Considering it’s a console that didn’t launch with a brand new Zelda game, it’s fascinating that the Switch 2 is somehow still the Zelda-est console Nintendo has ever made. That’s what it feels like anyway. Just look at the Nintendo Switch Online offering, which covers everything from the original Zelda on the NES to absolute classics like Link to the Past and Ocarina as well as weirdo off-shoots like the Oracle games, Four Swords and the Minish Cap.
There is a lifetime of Zelda goodness in that list alone, and I should know, because it is my life. Somehow I have played and finished all those games. And somehow it was sufficiently long ago that I might give them another toot now. But first, of course, there’s the arrival of GameCube classics on the service, with The Wind Waker as the obvious stand-out entry. I remember buying this game along with a silver GameCube and revelling in the sheer freedom and adventure it offered.
I remember one moment in particular, gliding between two peaks on Forest Haven island, still early on in things, the wind carrying me, the sea and landscape spread out all around, and it felt, briefly, almost too much. It felt like games had never given me such bright experiences and might never give me them in quite the same way ever again.
Wrong, of course. Because this is still just the Online service stuff. If you have the two recent Zelda games, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, they’ll be on your homescreen too, along with paid upgrades – free if you’re a member of Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack – which boost them in all sorts of ways and make them feel a little bit new again.