Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@ralphdibny For what it's worth, Splatoon is one of the few games I enjoy playing online. Even if I'm doing solo.

But yeah, the SP content is kinda underappreciated. It's very good. 5-10 hours long. Splatoon 2 adds a larger variety of weapons, so you need to beat the stages more than once if you want to "complete" it, but it does add an additional layer of strategy. The boss fights are also very fun, and there's a surprisingly amount of backstory and lore in the games.

Octo Expansion is probably the best the single player has been in Splatoon.

@Octane sounds good. I definitely appreciate "shorter" games to be honest. Especially these days! I'll look into it picking up the first one when I get a lull in my gaming schedule!

@Octane @ralphdibny I play almost nothing online, but Splatoon actually works well for me, since it feels very... single-player-y in the main turf wars mode. There's almost no reason to interact with other players, and the way the game is designed makes it obvious when you should help other people on your team. Ditto with the horde mode equivalent in Splatoon 2. Chat and interactions might be more important in ranked play, but I never bothered with that.

Leave it to Nintendo to get a digital hermit like me playing a competitive, team-based third-person shooter.

@Ralizah I think I've told a lie actually because I think I know what you mean. I played a lot of the CTR remake online with strangers actually. It didn't even feel like I was playing online. I think the actual purpose of me playing online was grinding for wumpa coins so the competitive element was no different playing against people or against the computer. Except the people were way better at the game than the AI 😅

Metroid Dread sounds pretty awesome from the previews. I was going to wait until Christmas to pick this up, but I might have to grab it at release. Spending WAY too much money on gaming this year, lol.

@ralphdibny In the case of Splatoon, you're part of a team, and the goal is ultimately to ink the most turf (in the turf wars mode), so even low-skill players can contribute by avoiding direct conflicts and using weapons with a high level of ink coverage while more skilled players force back the enemy team.

It's pretty much the perfect multiplayer game for people like me who tend to enjoy gaming as a solo activity.

I'm glad the last DLC character for Smash is Sora, it's cool to see the Kingdom Hearts series being represented in Smash. I kinda want to play Smash again now to try out Sora but also other DLC characters that I haven't gotten yet such as Sephiroth and Banjo-Kazooie.

Lmao at the Kingdom Hearts series all being on Switch…. as cloud versions. Funnily enough I actually played RE:Chain of Memories streamed onto my Vita so it’s not impossible. People will be annoyed but at least they’re on there in some capacity.

I'm kinda disappointed in Sora as the last Smash character. Seems like that's one everyone had already predicted/wanted. I was hoping for something crazy like a playable Wii U or something.

@johncalmc It should have been Matt.

Monster Hunter or Nahobino would have been my choices. MH and SMT have been married to Nintendo hardware for years, and even now that the former has gone multiplat, they still developed a beautiful, ambitious console exclusive in the form of Monster Hunter Rise. Capcom especially deserved a MH Smash rep.

Instead, Sora gets in, and S-E announced CLOUD versions of the KH games for the Switch. KH3 I get, but why the holy hell would PS3 ports of PS2, PSP, and 3DS games not be able to run on the hardware with the littlest bit of optimization?

Well, I'm happy for the people who wanted him, but I'll never buy any DLC containing that character.

@Ralizah I’d assume they’re just using the PS4/Xbox/PC version that they’ve ported in a universal way. It was only on PS3 because of the well-documented mess of writing PS3 games. So for them to create a solution to port the games across the whole last-gen systems, they probably don’t want to make the effort to make yet another fully ported from (roughly) scratch for Switch. It’s stupid but I can understand it. They’d have been better outsourcing.

Gotta hand it to SE, that's one heck of a deal. Basically no work involved, and free advertising for you.

Yeah, the KH games themselves being cloud versions is absolutely asinine (other than maybe III), but I can't help but be ecstatic over Sora in Smash. I've kinda fallen out of love with the KH series as I've gotten older (or maybe just III was meh), but seeing Sora being introduced to the Nintendo world rekindled a childhood fantasy of mine & it brought absolute joy to my face. I thought this was a pretty good pass already with Sephiroth & Pyra/Mythra, but Sora really is the dream come true cherry on top for me.

Fantastic intro video too. At various points I thought we were getting some sort of reworked playable version of Master Hand, a Dark Souls rep, & even Alphen from the recently released Tales of Arise (and honestly, Bandai Namco probably did deserve more than just Pac-Man since they helped work on the game).

@RR529 You’ve basically described my feelings on Kingdom Hearts. Absolutely loved the games growing up but III killed my love of the series. Just didn’t like it at all after waiting so long and getting great spin-offs in the meantime.

Have tried getting into the Kingdom Hearts series for years, but the first game is massively irritating, and I keep bouncing off of it. I promised myself I'd give the series another chance if they ported the games to Switch, but... ah... this doesn't count.

@Ralizah The first game’s dated but decent. The second game is one of the best games ever made.

I actually went insane a couple of years ago and decided I was going to platinum every Kingdom Hearts game back to back despite having never played any of them except the first one back on the PS2.

The first one is rough, but but by the time you get to 2 they're definitely more playable.

My platinum quest died at the one where you play as the three people who aren't Sora btw. I got like half way through the second person's quest, stopped for a bit, and never went back. Still haven't. I own the rest of the games. Wonder if I'll ever go back.

@johncalmc Ah, so that is the reason behind your insanity. Explains a lot.

@JohnnyShoulder It's where it all went wrong.

Yeah the first few KH titles are a bit difficult to get into since the first game has rather stiff and challenging combat, while the sequel Chain of Memories is basically a card-battle game. But honestly as a whole, there's nothing else like Kingdom Hearts and there will not be anything similar to Kingdom Hearts ever. This is such a unique series, to be able to visit Disney worlds and meet so many different characters you grew up with as a kid, it's just so magical. And the convoluted story makes the series more interesting for me personally as that means I actually have to put in an effort to keep up with the story, which makes you even more involved in the franchise. It's kinda like Metal Gear Solid in that sense and there are simply not many series that implement such intricate storylines.

The games do get better though, Kingdom Hearts 2 has much more streamlined and smoother combat, and it's easier in general. Birth by Sleep has the best gameplay system of all the games in my opinion, and Dream Drop Distance follows up on that game's system. I haven't played KH3 yet, but I might play it as we get closer to December since any Disney-related media feels fitting to experience during Christmas. Anyway, I feel like this series is worth experiencing if you can get past the first two games. Then you're definitely in for a treat.