Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

Bought A Short Hike & Gato Roboto last night. After a more lengthy game I decided it'd be nice to tackle a couple games on the shorter side.

A Short Hike seems to be the indie of the week over on NL at the moment, and while the hype may have played a part in me getting it now, I was already interested in it when revealed at the Indie World, as something about it reminded me of The Touryst, which I enjoyed.

Gato Roboto is a "Metroidvania" with a cat in a mech suit and a striking black & white aesthetic. It's been in my wish list for ages, and I think it had a good reception back when it launched.

I don't buy too many Indies, so hopefully I enjoy these.

@RR529 I played A Short Hike last year on PC and it’s fantastic. Honestly, a proper incredible experience. There’ll always be people annoyed that NLife give out 10s to games that aren’t Nintendo first party games but I can see why they did with A Short Hike.

@Kidfried Blame both of them and accept only Sony in your heart. They’ve crossed you for the last time 😉

@nessisonett, yeah, I just finished it tonight, and it was lovely. I think I'll hold off on writing an impressions piece until after I play Gato Roboto though (and do a sort of "indie corner" type thing where I'll write little reviews for this, that, and Waifu Uncovered, which I played awhile ago).

I will say that the ending had me inexplicably in tears, it just hit something deep inside. After I get home from work tomorrow I'll probably goof around in it a bit more to see if I can't collect anything more (I finished with 11 Golden Feathers & 2 Silver Feathers) before putting it down.

@RR529 Good to see you enjoyed it, it’s one of those games that really hit me too and I’ve played a lot of indies over the last couple of years. I’d recommend Owlboy as well, that’s another one that hit me almost as hard as this and Celeste.

There's a thread over on NL asking what your top 10 Switch games are, so I figured for fun I'll copy & paste what I wrote there.

It's too hard to make an actual top 10, so I'll make two alphabetical lists. The first a detailed list of my 10 top shelf games, then 10 honorable mentions that just miss out.

• Astral Chain - I was brought in by the great art aesthetic & sci-fi world, stayed for the varied gameplay on offer headlined by it's deep combat (including great bosses), but also enjoyed the stealth & detective sections.
• Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze - The best pure 2D platformer I've played in ages. Spent a lot of time as a kid playing the original DKC, and this is a worthy modern follow-up.
• Final Fantasy X HD - This was one of the three games that got me into JRPGs back in the day, and it's held up impeccably. I was as hooked now as I was back then, and it has one of gaming's greatest love stories as far as I'm concerned.
• One Piece Pirate Warriors 3 - I'm not a big One Piece fan (give me Dragon Ball, InuYasha, or Rurouni Kenshin any day), but I picked this up on a whim after enjoying the two Nintendo Warriors games, and fell in love. There's just something about it that makes it fun to play, and it's become my go to Warriors game, and one of my go to time killer games.
• Super Mario Odyssey - With large creative worlds to explore & the versatile capture mechanic, this game was pure magic to experience. I mean you get to smash things up as a T-Rex, scale a Japanese Castle, and fight a ferocious dragon, and I haven't even mentioned New Donk City.
• Super Smash Bros Ultimate - I love Smash, but I usually don't have anyone to play with, so the meaty single player modes on offer quickly made this one of my favorites in the series, and my favorite fighter on Switch. With every playable character returning, plus some new fan favorites, it truly feels like a celebration of all things Nintendo, and maybe even the Japanese gaming industry as a whole. I do miss trophies, though.
• Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (Torna) - A grand JRPG epic with a fantastic world, great characters, deep combat, and a great romance at it's center (and hey, I like the typical "waifu" character design, fite me!). While Torna, which is pretty much a full game in it's own right, is a sombre prequel with refined combat.
• Zelda: Breath of the Wild - Not much to say about this one that hasn't been said already. It's an absolutely gorgeous game that's just fun to get lost in and explore. Finding a new shrine or scaling the next tower are moments of joy, while this version of Hyrule is beautiful.
• Zelda: Link's Awakening - Say what you will about what is essentially a spruced up Game Boy game, but sometimes it's nice to go back to something simpler. It's one of those games that really reminded me of the reasons I am a gamer, and had a smile from start to finish. I had played the original on 3DS VC without it leaving much of an impact, but this remake is one of my favorite Zelda titles.
• Ys VIII - With an engaging "Metroidvania" structure, slick combat, and an ancient mystery, this quickly became one of my favorite JRPGs on the system, and it stands out even today as one of the best games on the system, IMO. I loved the little sense of community you built up with the other castaways too.

Honorable Mentions: Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Daemon X Machina, Devil May Cry HD, Fire Emblem Warriors, Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition, Luigi's Mansion 3, Okami HD, Onimusha Warlords HD, Paper Mario: the Origami King, Shining Resonance Refrain

Not sure I’ve even played 10 games on Switch, certainly not completed them, but I’ll try.

