Nintendo can be curious sometimes. A couple of weeks ago they've announced an alarm clock out of nowhere, while the gaming world is waiting to see the successor to the Nintendo Switch. And now they casually announced one of the most anticipated ports for the current system, which is Xenoblade Chronicles X, one of the last standing Wii U titles.
The Xenoblade Chronicles series is something I have yet to get into, so please excuse my lack of insights about it, but ever since Monolith Soft had helped creating the amazing world of Breath of the Wild, it has had my interest. And I will be happy to have the entire series available on Nintendo Switch, from March 20th on, now all I need is the time to play it all...
The Switch Swan Song
Anyway, the Nintendo Switch certainly has arrived in its last year, where we can be really happy to have gotten games like Echoes of Wisdom at this point, because otherwise they will go for the low-hanging fruits, which are ports and remasters. We had Luigi's Mansion 2 HD in June, there's going to be Donkey Kong Country Returns HD in January, and now Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition in March. And there's a lot more where these games came from...
As the author of a Zelda-focused blog I'm obliged to bring out the broken record of The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD for the hundredth time, but there is a chance that we might still get these in 2025, as long as the Nintendo Switch is still a thing, because porting over these remasters is a much lower effort than giving them a better looking remaster or even a remake on the next system. And fans have been asking for such ports ever since the announcement of the Switch, so that's easy money.
For the Switch successor we already know that we're going to see a remaster of Breath of the Wild, where the U-King-O leak was proven twice by now, once by the internal codename of Echoes of Wisdom, which is in fact "Edward", as well as the recently leaked codename of the Switch successor, which is "Ounce" and therefore really starts with O.
I'll be talking about this a bit more later this year, but what matters now is that they've already moved on to remastering the next 3D Zelda game after Skyward Sword. And at some point they'll start all over again with a remake of Ocarina of Time. But that's all for the Switch successor, while the current Switch could still receive the aforementioned ports to expand its Zelda line-up.
Now, I'm personally still hoping for a Metroid: Samus Returns HD, because after Metroid Dread this would be perfect for a quick follow-up and the game could really profit from some improved controls, next to prettier visuals. Better controls is also what could give Star Fox Zero another chance, which is probably the biggest missing Wii U exclusive after Xenoblade Chronicles X.
And Yoshi's Woolly World is another candidate, similar to Donkey Kong Country Returns. They both got a Nintendo 3DS "demaster" for some reason, where it can't hurt to have an ultimate version of the game on the Nintendo Switch, as with various Nintendo 3DS and Wii U games before. It's not going to make the cow fat at this point, as we would say in German.
2 comments:
Breath of the Wild was the Wii U's big HD Zelda. I have issues understanding the concept. A remaster of a game that's already in HD. Other than fixing some of the pop-in, shadows and improving the unsteady frame rate/slowdown, I can't see what could possibly be improved other than doing a complete graphical overhaul. If anything, Tears of the Kingdom showed us the limitations of the engine (the low N64-esque waterfalls when viewed at a long distance - could that even be fixed in a remaster?).
At least with DKC Returns, I understand finally giving the 3DS exclusive world 9 levels the big screen HD treatment as well as beefing up the resolution of the Wii original's 480p limit. Personally, I didn't even get the Switch version of DKC Tropical Freeze or New Super Mario Bros. U. I only got MK8 for the extra tracks.
I'd much rather see Prime 2 and 3 get the Prime 1 treatment. At least those feel like upgrades, much like the original NES Mario games upgraded to the SNES All-Stars. Actual new paint jobs.
Breath of the Wild was the biggest cash cow for Zelda ever and Nintendo will milk that as far as they can. And quite honestly, I'm not opposed about a remaster. Even if it may not offer many improvements on the visuals, there is so much quality of life that I'm now missing from Tears of the Kingdom. Things like dropping items from your full inventory when you open a chest and so on. Or 150 slots of armor. A remaster could fix all those nitpicks I always had with the game.
But I'd also love to see Prime 2 and 3 down the line. I failed to mention them here, but I already said in the past that they should - in the very least - still bring Prime 2 to the Switch, because it belongs together with Prime 1.
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