Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@shadow-wolf I did mention how if you are specifically looking at the first three months of 2018 you only get sixteen, if you want to add extra boundaries, like the 40-60 dollar moniker you do limit the number severely down to nine, and if you remove Wii U ports that's down to seven. If you want to limit it down to triple A... what does that even mean? I mean Lost Sphear is Square Enix, but is it not considered triple A?

Considering what @link3710 was saying, where there were entire weeks without any games period, I don't think applying these specifications helps. The fact that third parties, second A developers, and Indies (some who even make physical copies) on board is something to be proud of.

And I have even more clarity when it comes to the Wii U droughts, of those one hundred and sixty, a whole THIRTY (EDIT: whoops I meant twenty nine) was released on the North American launch day. Hard to believe right? But it's true I just checked it out less then an hour ago.

Having a mainline Kirby for instance is something the Wii U never had, but because it wasn't as great as Robobot does it really make it a failure? Because comparing it to the Wii U droughts is essentially comparing it to nothing.

It's not a drought, but I wholeheartedly understand if you don't want to buy into the smaller titles. Some people buy Nintendo for just straight up Nintendo and there is nothing wrong in that. But it isn't a drought, and even if you removed the Wii U ports, its still better then most of the Wii U's lifespan.

Nah, the lineup is not terrible. It's just a bit meh if you've already played a lot of the games that are getting ported. But there's quite a good selection of games to play that'll come eventually. Octopath is one, Mario Tennis fills that nice early summer filler game, we still know nothing about Fire Emblem, Smash Bros is coming, Labo will be a thing, Pokemon is unknown as well, and we still have no idea what Retro Studios is doing. And to look into the future, we have Metroid Prime 4 and Monolith Soft's action RPG.

I'm not worried for what's coming in the future. It's not comparable to the Wii U droughts. I love my Wii U still, but it was pretty much a Smash 4/Mario Kart/Xenoblade X machine at the end of the day. My Switch is already way more than that, which is fantastic.

To be honest I think it's only light if you have no interest in the games releasing... (Like me, personally)

Most of the games I'm wanting is at July / Summer releases :/ While there's none I'm 100% committed to buying for Spring release...

Wish some of them are around Spring instead But games releases can't really be released earlier, sad. I really wanted to play them now... T_T

@link3710 @ieatdragonz Good points. I will add the disclaimer that I got a Wii U in late 2015, so I missed many of the early droughts and had enough games to play thru the other droughts (still have games to play, in fact, before I get a Switch). Although a Kirby game did release for Wii U (rainbow curse) but I am not sure if it qualifies as a mainline game.

@EvilLucario Yeah I agree it isn't terrible. I might have been a bit harsh in my original post. It just annoys me when people keep saying the Switch has an amazing game release schedule while the Wii U didn't, but don't take into account these last few months (although I didn't experience any drought significantly since I got the Wii U in 2015 and still have a backlog, so I technically don't have the experience to truly relate the two).

For me personally, I think the Wii U is my favorite console, perhaps more than the PS3. It brought me back after a few years of not being really into games, and it had Splatoon, Mario 3D World, Breath of the Wild, Wind Waker HD, Mario Kart, Smash, Yoshi, Bayonetta, Mario Maker, and other games. Splatoon was such a magical experience for me, when I first played that game in a store I was amazed in a game in a way I hadn't been for years. But it's all subjective.

@darkfenrir Same here. The first big retail game that will be coming out I want is Dark Souls, which is late May. Then Ys VIII. Might look into Octopath as it looks good, but nowadays I have a bigger preference to more real-time combat over turn-based so I'll wait there. Smash Bros is obvious as well. Mario Tennis looks really awesome, it'll be my first Mario Tennis game since the GBC/GBA ones. Not a terribly huge Fire Emblem fan, but I did enjoy Awakening and Fire Emblem 7 so I'll be watching Fire Emblem 16 too.

Then there's indie games I want, like Hollow Knight and Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Totally want those games as well.

If anything, I have a huge saturation of games I want to play. That's just me though.

@shadow-wolf Totally get what you mean. I also loved my Wii U, and I personally did not feel any droughts because I had such a good time with the games that did come out. Despite it now just being a Smash 4/Xenoblade X machine for me, I had a ton of good fun with all the games that came out for it.

