Hori Piranha Plant Camera for Nintendo Switch 2 review - "no amount of cute can distract from its horrendous video quality"

The second I first laid eyes on the Hori Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera, it felt like a moment out of an old Tex Avery cartoon.

I instantly had heart-shaped eyes for the accessory and its ingenious use of official Nintendo licensing. Instead of just sticking with all-black design like the first-party Switch 2 camera, Hori instead took the iconic Piranha Plant baddie and transformed it into a working Switch accessory that would fit perfectly in amongst the rest of my Super Mario merchandise collection - and I was eagerly ready to make it a permanent fixture of my new Switch 2 gaming setup.

However, this $59.99 / $33.99 Switch 2 camera is the exact definition of style over substance. During testing, its 480p resolution, no matter the lighting setup, made me look like a blurry, pixelated mess. I went in so much wanting to love this camera, but I cannot get the images of my hazy reflection out of my mind. Unless you're a Piranha Plant die-hard fan and want an extra bit of merch on your shelf, this Switch 2 camera is better left on the store shelf and as far away from your new Ninty handheld as possible.

Key Specs

Design

The design of Hori's Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera is the best thing going for this little accessory. Ever since it was first announced ahead of the launch of the Switch 2, I couldn't take my eyes off the ferociously cute replica of the iconic Super Mario baddie.

The Piranha Plant camera looks just as good in person as it does in all of its marketing imagery; it's just a lot smaller than I suspected. The camera itself is ingeniously tucked away in the mouth of the Piranha Plant, and the stem is adjustable with a wide range of motion. The camera also comes with an attachable pair of matching leaves that don't serve an actual purpose besides upping the cute factor of the camera.

One of the best aspects of its design, besides the fact that its mouth can be opened and closed to act as a makeshift privacy slider, is its base. Hori decided to replicate the iconic warp pipe featured throughout the Mario series as its base in a stroke of Switch 2 accessory genius, and it has to be one of the best aspects of the entire design.

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of its 'Nintendo Switch 2' branded text plastered over the front-facing side of the base, as it feels unnecessary. Part of the magic of this camera (and one of its few positives) is that its design is so well thought out that it looks like a genuine replica statue of a Piranha Plant. However, that big "Switch 2" text takes me out of the magic whenever I glance its way.

Otherwise, the theming of this camera is top-notch from head to toe (or should I say, stem) as Hori has managed to integrate a USB-C camera into a replica of a plant that looks perfect when sat next to the rest of my bustling Super Mario merch collection.

Features

The Hori Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera isn't very feature-full, which makes sense as it's only really specifically designed to make the most of any built-in camera mechanics found on the Switch 2 and its compatible games.

The gadget comes packaged with its warp pipe base, a USB-C cable, a 3.5mm Stereo Right-Angle Adapter, and a pair of silicon detachable leaves, which are an optional extra you can add to the adjustable stem. That's all you need to get it set up, as the cable just feeds through from the camera to the top USB-C port found on the handheld, and you're good to go for docked mode.

One of the few benefits this Hori alternative has in comparison to the official Switch 2 camera is that it's more prepared for handheld mode. To use the camera on the go, you simply have to pop it out from the base and place it in the top USB-C port of the Switch 2.

That's pretty much all there is to this minimal accessory. Its green stem is fully adjustable, although it likes to spring back to its default shape fairly often. Like I briefly mentioned earlier, instead of a typical privacy slider, its mouth can open and snap-closed when not in use, and the leaf add-on can be removed if it's getting in the way of your Mario Kart World gaming endeavours.

If you aren't playing any specific game, you can test the camera's view at any time by going to System Settings > Controllers & Accessories. > Test USB Camera on the Switch 2 handheld in docked or handheld mode. However, you can't add filters or do much else besides also initiating a Switch 2 camera update if there's one available.

