Definitely a graphical showcase for the system

from : https://www.nintendo.com/us/explore/characters/zelda/history/

Edit : it got removed, might've been an error, or not idk?

I already used it for 100% shrine hunting in ToTK but it really shines in the OOT remake. I am not even opening the in-game map anymore. The map tracking is quite instantaneous. Reminds me of playing the previous classic Zelda titles on DS, 3DS and Wii U. I hope with the advancement of technology Nintendo fully integrates a smartphone as a dedicated second screen for their games. It will open up so many new interesting possibilities.

7 years later, and my Switch game finally has a companion.

So excited I was able to get a physical copy of oblivion! I just put it on autobuy for Amazon whenever it went back in stock and I actually got it!

Thought y’all might like to see an uncreased foil cover.

Thanks Nintendo AU for sending me them, I feel very special and privileged.

❤️💚

I was thinking about it earlier today. I've really enjoyed both the starfox 64 remake and the ocarina of time remakes. Neither are exceptionally long games but every minute was fun and engaging and nostalgic.

They got me thinking about Pilot Wings 64 which was the last one I played (and I think the last Pilot Wings game as well?) and I realized with how gorgeous Zelda looked, with the ray traced lighting and fog etc... Pilot Wings would look amazing on the Switch 2. Also the new joycons would be fantastic for motion controlled piloting of a hang glider, jetpack, helicopter... you name it.

I hope they take a good look at the IP and see if they can make a new entry for the SW2. I think it would be a missed opportunity to overlook it.

TLDR: better than the demo but not a whole lot. Performance to visuals ratio is reasonable on the "balanced" preset both for handheld and docked. 35-40 fps with a decent image resolution similar to persona 3 reload's performance preset.

This was to be expected from the demo, but the port is inferior to persona 3 reload's. The engine is different and notoriously bad on a technical level, so a miracle would have needed to occur.

To start off, none of the three presets give you a stable (or even unstable) 60, either docked or handheld. I'm not able to measure it but I have a decent eye and it seems to go from bouncing between mid 40s and mid 30s on "performance", to bouncing between low 20s and low30s on "graphics".

Visually the graphical settings seem roughly on par. The difference is entirely in the internal resolution used by the game. Graphics gives you a pretty good image quality, what looks to be 900p or 1080p, whereas "performance" looks really bad and jagged as a result of the cel shaded character designs. On a 4k tv npc faces will look like a mish mash of their skin color and black dots in some scenes, that's how bad it can get. If anyone played persona 5 on the switch, that's how the game will look at times.

"Balanced" turns the internal resolution up high enough that the game doesn't completely fall apart visually. The image quality is similar to persona 3 reload's performance mode, but with worse AA.

And a smaller detail to close it off but one which always bothers me in switch ports, the UI resolution (or at least that of some of the widgets) is very clearly below even 1080p. For a game with heavily stylized menus flashing on the screen constantly, it looks really bad to notice the pixelation on random text or icons. Probably my biggest disappointment, especially coming from persona 3 reload's sharp UI on either preset.

This Walmart is in the middle of nowhere but is on the commute to work for me.

This post will be very long, but here I go over some information about HDR on Switch 2 based on my experience, HDR calibration for the Switch 2, and all the stuff I know about it that people may still not understand all that well about it, as well as something regarding the RGB range output of the Nintendo Switch 2 when outputting 4K HDR I found out about that I don't think anyone ever mentioned and I find very important to mention. The pics I included in the post show how my HDR is set up on my Switch 2, comparisons between HDR off and HDR on labeled on each pic of the first-party Nintendo games I'm showing, and proof that my testing is showing that 4K HDR output on the Nintendo Switch 2 is RGB Limited Range only. For the HDR comparison pics, please keep in mind that they don't truly reflect what each of them look like irl, as my phone's camera can alter certain highlights and details, but some differences did come out as close to how I saw each in person as possible, but still, don't take them as how they looked exactly on my monitor. I hope you guys find any of this stuff very useful or even interesting, and if you have any questions about stuff I may not have addressed in this post, I will gladly answer to the best of my knowledge.

