Topic: I don't like the Switch

Ive played it a couple times and every time it felt cheap. Like cheap Chinese plastic. Zelda Breath of the Wild doesn't feel like a real Zelda game. It feels like a generic open world game. What do you guys think?

I’m not a fan of the Joy-Cons at all and I don’t play it enough but it’s by no means a bad console. I can’t really get into Zelda but Mario Odyssey’s even better than the Galaxy games imo. What’s extremely important to note is that these games are far and away bigger than anything that has been seen on a handheld before. Playing the Vita has shown me its limitations and the Switch is a handheld console at its core. Smash is the best one yet and Mario Kart is a classic so local multiplayer is already better than the PS4 by a mile. I do think the big heavy hitters are waiting to be properly shown off though like Metroid Prime 4 should be great and Bayonetta 3 will be a must-buy too. I’ll get round to Xenoblade 2 but the upcoming remaster should be fantastic and there are plenty RPGs to sink your teeth into. I just wish Nintendo would abandon their live service approach and make normal single player games like they used to. Pokemon was ruined by its own greed and there’s too much DLC that costs loads and is never on sale. I think as of this moment, the 3DS is still the best handheld of all time but in a few years, I could see the Switch beating it as long as Nintendo get their act together and start releasing more first-party games.

@Jessiex well it sounds like you don’t actually own one, but nothing about BOTW is generic.

As for the build quality, it is a bit disappointing but I guess for something with removable controllers and the ability to function as both a home console and a handheld that might be expected.

As a home console played with the Pro controller, I love it. As a handheld, I’d probably prefer a Lite (we have one of those in the house).

Breath of the Wild is the most unique open world game I've ever played, so I very much disagree.

Aside from the joycon drifting issue (which is ridiculous, and there's no excuse for), the build quality is fine. Nintendo has always opted for cheaper materials in order to maintain lower prices on their products, and I think that's fine. Not every mobile device needs to be super-expensive and built with premium materials.

It's a great console, and I hope Nintendo continues to champion their new hybrid form factor in future consoles. Try to approach it from a non-Sony fanboy perspective, and you might even find something to like about it!

@Jessiex the Switch is great. I haven't players ours for ages - the same can be said of the Vita and DS in my drawer.

As @nessisonett mentions, it's by far and away the best place for handheld gaming. I personally find it too uncomfortable in handheld mode for long periods, putting the screen down and playing with the joy con's free hand is pretty cool (especially on holiday) and it looks worse than my PS4 Pro on the TV.

It's a great handheld, would have been all over this as a kid. Being a lot older it's not aimed at me - I can't say any of the games I have played have wowed me like Astrobot on PSVR or PES 18. I'm tired of Mario, in a similar way to the Simpsons on TV. You've had your time let's see someone new.

Breath of the wild was alright, others who have put more time into it will crow in that regard, especially with its Goty awards. I had high expectations going in and none of them were met. That said.....

I've Dug a little deeper into Nintendo to see why the games are so loved whilst playing on Dreams and considering making a game. I Dug so deep I found out about how new Mario and Zelda have been developed, the key is the character movement and all of the physics involved - Pages and pages of physics and overworldly maths way above my mental capacity. They spend longer on the player characters feel than anything else. Its the equivalent of the accuracy and pad gameplay effort of the Forza or GT Series. I'm so used to Nintendo games being polished and playable I overlook these key elements as they are always wonderful and glitch free.

@Ralizah Breath of the Wild is indeed unique, unique in the fact that it's one of the few bad Zelda games, so I'll give you that

@nessisonett All the big companies and publishers have moved towards dlc extras. It's here forever now unfortunately mate, Nintendo was the last holdout. L

All we can do is scream the house down if they ever pull a Street Fighter 5 scenario on us in the future.

@Ralizah I think that's the key, Switch is unique and is cheap enough as a complimentary device to enjoy the big games. Reasonably accepting some trade offs in graphics.

@Octane You're confused. I said "Breath of the Wild," the universally acclaimed Switch launch title that sent series' sales soaring to record highs, not "Twilight Princess," a game that spins its wheels for hours on end and where half the people you meet look like deformed hillbillies.

@themcnoisy Nintendo's handhelds have always sold extremely well, but their home consoles just don't have a lot to offer in comparison to Playstation and Xbox consoles (other than the obvious first-party software that have kept them viable for ages now). The Switch was a great way for Nintendo to have their cake and eat it, too: they can enjoy the sort of robust sales that are typical for their handheld devices while still maintaining a presence in the home console space.

And, as you point out, the Switch is complimentary to own no matter what power platform you're a fan of, as it's the only fully portable gaming platform available on the market, and can play scaled down versions of popular home console games in addition to its own exclusive software.