@EvilLucario Yeah I hear ya. And it makes sense about what you say on the Switch. By the time I get a Switch later this year I have a feeling there's going to be a lot of good games and a backlog not unlike what I had for the Wii U.

to be fair, I do think a lot of the people complaining about Wii U droughts never actually ran out of things to play on their Wii U. Wii U did have major droughts but most people straight up don't play enough video games for it to be a big deal. The reality is that the majority of gamers play a small handful of games every year.

But outside of a very specific, almost arbitrary, individual person's preferences (especially since Switch is often attracting similar types of indie games (ft. a small selection of AAA games) that Wii U got anyway)...yeah Switch will have the better lineup in one year than Wii U's entire lifespan. It's not even me saying so because of any opinions on any games, it's just blatantly true. Or at least incredibly likely based off of how things have gone.

@shadow-wolf Well I hope you enjoy your Switch when that day comes, its really fun to play around with. I never expected the form of handheld/console hybrid to be so fulfilling but once you get it in your hands, it just clicks.

And you know what? I am right up there with you championing the Wii U. I absolutely loved the console, and have had the same experiences with Windwaker HD, Smash, Mario Maker, 3D world, and Mario Kart. Is it the best nintendo console? I wouldn't say so, but it trumps Gamecube, GBA, Xbox, and maybe even 64 in quality titles (now im just fanning the fire here lol).

Although I do think the Switch is the Wii U but polished up, with better hardware, quality of life improvements, and no full droughts (although I am tired of talking about those haha). Splatoon was great on Wii U but its even better on Switch, Mario Kart got its battle mode finally, and now we can have the definitive version of Hyrule Warriors (its better to think of this one as not a Wii U port but a 3ds one, as a lot of its content is essentially the 3ds one). The Wii U was, and still is, great. But the Switch is on its way to being my favorite console of all time.

@EvilLucario Same, the retail release for me will be Octopath Traveler, then Shinine Resonance: Refrain... And then whenever The World Ends With You Final Remix is out, I'll be there I'm hoping they'll ninja release it sometime soon, but with the 0 words I have doubts :/

For indie, I'm not sure if I want to double dip on West of Loathing, and then still waiting for Hollow Knight as well... Not sure about Bloodstained, it looks interesting and the music's great, but I'm not... exactly good in platformers kind of game lol.

(Also Okami is Summer too!! Golly, why is 3 games Summer >:[ )

Well with Wii U vs. Switch, it's essentially VC vs. 3rd parties. The 3rd party support on Wii U was poor but you had access to lots of classic Nintendo games, for Switch it's basically the complete opposite.

@Grumblevolcano Amazingly enough, that's less true than you'd think. Mostly mentioning this cause I crunched WAY too many numbers for my earlier post, but the Wii U received 311 VC titles in NA, 300 in EU. So far, we've received 50 ACA titles so far, about a sixth of the output of the Wii U over the course of the past five to six years. So we're actually surprisingly on track, who'd have thunk?

@link3710 By VC I'm not talking about NEOGEO, I'm talking Nintendo consoles and Nintendo Arcade so currently for Switch there's only 3 (Mario Bros., VS Super Mario Bros. and Punch Out!!) with 8 more confirmed for the future.

@shadow-wolf
As you admitted, you didn't own a Wii U until 2015. For those of us that had it from launch in 2012... it was painful, dude. Painful.

The Switch's release schedule, even during these recent few months, is a gazillion times better. No, take gazillion and times it by gazillion.

Seriously, though. It's night and day, and you seem like a nice and intelligent guy, so you know it's bonkers to compare console release schedules at entirely different points in their life cycles. You can do a fair comparison of 2015 Wii U schedule vs. Switch 2020.

See you in two years!

(Wii U was an awesome system, but nowhere near SNES or PS2 or even 360, in my opinion.)

@ieatdragonz I understand. And I agree about the droughts - taking everything into account, for sure there hasn't been a drought as severe as on the Wii U in its early years on the Switch. And I also honestly think that the Switch will become my favorite console ever as well. We'll see when it comes, but it certainly seems on track to surpass the Wii U in my opinion.

@rallydefault I was actually comparing this last few months of Switch to roughly around 2013 for Wii U. But again, I misjudged just how spaced out the games were in 2013, although it seemed many fairly good games did come out that year (Rayman, Mario 3D World, Wind Waker HD, Pikmin 3). But regardless, I think it's safe to say all things considered that Nintendo is doing a much better job of managing the Switch than they did with Wii U in terms of avoiding droughts.

