Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Ralizah Thanks. I'll add you once I get on in a little while to play more Xenoblade Chronicles.

I only plan on playing one house in Three Houses initially. Then I may go back to it at some point and play the others, but I should be able to fit in another game or two because of that. Like I said, probably something like Bayonetta 1 that's shorter and completely different.

Things are going pretty good so far. I probably put too high expectations on the game beforehand, having it be the main reason I wanted a Switch and then in return making it something that would be mind blowing. I think that will wear off in time though as I'm only 6 or 7 hours into the game so far. Other then what I already mentioned about side quests, the only other thing I can think of is combat is fairly repetitive so far, especially if you choose to fight the random things around the world to help boost my stats. I know there's more depth to the combat, especially once I get more party members, and I am already digging the story. Fiora dying so early was a bummer. Like I said, I still expect to highly enjoy it in the end.

@JohnnyShoulder Yeah, it was good to get it figured out regardless of how important it is. The only other annoying thing really is that a message pops up every time you turn on the Switch if you remapped the controller buttons. I know there's no way to change that as I looked it up, so I'll just have to live with it as I'm too used to having the buttons the other way around from playing on Xbox before.

What's your Friend Code, btw?

@KilloWertz It is SW-4531-9111-8827.

Even though I rarely use it these days, I'll make am exception in this case to accept your request.

@KilloWertz lol One playthrough (Golden Deer) took me over 80 hours, so it's still a significant time commitment.

Three Houses is worth playing multiple times, but it's definitely not one you'd want to run multiple times in a row, if only because the early game portions between each house are so similar. Especially if you played like I did and poach all of your favorite students from the other houses early in the game.

Yeah, Xenoblade Chronicles is weirdly beloved by a certain subset of the JRPG community, who talk it up as one of the greatest games ever made. Part of that, I think, is that the game released during the seventh gen when home console JRPGs had all but died on the vine. It was also one of the few worthwhile JRPGs on the Nintendo Wii.

Also probably helps that the series' availability worldwide and growth as a brand was an almost totally grassroots effort. Its release in the U.S. only even happened because of a massive fan campaign, which also saw the release of a few other Japanese RPGs on the Wii. Now this modern, JRPG-friendly version of Nintendo is totally committed to the series.

Of course, you're thankfully playing the best version of the game that ships with a buttload of QoL improvements and a graphical revamp that makes it look... not amazing, but not actively horrendous. The Wii original could have been mistaken for a PS2 game if it didn't have those gigantic environments.

Shocking plot twists and dramatic deaths are a common feature in these games, so enjoy!

@JohnnyShoulder Alrighty. I just sent it.

@Ralizah Not surprising that Three Houses is also really long. I'm ok with that as I fully expect to love it. The length of both that and Xenoblade Chronicles is why I will probably play something else in between.

I doubt I ever knew that about the history of Xenoblade Chronicles. Not surprising since it was originally from an era where western releases of some JRPGs were inconsistent at best.

I can stomach some some repetitive gameplay and such in a JRPG if the characters and the story are great. It seems like this will deliver on those fronts based on what you said and obviously it's critic and gamer acclaim.

I'm glad I ended up with this version of the game. I had no intention of ever getting a Wii, so the only temptation to play the game came after the Switch came out. Still, while I would have still liked it back then as a lot of the time you like a game if you play it when it came out because that is how games played at that time. Now we are used to certain differences from the original to this version, but after reading what the QoL features are, I'm not sure I would have liked the original that well if it was released today in it's original form. A horrible map/waypoint system would have done me in, as The Witcher 2 had a dreadful map and I gave up on it because of that when I tried it a few years ago.

@KilloWertz I have to really enjoy a long game to not take a break in the middle of it. As much as I hate to admit it, it says something that I didn't stop playing Elden Ring at all until I hit the credits. Ditto with other 70 - 100 hour favorites like Horizon Zero Dawn, Breath of the Wild, Etrian Odyssey IV, and a few Shin Megami Tensei games (IV, IV: Apocalypse , and V, to be exact).

Nintendo of America was AWFUL about not localizing smaller games during the Wii era. It's why, for example, the Wii remaster of Fatal Frame 2 never came to the States.

The company seems so different now, insofar as they actively seem to celebrate smaller and more explicitly Japanese releases. Much to the annoyance of the weirdly insular core Nintendo crowd that only wants to play cartoony first-party properties.

Thankfully, niche stuff has been selling very well on the platform.

XC1, XCX, and XC2 (all the pre-XCDE ones) have garbage maps/quest tracking features, honestly. Monolith has taken great strides with recent releases. XC3 is the most convenient entry in the series in that regard, as they've gone to great pains to eliminate annoyances that plagued the series previously.

Weirdly, XC2's Torna side-game is also extremely user friendly, unlike the main game it was an expansion for.

@Ralizah I usually am able to finish long games like those without a break, although sometimes I am somewhat burnt out on the game by the end that I don't want to go back to it to clean up anything I've missed for a while. The only one I played out of that group was Horizon Zero Dawn of course As much as I loved Forbidden West, I couldn't help but be slightly burnt out on it by the end just because of the length.

