I never expected to see Mario Paint in Nintendo Switch Online, but I guess with the new mouse-like Joy-Con functionality in the Switch 2, it makes sense. Mario Paint is rather unique not just in the SNES library but in Nintendo‘s history as a whole. There was an attempt at a sort-of sequel on the N64, but it was for the 64DD so no one really saw it. The company has only attempted a creative program twice, and this is the only one that got a global release.
Mario Paint came with a mouse, and it wasn’t a game: it was for making pictures, and composing music, and playing a flyswatter game on the side. You could custom-build your own sprites and animate them, and when all this was combined together, videotape little short films to your VCR. In 1992 it was all quite cutting edge, but your modern mileage may vary.
What if you don’t have a Switch 2? The below video makes it clear: you just plug a regular mouse into the USB port on the Switch dock. Unfortunately they did not rejigger this thing to use touchscreen controls, which would have made a world of difference. As it is you can’t really mess with Mario Paint on the go unless you have a flat surface to drag the Joy-Cons on.
Instead of just recapping the press release, I decided to go the extra mile and try Mario Paint myself for the first time in a while. Yes, I owned it, and I still own it (and the mouse) but the Switch 2 is right there, and it’s far easier to save your creations by taking a screenshot than using the slow one-picture-limit save feature.
Well…yikes. After becoming so familiar with modern digital art programs and drawing tablets, going back to Mario Paint feels positively primitive and more than a little frustrating. I swear I can draw better than this. But a mouse is less precise than a pen, the drawing tool must be dragged incredibly slow or your lines will break up, and if you leave ONE PIXEL out of place the Paint function will escape and color where it shouldn’t. The Undo Dog only undoes the last line you laid down, no more. Clip Studio Paint has nothing to worry about.
My advice is to not attempt to use Mario Paint to make anything decent. That way lies madness. It’s for making crazy wastes of time like this:
Mario Paint is live now on Nintendo Switch Online.