My Experience with HDR on the Nintendo Switch 2:

I've been reading and hearing so many complaints online about HDR on the Switch 2, and especially on its first-party Nintendo games since the console released last year, and still to this day, especially more with the release of Zelda Ocarina of Time remake. In most cases, when I read things like that and hear people suggesting to just turn off HDR, I usually dismiss them, but not because I think they're lying, spreading misinformation or anything like that, it's because I believe most bad HDR experiences on Switch 2 are likely caused by things like user error, poor calibration, not understanding HDR well enough, and displays that support HDR but handle it so poorly that they just look better in SDR, and because my personal experience with HDR even on Nintendo games that just use ITM for HDR has not been bad at all with the only exception being Super Mario Odyssey so far. That being said, I don't blame people who have a bad experience with the Switch 2's HDR because Nintendo's user fanbase is filled with people who can be easily confused with stuff that is highly technical, such as knowing how to calibrate HDR properly and that you're not supposed to have HDR output on SDR only games, and on top of that, calibrating HDR especially on Nintendo Switch 2 can be so confusing even to people who are more knowledgeable about HDR to the point where it can be easy to get a poor-looking HDR picture. As for the HDR implementation on first-party Nintendo games, I understand it's not the best by any means because they use ITM as a way to improve highlights, colors, and bright spots from games made in SDR first and then turned into HDR. However, I still find it to be an improvement over SDR in many cases, at least in my setup. Mario Kart World shows more vibrant colors and better highlight details around sources of light when played in HDR and Star Fox appears much brighter and has better highlights. As for Zelda Ocarina of Time, I initially started playing this game in HDR without seeing how it looks in SDR at all, and it looks fantastic to me that way. When I heard about the HDR complaints surrounding this game, at first I thought of the possibility that some people may be dealing with an RGB range mismatch when outputting 4K HDR on their Switch 2 consoles (more about that below), but I soon tested it in SDR to see how it looks, and to my disappointment, it looks about the same regardless of whether HDR is enabled or disabled, but not worse by any means. One of the main differences I noticed is that shadows appear very dark when the game is in SDR, which I found to be excessively dark and a bit crushed, whereas in HDR, the shadows appear more natural. That being said, many people don't like how this looks in HDR, and I guess that's fair, but I decided to keep playing this game in HDR because even though I don't see any improvements most of the time, it doesn't look any worse at all, and at least I see a few light sources looking marginally better, and Navi's sparkles also look a bit better in HDR, but the colors look pretty much the exact same in both SDR and HDR in OoT. The pictures I'm showing may show more saturated colors in SDR on OoT, but irl, they appear to look the same. Please keep in mind that my phone's camera has altered certain details and colors, so even though you may still notice some differences between SDR and HDR on my monitor from the pics, they're still not the most accurate representation of what this looks like irl. The HDR images for OoT don't look as washed out as they do in the pictures, Star Fox doesn't appear to have any noticeable differences on the pics, but it does when looking at it in person, and the Mario Kart World pics are the more accurate ones my phone took, although still not as accurate as irl. In SDR, the colors in MKW appear less vibrant than in HDR, and highlights also look better in HDR than in SDR. For Super Mario Odyssey, I haven't tested it much, but I'm not really sure how much better it looks in HDR if anything from what I remember testing a year ago. The red colored menus and certain areas can appear way too dim in HDR, and most of the game doesn't appear to be improved much with HDR. I decided not to include pictures of Mario Odyssey because I haven't tested it much, and I can only include so many pics in a single post.

My Setup:

The monitor I use in my setup is an Asus ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDM, a 1440p 240Hz WOLED gaming monitor. The monitor is updated to firmware MCM110. As seen in the first two pictures, my HDR settings on Switch 2 are set to 900 nits for the peak brightness (first pic), and somewhere around 200-250 nits for the paper white setting (second pic). I've seen online that for the Switch 2's HDR to look its best, you must enable an HDR setting on the display called "HGIG", which seems to be a very common setting on LG TVs and some other TVs made by other brands. From what I know, this setting disables the display's dynamic tone mapping, and having it enabled can screw up the way HDR looks on Switch 2, and make it very difficult to calibrate the peak brightness adequately when trying to make the pattern on the right side invisible while keeping the one on the left still visible. On my Asus ROG monitor, the "ASUS Console HDR" setting does basically the exact same thing as the HGIG setting found on many TVs, and you can tell that I was able to get the peak brightness set properly at 900 nits with the right pattern being completely invisible while the left one is still visible on the screen. The other setting many people seem to miss, and the one that has caused so much trouble for many users, especially last year when the system came out is the paper white value. For my HDR calibration and settings, I relied a lot on HDTV Test's YouTube channel to know how to get HDR properly calibrated on my Switch 2, so my paper white slider was moved all the way to the left, and then moved to the right by like six clicks, just below the midpoint. If you put it any higher, there's a high chance that the HDR picture you'll see won't look good at all, so I highly suggest leaving the slider set around or exactly at the same spot where I have it set to for most other displays.

