Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@KilloWertz Yes, I definitely recall the combat in XCDE being perhaps one of the most unique systems - and it certainly takes some time getting used to it. IMO, I think FF7R did a great job in adapting that style of combat into something a bit more fluid... but I can still appreciate what XCDE was aiming for. I will definitely be getting XC3 this week, everyone seems to be loving it!
As for my 280hrs+...MHR (base) had the prestigious title of being my 'lockdown game' and kept me sane throughout the pandemic ha! Enjoy XCDE, I think you're not far off the halfway point now

@Ralizah Yeah I heard all the good things you said about it so I was leaning toward TS. I'll order it now anyway, not sure when I will actually get round to playing it but the voucher expires in a couple of days.

Loving XBC3 though, I have not had time to play as much as I would like but I am savouring the chances I do get. I have just started Chapter 3 and completed the first hero quest, I am around level 22 and spent a while in the menus yesterday sorting out my gems/arts/classes and gear. Not all of the systems really make sense to me yet, but it is fun learning and even without knowing what I am doing the combat has not been super challenging on normal difficulty, so I guess there is plenty of room to play through mistakes with your set up, perhaps as long as you stick to the 2x2x2 healer/defender/attacker rule.

I am really enjoying it though, and it is still growing on me, so I can see me loving it as I get further in. Perhaps slightly disappointed by the lack of fantastic environments so far (I have not seen anything to match Gormott or The Kingdom of Uraya just yet) and the overworld soundtrack has me a little less pumped, although it is still largely excellent, with the song that plays while you're at a rest spot being a stand out for me, for some reason.

Kinda wish it was a little higher resolution and in HDR but that's life.

I didn't mind all the cringe BS in XBC2, and was worried it'd be a snooze fest like XBC1 without so much of it, but actually I wouldn't change the tone of XBC3 as it stands. It seems to work really well.

@CJD87 I would say I'd probably like the combat better if it wasn't so repetitive fighting the random things you run into along the way that you technically don't have to fight. I do to level up, but it is pretty much the same fight over and over and it's usually quite easy. Still, like I said, I'm enjoying the game and it's not like I think the combat system is horrible. Just repetitive. I loved the combat in FF7R, but maybe I'm a bit biased since that was one of my favorite games of the last few years.

I looked it up and there's 17 chapters not counting the Prologue. So I'm slightly passed 1/3 of the way. As for MHR, there's nothing wrong with that. I was just having a bit of fun.

@kyleforrester87 I'd say the music and environments are the biggest area where I feel like it's a step down from XC2. Oh, and story pacing. XC2 explodes out of the gate, and while it does slow down afterward, it's still the entry where I felt like I was constantly seeing and doing new stuff. I also really liked how the villains felt almost as central to the narrative as the main cast did, and the game spent time developing them to some degree, whereas the baddies in XC3 feel like they were ripped from a Tokusatsu show or something.

But XC3 has its own merits. The new chain attack system is a lot of fun. Overworld navigation and exploration is the least frustrating it has ever been in the series. The animation work in this new entry is so smooth it makes previous games feel like janky PS2 titles. I really like the simultaneously bleak, yet chilled out tone of the game. The game also does a bang up job of slowly but methodically developing its core cast.

But, more than anything, sidequests are actually good now, and I really appreciate that.

The resolution is... weird. Like, I don't get why those flashback sequences to when they were children are so blurry compared to the rest of the game. Undocked image quality, while not perfect, is at least playable now, and open world environments don't reduce it to a blurry, impressionistic mess of pixels as happened with XC2.

In general, it's the game I wish XC1 had been.

Just be careful with the bonus EXP you can use at campsites, as the game doesn't seem to be balanced around it. Using it will wildly overlevel your character. Especially if you like to explore. Even if that's not a dealbreaker for you in terms of difficulty, the CP gains you get from fights that allow you to rank up classes go down when you're a higher level than your enemy.

@Ralizah I read there are parts of Gormott and so on scattered throughout the world of XBC3, which is really interesting. I am definitely going to be looking out for those now. Keen to see how it links with the other games, even if there is not an grand conclusion. Tenuous links are good for the imagination!

