Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@OctolingKing13 so is it worse or better then? LIke on my switch 1 on borderlands 2 I get 5 and a half hours aprox, what will it be like on switch 2? Have you got any comparision examples of yourself? And thank you for telling me😊😊😊

@DannyBoi i would say slightly worse then, because the switch 2 uses more power to make the games look better. however, it really depends what switch model you have. i would recommend googling “switch 1 battery span” and i think itll pop up with many options depending on the model. on animal crossing it took a bit more than four hours for it to die, and on switch 1 thats more like five. no problem!

I forgot this thread exists; mostly people have been going to the two 'complain about Switch 2' threads lately. And of course the ever present 'next direct' thread.

What's everyone's most enjoyable experience so far on Switch 2?

@FishyS Yeah, I like a good complaining session as much as the next guy, but sometimes it's nice to just focus on the positives. My most enjoyable experience so far has been just hanging out for hours in discord lobbies playing Mario kart world. It's just such a relaxing experience that makes the time fly.

@FishyS
Awesome Switch 2 memories so far: Unboxing, of course, and hopping right into Mario Kart World matches at the midnight launch. I was so tired, but it was so cool to get a new Mario Kart game. The animations, the just-fun-to-control gameplay, the feeling that I'll never be able to wall ride and grind rails to the fullest extent lol Honestly, I really love World, and free roam is my new favorite chill thing to do.

Playing through Cyberpunk and trying out a few of the different endings was a cool return to "modern" video game design after pretty much staying away from that stuff for the Switch generation. I don't love that design, honestly, but to throw a game like that into the mix every now and then can be refreshing.

But the craziest thing so far: I've been absolutely sucked into Rune Factory Guardians of Azuma. I've never played a Rune Factory game before. I'm a Harvest Moon SNES guy - even Stardew Valley didn't do it for me, and Rune Factory always looked too weird with the animals and cat people and whatever lol But dang... this game is so engrossing, and the Switch 2 version runs like butter (and it's all on the cartridge!). For anybody even remotely into the cozy/farming games that hasn't tried this one because it always seemed a little weird, I'm telling you, give it a shot.

key favorite switch 2 memories that were rlly special for me included the first time i snapped the joycon 2 on, mariokart world matches with my family, the one donkey kong bananza cutscene where paulines dream of singing, and beating majoras mask!

@FishyS I'm a huge fan of positivity so I'm glad you asked that. I'd say playing Mario Kart World for the first time. I did have to wait for the next day for the game to be downloaded, but it was totally worth it, lol. Plus I enjoy playing Knockout Tour online, and anytime I get a new costume for my favorite characters. (Like the train one for Toad in my profile picture!) The new tracks, alongside the new mechanics like rail grinding, are great fun. As somebody who is a longtime fan of the Mario Kart series, I really liked World in general.

This next thing might be minor, but I like how you'd attach the joy-cons more than how it's done on the Switch 1. Snapping them to the console or joy-con grip just feels satisfying and it's a lot easier too. I will admit, I have not played Donkey Kong Bananza, but I definitely want to. I heard it's awesome.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=K7yV3prgVrA&pp=ygUQcGVhbnV0...
the new snoopy game is coming to switch, and as a big fan of peanuts i have to say it looks adorbs!

I wonder what kind of plans Nintendo and 3rd parties have for original Switch games. Are we going to get periodic visual/performance updates and upgrade packs well in to Switch 2's lifespan or are they already mostly done with them.

I wouldn't mind an update for Astral Chain. I bought it at launch simply because I liked the visuals, especially the use of color. I didn't play it much though. Part of it was because I'm not the biggest fan of the genre, which I knew going in, but the bigger reason was Joy-Con drift which I was suffering from at the time. I've been wanting to take another shot at it but haven't for one reason or another. Now, if they were to release an update that adds HDR and improves frame rate and resolution, I'd be there day one. Nintendo owns the IP nowadays so I guess it's up to them if they want to put resources into it. I've got this nagging feeling they won't.

