Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@KilloWertz I've heard a few people say HFW was too much for them. It'll be interesting to see if that remains true for me as well when I inevitably grab it.

Before Switch, you had to go for the handhelds to get that sense of variety. That was especially true last gen. Wii U was going long stretches with absolutely nothing while 3DS was being supported by the majority of major players in the industry. So Nintendo going the hybrid, all-in-one route with their hardware was genius, since it consolidated their various fanbases and even helped build a new one that specifically enjoys the hybrid design of the console. The core, Nintendo home console-only crowd that only wants to play Zelda and Mario games has been pretty put out since 2017, but judging by the sales of the Wii U, there aren't very many of them to begin with.

Myself, in terms of home consoles, after NES, I went to Sega (until the Dreamcast delivered the killing blow to their dreams of remaining a manufacturer, anyway), as well as to Sony for the PS1 and PS2 (still my all-time favorite pure home consoles). I've been pretty disenchanted with home consoles from that point on, since I feel like the industry shifted balance toward Western AAA game development in the seventh gen, which I broadly don't care for, although I've owned a few since (360, Wii U, and PS4, to be exact). 3DS and PS Vita were my primary devices last gen, and Nintendo Switch occupies that role now.

Unpopular opinion, but Genesis > SNES for me. I feel like the library was a LOT more diverse on Sega's platform.

Monolith Soft has long been in the business of creating flawed classics. Like, Xenogears was one of the most ambitious games on the PS1, but they messed up their time scale for completing the game so badly that the game infamously relegated large chunks of the story to in-game narration during the second disc. Tetsuya Takahashi had these grand plans for some larger-scale, multimedia story that just never bore fruit. Same thing happened with Xenosaga, which was originally going to be this six-part epic, but that never actually transpired.

Xenoblade Chronicles games always felt like they were getting ahead of themselves in that way in terms of the gameplay, instead. They're so excited to test out new, interesting gameplay concepts, but clearly didn't stop to think about how best to ease the player into these complex patchworks of mechanics and systems. XCX was probably the worst in this regard: it's so overwhelming and complex in all aspects of its design that I literally just abandoned the game. It all felt excessive.

Thankfully, since Torna, they seem to have been focusing on improving the user experience with each release. Maybe a little too much in XC3, since the tutorials are forced, but I appreciate not having to watch a youtube video to understand how the combat system works.

XC2 is absolutely worth playing for the story, btw. It's also an ultimately very enjoyable game once you get through its various mid-game design annoyances. The tone of the game is also completely different from the original, though, so be prepared. Much more 'modern anime' than a lot of OG fans were prepared for. Even people who dislike it are usually willing to acknowledge how excellent the entire second half of the story is, though. I also felt like it did a much better job of developing its core cast, but you can judge that for yourself.

You're right that MS was trying things out in the XC2 DLC in anticipation of future games. The campfire system in Torna: The Golden Country was adopted almost wholesale in XC3.

@Ralizah I seem to have opened the floodgates once you got to start talking about Nintendo again. I'm assuming you are a Nintendo fan first and have the PlayStation for the exclusives and some other games you can't play on the Switch.

You can easily skip plenty of the side content if it gets too much, so it should only be overwhelming if you let it. I wanted to experience as much as I could of it given how much I enjoyed the first one's story, so I did most of the side content (outside of much of the arena and racing). They actually did a fairly good job of making it worthwhile, and I have to give them credit for making each individual character (even ones just in side quests) unique and with a different voice unlike in a lot of open world games.

Yeah, I've never been into handhelds really. I got a 3DS, but changed my mind and took it back shortly after as I knew I wasn't going to use it. It was more of an impulse buy. My Switch is staying though. I also can't argue that the Switch was a genius move by Nintendo.

I was a Sega guy after the NES as well, which is why I never owned the SNES or even the N64, as I was diehard enough to actually buy the 32X and the Sega Saturn. Them killing the Saturn so quickly ended any chance of me trying to support them one last time with the Dreamcast, even though it was a pretty good console. I still have the Saturn and a small collection of games for it.

So, it's either they finally read the player feedback and decided to try to get as many players as possible to grow the series or Nintendo told them to so they could use it as a major series for them. Either way, it's good to see that they finally learned from their mistakes and have the gameplay match the story and characters.

I don't watch much anime, so not entirely sure what that means, but I should be ok with the sequel. Like I said before, as long as the characters and story are great, then I'm ok with spending the large amount of time these games require.