1. Smash Ultimate. I love Smash and this is more of the same, with a great cast. Only reason I don’t play much anymore is that my older brother moved out.

2. Super Mario Odyssey. Really enjoyed this game, just sheer fun although I did miss some more pointed, expanded levels like the older 3D games. Next game, I hope they mix up smaller objectives with larger set-pieces like what we saw with New Donk City’s parade.

3. Katamari Damacy Reroll. Brilliant game, perfectly suited to Switch. Yes it’s a port but it’s a good one at that.

4. Fire Emblem Three Houses. Another game I need to beat that I appreciate some of the changes while some frustrate me. Decent cast with some I love and some I loathe. I just absolutely hate stories that pull the whole ‘kill off characters you care about/make them hate you’. It’s why I dislike the Walking Dead and most things with that kinda deal.

5. Breath of the Wild. Only ever did about 10% of the game but enjoyed what I did play. Joy-Con drift ruined my momentum and I need to go back.

6. Hollow Knight. Incredible but I’m going to start fresh with Game Club for another perspective. Yes, this was a shameless plug.

7. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, I guess? It’s Mario Kart. It’s good fun.

8. Animal Crossing New Horizons. Like it, can’t quite fall in love with it. Partly due to my absolute rotter of a brother making our island look bloody horrible. The revolution will not be televised.

9. Cadence of Hyrule. Great game, great source material, great soundtrack. Really opens up possibilities for Nintendo to do more of the same.

10. Tetris 99. Yes, I ran out of games. Couldn’t include Mario & Rabbids because it’s the most focus-grouped beige game I’ve played or TWEWY because the controls make me want to rip my arms off and eat them. Just play TWEWY on DS. Tetris 99 was pretty fun for 10 minutes though. It’s also free.

Top 10 Switch games

1. Smash Ultimate - Easily my most played title on the console. It's endlessly replayable and has a super gratifying feel to its fighting mechanics that I just didn't really get from the Wii U title whenever I did play it. Everything's a lot less floaty and attacks have significantly more weight to them. Definitely a major improvement. The newcomers are also practically all excellent picks. Nice to see the best Belmont, Richter getting in on the action as well as obviously Joker representing Persona to a tee despite the unorthodox Persona summoning mechanic.

2. Astral Chain - Platinum does it again. An excellent action game with a peak Platinum storyline filled with flashiness and style, yet retaining enough substance to keep me engaged all throughout. Also one of the best looking exclusives by far on the system.

3. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - My personal favorite RPG from the last decade got the graphical facelift it deserved and there is practically no logical reason behind choosing the Wii or New 3DS versions over this stunning remake that even packs in major QoL improvements from Xenoblade Chronicles 2.

4. Super Mario Odyssey - The best 3D Mario game in a long time. It deserves a blind playthrough just to fully grasp how fantastical and bound to imagination everything is, from the animations, to the abstract levels and incredible soundtrack. A must play for platformer enthusiasts.

5. Catherine Full Body - Easily Atlus' most underrated title of the 2010s and the Switch version is far superior to the PS4 version simply verging by the fact that it comes with all of the DLC like the extra multiplayer characters and the Persona 5 DLC on the cartridge & available to play from the start. It's a great puzzle platformer with a decievingly seductive exterior that masks a tense story about alcoholism, facing one's personal demons, the weight of commitment problems and a man trying to hold onto his sanity in the midst of it all.

6. Persona 5 Scramble/Strikers - It's technically not out in the west yet but I played this game almost non-stop when getting an imported Switch copy from Japan. Unlike traditional crossover Musou games, this title deemphasizes fighting large hordes of enemies in mindless hack n' slash antics in favor of more closely mimicing the turn based strategy and contained battling of mainline Persona with a real-time twist. It also has easily the best Persona spinoff story that truly feels like a natural narrative progression of Persona 5/Royal's plot, which is something I couldn't say for other spinoff titles like the Persona Dancing games or Persona Q series.

7. Splatoon 2 - A pretty addictive competitive shooter with a vibrant as hell visual style and great, catchy soundtrack.

8. Breath of the Wild - A proper modernization of the original Zelda game's open ended format of gameplay. Despite the story itself feeling like a tacked on afterthought, the gameplay was generally really enthralling, and the world of Hyrule was breathed to life in a way that made it feel like as much of a character as the people you meet during your escapades.

9. Final Fantasy X - An excellent starting point for new players to the franchise and an immensely satisfying JRPG with an extremely likable cast of characters and a dense, lively setting that has as much of an emotional center as the plot itself.

