Games Inbox: Can the Nintendo Switch 2 run any PS5 game?

The Monday letters page thinks the Tomb Raider franchise has been badly managed, as one reader looks forward to Chibi-Robo and other GameCube games on Switch.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Unknown power
So not only can Switch 2 handle Star Wars Outlaws after all but apparently Elden Ring might turn out all right too, according to new reports. I think there’s two things to learn from this: publishers are their own worst enemies, and the Switch 2 can probably handle most current gen games.

I don’t know if it can do something as high-end as GTA 6 but Outlaws is no slouch and all the videos I’ve watched it seems to be handling things pretty well. So I don’t see any reason that it couldn’t run most PlayStation 5 games. It’s never going to be the best version of anything like that, especially in terms of frame rate, but I don’t know that most normal people would see any difference.

Not only has Ubisoft and Bandai Namco done a bad job here but so has Nintendo too. They’ve done nothing to give any indication of how much more powerful the Switch 2 is than the Switch 1 and I would’ve thought that would make a useful marketing detail. They haven’t done it though and I’m really not sure why.
Segal

One of three
RE: Gears Of War: Reloaded It seems strange playing this on a PlayStation console, but I see the console wars as dead anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

I haven’t played this in years, and it is just as good as I remember it. Everything about this game is polished and it was the template for third person shooters and I personally love the banter and everything between the bros. but it isn’t just a dumb shooter and mixes up the gameplay. It’s an absolute classic. I know this was an easy port, as they just ported the Xbox One version, but I hope they do 2 and 3.
Simon

GC: They’ve hinted that they will.

Sci-fi horror
I’m very conflicted at the moment, because I find your reviews to be very fair. Over the years you are my go-to for your absolute brilliant reviews (from Teletext days), however… I feel you have made a huge mistake with Cronos: The New Dawn, I think you have absolutely given it a bad score because it has used a lot of mechanics from other games, what survival horror game hasn’t!?

To give this game such a poor score is very surprising, given the obvious love that has been poured into the game. Is the combat bad? No, it absolutely is not, the atmosphere is for the most part outstanding, the pacing and difficulty is 100% what this genre should strive for! If this game is (4/10) how did Dead Space get released!?
Nick

GC: We’ve never been particularly big fans of Dead Space either.

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Official releases
I’m hoping you or your readers can assist me with the best way to play retro games from my childhood and teens. That means arcade classics such as Robotron: 2084 and Star Wars to Spectrum games, such as Underwurlde and Lords Of Midnight. Should I buy an Evercade EXP-R, or one of the handheld consoles promising 5,000+ games?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Rich

GC: Anything promising 5,000+ games is just pirating them. Evercade hardware is generally good, although as we mentioned in a recent Star Wars article there is currently no easy way to the play the original Atari coin-op on a modern format. There hasn’t been a Williams compilation for quite a while now either, but Underwurlde is now included in Rare Replay, where there’s an official mobile version of Lords Of Midnight.

Opposite approach
If Metroid Prime 4 is a big hit I wonder if Nintendo will try and give it a big push again, with new spin-offs. They went pretty crazy with that in the GameCube era, although the only good one was the pinball game. The problem is there’s not really any characters in the game, except Samus, that anyone likes and she barely ever talks.

I thought some sort of squad-based game could work, like Full Spectrum Warrior but sci-fi. But then I realised that was basically Metroid Prime: Federation Force, which everyone hated. Not that they were wrong, but Nintendo went about it in the worst way possible. If they tried to make it more realistic and less cartoony I could still see it being fun.

Or maybe go in the opposite direction and make a straight third person shooter. Something fast-paced, with some Star Fox style spaceship sections. It’d be the opposite of the slow exploration of the main games, so I think that could be interesting.
Dalilah

Bad management
The problem with Tomb Raider, as you lay out in your feature, is that Lara Croft is no longer a video game character, she’s just become a homeless mascot that is rented out to other games to remind you of the 90s. The reboot trilogy wasn’t awful, but it made the series very few new fans, especially the last one, and was forgotten about very quickly.

Which means the last memorable entry was still one of the PS1 games. I’d actually make an argument for Tomb Raider as being of the worst managed video game franchises ever. It doesn’t get as much heat as something like Sonic, and doesn’t have many completely terrible games, but considering how famous it used to be it really has dropped the ball.

The reboot trilogy just turned itself into a third person shooter, more like Uncharted than actual Tomb Raider games. All the games should’ve been putting Lara as the number one priority and making sure she’s interesting and likeable. Instead, they just made her miserable and boring.

What are they even going to do for the new live action show when adapting her? There’s nothing to work with there and she’s meant to be the centre of the whole franchise.

I really think the whole series might be beyond saving. You can make anything work with the right team, but with all the cuts at Crystal Dynamics I can’t imagine morale is exactly sky high there at the moment. So the chances of them being on top of their game is going to be low.
Solar

Going nowhere
I haven’t written in for a long while and I don’t know if this will even be published but I needed to ask a question. I tried to look up GC’s review on Read Dead Redemption 2 (I’ve just got round to playing it) to see that it has been erased, scrubbed or whatever the term is. Can you tell me why this is?

I remember reading it at the time but as I’ve just gotten around to playing it, I wanted to reference what you had to say.
SolidPete82

GC: We’re not sure where you were looking but it’s right here. Although our re-review a year later, with the PC version, was a little less enthusiastic.

Excitement cubed
GameCube cult classic, Chibi-Robo arriving on the Nintendo Online Service was the best gaming related news for me in months, next to the surprise Hollow Knight: Silksong release date announcement (big Hollow Knight fan here).

I’ve been craving to play this delightfully peculiar looking GameCube exclusive for so long now, but a non-Japanese copy tenaciously commands prices of upwards of £200 on eBay.

So the fact that we can finally experience it for comparatively next to nothing on Switch 2 is wonderful news, and a huge plus for retro gaming preservation.

I kept on thinking about a modern Chibi-Robo during the Hero’s Hideaway level in the Pikmin 4, with its stunningly scaled and realised idyllic home setting, which was easily my favourite area in the game.

With Chibi-Robo’s imminent re-release now, I think the chances of the floodgates for more obscure GameCube titles re-emerging may have just increased considerably.

I’d personally like to see the likes of the Viewtiful Joes, killer7, P.N.03, Wario World, Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg, Custom Robo, Gatcha Force, Eternal Darkness, Geist, Battalion Wars, Odama, Doshin The Giant et al. make the switch to a more current platform.
Galvanized Gamer

Inbox also-rans
Pour one out of the good old 3DS. It never reached the heights of the DS but I thought it was a good portable console. I even liked the 3D effect. RIP Nintendo’s last dedicated portable.
Focus

I will never understand why Sony didn’t make it so you could play Dreams games without owning the parent game. It could’ve been so massive if they’d only done that. Didn’t want to be sued by Nintendo and others I guess though.
Watson

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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