In just under a month, we’ll know a lot more about what the Nintendo Switch 2 can do. The teaser for it showed off what it looked like (a Switch, but bigger), but little else. We’ve seen footage of a new Mario Kart we watched on a floating Switch itself rather than seeing true gameplay footage, and we’ve seen a bit more of Pokemon. Oh, Pokemon.
Pokemon has handled the transition to home console life poorly. Rather than filling its world with even more activities and adventures, it has expanded the size of a regular Pokemon game and thus feels very empty. Negative space may work for Zelda, but it doesn’t work here. It’s also notoriously cheap-looking for a billion dollar franchise, and rarely takes chances despite vast amounts of credit in the bank. So how does it cope with life on the Switch 2?
The Switch Does Not Rely On Graphics, But Will The Switch 2?
Part of the reason the Switch has maintained its popularity for so long despite being behind the Xbox One and PS4 (let alone the Series X/S and PS5) on a technical level is because its games don’t demand graphical excellence. It obviously helps that the actual gameplay of many Switch exclusives have been at series-best levels – itself another challenge for the Switch 2 to live up to – but Nintendo has gone all in on art style over realism, making the gap between the consoles appear less vast.
Even the Switch 2 won’t bring it up to current standards, but will be closer to the aforementioned Xbox One and PS4. We only need to look at The Last of Us Part 2 or Ghost of Tsushima to know that games can perform technical wizardry and look sublime with that sort of horsepower, but will Nintendo take advantage of it? I doubt it. A more interesting question is whether Nintendo should.
Nintendo doesn’t want to get dragged into the long, expensive development cycles, and has no reason to. The past seven years or so have been some of the most innovative, popular, and profitable in its history. While less showy than rope physics or cloth movements, it’s hard to deny the supreme technical achievements going on under the hood with the various interlinking systems of Tears of the Kingdom, too. But that brings its own pressure.
Let’s Call Pokemon The Floor. What’s The Switch’s Ceiling?
Let’s go back to Pokemon. It has lagged behind what Zelda, Mario, and Animal Crossing put out on the Switch. Animal Crossing still has a way to go to displace it, but Pokemon is not the hallmark of reliable quality the way Mario and Zelda, the other two in Nintendo’s Big Three, have shown themselves to be. I’d even argue some less casual gamers would say Fire Emblem proved itself worth looking forward to more than Pokemon this generation, though the series still has mountains to climb to be mentioned in the same breath by the general population.
This makes Pokemon a benchmark, and right now, Pokemon looks bad. Does the colourful, cartoonish style obscure just how bad the textures and graphics are at times? Sure. Does it get more of a pass because it’s Pokemon? Absolutely. Am I one of those saps who has been let down time and time again by modern Pokemon, but will still be there day one? Again, the answer is yes. But it still gives us something to think about for the Switch 2.
While its power may be capable of running something like Ghost of Tsushima, the Switch 2 ultimately won’t – unless it ports over those sorts of games, but that doesn’t really fix the problem. While I don’t like the money wasted on the relentless pursuit of realism, you can point to games from the PS3, PS4, and PS5 and see a clear evolution. That evolution will be less clear on the Switch 2. We might see more ambitious mechanics, quicker loading times, better online functionality (it’s hard to imagine it getting worse), but some games will still look like Pokemon: Legends Z-A on a brand new console released in 2025. It doesn’t feel like an endorsement.
Of course, very little of this will matter if the Switch 2 keeps pace with the Switch and keeps releasing best in class games. But if it can’t maintain that near-impossible cadence, Nintendo’s very un-Nintendo decision to play it safe with a better Switch might come back to bite. Of course, abandoning the name of the Switch for a weird gimmick would have squandered the momentum the console has built, so there isn’t an easy fix here.
Alternatively, the easy fix is don’t allow Pokemon to look like that.
I’m excited to see more of Mario Kart, and I assume a host of other classic characters will be present for the launch line-up, giving us a glimpse at what games that excelled on the Switch anyway look like with the power of the Switch 2. I expect Nintendo’s gameplay innovation will grow even bolder with fewer shackles affixed, but I still don’t quite understand why Pokemon needs to look like that when every other game makes the Switch work.