@Grumblevolcano You make a good point. Many people don't seem to count VC titles since they're old, whereas indies are counted because they are fairly new. That being said, I think I heard Nintendo drip-fed the VC on Wii U, and having most of the VC already on Wii meant that the VC wasn't exactly a bargaining chip for the Wii U.

@link3710 I think there are around 70 ACA titles by now,61 Neo Geo and 10 Arcade Archives. Plus there are the 7 Psikyo games with another due next week.

By next week there will be 81 classic titles on Switch, of which the vast majority of folk have never played before . We have

1v1 fighters
Beat-em-ups
Shoot-em-ups
Puzzlers
Platformers
Sports games

The vast majority of which all have better graphics than any game from the 8/16bit era. There are online leaderboards, various customisation options,the ability to Switch between English and Japanese versions of the game. TATE mode for games that support it. The only thing they're missing is online play.

I understand why folk want VC, I do too but for me there's very little Nintendo could do that will top what we already have. If Sega, Capcom, Konami and Taito get on board and start releasing some of their arcade classics then along with the Classic Game Collection that will be part of the online service the Switch will have the best selection of retro games of any console bar none.

@OorWullie On the subject of Neo Geo games, I have got £6.01 worth of wallet up and 28p worth of gold coins, which is - rather pleasingly - exactly £6.29!

Which of the 61 Neo Geo games would you recommend? I am willing to buy anything, whether it is a puzzle game, a beat ‘em up or an old fashioned 2D platformer.

This was just announced: https://gematsu.com/2018/03/first-tree-coming-ps4-xbox-one-sw...

Game looks very interesting but what concerns me is it's length. Dev says is about an hour and a half though every playthrough video i checked on YouTube (the game is out on Steam)is like an hour and ten minutes, more or less.

@Peek-a-boo Hmmm that's a tricky one, let me break it down.

For Beat-em-ups the best one is Sengoku 3 which just released this week. It has very nice graphics and smooth animation and there are quite a few moves, more than usual for this kind of game . It's challenging and lots of fun to play but if I have one criticism, it's the lack of variety in enemies.

For 1v1 fighters, I only have 2 at the moment,Garou and KoF98, both are great. I intend to buy Last Blade and Samurai Shodown II, the latter I had on Wii VC and it's an amazing fighter with a lot of depth.

For puzzle games, I think there are only 3,Puzzled and Magical Drop 2&3. MD3 is definitely the best of the bunch but it's not really my thing.

For platformers there are only 3 as well, Blues Journey is the only one that can really be classed as a traditional platformer. Spinmaster and Top Hunter are more action platformers but both are very fun and look great. My pick would be Top Hunter, it has the most variety.

There are a few ports games and without a doubt Neo Turf Masters is the best of the bunch.

For shoot-em-ups you're spoiled for choice. This is one of my favourite genres and I own every one of them on Switch. It's hard to pick a favourite from the Neo Geo ones, Pulstar is amazing if you're willing to spend some time with it and learn the enemy patterns and scoring, Aero Fighters 2 is great fun and definitely the most accessible, Blazing Star is also amazing.

Of the shoot-em-ups though I definitely prefer the Psikyo ones. These are priced the same as the Hamster releases. Tengai which released this week is my new favourite of the bunch. It's got everything, brilliant graphics, amazing soundtrack, fair challenge that can be customised, great selection of characters, superb looking bosses and wide screen mode. Incredible game and worth every penny and more. Psikyo have also released several vertical (TATE) shooters, they're all brilliant but Strikers 1945 is my favourite of the bunch. Their best vertical shooter according to many, Dragon Blaze releases next week. Zero Gunner 2 is also really good, it plays different from the rest and isn't too challenging,looks very nice too.

If I was to make just 1 recommendation on which you should spend your £6.29 though, it has to be Tengai aka Sengoku Blade 2.

For me the only way Switch will have a better retro collection than Wii U is if Nintendo properly delves into the N64, GC and Wii library in addition to releasing what they already released on Wii U. Given how strong the indie support is on Switch, I don't expect that to happen anytime soon if at all.

@Grumblevolcano I would be happy with only 2 games, Sunshine and if Microsoft somehow allowed Blast Corps to come out. That would be all I need from VC. I would also say Luigi's Mansion but I'm not even going there.....