What game is your avatar from? I might have seen you answer that question before, but I forget.

@KilloWertz At this point, I suppose I am primarily a Nintendo fan, although that's conditional on their support for portable gaming hardware and niche/smaller releases more broadly. If, next gen, they just had a pure home console and doubled down on a small number of mainstream AAA series like Mario and Zelda, it'd probably be years before I bought one, and then only for the exclusives.

On the other hand, if Sony released, say, a PS Vita 2, and doubled down on their exclusive JRPG support, I'd be there day one, money in hand. Particularly if it was a hybrid, since there are times I like to play games on the TV. I just don't like that being my only option.

I bought PS4 with four games in mind: Gravity Rush 2, Persona 5, Metal Gear Solid V, and Silent Hills. Obviously that last one didn't pan out, although buying in early allowed me to experience a piece of gaming history that is now lost to time for most people (PT), so it all worked out in the end. I also got to play a number of cool games years before they migrated to other platforms, like Tetris Effect and NieR: Automata. And I became surprisingly addicted to Horizon Zero Dawn, which I genuinely wasn't expecting. Almost feel bad I copped the game + DLC for $10. Ditto with God of War, actually, although I'm a little more ambivalent toward that one, even if I did ultimately enjoy my time with it (enough that I platinumed it).

I'm curious what I'll think of Machine Strike when I get HFW. I've almost universally hated in-game minigames like Blitzball, Gwent, and whatever that annoying card game in Final Fantasy IX was called. But I imagine it's probably required for the platinum trophy, so I'm hoping I don't end up disliking it.

I actually missed out on the Sega Saturn. Probably because, like nearly everyone else, I was fixated on the PS1. Although I did return to Sega with the Dreamcast, and had a nice little collection of games for it that were lost in one of my moves (I'm still salty about that). I wouldn't say I liked it as much as the PS2, but it had some really neat exclusives.

Probably my favorite was one I rarely hear people talk about, a super robot-themed 3D fighting game called Tech Romancer:

Another favorite was the mecha war simulation game Gundam - Side Story 0079 - Rise from the Ashes. It let you play from a first-person perspective inside the mobile suit, like in a MechWarrior game.

It also had exclusive access to Resident Evil: Code Veronica, which I always thought of as the "real" Resident Evil 4, for at a full year or more before the game was ported to other consoles, which was cool.

My avatar is from a game called Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc. It's the first entry in a series of adventure games that mix together horror, science-fiction, and murder-mystery elements. The series was exclusive to the PS Vita outside of Japan for a long time and, alongside the original Gravity Rush and Corpse Party, was a big reason I bought the handheld as soon as I did.

@Ralizah Although they have done that in the past like you said, I'd be surprised if they changed things up again and reverted back to their old ways with much less variety. Too many other things have been successful on the Switch for them to revert back, or at least you would think so.

The plan for me was to wait for Uncharted 4, but I ended up not wanting to wait to play Metal Gear Solid V, so I bought a PS4 right before that came out. Obviously I loved Horizon Zero Dawn, but I think I'm one of the few people in the world that didn't think God of War was one of the greatest things Sony has ever put out. It was a technical masterpiece and played well, but I couldn't stand his son. He was so annoying to me that I almost didn't finish the game. I powered through his extreme immaturity to finish the game, but he single handily kept the game from being great for me, and I'm surprised basically everybody was willing to shrug off how annoying he was.

It is fine, but I also liked Gwent, so who knows what you'll think. I hated what they did to Gwent in Thronebreaker, but the basic version was fun for me. I think like a lot of the trophies you only have to beat a certain amount of Machine Strike players and not every single one. It's been several months and a lot of games since, but I'm pretty sure I'm right.

I've heard of the series, mainly because one or two of them are on Game Pass. Well, now I know.

Man, Pokémon Scarlet/Violet look so sweet! From what we've seen today, it is basically Breath of the Wild meets Pokémon. The cover legendary Pokémon acts as your form of transportation and you can use it to ride, surf, climb and fly, which is so cool. Not to mention that you can go anywhere you want and tackle the gyms in any order you like. They're still a bit vague about co-op though, I don't know if you're able to take on gym leaders together with friends or not. But still, being able to explore the world with friends is awesome. On top of this, there's the return of Max Raid Battles from Sword/Shield, which was one of the best aspects of those games. This time though, the battles take place in real time so you don't have to wait for other people's turn, which is cool!

