Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@BranJ0 The first Great Ace Attorney felt unique from other games in the series. It had a heavily serialized quality to it, firstly, which causes it to diverge heavily from the structure of most of these games, which are mostly episodic (even the interwoven ones like SoJ and T&T). The writing was extremely down-to-earth and naturalistic compared to other games in the series, and even the sequel: there's still fun dialogue, of course, but it felt like it didn't have a lot of the really wacky and strange defendants and witnesses that characterize this series. I enjoyed the stronger focus on legal process, political intrigue, and relatively mundane mysteries over wild, over-the-top conspiracies that dominate in these games. I also found the strong xenophobic reaction of many these characters to our Japanese protagonists to be grounding in a way that I found really fascinating. The game, over all, felt very much like a deconstructive take on the Ace Attorney IP. And, so far, GAA2 feels structurally and thematically much more like an ordinary Ace Attorney game. That's not a bad thing at all, but it does give it a very different feel from the original.

Also, Case 3 in the first game is close to being my favorite case in the entire series, despite it being a bit abbreviated. One of my issues with Justice for All was how the final case whiffed when it came to the fascinating prospect of being forced to defend a guilty witness. It's a good potboiler, I agree, but it never really morally challenged either Phoenix or the player due to the whole 'DeKiller holding Maya hostage' thing. Always felt like a missed opportunity to me, so I was delighted when this case pulled the same stunt with McGilded, only it actually did a really good job of addressing it this time. I particularly love the moment with McGilded asks you to lie about what you saw beneath the seat in the carriage. There's no "right" answer in that moment, and the distressing ambiguity of it put me right into Ryunosuke's head in that moment. Also, the way he goes out in the end is an amazing introduction to the "Reaper" subplot of these games.

For me, PL v AA was a disappointment because I wanted the two universes to fully intertangle. I wanted to see side characters from both series meet and solve mysteries together, but it turned into some weird fantasy thing that wasn't really like anything I'd seen in either IP.

@Kidfried SMT V, easily. But I'm also very biased. It was going to have to be a real swing-and-a-miss not to be my favorite release this year. As it stands, it succeeds in the ways I needed it to succeed to be incredibly happy with it.

MH Rise is awesome, but I'm not a huge fan of action games in general, and the pacing and mechanical changes (both the ones inherited from World and introduced in this entry) make it far more of a pure action game than Monster Hunter has ever been before. Part of what made Monster Hunter unique was that your character was kind of an awkward, squishy human going up against massive monsters, so a lot of planning was needed before hunts to make sure they were a success. It was survival-action, and actually triumphing against monsters you have no business being able to kill was incredibly rewarding.

MH Rise is rewarding as well, but it's... different. It's like you're playing as Spider-Man, since you have so much freedom of mobility. It's a lot of fun, but the planning/survival element is gone almost completely.

Ultimately, this was the direction the series was always going to go with the worldwide success of MH World. And I am fine with that. Rise is a gorgeous, multifaceted action game that looks and performs way better than most other games on the system (it seems to hug 30fps very closely, which is a change from the sort of janky performance of World on last-gen consoles, which makes sense, because 4U, which was the World team's previous game, was also all over the place with its performance, whereas Generations/Generations Ultimate, the last game from the Rise dev, prioritized smooth performance it knew it could consistently hit).

The only real issue I have with it is that, in an increasing industry trend, it launched in an unfinished state. What was there was polished to a sheen, but they actually had to patch in the game's final story mission months after release, in addition to a bunch of late-game monsters. Call me a traditionalist, but I like my games to be feature-complete on day one. Granted, that's never going to happen with MonHun again. Even the Stories games have had monsters patched into them post-release.

@Kidfried tbh, I still haven't returned to Rise to complete all of the stuff in the endgame, since I played it and subsequently moved on after 70 hours or so. Although I'll probably play the endgame content in that leading up to the release of the expansion next year.

