Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

I know we all have different tastes etc., but I also know that I’m not alone in my primary motivation when buying a new console: To play new games that weren’t possible before.

Backwards compatibility is a bonus, not a selling point. And while most of the industry has moved that way, multiplatform usually means using each platform’s hardware worse than exclusives. It’s just how software development works. And I want to get the most out of my hardware, rather than the most software possible onto it.

Quality and unique experiences. I guess that’s no longer Nintendo’s priority.

Not possible before...given the devices that you own. Since I only had a Switch before (and mobile), most of what Switch 2 does was not possible for me before.

But I would also say that playing a previous game but now having it actually perform well does sometimes feel like a completely new game as well. There were games I owned which were not worth playing on Switch 1 but are on Switch 2 so I effectively got a new game via back compatibility

Man, leave it to you to type something that was really good and most people would agree with, and then you gotta go and do the sensationalist stuff at the end again. You can’t help yourself, can you? lol

And that’s beside the fact that I really don’t even get what that’s supposed to mean. How is Nintendo’s stuff suddenly not quality? Just because you don’t like the games right now? And when did they stop making the most unique games around? I didn’t get that memo. I thought Drag x Drive was a thing that just happened. I think most of us would say that game is TOO unique lol A gosh-danged Virtual Boy setup is in the pipeline. We got a system with two controllers that can now act as detachable mice.

What are you even doing, man?

DS and 3DS games were designed to be played with one screen on top of the other, and the displays of older games are designed around that. It would look very wonky if you placed one display next to the other. At a bare minimum to pull that off you'd need your Switch 2 to be playable in portrait mode and an attachment for the Joycons to snap in to the top and bottom of the system instead of the sides.

The biggest thing dual screens can do that hasn't really been done is screen layering. Holding up one screen in front of the other for zooming, aiming, searching, etc. We saw an example of this in the Wii U reveal trailer where there was a minigame where you were aiming at Miis in a window (they were using some kind of attachment, but I don't think it's necessary, you could've just held the sides of the controller and for the Switch you could just hold it by the Joycons). Here's the trailer for reference, the minigame in question is around the 2:00 mark:

There's a lot of potential in actual, new games for this kind of mechanic that sadly has never been realized. I could imagine something similar for mechanics like sniping in Splatoon, aiming eggs in Yoshi, scanning in Metroid Prime, etc.

I do not get this take at all, the performance doesn't seem to make much of a difference. You're doing the same actions, navigating the same world, performing the same tasks, etc., the performance doesn't affect any of that and that defines the game experience FAR more than the resolution and framerate.

If you want a good example of how that's doing little to make the game feel new and built around the console, look at how Pokemon has handled its remakes on Switch. That's an extreme example because those are remakes of games from far older and far less capable handhelds than the Switch, but it does a good job of illustrating how designing the game around the original console's limitations, not the resolution and framerate the game is operating at, is what's really holding the game back from feeling like a modern experience using the Switch to its full potential. RBY was on the GB, they couldn't really do any better than environments made up of flat, blocky tiles with generic, limited environments. So when they carried that over to LGPE, it doesn't look very modern and realistic, it's somewhat uncanny. The assets look realistic but there's no way an actual world would look like this, it looks more like someone built the game with LEGOs. Same with BDSP. The DS was technically capable of 3D graphics as evidenced by 64 DS, but it was still a bit too limited, so Game Freak could hardly be blamed for sticking with 2D sprites on the DS. But it doesn't feel at home on the Switch, you compare to what Pokemon looks like in a game built from the ground up on the Switch like SwSh and SV vs. BDSP, and it's practically a night and day difference with much larger, more open, and realistic looking environments (I know people have gripes about the low res textures and that's valid, but I'm saying comparatively it looks far more realistic just by virtue of being a large, open 3D game) and multiple Pokemon spawning and wandering around in the overworld. Hell, we have a far more direct comparison with LA, that game feels more in line with how a Sinnoh game for the Switch should look like.

Similarly, if you try to port a Switch game to the Switch 2, it's going to retain the same design and gameplay limitations of the Switch. It's going to be harder to sell a Switch 2 that way if they seem like their design and gameplay mechanics are similar to Switch 1 games. New exclusives that do wildly different/imaginative things that the Switch 1 couldn't is by far the best way to do that, so they need exclusives and that should be their biggest priority.

Cult of the Lamb is a good example — it was a laggy mess on Switch 1 to the point I didn't want to play but plays much better on Switch 2. Not waiting 30 seconds constantly for loading rooms really changes the feeling of the game. Not sometimes getting literally stuck from lag. etc.

In Hello Kitty Island Adventure, the game is snappier to the point that the platforming and racing simply magically feel like better controls.

So performance affects how well the controls work, what I am doing (e.g. waiting for loading screens versus actually playing), the visuals of the game, etc.

Not every game obviously, but I was specifically talking about games which performed badly on Switch 1 (although I didn't even notice issues with Hello Kitty on Switch 1 but the difference on Switch 2 was shocking and made me get back into the game because it just felt better playing it- sometimes the Switch 2 improvements feel like magic).

So some specific games just automatically feel quite different (and better). Many others feel the same and a few are worse.

And there are other games (e.g. final fantasy 7 remake) which I was waiting for years to play and now I can play.

Being able to play third party games at all or how they were intended to be played rather than being downgraded on Switch 1 is not a particularly controversial take I feel.

My original point was more aimed at people who own lots of modern devices who claim that Switch 2 is bad because it can't do anything new. And, sure, if you have a good PC or a PS5 or perhaps a steam deck you can already play relevant third party games as the game was intended to be played. But for me, I had a Switch 1 and now I have a Switch 2. So I can suddenly play more games and previous games better.

@FishyS Meh, none of those games really feel like they're doing anything gameplay wise that really needed more powerful hardware. It's more likely that they require extra hardware because the developers are hyper-obsessed with graphics. I have seen few to no actual gameplay concepts that actually feel like they couldn't have been done on say, the 360 and PS3 at lower resolutions and still run at an acceptable framerate. So I'd say you should more blame the developers chasing unnecessarily high resolutions and super detailed assets for this phenomenon rather than Nintendo not having powerful hardware. To be perfectly blunt it feels like many of these AAA developers are lemmings chasing super high quality graphics and they're walking themselves off a cliff in the form of unattainable sales targets, layoffs, and studio closures. It's foolish of Nintendo to follow this, it's only a matter of time before Nintendo suffers this same fate.

@Bolt_Strike Yeah, I'm not talking about gameplay concepts, I am talking about specific games that I want/wanted to play. Switch 2 lets me play those specific games or improves some of them for me. I've now gotten to the point where essentially all games I am interested in are coming to one console rather than missing out on some as I was with Switch 1.

Optimizing is a hard and potentially expensive process, so I don't blame the smaller developers, but I was always surprised when simple games like Cult of the Lamb ran poorly on Switch. I'm glad Switch 2 allows developers to save some of that time and money and still make a good feeling game.

Serious question here. Have you ever played a DS game on the Wii U Virtual Console? I ask, because it did all that. You got to choose between stacked screens, zooming on one or the other, or Tate mode in either direction for off-TV play.

For what it's worth, I played the vast majority of games zoomed in on one screen, flipping when necessary.

Elsewhere, the state of the art in DS and 3DS emulation has moved on. There are some dual screen Android handhelds and others offer a clip-on screen for those who absolutely must have two. Nintendo like selling us extra gadgets for use with their emulators, so maybe they could do something similar.

One of the takeaways from the Wii U though is that it's not particularly comfortable to hold a tablet up in front of your TV set for an extended play session and a lot of games that planned to do that had to can the idea during development. It's also difficult for most people to rapidly change focus between screens at different distances, so games tended to have you looking at on one or the other.

Between that kind of feedback, you should be able to see why we never really got the kind of gaming you saw in that video. It might make a comeback one day, but I'd think it'd be with something like AR glasses and Nintendo are unlikely to be at the forefront of it, at least to start with.

I didn't own a Wii U, I skipped it because it didn't get enough games and largely avoided the kinds of games I gravitated to (the larger, exploration focused games like your Zeldas, your sandbox Marios, your Metroidvanias, etc. There were almost none of these on Wii U and by the time I saw remotely enough games, they were already moving on to the Switch whose lineup ended up being just about everything I wanted the Wii U's to be). I can't really see any of those options except Tate mode being viable though with how the DS and 3DS work.

