Zelda Tears of the Kingdom is a remarkable game that elevates interaction in video games worlds and there is no better demonstration that Nintendo needs the Switch Pro.
This feels like the last big title that the Switch will most likely field, at least with regard to its primary 1st party developers.
The game does astonishing things with physics including letting players build working robots,. planes, vehicles, and hilarious killing devices. The game features interesting skills and powers, like reversing worlds and swimming through solid ground above you to pop out. Powers that highlight the skills of the developers. However, the more you play the game, the easier it is to see how much of it is pushing up against the edges of the Switch's ancient hardware. Many of these problems I discussed in my video game review, but some are worth revisiting.
For instance, the games resolution is incredibly low on the Switch, rocks, grass, structures, can all look like they are smeared with a fine layer of vaseline, their detail smudged out by the games low resolution regardless if it is played docked or in hand-held mode.
There is a tremendous amount of pop-in, where items, architecture, and characters pop into existence right in front of the player. This hurts the experience of the game which is focused a great deal of the time on marking locations at great distances.
In addition, having no with no usable Anti-Aliasing solution at all feels like you are playing a game that somehow has been downgraded from another magical original version. The same magical version, that also seemed to have spawned the game's original trailers, which were obviously up-ressed with powerful hardware and played on dev machines. This isn't an unknown situation, but it seems aggravated here.
The combination of these two technical limitations results in a game that has an incredible amount of shimmering and glassy looking edges on flat surfaces that detract from an otherwise beautifully designed title.
The idea of a Switch pro isn't new, but luckily Nintendo says that we shouldn't have to wait much longer than March 2024 to hear news. Let's all hope that news is that it's going on sale shortly afterward.
The handheld market is in a flux that has never been seen before with many older handhelds still able to emulate the switch with additional features like higher resolution of double the frame rate and with even more hardware entering the market like the Asus Ally the Switch shows its age.
I hope we see something soon.
Full thoughts at the Video