Topic: Nintendo Switch 2

@D-Star92
I've only played single player modes like Adventure and Tower but I haven't heard any complaints.

Saw Dunkey vid yesterday showing off lots of ranked play and no issues were mentioned. Same for GVG vid where John C. says he's like #117 in the world right now in Ranked Mode. Can't imagine that being the case if there were problems.

@OctolingKing13
It's true!

4k 60 fps and only $5 to upgrade. Draw distances in the city weren't increased, which is probably the one thing remaining that could have been improved. But aside from that it seems exactly what we wanted. 4k resolution (1080p handheld) with a fully locked 60 fps. I'm kinda shocked they're releasing it physically. But hey, I'm glad. I just grabbed the $5 upgrade though.

@JaxonH All right. I actually did see that GVG video and I did notice a few instances of freezing during online play... which does concern me. But thanks for telling me regardless. If you do decide to try out the online, let us know how it went.

@D-Star92
Tbh I probably won't be playing online (otherwise I'd have no problem reporting back), but I'd think if it were insufficient you'd see complaints about it everywhere, and I don't see complaints about it anywhere.

The tournament and tower modes offer a ton of single player content above and beyond the Adventure Mode though. I heard if you beat all 3 towers it unlocks a 100-tier challenge where each has 1, 2 or 3 stars to achieve. Not to mention unlocking all 38 characters, courts, Fever Rackets, etc.

If you liked Aces I think you'll adore Fever. If you didn't like Aces, you may not like Fever, but I guess that depends on why you didn't like Aces.

@JaxonH Ah yeah I do remember those being talked about in the video, those would probably keep me busy for a decent while. I thought Aces was a pretty good game, it's got very solid gameplay and mechanics. I even won an online tournament way back when. Though I wasn't a fan of its story mode and it didn't have a lot of longevity for me.

@D-Star92
Adventure Mode isn't any better in Fever, but it's still a good 5 hours of learning the mechanics gradually to master the game.

But I think there's more content in Fever overall. I hear the online Ranked Matches can be intense though. If you won an online tournament in Aces it sounds like you'd fare pretty well, unlike me who would get slaughtered 😀

@JaxonH OK, gotcha. That's good to hear there's more content and that the online seems to be better. It's been ages since I last played Aces, but I did play Mario Tennis on the N64 recently with a bud online. Thanks for helping me out earlier with the carrying case by the way! I got one of the ones you suggested as a birthday present.

Just bought Ys X: Proud Nordics! Had just jumped back into Xenoblade Chronicles X after the NS2 Edition dropped yesterday, and discovered my latest save file was accidentally overwritten? I was at the end of Chapter 6, hadn't even gotten my Skell License yet. But when I stopped playing last year I had my entire team at Level 30 decked out with a full squad of Skells, and part of Sylvalum explored. Had to redo the Skell License quest and got my Skell, but it sucks losing that progress. No idea how that happened.

But anyways, I'm blown away Ys X: Proud Nordics has a 120 fps Performance Mode. Never did I imagine in my wildest dreams the successor to Switch would be seeing games running at 120 fps. Maybe for indies like Hollow Knight? Sure, OK. That didn't seem too far fetched. But a 3D game? An actual AA/AAA 3D game like Metroid Prime 4 or Ys X? How? It's a 10W hybrid handheld in the ballpark of a portable PS4. And most PS4 games ran at 30 frames. Not that I tend to prefer playing 120 fps- I'd rather not acclimate to a framerate that would make 60 feel insufficient, but it's just really impressive.

Got all 3 Resident Evil games preloaded, and gonna check out Virtua Fighter 5 when that drops.

@D-Star92
Oh nice. It can be a little overwhelming finding the right accessories, and I've wasted a lot of money through trial and error finding what's best and/or essential, and what's best ignored as a waste.

I see you're a fan of Animal Crossing. Can probably assume you're excited for Pokopia. But don't ignore Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. That game is so much fun, even for me as someone who never got into Animal Crossing.

@JaxonH Yeah... I ended up getting what you suggested. The one that doesn't fit the dock, but can fit the Switch 2 itself and a pro controller. I'm thinking of getting a second charging cable for when I travel, too.

I heard Pokopia is supposed to be pretty good, I watched a preview from GVG recently. Fantasy Life i has been on my radar for some time actually, though I kind of want to play more of its 3DS predecessor before I buy it.

Apparently FFVII Remake was the 9th best selling game in the US for the month of January. That's pretty much entirely due to Switch 2 users!

Also, RE Requiem is starting off strong on the US eShop, with the Generations Pack at #2, Requiem at #5, and the Deluxe Edition at #8.

Love to see it!

