Wait, didn’t this game come out when the Wii U was still a thing?
Yes, it did. But Nintendo knows its fans have the collective memory of a goldfish and a wallet that is far too heavy. They have dragged this Wii U relic onto the Switch, and now they want a little tip for making it look slightly less blurry on your shiny new Switch 2. It is the circle of life in the Nintendo ecosystem: buy, wait, buy again, and then pay a convenience fee to keep playing.
Is five dollars really a big deal for a technical upgrade?
It is the principle of the matter. Other companies call this a patch. Nintendo calls it a revenue stream. They have basically turned your gaming library into a subscription service where you pay a cover charge every time a new piece of plastic hits the shelves. They are charging you for the labor of ticking a box in a settings menu that enables a higher resolution.
Should I take the bait on this digital sale?
If you enjoy jumping through hoops like a circus animal to save twenty bucks, go for it. You have to buy the digital Switch version, then navigate the eShop to find the Switch 2 upgrade pack, all to avoid the sixty-five dollar sticker price on the native version. It is a convoluted dance designed to make you feel like a savvy consumer while you still hand over forty-five dollars for a decade-old space opera.
The real joke here is not just the price tag. It is the fact that the industry has conditioned us to get excited about deals on games that should have been backward compatible and enhanced for free from day one. We are praising a company for discounting a port of a port. This is the state of modern gaming: digging through the couch cushions for a five-dollar bill so your mechs can have slightly better textures. If you really need to see a giant robot in 4K that badly, you might want to reevaluate your life choices before you hit the checkout button.
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