This past weekend’s Nintendo Switch 2 Experience in Los Angeles and London was filled with new and exciting games to play. A lot of people there spent most of their time with Mario Kart World, naturally, but there were also big crowds forDonkey Kong Bananza,Metroid Prime 4,Drag x Drive, and even thatweird Welcome Tour game that’s not even really a game.
When I arrived at the event, my first stop wasn’t any of these cutting-edge upcoming games. Instead, I went straight for a game that I haven’t been able to play for 20 years: Mario Super Strikers. As a 90s kid, Super Strikers, as well as the three other GameCube games coming to the Switch 2 at launch, are some of my all-time favorites that have been unavailable for a long, long time. As soon as I picked up the Switch 2’s wireless GameCube controller, the nostalgia hit me hard. It’s great to get back into the fiercely underrated GameCube era, I just wish you didn’t have to have a Switch 2 to do it.
The GameCube Lives Again On The Switch 2
Nintendo Classics, formerly known as the Nintendo Switch Online Library, will launch on the Switch 2 with four new additions from the GameCube: Mario Super Strikers, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, F-Zero GX, and Soulcalibur 2. There are a lot more GameCube games I’m hoping to see come to Nintendo Classics eventually (imagine Super Smash Bros. Melee online!), but these four were a huge part of my childhood, and it’s great to see them come back to life on the Switch 2 in such great form.
\There are currently ten confirmed GameCube games coming to Nintendo Classics on the Switch 2, includingPokemon Colosseumand Luigi’s Mansion.
You get a few excellent upgrades for these emulations, including enhanced resolution, faster load times, wide screen support, online support, and retro screen filters, just to really mine that nostalgia vein for all its worth. Other than the HD remaster of Wind Waker on the Wii U, this will be the definitive way to play these older GameCube games.
I played all four available games at the event and was very impressed. Seeing these games in widescreen on a TV bigger than anything I could have dreamed of back in 2005 is a real treat, and playing them with an authentic GameCube controller really brings me back. Both F-Zero X and Soul Calibur 2 run at a stable 60fps in widescreen, with subtle resolution enhancements that make them look how I remember them, rather than how they really were.
I had the best time with Mario Super Strikers, which holds up extremely well even compared to the most recent entry in the series,Mario Strikers: Battle League. Sure you may see every pixel on Mario in the character selection screen, and the crowd is entirely made up of cardboard cut outs of toads and goombas, but that was always part of its charm, and it’s still charming now.
Nostalgia Don’t Come Cheap
I have so much love for the GameCube that I find these games make a better incentive to pick up a Switch 2 than even Mario Kart World. At the same time, every time I go to do the math on this thing, I find myself wondering why my bank account has to take such a huge hit when my OLED Switch is sitting right there.
To play these games, you’ll need a Switch 2, as well as a Nintendo Switch Online subscription,withthe Expansion Pack upgrade. The GameCube games will not be available on the original Switch, even if they almost certainly could be.
We know this because of Nvidia Shield. Nintendo’s partnership with Nvidia to produce the chip for the original Switch also allowed Nvidia to emulate a handful of Wii games on Nvidia Shield TV, including Super Mario Sunshine and The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.
These games were only available in China, but their existence proves that Wii emulation is possible on the original Switch, since both the Switch and Nvidia Shield use the same Tegra X1 chip. And if the Switch can emulate Wii games, it can certainly emulate GameCube games.
Why the GameCube library isn’t coming to the original Switch is unclear. In their video about GameCube emulators,Digital Foundry speculatesthat it may be the case that the Switch’s CPU, which is throttled down compared to Nvidia Shield TV’s to balance heat and battery life, is a factor. I have a different, more cynical theory.
Launching these games exclusively on the Switch 2 sells more Switch 2s, while launching them on the original Switch doesn’t. I don’t know for a fact that that’s the reason why we won’t see GameCube games on the Switch, but do know for a fact that their exclusivity does make it more likely that I will buy a Switch 2 as soon as possible, and I don’t think I’m the only one who feels that way.
Considering all of the other concerns about the Switch 2’s prices, it’s hard not to assume greed plays a big factor here. The $450 console with $80 games and a $50 annual subscription you have to buy just to make all of the buttons on the controller work (and access these fantastic GameCube games) doesn’t exactly scream generosity from Nintendo.
Whether it is or isn’t the case that the original Switch could run these emulations just fine, it’s definitely part of a wider, greedier pattern from the Big N. The Nintendo Classic library is a great price, and the GameCube games look and play fantastic, but there’s going to come a point where I no longer want to be nickel and dimed to death by Nintendo - not even for Mario Super Strikers.
