Borderlands 3 was lovingly tweaked for the Switch, and plays like a dream. Nintendo Switch screenshot captured by the author.

My Three Favorite “Impossible” Switch Ports

True tech wizardry

In a couple of days, the Switch 2 will launch, bringing Nintendo’s ancient hardware slightly closer to the concept of “modern,” while also going all-in on a weird webcam.

The original Switch launched way back in 2017, burdened with a power efficient Nvidia mobile chip that wasn’t ever meant for high end gaming. The online conversation around most new Switch games usually drifts to performance concerns, with recent games from big franchises like Zelda and Pokemon suffering from noticeable frame rate drops and graphics that don’t quite have that usual Nintendo sheen.

In my mind, the Switch is still a tiny miracle, even with the recent technical problems. It should never have worked as well as it does. It uses just a few watts of power to deliver amazing games. Sometimes, developers have even pushed it hard, delivering ports of titles from other systems that should never have fit comfortably within a portable power envelope.

Here are my three favorite Switch games that truly push the hardware. There’s a bunch more of these out there, and I know at least one of my picks was rather overlooked, so if your personal favorite is missing below then please tell me about it by clicking the response button.