I can't really imagine that being easy to use either since dual screens tend to have some pretty crucial displays. It was quicker and snappier when you could simply look down at a map/menu screen to do whatever you had to do without needing to take much of a break from the action rather than pause the game.

They'd pretty much have to. The Switch 2's inherent design is not friendly to DS/3DS emulation. At a bare minimum, if they just want to do Tate mode they'd need USB adapters for you to plug your Joycons into. Clip-on screens would probably be better though.

IIRC the Wii U was quite bulky/heavy, wasn't it? The Switch is a bit more lightweight so it could probably work better. Additionally, my thought was that they should essentially take a Switch screen and split it into two detachable smartphone sized screens. That would also be easier to hold up for extended play times.

Yeah I don't really buy this when things like binoculars and zoom cameras exist. I have never had this problem at all and certainly not on the DS/3DS.

I mean there really seems to be little-to-no interest in the technology outside of Nintendo so they might still be at the forefront of it anyway despite the technology being there for a decade or more.

FYI the Switch 2's top USB-C port doesn't support video output, so any 2nd screen clip-on accessory would either have to plug into the bottom USB port, or it would have to rely on video streaming (similar to how GameShare works).

Regardless of whether Nintendo ever releases some dual screen accessory, they will absolutely allow people to play NDS and 3DS Nintendo Classics on a single screen without an accessory, both screens will just be displayed on the single Switch 2 screen.

@OmnitronVariant
Quality and unique experiences. I guess that’s no longer Nintendo’s priority.

I mean, that's just factually inaccurate. I'm ok with people expressing their opinions on NSW2 Editions of previously released NSW1 titles, but when you cross over to misrepresenting the truth that's when I'm gonna step in with the hard evidence to prove otherwise.

6 BRAND NEW experiences from Nintendo on NSW2 in the first 6 months. Fact. In no world will you even remotely convince me that equates to Nintendo not prioritizing quality, unique experiences.

I don't give a flip if they released 1,000 NSW1 Editions in the first 3 weeks. It doesnt change the fact we've got HALF A DOZEN BRAND NEW EXPERIENCES in the first 6 months. And thats not even counting the new Yoshi Mysterious Book, the new Mario Tennis Fever, the new Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave or the new Splatoon Raiders, all of which are on deck in addition to these games. That's double digits of new NSW2 experiences and we're not even to a full 5 months in.

So no. Im sorry. Don't take this personally, I like you and all. But that statement was flat out wrong.

@JaxonH Only 3 of these games are out, and Pokémon ZA is by Game Freak so I personally don’t count it, and you can play it on Switch 1.

The rest are coming but we have no idea about their quality yet. And I don’t mean “polish” when I say quality or “new entry” when I say innovation.

So for now we have MKW and Bananza and these are not innovative games, and I don’t think they’re high Nintendo quality either compared with Nintendo’s past console exclusives. But maybe I’m expecting too much. I didn’t enjoy these games and the upcoming ones look boring and like more of the same (compared to their last entry) but slightly shinier.

I did enjoy ZA (by Game Freak) but again, not Nintendo and we don’t even need the new console for it.

@OmnitronVariant As much as I agree with the overall point how can you not find Bananza innovative? The destruction mechanics make for a very different style of platformer and it's almost inconceivable the degree to which you can destroy the level. The game definitely feels very ambitious and different. I'd say that game is the only good exclusive so far.

@Bolt_Strike Maybe if I played only games Nintendo made. But even on their own platforms there's games that already do this. It might seem like a weird comparison, but I've played Minecraft since 2009. But for a better comparison of a game with platforming, I've also played Terraria and Noita. A lot. Just because it's Donkey Kong doesn't make it innovative, honestly. It doesn't do anything innovative with the tech other than cover the indestructible core of a level with "dirt" and let you endlessly hammer a button break it, without adding anything meaningful on top. It's just not fun at all. It doesn't help that it's designed like a slot machine with pointless gold literally everywhere you smash and bananas every ten meters. It's exhaustingly boring.

It is very polished, but gameplay design wise it's probably one of the worst 3D platformer games I've ever played, especially if I consider the asking price for it. It's also surprisingly lazy in how they slap the little pointless "towns" with shops just haphazardly anywhere with no rhyme or reason. I could go on but just thinking about the game makes me annoyed. It feels like a turning point in Nintendo design philosophy that I've seen coming for a while, but I never thought it'd get this bad.