I'd still like to see more of the game in terms of the size of the map (from the artwork, it looks pretty huge), what else you can do in the world and if co-op works in all aspects of the story mode including gym battles.

One interesting thing that people on Twitter have noted is that the map is based on Spain and to the top right corner of it, there's an area that's fogged out. In real life, the country to the top right of Spain is France and Pokémon X/Y's Kalos region is based off on France. So who knows, maybe we'll be able to go to another region after the main game is done, kinda like they did in gen 2 with Gold/Silver.

@Ralizah My problem wasn't the whole companion thing. I actually liked having Ellie go along with Joel as I thought they were both really good characters in a good story. I didn't love that game either like most people did as I thought the gameplay was just average, with the clickers (I think that's what they were called) being too overpowering. I thought Part II was much improved in that department, which is why I was so excited for The Last of Us Part 1 when they said it would have modernized gameplay and such, leading you to believe that it was basically the first one's story with Part II's gameplay. Quite a package it would have been, but unfortunately both Sony and Naughty Dog flat out lied. That is also another reason why it was so easy for me to finally get a Switch.

Anyways, my other problem with God of War was they made it into the mold of their other 3rd person action adventure games. It was still fairly unique for PlayStation until then, but while it was indeed a technical masterpiece and a solid all around game (minus Atreus), it was another sign they want everything to be too similar now. I actually like the cinematic nature of their games, as they generally tell a good story with good characters, but the Uncharted series will always be the peak for me in regards to their games being cinematic. Horizon I suppose would hold the torch now.

Another thing I've noticed now is it's nice to be playing the Switch with it being so hot out off and on this Summer. When playing the PS5, while I never thought the system itself got ridiculously hot, it got pretty warm in the room after a while. Now I don't really notice that while playing the Switch. If nothing else, it's a good Summer system.

@KilloWertz

Didn't Sony release a video detailing gameplay upgrades in TLOU Part I? The controversy sounds to me like a mismatch in expectations. Fans wanted Part II's gameplay overhaul, but it sounds like ND just tweaked things around the edges because they didn't want to have to update the level design at all. Which, I guess, makes the rhetoric about the game being "totally rebuilt" a bit deceptive, but perhaps not to the point where it could be classified as a lie. But I'll admit I've not paid a ton of interest to how this drama has unfolded, so correct me if I'm mistaken here.

Yeah, Sony does have this issue where it feels like the vast majority of their big games are cinematic third-person action-adventure games. That's not to say that such games aren't appealing, or that Sony's studios aren't clearly very talented at developing them, but it does lead to their first-party line-up feeling a bit... samey, I guess. Especially with them having shuttered Japan Studio. Stuff like Gravity Rush, The Last Guardian, etc. might not have sold well, but they did add a welcome level of diversity to Sony's offerings. And they had their fans as well. Even if I wish it had been a Vita game instead, GR2 was still a big part of why I bought the PS4. That's why you want to offer a lot of different types of games, frankly. Fans of cinematic action games were already planning on buying a PS5. They don't need to be endlessly catered to.

This would be less of an issue if we were back in 1999 and Japanese developers were pretty much only developing games for Playstation, but, as we all know, Sony's death grip on Japanese third-party support slipped big time last gen. Yakuza, Trails, Ys, Persona, etc. are all going to a variety of platforms, and suddenly the latest Playstation console is no longer the one-stop-shop for such games. This will become even more of an issue as Microsoft continues to snap up developers and publishers left and right.

It's why I continue to maintain that Nintendo's protectionist strategy is a good idea long term, even if they don't maximize revenue with every single release. While not wholly immune to events impacting the rest of the industry, I do genuinely think they're better prepared to handle seismic shifts in the industry than Sony is. Just look at how terrified Sony is by the potential for big names like Call of Duty to leave their ecosystem (and millions of players with it), whereas Nintendo keeps peddling along without much in the way of major AAA third-party support. Because, even if Switch never enjoyed another third-party release again, they'd still have a massive trove of first-party games to fall back on that people can't (legally) play elsewhere.

PS5 heating up a room makes sense. The thing is a beast. The power draw of Switch is usually between 15 - 30 watts, whereas PS5 games are usually between 140 - 200 watts. That's a big difference in heat generation. Which, thinking about it, might be an issue in some set-ups given the record high temps being recorded as of late. Although I guess that means PS5 will be a good Winter system?

