Topic: Monster Hunter Stories 2: Wings of Ruin

@NEStalgia
I can't imagine anyone likes a janky pickup mechanic where basic features become a game of chance skill...but...ok. Do you like it at 120fps on PC, or do you like it at 20fps on Switch?

This seems an odd question.

Of course I like it on PC with a high framerate. But I like it more on Switch given it's not 20 FPS. If it was I wouldn't have come back to it. It's 30 or higher most of the time, and yes I like that more.

Has nothing to do with picking up items though. It's the exact same on both. And I like picking up items on both. It is skill. If you press the button when the prompt appears you'll pick it up. If you're not picking items up it's because you're indiscriminately mashing A when you shouldn't be. Learn the timing of when the prompt shows and press A once. That's all that's needed.

@Balta666
Right. It's not hard once you learn when you're supposed to press the button.

@Balta666 True, but it's a shame I won't have any new experiences to look forwards to when it eventually takes over the landscape.

@VoidofLight most likely at time you will get used to the idea of it and won't bother you anymore. For example I never though about having and Xbox because I don't play shooters and racing games and the whole allways connected was not something I was very keen on but since I got game pass PC I ended up getting a series X to play on the couch and I am very happy with it playing fable 2 and bug fables at the moment

@Balta666 I doubt I'll get used to it, since it's more of a leap than just getting a new console. Streaming is literally ripping ownership out of people's hands, and will only result in game preservation going down the drain. Eventually, the games will be removed, with you never having the ability to replay them despite wanting to do so.

Streaming TV shows and stuff is more understandable, since they still produce DVD's and ways to watch these shows outside of streaming services, but game streaming won't be anything like that, unless they decide just to have it be a side feature to actual games.

@VoidofLight the thing is they can try to prevent you from playing something or watch something on TV but as along as the internet is a thing everything is preserved (even if not legally...)

@JaxonH Yeah, I'm indiscriminately mashing because it doesn't work the way I'd expect it to work. It really does feel like it wants you to go back to the Tri era of harvesting that you slowly walk up to the item, stop, press A, wait for the animation, then continue on. Maybe Rise just spoiled me with drive-by pickups.

@VoidofLight PHYSICAL ownership is going to go by the wayside eventually, though not any time soon. DIGITAL ownership is doubtfully ever going away to be replaced by streaming. Same for movies and music. Companies will sell full licenses in addition to buffet streaming likely forever. Many make more money that way, anyway. We have some legislation that needs to happen to make digital rights the same as physical rights still and that's been decades in the waiting, but otherwise, physical vs digital is still a different debate than ownership vs rental.

Nintendo, OTOH, will strip you of your games every other gen anyway, digital or physical, because that's how Nintendo Nintendoes it! A digital Steam copy of this game will probably be reasonably playable to you a lot longer than a physical NSW copy that will be done and forgotten as soon as Switch is a memory.

@NEStalgia Funny. I still own my old physical Nintendo games.

Next time they come by to strip you of your physical games, greet them with a shotgun. That's called theft.

@Ralizah Yeah, we have all those old games, and for now, have all the old consoles because 80's hardware was built to withstand nuclear winters. Not sure that physical 3DS collection will be too useful in 8-10 years.

@NEStalgia I mean, even if the games aren't backwards compatible with newer systems, I still keep my older systems to play older games on. The switch still hasn't fully replaced my 3Ds, since there's a lot of games I still enjoy on the 3Ds that I can't play on my Switch.

@NEStalgia
It is drive by just like Rise. Observe.

Also, I see no evidence suggesting hardware won’t last. I’d be willing to make a substantial bet all my hardware will be working 20, 30 years from now. I have a DSi that works like it’s brand new. Multiple New 3DS that still work like they’re new. Launch Wii U that works like new. OLED Vita still works like new (except the faulty 64 GB me card that’s corrupted twice now- not that I care because I never play the system anymore anyways). Even my launch day switch still works like it’s new.

I’m not worried about anything. Physical or digital.

@VoidofLight @JaxonH I have EXTREMELY low confidence in modern hardware enduring long. Just the nature of the beast, it's not 80's solid state anymore. Caps go bad. Batteries go bad, battery charging circuits & charging circuit caps go bad, screens fail as the phospors decay, etc, etc. Maybe you're right, but I find it exceedingly unlikely and just assume modern games are rentals on modern rental hardware doomed for the landfill. Not to mention 3DS games could endure, but Switch games, once the download servers are done, half of this stuff will barely be playable without patches. Half of switch carts don't even have games on them. And ones that do a huge chunk have required patches to function and not crash, or to have chunks of content inserted (See also: MH Rise.) Meh. Rental games on rental hardware.

Huh, that's pretty cool you really can pick things up that easily. My timing definitely isn't that good. Which is probably also why I suck at mainline MH. Monster tells. Monster attacks. Then I react.

