The wait is over, and the Nintendo Switch 2 is in my hands. After all of the rumours, all of the supposed leaks, and months of sitting playing Tears of the Kingdom while speculating about what's coming next, it's finally taken pride of place next to my TV. And while Mario Kart World is a warm welcome into my life after being beaten continuously on the same Mario Kart 8 courses since the game first dropped in 2014, it's the GameCube channel on Nintendo Switch Online that I've been most looking forward to diving into.
To understand my love for the GameCube, I need to take you briefly back to a time when I was 12 years old. I'd spent months working with my dad in his pizza restaurant, folding boxes and preparing vegetables in order to save up enough money to buy the GameCube when it arrived at my local branch of GAME. During that time, I read every article in Nintendo Official Magazine, memorising their initial thoughts about Luigi's Mansion and looking at every hint and picture about the box art.
While the N64 was my first proper console, it was the GameCube that played a huge part in my teenage life. My friends and I would spend hours playing on Super Mario Strikers and Soul Calibur 2, beating each other senseless both on the Mushroom Kingdom-inspired football court and while in control of Knightmare, Voldo, Ivy, and Link.
When you know all of that, it's no wonder I've been so excited for GameCube games to pop up on NSO next to the SNES, Mega Drive, and N64, huh? And while the days of opening up plastic cases and saying 'look how small the discs are' have been replaced with a digital selection screen, I couldn't be happier with the games Nintendo have chosen to kick things off.
And as an added bonus, it only took about 10 minutes for the GameCube channel to download!
As you'll no doubt know, there are 10 confirmed games heading to the platform so far, with three arriving today on launch day - Wind Waker, Soul Calibur II, and F-Zero GX. I've been putting them through their paces on the new system to see how they feel in both docked and handheld mode, and whether all the hype was worth the wait for both fans of the originals and new gamers wanting to explore Nintendo's back catalogue!
NB: GameCube games are only available to Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack subscribers and only on the Nintendo Switch 2. Head to the Nintendo website to find out more and to change your subscription.
The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker
For those of you who played the game the first time around, you'll no doubt be wondering whether it has that same exciting impact as when we first placed the tiny Wind Waker disc into the GameCube and marvelled at Eiji Aonuma's cel-shaded masterpiece. The anticipation leading up to the release of Wind Waker and the initial shock factor of seeing a brand new Zelda was something I'll never forget, but how does that compare to playing it on Nintendo's newest console?
For starters, let's have a look at the game in docked mode. It's clear that this is a faithful port of the GameCube version with none of the enhanced colours or crisp graphics of the Wii U version. You can tell by the writing that comes up in the speech bubbles and by some of the darker hues used in Link's tunic, for example. Still, because it's cel-shaded graphics, it's very forgiving and almost a timeless look. And to be honest, I didn't expect a complete remaster - this is the GameCube emulator, after all, so that's what we've got.
Immediately, I'm loving being back on Outset Island. The game loaded smoothly, and I sat through the opening cutscenes as captivated as I was the first time I watched them. It's so nice to be able to play this game on the Switch up on the big screen without having to hook my GameCube up to an HDMI converter to get it working on my 4K TV, and it's great being back amongst familiar characters again on a game I first encountered 22 years ago. I was even happy to see that annoying, snotty-nosed kid above.
One thing I like about the new addition to NSO is that you can go in and change your controls. I wanted my camera to pan left when I pressed left and right when I pressed right, so I nipped into the settings and manually changed these. I've also made my ZR an Action Button to mirror the A button because I like to press the trigger when rolling, so now I've got even more control over Link.
Apart from having the ability to change controls, everything feels just as it did back on the GameCube. We don't have any of the other quality of life enhancements that the Wii U version got like faster speech, so I can only assume that other features like having the option to buy the Swift Sail in the Windfall auction house and items flying towards you when you defeat an enemy at sea will also be absent as I haven't had time to get there at the time of writing. I'm also going on this hunch because there isn't the option to try hero mode from the beginning too.
But hey, at least we get to have the original lines that Eiji Aonuma gave to the King of Red Lions before he changed them in the Wii U version, so there's a plus!
Handheld mode is what I've been looking forward to the most with this game, though. It's one of the main reasons I bought the the Wii U version of the game in the first place, to kick back on my sofa and run around Outset Island, or to lay on my bed next door with the handset pressed against the wall so that the Wii U could just about pick it up.
I was really hoping for a widescreen version of the game in handheld mode on the Switch 2, in all honesty, just like Nintendo did with Banjo-Tooie. But alas, I'm stuck with the 4:3 resolution, which while a shame, isn't completely terrible as the screen is much bigger than the previous console, so at least there's plenty of display to work with.