"I really like the simultaneously bleak, yet chilled out tone of the game", I second that - I was worried it would be a bit too bleak but the characters are surprisingly optimistic despite the drama, the result is the tone is pretty bang on.

Shame about the enemies not being so fleshed out. I just took it for granted that we were going to be getting somewhere with them, but perhaps not if you're saying that. Looking back, maybe that was my problem with XBC1 too. Old robot face just wasn't doing it for me. And that bloody Monado.

@Ralizah I might have gone a bit OTT with the bonus XP now you mention it. Although, I don't actually mind smashing my way through everyone in these games. Maybe I'll back off it a little now, though, since you said about the CP gains. Didn't know about that.

@kyleforrester87 Well, you could always try out the demos before you decide!

@KilloWertz Didn't know it was difficult to acquire physical copies of Switch games in the US. That's not the case here in Sweden. I pretty much buy all my AAA games physically in order to save storage space. Physical copies cost about the same as digital ones anyway considering Nintendo games rarely go down in price.

I also don't want to make the same mistake with the Vita and wait too long with buying games as they might stop producing physical copies. Missed out on so many games that I wanted to get. And there are plenty of Switch titles that I want to get.

@LtSarge I worry about demos for games I am on the fence about, more often than not they just put me off. And for something long and wordy like TS I would probably just not get into it. Ah well, ordered now - let’s wait and see!

@LtSarge It depends on the game, and I was initially going by Amazon which strangely has several games that aren't the US versions anymore. Most of the usual major Nintendo franchises are still easy enough to get elsewhere though. It's mainly certain JRPGS like Xenoblade Chronicles 1 and 2 that aren't available, and I would imagine some obscure titles as well that I didn't bother looking up. Fire Emblem: Three Houses is another that isn't being sold physically by anybody but Gamestop, unless you go through a third party on Walmart.com. eBay is still an option, as unlike with a lot of things that are unavailable, it seems the the already mentioned games are still going for reasonable prices.

A lot of Nintendo's 1st party titles never going down in price on the eShop is annoying, and one reason I didn't fully commit to going all digital with the Switch. I did buy Xenoblade Chronicles digitally since it was my only option to get it right away since I wanted to play it first, but obviously the option is there for me to go physical with everything else if I choose to. I could get several of those games that never drop from $59.99 even after 5 years right now for around $50 from Best Buy if I wanted to. I would love to be lazy and just have everything on my Switch, but Nintendo does kind of kill the enthusiasm for that by not putting games like Super Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Luigi's Mansion 3, etc. on sale ever on the eShop.

Big Switch games actually do occasionally go on sale digitally. Almost all of the big releases have fallen to $40 at points, and I've copped a few around $30.

At least in NA.

@Ralizah The really big 1st party titles like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey (and any other major Mario game), Luigi's Mansion, Metroid games, etc.? I'm new of course and don't have much in the way of any personal history to go on. Was just going on what I've read from users elsewhere that Nintendo's own games rarely go on sale, but people could be wrong of course.

@KilloWertz I would consider games appearing in Nintendo’s sales once a year. To be rarely when compared to PlayStation. Which seems to put every first party game on sale every couple of months.

@Ryall @KilloWertz Yeah, digital sales on big first-party titles aren't common, but they do happen every now and then. Wildly less common than equivalent sales on PSN and Microsoft's store, and the games take longer to sink in price in the first place.

If I've gone back and forth on a Nintendo-published game and it hits 50% off digitally, I'll usually bite. Something like Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition for $30 was too tempting to pass up.

Of course, keep in mind this is from an American perspective. I have no idea how European sales are.

Regarding Xenoblade, I've seen the Definitive Edition sell for around $35 pretty frequently between both formats. Mostly physically. Whereas XC2 and Torna seem to be perpetually out of print physically and almost never enjoy digital sales, to the point where the game actually rises pretty high up on Amazon's best-sellers chart for Switch games when it occasionally comes back into stock at full price.

Nintendo's pricing strategy makes it the most expensive to keep up with overall, but I also think it's the most straightforward in this regard.

An indispensable resource I'd recommend if you want to score Switch games as cheaply as possible is dekudeals.com, which tracks price dips over time and, if you sign up with them and wishlist a game, will alert you when it goes on sale, both physically and digitally.

