Captain Toad is Great on Switch... But 3DS Is The Real Surprise

[Music] with the success of switch Nintendo has wasted little time in porting most of its Wii U back catalog over to the new machine and with captain toad treasure tracker the trend seems to be alive and well and that's a great thing treasure tracker is one of the Wii U's most enjoyable games sure it's ultimately derived from a minigame in Super Mario 3d World but it holds up on its own with a whole host of fun puzzles beautiful visuals and a superb realisation of the Wii U dual screen concept but this is no ordinary port Nintendo is releasing the game simultaneously on switch and the 3ds that's right in ten days last generation portable is still thriving and the release of captain toad across these two new platforms is more fascinating than you might first think the reason it's basically a study in adapting a game designed for a very specific piece of hardware to two very different platforms you see the original game is designed to utilize the Wii U and its gamepad concept you control toad using the analog stick and face buttons of course but the game often involves manipulating objects on a touchscreen during gameplay so there are two elements to consider here when approaching this port visuals and control on switch there's certainly no issues in terms of replicating to its presentation but its control system presents a challenge basically when playing the system on a television and docked mode touch input is no longer available sure in handheld it's no problem but how do you handle touch input when docked this problem is inverted on Nintendo 3ds the touch aspect is no longer a problem at all you have dual screens just like the Wii U and the bottom screen features touch support however this is a portable system which predates the Wii U thus visual compromise is inevitable moreover replicating the touch screen elements of the Wii U game means that the system must now render the 3d visuals on both the top and bottom screens simultaneously which only further increases the technical challenge of porting the game so how didn't intend to solve these issues and how does each version stack up against Wii U well let's start with the presentation on switch as suggested this really seems like it was no problem for the hardware visually speaking it's a rather straightforward conversion I think on Wii U captain toad is a 720p game just like most of the consoles library really when played in docked mode on the switch however resolution is increased to a full 1080p while handheld mode targets the native 720p of the switches internal screen instead there is one oddity I noticed however the included boss stage in the demo features this heat haze effect which appears to be rendered at a lower resolution pixel counts suggest that we're in the realm of 720p here during this section compared to the Wii U version switch looks nearly identical in this one specific stage while it's obviously much sharper elsewhere this effect is magnified when played in portable mode where it's even muddier that's really it though the rest of the visuals appear virtually identical to the original game but that doesn't mean it wasn't ported with care things like the user interface graphics for instance are enhanced now and displayed at a full 1080p which helps avoid blurry text and icons so the whole presentation just feels more cohesive and polished so yeah it's an understated game visually but the subtle lighting and use of shadows still impressed today we can't wait to see some of the later stages at full 1080p on the switch but the real question here is one of interface how exactly do you handle touch controls without a touchscreen the solution is a pointer system basically using the gyro controls featured on both the pro controller and the joy con players can manipulate a large cursor around the screen you simply point at interactive objects which would normally be controlled by touch and hit the action button that's it the cursor replicates the touch experience the results are mixed however it works well enough but never feels quite as satisfying as the original touch controls the pointer itself isn't as refined as what Nintendo fans are used to either the original Wii system for instance relies on infrared enabling super snappy pointer action as long as you stay in the window gyro pointer manipulation feels somewhat floaty in comparison especially when using the pro controller + C in the pointer on-screen at all times even when it's not needed is distracting since it always kind of moves around with your hands thankfully if you do prefer touch controls that option is still available in the portable mode but I'm of the opinion that the dock experience isn't quite as enjoyable as the original Wii U game a pointer system is the only real answer I suppose but it just doesn't feel refined and if you are going with docked mode I definitely recommend sticking with the Joye con is it's the only solution that feels natural while playing the pro controller just isn't good as a pointer now of course naturally on 3ds this is no problem at all you can manipulate objects just like the Wii U original by touching the secondary screen the challenge on 3ds centers more on porting over its visuals you see this is a Wii U game first and foremost and Nintendo up to the challenge of courting the game by displaying 3d graphics on both screens simultaneously it's an impressive feat and really it works a lot better than you might expect it looks great that said texture detail shader quality and geometry complexity among other things have all taken a noticeable hit on the 3ds but on the small display it manages to hold up a lot better than you might expect as a late generation 3ds game captain toad is a surprising showpiece for the system it's one of the most attractive 3ds games I've played and it looks fantastic when using the 3d feature especially if you're playing on a new Nintendo 3ds so detail and lighting are stripped back but what other compromises have been made in bringing the game to Nintendo's portable system well this is where we get into performance which means it's frame rate grid time oh baby that's beautiful grid right there now before we talk about 3ds performance we have to look at the game on Wii U and switch you see captain toad is a 60fps game full-stop like many of Nintendo's games over the past few years toad simply does not drop frames it's a constrained game of course so maintaining a higher frame rate is a little less surprising but it's still great to see nonetheless based on my experience with this demo then this applies to both the docked and