@IceClimbers Yeah, it’s looking very promising for Switch 2 being able to have long term 3rd party support.

@Grumblevolcano Yes it is! Will be interesting to see how Pragmata does, both on Switch 2 and in general.

Anyways, RE7 and Village are apparently $40 and $50 separately so the Generations Pack is very clearly the way to go if anyone has interest in getting those games in addition to Requiem.

Switch Up mentioned in their review that the framerate is not locked and it dips from time to time, and there are also some artifacts present.

Overall, a solid upgrade, but it could have been better.

@alexwolf
I'm pretty sure I watched that video and there's no real frame rate issues. Unless you're referring to dropping a couple frames on occasion in a 100+ hr JRPG. It's not like the game runs at 40-50 fps. It's a proper 60 frames.

But sure, there's some visual artifacts. Not what I'd call "flawless", but still, hardly an issue. Overall it looks better, and it already looked great.

I've played a fair amount of XCX on the Switch 2, basically starting a new game and playing until the point where you get Skells, and I'd think that it mostly delivers the goods on the frame rate and load times.

Image quality is where things are a bit suspect and it's obvious that they couldn't get it both running at 60fps and rendering natively at a higher resolution, so they've had to lean heavily on upscaling technology, which seems rather primitive compared to what we know that the Switch 2 is capable of. This is most obvious when playing handheld, where the image will sometimes degrade into a blurry mess. It's also present when docked, but less noticeable because it keeps up a higher base resolution. You're not getting the clarity you'd expect of a game running at 4K though.

They've also done nothing to address the severe pop-in in the game, which remains more or less the same as the Wii U era, as do many of the models and textures. If you were expecting a comprehensive reworking of the game to unlock the full power of the Switch 2, this unfortunately isn't it. It's still the same game, that always performed adequately enough even on the Wii U, with some bolted-on graphical upgrades.

On the whole, I'd file it alongside Animal Crossing, as something worth having if you play the game a lot, but it's nowhere near as transformative as the S2Es of Kirby and the Forgotten Land or Metroid Prime 4, even the Zelda games for that matter.

@Matt_Barber
Interesting. Maybe that's why this one is only 5 bucks.

Yeah, Nintendo's pricing policy with these Switch 2 editions of Switch 1 games seems to be pretty clear now:

5 bucks/euros: you get a simple upgrade in resolution, done with the help of DLSS. Maybe an increase in FPS too, maybe some other minor additions, but basically not much more. Examples: Animal Crossing, Xenoblade Chronicles X.

10 bucks/euros: there's an upgrade in resolution and FPS but also significant reworking of the game's visual assets, so they look clearly better and it's not just DLSS doing the heavy lifting. Examples: Breath of the Wild, Tears of the Kingdom.

20 bucks/euros: besides the enhanced visuals you get some significant new DLC content. Examples: Kirby and the Forgotten Land, Super Mario Wonder.

The real bummer is that at Switch 2 launch we got upgrades belonging to the first category for free (Echoes of Wisdom, Link's Awakening, Super Mario Odyssey, etc.), but now Nintendo is charging a fiver for the same level of enhancements. I guess at launch they were still afraid that the Switch 2 might not be a success, so they wanted part of its marketing to be "look at all this free stuff you get for games you already own", but now that the console is selling very well, they're like, we might as well charge for this stuff since the S2 owners are gonna pay anyway.

@Polvasti generally agree with this post, but don’t forget we got a free DKC Returns update last month which throws a further spanner in the works. That not a S2E, but is more akin to what we had at launch.

Do we have any examples of a “Switch 2 Edition” from Nintendo that is free?

I don't think so, but since the XBX Switch 2 Edition doesn't upgrade the game any more than those free upgrades for Link's Awakening and Echoes of Wisdom did, in this case the "Switch 2 Edition" label is just a marketing tactic to justify the 5 euro upgrade price and the S2 physical edition of the game.

I'm guessing this is a special case where the game didn't sell very well on the Switch 1, so Nintendo wanted to boost it's sales with a free upgrade? Whereas Animal Crossing and Xenoblade have such large and/or committed fanbases, Nintendo probably figured we're gonna pay for the upgrade anyway.

@Buizel
No free S2 Editions, no. Not unless you count certain games like Brain Academy and Toad's Treasure Tracker also getting GameShare in addition to the graphics updates with their free patches.

@Polvasti @rallydefault Thanks.

Yeah it definitely seems they factor in how the game is doing / how much it would benefit for an extra sales/marketing push when considering the extent of content added and the price.

DKC Returns’ update at least got a sale from me. I was unsure about the game but Dixie convinced me. And AFAIK that wasn’t a Switch 2 specific addition?