My guess is that they will use Switch 2 Editions to take the place of Wii U ports throughout the Switch 2 life cycle. Here are some games that I think could get Switch 2 Editions:
Mario Wonder
Smash Ultimate
Switch Sports

Other games like the Pokémon Gen 8 games, the Xenoblade games, etc., and maybe even Astral Chain would also benefit from Switch 2 Editions, or just free performance updates. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, the Paper Mario the Thousand-Year Door remake and Xenoblade Chronicles X Definitive Edition both have code for 60 fps even though those games can't reach that, so I imagine they will get performance updates for Switch 2 down the line because of that.

This is my biggest disappointment with Switch 2 (aside from the screen motion blur). I was hoping for a flood of updates to make Switch games playable at 1080p and with better performance on Switch 2. So far, there have only been a handful. Switch 2 is certainly not the ideal way to play most Switch games. Switch OLED is.

This is funny to me because I don't own a Switch 2 but the number 1 consistent pleasant surprise from people, in my experience, have been people enjoying the improvements to Switch 1 games even without updates. I'm not sure I even realized that any game except for confirmed updates would run better until the system was out.

Yeah I legit just play stuff on Switch 2 without updates and the fact it runs awesome is nice. Should play more, I have been distracted by other stuff going on.

@Doctor-Moo
Maybe I’m not getting something here, but most games look and run better whether they have a patch or not.

It's true – some games are getting more consistent frame rates. But I'm mainly a handheld gamer, and most Switch games look worse on Switch 2 because they're being upscaled from 720p to 1080p. The worst-looking games are the ones running at sub-720p resolution, because now they're being upscaled twice, which makes them look like mush. It wouldn't take much for devs to update their Switch games to run at 1080p, or at least upscale properly to 1080p, in Switch 2 handheld, especially because every Switch game already displays at 1080p for docked mode.

huh. As another pure handheld gamer (I only docked it once to know if it works or not, and then pack my dock back up into the box to put in the storage), I never find it to be much of an issue? granted the game that I think ran the worst right now is Witcher 3 and I don't really see much of an issue there... other than my motion sickness, which I think is just the issue with these kind of games (I also have one while playing God of War 2018 on PC) and not about the graphical issues.

I should try out Xenoblade 3 to see if that one runs bad or not though, I remember it being pretty bad while on Switch V1.

It should be noted that most of these kinds of games used some kind of dynamic resolution scaling. Which obviously on Switch 2 means they just run at max resolution pretty much all the time. Sure the developer will set the target window resolution to 720p which then gets scaled again to 1080p but even so, 560p scaled to 720p then 1080p probably still looks better than 360p scaled to 720p

And for games that set fixed resolution targets sub 720p? Probably depends on how they implemented it. I'm not a Switch developer so I don't know this for sure but what I do know is that some developers were lazy and set a 1080p frame window for Switch games in portable mode. Which means you now get 1080p on Switch 2. Presumably if a dev set a sub 720p frame window on Switch you'd now be scaling from that resolution directly to 1080p rather than going through 720p

Because if it didn't work like that then those "accidentally 1080p" games would not be 1080p at all. I don't think this is a "Switch 2" thing, it's more a "how was this specific game written" thing

This is flat out untrue. Some games do run better, but usually if they don't have a patch, it's because they had uncapped frame-rates on Switch 1. Most games for switch 1 though look worse on Switch 2's screen, as they're taking the image quality and resolution of the Switch 1 version of the game and stretching it out to fit the screen on the Switch 2.

Octopath Traveler is a game I've been playing recently, and I've been wishing Square would patch it for Switch 2- seeing as how the game runs poorly on the console still (as it was locked to 30 FPS), along with how the resolution is still super low, and the sprites look wonky being stretched to this resolution.

I have quite a few games that don't have dynamic res scaling and run sub-720p, such as Octopath Traveler, Trails of Cold Steel 3 & 4, and Persona 5 Royal. All these are suffering from double-upscaling and look way better on Switch OLED.

@VoidofLight
Actually what I said is true - the majority of games do look better. You're talking about a minority of games AND assuming handheld play.