Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Knuckles-Fajita Oh wow, that's news to me.

Just checked and it's by Cygames Osaka now. If I'm not mistaken this is the same developer working on Project Awakening.

Mary Skelter 2 is coming to the Switch in NA/Europe.

It's amazing watching this mass migration of fanservice games to historically puritanical Nintendo.

I just put in an order for the FFX/X-2 collection on Amazon JP! I'm both excited and nervous at the same time, lol (excited because FFX was one of the definitive games of my youth, but nervous to see if it'll really hold up since it's been about 15 years since I played it on PS2). It'll also be weird going back to a JRPG with random encounters since every one I've played in the past few years has ditched the concept.

Decided to pick up Mario Odyssey again last night after not playing it for about a year or so. It's amazing how even after not playing it for a year I can pick up as if I left off the other day. Most games if I do that I usually have to start over cause I forgot what I was doing or don't remember the story lol. Odyssey I was just able to pick it up and continue.

My copy of X/X-2 HD arrived yesterday. I have to say that it really looks good cleaned up, and it's bringing up all sorts of nostalgic feelings! Still in the opening act though (was just brought on board that Al Bhed ship after they find you at the ruins). Can't wait to get more into it.

@Tasuki yeah Odyssey has great pick up and play value. I play for 20 mins every now and then to pick up a few moons or if my nephew is round cuz it's such a joy to just have a little run around in that world

Well, I’m waiting for a flight and I just cleared the Grudo Guardian. Finally made some progress in Breath of the Wild and used the Switch as a portable console. Now we’ll see if the fact that not sure if I slept at all last night or Zelda will win on the flight. It was a neat set piece. It’s a little janky in keeping within the safe zone for lightning, but I cleared it only getting hit once.
I also have SSB and Cave Story with me, so I might give one of those a try too. I’ll have like 6 hours on both of my flights.

Played around with the Smash Bros Ultimate VR content for awhile today.

On one hand you have to wonder why they picked some of the stages they did to translate over (stages like Mushroom Kingdom 64 & WarioWare give you no reason to look around, and only have a 180° view), but on the other hand stages that move around an environment a lot (Mario Circuit, Pilotwings, Wuhu Island, and Delfino Isle, from what I've tried) work suprisingly well and give a 360° view to boot. Pilotwings & Wuhu Island in particular move quick enough & with enough verticality that I even got a light roller coaster like butterfly sensation.

Not revolutionary by any means, but it's worth coming back to more than the Odyssey or BotW content due to the pick up & play nature of the title.

I have to say, it obviously doesn't hold a candle to PSVR (duh), but for $40 I'd say it's a good budget option now that beyond it's own software, three major first party titles support it, even a third party title has been announced for it, and more might be on the way since Unity has announced support.

It's funny how different Pokemon S/S seem after that Direct.

The towns across the region are connected by an enormous, open world-y area where the bulk of the wild Pokemon reside. True random battles seem to be fully gone: as in LGPE, Pokemon wander the map, and there's an occasional random battle when you encounter exclamation points in the environments.

I havn't seen the direct yet.. does it look good though? it sounds pretty good.

@kyleforrester87 Looks amazing, honestly. Not quite the "full BotW" people were unrealistically hoping for, but having a semi-open world feel to it is going to be really cool.

There's a new mechanic called Dynamaxing where Pokemon grow kaiju-sized and battle each other, which seems like the "weird gimmick" of this game. It's incredibly weird and funny looking, though, so, unlike Mega-Evolution, I'm actually looking forward to it. There are also co-op raids where players can get together and fight super-powered Dynamaxed Pokemon they find in the open world area.

Very impressed with what was revealed. Dynamaxing sure looks like the gimmick of this game, but based on what was described it could be more interesting and strategic than Z-moves or mega evolution were. It certainly looks great from a visual perspective and will hopefully make the stadium-esque gym battles far more dynamic and exciting.

