SNES Games on Switch 2 Now Look Exactly How You Remember Them

If you grew up playing video games in the 80s or 90s, you may have a problem with return to these titles now. Try to play Super Mario world Or Kong donkey On your 65 -inch 4K television is not quite the same experience as you had it during your childhood, especially if you simply connect your old console to your TV.

Of course, technology has advanced significantly Since the age of Super Nintendo, but the truth is that these games always look great. It is less how much these titles have aged, and more of the way you experience them in 2025. The games of that time were simply not designed to be played on high definition screens, whether it is a huge television or your portable switch. Nintendo’s most recent update shows why.

This week, Nintendo has updated the Nintendo Classics application on Switch 2. As part of this update, SNES Games now have a CRT filter updated. As its name suggests, this filter reproduces the experience of displaying the game via a CRT TV, with scan lines and intertwining. If you remember what it was to play games on these types of televisions, the filter will bring you back – and show you how these 30 -year games are really supposed to look.

What is the problem with scan lines?

Modern televisions are made up of pixels – individual sources of colors that can together form an image. CRTs, however, have no pixels. Instead, CRT screens are made up of horizontal lines, “drawn” one both by an internal electronic gun pulling on the display. (Yes, the CRTs are very cool.) The standard allowed 480 of these lines to be traced every second. Either half of the lines are traced at the same time, alternating between the uniform and odd lines (intertwined video), or half of the lines are always empty, while the other half are still active (progressive video).

It is an excessive simplification, but here is the result: when a console like SNES takes out a progressive video, you see these virgin lines cross the image. These are commonly called scan lines.

This is the display that standard game developers worked at the time and, as such, their work was designed with it in mind. When you play a retro game, in art pixel style on a modern Television, especially if this game has been optimized for a modern system like Switch 2, you can see each individual pixel in this work. It is interesting to see how art has been done, and the game is perfectly playable in this form, but it is often not how artists originally planned so that this art is seen.

When this same pixel art is displayed on a CRT, or via a CRT filter, the intertwining mixes these pixels. What you find is a less clear image, but which could actually be more pleasant to the eye. The perfect image of the pixel without filter may seem too in block, but through the scan lines, these blocks mix in the image it is supposed to represent. As a person who remembers the age of CRTS too well, the CRT filter just looks SO GOOD. Polygon has good examples side by side here if you want a visual.

Now this does not mean that these SNES games are unplayable without the filter. The games themselves are upgraded to play on modern consoles and screens, are always beautiful. It’s not like connecting an SNES to your 4K TV using composite cables: I will take a sharp pixel art without the CRT filter on switch 2 on this blurred disorder any day. If you prefer the sharp look, go for it. But for those of us who want to live these games closer to the way they looked back during the day, the CRT filter is where it is.

How to use the CRT filter of the switch

To use the CRT filter, you will need to subscribe to Nintendo Switch online. From there, open the SNES Classics application, access the settings and choose “CRT Filter”. This is available on the original switch and switch 2, but Polygon says it looks better on it.

The CRT filter was also an option for Nintendo 64 and GameCube games on Switch 2, for subscribers from Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack.