Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

I was excited for Paper Mario until I saw the trailer. It just looks uninspiring and nothing like the original 2, yet again. Just remaster the first two, they clearly can’t make them anymore and instead just want Mario and Luigi clones.

They've already written it off en masse just because its not the first two games. So yeah, this game is DOA, even if its the best one yet.

@KratosMD I mean, I'm just going to join in on the full negativity here, because eff me being positive about this franchise is nigh impossible online, but what DO we expect from a current-gen Paper Mario?

Intelligent Systems clearly cant do HD development, given Koei Tecmo helped make Fire Emblem Three Houses, and they ALSO made Paper Mario Origami King. Even if the Paper Mario team is completely separate, its been 4 years. If not, then yikes, maybe two at most?

But beyond that, Intelligent Systems probably isn't the studio to do this series, as originally envisioned as a sequel to Super Mario RPG, as the original Paper Mario had issues, to the point where TTYD seems more like a damn miracle its good.

They clearly aren't suited for RPGs or Adventure games, and as noted, HD development seems beyond them, given Fire Emblem was announced to exist in January 2017, and came out two and a half years later being carried by someone else entirely.

Metroid Prime 4 was mishandled allegedly by Bandai Namco, so Nintendo went to Retro, whatever Retro did before that is dead evidently at this point, Bayonetta 3....god knows given Platinum cant stop making other crap on top of the thing they announced first, and since the Paper Mario rumour was true, hope you guys like 3D Mario remakes that'll no doubt be gimped in some way.

As much as I believe the notion of going into a release with a blank slate is a good idea, I think I may just give up on that and join the rest of the planet in the "Yeah itll be bad" camp.

At this point the entire company cant release or even reveal a game without something being wrong with it, even if it ends up good.

@KratosMD I don't like the character design in the older Paper Mario games, so I don't mind the more generic look. I like it TBH. I wasn't a fan of Colour Splash because of other reasons. One being the battle system; and there were a couple of other infuriating moments. But I didn't mind the story and the characters. At least they aren't all Toads this time around, so there's variety in that. I like what I'm seeing, but these games aren't 10/10s for me anyway.

But I just noticed its coming out on the same day as Ghost of Tsushima. So yeah... I know which one I'm going to buy.

@KratosMD Good luck waiting till it hits €20 or 30. Nearly every Nintendo game on Switch is still €60. Still waiting for BOTW to drop below €40, because I wouldn't mind giving it a second chance, and I don't really fancy setting up my Wii U again.

Anyway, I fear this game will end up with the rest of the ''€60 is too much for this'' first party Nintendo titles that I'll never end up buying.

Same day as Ghost of Tsushima, eh? Sounds like I have some choices ahead of me. Hopefully today's State of Play will clear that up for me.

It probably helps that I'm in the middle of TTYD, which is an awesome little game, so I probably won't be hugely hungry for more Paper Mario in July.

@KratosMD I think the big problem is that Nintendo's INTERNAL teams, so the guys who do Mario, Animal Crossing, Splatoon, Zelda, ARMS, Mario Kart, Smash, they all had the Wii U to learn HD development.

Those franchises have nailed it.

It's their EXTERNAL studios where we see the problems. MonolithSoft, NextLevelGames and Retro being exceptions, you have Game Freak, who worked only on 3DS until Switch, Intelligent Systems, who had made one HD game for the end of the Wii U before moving to Switch, they were all 3DS based. Good Feel had only made one HD game before Switch, HAL had made only one HD game, you notice a trend?

What we call their "Other franchises" are actually handled by studios that are owned by, but not internal to, Nintendo.

And those studios focused heavily on sub-HD titles for 3DS obviously, a downside to the two system approach, is now THOSE studios have to catch up too.

I think the other problem is Nintendo's "Its done when its done approach". Counter to reports of crunch within Sony, Xbox or third party studios, Nintendo developers, studios, management, even contractors, state that yeah, the studio tells Nintendo when the game ships, not the other way around, with few exceptions (Launch titles like BOTW for instance obviously).

Animal Crossing was delayed. Nintendo openly stated they were waiting for Next Level to tell THEM when Luigi's Mansion 3 was ready. So you really cant have it both ways with frequent releases and good working conditions.

But further to that is their aversion to multiple projects at once. The team who did Splatoon 2 then did Animal Crossing New Horizons. Grezzo did Majora's Mask 3D, then Link's Awakening. One of the internal teams did Mario Kart 8, then ARMS. Each team tends to be a one game at a time deal.

It does help Nintendo's internal studios are about 10 teams big, and they have countless external ones like Retro, Next Level, NST, Grezzo, NERD, MonolithSoft, HAL, Intelligent Systems, and so on.

I mean for context let's tally up stuff.

Zelda Team: Skyward Sword - 2011/BOTW - 2017/BOTW 2 - ???
Mario Team - 3D World - 2013/Odyssey - 2017
Mario Kart Team - Mario Kart 8 - 2014/ ARMS - 2017
Splatoon Team - Animal Crossing New Leaf - 2013/ Splatoon - 2015/Splatoon 2 - 2017/ Animal Crossing New Horizons - 2020
Monolith - Xenoblade Chronicles X - 2015/Xenoblade 2 - 2017/Xenoblade Def - 2020
Intelligent Systems - FE Fates - 2016/Colour Splash - 2016/Echoes - 2017/Three Houses - 2019/Origami King - 2020
HAL - Kirby Planet Robobot - 2016/Star Allies - 2018
Good Feel - Kibry's Epic Yarn - 2010/Woolly World - 2015/Crafted World - 2019
Next Level - Luigi's Mansion 2 - 2014/Federation Force - 2016/Luigi's Mansion 3 - 2019
Grezzo - Majora's Mask 3D - 2015/Ever Oasis - 2017/Link's Awakening - 2019

So really each studio can pump out a midtier game every couple of years. Its just a case of can they do more than one at a time, and if so why not, or does Nintendo need to invest even MORE into other studios?

They did contract MercurySteam to make a Metroid game for 3DS in 2017, Bandai Namco for Smash, and they are also very happy to throw money at indie studios like SFB for Snipperclips, Brace Yourself for Zelda, that one mobile team I cant recall the name of for Good Job!. So they are clearly experimenting with increasing output.

Its just a case of them finding what works, I guess?

Oh yeah, I thought about grabbing that when it came out. I still might at some point, since it seems to add some much-needed gameplay diversity to Picross. Didn't particularly like the character designs, though, and I worried the narrative elements wouldn't be up to snuff.

On the Paper Mario front...

Going back to the trailer again, here are my thoughts:

• The presentation is gorgeous. It looks even better than Color Splash on that front, which was one of the prettiest games on the Wii U.
• The presentation is surprisingly cinematic. Now, Nintendo could just be stringing together a few cutscenes, but it looks a lot more dramatic and story-heavy so far than Sticker Star or Color Splash.
• Not sure what to think of the battle system. It doesn't look like it's using consumables, but I also didn't see any signs of RPG elements. Nintendo mentions "puzzle solving," so it could it have more of a tactics feel to it? I dunno. This is the biggest aspect I want Nintendo to discuss ahead of launch.
• Love how creepy Origami Peach is.
• The environments look huge! There even seems to be sailing ala The Wind Waker. Even the otherwise deep TTYD is EXTREMELY linear in terms of its level design, so I'm intrigued by this change.
• Too many paper puns, but I guess the ship has sailed on that front.
• A bit conflicted on the character front. It's clearly not going to feature the deep characterizations of The Thousand Year Door, but it also looks like the NPCs are going to have some dialogue and personality to them. Could go either way, to be honest.

Conclusion: I think this is clearly going to be a continuation of the design philosophy of the newer PM games, but with some significant alterations that make it a significantly more compelling experience. I could be wrong, and I'm definitely not "sold," but I also think people are rushing to conclusions about it too quickly. I'm cautiously optimistic.

New Paper Mario looks good so far (though this is coming from someone who didn't hate Sticker Star, even though it is the weakest entry I've played).

This really could be the spring/summer of JRPGs for me. On Switch I'm currently playing FFIX, which should hold me over until Xenoblade Chronicles DE, then the new Paper Mario after that. On PS4 I'm nearing the end of Tales of Berseria, want to jump into FF7 Remake next, and then probably Trials of Mana.

RE: New purchases this year, my plan looks something like this:

Shantae and the Seven Sirens (Switch)
Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition (Switch)
Catherine: Full Body (Switch)
Paper Mario: The Origami King (Switch)
Baldo (Switch)
Cyberpunk 2077 (PC)

Un-dated releases that I'll probably add if we hear more about them:
World of Horror
3D Super Mario Collection

Games I plan to buy later in the year when they drop in price a bit:
Sakura Wars (PS4)
DOOM Eternal (PC)

I have the PS4 and original Switch, my gf has the Switch Lite. Really helpful because sometimes I want to play Bloodborne so she can just play Animal Crossing on her Lite, other times she wants to watch NetFlix and I can play Smash Ultimate in handheld mode. =D

@RogerRoger Few but the freshest gamers, or the biggest fans of Pokemon could get much out of Sword and Shield in my opinion!

I got my Xenoblade Chronicles preorder down yesterday, looking forward to the weekend. I went digital.

@RogerRoger The only owl I can think of is Hoothoot, but that's an old one from the the GameBoy Color games.

Anyway, yeah, the games are pretty bad. Something can be said about the ''open world'' Wild Area, but let's be honest, open world games from 10 years ago were more detailed than what is present in Sword and Shield. I wouldn't say the games are downright bad (apart from the horrible pop-in in the overworld), but it's just all very disappointing and mediocre. Especially if you consider what the franchise could be.

Whilst the game does have some QOL improvements over the older games, it's also more restrictive in some ways. One step forward, one step back. Like how your whole party get experience no matter what, whereas in previous games this was an item you could equip or not (effectively easy and hard mode). Or how they have an ''open world'' section in the game, but rest feels more restricted and linear than any previous entry.

At least the competitive side is still intact. And I actually like the fact that they cut a bunch of Pokemon, because there are a ton of OP Pokemon that used to rule the competitive scene. However, they are planning to bring all those legendaries back with the new DLC, which will completely undo the one positive thing I have to say about this game.

@RogerRoger There's something slightly "off" about Sword and Shield. Aside from all the obvious issues, it feels like they are missing something almost intangible. These are very by-the-numbers experiences, perhaps designed by committee, and rushed out the door as quickly as possible. There are still some good things in there, and it's not like they are fundamentally terrible games, but while playing the whole experience just felt a little hollow. I've still yet to finish it and likely won't until after Xenoblade DE - which says a lot because prior to Sun and Moon Pokémon games kept me hooked.

I also wasn't too impressed with Sword and Shield. It was rather underwhelming for me, which was disappointing since I had been a big fan of the series up to then. There's also a lot of minor things that annoyed me about it, but I don't want to get into a big rant right now.

I am keeping an eye on the upcoming DLC for now though. It'll likely just be more of the same, but who knows. Perhaps it'll be excellent and won't feature many of the problems that the base game had.

@KratosMD you didn’t need to build up a strong team and evolve your Pokemon because you just trampled everyone and everything you came up against with your starter, zero thought required. Just a cumbersome, slow, uninvolved turn based battle system.

The only other Pokemon I played was Blue, and I remember that being pretty challenging at times.

@KratosMD The lack of any difficulty makes it hard for me to enjoy the main game as it is. And IMO, none of that excuses them to have a mediocre presentation and storyline, just because the gameplay loop is good. I mean, sure, but it was always good. It's just the same as it is in other entries, so why not focus on the rest of the game for once?

The main game and competitive play are like day and night.

I'm normally not too annoyed by the lack of voice acting, but when one of your main characters is supposed to be a musician, it's very awkward watching a ''concert'' without an actual sound coming out of his mouth. The forgettable background music didn't help either.

The more advanced the presentation of this series gets, the weirder it becomes when you don't hear any sounds leaving the mouths of your characters.

Anyway, I don't mind calling Sword/Shield bad games. They are. They completely gimped the trading features in order to drive people to a paid mobile service, making it the worst set of Pokemon games to try and play with other people since the GBA titles. The difficulty balancing, as usual, is completely wack, and you have to actively handicap yourself to make it even the slightest bit interesting (nothing new, but a lot of previous games weren't quite THIS easy). There's next to no story. No interesting characters. No exploration, outside of those horrible, empty Wild Areas that drop frames like crazy. And, sorry, the raid battles suck. They're a dumb gimmick, and add very little to the game for me.