Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@KratosMD I might not have played many Pokemon games but I really doubt you can beat the game using just your starter in Blue without a hell of a lot of grinding. I mean, if you managed that, well done! I played one on 3DS and that too was really easy, so maybe that's a thing in common with modern Pokemon games.

My experience playing about half of Shield is theirs no point catching and leveling up Pokemon of different types, because your starter can deal with everything. At most I had to change to a second Pokemon during the same battle, and I don't recall having to worry about using the correct types in any scenario, though I probably did try and use the right Mon for the job because...why not.

Yes you can make it harder for yourself by rotating a team of Pokemon, not using healing items, only using a certain type of Pokemon or whatever but when that's a play style that's largely encouraged to make the experience more involving I think there is something wrong with the core game.

At least let us turn experience share off!

Upshot is, unless you care about catching em all, there is not much game here to enjoy. But I understand that's enough for some people.

For me there are a billion way more interesting RPG's out there!

@kyleforrester87 Eh, he's right that you can barrel through most Pokemon games, including the GB/GBC ones, with just your starter most of the time if you deliberately overleveled it. They're not hard games. But this one is so inordinately easy that, even if you create a balanced team, you still chew through everything if you have type advantage. One of the biggest problems is the xp balancing. In previous games, you had to really grind to overlevel your Pokemon. But you get so much xp for catching and battling Pokemon that you have to almost constantly rotate new ones in order to keep them from being massively overleveled in every new area you come across, even if you're going out of your way to avoid needless wild battles. Why am I gaining full xp for catching Pokemon anyway? It made sense in the (also sort of dreadful) Let's Go games, considering wild Pokemon battles didn't exist, but here it just throws what little difficulty there is into the dumpster.

Pokemon has always been approachable if you know what to do. But, until now, it was never braindead.

Sw/Sh is the Shantae: Half-Genie Hero, Final Fantasy XIII, or Layton's Mystery Journey of its respective series: a sequel that, presentation aside, does almost everything wrong, exacerbating small problems from previous games and introducing new problems along the way, and removes a huge element of the series' core appeal in the process.

I really needed Sword and Shield to be a revolution to the franchise to get me interested in the Pokemon games again, and it's anything but that. I used to adore the DS ones, I put hundreds of hours into Heart Gold, but X and Y were thoroughly meh, and I didn't really enjoy Omega Ruby either. I went to take a break from the franchise and hoped my enthusiasm would renew over time, but in fact I'm somehow even more drained on the series!

It's a huge shame, because Sword and Shield had an excellent opportunity to be a breath of fresh air in the franchise. Zelda, Mario, Fire Emblem, Luigi's Mansion, Animal Crossing and more all have their best entry on the switch, with most of them being huge updates to the franchise, and you can feel all the love and care that's gone into them. Sword and Shield just feel lazy. I wish they didn't sell as well as they have, as that would provide a clear message about just how much they need to step up their game, but alas, this has clearly shown that even with minimal effort, these games sell like hotcakes.

@Ralizah hmm I remember having a bit of a hard time with some of the gym leaders in Blue, to the point I had to do a bit of grinding. But I didn’t have to do any of that in Shield and still destroyed everything I came up against. I guess that’s all I wanted, a little bit of a challenge and a sense of accomplishment when I beat a gym leader.

@kyleforrester87 Here's how I would describe it:
In older Pokemon games, if you knew what you were doing, you could fairly easily stomp through them. But it took some level of foreknowledge grinding, and/or overleveling certain OP Pokemon to properly accomplish this.

In Sw/Sh, you have to go WAY out of your way to NOT stomp through everything you encounter in the game.

Both are easy, but not to an equal degree.

@Ralizah Maybe the option to turn off experience share is all it needs - make me need to use my other guys every now and then.

Imo, Pokemon’s been a slow burning car crash since X and Y. They got incredibly easy very quickly and the gimmicks haven’t been interesting in the slightest. The DS games were brilliant but they’ve been going backwards despite making the jump to home consoles.

@KratosMD @Ralizah I don't think it's entirely on experience. I replay the older games from time to time, and they're definitely harder. If you avoid most of the wild battles (like I did in SWSH), some gym challenges can be quite challenging. Whitney's Miltank in GSC is notorious, but Scyther, Gengar and Kingdra are quite challenging as well. Norman with two Slakings in RSE can still be tough fight, even if you know what to expect.

This problem also applies to the 3DS games; and maybe to the series as a whole. But difficulty is just one of the problems. The games are an insult compared to any other current gen RPG.

@Octane Oh lord, even in HeartGold when I prepare, Whitney’s Miltank throws a spanner in the works on occasion. The games back then were just tighter and the 2D graphics suited it more imo.

This is what the The Witcher 3 looks like. ON A HANDHELD SYSTEM.

I never want to hear people make any excuses about the poor developers making poorly performing games on weak hardware.

LOOK AT THIS.

Does it look rougher than my 1080p PC version on Ultra settings that runs at 60fps? Sure.

BUT LOOK AT IT.

A HANDHELD. WTF.

There are no excuses anymore when THIS is possible.

@nessisonett I liked X and Y. It was a bit easier than I would have liked, but the initial transition into 3D was such a massive leap for the series. Also, Lumiose City was and still is the biggest and most interesting urban environment in the series. How is it that we get sweeping views of a huge city in a 3DS game, but in Sw/Sh all we get are tiny places with only a few buildings to enter.

Also, I feel the need to point out that X and Y have the best multiplayer features in the entire series. The PSS was SO robust and user-friendly.

Not the best entries in the series, but I think they were very solid Pokemon games.

@Ralizah Your Geralt looks like Dante omg, mine always looked rugged af 😂😂

@nessisonett I mained long hair when I was playing it on PC. For his Nintendo Switch debut, I decided to finally visit a barber. I think he looks quite fetching. I thought about trimming the beard as well, but decided to keep it.

I can't believe I listened to the people telling me this game looks like hell on a TV. It looks great in both modes! Granted, the gulf between undocked and PC Ultra is a bit wide, but, on its own terms, it looks nice. On the TV, it's actually rather fetching.

how

@Ralizah Yeah, I played Witcher 3 on PC Ultra my first time and even PS4 Pro looks like a major step down. It doesn’t bother me too much if the graphics are a bit worse because the game itself is just brilliant and it’s good more people get exposed to it on Switch.

@nessisonett The framerate difference is more noticeable, IMO.

Honestly, I'm just so impressed with the Switch port of The Witcher.

LMAO go back even a couple of years and tell people that THIS would be running on what amounts to a budget gaming tablet.

I can't even. This is so pretty. Even docked mode (except, I discovered, when it's raining in Skellige; all the particle effects and whatnot briefly turn this gorgeous port into a PS2 demake. But it quickly recovers)

@Ralizah Does the frame rate still tank in Novigrad when it rains? IIRC that was one of the big problems with the PS4 port.

So which of you mothers got XBC today?

@kyleforrester87 I was totally going to get it... and then I realised that I have 0 income until September. Perhaps I’ll wait a bit 😂😂

@nessisonett at least you can guarantee the price won’t go down by then 😂

I'm thinking about dropping FFIX. I don't dislike it, it's just that lately I've had no desire to play it (last arrived at the point where you learn Garnett lost her voice).

It could have something to do with the fact that I'm rewatching my favorite anime (and reading the manga), which has drawn me in completely, but that hasn't kept me from finding the time to play FFVR (and finish of Tales of Berseria) on PS4, so I dunno. Maybe FFIX is just a tad too dated for me, as shallow as that sounds.