SNES Games on Switch 2 Now Look Just Like You Remember Them
If you grew up playing video games in the ’80s or ’90s, it can be hard to go back to them now. Playing Super Mario World or Donkey Kong Country on a 65-inch 4K TV isn’t quite the same as it was when you were a kid, especially if you just plug in an old console.
Sure, technology has advanced a lot since the Super Nintendo days, but the truth is, these games still look great. It’s not so much how dated they are, but how you experience them in 2025. Games from that era simply weren’t designed to be played on a high-definition screen, whether it’s a huge TV or a portable Switch. Nintendo’s latest update shows why.
This week, Nintendo updated the Nintendo Classics app on the Switch 2. As part of the update, SNES games received an updated CRT filter . As the name suggests, this filter simulates the image on a CRT TV screen, including scan lines and interlacing. If you remember what it was like to play games on such TVs, this filter will take you back in time and show you what games from 30 years ago should actually look like.
What’s wrong with scan lines?
Modern televisions are made up of pixels — individual sources of color that work together to form an image. But CRT displays don’t have pixels. Instead, CRT displays are made up of horizontal lines that are “drawn” one at a time by an internal electron gun aimed at the display. (Yes, CRTs are really cool.) The standard allowed for 480 of these lines to be drawn per second. Either half the lines were drawn at once, alternating between odd and even (interlaced video), or half the lines were always blank and the other half were always active (progressive video).
This is a gross oversimplification, but here’s the gist: When a console like the SNES outputs progressive scan video, you’ll see blank lines in the image. These are commonly referred to as scan lines.
This was the display standard that game developers were working with at the time, and so their artwork was designed with that standard in mind. When you play a retro pixel art game on a modern TV, especially if that game is optimized for a modern system like the Switch 2, you can see every single pixel in that artwork. It’s interesting to see how those graphics were made, and they’re playable, but they often don’t look like what the artists originally intended.
When the same pixel art is displayed on a CRT monitor or through a CRT filter, the interlacing blends those pixels together. The result is an image that is less sharp, but perhaps more pleasing to the eye. A pixel-perfect image without the filter might look too blocky, but the raster lines help those blocks blend into the image it’s supposed to represent. As someone who remembers the CRT era well, the CRT filter looks absolutely stunning . If you’re interested in a visual representation, Polygon has some good examples that you can compare side-by-side .
That doesn’t mean these SNES games aren’t playable without the filter, though. The games themselves have been updated for modern consoles and monitors, and they still look great. It’s not like hooking up your SNES to a 4K TV via composite cable; I’d rather have the crisp, pixelated graphics without the Switch 2’s CRT filter than this blurry mess. If you prefer a crisp image, go for it. But for those who want to see these games closer to how they used to look, the CRT filter is the way to go.
How to Use Switch CRT Filter
To use the CRT filter, you’ll need to subscribe to Nintendo Switch Online . Open the SNES Classics app, go to Settings, and select “CRT Filter.” The feature is available on both the original Switch and Switch 2, but Polygon says it looks better on the latter.
The CRT filter is also available in Nintendo 64 and GameCube games on Switch 2 for subscribers of the Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion bundle.