I have a lot of issues with how games are released without any regard for the long term. But the idea that games needing patches as why is a bit...much. Like if you have the patch data...you will then continue to have that data as long as you don't delete it.

...don't delete it. shrugs

Also you shouldn't be buying games that NEED patches in the first place. If they ever end up worth it, they'll probably re-release it anyway.

That being said, every time I heard about Ps4 games needing insultingly large updates at launch, it sounded like the worst. At that point, companies are just disrespecting you and your time. **** those games at that point.

@NEStalgia
It’s not a bad assumption to make. Better safe than sorry. But I’m not worried about it. There’s always 10,000 things that could go wrong and yet the probability of each one is so incredibly small, and the proof is in the pudding. No console has died out in mass numbers, and assuming modern consoles will be significantly different than others without any empirical evidence to suggest it seems more like an irrational fear than an objective concern. I’ll believe it when I see it, let’s put it that way. I’ve never had a console die on me, and until I personally experience it or read reports that 50% of Wii U owners’ consoles suddenly start dying out of the blue, I’m not going to base my decisions on baseless fears of “what if”.

Not to mention, I buy a spare console at the end of each generation anyways. I’ve got multiple SD back ups and on the PC, so I don’t need the download servers anyways. And even if I did, they’re going to be around for decades- so long that by the time they do shut down nobody’s going to even care. We’re multiple generations removed from the Wii, which released nearly 20 years ago, and despite the WiiShop being hosted by a 3rd party you can still redownload even to this day. eShop will last even longer.

Which means I won’t even have to worry about games coming off the server until I’m hitting the age of retirement. At which point, I’m not going to care. I’m going to be playing Switch 6 games at that point, and any game worth playing will have already been remade or remastered and ported at least three different times. Notwithstanding the fact I’ll still have a perfectly brand new system with multiple backups of my data. So ya. Hell will likely freeze over before I ever have to deal with any of the problems you speak of.

For the record, we don’t actually have any examples of modern digital storefronts being taken offline to the extent you can’t redownload purchased software. Everyone always assumes “when the servers go down” as if it’s actually going to happen in their lifetime. To be fair, it could, but also to be fair, we haven’t observed any such thing happen yet. From Wii/PS3/360 onward, games are still downloadable if purchased. For all we know, those servers could stay up indefinitely. No company seems eager to tell people they can’t re-download purchased games. Some have prevented new purchases, but that’s a completely separate issue.

Special MH Stories layered armor from scanning an amiibo from the original game

@Ralizah
Some updates on the info I gave you before. I just got to Basarios in the Switch version and realized his angered state goes backwards from Tech to Power, rather than forward. So it seems once you advance far enough the game starts spicing it up. It still seems consistent so that they will always change the same way but it won’t always necessarily be forwards after Basarios.
Also, your monsters can have skills from more than one attack type. So you could ideally have one monster with an attack from all three groups, and you could just have that one monster use the right one, so you don’t have to switch out all the time, leaving all the other slots for faves or skills.
Just an FYI.

edit
Moved Monster Hunter Stories 2 over to internal memory, and Idk if it’s just placebo or not, but it seems to give it a slight edge to the point it basically feels near perfect in handheld mode. I’m 😍 May want to give it a try. It also helps with slightly faster load times too. And Switch now has the functionality to move games back and forth from Data Management in settings.

@JaxonH Yeah, I noticed my monsters had access to skills with different attack types, so I've been using that to win head-to-heads, since they seem to randomly switch up their attack styles.

Would moving the game to internal storage really make a difference to performance? AFAIK, the only confirmed change in games is that some of them load a split-second faster.

Well, I'll never know, since I'm playing from a card.

@JaxonH @Ralizah how do you force a monstie to do a specific attack type? I missed that part completly...

@DomGC interesting I assumed that option was only to swap them but as you have a shortcut on the y button I never went there lol

@Ralizah
In certain circumstances. If it's issues streaming into memory like Link's Awakening. Not massive difference but enough to move it. Doesn't hurt to play it on the safe side. Especially for games you really love trying to eek out even the tiniest advantage. You know we Nintendo fans are very resourceful jerry-rigging whatever slight advantage we can get 😉

I went back to MH Stories on 3DS and I'm kind of impressed how similar it is. I never got that far in the game, but I really like it. Not as good as MHS2 obviously but still good. I'm glad I've got a bunch of cheats I can activate, one of which is double game speed you can toggle on/off. Can make battles go faster like in MHS2

@DomGC I am pretty sure there are a few sidequests like that on the first area. They even named it "sidequest something den" (I don't remember the name of the sidequest)

@JaxonH Wait, Link's Awakening performs better on the on-board memory? Does that help with the sharp framerate dips?