The Nintendo Switch 2 is already one of the most successful consoles ever launched, and with it came a roster of exclusive launch games that we can only describe as…a little lackluster. Don’t get me wrong, I am the target audience for a new Mario Kart and a remaster of a throwback 3DS RPG. And with Donkey Kong out in the wild, the system is steadily building a healthier library. But after the rock-smashing and Blue Shell-throwing is done, the Switch 2 experience has mostly been about backwards compatibility. Nintendo certainly knows this, which is why the company selected a handful of titles to receive patches that take advantage of the Switch 2 hardware.
Classic Switch games that run better than ever after free patches, what more could you ask for? That isn’t a rhetorical question, and the answer is “several additional improved games that never got Switch 2 patches.”
That’s right, many original Switch games actually look and run better than they ever did, despite not getting patched for the new system! It’s not quite the same as revisiting your Steam backlog after getting your new special edition high-end Toy Story gaming PC, as most games are still bound by whatever settings their respective developers hard-coded into them. However, games that had uncapped frame rates or performance hiccups almost always benefit from beefier hardware. For instance, the infamously messy OG Switch port of Batman: Arkham Knight performs much better now, even though it’s still bound to a cap of 30 FPS (Frames Per Second). Conversely, the RPG cult classic Trials of Mana actually hits 60 FPS on the Switch 2, even though it looked like it ran at 30 FPS on the original Switch.
That’s all well and good, but performance enthusiasts have likely played these third party games on stronger hardware already. What about games that were only playable on the original Switch that run noticeably better on the Switch 2? I’m happy to tell you that you’ve come to the right place, my dear Nintendo fan. If you’re looking for more ways to take advantage of your big new handheld gaming device, give these five unpatched games a shot for some surprising results.
1: Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition
Generally speaking, games in Koei Tecmo’s Warriors series are big beneficiaries of the new hardware. Games like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity infamously suffered from bouts of severe slowdown, which is by-and-large fixed when playing on the Switch 2. That said, I want to give a nod to Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition specifically, because it actually does achieve that silky smooth 60 FPS during gameplay, whether you play it in Docked or Handheld mode.
It certainly doesn’t hurt that Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is both a massive love letter to the Zelda series and one of the best Warriors games ever made. The Switch 2 will get its own Hyrule Warriors game soon, but those ready for some good ol’ hacking-and-slashing now can’t go wrong by playing the first entry in this spinoff series.
2: Pokémon Sword & Shield
Pokémon Scarlet & Violet are among the most well-known games to get Switch 2 patches, because…um, oh boy did they need it. However, that pair of monster-catching adventures were far from the first in the series on the Switch, nor were they the first Pokémon games to run poorly The previous generation of games, Pokémon Sword & Shield, saw performance dips in the open Wild Area, and several effects and battle transitions would play with noticeable slowdown too. These issues seem to be fixed on the Switch 2, even if some of the more infamous graphical imperfections remain the same. Either the tree bothers you or it doesn’t.
While other Pokémon games on the system aren’t as notoriously awful on the performance side (despite how often the series’ visual fidelity comes under fire), they all generally benefit from the Switch 2 upgrade. Even the Pokémon Let’s Go games run a little smoother in places like Veridian Forest. It’d be nice if all the mainline games in Gamefreak’s monster catching franchise received proper Switch 2 upgrades, but in the meantime, it’s not a bad time at all to catch up with any past generations you missed.
3: Xenoblade Chronicles 2
This spot honestly belongs to basically every Xenoblade Chronicles game—Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is just what I have on hand to test. Monolith Soft’s flagship RPG series has consistently pushed the limits of Nintendo’s hardware, cramming massive and lush worlds into hardware that’s roughly a generation behind the home console competition. The results are typically impressive, if not a bit compromised. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in particular could suffer from some dips in image quality due to dynamic resolution scaling, and performance wouldn’t necessarily hold at 30 FPS either.
I’m not 100% sure these issues are totally smoothed over after watching Xenoblade Chronicles 2 run on my Switch 2 with my naked eye, but they’re at least greatly minimized. Overall, the experience is just better on the new hardware. The resolution doesn’t appear to dip in the game’s usual trouble spots, and the frame rate didn’t take noticeable hits either. I do hope the Xenoblade series can get proper Switch 2 upgrades, as the game could clearly look way sharper if it wasn’t capped at such a low resolution (especially in handheld mode). That said, this series also contains over 500 hours of content if you intend to 100-percent each game, so I think it’s perfectly okay to get started on it now.
4: Super Mario RPG
To address the pedants right off the bat, technically Super Mario RPG isn’t a Switch-exclusive game since it originally came out on the Super Nintendo. That said, the remake of the game is, and it didn’t always hold at a 60 FPS throughout its runtime on the original Switch. This is most noticeable in the game’s opening, but you can feel the occasional slowdown elsewhere too.
Fortunately, the Switch 2 smooths over these trouble spots effortlessly. Between the remaster of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door and the all new Mario & Luigi: Brothership, the past few years have been great for Mario RPG fans. That latter title benefits from the Switch 2 hardware too! If you’ve never tried these quirky adventures, you’re in for a treat whether you’re a casual gamer or a hardcore RPG nut.
5: Bayonetta 3
Up to this point, we’ve talked about performance boosts in games that were mostly okay without them. However, in a fast-paced action game like Bayonetta 3, you’ll really feel the difference that extra frames can offer. On the original Switch, Bayonetta 3 generally targeted 60 FPS but usually didn’t hit it. Instead, the game would hover in the 50 FPS range and could drop way lower during certain attack animations. It’s not unplayable by any means, but obviously there’s room for improvement.
Which is exactly what Bayonetta 3 on the Switch 2 serves up. Not only do you get those smooth 60-FPS graphics (where it’s possible in the game), but the Switch 2 even fixes some audio desync bugs that could pop up in the original sometimes. Load times are way faster too. If we weren’t limiting this list to Switch-exclusive games, Bayonetta 3 would still be one of the most improved games on Nintendo’s next generation hardware.
As was the case with Xenoblade Chronicles, it would still be nice for Bayonetta 3 to get a proper Switch 2 upgrade. If nothing else, the visuals would pop if the resolution was raised, especially in handheld mode. But even if that never comes to pass, there’s no denying that Bayonetta 3 is better than it’s ever been before.
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