Switch Online has Nintendo Switch classics since October 2021: titles like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario Kart 64, Star Fox 64, and more. New applications of retro games have been criticized for their implementation. The new update now gives hope that Nintendo can get better now.
When older games came to Switch Online, some in the community complained about game lag, audio lag, poor graphics, or other implementation issues, which appear in a direct comparison to the N64 version. Especially from a popular company like Nintendo, which offers games as part of an extended payment subscription, some were hoping for more and were disappointed with the performance.
As early as November, the company’s president said how VGC I mentioned, already the criticism will be taken seriously. Now there have already been small graphical improvements with the recent Switch Online update. As one user reported on Twitter, texture issues in the famous Water Temple of the Ocarina of Time, for example, are now slightly improved.
I finally have the N64 NSO update data.
So whatever fix they did for Zelda Ocarina of Time it wasn’t added as a hack, it looks like an actual emulator fix.Yakumono (@LuigiBlood) Jan 21 2022
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According to a data designer by the name of LuigiBlood, this is likely an improvement to the console’s N64 emulator, which has upgraded the textures somewhat.
But this is just the beginning, because there is still a lot to do: the comments below also say, for example, that the air fog at the Water Temple is still missing and that errors or malfunctions in titles like Paper have yet to be fixed.
There have also been complaints in the past that the old N64 Pak controller was apparently not supported by the Switch Online app, which some would like. As Dataminer LuigiBlood confirms, the emulator already supports this functionality, but so far players haven’t been able to access it.
number, Tweet embed Paper Mario did not fix due to crashes with Watt or data saving issues in the Banjo-Kazooie update.
Thank you, very cool. ? pic.twitter.com/tGneyqtlMj
– JCog (@JCog_) Jan 21 2022
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Even with the newly added Banjo-Kazooie, players like player JCog on Twitter are already complaining about save issues – and that would once again cause a lot of resentment in the community. After all, it’s now clear that Nintendo has already started making improvements.
That’s a good thing, because in the future there are still a few games expected of the Switch Online retro library, and the community naturally hopes they’ll be available in better quality — the subscription should eventually change as well.