Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Dezzy That sucks, but the price was too good to be for real anyway. I remember my first Switch came with a UK to EU plug converter in the box. I was certain Nintendo wasn't that cheap. Turns out they bought a bunch of UK models, opened them and put in the converters themselves.

Oninaki physical release has English!

Oninaki (Multi-Language) Switch

I've deleted CTR. I gave it a fair shot, got the mechanics down, but the horrible item balance, incredibly aggressive AI, and horrendous rubber banding, just stopped me playing.

You shouldn't be able to go from 1st to 5th from one item, with the AI getting a 7 second first place lead over 2nd place. The track hazards have really off collision detection, I got to Pinstripe and kept getting smacked by bombs I couldn't see coming due to either already being hit by one and the animation/effects obscuring it, or the track itself with all it's bumps hiding it.

The TNT is a really off balance item that either requires you spend time jumping and smack it into a wall, because jump and power slide are the same button, and this game is very fond of corners, so you need to jump and take the hit rather than slide, or you explode. Either way TNT is a detriment.

I've had homing missiles, which only seem to home in selectively, knock opponents so far forward it made no difference, which is another thing the game randomly decides to do, forward knock back.

I just can't put up with it. The game wants to be skill based but stacks the odds so far against you that it's cruel. Mechanically, I love it.

@Knuckles-Fajita I heard from YouTuber RGT85 the same complaints. Thankfully I saved the $40

@Knuckles-Fajita I'd guess the original was like that too. Mario Kart 64 very much came to mind regarding the AI, rubber banding and item balance.

@Knuckles-Fajita I've not played enough to corroborate the majority of this, but I definitely agree about the difficulty, especially re: rubber banding and items. I hear people refer to it as more "skill-based" than Mario Kart, but I don't see how this can be true - when, as you say, getting hit by a single item can place you 4-5 places back with no way to recover. I've also had the odd moment where I've collided with...nothing, although I'd say that's been fairly rare.

Despite this, I'm still really enjoying the game (moreso than the recent Team Sonic Racing) - the core gameplay is solid and the design and aesthetics are excellent. I just hope they patch these issues.

@Buizel @Grumblevolcano @NintendoByNature

To give an idea of this game, I love the mechanics. I love the timing aspect to turbo boosts and such.

But jesus christ.

This tweet, which hasn't got all the words I just screamed in my Discord server, sums it up perfectly.

Here is a driver you CAN NOT be in front of for too long because like other bosses they DO rubber band, who throws bombs backwards at you, with larger hitboxes than they appear to have...on a track where there are blind jumps, so you cant see the track ahead...so you cant see the bombs coming.

So what happens? I misplay, slip of the edge. I get lifted into the track. Then a bomb comes over the hill as my I-Frames expire.

Those frames expire, immediately another one. Then I cross the ramp...I can finally see the road ahead...bomb.

That wears off, I swerve.... and another bomb.

@Knuckles-Fajita Not got to that point but man...looks horrendous.

@NintendoByNature Just watched the RGT85 video and I 100% agree with him. It's a shame the vid is getting so much hate...mostly with the "git gud" crowd and those insisting that's how the game has always been. But there's difficulty and there's broken difficulty. Imagine if Pokemon Let's Go played like the original Pokemon Yellow.

@Buizel RGT had it right. All I've had on Twitter is Git Gud and its like...if I aint enjoying a game, I aint gonna play.

Oh, and I've finally unlocked the final boss.....who cheats, by starting before you can.

Because you know, we needed blatant BS on top of the game's usual BS.

@Knuckles-Fajita @Buizel typical on YouTube and Twitter. Everyone is a smart @$$. The git gud crowd always bothered me. I never played the original and i was really on the fence about getting CTR but I'm pretty happy I held off. Super difficult games with no remorse just ruin the experience for me

Crash Racing isn’t perfect, but RGTs opinion is rather extreme. Is it difficult? Yes. But the drifting is actually a really cool mechanic, and the reason you can fall so many places behind when hit by an item is precisely because it has less rubberbanding. That’s the kind of thing rubberbanding is meant to address. It can work both for or against you, but you can’t have your cake and eat it too.

I’d give it a solid 7.5/10, with Team Sonic Racing at 8/10, Sonic Racing Transformed at 9/10 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (not the original) at 9.5/10.

Nonetheless, I do agree that the “git gud” bozos are annoying, even if I happen to agree Crash is a pretty good game.

The group that really aggravates me more than anything else though, is the “60fps or it’s trash” crowd. The “omg 30fps in 2019” people. As if every game on the planet is 60fps except for Switch games (Witcher 3, MH World, Assassin’s Creed, Red Dead, no problem, but if it’s a game on Switch watch out, it’s like gaming in the Stone Age.

A group that equally aggravates me are the people who just thrive off of criticism and tearing a game to shreds over the smallest things, intentionally scouring for even the slightest offense which they can prop on a pedestal and ostracize the game for, making it abundantly clear they hate the game with every fiber in their being yet they choose to continually talk about it in forums for weeks and months on end. If you hate the game that much why are you devoting so much time talking about it? Find a game that actually doesn’t wrench your gut and go talk about that. But that’s not an option for these people because they don’t like talking about games they’re excited for, they just like venting their hatred, and gaming forums are the perfect outlet.

@JaxonH Regarding the rubberbanding - I think RGT85 addresses this well. The AI has no trouble keeping up with, or overtaking you, regardless of how well you are performing, or whether you hit them with items. However the same can't be said for the human player, who is knocked back by the items (the rubber band pulls the CPU players forward, but not back to you when you get hit). So the rubberbanding* is working for the CPU, not the player.

Although, maybe I do actually need to git gud. But with such a steep difficulty curve?

*Well, it might not actually be rubberbanding - could just be that the CPU characters are just abnormally fast.

Crash Team Racing makes me realize further another potential reason why F-Zero has been dead for so long. The F-Zero franchise has even bigger difficulty issues than CTR and that wouldn't reach Nintendo's standards as since the DS/Wii era Nintendo has always been about approachable main game and leave BS for bonus post-game stuff.

They may be unsure on how to make F-Zero approachable so instead they just put the franchise on indefinite hiatus.

Difficulty can be easily tuned and adjusted though. There’s no rule that says they must implement the exact same difficulty as the previous entry.

Pretty sure it’s just because futuristic racers aren’t popular anymore. Then again, that hasn’t stopped them from cranking out 2D platformers (which for the record, I’m EXTREMELY greatful for, as DKC Tropical Freeze is one of my favorite video games of all time, and New Super Mario Bros U is one of the finest 2D platformers ever made, at the same time their Kirby and Yoshi games are pretty mediocre, Wooly World aside... and I say mediocre on a sliding scale, because they are both enjoyable but very unmemorable).

I'd argue that Yoshi games are almost more collectible puzzle games first and platformers second. I can tell I would have adored Wooly World and Crafted World when I was a kid.

Games being difficult thats not a problem dark souls nioh sekiro etc bs thats the problem.

Dillon's Dead Heat Breakers (3DS) and Metroid Prime Federation Force (3DS) are two hardest games for me.

Having an absolute ebay blitz. Got my new Switch coming tomorrow so I went looking for games on ebay.

Found Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild, Splatoon 2, and Xenoblade 2, all for great prices. I think those 4 games will probably cover me for quite a while!

@Dezzy enjoy your fantasic system with your great games.
Only Xenoblade and Zelda could suck jou for 1000+ hours haha (atleast that did it for me)

1000+ hours would be more than enough sucking for me too, thank you Zelda, when you're ready.