Heaven help Nintendo if they abandon this format for another gimmick people aren't as enthralled with, though.

@Ralizah I mostly played Nintendo until the PS4 so if the Wii U had the same level of 3rd party support, my mind would have been blown. Unfortunately, the Switch was just too little, too late and the ports are seen as a much bigger deal among the fans who remain blind to the fact that the majority are a lazy cash grab with terrible optimisation. For every DOOM, there’s a WWE 2k18.

@nessisonett Nah. That particular wrestling game was trash, but the vast, vast majority of third party ports are fairly well optimized for the platform.

@Ralizah The constant port begging is detrimental to the console’s successful future imo. It’s May and current situation aside, we have plenty games to look forward to on PC, PS4 and next gen but basically 0 indication of where the Switch is going other than some TBA titles that could still be years off. If the fans were interested in moving forward instead of wanting ‘insert game here’ to come to Switch, perhaps the fan base wouldn’t be so vitriolic. It’s ironic too because if Bravely Default 2 or Astral Chain went multiplat then there would have been an outcry.

Not to mention is Switch was outdated before it even came out.

The launch system I got ended up a pile of trash. Both joy cons drift the cheap plastic has melted and the AC adapter ports works when it feels like it. Moreover, the shoulder buttons feel...off and there is no d-pad. The unit is heavy for a handheld, gives cramps in long gaming sessions. The pro controller is not very good.

Makes you wonder how my launch dmg gameboy from 1989 works while cutting edge consoles bites the dust.

However, since I got the Lite model I felt in love. The form factor and the weight is perfect. Yes the triggers and the d-pad are still off but it is a major improvement from the og model.

I get why there is no virtual console on the switch but I always wanted one. As for games they are a mixed bag. There are some excellent jrpgs that I love (not that many exclusives) some ports are lazy but overall there are games to play if you love the portable aspect even if are not very much in first party Nintendo games. Games are overpriced though. I think Switch is more of an unofficial Vita successor than a Wii U/3ds one.

@Jessiex Sounds like you just want to hate on it to be honest. (I guess that makes sense given this topic title in fairness lol)

@kyleforrester87 Maybe @Jessiex is stuck at home with a bunch of passionate Animal Crossing fans, and it's driving them up a wall?

@nessisonett

1) More games coming to a system is never a bad thing.
2) You might not like port begging, but it has clearly proven to be an effective way of convincing companies to port their games to the system. Port begging, like piracy, is primarily the result of a service problem. I guarantee you that if a bunch of games start going to every platform BUT the PS5, Playstation fans will start port-begging like mad. The majority of third party developers who launch Switch versions of their games seem fairly happy with the resulting sales, and so everyone wins.
3) If you really don't like port-begging, blame Capcom and other large companies who positively reinforced the behavior by telling people to beg for a Switch version of a game on Twitter months before launching it. I'm sure it was meant to drum up hype for the ports, but this taught people that they can get what they want by being a nuisance on social media.
4) While it can get out of hand, there's really nothing wrong with port-begging to begin with. If you want something, you have to make sure the people who can give it to you know what you want. Nintendo fans gain nothing by sitting pretty while games bypass their platform. This is also why gyro aiming has become so common in Switch ports of third party games now: people made noise about it on social media, and companies listened.

Nothing new there. Nintendo tends to play their cards close to their chest, and usually won't reveal a game until months before release. Of course, there is the occasional exception (the forementioned TBA titles), but they're the exception to the rule.

I have no idea what "interested in moving forward" means in this context, but, as I've said, there's nothing wrong with skipping games in order to play them on your preferred platform. As I recall, @Kidfried largely passed on the Switch version of Hollow Knight because they preferred to play it on PS4. It's the same reason I largely pass on most third party games I'm interested in on PS4/PC until they're announced for the Switch, like Catherine: Full Body, The Outer Worlds, Disco Elysium, and so on.

Every fanbase is vitrolic. I see fanboy vitriol on here just as much as I see it on NL, for instance.

Console warriors tend not to like losing exclusives. And, honestly, I understand that. You want games to stay on your preferred system so more people will be driven to adopt it. Why do you think people were upset when it was announced that HZD was releasing on Steam?

@Ralizah Honestly, most of that is fair enough. I just feel a bit like Nintendo are using the increased third party support as an excuse not to be putting out more games. Even on Wii U, there were new entries in multiple series, whether good or bad. The Switch had a great first year but there’s been so many rereleases and remasters and not enough originality. I think that’s why Animal Crossing’s been so great, it feels new and pretty much everything has improved compared to the previous entry. Pokemon literally reused 3DS animations and has less content than games released 20 years ago.

I thought that might be where you were going, but didn't want to put words in your mouth.

