Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Kairu Yeah this was an excellent year for Nintendo. I wasn't expecting that going into 2022, but man did they release so many games this year!

On a side note, I have been contemplating about learning things that I've missed out on doing during my life. One of those things is learning how to play chess, which I feel is an important game to know how to play. Then I remembered that chess is actually included as one of the games in 51 Worldwide Games on Switch and I decided to finally learn how to play it. It wasn't actually as bad as I thought, it took me maybe about an hour including the game's lessons and practice but I know now how to play it! Obviously I'm far from being good at it, but at least I know what the goal of the game is and how you move each chess piece. It's actually a fun game with so much depth, so I understand now why it's such a popular game. Might actually keep playing it from here on out.

@Kairu Thanks for the recommendation. I'll add it to my watchlist!

2022 is easily the best year of support for the system since 2017. Actually, it might be my favorite year for the system overall, since it always feels like there's some really high-quality exclusive just around the corner now.

Which is weird, since Nintendo console support usually dies out pretty quickly after the first few years. 2018 and 2020 weren't great, but otherwise, I've been consistently happy with how the system has been supported.

Just got done playing one game of Mario Party 1 and 2 respectively. I can say with confidence that the first Mario Party doesn't hold up well today at all lol. It's absolutely brutal, you can lose coins by simply losing in regular mini-games. Not to mention that landing on Bowser spaces screws up other players more often than it does yourself. There's also no items to hold, there's basically no strategy at all in the first game.

Mario Party 2 on the other hand plays very similarly to modern Mario Party. You don't lose coins from losing in mini-games, landing on Bowser spaces actually punishes you more often than other players, there's items and more strategy overall. So we're definitely going to be playing more Mario Party 2 in the future and skipping Mario Party 1 completely. Hopefully Mario Party 3 is also similar to Mario Party 2 so we can look forward to it in the future.

Like I thought, Pokemon Legends: Arceus raised peoples' standards for what they expect from a modern Pokemon game, and Scarlet/Violet are getting hosed in reviews as a result. They really should have held off another year or so, polished up the performance, and integrated the improvements from that game.

Seen a video in regards to all the new Pokémon introduced and... Yeah I don't like the look of pretty much every single new 'mon.

Admitedly I've thought the designs have been on a downwards slope since gen V (Though to be fair I pretty much liked all of Kalos' designs).

However even putting that personal opinion aside the whole past and future forms are some of the laziest rehashes I think I've ever seen since they introduced alternate forms. The future ones in particular look incredibly uninspired.

Here's the video I took a look at by the way to see them all.

Glad to see the new Pokémon games getting a bit of a kicking, but it’s still probably not as bad as it should be. And of course it’ll still sell like crazy.

I say that having really enjoyed Arceus.. but these games just have so much untapped potential, it’s so annoying.

I have free access to Pokemon Scarlet (legally; the family member I digitally share games with preordered it), so I'll be trying this out come midnight! My hopes aren't high, but I did love Pokemon Legends: Arceus, so we'll see what happens.

Can't be any worse than Let's Go or Sword/Shield, surely.

@kyleforrester87 While the critical consensus wasn't as low, fans kicked Sword/Shield WAY harder and pushed a social media hate campaign against it for months that grew so all-consuming that even normie publications were talking about it. There was this big movement to boycott the game and teach GF a lesson.

The result? It's currently either the second or third best-selling generation in the entire series, lol.

@Ralizah lol true. Is there a cut down dex in this one too? I assume so, are people upset about that again?

Been playing Pokémon Violet for a couple of hours now and it's a superb game so far. Definitely the most refreshing Pokémon experience in a long time. I absolutely love the increased freedom and finding all kinds of different Pokémon. It's crazy actually, in just a couple of hours, I've already caught 30 Pokémon lol. I'm very impressed by the sheer variety of mons you can find early on.

I am still waiting for my copy of the new Pokemon game to arrive. I ordered two copies, one for my Sister and one for me (we live in different cities). Hers arrived yesterday in the morning, mine has yet to show up

On the Pokemon thing above, I have heard this a few times and it definitely has me intrigued. I found Arceus honestly kinda boring, I thought it might have been because of the objectives and general lack of structure, but I do wonder if a part of it is that there wasn't really a huge variety it felt like in Pokemon in the world.

You would discover new Pokemon, but then the game would just overwhelm you with that one new Pokemon by spreading them in large clusters. It felt like each new area had like maybe only five new Pokemon in at most, but they would just spread a hundred of those 5 across the map.

I feel like a big part of the excitement of a Pokemon game is driving forwards to see what creatures pop up, you take that away and the incentive to push lessens for me. Especially when the objective is also like "catch x Pokemon 5000000000000 times".

Hearing Scarlet and Violet have way more variety out of the gate of Pokemon, plus a more traditional Pokemon structure set against an open world, does sound like it is the Pokemon game for me. However, I am still a little baffled by a lot of the reviews "Performance so bad, it borders on unplayable, 8/10" ????

Like it is so funny to me that the Switch hardware is so ***** at this point, it is just like a casualty people acknowledge but ultimately exclude from their round up. If this game released on PS5 in this state it'd be getting 5 or 6s, regardless of how good the mechanics or story are.

