Topic: Awful and good ports

Okay, we all know at this point that Switch ports can be either a curse or a miracle, depending on a team.
I'm not gonna touch on "miracle" ports such as Witcher 3, cuz everyone and their momma knows about it.
Let's talk about latest releases and touch upon some earlier ones, maybe even missed opportunities.

Soooo, Ace Combat 7.

Not a miracle port by any metrics, but a damn good one! Even if 60% or more you fly up in the sky, effects are still demanding. They still left all of it in the game. With solid FPS, good models (although ground objects pop-in is quite noticable).

One Piece Odyssey is a good port too, retaining solid visuals and mostly solid FPS. Which can't be said about Fairy Tail. What a pile of crap that port was. Horrendous technical side killed any chance for me to play it on Switch.
And now they announced Fairy Tail 2 for Switch as well?
I guess sky's the limit when you don't give a damn.

Oh-oh and don't forget about the biggest disappointment of the last year - Fate Samurai/Remnant. Jesus H. Christ.
I knew Koei don't gave a flying FiretrUCK about ports to anything except Playstation/Xbox, since their PC ports are riddled with problems.
But this particular Switch port? God it sucks ass.
10-15 fps during exploration and 20-30 fps during fights? With each released patch my hopes for better performance died more and more.
Hurr-durr, look at this new shiny DLC we released for the game! Look at these costumes and new servants!
Miss me with that crap. Why would I be wanting to waste more money on the game that doesn't even work properly?

I've played quite a range.

AEW: Fighter Forever, 3/5 = plays like an N64 game...for better or worse.
Alien: Isolation, 5/5 = miracle port. Some would even say, "best played on Switch".
Arc of the Alchemist, 2/5 = framerate chugs.
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night, 3/5 = pre-patch, pretty bad. post-patch, only bad in spots.
Close to the Sun, 2/5 = looks like smeared peanut butter, but it runs well enough.
Diablo III, 4/5 = mighty fine. Framerate doesn't really dip until you get into Greater Rifts.
Doom 2016, 3/5 = blurry textures but with acceptable framerate.
Dragon Quest XI, 4/5 = some jaggies but otherwise just fine.
Dragon Quest Builders 2, 3/5 = pushes the Switch harder than any other game I've played, rip battery.
Dying Light, 4/5 = one of the better-looking better-running open world games on Switch.
GRID Autosport, 4/5 = still the best arcade-ish sim-racer on the platform?
No Place for Bravery, 2/5 = so much stuttering in the framerate. Worst framepacing on Switch?
No Man's Sky, 3/5 = admirable, considering the background tech that makes Starfield blush.
Serious Sam Collection, 2/5 = framerate drops are motion sickness-inducing.
Sifu, 3/5 = crazy texture pop-in but the gameplay is still tight and right.
Subnautica, 4/5 = runs better than No Man's Sky but is open world on a smaller scale.
Tasomachi, 2/5 = runs like cowpie, quite poor.
TES V: Skyrim, 4/5 = more pop-in than other platforms but plays really well.
Wreckfest, 3/5 = lots of physics popping off making this game run on the slow side.
Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana, 3/5 = makes you wonder how the port for Ys IX went so badly.
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox, 2/5 = a great game kneecapped by a rough port.

@Magician oof, you really brought my spirit down with Ys info, I was looking forward to playing it on Switch. Especially Ys IX, since I can play VIII on my Vita (which is far from ideal you can imagine).

AEW, too bad. I wanted to get my wrestling fix with this game. Haven't played one of those since Smackdown vs Raw 2011 on my old trusty PSP.

Good news for DQXI I guess, although it's not a big surprise, since they've development Definitive Edition using new engine especially for Switch and even ported it later to other consoles.
No Man's Sky ran okay for me, the only thing that really bothered me, was the amount of object pop-in. But let's be honest, it's good enough that game has all the content and features of the mainline ports and still getting patched. FSR really did some great things to how game looks and runs.

SIFU as well, I played through it once and never saw the texture pop-in, I swear. And I'm the person who's painfully attentive to these things (so much so I've stopped playing on PS4 and it's been more than a year since I touched it).

Alien Isolation is definitely a miracle port, more so when you know how good it looked and ran on PS3 - a console from 2006. Which brings me to the next topic:

"Switch can run entire PS3 library and can run it better than PS3 itself."
So many games from PS3 I would love to see on Switch. Any particular game you'd like to see?

Oh, I think I'll have to add some more info?

