Dear Nintendo fans in the Giant Bomb forums

A while ago, when I was taking a look back on Driveclub and Forza Horizon 2, for the nostalgic feel of these two having beautiful eye-candied photo-realistic graphics on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One consoles respectively.

I'm expecting this future Nintendo console's hardware power is going to be in between PlayStation 4 Pro/Xbox One X to PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X, then this inspired me to create this thread as I would like to see you guys share your thoughts on what sort of games with photo-realistic games on the Nintendo Switch's successor that you wish to see, in regardless of the party and genre.

Here are my short thoughts:

I would like to see a 3rd party photo-realistic racing game on the Nintendo Switch 2, having an arcade-style handling model (Similar to Driveclub and Forza Horizon series), a good roster of playable cars & tracks, and the graphics detailing to surpass Driveclub (PS4) and Forza Horizon 2, 3 & 4 (Xbox One).

Pretty much any "photo realistic" type games on Switch2 are probably going to be third party titles that will look better on other hardware. I don't think Nintendo is going to start making non-cartoony games any time soon and even the games from second party studios tend to be pretty stylized.

If Swtich 2 will be underpowered compared to PS5 then why not just hope for the more realistic games to be on PS5 and let Switch 2 have games that look great even if they're stylized? Mario Kart 8 has great graphics even though it came out on the Wii U. And stylized graphics age better than realistic graphics anyway.

Why bother just because its the switch? Just play them on the PS5 or XSX where you already know they'll be better

@bigsocrates: Yep, this is what I exactly thought about a majority of the future Switch 2 games with photo-realistic graphics are likely to be developed and published by various 3rd party companies, there are some Nintendo Switch's 1st parties like Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics which featured realistic graphics and I love it so much!

I can admit the Nintendo Wii U & Switch games with cartoon graphics like Mario Kart 8, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and many others are excellent.

@sombre: I was just speculating on the Switch 2's hardware power being capable to run on future games with photo-realistic graphics.

Super Mario, The Legend Of Zelda, F-Zero, 1080°, Wave Race, and Pilot Wings.

Chibi-Robo

@stratogustav said:

Hmm... I would like to try and imagine what will Super Mario, and The Legend Of Zelda with photo-realistic graphics for the environments look like, but I want their 3D character models to remain to look like cartoon or anime art style because their appearance is so iconic for the video gaming industry and appealing to a lot of gamers around the world for nearly 4 decades.

Yeah, I love to see F-Zero, 1080°, Wave Race, and Pilot Wings with photo-realistic graphics and have the fun factor with arcade/fast pacing for their gameplay.

This will be great to see that and I could imagine the graphics may look like Clubhouse Games: 51 Worldwide Classics but more detailed.

I don't think the new Switch will be powerful enough to do this, outside of cloud streaming, but Zelda and Metroid would be my obvious picks for games I wouldn't mind seeing realistic graphics for. Keep in mind, that Nintendo with their art direction will likely not do this any time soon. They tried this kind of with Twilight Princess and that was one of the things Nintendo diehard fans were complaining about with that game. It was too realistic and dark of a game. But at the same time when the cel-shaded pirate themed Zelda game came out, fans were complaining about the graphics as well, so go figure. Mario will never have those type of graphics, fans would go insane with anger, and even I'm not sure if I would like it. A realistic F-Zero game or Star Fox game could also be cool.. or a Star Fox game with the graphics of Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart.

@av_gamer: The Legend of Zelda and Metroid both will look good for that, I can see Breath of the Wild and Tears of the King's art style look so beautiful. I personally don't care about PlayStation's Ratchet & Clank and Nintendo's Star Fox series because I'm not into furries/anthropomorphic animals these days so I'm not going to imagine how should the photo-realistic graphics for Ratchet & Clank and Star Fox series look like but please don't get offended as I wanted to show my preference.

I would love to see the next F-Zero with photo-realistic graphics and it should look more realistic than other futuristic racing games like Fast RMX and WipEout Omega Collection.

photo-realism and nintendo seem a bit like oil and water to me- both on the hardware and art side of things. i'm sure there will be down-rezzed versions of games, but i probably wouldn't try to play them on a Nintendo platform if that's what i was craving.

that said, give me photo-realistic Wario, you cowards.

