Topic: Current Switch 2 line-up not good enough?

@Bolt_Strike
Dude, come the heck on.

The only game I listed there that isn't an original is the Mario Galaxy remasters.

Everything else is brand-new.

Everyone loves DK. The Pokemon impressions are fantastic. 3D Metroid looks like 3D Metroid, I'm sorry. Just because it seems like it may have an open world or at least a section like that, you're ready to say the whole thing is "contrary" to the genre? Dear lord.

This cycle is exhausting, man. It's actually starting to look pathetic no matter how you stack it up. You people complain for years that you want a game like Prime 4 and act like it's the biggest thing since sliced bread, now it's here, and you're like... "Well, it's not 'tentpole' enough."

Or you pile on MK World because... the internet told you to not like the highway sections when you play online? Even though it's the slickest-controlling MK we've ever had? Has the highest skill ceiling of any MK to date? Has insane potential for DLC, which is one of the things people loved so much about MK 8 Deluxe?

We get a return to 3D DK for the first time in a generation of gamers, a game that is nearly the equal to Odyssey, and you're like... "meh"???

Sakurai is bringing us a new Air Riders, likely to become a cult classic. Another shrug?

All within the first 6 months of launch.

It's all starting to get really old. What the heck is going on.

The current lineup is good, so far I have MKW, DKB, Street Fighter 6, Fast Fusion and Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection, Capcom Fighting Collection 2

Honestly not convinced those "open world" segments in Prime 4 aren't just the new equivalent to the elevators - in other words they're just areas designed to shuttle you to the next main area (fancy loading screens).

You're clearly not reading the impressions if that's your takeaway. What they've been saying is the REAL TIME BATTLING is fantastic. They're not as positive in the graphics and visuals. And I am far from the only person concerned about the game being one city. Yes, the real time battling is a neat direction and something I've always wanted to see, but if the game world is too small, that's not going to be filling enough to justify a $60-70 price tag. The game world looks more comparable to Kitakami or the Terarium from the SV DLC, which we paid $35 for. Paying essentially double for what looks to be the same level of content is really poor value. Maybe if there's more to the game than it looks I'd be more willing to jump in, but right now? I'm extremely hesitant. It feels like a game that only has like, 3 hours of actual content and the rank up system is just going to pad things out.

If you don't know why open world is concerning for Metroid you do not understand Metroidvanias. The two genres are practically in opposition. Metroidvanias work by having you explore the overworld to find upgrades that unlock new areas. In an open world game, you can go wherever you want. It's difficult to imagine those two gameplay styles working well together. So there's real potential for them to screw this up and make the game not feel like Metroid. Will they? Probably not, but we don't know because they haven't clarified.

The marketing ever since the game's re-reveal has been utterly terrible. Up until this latest Direct they were only showing the same two freaking areas, and now they've showed the bike and open world without an explanation of how it fits into the Metroidvania gameplay. They really need to open up more about how this game works. We need an info blowout on this game. BADLY. They're utterly failing to convey how this game is an evolution of Metroid (they do need to kind of thread the needle on that one, but they're wildly thrusting into the two extremes on this one).

Have you ever considered that being "slickest-controlling", having a high skill ceiling, or insane DLC potential may not matter compared to issues like transition segments being too long and dull or the open world being too empty and not compelling? Again, if the open world isn't compelling to navigate and explore, why should I pay $80 for that?

I do like DK Bananza. I really like DK Bananza. But one good game does not a console lineup make, especially not for a console that's 50% more than its predecessor.

Yes, yes it is. My friends insisted on playing the original Air Ride with me. I could never get into it. I could barely tell what was going on and it just didn't seem fun, the only thing that remotely interested me was wandering around the city in City Trial and a mainline Kirby platformer that opens things up more would better satisfy that than the likes of Air Riders. Also this year is oversaturated with racing games. Air Riders is releasing in the same year as MKW and Sonic Crossworlds.

What's going on is that I actually have standards and don't mindlessly consume for the sake of blind loyalty to an IP. Maybe if more people did the same we'd get better games.

I will say that if I wasn't dead certain I wasn't getting Switch 2 this year, long before Switch 2 had any confirmed video games even shown, I'd be super tempted by the holiday season games. Prime 4, Kirby Air Riders and a new Hyrule Warriors in the span of like a month is crazy, I couldn't even tell you the last time Nintendo released 3 games this must-play for me this close together. (it might've been 2010 with Kirby Epic Yarn, DKC Returns and Golden Sun DS tbh).

It does make it easier to ignore for now that the most long awaited one will still be on Switch 1, but y'know, still a crazy lineup for just November and December alone when the competition is Sony being like "we have three games per year if you're lucky, deal with it" and Xbox being like train wreck noises for more than a decade.

@rallydefault You're 100% on point. Even if tastes in games and genres differ, it's at least a solid if not (for many of us) an outright fantastic line-up for the first six months of a console launch. It's all performative and every day another one of these inane forum topics pops up and sucks people in.
Very much on topic an article I stumbled upon yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2025/jul/13/are-a-few-peopl...

@Bolt_Strike
I really think I've entered bizarro world. Everyone is saying Pokemon's battle system is awesome and super fun. Last time I checked, the battle system is like... most of a Pokemon experience. And yet you're just gonna whine about the graphics? Really?

You admit you like DK, but then immediately you're like "it's just one game." Huh? Why? Did you say the same thing about BotW? Odyssey?

And the best you can do is accuse me of "not knowing" Metroid. lololol

Bizarro world. We've arrived.

@jfp
I'll have to give that a read, thank you!

I'm still waiting for a major first-party title to make me take the Switch 2 back out of storage, personally.

But for others, what's announced and already out is probably pretty great, particularly compared to other console platforms' output.

I just play on pc/steam deck these days when I play anything at all, and mostly indie games, since all the major AAA releases are just more of the same.

Where were we at in 2017 at this time? Let’s see about 4 months in:

We had Breath of Wild, 1, 2 Switch, Snipper Clips, MK 8 Deluxe, Street Fighter II, Lego City and ARMS. Aside from Breath of the Wild there wasn’t much to write home about until July with Splatoon 2.

Switch 2 we have Cyberpunk, Street Fighter 6, Mario Kart World right at launch, DK Bananza the following month, Mario Party DLC, Kirby DLC, Star Wars Outlaws, including a ton of Switch 2 editions. We are not even 6 months into the console life and we are getting:

Age of Imprisonment
Pokémon Z-A
Kirby Air riders
Metroid Prime 4

Smash did not come out until holiday 2018, a full year to wait as well for Pokémon and Animal Crossing wasn’t released until 3 years after.

So be patient guys!

@rallydefault I already have all the old Switch 1 games in my collection, I don't want "enhanced" versions of them, I've played them to death already. MKW, DKB, Kirby are good but they're now just occasional games for me, I really need something to dig my teeth in to.

Metroid as a FPS game doesn't appeal to me as it just feels like any other sci-fi shooter. I can't stand Pokemon games (go ahead, shoot me lol), and unless the next Hyrule Warriors has something significantly different to the previous warriors games, then it's just another button-bashing Zelda game.

@maxrpg
I feel the same.
There's not much worth playing for me either.
I'm only using the switch 2 for my switch 1 backlog.

@SwitchplayerJohn Yes the Switch 1 launch was pretty bad but the hybrid aspect being fresh carried it. This time they don’t have that luxury and didn’t have to launch a console whilst recovering from a Wii U type fiasco. I expected them to actually come out the gate swinging after having had 8 successful years of Switch, not stumble without even a single major system seller on the distant horizon.

Obvious to some what’s out and upcoming is more than enough but it’s a far cry from system seller software. Plenty of us bought into it early thinking MKW would be something special and now here we are.

Honestly I don't know what people expect at this point in a console's life cycle. I don't remember ever buying a console at launch and being spoiled for choice when it comes to exclusives within 3 months. Why is Switch 2 being held up to this standard? Sure a flagship Zelda or Mario would be nice...but they will come eventually.

@OmnitronVariant Mario Kart World and Donkey Kong Bananza are both system sellers - with the former likely to be one of Switch 2's top selling games.

@Buizel I guess we'll see with time. I'm not convinced. But I did use the wrong term, I meant "killer apps". These games don't show off what distinguishes the console from its predecessor in any meaningful way, IMO. I know many will disagree with me and it's fine. I don't know what I was expecting either, but it certainly wasn't this. And my expectations were low.

It may just be that I'm finally well and truly outside Nintendo's target demographic. It was bound to happen eventually I guess, although given how much fun I have with indie games that channel a more creative Nintendo of yore — simplistic visuals included — I'm not so sure it's that simple.

Again I must question your reading comprehension, if all you got from my response is "I'm whining about graphics" you clearly do not understand what I said at all.

First, you said that the previews unanimously praised the game. That is not entirely accurate, they praised the battling and criticized the graphics. I only brought up the graphics to counter this specific claim, I don't actually care about the graphics.

Now onto what I actually care about? I don't think Lumiose City is big enough to carry a game. I'm open to the idea of a game solely taking place in a city, I've played games like that before, but the scale of the city feels too small for a full game. Exploring the overworld is one of the biggest highlights of Pokemon for me (and a lot of game, I'm an exploration junkie). If it takes all of 1 hour to see everything there is to see in Lumiose City, that's not going to hold my attention for long. Certainly not long enough to justify spending $60-$70.

