Presented this time without accusations of cowardice, barring one of the first party entries.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/editorial/69748/an-opening-request-list-for-inevitable-switch-2-ports
Despite the fact that it has gone out of its way to single-handedly prove Sturgeon’s Law correct, the sheer size of the original Switch’s library means it’s also got the greatest variety of games any Nintendo system has ever had (as my uncountable game library can attest to). If you want to say the Switch has the most bangers of any console platform - I see you, PC folks - I’d probably back you up in the argument. From Doom 64 to Baten Kaitos to Zero Wing to Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, there’s a very real chance you can find your favorite game of all time either directly on the eShop or in one of the Nintendo Switch Online libraries. And Quest for Camelot, for some reason I still can’t figure out.
And even with the reveal of the Switch 2, there’s still games coming to the OG Switch under the metaphorical wire with Xenoblade Chronicles X, the first two Lunars/Suikoden, and Pokemon Legends Zut Alors. If you told me ten years ago that the “NX” was going to be that stacked, I would not have believed you - but here we are.
They couldn’t squeeze everything into the system before Switch 2 (that we know of), though. There are still some possibilities for Nintendo to reach back into their library for, and there are some things where third parties would REALLY make me happy if they brought them forward. Am I missing something obvious? Drop a comment in the Talkback or yell at me on Discord about it.
First Party
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD (and Wind Waker HD)
There’s still a chance these come out to the OG Switch, but I’m going to be real here: if it didn’t show up in the four years between the Switch’s best Zelda games (Echoes of Wisdom and Age of Calamity), it won’t be coming now. The operation to preserve everything on the Wii U and have it on a system that people actually bought managed to squeeze in Xenoblade X under the wire, leaving the original two Zelda HD remakes as the last realistic stragglers as the Switch heads to a well earned retirement. Though Kirby and the Rainbow Curse might get a second chance if Switch 2 actually has mouse functionality…
Anyway, back on topic. Of the two I prefer Twilight Princess, largely due to the original Wind Waker going on way too long with the Triforce hunt and the Wii U version of the remake making me actually seasick. But either or both would play really well portably, and I think having Wind Waker on a smaller screen might be the way to go where I don’t need to play it with a special band on my wrist.
Fire Emblem
The Switch was 2-for-2 on Fire Emblem games being my games of the year with Three Houses in 2019 and Engage in 2023, but I can’t help but think they had bigger plans for the series that got derailed by the pandemic and setting what would have ostensibly been the 30th anniversary game in Engage back at least a year. I’m thinking more of additional re-releases of the older games; the Switch got a translated NES version of Shadow Dragon for a few months back in 2020 and Blazing Blade/”Fire Emblem” is in the GBA library for the West*, but we haven’t gotten Sacred Stones anywhere and there’s multiple games in the series that could potentially get the Echoes treatment (Genealogy of the Holy War, Binding Blade) or even a Super Mario 3D All-Stars treatment without limited release (Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, also satisfying the terms of the Smashterpieces curse).
I think this has a chance of happening and happening soon. Recall that the last Fire Emblem remake (Shadows of Valentia) was not acknowledged until AFTER Switchmas in 2017. The next week, in fact. With this year being the 35th anniversary of Fire Emblem, maybe they go full circle and announce a true crossover Fire Emblem Warriors, a remaster, acknowledge a Switch 2 Fire Emblem being in development and declare a date for the end of service on Heroes around April 9.
Mario Paint
As soon as the apparent mouse functionality of the Switch 2 was shown in the preview video, this became the lowest hanging fruit imaginable. I think I even saw someone proposing a wireless version of the SNES mouse to use as a NSO controller. Nintendo didn’t support the accessory much back in the day, but they already had the perfect use case for it in the original Mario Paint and assuming the sharing functionality works the same as it does on Switch now out of the box, it would be a great experience for sharing creations outside of 3rd party utilities. Though given Nintendo’s history with games that involved sharing drawings (RIP Swapnote), maybe that’s not such a good idea.