That is a big reason why I never had a Nintendo system since the NES. Obviously the SNES was great, but I was Sega guy then. Their own properties that show up every console generation are great, but it was the lack of variety that killed it for me.

That's unfortunate to hear about 2, but I suppose I still should be ok with that one since I'll already be locked in to the series after 1. It's weird that they took that long to figure that stuff out given how good they obviously were at characters and story, but at least they did at some point I guess.

Yeah, that is a bit weird. Maybe they got a lot of feedback from 2 and decided to try things out in the DLC. I don't know, but it's good that they were able to finally bring that all up to the level of the rest of the parts of their games and I'm still looking forward to playing the rest of the series after 1.

@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.

Being completely unfamiliar with the "Xenoverse" I can only assume the reason people complain about Chronicles 2 @Ralizah is due to it perhaps it being more light hearted with wacky anime hijinx and maybe some fanservicey elements too?

Just a wild guess I have no idea. You mention 2's combat is rather complex so maybe that's a point of contention for some who just wanna mash X/A and smack things... Actually I don't know if Xenoblade Chronicles is action or turn based now that I think about it...

I didn't realise Torna was that long! That's one meaty expansion!

I've definitely read it wrong cus I don't get what the risk is for staying in the Ouroboros form 😅. Do you take more damage? Do they become enraged and act without your inputs? Do they then become weaker after the time limit?

Of the two music tracks you posted here The Weight of Life... was just kinda there in my opinion. It's nice enough but kinda forgettable too. I think I need to hear it context. I'm assuming that's the battle theme?

Keves Colony was the better track in my opinion but it still didn't quite grab me.

@KilloWertz Atreus didn't bother me through most of the game, although I did want to smack him when he got all power-hungry and started questioning why gods couldn't just kill whoever they want. Thankfully, you don't often have to do stuff like move crates to help him accompany you, which made him way less annoying, IMO, than Ellie was in TLOU. I'm not a fan in general of so many Sony-developed games forcing you to drag your kid along with you the entire game, though, I agree.

I also question a game that simultaneously makes Kratos question the brutality of his past ways while simultaneously reveling in ultra-violence as he fiercely chops enemies in half with his axe, lol. It's like the developers felt bad about the sort of game they were making.

My big issue is I'm not a fan of Sony's cinematic style of game design, where the game feels like one long cutscene. GoW initially felt like that, but it became much more fun once it let go of your hand and allowed you to explore its world. A lot of the optional content is quite fun!

I will say, though, making players kill 50 or so random ravens across the entire game felt like a pointless trophy. I hope the sequel doesn't have it. The game, in general, could have done a better job with backtracking and collectibles.

Really enjoyed fighting the Valkyries, though.

@HallowMoonshadow You're right on the money there regarding XC2, lol. It's a game filled with stuff like tsundere party members slapping the main character around, maid robots, cat girls, and, yes, a lot of amply bosomed female characters, and that really annoyed a portion of the fanbase, lol.

The game also has a sort of completely in-game (no real money involved at all) gacha system for unlocking new party members, which also proved to be controversial.

Xenoblade Chronicles games are interesting in terms of combat, since they're neither turn-based nor action-based. Combat is real-time, but your character auto-attacks on their own, and the arts (battle skills) your characters can use usually have timers attached to them. A lot of the game focuses on positioning your character and synergizing their attacks with other party members. So, the games feature systems where you can break an enemy's stance, topple them to stop them from attacking briefly, daze them to keep that effect going longer, and then launch them up in the air, which lasts a while and allows you to do extra damage to them. Different arts will inflict different statuses, and will also usually require your characters to be in certain positions. So, if I want to break an enemy, it usually involves running to the side of them and then triggering the art. Of course, much of this is reliant on the intelligence of the AI in playing along, since it controls your other party members. And I've rarely had issues with that. XC3 introduced a useful feature that allows you to switch your player character mid-battle, which gives you more control over what happens.

Yeah, Xenoblade games are 100+ hour epics, so something like Torna can be 30+ hours and still manage to be pretty comparatively short! Realistically, it's a lot like Uncharted: The Lost Legacy or Miles Morales in terms of being a shorter side game that nevertheless feels like a complete experience. Although it was initially distributed as DLC and is intimately connected to the story of the main game. XC3 is supposed to get its own equivalent side game next year.

So, when your characters combine to form an Ouroboros, they build up a heat gauge. If that heat gauge gets to max, your characters overheat, and the game disallows your characters from re-transforming for a long time (usually long enough that most battles will end before it unlocks again). Whereas, if you detransform before overheating, you can retransform at any time. The heat gauge cools off when the characters aren't actively transformed, so it's a matter of managing the state in a way that deals optimal damage while also avoiding being transformed for too long at any one time.

Weight of Life is a theme that plays sparingly during certain types of dramatic cutscenes. The first two games had equivalent tracks of their own as well that played during those types of sequences:

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.