Earlier this year and after months of speculation, Nintendo revealed the Switch 2. While not a lot of information about the console is available currently, it is nice to see that we are on the verge of a new era of Nintendo.
Although Nintendo is moving forward, it is important to also look back at what we had. The Switch era was Nintendo at its finest.
The Nintendo Switch was the successor to the Wii U. In the Wii U generation, Nintendo was plagued with oversaturation of 2D games, bad marketing, and no true system seller of a game.
Games like “Super Mario 3D World,” “Super Smash Bros for Wii U,” and “Mario Kart 8,” were wonderful games but they did not move units. Nintendo fans were happy but the people who were not were left with an underpowered machine and few third party games.
When the Playstation 4 and Xbox One came out, it was clear that Nintendo was going to end in a staggering third place in the console wars. The Wii U only sold 13.56 million units, a far cry from the other systems which sold 117 million units for the PS4 and 58 million units for the Xbox One.
Fast forward to 2016, rumors circulated about the next Nintendo console being revealed sometime that year. This came to fruition in October where the Switch was unveiled, showcasing the hybrid nature of the system.
Releasing March 3, 2017, the Nintendo Switch was guaranteed for success. The Switch could be a traditional home console or a handheld, differentiating it from the competition.
This was compounded with the amazing launch line up: Indie gems like “Shovel Knight” and “Snipperclips,” multiplatform hits like “Just Dance 2017” and “Minecraft,” and the system seller, “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.”
Back to the present, the Switch has sold 146.01 million units and counting, making it the third best-selling system to date only behind the Nintendo DS and the Playstation 2. Pivoting hard from the Wii U’s failure, the hybrid form made the system far more appealing, even if it was similarly underpowered compared to the Playstation 5 and Xbox series line.
It is clear that the gimmick of being a handheld home console is what makes the console so ideal, but that cannot be the only reason it sells so well.
For a system to sell as well as the Switch does, it needs a great lineup of games, first party and otherwise. Luckily, the switch has this in spades.
The must-have game of its launch was the aforementioned “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.” While originally a Wii U game (and actually the last Nintendo game released for it), “Breath of the Wild” was a new take on the 3D Zelda formula, going for an open world approach that ironically breathed life into the series after the polarizing “Skyward Sword.”
No more linearity, in this entry you could do whatever your heart desired within the first few hours, even fight the final boss with only starting gear. This game outclassed other games in its genre and immediately declared the Switch as the console to have.
The Switch’s first year support was great on all fronts. “Mario Kart 8 Deluxe” gave the Wii U game another shot on a successful console, and at the end of the year, “Super Mario Odyssey,” revived 3D Mario and brought back the open-ended style of level design that had been missing in modern 3D Mario entries.
Of course, it is difficult to address the Switch without talking about what many consider to be the crown jewel of the system, “Super Smash Brothers Ultimate.” Revealed and released in 2018, “Ultimate” was the culmination of all past games. Fluid combat, new characters like Simon Belmont and Inkling, returns from “Melee” and “Brawl” like Pichu and Pokemon trainer, a story mode and so much more. It was not revolutionary but a celebration of the series that solidified the Switch as the true next step for Nintendo.
A lot of franchises got a second chance at life on the hybrid. The Famicom Detective Club series got a global release for the first time. Two handheld series, “Another Code” and “Advance Wars” got remasters and a new chance of gaining popularity.
Metroid, after being considered “dead” for over a decade, returned not only with a remake of the Gamecube “Metroid Prime,” but also a brand new 2D adventure, “Metroid: Dread,” a sequel to the 2005 game, “Metroid: Fusion,” which introduced new fans to the world of Metroid and hooked them with incredible controls and a rewarding gameplay loop.
The first party support was evidently amazing but that is not all a console needs to be successful. It needs third-party support as well. The Switch was also successful in that area.
The aforementioned Square-Enix was a major publisher on the Switch, making brand new experiences exclusive to the Switch like “Triangle Strategy,” and “Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince” and ports that filled out the release calendar but also gave Nintendo fans a first experience with amazing games. Most notably, “Final Fantasy VII,” a game that skipped the Nintendo 64 and led to the dissolution of Square’s exclusivity with Nintendo, was brought onto Nintendo consoles for the first time.
With all these positives, it is easy to believe that I think the Switch is the best console ever. While it is one of my favorites, it has a fair share of glaring issues that dampen the experience a smidge. To get a few small ones out the way, the lack of themes for the UI is glaring. Each Switch looks the same and it removes a bit of personality that was so abundant in other Nintendo consoles.
That lack of personality bleeds into the Eshop as well. It is desolate with no music which is usually a staple of Nintendo online shops. It is also abysmally slow, taking 30 seconds just to open the shop with numerous loading screens within it.
Now onto bigger problems, starting off with the weird semi-VR the system got, Nintendo Labo. Labo is quite literally just cardboard. While hard to argue that it is not a little creative, $70 for scraps of cardboard where you have to do most of the work of assembling it and using imagination to make it fun is an awful deal.
There was also the Joy-Con drift issue. Many controllers would suddenly start registering inputs that were not player made, messing with gameplay. It got so bad that Nintendo was sued for it and had to start a service dedicated to fixing the Joy-Cons for free. A blunder that lived with the Switch for the entirety of its lifespan.
But the biggest issue with the Switch is that it simply was underpowered. In a generation where consoles were pushing the limits between real life and CGI, the Switch’s technology was incredibly outdated. While this does lead to games on the system having a more stylized look differentiating it from the swarm of realistic games prevalent on its competitors, modern ports have a rough time running on the system.
For example, “Alan Wake Remastered” looks abysmal on Switch. The textures do not fully load and the frame rate is awful. And that is not an outlier! So many ports have the same issue that it makes it surprising to see an optimized modern game.
I got my Switch a year after launch as a birthday gift and I fell in love immediately. “The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild” was the first game I got with the system and to this day is my favorite game of all time.
The highs and lows of the system are all things I have lived through and on the cusp of the system being sunsetted and moved to the side for the future of Nintendo, I have to say that my time with the hybrid has been incredible.
Goodbye, Nintendo Switch. You were an incredible device despite your flaws. You will always be my favorite console.