I think it's probably a generational thing with us. We're used to experiencing games as complete, one-and-done products, but a lot of developers are riding the wave of the popularity of GaaS titles with younger players by making even their single-player story games something you continuously return to months or even years afterward. Even some Nintendo developers are leaning into this style of game design (the same team creates Splatoon and Animal Crossing, and it shows in terms of how reliant those releases are on constant patches, content updates, etc. to keep interest in them alive for long periods of time).

RE: Monster Hunter, it really just depends on what you're looking for. If you like the tactical elements (the "clunky" aspects so many people decried), Rise is probably the worst game in the series. You don't even have to locate the monster when you load into a map: the game just tells you where it is! If you like the action elements and just want to fight big monsters and minimize the time between hunts, then it's unquestionably the best entry yet, as the new mobility options actually add a lot to the combat in that game in terms of making it fast and ferocious. I find myself caught somewhere between those two camps, personally. For my money, MH4U is still the best entry in the series to date, although the recent games are obviously very pretty, fun, and popular.

SMT V is almost like the complete opposite of P5 in many respects, so it actually compliments it nicely! Between the two, you get tight combat, fun exploration, challenging bosses, memorable characters, and an epic, lengthy plot. Just... not all in the same game.

NSO mega drive controllers are up for pre order UK

@Kidfried I love the speed of an SSD, but I did have some very weird things happen with Spyro Reignited on my PC because of an SSD.

Having played it on PS5, the SSD doesn't really matter. It still acts like a PS4 game.

However on my PC, on HDD, everything is fine. Or even on my slower SSD in my older, weaker PC. No issues.

On my new build, with it's 3439mb/s m.2 drive, which is slower than the PS5's 5500mb/s, Spyro had some weird glitches.

So there are enemies in one level that when the level is loaded (or you die) they always start in the same state. They then are meant to change an object in the level, then wait a bit and change it back.

What happened is as soon as the level loaded, or after death, they did the first animation too fast, and then never did the animation again to change the state of the object.

Basically, my SSD was so fast, and the game wasn't made for it, that it broke the game, making an entire level unbeatable. I don't know how, or why, but it was equally and hilarious, and an example of running things on stuff they weren't intended to.

My point, sometimes you need to be thankful for load times, because if you remove them, things go wrong 🤣

I’ve gotta ask has anyone played Pokémon BD/SP? I was gonna buy it at launch, but I’m glad I held out as it’s £45 now.

So I bough Sword & Let’s go Pikachu & had a decent time with them- even tough admittedly they’re my least favourite Pokémon game (despite how much I adore anything Gen1).

Now I put in well over 1000 hours into both Diamond & Platinum. Love them, but I’m hesitant with what I’m reading online about the remakes.

The friendship system/Aimee (?) really that busted? Are Pokémon really able to heal themselves & survive multiple KOs(?).
I can live with Exp share, but that’s insane if you can’t disable that.

I’ve been thinking about SMTV as well. Never played one before, but I’m a massive Persona fan. Game is still a bit pricey though (£50).

@Fight_Teza_Fight I'm 30 hours into Shining Pearl now and I've been enjoying it a lot more than I thought. I grew up with Diamond and Platinum as well, and while I was skeptical about how the game looked, it has actually grown on me now. Sure there isn't much new content (the expanded underground is wonderful though!), but it most definitely is a faithful recreation of the original Diamond/Pearl, which is enough if you ask me. I simply think Game Freak set the bar very high for ORAS, but it doesn't mean that BDSP are bad remakes by any means. The visuals are better, the music is still memorable and honestly, there's a lot of content in this game compared to the other Switch Pokémon titles because the original D/P had so much to do. I've forgotten what it's like to play a genuinely good Pokémon game, I personally think the series went downhill after gen 4. So to be able to play D/P again is such a great feeling for me as a long-time fan.

