Nintendo Switch 2

Will the games that went M.I.A this generation return?

F-Zero

F-Zero is second on my list and is a series which holds a lot of nostalgia for me. I grew up with F-Zero X and thankfully that has recently been released on the Nintendo Expansion Pass. You can see my Gameplay Videos below.

What I loved about F-Zero was just the white knuckle ride it gives you. Piloting vehicles through various alien landscapes at ridiculous speed requires you respond in a millisecond to each twist and turn of the track otherwise you’re Game Over! I also adored the soundtrack. Had that iconic 90’s heavy metal music score that you got in games like 1080, V-Rally, Wipeout etc. F-Zero GX for the Gamecube doubled down on the speed and graphics. Oddly developed by Namco and Sega. A crossover I didn’t think i’d ever see! Both studios having significant credential in the racing game genre so it made perfect sense.

Nintendo have been relatively open in saying there are no sequels in development. I’m not sure why they’re avoiding this series given there isn’t really much competition in this very specific space. I hope they’re playing coy and have something in the background being worked on. It deserves an update and with all the investment they’ve made in Mario Kart, their other racer needs some love. Hopefully we’ll either see a sequel, remaster or even F-Zero GX on the Expansion pass

Super Mario Odyssey 2

This one is my biggest bug bear only because I absolutely loved Mario Odyssey. When I saw the initial gameplay videos I didn’t get too excited about it. It just felt like Mario with another gimmick. I didn’t actually get a Switch until a year after it released for that reason. It had Mario and literally nothing else. The Switch’s initial release was pretty poor but given how it recovered people seem to have forgotten about that. I am a Mario superfan not going to lie. I’ve played and own most if not all of the games. It is no surprise that Mario 3 is my favourite game of all time. When they released the ‘DLC’ levels for it on the Nintendo Expansion Pass I rinsed it for all its worth! See my gameplay videos below. What I enjoy about Mario is the challenge and the learning curve. It can be forgiven for being a cutesy series which is fun, simple and not too much of a challenge.

However my standout games ARE the challenging ones. Where you lose 50 lives attempting one level and are on the bounds of destroying your controller before you then have that sense of relief and satisfaction when you eventually complete that level you spent hours on.

The 3D Mario games have been hit or miss for me in how they’ve challenged me. Super Mario 64 definitely was a difficult game in places however I feel that was more due to technical limitation than genuine game design. Having the camera freak out or get stuck in walls when you need to make a key leap across a gap did not help.

The Mario Galaxy series were enjoyable though I don’t feel offered that level of challenge. I breezed through those quite easily. The 3D Mario Land games however brought the difficulty back. I really enjoyed Super Mario 3D Land on 3DS and to a lesser extent Super Mario 3D World. We can all forget Super Mario Sunshine ok?

When I finally got to Super Mario Odyssey I just got completely absorbed into it. It really managed to tap into what I love about games generally, exploration. Searching these wild and varied lands in search of Moons just scratched that itch i’d not had since Mario 64. I think it comes down to that there were so many of them, not many particularly obvious how to get and i’d spend hours trying to avoid Googling ‘How to reach the Moon in….”. Most of the time I had the satisfaction of working it out myself but ashamedly I did look some of them up! I rinsed Mario Odyssey until I got EVERY, SINGLE, MOON! I know a lot of people that did. I even went to the point where I went over and above the story requirement.

I have been waiting years for a sequel. It is not unheard of to have 2 3D Mario games in a console lifecycle. Hell we got 2 Zelda games didn’t we? So Nintendo I ask you, where the heck is Odyssey 2?! With the success of Super Mario Movie it would have been an opportune moment to have released a new game. My hope is that the new game is so ambitious it needs that boost in hardware to make it a truly great sequel. From the development of Tears of the Kingdom it’s clear to see Nintendo are respecting time and quality over pumping out sequels for the sake of it.

Hopefully when the Mario Odyssey sequel releases it will be just as amazing. In the meantime we have Super Mario Wonder which looks eclectic but awesome!

Gamecube/Wii/Wii U Backwards Compatability

Right Nintendo, I have an issue here. We have had N64 and earlier console games released via some kind of online service for years now. We haven’t had much in the way of Gamecube/Wii/Wii U online back catalog. I was expecting this with the Switch, particularly the premium Expansion service. Whilst I appreciate playing some of the N64 classics again i’m afraid it still to date doesn’t justify the price tag. The fact that rather than going forward we’re going further back by including Gameboy titles. Don’t get me wrong I loved replaying Super Mario Land 2 (walkthrough in the video below) but where is your Gamecube back catalog. I sincerely hope this is being held back due to the Switch hardware and the size of the onboard storage. I have at least a couple of SD cards for my Switch so they need to address this in the Switch 2.

This could legitimately be why the Gamecube and beyond games are not seeing any online shop. Perhaps they should, if not already, investigate streaming them to the console instead of having gamers download. It would help with the storage issue though again they need to bolster their online service for that to work and it would be limited to people with a semi decent internet connection.

Hopefully they can iron this out with the next console.

So there we have it, some of the games and series I expected to have some kind of sequel in this generation but didn’t for one reason or another. Let me know in the comments what you missed this gen?