History repeats itself. Five years ago I got a plain gray Nintendo Switch, because I wanted to play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. And now I got a plain gray Nintendo Switch 2, because I want to play Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment. Neither was a happy purchase, and the only difference is that I haven't waited years to buy one this time.
"What's the big deal?" you might ask. The problem are shiny Zelda-themed special editions of Nintendo hardware, which have been a cause of regret ever since I got that black Game Boy Advance SP in 2003. They are what I want to buy, not the default system, so the default systems just end up being temporary solutions. The worst was the Nintendo 3DS in 2011, where a 25th Anniversary Zelda Edition got announced shortly after I had purchased a red one to play both Ocarina of Time 3D and the Four Swords Anniversary Edition. The latter was even only available for a short time, urging you to get a system that can download it...
My temper tantrum from that day is still entertaining to read, but that situation has left its mark on me. There is this voice in my head, whispering to me that there might a 40th Anniversary Zelda Edition of the Switch 2 coming next year, together with that Ocarina of Time remake that everyone is hoping for... And maybe this will happen. But I kept thinking the same with the original Switch, where it took Nintendo six whole years before we finally got the Tears of the Kingdom Edition. And that was already the OLED model, giving you a considerable upgrade.
Speaking of, this pretty baby isn't even three years old now. It feels very wrong to leave it behind already. And it's ironic that I have to do so in order to play the Tears of the Kingdom spin-off. Think about that...! But once you have a Nintendo Switch 2, there is no real reason to go back to the Switch 1, so from now on this will be a personal museum piece.
If they had treated Age of Imprisonment like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, where the game still launches on the Switch, then I would have probably stayed with my OLED Switch for now, even if the game were to run terribly on it. But that's not happening and I'm too excited about Age of Imprisonment to skip over it for now.
I was also worried that they might announce a special edition for Metroid Prime 4, maybe a cool "Vi-o-La Edition" or so. But this would be very weird after how neither Pokémon Legends Z-A, nor Kirby Air Riders were getting something like it. And it looks the first piece of themed hardware will be a Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller for Resident Evil: Requiem, which was announced today and is coming in February (see here). So, I'm hoping that Nintendo won't blindside us again.
Well, once a special edition gets released that I want to have, I won't have trouble finding someone to take my new Nintendo Switch 2 off me. The only hurdle is that there has yet to be a system transfer between Nintendo Switch 2 systems (or I couldn't find anything like it). But the Nintendo Switch also didn't have this in the beginning and there should be no reason to do one at the moment. So, this may change once Nintendo starts releasing the first special edition consoles.
At least the migration from a Nintendo Switch was effortless and worked really well, essentially like it was before with the Nintendo 3DS. You can just establish a local connection between the two consoles and it will copy everything over, including your Animal Crossing: New Horizons island. When moving from one Nintendo Switch to another, this was much more complicated, where you had to use a special software tool for it. That's not required any longer, which was a relief, because I have over 1200 hours in the game and if something were to go wrong here, this would be a huge loss, especially with the new update coming in January.
It also won't factory-reset your old Nintendo Switch, so you can still use it like before. Only your island is tied to the new system after the move. But as I said, there is no real reason to keep using a Nintendo Switch, unless you prefer the smaller size.
The bigger screen size also doesn't make the process of applying a screen protector any easier. Sadly, Nintendo is holding on to the idea of selling theirs only in a bundle with a carrying case. Both are really nice and I do recommend them, but that they don't sell the screen protectors on their own is still stupid beyond any reasoning. There is so much that can go wrong and you may want to replace them after they caught some scratches.
And the measurements of the screen protector are a bit too tight. I had to reapply mine a total of three times, because each time it slightly stood over at one of the corners. Naturally, I got two pieces of dust under it while doing so, since I don't have access to some hermetically sealed room, but luckily it's only close to the edges... I might be even to fix this by slightly peeling it off. So, it could be worse, but I still hate doing this stuff every two and a half years.
But whatever... I'm ready for Age of Imprisonment and that's all that counts. This will also be my first Nintendo Switch 2 game, so I haven't purchased anything else yet. I do have access to the Nintendo Switch 2 Editions of both Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom via the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, though, so that's what I will be playing this weekend in preparation, listening to the all the voice memories. More on that later. Also, I will certainly buy Mario Kart World, but I might wait for the Black Friday sales. There is no need right now, because starting next Thursday I will be mainly playing Age of Imprisonment, followed by Metroid Prime 4.
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