To answer your concerns, I've been noticing the friendship system kicking in now as most of my Pokémon have reached max happiness. But that didn't happen until like 20 hours into the game and by that point it felt like a huge relief every time my Pokémon managed to dodge something, which were mostly status attacks like paralyse, sleep, confuse etc. I haven't really noticed them dodging actual attacks, it may have happened once or twice but it's not that common. Same thing with healing themselves and KOs, I've only noticed that once or twice but maybe that's because I haven't been in that many sticky situations.

So even though you're fine with EXP Share, I still want to add something that I've been doing throughout my playthrough. Because of the EXP Share, I've been able to try out many different Pokémon that I wasn't planning on using in my team in the main playthrough. Like I was just going for the same Pokémon I used in Platinum, which were Torterra, Luxray, Staraptor, Rapidash, Floatzel and one more I don't remember. But now I have a bunch of other Pokémon that I rotate in and out with, such as Medicham, Misdreavus (which is an absolute pain to evolve, I'm on my way to the 7th gym and I still haven't been able to find a Dusk Stone!), Bastiodon, Bronzong, Froslass, Gabite and Skorupi. And these are all on their way to becoming just as strong as my main team! Not to mention that I can avoid being overleveled this way, but the main purpose is to simply try out different Pokémon and maybe find some really good ones instead of just sticking with the same team for the entire playthrough, which I find boring. The point is though that this approach is only possible thanks to the EXP Share, otherwise I would've needed to grind all these Pokémon. But all of them are levelling up naturally now, which is great. And the thing is, there are hundreds of Pokémon in every Pokémon game, why would you want to stick with only six of them? So yeah, I really like that I'm able to experiment with different Pokémon thanks to the EXP Share.

There are also some nice QoL improvements:

Still can't believe that the health bar was that slow in the originals. I don't remember that at all, lol.

@LtSarge Problem is that the EXP Share favours that style of playing (i.e. trying out many mons) over any other playstyle. I don't think people are against the inclusion, just make it optional. And I have no idea why that isn't a thing.

I think a major issue is trying to balance a game for the EXP Share, because there's no way to tell how much exp someone earns. Let me explain; In the past the EXP Share gave half the EXP to the Pokemon holding the item, and the rest to those participated in battle. But it was a fixed amount regardless (so 200exp in total, 100 to the Pokemon holding it, and the other 100 got divided between the other Pokemon). This way devs could estimate how much exp you've earned at certain points in the game, assuming you beat all the trainers up to that point. The current system hands out EXP as percentages based on the level, but you also get more exp in total if you have more Pokemon with you. So a specific battle can give a very wide range of experience points depending on a bunch of factors. A friend of mine is playing the game with a main team of six, and he told me he's actively avoiding all trainer encounters to avoid overleveling. I played Sword with a team of 15-20 Pokemon I think, because the game was handing out experience like candy. Was nice for a first time playing, but there's no reason for me to play that game ever again. And it still wasn't challenging at all.

I've also noticed, ony way to the 8th gym now, trainers use strategy way more. They heal themselves in this game (they didn't in Sword and Shield, especially Gym Leaders), a lot of trainers have varied held items, like damage reducing berries, stat buffing berries, type boosting items, choice items, accuracy items..., some Pokemon have their hidden abilities, moves you wouldn't expect they can learn, according to datamines are EV and IV trained perfectly AND the game has actually assigned nature's to them as well.

Basically you can be 5-10 levels over where you should be and Cyrus' Gyarados will still take that 4x super effective Electric Move like a champ because of Wacan Berry nerfing the damage, then one shot you with Earthquake.

@Octane That's totally fair and I agree, they should've made it optional. But it isn't now. So what are you going to do, play through the game with only six Pokémon and then complain that it's too easy when you know you can do something about it? And if you really are that adamant about using only six Pokémon, then why not just skip this entire game then instead of putting yourself through an experience that you know you're not going to like.

