Video: Zelda: Echoes Of Wisdom And Link's Awakening Are Improved On Switch 2

Happy to see even though you think it's not perfect. And now for a remake of link to the past please nintendo.... now that would be perfect in my eyes!

Meanwhile, games like Super Mario 3D All-Stars are getting an update just to be able to run on Switch 2. That just makes me worry that if I upgrade, some of the games in my collection won't be playable.

Even before that first patch i never noticed a huge issue with the framerate in Links awakening. Seemed okay to me. Then again i played the original gameboy version and nobody even talked about framerate when that came out.

@karatekid1612 or you can just play the original. Still holds up.

i love this game sm, it deserves a switch 2 edition imo, but im happy with an upgrade ^_^

@N00BiSH yep absolutely and I do once a year around Xmas on the snes mini.

I had no issues with Echoes of Wisdom on the original Switch, so whatever improvements are made on Switch 2 are just icing on the cake.

apparently the stutters might be an issue with the video capture, their Mario Kart World gameplay video also has some stutters and I haven't heard anyone complain about stuttering in that game when they played it at preview events, not saying that it's 100% an issue with the video itself but I'm reserving full judgment until I try these out on Switch 2 myself
and even if these stutters in the video are also in the game they don't look like that big of a deal to me, I can live with just these stutters

@abbyhitter
Me neither. These gamers today really like to talk about that framerate. 60 FPS or no buy. 🤦‍♂️

Better is good enough for me. I didn’t really have many issues with EOW. So it will just be smoother to me. Best part is both games are short enough for a replay.

LA I noticing, but like many here I had no problems with EoW whatsoever. Any improvement sounds good to me.

It’s because it’s still using double buffering unfortunately, any drop below 60fps will make it switch to 30fps,

How do switch 1 games that aren’t updated look on switch 2 systems? Exactly the same or are we dealing with a DS on a 3ds kind of blurry quality drop?

@KayFiOS it's because 64 and Sunshine are emulated, so they need to update the emulation settings on the two for it to work right.

Need to see more evidence than just one .

But if it is still happening, why does the Switch 2 upgrade of these games keep the double buffer vsync in place? Target 60 and let VRR smooth out the drops in handheld mode. Better than the hard drops to 30fps still occurring when entering/exiting villages and it does whatever data streaming craziness causes the fps drops.

It was never that stuttery for me in the first place

It honestly baffles me how Mario Odyssey ran at a perfect 60fps in 2018 when so many much simpler games like these (and even Super Princess Peach!) struggled to even run at 30fps well on Switch 1.

Whatever happened to developers getting better at mastering consoles as time went on?

@Truegamer79

There's always a few of these snarky comments on anything regarding a game's performance.

In a visual medium with input, framerate is a part of the overall experience and our expectations change as we become accustomed to an overall raise in standards down the console generations. Not to mention advancements in tech.

I used to play my PS1/N64 and Gamecube across the room from a 14 inch Bush TV with tinny mono speakers using a wired controller. Did it affect my enjoyment then? No. Would it now having been used to a 55" OLED, 5.1 setup and wireless controllers? Yes.

I played all the way through Echoes of Wisdom and it felt very strange how much of the conversation was about the performance, because it was never even that bad and it certainly never hindered my gameplay. Same I’d argue for Mario & Luigi: Brothership.

Anyways, would have been really neat if Echoes and Link’s Awakening both also took advantage of the new Zelda Notes feature on the Nintendo Switch app.

Echoes in particular could have probably added a Global Leaderboards feature, especially if they added more (maybe even customizable) Slumber Dojo trials and some of the Daily Bonuses to make Automatons and Smoothie making more accessible.

@Suketoudara I mean, all developers are getting lazier. Even indie games developers. Some PS2 looking games have bigger system requirements than a GTA V! It's ridiculous, to say the least. Also, a lot of developers are reliant on Day One patches.
Situation with games and soft on mobile is even worse.

@KayFiOS I'm a little nervous too, as I have over 300 physical games, a decent number which aren't 'mainstream' releases by any stretch, and so if they do have issues I'm not sure they would ever get a patch.

@Kwyjibo_Kitsune
It's just funny to me how everyone expects absolute perfection with their games now but i don't recall kids on the playground in the 90s going... Gee wiz Timmy have you played Super Mario world! Nah ill said billy. I heard it doesn't run at 60 FPS. 😝

I hope they sort something for VRR docked. (Apparently my tv s gsync freesync and hdmi vrr so it should be possible).

Unfortunately there isn’t an update to stop Echoes being lacklustre and, well, just shi….

