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GamesRadar

Technology

Rosalie Newcombe

I bought the Hori Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera so you don’t have to

Hori Rosalie Newcombe Amazon Future

Photo by Rosalie Newcombe of the open mouth of the Hori Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera, with a Super Mario castle toy in the background.

Want a better Switch 2 camera?

I haven't had the chance to test the official Switch 2 camera myself, but it's available for $54 at Amazon and has a 1080p resolution, which should make you appear much clearer in games like Super Mario Jamboree and Mario Kart World.

The Hori Piranha Plant Nintendo Switch 2 camera once blew me away with its cute and ingenious design, until I learned of its measly 480p resolution.

Ever since, I've been doing my best as a die-hard Super Mario fan to avoid adding it to my Switch 2 gaming setup, but a recent discount in the UK got the better of me. Surely, with some good lighting, the camera quality can't be too bad?

I was sadly mistaken, and this terrible, albeit cute, Switch 2 accessory made me look like such a blurry mess of pixels that I almost mistook my reflection for my own paralysis demon. On the plus side, at least I only spent just over £20 to put it to the test, and not its full $59.99 / £33.99 MSRP, and hopefully, by going against my better judgement, I've saved you forking out your own cash to do the same.

Before I drag myself down into the negative pits of gaming tech despair, I want to talk about its good points. The design is impeccable, and even though it won't become a permanent fixture of my Switch 2 gaming setup, it will at least make a nice display piece amongst my other bits of Super Mario and Nintendo merch.

The sculpt of the Piranha Plant and its paint job are lovely, and the stem stand is really flexible and easy to adjust. I love the added detail of providing a silicon pop on pair of leaves, and the fact that its mouth can open and close as a make-shift privacy screen is a stroke of genius.

It's warp pipe base also ties in wonderfully with the other bits of Super Mario merch I have lying around my house (and my gaming setup), although I could have gone without the in-your-face 'Nintendo Switch 2' white lettering on the front to make the camera look more understated, but that's just me. However, no matter how much I love how this thing looks, as a camera, it's a pretty bad one.

One glimpse at the provided image quality of my fiancé and I should give you an indication of what this typically $59.99 / £33.99 can muster, and it's not great. With 480p at the helm, I didn't expect you could make out every freckle on my face, but I at least assumed it wouldn't do me this dirty.

I put the camera to the test with the new Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Party Jamboree, as it's one of the only games that actually makes use of camera mechanics so far. Setting it up was actually pretty easy, and the game let you zoom in and even provided a "vivid filter" to lighten up your face, but it didn't really help.

Normally, if I'm struggling with a webcam like this one, I make sure the room is well-lit or that there's a ring light nearby, but even on one of the sunniest Scottish days of the year, we still looked like a pixelated mess. Ensuring we were no more than 2.5 metres away from the camera for the best quality, just like the game recommends, didn't improve things either.

You know the image quality is bad, as normally I wouldn't dare sharing a photo of myself without make-up on for the general GamesRadar+ reading public to see, but in this case, it doesn't really matter.

I will say that, as the Switch 2 doesn't allow you to take screenshots anytime the Switch 2 camera is in use, I did have to take a photo on my phone, so the quality will have a slight disparity from how it is in person. Also, bizarrely, despite how bad we appeared in the game, the camera functions worked exactly as they should on the handheld, which was a bit of a surprise.

Through the new Bowser Live segments, there were camera mini-games, like one where my partner and I had to hit a Mario block as many times as we could, and the accuracy involved was pretty bang on - even when our bodies began to phase in and out of our blurry, pixel dimension on the screen.

With the in-game camera mechanics actually working correctly, surely that'd be enough for me to give this Switch accessory my full support, but I just can't do it.

Witnessing a flickering, low-quality mess just takes you right out of the Mario Party magic, and I can imagine it'd feel a lot worse using this camera as a young Ninty fan. As a kid, being able to play Mario Party mini-games that played my own face within them would have blown my little mind, but I'd have hoped I could at least make out my own face - which is the big point of why the new Jamboree features work as well as they do.

Unless you want a nice bit of merch of the iconic baddie, this Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera is better left on the shelves. One day, we might get a 1080p camera based on a cute Boo, Goomba, or even Bowser himself, but until then, stick with any compatible USB-C camera or the official Switch 2 version instead.