The point is that this is how the game has turned out to be. We can discuss as much as you like how the developers should've made the EXP Share optional, but at the end of the day this is how the game is like now. You can either make the best out of a situation like this or just avoid getting the game and save yourself some money.

Not to mention that if you're looking for challenge in a JRPG, your first choice should absolutely not be Pokémon to begin with. I mean, even the older games that didn't have EXP Share across your entire team were easy. I played through Yellow and Crystal a couple of years ago and they're very much easy games. Same with Emerald and FireRed, Platinum and HeartGold, and so on and so forth. Pokémon is just an easy JRPG franchise in general.

@LtSarge That’s if you sold me on it! I usually don’t really mess around with my main team. Like with most games I try to get beneficial natures for the Pokémon I want & stick with them until at least gym 6. Might just encourage me to mess around more. For difficulty I’ve been playing some of the rom hacks (ultra violet, …). Haven’t played D/P in at least 10 years I think so I’ll give it a shot.
I just know I’m going to get annoyed when my Pokémon heals itself of a burn because it loves me so much. That’s got to be disabled in competitive play. @Octane @Haruki_NLI Does anyone know how EVs work with constant exp share? Like knock out Alakazam & everyone gets 3 Sp Atk EVs or is it just the battling Pokémon?

@LtSarge I wasn't going to buy a €60 barebones remake anyway

@Fight_Teza_Fight Exactly like that, the EVs are shared by all Pokemon in your team. Sword and Shield also did it this way, and it made EV training more annoying than it should've been.

@Octane My god I hate that. I don’t even know what to say. Game has literally gone from hardcore easy 100hr+ to beat Elite 4 catch all legendary’s to me.

@Fight_Teza_Fight The thing is that it's just a lovely time playing D/P again in remake form. Ever since ORAS, I've been eagerly awaiting remakes of D/P. So while I wasn't that excited to play it initially, having now played it for the past week I'm very happy with my purchase, which I only paid €37 for btw @Octane

@Kidfried Yeah but it's getting a bit tiring hearing the same complaints about EXP Share because people have been complaining about it since 2013 when Pokémon X/Y introduced shared EXP among all party members. And even though it was optional back then, people still complained. I think it's fairly obvious that this is the direction the Pokémon series is heading and we just have to accept that the games aren't going to become more difficult in the future. Or rather, it's better to keep expectations low in terms of difficulty options. It would be nice to see EXP Share become optional in the future or if the developer added different difficulty levels, but I absolutely wouldn't expect that from this franchise anymore.

The good thing about playing SMT V next to something like Pokemon is that eventually you get your fill of the former kicking your teeth in (especially on Hard mode) and the latter becomes more relaxing as a result.

Although I'll be making a conscious effort to rotate my mons so that it's slightly harder to utterly steamroll gym leaders.

@Kidfried An onboard SSD is really top of the list in terms of my wants for Ninty's next console, although the system is still quite a bit snappier than sluggish beasts like Wii U and PS4. But yeah, I have an SSD in my PC, and it's pretty transformative. My laptop is still running on an HDD, and the difference in loading and response times for everything is pretty massive.

@Ralizah Hey friend how are you liking SMT V? Is it living up to your expectations?

@TraCuz- The plot is underdeveloped, most of the characters are forgettable, and the game could do with some more environmental diversity. Everything else is amazing.

So mostly, but not entirely.

Still my favorite release of 2021.

@Ralizah Dang that's unfortunate, you think it would be a good first SMT game? My only history with the series is Persona 4 and 5.

@TraCuz- Absolutely. This is one of the more accessible entries in the series to date.

SMT in general tends to de-emphasize narrative elements anyway, so an underwhelming story isn't really a big deal. And there won't be any social simulation elements like in the Persona games. 90% of the game is exploration, monster-collecting, and challenging combat, with human side characters only showing up occasionally in story sequences.

@Ralizah Nice to know, thanks for your input