I wish Nintendo would make more remakes for the Switch 2 – Reader Features

Since the Switch 2 can’t rely on Wii U ports to fulfill its schedule, readers suggest trying out remakes of its older games, especially Zelda: Ocarina Of Time.

One of the main reasons for the success of the original Switch was that Nintendo was able to line up its release schedule full of Wii U ports, which worked out well, as almost no one had played them before, but most of them were very good.

This allowed them to fill gaps in their release schedule, and no one was disappointed that they had never seen it before or people accepted that backwards compatibility was impossible, since the Wii U was disc-based and the Switch was cartridge.

However, that’s not the case with the Switch 2. The two consoles are very similar in terms of storage format and how they work, and while there are a few Switch 2 Edition remasters of Switch 1 games, most of them are quite small and the cost of upgrading from one version to the other is only £8, so it’s not really a big money grab for Nintendo.

I’m not too invested in Nintendo’s finances here – I’m a fan, not a sycophant – but I hope that when they look to replace the Wii U concept in Switch 2, they choose what I think is the obvious solution: more remakes.

Traditionally, Nintendo hasn’t been too involved in this, but they have done a few, perhaps the most famous being Super Mario 3D All-Stars on the SNES. But there’s also Zelda: Link’s Awakening, Advance Wars, Famicom Detective Club, Metroid: Zero Mission, and at least three Pokémon games. There have been some recent ones too, with Super Mario RPG and Mario Paper: The Thousand-Year Door.

Many of them are very similar to the original games, while some, like Link’s Awakening and Zero Mission, change them up a bit. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way to do this, what matters is what’s right for the game and I think Nintendo usually makes the right choices.

However, they seem to be treating remakes as a pretty cheap and dirty concept. Many games were handed over to outside developers and none of them seemed to have very big budgets. It’s all great, but I don’t think Nintendo thought it was important, except as schedule filler and maybe a test to see if people were more interested in whatever it was.

What I’d like to see is a big-budget remake on the scale of Resident Evil and Final Fantasy 7. Heck, they could ask Capcom to do it themselves, since they’ve worked with Nintendo before on the Zelda series. No mincing words here, but a remake of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time would be the holy grail for many fans and I really hope it happens in the next few years.

It fills the schedule before the next mainline Zelda, allows Nintendo to return to the old formula without giving up on the new, and ensures one of the best games ever made is available in a form that everyone can enjoy.

It’s the same logic for everything else. Anyone of a certain age knows how amazing and important Super Mario 64 was, but it’s a little hard to appreciate it nowadays, considering the only way to play it is with the N64 remaster.

It’s the same for every N64 game, due to its age, but if I were them, I’d open the vaults for the DS and 3DS too. Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass is a great game, but the format is dead and has graphics so dated that modern gamers might not want to play it.

Or why stick to their own game? GTA 6 will never be on the Switch 2, so why not remake Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars from the DS? Take the design and missions and make it into a proper 3D game; seems like a good idea to me.

Trying to predict what Nintendo will do often doesn’t work out very well, but I think we’ll see a remake of Zelda: Ocarina Of Time in the next two or three years, and hopefully beyond that. I think remakes are a lot of fun and often I’d rather play them than an uninspired sequel, even if it’s the same series.

By Klutter readers

Reader features do not necessarily represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.

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