Performance

Setting up the Switch 2 camera was pretty simple, and its compact size meant I wasn't giving up too much gaming setup real estate to add it to my Ninty gaming layout, but I wasn't fully prepared for the quality to come.

A 480p resolution is on par with the kind of webcams I used back in the late 90s and early 00s, but that was to be expected at a time when video-calling wasn't as prominent as it is now. These days, you can easily grab a 1080p resolution camera for dirt cheap, and so long as your lighting isn't too horrendous, you'll still look pretty grand.

I made sure when testing this Hori camera to be in the most well-lit room of the house, making the most of the Scottish summer sun while it was still around (which is a bit of a rarity), and yet the quality that was shown back to me was still brow-raising. During my initial time testing it out, I stated via GamesRadar+ that the quality was so horrendous that the "Switch 2 accessory made me look like such a blurry mess of pixels that I almost mistook my reflection for my own paralysis demon," and that sentence still holds true.

I mainly tested the camera alongside the Switch 2 edition of Super Mario Jamboree, and the quality was poor. I assumed that if I made sure the camera was exactly 2.5 meters away (as the game instructed) and the room was as well-lit as possible so that it wouldn't look as bad, and any grievances I had seen online were over-the-top, but they were not.

No vivid filter or amount of lighting could compensate for just how blurry the 480p resolution would make me appear, and it's a huge shame. One of the best features of the new camera mini-games is that Jamboree places you within the crowd for its Bowser Live segments, and its intended effect is great. Seeing myself sitting between a huge crowd of iconic Super Mario series baddies is as close as I will ever likely to get to affording going to the Super Mario World at Universal Studios, so I was excited to give it a whirl.

Unfortunately, the indistinguishable video quality took me right out of the magic, and I can only imagine how much worse that'd feel if a child were using this to play Jamboree with friends. This was also the case during races of Mario Kart World, and even during handheld mode with the camera right in my face, I still appeared like a pixelated mess.

On the plus side, the camera does at least work as it's intended to. Bad visual quality aside, mini-games in Jamboree that involved hitting a Mario block as many times as possible actually registered well, and I didn't get any flashbacks of any monotomous time I spent trying to use Microsoft Kinect in the past. As my partner and I's bodies regularly flickered and phases in and out of reality, I did not expect any movements to actually be registered as proper inputs, so that came as a bit of a surprise.

Should you buy the HORI Piranha Plant Camera for Nintendo Switch 2?

Unless you want a very cute piece of merch based on the Super Mario series baddie, I can't in good conscious recommend that anyone grab the camera for their Switch 2.

Is it cute? Absolutely, and the design is impeccable from the mouth acting as the privacy slider, to the base being a replica of a warp pipe found through the Super Mario games, but that $59.99 / £33.99 doesn't feel justified when you get down to the horrendous 480p resolution image quality.

I've heard the argument that "it's just for kids" and so it doesn't matter if they look like a blurry mess of pixels on the screen, but I'm a firm believer that no matter what age you are, you deserve good quality tech, and this isn't that.

If you already have a compatible USB-C camera lying around your house that has a resolution of at least 1080p, then I'd much sooner recommend using what you have than this Hori alternative. That way, you can enjoy any compatible Nintendo game and its use of the camera mechanics to its fullest, without paying the price that's almost equivalent to a brand-new first-party game.

The Switch 2 camera has at least seen some discounts over time, and as of typing I've spotted it for $39.99 at US retailers. Even at that price, it feels like a big ask for something that while looks fantastic and actually works, ruins the magic of any Nintendo game camera mechanics by making you appear a big mess of blurry pixels.

How I tested the HORI Piranha Plant Camera for Nintendo Switch 2

To put Hori's Piranha Plant Switch 2 camera through its paces, I tested it over a two-week period while playing my Switch 2 in docked, and handheld mode. During that time I tested out its quality through the handheld's settings, and while playing games like Mario Kart World and Super Mario Party Jamboree – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition + Jamboree TV alone, and via local co-op.

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