10. Bloodstained RotN - When Konami couldn't deliver on the promise of a new entry in the classic Castlevania series, Igarashi stepped in to provide an extremely well crafted Metroidvania that feels both fresh and aesthetically diverse, while recognizing its roots and feeling like a proper spiritual successor to the GBA/DS Castlevania entries.

@TheFrenchiestFry I’ll give you one reason the Switch version of Xenoblade’s worse - Reyn looks like the bloody Wolfman 😛

I haven't got ten games for Switch. So here's a top however many games I have for Switch.

1. Fire Emblem: Three Houses - I really like this game. It's too easy. But I do enjoy me an RPG and I really like the story and the characters.

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild - This for me is really overrated but that doesn't mean it's bad. I think it's great. I just think if it was called Alan's Magical Adventure and it was about an elf called Alan and it was on Xbox it would be getting 8s in reviews. I found myself really annoyed with the rubbish combat/weapon system but I loved just exploring and I loved those little shrine things that were like a self-contained puzzle. Good stuff. Enjoyed it.

3. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle - This game is a winner. It's not the best thing you'll ever play but it's a solid tactical thing and I appreciate that. What I did not really appreciate is how many Rabbid characters there are in the game because I would have preferred more Mario characters or even other Nintendo ones but whatever. It's fun.

4. New Super Mario Brothers U Deluxe - It's just a good Mario game and I am totally okay with that.

5. Luigi's Mansion 3 - Pretty good but gets a bit samey. I feel like it's too long even though it's not very long. It is fun though, and there's some pretty neat ideas in there if you can forgive the oh no a magic ghost cat has stolen the thing I need... again.

6. Super Mario Odyssey - This is probably the most overrated game of the generation for me. There are moments that are pure joy but then long stretches of it are quite boring. I liked that hat thing for a bit but then it became hey just throw your hat at literally everything and that's the game. I liked the moon. All told, probably my least favourite 3D Mario. Pretty good, nothing special.

7. Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu - Catching Pokemon by waving your arm about is absolutely rubbish. I really wish Nintendo would stop with the motion controls or at least give options about them but no gotta chase that 2006 crowd. Toilet.

It'll be a short list from me, as I only got my Switch towards the end of last year. I've focused more on playing a few huge exclusives that take many hours instead of lots of smaller games. I could pad this out further if I include games played elsewhere (such as Wii U games like Mario Kart 8 or multiplatform games including Witcher 3), but I'll leave them out for now.

• 4) Pokemon Shield. I had been a big Pokemon fan before the Switch, but did feel quite underwhelmed with Shield. The whole Dexit thing did take its toll on me, as collecting as many creatures as possible is my favourite part of the series, so being unable to transfer all my older monsters was a big blow for me. Plus there was a lot of smaller annoyances, and the general feeling that the game should have been fleshed out more.
• 3) Super Mario Maker 2. It was a lot of fun to play other people's levels, though I didn't make many of my own. It's certainly more fiddly to design levels here than in the first game, but that's mainly because the Wii U's gamepad was perfect for SMM1.
• 2) Super Smash Bros Ultimate. Only very narrowly missing out on the top spot, but this is an excellent game. It has a huge amount of characters, and is packed full of content. Plus it is so fun to play.
• 1) Splatoon 2. It's rare for me to enjoy multiplayer games, but I've had a lot of fun with this. This game also has lots of content, with a variety of multiplayer modes. The single player campaign isn't that long, but the Octoling Expansion DLC does add a second campaign with lots of tricky challenges.

Unranked:
Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate. I only started this a couple of days ago, so can't rank it yet. However, I have spent a lot of hours on the 3DS game MH Generations and transferred my save data across, so chances are I'm going to enjoy this.

Well I’m shocked. The rumours were true! Great Mario Direct and Nintendo finally got me 😂😂

Nice one. I'll be getting that collection for sure.

I also got Pokemon Ultra Moon today for 3DS.

@kyleforrester87 A bit of a shame there’s no Galaxy 2 and they look more like straight ports than having any graphical enhancements but it’s got to be one of the best value port collections out there. Especially great given this is Sunshine’s first time outside the original release.

Why no Galaxy 2? I'm not even a huge fan of the game, but that's a big omission.

Also, it's a shame that this collection looks so lazy. Imagine if they'd upped the framerate on 64/Sunshine or did almost anything to make SM64 look presentable.

And the physical game being a limited run is VERY weird.

@nessisonett I'm still a bit shocked that there's going to be a Mario battle royale game.

@Ralizah It looked pretty cool, I’d give it a go. Just strange it’s limited time only but I think if it does well they’d keep it around.

@nessisonett What's really weird is Mario 3D All-Stars being a limited digital thing. Is Nintendo REALLY going to delist it next year? A digital game? A first-party collection that'd sell well for years?

@Ralizah I just saw that there. It’s incredibly strange. Just like Nintendo eh, there’s always a catch!