It is no overstatement to say the Virtual Boy was Nintendo’s biggest console flop by a wide margin. The Wii U sold nearly 14 million units, which still makes it roughly twenty times more popular than the Virtual Boy, which sold just 770,000 units back in the mid ‘90s. Now, Nintendo’s all-red VR headset is back as a Switch and Switch 2 accessory to be fawned over by elder millennials and gen-xers. While it will probably mostly be enjoyed as a kitschy conversation piece, it’s well-made and a pleasure to goof around with. If you’re a lover of retro oddities, this deserves a place in your collection.
The Virtual Boy comes in an uninteresting red box that’s similar to Nintendo’s other accessory offerings, and it’s a shame the packaging doesn’t take inspiration from the original, gloriously ‘90s box art. I’d assume the target demographic for this is mostly collectors, so it’s disappointing that Nintendo doesn’t put much care into the packaging of its retro gear. Atari’s throwback 2600 console really nails the ephemera element by comparison, including display-worthy replica cardboard boxes and super-detailed manuals with each of its games. If the new Virtual Boy came in a box like this, I’d certainly think twice before throwing it away:
At a glance, the new Virtual Boy is almost indistinguishable from the old one. It’s a plastic headset that sits atop a pair of folding metal legs. It’s meant to be used on top of a table while seated, and the height of the device is exquisitely awkward. (Perhaps the original was designed with a kid in mind?) Though you can angle the goggles downward, there’s not enough range to allow you to look into it like a microscope or something. In order to look directly into the lenses, you’ll either need to hunch over awkwardly or stack something just the right size underneath.
Unlike the original device, the top flips open to allow you to insert either a Switch or Switch 2 screen in front of the lenses. If you want to use the older console, you’ll need a screwdriver to swap the plate that holds the screen in place. The Switch 2 plate comes pre-installed, while the Switch 1 version is included in the box. (Unfortunately, the accessory isn’t compatible with the Switch Lite.)
The shape of the back of the device — i.e., where you put your face — is slightly larger and more rectangular than the older version. There’s more open space at the bottom too, which means there’s more light leak and slightly diminished immersion compared to the original version. Because of that, at times I found myself jamming my face as close to the unit as possible, resulting in a charming pair of temporary, right-angle-shaped indents in my forehead.
The top of the headset has dummy sliders for focus and IPD (interpupillary distance), since these settings can be tweaked digitally on the Switch. On the bottom of the headset, you’ll also find an array of non-functional ports and toggles, mimicking the volume wheel, a headphone jack, and a controller socket. It’s a thoughtful detail to include, but it is too bad the small handful of folks who have a Virtual Boy controller can’t actually use it with the Switch version. The new unit does not include a controller replica, which is understandable given the $99 price tag. Still, it’s a bummer: its unique design merged the simple two-button controls of the NES with dual D-pads and two long arms to offset the heft of the six AA batteries (!!) needed to power the original headset.
The box, the instructions, and the Virtual Boy games themselves will tell you, loudly and repeatedly, that this is not a device meant for long play sessions. I found anything longer than a 15- or 20-minute session started to make me feel woozy. Still, the new Virtual Boy feels a little less eye-frying than I remember the original being. I’m not totally sure why that is, and I don’t have an older unit to make a direct comparison. It may be due to the Switch’s digital focusing and newer screens — even without wearing my usual eyeglasses, I never felt like I was straining to see clearly.
At the moment, there are seven Virtual Boy games available to play on Switch — 3D Tetris, Galactic Pinball, Golf, The Mansion of Innsmouth (that’s the one with the title in Japanese), Red Alarm, Teleroboxer, and Wario Land. Even if you purchase the accessory, you will not be able to access these games without a Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack membership. This is the higher-tier membership that costs $49.99 per year. I don’t love that accessing these games requires a subscription in addition to the cost of the unit itself, though Nintendo has presumably gambled that most of the potential customer base for this probably has the Expansion Pack anyway.
Like a lot of Switch Online’s retro-game offerings, the current Virtual Boy library is a mixed bag. I spent the most time with Wario Land, a forgiving riff on classic Nintendo 2D platformers with clever environmental and enemy designs. There’s a lot of leaping from the foreground to the background and back again, and the characters have a papercraft quality to them that feels like a forerunner to the Mario series’s GameCube and Wii design eras. It’s a ‘90s Nintendo platformer you probably haven’t played before — what’s not to like? This was the one I played so much that I ended up with lines in my forehead, and by far the best of the bunch.
I could not figure out The Mansion of Innsmouth, which is a first-person haunted house game, so I spent most of my time rewatching the jump-scarey introductory cinematic, and I’m not mad about it. I noped out of 3D Tetris pretty much instantaneously, as someone who usually enjoys Tetris but absolutely hates geometry. Teleroboxer, which I’ve played previously and disliked due to how it unnecessarily complicates what should simply be Punch-Out with robots, didn’t win me over here either. Golf was underwhelming, with bland visuals and hokey music. Galactic Pinball understands the assignment with spacey aesthetics that make for a perfect short-sesh, smooth brain experience. I truly couldn’t be worse at space shooter Red Alarm, but I’m absolutely besotted with its ultra-minimalist, low-poly, wireframe art style. So yeah, a mixed bag. But Nintendo plans to add more titles to the Virtual Boy library over time.
The captivatingly trippy visuals that fascinated me as a kid are perfectly recaptured by the new Virtual Boy. More than once, I found myself staring dumbly enraptured at the cool shit happening inside this magic box. This is not for the casuals, and this is not for your kids. This thing is for old-school weirdos who know ball. If that’s you, the Virtual Boy is exactly what you’ve hoped it would be.
