Nier: Automata’s Native Nintendo Switch Port Has Kingdom Hearts Fans Fuming

“How tf could Square get Nier to run at 1080p at 30fps but couldn’t bother to make a native port of Kingdom Hearts LMFAO,” one Twitter user wrote.

“You cannot tell me a Kingdom Hearts native port isn’t possible when looking at how NieR will run 1080p on dock for the Switch,” another replied.

Of course, the Kingdom Hearts games are already available on the Switch, via streaming cloud technology meant to serve as a workaround to run games that are too demanding for the handheld console’s hardware. Though the prospect of having Sora and crew on the go was a dream come true for fans, those cloud-streaming Switch ports turned out to be a nightmare.

Since the launch of the Switch cloud versions of Kingdom Hearts in February, players have reported serious latency issues and start-up crashes. The cloud ports played so terribly for some die-hard Kingdom Hearts fans that they straight-up advised other players not to buy the games on the Switch.

It’s hard to blame Kingdom Hearts fans for getting upset that Square Enix gave a predominantly PlayStation 2-era game the lackluster cloud port treatment while Nier: Automata, a full-on PlayStation 4 title, is getting a native Switch port.

“I gotta’ imagine this is because [Tetsuya] Nomura has always had the KH team handle the ports directly and they’re busier now whereas PlatinumGames has the bandwidth,” YouTuber Liam Allen-Miller tweeted. “But yeah not a great look, especially for the PS2 titles.”

Kotaku reached out to Square Enix and Nintendo for comment.

Time will tell whether Platinum Games’ award-winning action-RPG will suffer the same fate as Kingdom Hearts when it comes to its Switch performance. If it does, I’m sure some players will make a meta real-world gameplay challenge out of it, kinda like they already do in the existing versions by sabotaging their HUDs. Maybe this is the dawn of the crappy framerate challenge.

Nier: Automata The End of YoRHa Edition launches on Nintendo Switch on October 6 for $40, and is already up for preorder on the eShop.