Drag x Drive’s world is hardly bursting with colour. It’s situating players in dark concrete courts with the only flourishes being flashes of neon in the scoreboard, HUD and highlights on a character’s otherwise jet-black head-to-toe sports garb. Short of making the silhouette of your helmet have cat ears, or being gifted rings as bragging rights when you’re cleaning up on minigames in a lobby, there isn’t that personality that Nintendo is known and loved for there. When a game as bright and colourful as ARMS struggled to thrive for Nintendo, I can’t imagine what poor fates could await their latest largely monochromatic hyper-specific multiplayer game.

Players can witness everything Drag x Drive has to offer in less than an hour, and thankfully, it’s not a premium-priced game. Still, it leaves the experience feeling a little barebones and largely fun in controlled doses—a game you only pick up now and then. Your other motivator to keep playing is in the minigames,  striving to clear all the trophy times or modifiers to be awarded with slightly more interesting cosmetics. These minigames include quickly navigating courses as you avoid traffic cones, races against other players, and a shooting challenge that sees you trying to score as many points as you can in a limited time and, lastly, a rebound challenge where a ball is fired from a cannon launcher that you must race and beat other players towards. These minigames encourage competitive spirit as you fight for control of cosmetic rings; you’re rewarded for winning them, taken away in an instant if you lose the next game. They’re fun and simple enough tasks on the surface, sure, but over in a flash.

Ironically, this is where players are tested the most. Some of the trophy requirements for these are downright unreasonable. One cosmetic requires you to perform 100 consecutive bunny hops over a jump rope, not making a single mistake. I can only assume or hope that the reward for this is the best one in the game, but when this motion is a bit stilted to pull off (you need to lift one Joy-Con 2 after the other while holding the triggers), it feels simply unfair.

This is the biggest bone I have to pick for Drag x Drive. For what the game is, including the audience and representation it’s trying to capture, its skill ceiling is way too high. Drag x Drive can only be played with the aforementioned motion controls of simulating moving a wheelchair: a brave step in accessibility at first glance, but leaving differently abled players who perhaps must use a Joy-Con 2 in literally any other fashion, in the dust.

Drag x Drive is at its best when you’re undergoing the broad strokes of a game of wheelchair basketball. Sharp turns, quick movements and reactions, and all that other stuff that comes with it are where the motion controls and inputs you’re required to complete don’t quite line up. Nothing here is ever as snappy or responsive as it should be. Motions and actions take a couple of goes until you pull them off. Though you can eventually learn to bend this and work with it to your advantage, making you a better player. This is undoubtedly a sentiment that’ll whet a lot of players’ appetites, making for a new, highly competitive multiplayer game for people to jump in. However, I still can’t help but feel this wasn’t necessarily Nintendo’s intention. When not everyone is winning and having fun and thriving in a game that is, on the surface, meant for everyone, what’s the point?