Nintendo Labo: Toycon 02 Robot Kit

Labo's best, then, as a collaborative experience, bringing parents and their brood together to flip, fold, tab and, finally, take turns on another fascinating step forward for the ever-unique Nintendo.

By building something you also invest in it and care about it, and in turn it makes you more likely to go on and decorate and experiment with it, which is clever. And when you do eventually discard it, you can simply take it apart and recycle it - no plastic guitar in a landfill here. It's as though Nintendo thought of everything (although I don't know if the cardboard came from recycled sources to begin with).

It’s unclear how much Nintendo is going to market Labo as an educational toy but it certainly has great value as such. It not only stimulates artistic urges but making full use of each of the Toy-Con garages feels like the most entertaining science lesson ever. The potential seems limitless and while Labo may not be a video game – and in that sense will provide little relief to Switch owners looking for something new to play – it could well be the next big thing. For big kids as well as little ones.

Delight is a challenging emotion to inspire in games, consumer electronics and toys — and Labo is some unholy combination of the three. And yet, Labo is full of delight. It’s cardboard, sure, but it’s stuffed with the best sort of intangible stuff. And it’s meant for everybody. This is a product that will appeal to young children, potheads, makers and teenagers. Nintendo’s uncanny ability to offer experiences that are so strange while feeling so good has rarely been put to better use.

Punching, stomping and walking my way through a Star Fox-esque metropolis and destroying everything in my path for the high score, I couldn’t help being massively underwhelmed by the game itself. It’s an incredibly simple smash-’em-up where you simply have to destroy every building to earn a multiplier and bigger score. Lifting your arms in the air will make your bot fly, crouching turns it into a tank, and lifting your legs up and down makes it walk, while punching, naturally, punches. It felt like a mini-game from the ill-fated Star Fox Zero, and once the level was over, I had no desire to play it again. I hope the full game offers more for buyers than what there is here. You do get Garage mode again in this kit, though.