Buying Link's Awakening Digitally? Use Internal Storage For Better Performance
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening comes to the Nintendo Switch tomorrow in the form of a gorgeous remake. But it seems the Switch has trouble handling its beauty at times, with frame rate drops and slow load times creeping in to occasionally hamper the experience. Fortunately, there's a way to smooth things out, and it's a rather surprising one.
According to the folks at GameXplain, it seems that a digitally purchased eShop copy of Link's Awakening actually runs better on internal storage as opposed to an SD card. The outlet came to this conclusion after testing "multiple SD cards on multiple Switches" and finding that, on average, frame rates were less likely to dip when Link's Awakening was installed on internal storage.
On top of that, GameXplain discovered that Link's Awakening gets in and out of loading screens a few seconds faster when using internal storage, too; likely because of optimizations made for internal storage that work across the entire Nintendo Switch line.
Normally, you might not notice performance differences in your Nintendo Switch games depending on where they're installed. It just so happens that Link's Awakening is a remake of a Game Boy game and, unfortunately, experiences some graphical hiccups on occasion. Players are paying extra close attention for ways they can squeeze every bit of performance out of the game and their Switch. So if you're not thrilled about the game's performance, this fix could solve some issues for you.
Will Nintendo issue a patch for Link's Awakening at some point? To tell you the truth, we wouldn't be surprised. Past Nintendo titles like Super Mario Odyssey and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe have seemed like works of magic in terms of their performance on the Switch. Link's Awakening isn't exactly what you'd call graphically ambitious, so there may be something going on under the hood that needs to be addressed.
We'll keep you updated about any potential patches coming to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening on Switch. In the meantime, the game launches tomorrow, Sept. 20.