@mellotronrules: Hmm... to me porting an Xbox Series X/PS5 game to Nintendo Switch 2 console, it's going to be like porting an Xbox 360/PS3 game to the PS Vita or 3DS console.

Photo realistic Wario? it would take me time to imagine that, so probably the character to retain its cartoon or anime look while the environments look like photo-realistic games, not to mention all characters being owned by Nintendo retain their respective art style as they look so iconic like Edelgard from Fire Emblem series for example.

@mellotronrules: Yup, the "Switch 2" is not where i would be going to play... uh... sorry i don't have any anticipated games at the moment haha... Half Life 3...

Im not really looking for fidelity out of my Nintendo products. Super Mario World still looks good as do a lot of the games my kids are playing. If the art style is good fidelity only matters so much.

What I do want is more hardware power so talented developers can fully execute their vision. Even Breath of the Wild plays pretty rough and that was a generation ago at this point. IDK maybe having limitations inspires creativty out of talented devs, but I'd like to see those Zelda Devs unencumbered by such tight hardware limitations in this day and age. What kind of cool cutting edge product is being held back by the current Switch's hardware?

@cikame: Perhaps you should stay with PC gaming if you don't interest in any modern or future gaming consoles plus there are more and more future Xbox and PlayStation's 1st parties coming to PC but for Nintendo's 1st parties getting ported to PC, there are no words at the moment.

@junkerman: Yep, I agree that the art-style graphics for games (Regardless of their party) on Nintendo consoles look awesome, I can imagine what if Breath of the Wild and its sequel called Tears of the Kingdom gets remastered for the Switch's successor, it's going to have higher frames per second and enhanced art-style graphics, so what I remember the current Switch's hardware power is, in between PS3/Xbox 360 to PS4/Xbox One plus being a hybrid console which can be played either on TV/Monitor or handheld, and one of the unique features about one of the controller peripherals called Joy-Cons, which can be attached to the Joy-Con grip to form as a controller pad or detach them for motion controls just like the Wii Remote.

Famicom Detective Club

@mach_go_go_go: That would be good to see and I've known the newest remake on the Nintendo Switch features an anime visual novel graphic style.

@gtxforza: yes exactly, Mario and Link on photorealistic environments, but having their iconic character look.

@stratogustav: Here is something I forgot to bring up, I would love to see a Fire Emblem game (Either a main or spin-off installment) on Switch 2, featuring photo-realistic environments while characters like Mercedes von Martritz for example, to remain in 3D cel-shaded anime art-style and having photo mode for players to take screenshots of their favorite Fire Emblem character with numerous of background/environment to choose from.

A Yoshi game where they show it

Pikmin 5, of course. That's one series where the art direction has actually gone for naturalism; not the alien creatures or monsters, of course, but the environments. They let the contrast between styles and the shrunk-the-kids scale do the work and it usually has great results. With how nice Pikmin 4 looks I want to see how far they can push it.

Wave Race comes to mind. I'd love to see what they could do with next-gen fluid simulations. And I'm intrigued by this idea of a photo-realistic Mario game - I want a model based on Bob Hoskins so realistic that we can see individual nose hairs.

For the most part, though, I'm happy with more stylized/cartoony graphics. I'd rather they put most of their efforts into making fun worlds to explore with interesting gameplay rather than just increasing the fidelity.

@sombre said:

Good choice!

It will look so good on the Nintendo Switch's successor!

I would love to see licensed Jet-Ski and photo-realistic graphics for the next Wave Race on the Nintendo Switch's successor, then I guess it will be Driveclub of Jet-Ski racing if it only features closed circuit and Point A to Point B racing mode, or either Forza Horizon of Jet-Ski racing if it features open world.

Edit: The last Wave Race game was called Wave Race: Blue Storm for the Nintendo GameCube, released back in 2001, while Wave Race 64 got rereleased onto Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack in 2022.