Rejoice, GameCube fans - Nintendo has finally made the dinky little console part of its Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack subscription tier, meaning you can now enjoy select titles on the Switch 2 with bonus quality-of-life features.
Some of these features, including the ability to create restore points and apply a CRT filter, are standard across the whole catalogue. But, just in case you've not yet discovered it for yourself, you can also set select games to be played in widescreen mode.
Of the three titles available at the time of writing (that's Zelda: The Wind Waker, SoulCalibur II, and F-Zero GX), only the latter two can be played in widescreen mode. So yes, that means you're stuck with a 4:3 aspect ratio for The Wind Waker, but don't worry, it still looks banging all these years later.
Activating widescreen mode needs to be done on a per-game basis, so here's how to do it:
F-Zero GX
- Select 'Options' in the main menu
- Select 'Screen Mode'
- Use the analogue stick or d-pad to select 'Wide Screen' as the option. Hit 'A' to confirm
SoulCalibur II
- Select 'Options' in the main menu
- Select 'Display Options'
- Select 'Screen Ratio'
- Use the analogue stick or d-pad to toggle between 4:3 and 16:9
(Note: the screen on SoulCalibur II will look really stretched out when you first activate widescreen mode, but don't worry, it'll look fine during gameplay)
If you've been playing Zelda: The Wind Waker, don't forget you can also remap the camera view controls so that it's not inverted on the X-axis anymore. It makes the game a lot more playable, but do keep in mind that this will likely also interfere with other gameplay mechanics.
It's also been discovered that you can view the original GameCube boot screen when opening up the app on the Switch 2 while holding the left analogue stick in any direction. So cool!