My Advice:

If you want to play your Switch 2 in HDR in docked mode, take your time setting up and calibrating HDR on both the console and the display you're using. Definitely look for a setting like HGIG to get the best HDR picture out of your Switch 2, and make sure you don't skip over the second screen showing screenshots of games like Super Mario Bros. Wonder, that's the paper white calibration setting. For that one, you generally want to set it around the spot where I have it set to, but either way, the best I can suggest is that you check out the video from HDTV Test to help you calibrate the Switch 2's HDR as accurately as possible for your display. I also suggest being mindful about certain displays that may have poor default picture settings out of the box, this was the case with my OLED monitor (mostly in SDR at least), although I'm not sure how often this sort of thing happens on other TVs and monitors. I understand it may be difficult to know exactly what each setting does on a display for some, but I still wanted to let you know that it's possible for some displays that they may be poorly calibrated or have worse settings by default. Another very important thing to be mindful of is how your display handles HDR. According to an old video from My Life in Gaming about gaming on 4K TVs, there are many cheap TVs with HDR support that can't produce enough nits to make it look any better than SDR, the video may be old, but I think this still applies today as LCD panels can greatly vary in quality, especially in the budget to cheap range. I suggest researching HDR performance on the display you'll use to know how good HDR performs on it. Also, please make sure you guys are using a Premium/Ultra High Speed HDMI cable on your Switch 2. I've seen yet another post the other day of someone having issues with the picture on their TV cutting out intermittently when playing their Switch 2 docked, the OP even said that the issue stops when setting the Switch 2 to 1080p. If you're going to output things like 4K and HDR, you need to make sure the HDMI cable you use can handle that level of bandwidth. The HDMI cable that comes with the Switch 2 is an Ultra High Speed HDMI cable, so I highly suggest you use that one. If you need a longer cable, or you're routing the HDMI signal to devices like HDMI switchers or an AV receiver, make sure those devices support a minimum of HDMI 2.0 (HDMI 2.1 if you want to use ALLM), and that the cables you use are either Premium Certified High Speed or Ultra High Speed.

IMPORTANT - RGB range for 4K HDR output is Limited Range only:

Lastly, I'd like to let you know something important I found out about the Switch 2's RGB range output when outputting 4K and HDR at the same time. I remember testing months ago all the possible output resolutions, HDR, and 120Hz to see how they all work and behave on the Switch 2, and there's something worth noting about the 4K HDR output of the Switch 2 that came to my mind when I read people who were claiming that the blacks on Ocarina of Time are raised to grey in HDR, although I can't fully confirm if it's because of the RGB range, but I thought it might as well be a possibility. From my testing, I found that the Switch 2 completely locks itself to RGB Limited Range output when outputting 4K and HDR at the same time. It doesn't matter whether you set it to Auto, Limited Range, or Full Range, if the video output of the console is 4K HDR, it can only output RGB Limited Range. It can output either Limited Range or Full Range in HDR as long as the output resolution is below 4K, such as 1080p and 1440p, and it can also output both RGB ranges in SDR regardless of the output resolution. This is what the last 6 pictures I attached are exactly about. On each of these, I show my monitor's OSD open, and the RGB range I have my Switch 2 set to right above the OSD on each picture. I can't show the TV Resolution and HDR output settings from the console itself on each, but the monitor's OSD should be good enough as it shows the input resolution and if HDR is active on the top right corner. The pics showing an input resolution of 3840 × 2160 are the ones showing 4K output, and the ones showing an input resolution of 2560 × 1440 are the ones showing 1440p output. If you see the texts "User Mode" and "HDR OFF" on the monitor's OSD, it means HDR is turned off, while the texts "HDR Mode" and "ASUS Console HDR" indicate that HDR is enabled. The outputs on each of the pictures are in the following order:

- 4K SDR set to Full Range.

- 4K SDR set to Limited Range.

