When Nintendo fully revealed Switch 2, it also announced the existence of ‘Switch 2 Editions’ – enhanced versions of existing games, upgraded for the new hardware. Charging for this has been viewed as somewhat controversial but the fact is that in addition to paid upgrades, Nintendo has also released a range of free patches that deliver game-changing improvements. We’ve already talked about Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, but that’s just the beginning of the story: key games such as Super Mario Odyssey, Super Mario 3D World and Bowser’s Fury along with Splatoon 3 are vastly improved. If you’ve missed these games, didn’t complete them in the first place, or just want to experience them again, we highly recommend doing so on Nintendo’s new consoles.
However, we’re going to kick off by taking a look at a brace of titles where the upgrades can truly be considered game-changing. The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom are rightly considered to be beautifully well designed games, but performance is generally problematic, bouncing between 30fps and 60fps depending on load – classic “double buffer v-sync” behaviour. Link’s Awakening isn’t a particularly fun experience because of this but Echoes of Wisdom is more demanding still, to the point where the performance instability is somewhat off-putting.
We should expect Switch 2 to power past the frame-rate problems and the good news is that both Zelda titles now run completely locked to 60 frames per second throughout all play. In docked mode, resolution also increases from circa 720p in outside areas to anything up to 1620p, so there’s a vast resolution increase here. This is also reflected in handheld mode where a circa 570p to 600p internal resolution is now native 1080p. All told, this is one of the most impressive upgrades we’ve seen moving from Switch 1 to Switch 2 – to the point where the artwork holds up at the much higher resolution. It’s like a free remaster, the only slight concern being that the signature depth of field effect is much deeper on the new console, presumably because it wasn’t adjusted for the higher resolutions.
Super Mario Odyssey is also well worth revisiting – or indeed buying for the first time. This magical game was an early Switch release, with some interesting technical characteristics as the developers aimed for signature 60fps Super Mario gameplay. Switch 2’s enhancements kick off with a welcome resolution boost – another circa 4x increase as docked dynamic 900p increases to dynamic 1800p, making the game a great match for a native 4K display. Some HUD elements also render at high resolution, though others are still at the original 1080p. Image quality is sharp, crisp and impressive on modern display, while frame-rate drops – especially prevalent in New Donk City – are gone. Decimated animations in New Donk City where objects updated at slower rates according to their distance from the player are also fixed on Switch 2: everything updates at 60fps as it should.