Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@DarthNocturnal VCR on PC was pretty cheap at launch, and it has gotten insanely so since that time. I think I downloaded my copy a year after launch for $9.99, but it has dipped down as low as $4.99 in sales since then.

I imagine its success was also partially due to excitement about SEGA publishing more of their games on PC.

The degree to which Japanese games have expanded onto Steam in the last few years is actually pretty remarkable.

Yeah that's pretty much it. I'd never invest time into a SP franchise if I knew that the story would be left untold. This has never happened to me thus far and by some small miracle I'm getting both Kingdom Hearts 3 and Darksiders 3 in 2019 .

@DarthNocturnal Why....just....why would you buy VC4 on X1? I mean I love my 1X. I buy everything that's not an exclusive or on Switch on 1X....but that game looks the same on Switch as it does on 1X, and just begs to be portable considering most entries of the series were exclusively on portable Switch is pretty clearly the primary platform in this case. They abandoned PS3 after the first and went to PSP, now Switch...

@JaxonH You said it yourself.....the genre. SRPG/TRPG just isn't a very popular genre outside Japan. FE gets some love because of Smash fame mostly, I think, it's brought the name to more people, but it takes a certain type of player to get into any SRPG, and there just aren't huge numbers of those players, especially when there are so many huge franchises on that list.

Heck even Fallout Tactics bombed catastrophically in the day. I don't think it's a knock on Valkyria so much as a niche genre from a series without a lot of brand power that was kind of a cult classic a decade ago, and then a niche Japanese handheld series after that.

@NEStalgia The original excitment of FE to the west, sure that was because of Smash (Marth and Roy in Melee). The most recent wave of FE excitement (2013 - present) has nothing to do with Smash, rather because of the changes Awakening made to the FE formula and so the reverse happens (Awakening being so popular leading to Smash essentially becoming Super Modern Fire Emblem Bros.). Next up you'll see Tharja be a Robin echo

VC4, Langrisser 1/2HD and FE! Good time to be a fan of strategy games

@DarthNocturnal I don't know, it seems the ideal genre for portable access. Considering it's the same price to get handheld + docked as it is to tether it to the X1 it seems a no brainer You have the Switch and you really don't lose anything putting it on Switch instead. It's not like it looks particularly amazing on the 1X. Diablo III I could understand, it looks amazing on 1X and kind of so-so on Switch....but with VC4 there's no down-side at all...

@Grumble Haha, even with phoenix mode FE is a hard game to love if you're not into strategy games. It goes out of it's way to be difficult. I think Awakening and RD gained an audience that cared due to Smash, and then the Awakening hype created more Awakening hype. And then Heroes on mobile boosted it again. It's popular because it's FE, though, not because anyone likes SRPGs North of Tokyo.

Poor Valkyria is a small niche game from a fairly unknown franchise competing with a ton of colossal franchise drops no matter what system you're on this year (Spiderman, RDR2, Smash, Pokemon....even Forza Horizon. It's a terrible launch window for that type of game. )

I don't think it has anything to do with Sega at all. A large chunk of PC gamers are fans of tactical and strategic games, it is just a good market for this kind of game.

Open question about Okami HD: what's the point of changing equipment? I don't see a strength stat anywhere, and the only difference between my first weapon and the one I got for clearing the first dungeon seems to be the ability to use ink bullets (which seem pretty useless so far).

@NEStalgia The only other platform I could see a multi-system owner preferring to play VC4 on is PC, given it supposedly runs at 60fps. Which doesn't really impact the gameplay at all, given its strategic character, but it does look a bit nicer.

@Therad I disagree. I know a lot of people who bought it to support SEGA (and Japanese, more broadly) releases on PC. Besides, it's not like it's the sort of strategy game PC gamers are used to. It's very much a console game in design.

Granted, I still think the low-ish price was the biggest factor at play.

But I guess we'll see. If VC4 sells better on Steam than on other platforms, you might have a point. But I don't think it will.

@Ralizah For ink bullet you need to paint more than one dot. The more you paint, the more damage they do. Different weapons have different combos, different range, etc. Some are objectively stronger than others, but you will recognise them when you see them.

Awakening's success really didnt have to do with Smash, although I'm sure it may have helped a bit with awareness. It was higher production game early in the 3DS life span, and got some marketing behind it. A lot of people bought it because it seemed to be this hidden 1st party gem. Nintendo fans love 1st party IP. And it came across as a long, lost top tier Nintendo franchise that was suddenly re-discovered. Almost like a brand new Nintendo IP for people. And it was fantastic.

I just figured with Valkyria Chronicles 4 not being grid based, and the amazing art direction and more Fire Emblem esque warring country setting, that more people would be excited for it, at least the JRPG fans since it's not that different a genre

@Octane Yeah, I've been painting multiple bullets, but they don't seem to impact enemies much. Waste of ink. Maybe enemies more susceptible to it will come into play later.

Well, I thought weapons might change the way my character moves, but Amaterasu's moveset looks identical with the new weapon. Weird. Maybe the only benefit of the new gear really is the ink bullets ability.

I get the sense I wouldn't have liked this on PS2. The inking is mostly pretty great on the touchscreen, but trying to make bombs and circles with a control stick? Blegh.

@Ralizah The golden sun disc should be stronger than your very first weapon. It's the same class, so the battle style is still the same. And I never really used the ink bullets either, but maybe because I prefer a different weapon class.

I originally played it on Wii, so I was kinda used to the motion controls. But using the control stick on PS4 worked better than I expected. So I don't think the original on PS2 was all that bad.

@Octane Thanks for clarifying!

The only technique I've found that consistently works okay with the sticks is the power slash. Everything else is painful.

The motion controls are better, but still annoying.

I'm kind of glad I ignored the game until this point.

@Ralizah blasphemer, Platinum/clover can do no wrong!

@JaxonH codename steam was valkyria like, great art style, Nintendo first party, and in between fire emblems..... And bombed miserably, too. FE just hit the right notes at the right time. And i still say if brawl hadn't reintroduced it it would have flopped with Awakening. People were curious.

@NEStalgia Look at Radiant Dawn and Shadow Dragon, those did poorly and had direct Smash representation (Ike and Marth). Awakening came 5 years after Brawl and by the time Smash 4 got Fire Emblem representation announced, Awakening was already a huge success.

@NEStalgia I tend to agree that FE's recent popularity is very much a "right time, right place, right changes" sort of thing, but it really has nothing to do with Smash (outside of Melee generating enough interest to start localizing the series on GBA in the first place).

I tried Viewtiful Joe recently and didn't care for it (similar aesthetic to Okami, but it doesn't work as well for me; also hate the repetitive combat and utterly inane plot). Don't really like Bayonetta, either. Platinum has more misses than hits for me.

@Ralizah

Ok, we need to have a talk mister :^]

Speaking of Okami, I've just cleared the 20 hour mark, completing the Imperial Palace dungeon to clear the poison mist.

Interestingly enough, I find myself preferring to use the analog stick for brush strokes, even though I've mostly played handheld. Anyhow, I currently have 10 ink bottles (it says that's the max number) and 9 of the health points (whatever they're called). I haven't upgraded the celestial pouch (which I haven't even needed to use yet), and I've upgraded my wallet once.

@EvilLucario If it means anything, I think I'll enjoy Nier: Automata when I get to it later this year. I like pop-existentialism, plots that can only happen in video games, science-fiction, and soulful OSTs, all of which I've heard are descriptive of this particular game.

It's funny, because, having never even heard of Nier before this sequel, I wasn't particularly excited for it.