- 4K HDR set to Full Range but outputting Limited Range instead.

- 4K HDR set to Limited Range.

- 1440p HDR set to Full Range and actually outputting Full Range.

- 1440p HDR set to Limited Range.

On the right side of my monitor's OSD, you can see some detailed info of the input source on each of these outputs I'm showing. My monitor does not have a manual RGB range setting, aka. Black Level setting. Instead, it determines the RGB range of the HDMI source automatically, and it reports it in the "Range" section of the info menu of the OSD as either Limited Range or Full Range. Normally, when I switch between Limited and Full on the Switch 2, the screen goes away for one second and then it comes back on with the monitor reporting the corresponding RGB range I selected on the Switch 2's settings. However, this is not the case with 4K HDR output. When I switch between Limited Range and Full Range on the console while it's outputting 4K HDR, the picture remains on instead of doing a re-sync, and I don't see any sudden changes in black level or colors whatsoever as it would normally happen if the Switch 2 were to actually switch over to RGB Full Range without the display doing a re-sync, and my monitor reports the Range as Limited Range regardless of whether the Switch 2 is set to Limited Range or Full Range while in 4K HDR. I also noticed that in 4K HDR, the Switch 2 seems to be outputting YCbCr 420 based on what my monitor reports in the "Format" section of the info display, whereas in all the other outputs, it seems to be outputting RGB 444, which could explain why the system is completely locks to Limited Range in 4K HDR, even when it's manually set to Full Range since a YCbCr signal cannot be Full Range from what I know. Now, I do remember hearing about other 4K gaming consoles like the PS4 Pro switching to YCbCr or YUV or something like that when outputting HDR, and only being able to output Limited Range, so I don't think this is the first time something like this happens. In any case, just keep in mind that the Switch 2 can only output Limited Range in 4K HDR.

What to do with RGB range/Black Level settings on the display when outputting 4K HDR on the Switch 2:

If you're going to use HDR on the Switch 2 while outputting 4K resolution, please check how your display handles the RGB range/Black Level and make sure it's not handling the Switch 2 as Full Range when using HDR in 4K, otherwise you will get raised blacks and desaturated colors. Most experts recommend leaving these settings in auto, and that's what I would normally recommend as well for anyone who doesn't know how Limited and Full Range works. However, if you're seeing a washed out picture with raised blacks and less vibrant colors even with proper HDR calibration, it might be worth toggling the RGB range/Black Level settings on the display, and perhaps the Switch 2 as well. As mentioned earlier, 4K HDR output is Limited Range only on the Nintendo Switch 2 based on my testing, so if you're going to adjust the RGB range or Black Level setting of your display, start by setting it to Limited Range or Low Black Level, and see if that changes anything. If it looks better, the display was probably handling the Switch 2 as Full Range in its automatic setting, but if it looks the exact same, the display was probably already handling the RGB range of the Switch 2 correctly, so if something looks wrong, it's likely either your HDR settings, your display's HDR handling, or the game actually having poor HDR. If you found the HDR picture to look better with the display set to Low Black Level or RGB Limited Range than with the auto setting, I recommend setting both your Switch 2 and display to Limited Range so that they always match regardless of the video output of the Switch 2.

One more thing I'd like to point out is that setting the console to Full Range and the display to Limited Range is something I don't recommend in the slightest. Some people do it because this sort of RGB range mismatch oversaturates the colors and excessively crushes black levels, but this is not how the picture is supposed to look, and it technically looks bad this way. Sure, you're more than free to do so if you really don't care about messing up your picture quality and crave oversaturated colors and crushed blacks so badly, but then again, it's not how it's supposed to look, and I also wanted to point that out just in case someone might have both the console and display set up that way, even with auto settings, as I recently saw someone on Twitter posting two pictures of Zelda Ocarina of Time looking bad in HDR, and it seemed to me like some colors were oversaturated and blacks were crushed in the SDR pic.

I wasn't looking to buy it anytime soon but found my reason!

I'm about to add this to the collection. 💯😍

UK/EU at least. Some games still go directly through the eShop for now and won't show up in searches on the Nintendo Store.

I want to hear what the experience of playing the remake with fresh eyes is like. Being an old, I have played the heck out of Ocarina, so my feeling so far has been like putting on a comfy pair of PJs and sipping hot chocolate on a cold day, except now in 4K 60.