As a Wii U owner since 2014 who kept current on all major releases, let me tell you: the releases would have been just as slow. We often went long periods of time with nothing to play on the system due to the complete absence of third party support after that first year (when it became clear that most Wii U owners were hardcore Nintendo fans who only wanted to play the core Mario/Zelda releases, and ignored everything else). PS4 would be the same way if all it got were first-party releases. Thus the importance of third party software, and thus, in its absence, the prevalance of port-begging.

Granted, I'm sure SOME properties are absent because of Wii U re-releases. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe is absolutely the reason we haven't had a Mario Kart 9 yet, for example.

lol I won't defend Pokemon. I ate crow when I played the game and it was actually bad. Reused 3DS assets are the least of Sw/Sh's problems, though. Ditto with the Pokedex absences.

The majority of Switch versions of first-party Nintendo games have been very well-received, though. Breath of the Wild (people can call it a Wii U port all they like, but it launched at the same time and sold 90% of its copies on the newer system, so I'm counting it), Super Mario Odyssey, Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Luigi's Mansion 3, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons, in particular, are very highly regarded among their particular fan communities, and often considered the best entries in their respective series and/or outsell previous games in their series. Others were popular and fun but a bit more contentious, like Splatoon 2, Super Mario Maker 2, and Xenoblade Chronicles 2. And then you have stuff like Yoshi's Crafted World, Kirby: Star Allies, ARMS, etc. that pad out the release schedule, but don't set the world on fire.

Switch has also hosted some pretty good third-party exclusives like Octopath Traveler, Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle, and Astral Chain. Hopefully Bravely Default 2 will be able to be added to that list, although the demo doesn't fill me with hope. I wanted for Daemon x Machina to be great, but it didn't really make much of an impact when it arrived.

You might not care for remakes (like Link's Awakening and Xenoblade DE) or Wii U ports, but keep in mind those games are still new for the vast majority of people who own a Switch right now. If you never owned a Wii U, then Mario Kart 8, Captain Toad, DKC: Tropical Freeze, Tokyo Mirage Sessions, etc. might as well be brand new games. And, aside from a few notable exceptions (Pikmin 3 and Super Mario 3D World when, Nintendo?!), these are the cream of the crop, so to speak, from their failed last console that nobody purchased. Again, maybe not ideal for Wii U owners, but most people weren't Wii U owners.

@Arugula Hopefully someone reached for the low-hanging fruit there and made the obvious marijuana joke.

On-topic, I've played every single day since release and have only racked up 130 hours or so. I can't imagine how much your SO would have had to play to hit that number.

My biggest problem with the Switch is the Joycons. They feel so cheap compared to Nintendo's other controllers. I don't like how there's no Dpad and even the analog sticks compared to the sticks on a PS4 or Xbox One controller just feel like cheap third part sticks. Thankfully I got an adapter for my Switch so I can use a PS4 or Xbox One controller on it and not have to deal with the crappy Joycons.

As for Breathe of the Wild yeah I wasn't impressed with that game either. I'd rather play Skyrim over BotW any day but there are a bunch of other great games.

Overall the system isn't bad it just Nintendo dropped the ball when it came to the controllers.

Honestly, I think Breath of the Wild is a fantastic game. However, I do not think it is a good Zelda game. In the attempt to make the game as open as possible in terms of exploration, I feel like they sacrificed the story and character development and general world building. The shrines make sense in a large open world since finding heart pieces would of been a right pain in the rear, but it irked me having puzzles with no actual context or structure. Each shrine to me feels like one puzzle of an actual dungeon; the puzzle may be cool but it is ultimately one room and not very fun to explore.

The four "dungeons" felt very dull. "Go to points A, B, C, D, E then fight boss", it got monotonous very quickly. Not to mention no real exploration due to the small size and the forced gimmick of each dungeon having one giant moving part. Since you are gifted all your major abilities in the first 2 hours of the game, there is no real incentive to open any chests in the dungeons either, especially since I don't think any of the four dungeons actually required keys to get through doors and no cool items to find either to keep gameplay fresh, or for you to rexplore a part of the world. Then the boss fights; "Oh look, a variant of Ganon", very uninspired compared to bosses in other games.

Enemy variety sucks too. The enemies feel as limited as the original Zelda on NES. Which leads into the fact that I feel like what they were going for was reimagining of Zelda 1, which was cool to see, but ultimately not what I want from all future Zeldas. I really hope BOTW 2 addresses these problems.

Regarding the Switch itself... it's fine for me build wise. I normally play docked with pro controller, but portable with joy cons both in hand-held and tabletop feel fine to me. I have not noticed any of this supposed drifting in my joy cons either, although I may just be lucky.