Mouse support could also mean the return and first Western release of a title developed by pre-Pokemon Game Freak that required the mouse: Mario and Wario**. For those who don’t know, it was a game in which Mario had a bucket stuck on his head and had to navigate through trap-laden stages with the help of a fairy to help get it pulled off. Though we never did get Super Scope 6 games re-released during the eras where the systems had pointer controls and it took until the Wii U for them to revive Duck Hunt, so file that one under “unlikely”. More than likely the 1-2 Switch role for Switch 2 will be played by something to demonstrate the mouse functions and then the third parties will swoop in.
Donkey Kong (1994)
So let me get this straight: as part of the marketing for Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, having already dropped DKC 1 - 3 into the Super Nintendo NSO library, we got a drip feed of Donkey Kong Land releases into the Game Boy library. Doesn’t it feel like Nintendo kind of forgot something here? Or even if they wanted to stick to things that were Country-adjacent, couldn’t they have gotten people hyped for the remaster of Mario vs Donkey Kong by giving us a spiritual prequel on Switch Online when it was announced?
The Switch was meant to be a fusion of handheld and console, but DK ‘94 was sort of a prototype for the concept given how tied it was to the launch of the Super Game Boy in North America. It feels like this would come to Switch 2 as part of the hype for a major push for the ape, beyond him skipping leg day in the Mario Kart portion of the hardware reveal video. Here’s hoping it comes soon.
Mole Mania
Another example of a game from Nintendo’s handheld past is this little Miyamoto-helmed obscurity that has gotten onto Virtual Console in the past. Still, given how late into the Switch’s life the Game Boy (Color) got a NSO library, it’s not surprising that they didn’t get around to adding it. Mole Mania may not have been the headliner over something like a Super Mario Land, but it could have been the “hey, this thing actually rocks” of an update.
Other games in this vein but requiring additional work to release outside Japan would include The Frog For Whom The Bell Tolls (already in Japan), and although not a Game Boy game Marvelous (the directorial debut of one Eiji Aonuma), and if you want to go with things in English they could have tested the waters with Argonaut’s X. Or…
Mother 3
…this is on the list solely because I’m in the minority of current staff or affiliated people who love Earthbound. The main person who would have made this happen died four months after he announced the NX, and the changes that would need to be made to make certain elements palatable in 2025 (such as the name of a particular race in the game) would set off The Discourse (™) in ways not seen since the summer of 2016. Especially since the fan translation will turn 20 during the Switch 2’s early years, let alone the game.
There’s certain things we need to accept aren’t walking through the door. The first two generations of Pokemon will never be on NSO, heck they’d probably be a standalone Expansion Pack app if they just didn’t tell you to buy Let’s Go Pikachu and Eevee. We’re probably never getting Eternal Darkness, even if Nintendo keeps renewing the trademark. And we’re never getting an official English version of Mother 3.
But MAN I wish I was wrong about that.
Third Party
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
There are rumors that a remake of Oblivion is in development, since they need to keep Elder Scrolls relevant as long as VI’s release date is expressed as a stardate. Microsoft’s ownership of Bethesda means obviously the Xbox Series, PC, and Nintendo World Report director emeritus Jon Lindemann get dibs, but the 360 and PC had a year’s exclusivity on the first release so a few months before it goes multiplatform would actually be an improvement in this regard.
It’d be a nice echo of the Switch 1’s launch as well: Oblivion’s sequel Skyrim was one of the “Original Six” Switch games shown in the October 2016 launch video, which helped to set the bar for where the system stood power wise AND let us make “see that mountain?” jokes. Skyrim had only been re-released once by this point, so it was a Big Deal. Oblivion probably won’t get the honor - as much as I’m loath to admit it, Elden Ring probably takes that slot. But be prepared for the return of the arrow to the knee jokes we all tolerated until January 2007.
Final Fantasy XIII
So fun fact: Japanese third parties went absolutely ballistic on Switch, largely due to the fact that it outsold the DS in their home market to become the best selling dedicated gaming device in national history. Although the 80 hour character action game Final Fantasy XVI and the FF7 remix trilogy both missed, the Switch got every numbered, offline Final Fantasy ported to the system in some form… except one. Final Fantasy XIII has long been seen as a black sheep of the franchise, but I wonder if this is when Square dusts it off, especially given how good the game looks in Xbox backwards compatibility. I would like to think that with what we have been told by depositions, the Switch 2 could allow for a great portable version of the game.