Not sure how much longer Game Freak could have got away with the traditional narrow routes linking cities - especially on hardware as powerful as the Switch - so it's brilliant that the environments are so much bigger than before. They look a bit like the areas in Xenoblade Chronicles or Final Fantasy XII from a size perspective. Anyone expecting a Breath of the Wild type environment was being unrealistic and only setting themselves up for disappointment.

Raids look like a very interesting addition, but less thrilled that it's the only way to catch some Pokémon if it means paying for Nintendo's woeful online service.

I just watched the direct and I’m pretty hyped for this now. I’ve not played a Pokemon game since Blue (tried one on 3DS but couldn’t get into it really). This looks like it’ll be a lot of fun though - day 1!

@mookysam FFXII is a good comparison. That also has a balance of more narrow "routes" with larger, more open areas. And, to be honest, I think that's probably a good fit for Pokemon. This is starting to look like a true, home console version of the famous handheld RPG series.

@kyleforrester87 Y @kyleforrester87 Yatta! Day One for me as well. In fact, since I'm preloading it, I'll likely be up at midnight waiting to play it, like I was with Smash Ultimate.

I love the games, but the series was getting a little... been there, done that? Sun and Moon were a big technical step up, but I felt like they were always dragging me around by the ear, so to speak. The Let's Go games... I'm still working on them, but, unfortunately, they're kind of boring.

Sword/Shield look incredibly fun, though. Clearly they give you space to explore. The co-op raid mechanic seems neat. It's pretty stunning looking compared to previous titles. I can't wait to finally play whichever version I happen to get.

@Ralizah looking at the map I don’t get the impression the wild areas will be all that big (or that there will be many of them) unless the scale is deliberately all over the place. I don’t imagine they’ll be as large or plentiful as XBC or FF12s, which isn’t a problem of course, it’s what you can do in them that counts and the dynamic nature of them is interesting to me.

@kyleforrester87 I thought about that, too, but, from the trailer, it seems like there's at least a few different types of biomes. We'll see when it releases, of course. There are a few large-ish looking expanses on the map.

It sort of reminds me of the Safari Zone from Gen 1, but several orders of magnitude larger, and probably without weird rules of conduct.

On that note, I've been playing FFXII on Switch recently. A lot of the environments are a good deal more narrow than I remembered. Granted, you do have a couple of staggeringly spacious areas, but a lot of the environments wouldn't be out of place in FFX.

@mookysam, I read somewhere that you have the option of playing the Dynamax Raid battles with 3 AI partners if you can't play with other people online or IRL.

Anyow, here's my guess of how Nintendo published titles will roll out the rest of the year. NOTE: all releases through August have been confirmed.

June: Super Mario Maker 2, Dragon Quest Builders 2 (Nintendo self publishes all DQ games on their platforms)
July: Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3
August: Astral Chain
September: Link's Awakening, Daemon X Machina.
October: Luigi's Mansion 3.
November: Pokemon S/S, DQXIS (again, on the DQ on Nintendo thing).
December: Animal Crossing

So, a pretty full rest of the year on Nintendo published titles, though there's always the chance they could squeeze in a Wii U port or new smaller budget game in one of the months with only one game, as they've had plenty of two game months before (BotW + 12Switch Mar '17, SMO + FE Warriors Oct '17, Bayonetta 1&2 + DQB Feb '18, LABO kits 01 + 02 Apr '18, Hyrule Warriors + DKCTF May '18, Mario Tennis + Sushi Striker June '18, Octopath Traveller + Captain Toad + Go Vacation July '18, Torna + LABO kit 03 Sept '18, NSMBU + Fitness Boxing Jan '19, Mario Maker 2 + DQB2 June '19, FE: TH + MUA3 July '19).

If it does end up anything like that there'll definitely be a couple months with some tough choices!

@RR529 I dunno, I hope Daemon x Machina gets delayed into next year. It needs work. The demo was kind of rough.

Anyway, I'm fully expecting a Pikmin 3 port. Hopefully with the announcement of Pikmin 4 being due out next year.