For the 40th Anniversary of The Legend of Zelda, Nintendo has shared the above infographic. This simply shows you what Zelda games you will be able to play if you own a Nintendo Switch 2 (with an expanded Nintendo Switch Online subscription, of course). And it reminds me of a similar list I had compiled ten years ago for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U.
They have also shown this in the Zelda Direct on Tuesday. And while it's a pretty way of communicating what's available, this infographic is triggering some Zelda fans so hard that it feels like Nintendo is intentionally trolling them. While it's certainly impressive that you can play 15 out of the 21 mainline titles in some form, the focus quickly shifts from what's there to what's missing, first and foremost Twilight Princess. And it certainly leaves a big gap there, no doubt about that.
Twilight Princess is right now the only 3D Zelda game you are unable to play on Nintendo Switch 2. It's also one of three GameCube titles that haven't become available yet on Nintendo Switch Online, the other two being Ocarina of Time - Master Quest and Four Swords Adventures.
Though, Master Quest should probably be just added to the Nintendo 64 library, since it always was just an N64 ROM running in an emulator. And with the Ocarina of Time remake coming, this won't be happening anytime soon, maybe even never.
The latest remake might also be the reason why they haven't added Twilight Princess to NSO this week, and instead went with Star Fox Adventures. They do not want to distract from Ocarina of Time right now with any other Zelda game, especially one so similar. For the same reason you shouldn't hold your breath for ports of The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD any longer. I feel like this ship has finally left the harbor with the Ocarina of Time remake, where now we've went from remastering all the 3D Zelda games to full-on remaking them.
Well, it would throw a big bone to all the Nintendo Switch owners out there, who aren't even able to play The Wind Waker via NSO. But would Twilight Princess fans really be content with getting a rehashed remaster after seeing how pretty a Zelda game can look like? I think not. And I'm sure one day we'll be getting a Twilight Princess remake in the same quality – or even better looking, because this won't be happening on the Nintendo Switch 2. Maybe on the Switch 3.
Right now the best you can hope for is Twilight Princess on NSO, but Nintendo might wait a little longer with that, even skipping the game's tenth anniversary on November 19th. If we were going by order, then Four Swords Adventures would also be next, but for this game Nintendo will have to solve the issue of emulating the Game Boy Advance connectivity. They haven't done it for The Wind Waker, so things aren't looking great right now. Alternatively, they might opt for a special re-release of the title, just like what they have done with Four Swords for the 25th Anniversary. That is certainly an option.
Of course, the list is also still missing the Nintendo DS and Nintendo 3DS games. And libraries for those might be added to Nintendo Switch Online in the future, but the touch screen functionalities will prove to be a challenge. While the Nintendo Switch 2 has a touchscreen, you can only use it in handheld mode and it won't give you the same accessibility as the original dual screen systems, where the touch screen also often was used for additional buttons, e.g. quickly swapping items in A Link Between Worlds or using the emoticons in Tri Force Heroes.
The best chance for some of these games to return might be remakes, but there are more than enough Zelda games waiting in line to be remade already. So, we may not see any of these on the Nintendo Switch 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment