Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

thought so, looked like ms paint lmao

@Ralizah by your description, I'm certain you have an IPS screen on your 3ds. And I'm jealous af In November 2016 I got a New 3DS XL from target. It wasn't IPS. I went back and got them to let me open another box to turn it on, to see if it had IPS. Nope again. And gave up.

When I saw the store's New 3DS XL demo models with Yo-Kai Watch demo playing, it looked so gorgeous, there was no color wash out from side viewing angles. The retail demo 3ds's always had IPS screens. You may know that part though.

@JaxonH I think I've said this before, but I've owned MH3U on Wii U for years and never touched it. Same with World. I'm just not particularly interested in playing MH on a home console.

Anyway, the styles and arts are annoying and change the deliberate feel of the gameplay in ways I didn't care for. More importantly, Gen's environments are very... flat. The verticality introduced in MH4U feels like it's completely missing in Gen, which makes sense, because it brings back environments from older games in the series, right? 4U's environments are also much more vivid. And yeah, it's COMPLETELY missing the feel of a story campaign like MH4U had. And SO many gathering quests early on.

I can see why you'd prefer Gen Ultimate if you're very much into the endgame grind, though.

Although I will admit that the change to how damage works on mounted monsters is entirely welcome.

@WoomyNNYes So, comparatively, when I try the "extreme viewing angle" test with the system's bottom screen, it becomes difficult to make out colors. Everything looks kind of washed out and blurry. I take it that means I have a TN screen on the bottom?

Looking at the two, though, both look fine to me when I'm viewing them straight on.

@Ralizah
The thing is, the arts can be 100% ignored if you don't want to use them. It's completely volunatry. So if you don't want to play with arts, nobody is forcing you. As for styles, the guild style is literally the exact same as MH4U, just with 3 art slots. But again, you can choose not to use them. In fact you don't even have to assign arts so you physically can't use them. So that complaint doesn't exactly hold water. Maybe you weren't aware, but, well, now ya know.

Now, alot of the maps are more flat because it does have maps from all prior games in the series. Fair enough. But it also has maps from MH4U too. So it's not like it doesn't have those maps, it just also has others in addition. The thing is, the verticality doesn't really serve a purpose if mounting is fundamentally flawed by all your team members having to sit around and wait any time someone does it. Not an issue for single player, but MH without friends is only half the experience.

I concede the story elements were better in MH4U, but honestly, on a scale of 1 to 100 the story was at a 12. So having that dialed back to a 6 doesn't really feel like missing much. Even World, which had WAAAAY more story than MH4U, still seems like an afterthought. It's appreciated, don't get me wrong. But when you spend 600 hrs hunting, that 1.5 hr of story bits seems ever so negligible.

@JaxonH Some of us prefer to actually use all of the tools at our disposal in a game. This strikes me as deliberately gimping yourself to improve your gameplay experience, akin to playing Pokemon with nuzlocke rules. Anyway, games are typically balanced with all of their mechanics taken into consideration. Super moves change the feel of the gameplay.

Mounting might have been problematic in mp, but it was thrilling in single-player. And, as you point out, the environments facilitated that. Some MH4U maps might have been in Gen, but way too many battles took place in really flat, visually lackluster areas from the older games. MH4U has ALL of its battles taking place in MH4U maps, y'know? Why settle for a game with half good levels, half crap ones?

And with regard to story, it's less about the actual story content and more about the feel of progression, the feel of moving through a campaign. MH Gen doesn't have that almost at all. It's a bunch of maps and monsters, with no real feel of progression outside of the armor and weapons you gradually build up to. Which might be more traditional, but I never could get into the one on PSP, either.

Like I said, I can understand why someone who is super into the grind would appreciate the changes in Gen/Gen Ultimate. And that's fine. But, from a solo, campaign-focused perspective, it's lacking.

I really do need to get into World someday and put up with having to play it on a TV, since it's clearly the MH4U successor I've probably been wanting, and it's becoming clear that the game will likely never hit a portable system.

If PS now was to come to switch, would the joycons be able to function as normal with rumble and mention sensing?

@Ralizah
???

That makes no sense. How can you say you prefer to use all the tools at your disposal, but don’t want to use those tools at the same time? You’re not intentionally gimping yourself, you’re choosing to play how you want. If you want to use arts, then use arts. If you don’t want to use arts, then don’t use arts. It’s quite literally a situation where you play the game how you see fit. If you don’t want to “gimp yourself” then use the arts! If you don’t like using arts then don’t use them. This seems a case where you’re not thinking logically, which is very uncharacteristic of you, I might add.

If you don’t like the arts then you can quite literally play the game as if they never existed- it would be exactly the same as if they weren’t in the game. Exactly the same. So if your argument is “I would prefer this game not have styles and arts“, The resulting product would be exactly how it is now if you play without using styles and arts. Exactly the same. That being said, I don’t understand how someone could not like styles and arts to begin with. They’re super cool moves that you get to use once in a while. How is that a problem in the first place? It’s like saying I don’t want to play persona because I don’t like all out attacks. Huh? How can you not like all out attacks? What kind of person hates that? What kind of person hates having special moves they can build up and optionally use once or twice during a fight? And they’re not even THAT big of moves, usually just a quick 3 second attack that does twice as much damage. But even if a person does hate them, that’s fine- but you can literally play the game exactly how every other game before it was played (that’s why they included the Guild style- for people like you who want a vanilla experience) so...I don’t see the issue.

As for “crap levels”, I don’t think they’re crap. I don’t think the thrill of hunting a monster hinges upon being able to jump off a 2 foot ledge twice during a 30 minute fight. Is it cool when you do have that opportunity? Well sure. But it’s still something that only accounts for 1% of the entire fight. So it’s absence still results in 99% similarity. At the end of the day, most time is spent fighting the monster on flat ground, regardless of whether there’s a few zones with ledges. And with insect glaive you can mount without ledges anyways! And with the styles and arts you can also mount without ledges! Which means you don’t need the ledges, and you can do it from anywhere. That’s yet another reason styles make MHGenUlt superior to MH4U.

And for the record there is some story in MH Gen Ult. The progression is there. It’s very light and tacked on, but it’s definitely there. The structure is there. Even the added G rank mode has story progression where you’re trying to find Valstrax. I completely understand liking MH4U story progression more (I mean, so do I), but as someone who has played through both games the difference is not as much as you’re making it seem. It’s not even endgame- the addiction of the series comes from the thrill of the hunt and naturally progression via armor and weapon upgrades.

I’m not saying it’s wrong to like MH4U more. Many people do, and there’s fair arguments for it. But at the same time I do feel like you’re being unfair to MHGenUlt with criticisms that don’t exactly hold up under scrutiny, or being exaggerated against MHGU and in favor of MH4U. The difference between the games is pretty small, and the advantages and improvements and additions to MHGU arguably more than make up for the few things MH4U did better. But even if they don’t, in someone’s opinion, the net difference is still pretty small.

@DannyBoi What?

@Ralizah
Play World. If that’s what it takes to get you into the series than that’s the game you should start with. Once you’re actually into the series you’ll understand the appeal of the natural progression of better weapons/armor and the thrill of the hunt. I’m putting myself in your situation and what I thought of the game before I was into it and I can understand your point of you as someone who is not yet into it. You think you need things like story to keep you hooked because you haven’t yet experienced the addiction. And if that’s what it takes to get you into the series them by all means. But once you’ve played that game and then you go back and you play MHGU and MH4U, you’ll see what I mean.

And no, World will never come to Switch. BUT. An exclusive new entry for Switch is all but confirmed.

@Ralizah Yeah, means your bottom screen is not IPS. But you're right, looking from the side isn't how people play their 3ds, and it still looks good

@JaxonH I would prefer they design a game to emphasize aspects other than styles and arts, yes. They had very little that was interesting or new to add to Gen otherwise, so they added those. Ignoring the new additions to a game is just going to lead to a gimped experience of that game, because a big part of its appeal is oriented around the new additions to combat. Why buy a new game and then ignore the additions made to distinguish it from previous entries, since so much of it is designed around legacy content? At that point, you're better off just not buying the game. I didn't have that insight when I bought Generations, but I DO have that insight for the Switch port of Generations.

As to why I dislike them? I feel like they needlessly complicate the gameplay. They add extra layers that didn't really need to be added. The very precise, animation-driven nature of MH combat is what makes it appealing to me. The stuff added in Gen/Gen Ultimate is a bit too flashy and anime for my liking. Feels more like I'm playing God Eater or some other clone of the franchise. It doesn't feel like a meaningful addition to the existing gameplay that can be integrated into future entries, like mounting in MH4. They're the gimmick specific to that entry.

I actually do think all-out attacks ruined the combat in Persona 5. Well, all-out attacks + terrible balancing with regard to the turn-based combat. By the time you get a decent spread of skills in that game, EVERY SINGLE RANDOM BATTLE goes the same way: use skills to target weaknesses; switch persona; use skill to target other weaknesses; all enemies collapse; ALL OUT ATTACK!; win battle. It's incredibly boring. The late-game design of this iteration of press-turn combat is very broken

With that said, Persona 5 is so good in other areas that I still enjoyed it.

EDIT: Re: the 'getting into the series with MH World' thing... I mean, I got 20 hours or so into the one on PSP (I want to say it was called "Freedom Unite?"), played into late-game Generations and completed nearly all of the content in MH4U up until you fight Dalamadur, so I wouldn't say I'm a complete newbie to the franchise. I just found Generations lacking in certain areas. It's not a bad game, by any means, but the additions it makes aren't what I'm really looking for in terms of MH.

@Ralizah
Not really though. None of the monsters or maps are explicitly designed around styles and arts. They are quite literally just in addition you can choose to use if you want. That said, they’re not complicated. If you choose guild style nothing changes. Simply get three slots for arts and as you play you unlock better arts you can assign. They typically are 3 to 5 second moves that do a little extra damage. If you’re lucky you’ll get in two of them in a 30 minute fight. So does that 10 seconds in a 30 minute fight really ruin the experience? I mean, ya they can be flashy, but not that flashy. The stuff in MH World is WAYYY more flashy than MHGU. At the bare minimum they’re equal. Except in World it’s baked into your core move set. So you can’t avoid flashy moves.

I’ve played God Eater, and it’s not even remotely similar. Most of the moves you do with arts are no different then your powerful swing with a charge blade in terms of animations. Trust me I’ve played that game from start to finish and the animations are near indistinguishable in flashiness from the animations you already have with some of the core weapon sets. They’re cool moves, but it’s not like you get colorful flash animations all over the screen or anything. I don’t know where this idea came from that they’re that flashy but they’re really not. They fit in perfectly with the moves that you already have.

If you didn’t like all out attacks it seems it was for other reasons. Not because they were too flashy. And it’s a bad comparison anyways because you do them every fight whereas arts are only used once or twice in a 30 minute. And they only last 3 seconds each. And all out attacks take up the entire screen whereas arts just look like normal combo finishers juiced up a bit. It’s such a small part of the game (and good part of the game I should add) but even if you don’t think they’re good it’s such a small part of the game I can’t comprehend that being somebody’s hangup.

Especially when world is just as if not more flashy in its core moves as Gen ultimate was with its optional arts that are only used once every 15 minutes for three seconds.

I would say the additions Gen ultimate makes are absolutely what you and everyone are looking for in a monster hunter game. Unless you’re only focusing on the optional arts that are used once every 15 minutes for three seconds and no different than the moves in World. If you look at the three dozen other additions and changes and improvements they are indisputably changes that make the experience better.

I can't speak to MH World. Anyway, it depends on what style you use. Aerial style is hilarious, but completely breaks the game, so I eventually stopped using that. One style (I want to say it was called... Adept?) focuses on timing dodges in a certain way to take advantage of that style's skill. Wasn't Guild Style literally just OG MH combat? Anyway, my point is that the style affects the focus of the gameplay in ways I feel are detrimental to my enjoyment of the game as a whole (unless you go guild style, I guess).

Well, as you point out, the all-out attacks are literally every fight before long, so yeah, seeing that splash screen gets old REALLY quickly, even putting aside the way it breaks combat.

The changes you mention in Gen Ultimate seem beneficial, but very... er... QoL sorta changes. The base game itself is pretty much identical to Generations until you get to endgame, right?

@Octane You know how PS Now on pc let's you use any controller(like an Xbox 360 controller, but only Dualshock 4 and dualshock 3 have access to features such as rumble and sixaxis/montion sensor functionality but other controllers don't, which obviously restricts you from playing games that need mention sensing to play such as Uncharted Drakes fortune which requires you to use mention sensing to balance) would the joycons have access to their full functionality if PS Now came to switch? Sorry if I'm not being clear.

@Ralizah
Ya, guild is what you want (although I love the evasion based style- evasion was always a skill I went for in MH4U, so having a style that took care of that for me freed me up to utilize my skills slots for other skills such as high grade earplugs, which prevented roar flinching, which made the game even more enjoyable.

And ya, mostly QoL, however, Gen Ultimate gives you, Idk, like 2 full pages of free DLC, half of it items. Which means you have all the items you need for the early game- herbs, blue mushrooms, potions, etc. Even gives you like 40 slickaxes which clone any item in the game. So that makes finding rare herbs and ore later in the game less grindy because once you find one of them you can use slickaxes to clone.

This, combined with the essential MHGU DB app on Android (might be on iOS too?) means very easily knowing the key quests, so you’re not wasting time with all the gathering quests early in the game, And because you have all the items you’ll need for some time, you can skip them entirely and just focus on key monster quests. This alone makes such a huge difference from Generations 3DS where I felt burned out by the time I was actually in 3 star rank hunting monsters.

On top of that, a lot of the changes impacted the enjoyment of the game in low and high ranks also, not just G rank. While yes, paid item supply drops and transmog don’t make an appearance until you get to G rank, cut tails showing on the map is present throughout the game. As is disabling traps (a HUGE nuisance in prior games). Beast type prowlers are boss, and not having to wait to turn in paw pass tickets is a minor thing, but appreciated. Turning in resource points any time and sub quests make a return, sending items back mid quest, the new field pouch which holds extra core items so you have enough space, saving item and equipment sets (this is huge)... There’s many more changes besides but the point being they make the experience more enjoyable throughout the entire game, not just endgame.

They also added in story content for village mode with the new monsters not present in Generations, and added G rank, with THE best final boss of any MH game to date: Ahtal ka. A praying mantis insect that rolls stones at you, picks things up on its back and uses those items it strings together to become a giant mech! It’s so cool. Me and my brother were flabbergasted at how awesome it was when we first fought it.

So all in all, I don’t have to deal with excessive grinding quests thanks to item packs and using key quest lists (I prefer the excellent free app- an essential tool for any hunter), you don’t have to deal with excessive grinding for rare herbs and or later in the game thanks to those DLC packs, you’ve got additional village story content added in with new monsters and quests from 7 star to 10 star chasing Valstrax. You’ve got awesome new arts and an SP mode mechanic alongside it (I didn’t really use it but it’s there if you like it), gameplay that’s less cumbersome thanks to the countless QoL additions, and G rank with monsters galore.

Add to that the fact you’re actually playing in HD with a more comfy handheld and a full button set (that C nub, oh my gosh that C nub... no more!) and the ability to play on the TV like MH3U back on Wii U... it’s everything one could want all wrapped up into a single game.

Any time you want to play, I will hunt with you from start to finish. I have armor and weapons for every rank. And will gladly start over from scratch if need be (though having G rank armor can be a huge asset at times when you just need to farm some armor quick).

@DannyBoi I see, but what makes you think PS Now is coming to Switch?

@Ralizah
I also forgot to mention they added two new styles- Brave and Alchemy, and both add layers of strategy for those looking for more. Brave is risk/reward, as you can enter brave stance and dodge attacks, but it drains your health. It’s a whole intricate system and the style I went with when I imported the game. It’s crazy fun and one of my favorite styles. Alchemy is more for support. But it’s nice having more options. And since you can change your style at any time you’re never locked in.

Here’s a good video that goes over the changes from Generations.

Just finished Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

I absolutely loved it, and recommend it to anyone who's on the fence about picking it up.

The Switch version's shortcomings weren't really enough to negatively affect my experience The resolution is a little low but not so low that it's ugly. And the frame-rate...is okay most of the time. Even during the occasional dip it felt very much playable.

They seem to have patched out the bugs as well. Reviews from its release mention that it crashes a lot, but I didn't experience a single crash in my 10-hour playthrough.

@Octane well, the future is obviously going to be streaming. And each company will want their streaming apps on every device and the major consoles.

That remains to be seen. Both companies that have tried it so far have been complete disasters. Maybe people just like having a piece of hardware that they feel like they own. In the same way they thought ebooks would completely destroy physical books, but it turns out that hasn't happened at all. People just like physical books.