@Truegamer79 There was at least a reason for a slightly downgraded experience for home versions before PlayStation/Saturn. The arcade versions were basically the gold standard then. No reason to still be putting up with those compromises now.

@Suketoudara Because Mario Odyssey was made with an in-house engine, where as Echos/Awakening & Princess Peach Showtime where made with UE4 which had a bad track record on the switch.

I could barely make out any FPS drops in the original Switch. I’m sure this update will be more than adequate.

@electrolite77
Sega does what Nintendont! 😉

I had a friend that swore up and down Playstation was better than N64 cause games were on disc and it could do FMVs. Oh and apparently Nintendo was for babies.

@Truegamer79

Well, yes, but we're not children in a playground with limited life experience or points of comparison. We're adults with broader knowledge discussing our hobby online. There are demonstrable hard drops in the LA/EoW engine from 60fps to 30fps due to the use of double buffer v-sync. Those of us who perceive them, and who'd like to play/replay the "enhanced versions" on our new £400 console, are curious as to the extent to which it helps smooth the experience out.

I feel like maybe these games could more easily maintain a steady framerate if they oh I dunno REMOVED THE STUPID BLUR EFFECT ON THE TOP AND BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN THAT LOOKS AWFUL AND HAMPERS THE GAMEPLAY.

That's disappointing!
I bought the thing to have this solved.

@Ellie-Moo if they are third party games most will not likely ever get a patch.

@Truegamer79 Mario World and OG Link's Awakening trageted 60 fps. It was the standard at the time.

@Seacliff
All i wanted to know about games back then was where are the games and when can i play them? Simpler times. ☺

@KayFiOS Why be worried? There's literally a list of what games won't work on Nintendo's website. Hint: the only first party game on the list is Labo.

I noticed the stutters in both games, but I'm not a stickler for framerates, so they didn't bother me at all. Very minor.

Hardly convincing evidence considering that they were ing a ton of games while playing. Does it have any impact? No idea, but I wouldn't rule that out.

@Suketoudara to be fair to developers who are not Nintendo EPD - EPD (who made BotW, TotK, Mario Oddyssey, etc.) and are wizards at what they do. They are hands down the best at squeezing out every bit of performance possible given the hardware they have. Neither Link’s Awakening nor Echoes of Wisdom was made by EPD. They were developed by Grezzo, using the unreal engine of I recall.

Even the Switch 2 can't run this on a locked 60 FPS.

@Kwyjibo_Kitsune
VRR might be locked to the Switch 2 APIs where it needs to be a native app to use it but I don’t think this has been confirmed yet, having HDR does make me think that they do have access to some of it’s feature set though.

@KoopaTheGamer I even pushing the switch U/GPU clocks to their maximum (1785/921MHz) didn't eliminate performance drops. Better hardware can only help unoptimized software to a point. I honestly don't think background s are to blame for these hiccups.

It’s tragic, really.

I liked Link’s Awakening well enough, but Echoes of Wisdom was stuttering so badly I could barely get 30 minutes in.

This still has the random stutters that ruined the experience, even if there is less.

So I have been playing MM3D lately and it has slow down quite a bit. And I've played Echoes and Links Awakening also, clocked like 100 in there and other than the swamp in LA, never had anything so noticable as MM3D has been. Just a dip here and there.

I don't think we should settle for poor performance but to me it just feels like maybe we are just more aware?

Also funny that they are both Grezzo. And to give it its best shot I've been playing on a "new" 3DS

@electrolite77
yeah not to mention the amount of "bits" a console has to the point where Nintendo named a console based on it. if anything it felt like the numbers and the jargon was even more prevalent back then.

also like @Kwyjibo_Kitsune it feels like nowadays in these kinds of discussion that a lot more people (at least those interested in having an actual discussion) seem to know more about what the numbers and words mean compared to said schoolyard discussions on "blast processing" or "64 bits"

To be honest it never bothered me, maybe it's because I've become so used to lag playing old games as a kid that a few frame rate stutters I just brush it off.

Will be nice to have a more smoother experience on Switch 2 though.

I recently played Link's Awakening and didn't notice any stutter, maybe it wasn't that much and all the fuss was for nothing, maybe my eye isn't trained enough, but anyway I had no complaints at all with the game.

I can't speak for Echoes, which I'm going to play soon for the first time, so it will be on Switch 2 anyway.

A time mark on the frame rate issues comparison would be great, though.

I guess there are some paid upgrades for a reason and in those cases they will be more noticeable. But calling it "night and day"... I don't know.