handheld modes there's always an off chance that some larger stage later in the final game will exhibit a skipped frame or two but based on what we've seen in the past this seems highly unlikely now on 3ds I took the time to manually go through this bit of footage frame by frame just to confirm what is already clear as day it's 30 frames per second and hey that's pretty much what you would expect right after all Super Mario 3d Land is 30 FPS as well and this being a port of a Wii U game something had to give even still the results are pretty solid afterall the game is displaying 3d graphics on two different screens in addition to supporting stereoscopic 3d on the top display and for those wondering I did take a moment to test the game out on a 3ds XL in addition to the new 3ds as a late generation game I was kind of expecting some sort of enhancement for the newer system but looking at the two versions side-by-side it seems that visual quality is identical oh well but wait I don't think this is enough 3ds systems how about the original 3ds yep it still looks the same as well or how about the ultra comfortable Nintendo 2ds that's not bad either right I suppose I still need to pick up a new 3ds XL and a new 2d s if I want to catch them all as a regular traveler I can kind of understand why they implemented region locking on this system the main benefit of playing on a new 3ds is the super stable 3d feature then which allows the stereoscopic mode to function more reliably without shifting in and out of view based on your hand with the isometric nature of this game this is one feature I do recommend using it looks great in 3d now stepping back though the thing that really hits home about captain toad is just how well it stands the test of time so I first wrote about the game all the way back in late 2014 this is before we were even doing proper edited videos like the one you're watching now by the way near the end of the article then I noted that this is the type of game that will remain fun to play years down the line well after the Wii U's off the market and the product you get on the disc is all you'll need in that sense Nintendo is still delivering products today just as they have for decades and almost flawless consistency that's a rare and precious thing it's now almost four years later and I still stand by that statement you have to remember that this was just after a year of games launching broken with tons of patches yet captain toad was launched in a completely polished state again it's a more simplistic game but the point still stands captain toad is still a lot of fun today and it still looks great this is the kind of game where even if it ended up on a PC or an xbox 1x today it would still look and play great when people ask about that Nintendo magic this is the kind of thing that they're usually talking about even if they can't quite put it into words I know it sounds silly to say all this for a little puzzle game but I've always loved captain toad and it's great to see it returned on newer systems visually it's better on switch and it plays nearly as well if you can get over the lack of touch controls but it's the 3ds version that kind of surprises the most I never would have guessed back in 2014 the 3ds would not only outlive the Wii U but receive ports of Wii U games it's certainly not quite on par with the original release of course but considering the platform differences it really manages to hold up pretty well one curious thing to mention here is while we're just looking at the demo there's plenty of info out there on the final release and one cool addition is the inclusion of new maps and puzzles based on Super Mario Odyssey but here's the thing apparently Nintendo has removed content as well basically in the extra in the original game you can unlock stages from Super Mario 3d World to explore as toad provided you have Super Mario 3d World save data on your Wii you these are apparently missing on switch and 3ds now it's not too surprising since they don't really fit in with the rest of the game you're basically just walking around large Mario stages without any real puzzles to solve but it was still a neat little bonus and I would have liked to see it here that said I'd still rather see new puzzles so it's not necessarily a bad trade-off just a strange one the last point to discuss here then should be pretty obvious at this point captain toad treasure tracker is based on work done for Super Mario 3d World on the Wii U thus the introduction of this portal switch suggests that maybe just maybe we'll see 3d world as well after all 3d world is a perfect fusion of 2d and 3d Mario and it's still every bit as brilliant today as it was back in 2013 since Nintendo is basically wheeling out the full Wii U catalog at this point on the switch they may as well finish the job and bring over games like 3d world as well anyways that's all for now if you enjoyed this look at captain toad treasure tracker be sure to let us know by liking subscribing ringing the bell up there and even following us on Twitter oh I know that's a lot but hey that's all for now though until next time this is Jon signing off [Music]

Channel: Digital Foundry

Views: 287,412

Keywords: Captain Toad, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, Treasure Tracker, Captain Toad Switch, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker Switch, Captain Toad 3DS, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker 3DS, graphics comparison, visual comparison, head to head comparison, frame-rate, framerate, frame rate, 60fps, 30fps, 3DS, Switch, Wii U, captain toad: treasure tracker, nintendo switch, digital foundry, nintendo switch captain toad, captain toad treasure tracker demo, captain toad treasure tracker switch demo

Id: iq0N-AsZ8Vo

Length: 12min 36sec (756 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 26 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/AwesomeManatee]

The biggest difference for the Switch version is actually not the graphics, but the controls. Pointer controls are mandatory for docked mode due to the Wii U version making heavy use of the touch screen.

[u/IntellegentIdiot]

A port of Mario 3D world has to be in development surely? How can you have the spin-off ported but not the original?

Hearing Double Cherry Pass on this video just makes me sad that more people didn't play this game.

[u/Aegon_the_Conquerer]

So, if I hated the original mini-game version of this, will I hate this game too?

[u/Brandonspikes]

I know this would never happen, but it would be fantastic if they could do a firmware update that would let the Wii U game pad natively work on Switch.