And no, not everyone is playing Pokemon for the battling, Pokemon is much more than that and battling is only one part of it. As I mentioned, I like the adventure/exploration side of things in adventuring through a large region. There's also the collection element of finding and catching Pokemon. Some people like the story. Some people like interacting with other players. Some people just like caring for cute pets. Pokemon is a very multi-faceted game and saying "battling is the game" is oversimplifying things.

tl;dr since you seem to need it:
1. Saying the impressions are "fantastic" is not correct and the graphics are a common complaint
2. My personal concern is that the overworld is too small for $60-$70
3. Pokemon is much more than battling and different fans like different parts of the game

Because it's the only game on the console that I think is a real winner, the rest are either games from past consoles that I don't necessarily want to play on Switch 2 or they have issues that make me not want them. I would've said the same about games like BotW and Odyssey if that were true, but it wasn't.

Again, did you read WHY I don't think you understand Metroid? That is the larger point here. You haven't said a word about that, which makes me think you don't. Again, you're proving that you didn't actually read and understand what I said.

Nah, we're not. You just don't seem to understand nuance and want to boil everything down to oversimplified takes that miss the full truth.

@SwitchplayerJohn There's a pretty glaring omission here in the form of Mario Odyssey. And no, you can't use "it didn't come out yet as an excuse" because we know things that are coming out in the Spring. So by this point in the Switch's lifecycle (and really they were all announced in that January presentation) we knew Switch was getting a cross gen 3D Zelda title, a new Splatoon title, a port of a Mario Kart title on a console few had played, and a big new 3D Mario title. Those are all Top 10 selling IPs right there and 3/4 of them were new games, all in its first year on the market. If you're wondering why everyone praises the 2017 lineup, this is the main reason. We've never seen this many tentpole IPs in one year since and I'm not even sure we ever saw that many before. And no, the Switch 2's lineup doesn't measure up in terms of high profile tentpole IPs, especially exclusives. MKW and Bananza are the only two, and DK hasn't been quite a mega seller before so it's hard to say if it will now (I think it probably will, but it hasn't had a history of doing so, so difficult to predict). There's less exclusives right now and most of them are NOT high profile (many of them are niche sellers that only a vocal minority of fans care about). Cross-gen/S2E games are also less compelling on the Switch 2 than the Switch because far more people have a Switch than a Wii U, so the Wii U ports on Switch were like new games to a lot of people whereas most of the people buying S2Es already have a Switch and this doesn't exactly sell them on a Switch 2. Switch 2's first year simply does NOT measure up.

I literally created my own account just to post that I agree with @Bolt_Strike . I've been browsing this forum because I've been extremely disappointed with the Switch 2 so far from all aspects: price, releases, no UI or hospitality, whatever.

MKW was a flop. The recent update did fix some stuff but still dances around the fact that OG Grand Prix isn't optional, amongst other big issues.

DK was alright imo. Felt like a button masher to me but I gotta remember it's a kid's game. The final boss also made my console lag to hell.

Metroid's advertising is awful; I wouldn't wipe my ass with Pokemon, some baby Yoshi book story, yet another racing game from different IPs, a Zelda button masher.

But my biggest complaint I haven't seen brought up is the lack of Gamecube NSO titles. This was the main reason I bought the console to emulate these games. It is being dripfed to oblivion.

I don't need stuff now, but Nintendo needs to stop pinching pennies and just be more transparent. This lineup is awful.

If you're talking about launch month maybe, but launch year was as good as it gets. And we knew what was coming in its first year by the January presentation, so you could easily be swayed into buying a Switch 1 at launch based on some of those titles releasing later in the year. Again, I would not consider a launch lineup that includes the first open world Zelda game, a port of a high quality Mario Kart game few people have played, a sequel to the biggest new IP Nintendo's come up with in decades, and the long awaited return of sandbox style 3D Mario game to be "bad". Quite the opposite in fact, that's a tough lineup to top and indeed they really haven't.

From the beginning, I planned to buy the Switch 2 only next year, when Pokémon Gen 10 is released (if there's a hardware revision by then, that would be great).
As for cross-gen games, I'll buy the Switch versions (Pokémon Legends Z-A and Metroid Prime 4). Of the Switch 2 Editions announced so far, I don't plan on purchasing any.
But even so, I think the Switch 2 catalog is very good.
Mario Kart World, Donkey Kong Bananza, and Kirby Air Riders will be must-buys when I get the system. Regarding third-party games, Cyberpunk 2077, Hogwarts Legacy, Star Wars: Outlaws, and Fast Fusion are very likely purchases.
I agree that for the beginning of next year things are a bit lukewarm (for me, specifically).
I'm not interested in the new Mario Tennis (I already have Aces) or the new Yoshi (I already have Crafted World). And I'm waiting for more information about Splatoon Raiders, as I've never played a game in that franchise.
Like most people here, I'm going to be much more selective in choosing games due to the price increase.

How come we're suddenly counting Breath of the Wild and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe as Switch exclusives but discounting Pokemon Legends and Metroid Prime 4 as not Switch 2 titles?

@Bolt_Strike
Gross. I feel like I just walked through the stinkiest internet swamp ever.

When did you play the full versions of Metroid and Pokemon?