@OmnitronVariant
Maybe because it's not actually your typical 3D platformer... it's a pretty unique and innovative game. Perhaps you're frustrated because you're trying to treat it and play it like a traditional platformer?

So, in a way, your own approach to the game shows exactly that it is incredibly innovative.

This same argument has already gone in circles several times, but I think it's safe to say most of the people in this forum have played Minecraft and Terraria. Those games are about as unlike Bananza as you can get. Saying the destruction mechanic is not original because extremely different destruction mechanics have existed in different games is similar to saying a platformer can't be innovative because jumping existed in previous games.

I think you have decided to interpret your personal dislike of the game as 'not innovative'. Not liking the game is very fair, but not innovative is just not an easy argument to justify. And yes, most people you are arguing with have just as much experience in many genres and publishers of games as you do even if there is a Nintendo bias here.

I agree we can't assume Zelda Warriors, Prime 4, and Kirby Air Riders are innovative until we actually fully see them, especially given that they are all direct sequels.

As for Pokemon Z-A? It's a first party game published by Nintendo, Nintendo owns a lot of the IP and was definitely heavily involved in the conversation of what game to make. If you only count fully in-house games, there aren't many Nintendo games to count - Koei Tecmo isn't Nintendo, Bandai Namco isn't Nintendo... even Retro isn't truly the main Nintendo even though it is owned by Nintendo. If you only count first party games made by the main Nintendo teams I think everyone will agree that Nintendo doesn't make many games 😆

Agreed.

I still think it's interesting Nintendo doesn't even label it as Platformer in the NA eShop. They chose Action/Adventure.

Nintendo isn't actually all that consistent with its labels but I still kind of agree with this labeling. The term is ill-defined, but Bananza is definitely an Adventure first before it is a Platformer. And Action arguably even if a lot of the action is punching walls. There certainly is platforming - if you watch the speed runs you can see some of the insane platforming gimmicks — but you can play through the game without much emphasis on platforming at all. Which is fine - the genre of a game doesn't have to abide by our pre-concieved assumptions.

Without the platforming Bananza is a really awful destructible sandbox game. I think the decent platforming mechanics are its only unique aspects in that genre. And no I didn’t go into it expecting anything other than a fresh experience, and I think it’s awful. It feels like the worst parts of Odyssey blended with destructible terrain.

And sure, we can count ZA as a Nintendo game; it's not a Switch 2 exclusive so like I already said, it doesn't matter. It runs just fine on Switch 1 and is absolutely not a good reason to get a Switch 2 if you've already got its predecessor. And as much as I like it, I'm not sure I'd consider it innovative. Realtime battles are a pretty big iterative approach I guess, but innovative..? Maybe.

It's innovative within the Pokemon universe/franchise but I agree the combat is not particularly innovative in terms of games in general. I haven't played e.g. digimon so I can't comment on whether some other aspects of the game are original or not. Personally I had never played a creature collection game which felt so much like we are truly living in a normal ish city. Regardless, it's a fun experience which is always the main goal.

Have you played it on Switch 1 out of curiosity? There are constant loading screens in the game which are near instant on Switch 2. There have been some complaints about that on Switch 1 as well as just not loading textures in general, making it feel less immersive. I think it's fair to say this game was made 'good enough' for Switch 1 but that they were definitely focused on using the power of Switch 2 for an improved experience.

@FishyS Yeah I've played it for a bit on my OLED. It's definitely a downgrade in direct comparison, don't get me wrong; textures, half the framerate, a reduction in rendering tech as well, like Switch 2 having higher resolution baked lighting and shadows as well as something akin to SSAO. It's a lot nicer looking on Switch 2. But my point is that it's a game that was still designed to run on Switch 1 first and foremost, and while I personally wouldn't opt for the Switch 1 version when I already have a Switch 2, most of my friends are playing it on a Switch 1 and have no problems with that. It runs and looks better than Scarlet/Violet, after all. And I can't honestly recommend they upgrade to a Switch 2 for it; it's not going to be a different game. The loading times on my OLED's internal memory are only ~30% longer on average, it's not a big deal.