@LtSarge A recent leak (which revealed the gimmick of this game before Nintendo ever announced it, giving it massive credibility) asserted that there's no level scaling for Pokemon in gyms, which would make the ability to play the game in a non-linear fashion essentially pointless, since trying to tackle late game gyms early on means you'll be wildly underleveled, and that'll ruin any potential challenge early game gyms might have had.

I really, really hope that's not the case.

It'd also be nice if you could catch Pokemon outside of battle like in Legends: Arceus, but I think they would have announced such a feature if you could.

@Ralizah I saw the lack of level scaling too. Genuinely baffling decision. I was really interested in these Pokémon games after how good Arceus was but that’s kinda nullified any reason to not follow one strict path.

Kotaro Uchikoshi of Zero Escape and AI: The Somnium Files fame is a king. The whole thread is worth a read, he eviscerates the guy.

@nessisonett Same. Legends: Arceus is one of the best games in the series. Or, at least, better than the series has been in at least a decade. Every aspect of the experience was touched up or re-evaluated in some way. It still looked like hell, had annoying dialogue, and some weirdly annoying side-quests, but it felt like a modern game with some effort and love poured into it. So it's really disappointing to see them back-peddle with this newest set of games.

Really wish they would have pushed this gen off a bit and built them around PLA's improvements. Imagine an open world Pokemon with level scaling for the gyms and being able to seamlessly catch Pokemon outside of battle. That would've been awesome.

I'm still interested in these games, but this is a genuinely dumb move if the leak fully pans out.

@Ralizah It wasn't a focus on the gameplay. It was mainly just a focus on what they upgraded in the remake, which obviously didn't touch a whole lot on gameplay improvements other than what would come naturally from 3D audio and better graphics and animations. A quote from the PlayStation Blog when they announced the remake "We’ve implemented modernized gameplay, improved controls, and expanded accessibility options in this single-player experience to allow even more individuals to enjoy the game. Effects, exploration, and combat have all been enhanced." Well, that's a flat out lie as they didn't modernize the gameplay or improve the controls. It's the same game from that perspective.

Their studios definitely are very talented, and honestly I'll play a lot of their games even if I feel they are getting very similar to eachother. If it has really good characters and a really good story, then I'm very interested. It was just a shame in my opinion that they had to turn God of War into the same mold, but oh well. What do I know when the rest of the world said it was spectacular?

Yeah, Nintendo's catalog has really grown this Nintendo generation. I say it that way since they don't really play by the regular console generation rules anymore. How much their catalog has grown definitely made the Switch more appealing. Sure, you do have some games that a fairly similar to one another like Triangle Strategy, Bravely Default 2, and Fire Emblem, but there's a ton to play now as long a you like Japanese games. Third party support has gotten better, but obviously it's still not in line with PlayStation and Xbox. Even smaller series that you would have thought would have been no-brainers for the Switch, like Life is Strange, are hardly on it (True Colors was surprisingly the only one that came up when I searched earlier). Still, there is enough to compliment the massive output from Nintendo on the Switch.

Yeah, I couldn't imagine playing a PS5 or a Series X when it was well above record highs in the UK during July. I guess if you wanted to play anything during that month, a person would have had to grab their Switch and curl up next to the air outlet.

@Ralizah I genuinely doubt that there's no level scaling in Scarlet/Violet considering how much they emphasised being able to go anywhere and tackle gyms in any order. Game Freak would receive so much backlash from the fans if that turned out to be true though as that would render the freedom aspect of the game pointless.

@Kidfried The original trilogy was, but the 2018 game is much more like the rest of Sony's games nowadays than the previous God of War games. I know series evolve sometimes, but it was more disappointing for me to see a series I thought was fantastic be turned into yet another game in their current mold. It is what it is, and obviously I'm in the extreme minority as that is many people's favorite PS4 game. Also, I can't fault Santa Monica's effort from a technical perspective, as I would say that and The Last of Us Part II were probably the two most impressive games technically of the previous generation.

I mean this in the nicest way possible, but good for you. My opinion could never change on Atreus in the first game. I do expect him to be just fine in Ragnarok though now that he's grown up some.

@Kidfried Fanbases evolve over time to match the attitude of the manufacturer, and that in turn causes the manufacturer to double-down on their approach. Sony's internal fixation on AAA prestige blockbusters has cultivated a fanbase full of people who only want to play "big" games, which has caused sales of indie and AA releases to suffer as a result. This, in turn, is pushing Sony to double-down on a smaller number of first-party releases that'll net them higher metacritic scores, which means less genre diversity in terms of their offerings (especially considering games belonging to niche genres will generally suffer more critically).