Played Violet for a good 5-6 hours. And this game's performance is an insult on games in general. The main city runs so poorly, people and Pokemon constantly jumping in and out of existence. You can even enter buildings, and most NPCs aren't even interactive. Movement is slow as molasses and still the game has issues with rendering. Textures are awful and repetitive. There is a lot of weird stuttering and visual glitches, even loading screens itself have difficulty loading and cause the game to slow down. The camera has clipped through the floor and buildings more times than I'd like to remember. And most animations run at a steady 3fps in the overworld.

How this game got positive reviews is beyond my understanding.

@Pizzamorg The thing is, mechanically the game is good; Pokemon games are good. They have a solid battle system that hasn't changed for years. And that isn't a bad thing, but hardly something you can praise them for at this point. The game does lack a bunch of options, like skipping battle animations and playing in set mode for some reason. So even as a battle SIM, this is probably worse than most games.

@Pizzamorg Wholeheartedly agree with you. While I haven't played Arceus, I watched hours of live streams and it looks so repetitive. Catching the same Pokémon X amount of times or finding certain items. There are no objectives, you're just out to fill your Pokédex. That's what makes Arceus so lackluster. It feels like an experiment, not an actual game. Scarlet/Violet on the other hand are actual games since they are mainline entries with a new take. You have an actual open world and you're allowed to explore a fair amount early on. On top of that, there are so many different Pokémon to find in each area. Like you said, there's an actual incentive to explore because you'll find different Pokémon everywhere. It's awesome, it's like the Pokémon game we dreamed of as kids.

Which is why I'm not bothered much by the technical aspects of the game. As I'm getting older, I care less about visuals and more about the games being fun. Not to mention ambitious. In this case, this is the most ambitious mainline Pokémon game yet and I'm fine with it looking like it does as long as it pushes the series forward. Performance is another thing though, but as long as it stays around 30 fps most of the time, then I'm fine with it because it's a JRPG, not an action game that requires a good frame rate.

I wonder if some reviewers are almost scared of giving certain games a bad score due to the backlash they might get. If so, what a sorry state of affairs the industry has become.

@KAIRU Yes in part, but I've also heard similar things about other games too.

Ok I'm convinced now: this is the best Pokémon game ever made. As soon as I was done with the tutorial section and arrived in the open world section, the game went from great to phenomenal. The sheer scope of the open world is unprecedented in a Pokémon game. You can go anywhere and there's so much you can do. There are basically three main quests in the game: gyms, titans and squads. In total, there are 18 objectives: 8 gyms, 5 titans and 5 squads to defeat. On top of this, you have tons of wild Pokémon to capture and fill out your Pokédex. Not to mention that there are items to be found literally everywhere. There's so much to do and discover in the game, it's just a completely different experience from what I'm used to with a Pokémon game. Typically, a Pokémon game takes 20 hours for me to complete but I can easily see Scarlet/Violet taking more than 50 hours.

I think it's safe to say that I'm addicted.

No major issues so far in Scarlet, although I'm still early in the game. The tutorials in these games are always so tedious that it takes me forever to get through them.

@JudgeDredd @Pizzamorg I don't mind people being critical of Switch hardware if they're able to articulate their feelings in a constructive way. Sometimes I echo those frustrations.

What annoys me is people feeling like others need to legitimize THEIR OWN frustrations, even if they don't share them. If I don't pretend to care about the things you care about, or even disagree with your complaints, that's not "coping," it's just disagreement, and if you're unable to grant me even a basic level of respect with regard to my intentions, communications are obviously going to quickly break down/become unpleasant.

And for the record: Pokemon Scarlet/Violet are a mess because GF is a flawed developer. Even their older games on GBC/NDS/3DS/etc. had bugs, issues with slowdown, etc. They could develop a game for PS5 and, assuming everything else stayed the same, it would still be an unpolished mess.

@JohnnyShoulder I think it's more that, barring truly wretched stuff, many critics tend to judge games on a 7 - 10 scale. Also, people have learned to have one set of standards for Pokemon games, and another for literally everything else out there.

Which isn't to say some games don't benefit from aggressive fanbases. We've seen what happens to reviewers who give games like God of War Ragnarok and Zelda BotW somewhat lower scores. I doubt that's happening with Pokemon, though, considering most of the complaints issue from or are echoed by the hardcore fanbase.

And, y'know, it's not JUST a Pokemon thing. Bethesda and From Software games often tend to suffer from horrible performance issues, bugs, etc. and still manage to score well. Much better than Pokemon games tend to, frankly. So it's a longstanding issue.

@kyleforrester87 All of the games from Sw/Sh onward have a cut dex. I'm sure most people have just decided it's not worth screaming about anymore. Pokemon fans have learned to either deal or move on from the franchise. Given how well these games continue to sell, I'm guessing most decided to deal.

Playing in handheld is definitely a better experience, I don't know whether it just hides rather than genuinely improves the framerate and rough edges to the visuals, but ultimately the result is the same. That said I do feel like I get additional microstutters in handheld which I either didn't get while docked - or just didn't notice because I was distracted by everything else.

I feel like I triggered something very personal here and I am sorry.

However, I still don't fully agree - I hope I don't offend further!

When it comes to the Switch, the hardware issues are rarely just a matter of opinion, you can tell people those hardware issues don't bother you personally, but that doesn't mean the hardware issues aren't an objective fact. That is where the line is often crossed for me on Nintendo Life, rather than in the other direction. People who say they aren't bothered by hardware issues and then pretend like the hardware issues aren't there period. This to me is cope.