Is the GTA Trilogy Fixed on Switch?

With the GTA 6 Trailer releasing yesterday, I thought it was a good opportunity to push forward this article/video I had sitting in drafts, to see what the GTA Trilogy runs like now after its somewhat tumultuous launch in November 2021.

The release of the “GTA Definitive Edition” was a disaster with absurd glitches, washed-out textures, and PC players not even being able to access the game due to the launcher going offline for 28 hours. The games were developed with the Unreal Engine 4 and AI was used to render textures, before being manually edited, meaning some were missed resulting in some weird character textures and signs. Weather effects like rain simply blinded the player with hyperactive bloom making it near impossible to navigate unless there were clear skies.

It almost seemed like the new Dev team of Grove Street Games, simply ran the games through some basic software and sent it out to die. To make matters worse, the initial release was met with immediate backlash, spurred on by comments from Rockstar stating the Trilogy “did not launch in a state that meets our own standards of quality, or the standards our fans have come to expect.”

Take-Two CEO, Strauss Zelnick, would later anger fans further by stating that the errors were just a “glitch” and the title “did just great” for the company. This backlash resulted in the rumored Red Dead Redemption remaster being canned in favour of a straight port, which surprisingly launched in a near-perfect state despite no multiplayer and a high price point. Things were certainly looking bad for the GTA Trilogy Definitive Edition.

Fast forward to today, we have had several updates and quality-of-life improvements that have changed the 3 games quite a bit. Let’s take a look at each title individually.

I know your time is precious, and I don’t want to waste it so a bit of a disclaimer is that this won’t be an in-depth technical analysis with graphs and charts, just sections of gameplay recorded of how the GTA Trilogy runs on Switch, so you can see how it is. I recently picked up the Trilogy for about $35 AUD as I was a big fan of the Original GTA 3. What’s the GTA Trilogy Like on Switch these days? Grab your Leather Jacket, Hawaiian Shirt, and White Singlet, as we revisit the GTA Trilogy.

GTA 3

Starting off with my favorite of the Trilogy is GTA 3… A game much harder than I remember! Thankfully, the new control system makes combat much easier and more forgiving with the ability to *kind of* aim like a modern-day 3rd person shooter. The controls feel good although sometimes I found myself having to press the X button a few times to enter cars. The game looks quite nice and during my playtime, I didn’t notice very many graphical glitches that plagued the initial release. I did notice some framerate issues, but nothing too major.

The game itself is a great adventure following the silent protagonist, Claude, as he works to climb the ladder in some of Liberty City’s toughest crime organizations. Some of the dialogue and references have aged poorly, but there’s no denying the cultural significance this game had on modern-day open-world video game structures.

Thankfully, the weather effects and bloom have been improved, making the game look good overall. I did find the cars seemed “soft” when hitting objects and felt the damaged model was much more sensitive than the original. The weapon wheel has a visible box around it that seems like it’s meant to be a full-screen gradient overlay that doesn’t sit in the right spot… It’s these small imperfections that tarnish the legacy of this trilogy. That being said the car and character models look good, the cars handle great, and despite the dialogue audio sounding low quality, GTA 3 is worth your time in its now updated form.

Vice City

Vice City is often touted as the most revered of the Trilogy, featuring some big-name actors, celebrity cameos, and of course, a Flock of Seagulls. The soundtrack is full of quintessential 80’s hits, and the Miami-like Vice City was vibrant and full of life. Vice City was also the most buggy and botched of the Definitive edition trilogy with terrible character models, choppy framerates, and missing textures.

Set in the 80’s, the story starts with a Miami Vice-style ambush leading you to have to find the culprits who ambushed you while paying back the money stolen to the mob.

During my playthrough of Vice City, a lot of the lighting and textures looked great, although I still saw a lot of minor choppy framerate sections and even textures and assets not loading. There’s a blurriness about it all though, and I tested in docked and handheld and the motion blur is prominent in both, especially on the road, and even more so on motorcycles. The damage model seems like a huge improvement over GTA 3 though, and the weapon wheel glitch persists in Vice City. The game is still fun and the other issues that plagued the game at launch like the weather effects and glare appear to be fixed, and general performance has improved.

San Andreas

San Andreas was the most ambitious of the original trilogy with so much more to do than the previous entries in the series. You could work out, or pig out, changing the appearance of the protagonist of the game. First impressions are a bit poorer with title screen images that are pixelated and much more noticeable than in the other 2 games, thankfully this doesn’t impact fun gameplay.

The game manages to deliver a great narrative through varied missions as you play as CJ, who returns to the West Coast following the death of his mum. It’s set in the 90s and follows a lot of twists and turns throughout the main story, as well as an abundance of side quests and activities to do on a significantly larger map.

Some of the same issues appear like the weapon wheel overlay, and the blurring of the roads, I did see a lot of assets struggling to load when moving at speed as well. The framerate is fairly consistent, and the lighting and texture when they load look good. Characters look a bit odd in this one. I noticed in one of the cutscenes on the bike, one of the gang members had a really long neck. When doing hairstyles, CJ’s eyes seemed to go really small, and one of the police officers’ eyes seemed to pop out in the opening cutscene. Most of these glitches occurred in cutscenes and I don’t think it detracts from the game too much. San Andreas is still a playable and enjoyable game but overall seems to lack the most polish.

Overall

There’s no denying these aren’t the best versions of the games as the originals in their unedited formats were so incredibly popular for a reason. But seeing as you can no longer purchase them, and the only version of GTA you can play on Switch is the “Definitive Edition,” I feel like this Trilogy is a good purchase when on sale.

Fans of the series may cringe at some of the changes and character models, but the enjoyment and production value of the gameplay of these games cannot be disputed. Newcomers to GTA will find a good set of games to spend about 100 hours completing should they be so inclined. The updates have certainly made this iteration better, just not Definitive.