Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@RR529 I’ve really been digging AC, I am on the last boss and had hoped to have it wrapped up before LA (with a view to returning and mopping up down the line) but the last boss is a major difficulty spike. I basically have to restart the file and be more careful with my consumables.

My advice for the final chapter is go in with max items and try not to use any before the final boss

@Kidfried I got LA a day early (so yesterday) and had about an hour with it. I borrowed it back in the day from a friend for a night and that is how much I played it so I am in the group of discovering it for the first time. Not had any major performance issues though I don't like the blurring on the peripherals of the screen. I assume this is deliberate but it feels at odds with the glossy visuals. Dungeons look gorgeous though. Looking forward to getting back on it though!

I had a feeling this art style would be devisive. Intense depth of field (the blurring @Rudy_Manchego noted) is about as divisive as motion blur.

I like it personally. It was a bit intense in something like Yoshi's Crafted World but here it seems right to focus on the games bounding box where all the action is.

Because the camera basically no matter what will keep Link in a box in the middle of the screen. As you change direction it will scroll gradually until Link is at the edge of that box.

@Knuckles-Fajita Yeah, it isn't a game ruiner and I wouldn't mark it down. I think it is because I think the visuals are gorgeous and I'm not sure what it adds other than being noticeable if that makes sense. From a preference point, I would remove it.

@Rudy_Manchego I'm in love with this art style. It looks plasticy but not in the off and bland way NSMBWii did.

Plus all the things like lighting, shadows, particles really make this game pop. It feels like an evolution of the sort of art style ALBW was aiming for, but even more stylised.

Yarn...Clay....Paper crafts...now toys. What next?

@Knuckles-Fajita I would put money on a mechanical/meccano style game for one of their big franchises. In fact, if they do, I want copyright money.

On a separate note, just noticed that Bloodstained has gone on Game Pass. Since I am one of the suckers who didn't both reading reviews of which version to get and bought the Switch, I'm a bit gutted that there still hasn't been a solid patch for the Switch version. I mean, my fault for not paying attention and lesson learned but very tempted to trade it and just play the Xbox version.

Eeee so good to be playing Links Awakening again. I’m only at the start, but 2 decades later it’s awesome to be running round the starting village again. I’m still the boss at the crane game, and I love the kids telling you stuff about the game while not knowing what it means or how they know it 🤷‍♂️😂

You’re never guess looking at the screenshots that Bloodstained would be the kind of resource intensive game that’s best played on the enhanced consoles. @Rudy_Manchego

Started Xenoblade Chronicles 2 the other day. I'm not really feeling it so far. I dislike the battle system compared to the first game, find the UI horrible and feel that in general there is a lack of polish. The framerate seems to have issues and the image is quite soft on the TV.
It took me quite a long time to get into the first Xenoblade Chronicles, so I'm not writing the game off yet. Hopefully the story will draw me in!

@KratosMD Haha, well am going to stick with 2 because the first one took quite long time to click too. Not abnormal for RPGs in my experience owing to the need to learn all the various systems.

The story got really good Xenoblade 1 so I hope that if you return to it (or start fresh with the remake) that it does eventually all gel. Hopefully the remake will retain the battle system the original release had. It should be the definitive version.

@mookysam where you up to exactly? I was hooked on it pretty quickly (I liked Rex) and by the end of Chapter 1 I was sold!

@kyleforrester87 Chapter 2 (I think). I've just had some cutscenes in the town in Gormott.

You talking about the Switch release or the original GameBoy one? Because lets just say this.

You open your menu every 6 seconds in the original because your Sword and Shield are equipped to A and B. So need to a do a long jump? Open the menu, swap both out, do the jump, swap both back in the menu....over and over and over for everything.

I dont see how the fishing controls are hard, given all you do is mash A to reel it in, and stop mashing if it pulls on your line. Rinse and repeat until caught.

As for the fiddly and simple design, thats always been 2D Zelda. I prefer it 3D Zelda, where, lets take Ocarina of Time as the peak example, it takes ages to do what takes minutes in 2D, especially noticeable when you realise A Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time share a structure and progression.

What takes 10 minutes in 2D, is 2 hours in 3D.

