Uno review for Nintendo Switch

Card games are a pretty tricky thing to adapt to video games for two main reasons: most people have cards on-hand, and to make people care…you have to have a gimmick that doesn’t overtake the game. And Uno for the Switch has a gimmick in Ubisoft-licensed characters for Rayman, Just Dance, and Rabbids.

So even though most everyone will have a Uno deck on hand, or be near one for $5 or less, Uno for the Switch has a decent enough online community to make for a solid game at any given time. That’s more than you can say of just owning a Uno deck. Even without that, the AI tends to be tough enough to keep things fun.

As for the gimmicks, Uno’s Ubisoft skins are largely unobtrusive. The themed gimmick cards are also pretty well in-tune with the spirit of Uno. Swapping cards, forcing specific ones to be played, hiding your own cards from opponents–all of these are within the theme decks, and (if you wish) can be disabled prior to a game.

Uno for the Switch also gives a handful of custom house rules that can be enabled, which include Stacking (playing a Draw 2/4 card to pass a Draw 2/4 card to the next player instead of yourself), 7-0 (playing a 7 or an 0 forces you to swap hands), and Jump-In (wherein you can play a card that matches the last played, even if you’re out of your turn).

All in all, Uno for the Nintendo Switch isn’t all that exciting. It loads a little slowly. Visually it’s solid but not spectacular. But it’s also Uno, which doesn’t really need any of that to make things work. It’s a solid representation of the classic card game with enough new to make things interesting.

Note: Ubisoft provided us with a UNO Nintendo Switch code for review purposes.