1. Snowrunner/Expeditions (best dirt sims)
Essentially the same game on technical side of things, but Snowrunner has more open locations with more props on screen, so it's a bit on a blurry side of things, even docked. Expeditions is quite crisp docked but blurry in handheld.

2. Red Dead Redemption
Great port. Crisp, runs well. PS3 wishes it run the game that well.

@Magician do you, by any chance know how "Trails of" games run on Switch?

@Magician I would put Bloodstained Ritual of the Night in 1/5 as it is the only version with still active DRM, it requires a Nintendo account to be linked to the local account. I think it is the WORST port on the Switch.

Good ports:
1. Skyrim
2. DooM (2016)
3. DooM Eternal
4. Witcher 3
5. Diablo 3
6. Dying Light
7. Outer Worlds

Bad ports:
1. Bloodstained Ritual of the Night
2. Bioshock Collection (just because of the physical edition!)
3. Starsand

Although the game didn't quite gel with me, Nier Automata is an excellent port - far better than I could've imagined from the Switch.

Persona 5 Royal is also pretty solid.

I had a great time with Bloodstained but only played it post-patch.

As for a bad port? Tales of Symphonia. I'm not that bothered by the 30 fps...but it has all sorts of presentation and loading issues that weren't in the gamecube original. How it performs worse than on 20-year-old hardware is baffling. Even the various patches couldn't save it.

Been enjoying Tomba, but keeping the original and surely now superfluous PS1 era loading times is bizarre and disappointing.

2 recent ones worth pointing out would be Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown and Outer Wilds. The first is a version with basically no compromises, which is rare to see in a 2024 release on Switch. And then for Outer Wilds, it blows my mind it even works on switch at all. I know it's not a perfect version, but it's pretty good, and even got supported with patches. As for worst, Batman Arkham Knight is remarkably bad on Switch. Borderline non functional. If you don't believe it, check out Digital Foundry's video. Cause hoo boy is it an unfortunate version of the game.

@YourDaddy For what it's worth, I played through Ys IX on Switch and really loved it! Looking back, it definitely chugs in points, especially in the Grimwald Nox raid battles, but I found exploring the open world to be smooth enough. The PlayStation versions are definitely gonna be smoother, but it's still enjoyable.

I'm also pretty curious about how the Trails games run on Switch!

DOOM I + II runs atrociously at the moment, with frequent, momentary frame lock-ups (the game's still running as this happens), even when there are no monsters on screen.

Trying to download additional mods while my microSD card space was low completely crippled the game, causing it to crash relentlessly, forcing me to delete and redownload the game.

DOOM (2016), however, is so damn impressive, so much so that when I played the PC version (with maxed out settings), I kind of felt like I had wasted my money as it was nowhere near as impressive as what the Switch version achieved on far more modest hardware (and it has the benefit of portability). And in spite of the compromises, the game looks fantastic.

@SillyG Jesus Christ. How can you mess up DOOM 1 & 2? People been launching DOOM on calculators and stuff

@YourDaddy : I've just played the first couple of levels from the new episode and it played fine. I don't know what the hell was wrong with it when I was playing it last night though. The mod downloading crashing bug should also be looked at.

Aaaand it still crashes occasionally for God knows what reason. What a shame.

@YourDaddy

Played a bit of Zero, but haven't tried the others. It runs well.

@Magician I meeeeean, it would be a surprise if Zero/Azure didn't run well.

I know complaining about the cloud versions of Kingdom Hearts is nothing new, but maaan. Most of these games were running on PS2s or pre-Switch handhelds. There was absolutely no excuse to not have them run natively on Switch, but instead we have these barely functional cloud versions. I would love nothing more than to recommend the series to my friends who only have Nintendo consoles but I can’t in good conscience have their first experience with the games be these “ports.”

Some people feel the need to defend this by saying that KH3 couldn’t be on Switch unless it was cloud so the whole series had to follow suit, but I think KH3 COULD have run on the Switch. If something like Automata for Switch can run as beautifully as it does, I simply don’t buy it that KH3 couldn’t have done the same.

@KidSparta brother, you just wrote my exact words regarding this whole cloud fiasco. There was absolutely NO excuse not to port those games, including KH3!
Some defending KH3 Cloud, saying its size was too big for Switch? Huh? What the F are you talking about? One of the NBA2K games is literally 40+ gigs on Switch.
In this whole collection, only 2 games are PS4 era games. There rest are PS2, PSP and freaking 3DS games!
Geez, I'm still mad.
Sure, I do have the collection on my PS4, but I didn't buy Switch to keep playing on PS4.