Soapbox features allow our individual writers and contributors to voice their opinions on hot topics and random things they’ve been chewing on. TodayLowell reflects on the perfect ending to a famous Nintendo generation…
When we look back over a console’s lifespan, there’s always a game that announced its end before a successor arrived. Swan song game; one final impressive release before unplugging the AV/HDMI cable, wrapping up the controller, and packing away the console itself to make room for the next one.
Since the GameCube, Zelda games have filled this role for Nintendo generations. The colorful cube console had a clear finale when Twilight Princess was released for both it and the Wii around the same time. For the Wii itself, Skyward Sword was a farewell title, even though it came out a year before the Wii U — no game in that period topped Link’s Wiimote wagging adventure. The Wii U barely had a pulse commercially, but ended on one of the highest notes imaginable: a ‘smaller’ but fully playable version of Breath of the Wild.
Now that the Nintendo Switch’s sixth birthday has passed, if The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom isn’t exactly the swan song of a handheld hybrid, it really should be—and for more reasons than to keep this Triforce-themed cycle going.
When I look back on the Switch years from now on, I want all those fond memories to be of the two best Zelda games ever made, not a series of increasingly flawed titles and a bunch of mediocre releases while we wait for the next generation. Of course, I realize the Switch isn’t dead. After all, it’s Nintendo’s best-selling console after the mighty DS, and I consider it the best ever made, despite how far it lags behind its contemporaries in terms of raw power. With such a large install base, I have a feeling that other developers will continue to push Lon Lon Milk out of it for a few more years. I mean, Ubisoft released Just dance
Still, I hope Nintendo calls it release and development day sooner rather than later, ending on a Zelda-themed high note once again. Switch sales are in decline. Despite the massive hype surrounding Tears of the Kingdom, which is sure to do wonders for the company’s FY2024 finances, Nintendo has again had to revise its sales forecasts after a disappointing 2022 holiday season, which saw hardware sales fall 22.1% compared to the previous fiscal year. year. Gone are the days of Switch dominance; as production capacity begins to meet the demand of home console competitors, the gap between the Switch and the competition inevitably narrows.
Frankly, I’m surprised it took this long, but it’s not hard to see why it’s happening now. I upgraded to a 4K monitor last year, and aside from first-party games with top-notch art direction like Super Mario Odyssey, it’s getting harder and harder to jump from other platforms back to the Switch. Experiencing Horizon: Forbidden WestThe dense, vivid take on the post-apocalyptic American West at the same time as Pokémon Legends: Arceus made the latter’s muddy aesthetic much harder to accept.
It’s not just the big headlines. Games made independently or in smaller studios have increasing performance problems. I’ve reviewed some of them for Nintendo Life: the Switch’s hardware let both Bramble The Mountain King and Afterimage down, leading me to recommend playing otherwise great games elsewhere if possible.
Even Breath of the Wild – the launch title – dropped frames into Great Hyrule Forest like Mario dropped a baby penguin off a cliff. Nintendo has been pushing the Switch to its limits since the beginning, and Link’s new Ultrahand ability in Tears of the Kingdom seems like another test for the system. Tears of the Kingdom is one of the Switch’s most beautiful games, as well as a technological marvel given the circumstances of the platform. It’s a scale that I don’t think any other upcoming titles — especially third-party games — can reach, and I can’t help but dream of how much better new, innovative ideas like Ultrahand would run on more powerful hardware. I mean, certain areas of Breath of the Wild were left out due to the Wii U’s inability to handle it. Did we miss out on some amazing Nintendo treats thanks to the hardware this time around?
On that note, the sparser supply of must-own titles in recent months, and possibly the rest of the year, likely played a bigger role in the Switch’s sales decline than lagging technical performance. Many interested in Tears of the Kingdom have likely already bought a Switch to play its predecessor, and I don’t see the upcoming first-party lineup moving the needle for potential new Switch owners — not without some serious discounts.
July’s Pikmin 4, despite how excited I am for it, won’t boost hardware sales, nor does it have the same gravitas that would define the end of a console’s life. Metroid Prime 4 is prime (sorry) swan song material, but all we have to show for it since its initial reveal is a logo, an apology, and years of ominous silence. And Pokémon Scarlet and Violet – the hidden treasure of Area Zero? As disappointing as the base game’s performance was, the DLC threatens to leave a Sinistea-like aftertaste behind.
Even if the next Nintendo Direct comes around – probably not until September, though there’s a chance we’ll see some reveals at Summer Games Fest – and Nintendo shows off a full Bowser’s Fury successor or actually gives us a solid look at Metroid Prime 4 to extend the Switch’s impressive run, that would be great, but it would also feel like Ubisoft is squeezing every last drop of Lon Lon Milk. I can only imagine that the scope of those games would benefit from the added grunt of a much-talked-about successor.
There’s a good chance—more than likely, I’d bet—that a few games will have both Switch and Super Switch HD Pro, much like past Zelda games did, and that’s fine. Maybe Samus can take the mantle between generations from Link. The thought of playing the next line of Nintendo games on hardware that could output higher resolution visuals and run at a standardized 60 FPS would make upgrading to play these hypothetical Nintendo games worthwhile.
Regardless, it seems like it’s time to kick off the Switch on the highest possible note. Tears of the Kingdom is the perfect swan song. I’m confident that no later game will look better, be more imaginative or run better. As Alana said in her Tears of the Kingdom review:
Much like its predecessor, this is your playground for the next, however many years to come, with a little sprinkling of that older Zelda fairy dust mixed into the Breath of the Wild formula. It’s a glorious, triumphant sequel to one of the greatest video games of all time; absolute unfiltered bliss that you can lose yourself in for hundreds of hours. We can’t wait to see what the world does with the game.
When we look back on the Nintendo Switch in one, two, ten years, I hope our memories of the past year will be of the awe of exploring above and below Hyrule. An honorable end to an amazing console, not a slow, drawn-out decline.