Soul Calibur II
Soul Calibur 2 was one of the greatest fighting games I ever played as a kid, and that's not just because it features Link as a playable character. Ok, that's got a lot to do with it, I'm not going to lie, but it has so many amazing features and a great story-driven narrative to it that makes you want to play as every character as opposed to just picking your favourite time and time again.
Still, it's got to be said, we Nintendoids got the better deal out of the PS2 and Xbox releases. Don't get me wrong, Spawn and Heihachi Mishima are great characters, but seeing Link using the hookshot and bombs while wielding the Master Sword was something else!
It's surprising to me that this is the first Soul Calibur game on the Switch family of systems, which is the first time I've written that phrase in an article! Still, having Link on the roster means it's a perfect place to start
Graphics-wise, Soul Calibur looks amazing on my TV and in handheld mode, far better than I remember, in fact. In handheld mode, it feels way shinier and polished than how I remember it on the GameCube, so much so that it could be forgiven for being a modern game, albeit with the side borders that you get on every NSO game. Admittedly, the opening sequence looks slightly sharper when in handheld mode, though it's nothing that I feel an overt need to complain about.
This game is still flawless after over 2 decades; the characters, the introduction before each match, the moves. It's such a great title and one that I'll be spending hours playing with my housemate this weekend, that's for sure! I didn't need to change any controls here either (though I have forgotten a lot of the moves). It's the perfect log-on and play title for anyone who bought a Switch but is saving up a little bit before they get Mario Kart World.
F-Zero GX
I've been waiting for F-Zero GX to head onto the Switch since 2017. Don't get me wrong, I love Mario Kart, but Captain Falcon's hi-octane space-racing title is a million miles different from the calm, family-friendly vibes of games like Mario Kart: Double Dash!! If you've not played GX before, it's essentially like being on a rollercoaster that's gone out of control. In fact, scrap that - a rollercoaster that's in free-fall.
My dad and I used to play F-Zero together on a regular basis when I was a kid in between ploughing through many of the titles in Simon Phipps' back catalogue. I always loved the immersive backgrounds on F-Zero GX, though it has to be said that they often make my eyes wander away from the track and end up hitting the nearest corner even though I know it's coming up. Maybe it's just me who has poor concentration, I don't know...
Like Soul Calibur 2, F-Zero looks super polished on the Switch 2, more so than Wind Waker. The crafts look slick, the controls are smooth, and the action will definitely make those of you looking for something with a bit more 'oomph' than Mario Kart can provide feel very happy. As you can see from the image above (to prove that it's real), I even managed to come first too, so I'm obviously going to give it a stellar review after that!
Again, the control changing option came in handy here because using Y for boosting in the current controller setup just felt a little bit like having the N64 claw-hand back again. Still, how good would this have looked in widescreen mode... It's eating away at me. That aside, I definitely prefer playing this game with my Nintendo Switch Pro Controller than I did with the GC controller back in the day because I'm just used to the feel and weight of it now.
I know a lot of people are disappointed that Luigi's Mansion wasn't one of the main titles that dropped on the Switch 2 launch day, but I think, for the time being, that our adventure craving is filled suffiecienltly by the arrival of Wind Waker, with Soul Calibur and F-Zero providing couch-multiplayer fans like me with all of the beatdowns and high-speed thrills that we remember from the early noughties.
Final Thoughts
So, was GameCube on Switch worth the wait? I think you know that my answer is unequivocally yes, but as I've written about a hundred times now, I do wish that Nintendo had taken the time to make widescreen versions of the games. It's a small thing to get annoyed about, I know, but after they pulled off the magic with Banjo-Tooie, I just assumed that they were going to do the same with the new titles too.
That being said, I think it's definitely a reason to upgrade to the Nintendo Switch 2 for anyone who was feeling a little bit unsure, and not just for nostalgic reasons. I've spoken with people this week who have never even played The Wind Waker before because they never owned a GameCube when they were growing up. For many, this will be the first time that they get to experience games like Luigi's Mansion and Pokémon Colosseum for the first time, so as well being sa great way of preserving past titles, it's also an excuse to just take a week off work and play some classics that you missed out on the first time around or that came out before you were born.
Yes, a lot of us will have played these titles before, but are you really going to tell me that you're not going to play Wind Waker again in its entirety now you can lie in bed and play it? Of course you are, and I am too, along with F-Zero GX, Soul Calibur 2, and all of the other games, both announced and future titles, that are heading to the platform. So, if you'll excuse me, I've got a bird to thwart in the Forsaken Fortress - my sister needs me!
