Grid legends - A Simcade Identity Crisis on Four Wheels

GRID Legends on the Switch 2 wants to run with the big dogs, but it ends up chasing its own tail in the middle of the track. Look, it's genuinely impressive that Nintendo's new hardware can push visuals like this, and credit to Feral Interactive for cramming a ridiculous amount of PC-style graphical options into a handheld port. But all the settings menus in the world can't save a game that fundamentally doesn't know what it wants to be.

Here's the core problem: GRID Legends is the awkward offspring of Forza Horizon and Gran Turismo, and it inherited the worst traits of both while mastering neither. On one hand, it desperately chases that high-energy, festival-style motorsport vibe, complete with a cringe-worthy live-action story mode called Driven to Glory that plays like a bargain-bin Netflix documentary nobody asked for. On the other hand, it wants that serious, track-focused racing structure but completely lacks the obsessive car-culture soul and razor-sharp precision that makes Gran Turismo what it is. The result is a "simcade" no-man's-land where the arcade handling feels too loose to be satisfying and the track restrictions keep you from ever truly cutting loose. Jack of all trades, master of absolutely zero.

Then there are the design choices that actively work against you. The hyped-up "Nemesis System" sounds cool on paper, where AI drivers hold grudges and retaliate if you bump them, but in practice it just turns every race into a demolition derby full of toxic griefers who'll torpedo your racing line because you clipped a mirror three laps ago. And if you're playing with standard Switch controllers, you're dealing with digital triggers that give you zero throttle modulation. It's either floor it or nothing, which makes feathering through tight corners feel like performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer.

The wet-weather reflections look slick, the graphical flexibility is admirable, and the sheer fact that this runs on a Nintendo handheld is noteworthy. But a pretty coat of paint on a mediocre racer is still a mediocre racer. If you're starving for a racing game on Switch 2 and this is your only option, it'll scratch the itch. But if you have access to literally anything else in the genre, you're better off spending your money where the competition actually delivers.