Finally, enough power to run this game boy game.. lol

@Suketoudara not too hard to figure that out, for couple reasons:
1. Mario Odyssey was made in-house, thus the dev team at Nintendo obviously had access to all of Switch’s documentation and the necessary budget to build an engine that makes great use of the hardware. Meanwhile, many of the “smaller” games were made by second-parties (like Super Princess Peach, Yoshi’s Crafted World or collab efforts like Link’s Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom), who maybe didn’t have as many resources as the teams from Nintendo to build a proprietary engine.
2. Many of Nintendo’s Switch games, especially those mentioned earlier, use Unreal Engine 4, as it is a faster and cheaper option nowadays to build games on largerly available, but unoptimized engines. UE4 has been a pain to run on Switch, which is why most games that used it on the platform either had bad resolution, unstable framerates, or both. Nintendo, unlike many 3rd party devs (worst offenders being Outer Worlds and the GTA “Definitive” Trilogy), managed to implement UE4 in their games quite nicely, taking into how resource-hungry the engine is.

Colors look more vibrant, and the blur around the edges appears to be toned down.

Though, that initial loading screen when leaving Marin's house seemed longer on switch 2, no?

@electrolite77
Yeah and how bout those corny live action videos on ps1 games with real actors? Bad ones too. If you asked my friend he'd say they were cinematic gold LOL!

just got my Switch 2 and I still haven't played Echoes of Wisdom so today will be my first playthrough of EOW and it will be so much better playing on Switch 2 than playing on the garbage Switch 1

Why did it suddenly become so rubbish for third party engines on switch. (Unity stuff on Wii U seemed ok ….)

I think the best thing for me to do would just ignore anything using a 3rd party engine entirely on Nintendo platforms.

(If it is not enjoyable playing something because of the poor experience I don’t want to bother).

For example they could have remade donkey kong country returns hd properly using the tropical freeze engine. ( I wish I had just played it on my Wii U at least that version is not fundamentally broken. Even a proper effort like they did for Super Mario Galaxy.)

The amount of games I get for Switch 2 is definitely going to make Nintendo less money than they have been getting from me in the past. (Dropping their standards might end up doing them harm in the long run though).

Maybe my eyes are old but it looks the same to me in both screens

It's really something! It's like games suddenly have the air to breathe and claim the space they need to function. It's like a remastered version, eveb though it's the same game. Same wirh Pokemon Scarlett. I am loving all of this! I am so happy!!!

I’m getting shades of that Office meme: corporate needs you to find the differences between these two pictures.

I’m sure there are stutters, but nothing ever broke my immersion while playing the Link’s Awakening remake on the OG Switch. That said, I’ll play Echoes on my Switch 2 anyway, since I haven’t started it yet.

Managed to get 2 bundles after Target flubbed pre-orders. Haven't set up because today is busy, but I'm likely posting an unboxing. Can't wait to finally play MKW!

I'll gladly replay Link's Awakening on Switch 2 at some point, but I don't know about Echoes of Wisdom. I wanted to like that game, but the frame rate was the least of my problems. The echoes list, bland dungeon design and the more puzzle-heavy and cautious gameplay bothered me more.

What are the odds of it continuing to improve or getting a full edition? I want to buy wisdom but I figure I should wait now.

John Linneman played through many of the problem spots on Link's Awakening on his DF Switch 2 livestream, and said the Switch 2 completely cleans up the stutters in the villages and swamp. The extra power must be locking it to 60fps all the time now.

@Truegamer79
Pretty sure the the original GB/and GBC version of LA ran at a locked 60fps. I don't recall any stuttering issues when i beat it back on the 3DS's Virtual Console 13-ish years ago.

Back during the 8-16 generations, everything ran at 60fps. It was rare to see something running at 30fps. In the case with Ghosts n' Goblins(NES) or Super Double Dragon(SNES). Pretty much everything was 60 until the Saturn, PS1 & N64 came about.

@NeonPizza
Yes but how many of us gaming then knew or gave a damn what framerate was? We were blissfully ignorant and probably just wanted to be playing videogames. I guess gamers today are alot more technically minded and knowledgable than they were in those days.

I was just amazed i could make a little video character bend to my will with the press of a few buttons. I said to myself, what sourcery is this?! That's what got me into gaming. The amazement and wonder of it all.

@KayFiOS Mario 35 ed an update. I can't even play that game anymore. I wouldn't stress about that.

Okay, so after trying it out myself, I think it's fair to say that the performance is indeed perfect. Seems like the (first) video linked in this article had some issues with their capture card. Zero stutters in reality.

Finally! After years of this game collecting digital dust in my backlog, the Switch 2 effect makes the game playable, and fun. The blur effect is still there, but not as bad. Hallelujah. Might have to get Echoes of Wisdom now!