Nintendo Switch 2: A series of happy compromises

The Nintendo Switch 2 is here—bigger, better, and still unmistakably a Switch.

- By JED CRUZ

It's the first time that Nintendo has used the same name across generations without a playful twist like the "Wii U" or the "3DS".

In many ways, it earns that plain title: this is the same core idea taken a bit further.

The hardware is a little heftier and the curves a bit sleeker, but the user interface and the general experience of playing on a Switch 2 aren't that much different from the original.

Even the unlock screen looks and sounds (barring a few Easter eggs!) the same.

THAT PESKY BLUE SHELL

The power of the new hardware is welcome in the context of recent Nintendo releases.

Choosing the Switch version of a multiplatform title was always a compromise: the Switch version had the portability and the seamless transition from big to small screen going for it until everybody else started doing it.

There's no longer much of a comparative advantage to go Switch for third-party releases nowadays, especially with inexplicably bad performance from relatively lower-demand games like Wildermyth, River City Girls 2, and Bloodstained.

It gets even worse, though: in the Switch's later years, even first-party and exclusive titles like The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet, and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity were performing abysmally on the hardware that they were specifically developed to run on.

The Switch 2, then, is a blue shell launched from somewhere in the back half of the pack: a chance for Nintendo to play a little catch-up.

The banner titles of this technical upgrade are, of course, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, which both received Nintendo Switch 2-branded versions that run flawlessly at 60 fps.

The rereleases feel great, with more responsive controls and a frame rate that does justice to the game's beautiful animation.