Note that I’m only asking for the original FFXIII. We do not need a third title that makes “Crazy Chocobo” eligible for Radio Trivia, and it wouldn’t make sense to do Lightning Returns without its prequel.
Chrono Trigger
It wasn’t just Final Fantasy games that Square Enix went crazy on Switch with. Square dropped three alleged Kingdom Hearts games - maybe those come to Switch 2 on cart so you can finally light them on fire for real - as well as two insane pulls in Seiken Densetsu 3 / Trials of Mana and Radical Dreamers. Reminder: That last one is a Satellaview game, the first time a game for THAT add-on was preserved. And for reasons unknown but probably involving blackmail, we also got more than a Saga game per year of the Switch’s life. But the thing is that Radical Dreamers was a package deal with Chrono Cross. A decent RPG with a killer soundtrack, but the worst sequel for my money in video game history. How we never got Chrono Cross’s origin in Chrono Trigger, the GOAT, on Switch boggles my mind especially once they finally fixed the Steam version. Maybe this is the year, it’s Trigger’s 30th anniversary after all, and maybe it’s going to get a surprise Pixel Remaster treatment for Switch or Switch 2, I don’t know. But they need to do something, even if it’s letting Nintendo drop it into the NSO Super Nintendo library. That’d be enough for me to New Game+ the night away.
Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
After basically trying to pivot to being an insurance and health club company between 2015 and the Switch’s launch, it seems that the success of Super Bomberman R forced Konami to see the light (and if that didn’t do it, the success of Momotaru Densetsu sure did). This was especially true with the Castlevania series, which got no less than three different collections on Switch - the Anniversary, Advance, and DominuS collections - and basically covered all of the games that people care about in terms of the 2D series. Except for two: Rondo of Blood (instead getting its non-union Super Nintendo equivalent in Dracula X) and of course, the original Igavania - Symphony of the Night. Given that the game originally launched on PlayStation, was ported to Saturn, and later appeared on Xbox Live Arcade it’s been on consoles from every active competitor of Nintendo since its 1997 launch but it has never made it to a Nintendo system. How else are people going to compare Super Metroid and SotN if they’re not officially available on the same system?
Panzer Dragoon Zwei
I’m aware that we were promised this on Switch five years ago. I’m also aware that the company that made this promise five years ago later ended up porting three Front Missions and %&@!ing Donkey Kong (Country Returns) to the Switch in the intervening five years. If Forever is literally going to take forever to make this happen, Sega needs to pull the rights back and apparently do this one themselves. If they really wanted to make scalpers cry, they could even do Orta and Saga - the latter of which has a four figure price tag on the secondary market - but I’m assuming they handled their source code as well as Square Enix did. Or if the Collection of Mana is any indication, any Japanese company that isn’t Nintendo.
Though if Sega’s mythical “Super Game” is destined for Switch 2 disregard this. Unless it’s Panzer Dragoon Saga or Skies of Arcadia…
EA Sports
This covers three games: Madden, College Football ‘26, and the game I’m required by federal law to demand in NHL 26. EA supported the original Switch about as well as could be expected given how the “unprecedented partnership” went on Wii U, but the sports side outside of soccer was nonexistent. Even soccer coasted on “Legacy Editions” for five years before they ditched the Mafia... I mean FIFA license and put actual effort into the two EA Sports FC games. But they have to be out of options at this point. It’s not physically possible to make a system that can’t run EA’s proprietary Frostbite engine anymore, and the sports games have traditionally been the last games to stop coming out for older hardware. The Switch might have been the first system since 2004 to ship 100m systems without Madden or Call of Duty, but Microsoft owes us one of the latter and it’d be a shame to miss the former. And remember: NOBODY circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bi… Nintendo fans.
Topic: An Opening Request List For Inevitable Switch 2 Ports (Read 1153 times)