But of course, the simplicity of the game is due to being a remake. A Link Between Worlds was the last 2D Zelda and was far more complex, but it was also built from the ground up with new mechanics and ideas to make it so complex. This is a remake of a GameBoy game, and its simplicity is down to being....well....a remake of a GameBoy title.

Now sure they could have massively changed it, but then at that point it may as well be a new game, like ALBW. The developers set out to remake LA, and they did. If they set out to make a new game, itd probably be more enjoyable to you.

As for myself, as someone who can't play a 3D Zelda beyond BOTW for more than 10 minutes before becoming bored stiff, a 2D game is just what I look for. Its a shame they are few and far between now, so this is what I want from Zelda every few years. It especially helps that I never played much of LA, but I did get a copy earlier in the year and did the first dungeon. So as someone younger than the source material, this is a new game to me.

Which brings up the argument that a GameBoy remake shouldn't be £50, and as some internet personalities say, you can just play the original.

I'd argue that to play the original on my TV I'd need to buy a Gamecube, GameBoy Player, and copy of the game, and then hope it all works. That set me back around £220 earlier in the year. Or I can pay £50 and play it on this Switch I already own with most of its faults removed.

I dont get the whole "The game isn't worth x because y" arguments that people try and use to convince others that a game is too expensive. Worth and value are two different things, and this is confused when people are basically trying to tell people that a GameBoy remake for that price isn't a good value proposition.

Yet they forget that value is subjective, worth is monetary. An item could be worth pennies and sell for pennies, but its value to an individual could be enough to have them spend above and beyond that.

So to tell people that a game isn't worth £50 because its a remake is wrong, objectively, because yeah, factually, it IS worth £50 as thats what its selling for. That is its market worth. You just dont VALUE it at £50. /rant XD

@RogerRoger I will say I'm coming at this as a fresh face too.

How much value I get from the game depends on my free time due to the lovely reality of 40 hour work weeks.....ugh. This holiday is amazing.

Oh man I love Link's Awakening Remake. The main story is a carbon copy of the original till the 7th dungeon that I am now. There are bizarre and sometimes big framerate issues but nostalgia hit me hard with this game. The original game was one of my favourites back in the GB era.

Has anyone tried a Lite? I wanted one thought it would be 200 euros so I coud get one but in typical Nintnedo fashion the price is was way inflated in Europe for the 199$ base price one, it is 199 Pounds or 239 Euros in most eurozone counties. TBH I mostly play portable and the original Switch feels that it could brake every minute. Sometimes they cons went out during portable play. Since I have NSO and no desire to play online games where cloud saves are not supported I could game in the Lite and have the OG model always docked. Or I could simply trade the OG Switch both joycons suffer from this drift thing.

@belmont I've tried a Lite and it's weird. The yellow one specifically. The bezel being coloured probably doesn't help, makes it harder to focus on the screen. The buttons feel like they do on a Pro Controller and the D-Pad has issues opposite of the Pro Controller, namely now it's absurdly hard to press two directions at once which for fighting games is....yikes.

Holding the machine is nice but my hands got cramped pretty quick, and I've got small hands.

It's funny. Switch Lite is too cramped, but an Xbox controller is too big due to injuries. I can't win XD

But it's a nice bit of kit....IF you have a reason to buy one.

@Knuckles-Fajita According to a tear down The sensors in the D pad of the switch light are too far apart to rapidly and put two directions at once in fighting games.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=mF3hsaZviUU

@Ryall I know. That's why I said it was the opposite of the Pro Controller. The Pro Controller had closer sensors and a small tip to the D-Pad lending to easy presses.

Here Nintendo appears to have taken the criticism and just....eliminated it entirely.

@RogerRoger Yeah Link's Awakening, despite only being the 4th Zelda game, formed an identity for itself initially starting as an out of hours passion project by a programmer, that grew under people like Yoshiaki Koizumi who at the time only did art and ended up writing the story.

In fact, Miyamoto wasn't involved until the testing phase. Link's Awakening is very much an example of Nintendo's mantra: Create an IP, refine it, then get the young folk in with fresh ideas for it.

The basic difference Link's Awakening has if you compare it with most games in the series is that it has actually plot that goes beyond the usual kidnapping Zelda and defeating Ganon, interesting NPCs and a world that feels alive.