@Ralizah I'm American too, so this applies to the both of us. And I guess we now know that you're all digital. Not that it really matters.

Thanks for the website tip. From what you said and the fact that several of them are currently on sale from Best Buy, they seem to go on sale a bit more often physically, unless it's just lucky timing and unlucky timing digitally.

Random question, but did you get your new avatar on Switch from Xenoblade Chronicles 3? I know it's not one of the default ones, and thought maybe it's like sometimes on PlayStation where you get some from buying or playing certain games.

@KilloWertz I'm probably 70% digital on Switch, since I don't have a nostalgic hankering for inserting bits of plastic into my console in order to play my games. If I can score a game more cheaply physically, that's usually how I'll get it, though.

Yeah, physical copies go on sale more often. BTW, if you don't want to load money onto the eshop, stores like Amazon usually pricematch eshop sales for digital codes. And, oftentimes, you can use this to score more gold points for purchases than you would if you bought directly from the eshop.

No. One of the perks of NSO is that you can redeem your platinum points from My Nintendo for a rotating selection of icon elements. The icons are actually composed of three layers, and you mix and match elements you redeem to create a custom one.

I don't know if they require you to actually own the games in question to gain access to the icons, though.

@KilloWertz there will be some sales for sure during thanksgiving and Xmas. Sometimes might have a back to school sale. Recently a multiplayer sale. Have seen spring, summer and Halloween sales. If u r willing to wat, u can find stuff on sale

@Ralizah Ok, that would also explain why I didn't know where your avatar came from (is it from XC3?). I haven't subscribed to Nintendo Online yet. I will use the 7 day free trial and then go from there at some point to play A Link to the Past and probably some others eventually, but it doesn't make much sense to do so yet since I'm just jumping into the Switch's catalog.

I'm fine with loading money onto the account, and right now Nintendo Life has a sale on eShop codes. If I decide to go the digital route, I will buy some codes. It would essentially make anything I buy with those codes be $51 since it's 10% off and then every $60 purchase gets enough points to amount to $3 I believe. Do they have sales on their site very often?

@rockodoodle They seems to always have at least one sale going, and at least 1,000 games or content at a time as I've yet to see the total drop below that on the Deals page in the almost two weeks I've had my Switch.. I did see the multiplayer sale, but it didn't really have anything in it that I wanted right now, especially since I'm just starting out and want to play some of the major 1st party titles first.

Honestly, I haven't really decided which route I will go. Physical seems to be cheaper overall if you want the major games outside of the 1 or 2 sales they are in a year (I'm guessing around Black Friday), but it is also nice to be able to just load up a game with a press of a button. I'm also not concerned with the eventual closing of the Switch's eShop as games are still downloadable, and I plan on never deleting any of the games I buy if I go the digital route.

@KilloWertz Yeah, it's one of the main party members from XC3. People were quite excited to see XC getting more attention with stuff like this, since Nintendo usually sticks with pushing their more family-friendly offerings.

I dunno about NL discounts, but Amazon frequently has pretty good sales on eshop credit. That, combined with the gold coins, definitely reduces the cost of downloading software on the console.

Physically, you can usually score brand new Switch games for $50 a day or two after launch from Walmart.

This all helps to make it cheaper over time to purchase their first-party games.

@Ralizah So tell me… where did this obsession with inserting bits of plastic into your Nintendo Switch stem from? Is it a deep rooted sexual dysfunction? Is the Game Card really a metaphor for your own unfulfillment?

@nessisonett You joke, but I do think some older gamers who refuse to ever buy digital games, even the ones that never get physical copies, are oftentimes working through usually subsconscious anxieties related to aging.

@LN78 It's nuts, right? Especially old Pokemon games. A lack of new print runs as time wears on + the persistent popularity of the series had made old physical Pokemon game collections that were kept in good shape miniature gold mines.

It is pretty cool owning physical Switch games that don't require any updates, as they're pretty much the only extant analogues to the physical games of old, since you don't even need to install them on the internal memory.

Of course, the flip side are AAA ports, which often require downloading half the data from the internet thanks to the cost of Switch cards vs the discs used by the home consoles.