Nintendo has become a company that heavily pushes and publishes a larger variety of small and mid-tier games that don't tend to score as highly, and you also see that with much healthier sales for pretty much everything in that range. A number of games that would probably struggle to sell a few hundred thousand units on PS5 are cracking the million copies sold threshold on Switch, and, in general, it's the healthiest console space for smaller developers. On the other hand, AAA ports tend to not do amazingly well on the platform, which is why I think, regardless of how powerful their next console is, you won't see some massive influx of third-party AAA multiplat support.

I haven't heard much of anything good about game sales on Xbox outside of Game Pass, which is what happens when your brand becomes synonymous with a game subscription service, I imagine.

@KilloWertz So, the prepubescent child was annoying in God of War, but you reckon he'll become LESS annoying and hard to be around when he's subjected to a surge of hormones as Ragnarok is taking place?

That's a mighty optimistic outlook you have there. I like the cut of your jib!

Played through wave 2 of the Mario Kart 8 DLC and it's easily the best pack so far! I like pretty much all courses.

• New York Minute was a cozy stage.
• Mario Circuit 3 may feel pretty lackluster to most people but I remember it from Mario Kart Wii I believe and I have fond memories of it from that game, so I liked it.
• I was expecting Kalimari Desert to be just like it was before, i.e. just driving around three times but they actually changed the course so you drive on the rails and through the tunnel in the second lap, which is freaking cool! That definitely made the course much more interesting.
• Waluigi Pinball looks so much more vibrant and colorful now compared to before. And obviously, it's a favourite among Mario Kart fans for a reason. It's such a good course.
• Sydney Sprint, holy crap I did not expect to like this course as much as I did! The course itself is really good with a cozy tropical theme and lots of places to race through, but what made me fall in love with it was the music:
  Such an awesome track! I genuinely can't stop listening to it.
• Snow Land, I wasn't expecting much from this course since it's a GBA one but they did a good job remaking it. It feels like a brand new stage in all honesty. And the music is great as well:

• Mushroom Gorge, another one from Wii that I absolutely love. Although I felt like it was kinda hard making the jumps on the mushrooms in this version. But maybe I'm just rusty. Still a great track.
• Finally we have the new course Sky-High Sundae. It looks nice with the ice cream theme but the track design isn't that interesting as it's just one big oval. Still liked it overall due to its simplicity.

So all in all, I absolutely love wave 2 of the Mario Kart 8 DLC. I doubt any of the later packs will be able to top this one.

@Ralizah Well, him and Kratos finally seemed to be on the same page by the end of the first game, so he's probably gotten the annoying stuff about gods out of his system now. Plus, he may be a bit more mature now given the fact that he's older (how much older, I don't know). Regardless, he can't be any more annoying than he was in the first one for me anyways.

@LtSarge What is your friend code? I may not be playing anything online for quite some time since I've only been an owner of a Switch for a week now, but still looking to add some people here and there. I will probably get Mario Kart at some point.

Agreed. These are pretty solid. I still wish they would have done a better job with the textures- they just don’t pop like they did on the Mk8/MK8D courses….

@HallowMoonshadow It's a definite shift in tone. The first and third games are more straightforwardly serious most of the time, and what comedy there is tends to be sporadic, versus the semi-frequent light-hearted detours through XC2's first half.

Yeah, people have frequently used the term "offline MMO" to describe the series for a number of reasons. The Wii U open world spinoff, Xenoblade Chronicles X, actually went so far in that direction that you could play with others online when clearing certain side missions. The entire game felt very PSO-ish to me. The mainline games, to be clear, are 100% single player affairs, though.

I rarely bother with DLC, but a few high-profile Switch exclusives have enjoyed substantial DLC expansions this gen. Another favorite was Splatoon 2's Octo Expansion, which provided access to a lengthy and difficult second single-player campaign designed for people who mastered the base game. I've not bothered with DLC that just adds stuff to the game I already played, though, because once I'm done with a game, I'm done.

In fairness to you, the cutscenes those tracks play in usually feature someone fighting and/or dying, so you're half right.

Here's some context.

(wanted to just link the short first cutscene in the second video, but I can't find a separate one to link that doesn't feature a major early game spoiler in the title)