Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@link3710 In fairness to the complainers, Nintendo is terrible at managing their release calendar and just run in fits and starts. Though I think Sony has adapted their model somewhat. The overwhelming torrent of multiplats hide that hole a little bit, and cataclysmic launches like FO76 fill a month of internet attention alone.

Happy thoughts yall...

I mean, I can't argue about the poor release schedule. I get that games don't sell that well in the beginning of the year, but 2018 was a mess. With Kirby and Mario Tennis Aces both so content starved, Bayonetta 1+2 niche and ports and barely any 3rd party noteworthy releases other than Celeste, it was basically a barren schedule for a lot of people until Octopath Traveler.

2019 was filled to the brim with ports and remasters (Final Fantasy, Dragon's Dogma, Cuphead, Hellblade, Hob, Assassain's Creed III, Guilty Gear, Castlevania etc) with only Fitness Boxing, Boxboy + Boxgirl and Cadence of Hyrule for Nintendo published releases in the first 6 months.

2020 already has Gods & Monsters in February and Animal Crossing in March so that's a good start. Throw in Inazuma 11 Ares, Indivisible and Darksiders Genesis probably slipping into Q1 2020, and Empire of Sin being in Q2, and we're looking at the best first 6 months of the year for the Switch by far without even touching all the inevitable ports or the likelihood of at least one more game being announced for that time period.

Of course, I could be wrong and it'll blow up, who knows?

@NEStalgia As far as I understand, Atelier games are vaguely slice-of-life-ish JRPGs that place more of a focus on collecting materials and complex item crafting systems than on big, world-ending conflicts. The series goes back a reasonably long time to the PS1 and is thought to be one of the first to popularize the concept of item crafting in JRPGs, so I'm not sure "generic" is the right word for the series.

@Ralizah Oh...probably not for me then. Crafting is one of my least favorite things 90% of the time. (With a massive exception of Fantasy Life however. I don't know how that addicted me, but it did. I rank it as one of my favorite games of all time.)

I'm glad someone picked up La-Mulana 2 considering the Japanese physical release didn't support English.

@link3710 "2018 was so barren I bought an XBox"

@link3710 Nintendo published Switch games in the first half of 2019?

January
New Super Mario Bros. U
Fitness Boxing

February
Tetris 99

March
Yoshi's Crafted World

April
Nintendo LABO VR Kit
Box Boy + Box Girl

May
Errrr

June
Cadence of Hyrule
Super Mario Maker 2

And I'm sure there were some Nintendo published third party games in there somewhere akin to what they do with Dragon Quest.

I mean, honestly, its been a pretty good year. Nintendo has been getting their smaller games out sprinkled around a few big releases.

Now sure, could all these OTHER big games come at a better time? Sure. But they can only be released when they are ready. If they aren't ready to release in the first half, then they wont come out. And then why delay a game if itll sell anyway, just so your release schedule is looking lighter?

Gotta remember Nintendo (Provenly) sells the majority of their stock in a nice 3 month window called Merry Capitali…..err.....Christmas.

@NEStalgia I've held off on the series for a while for a reason. With that said, I really like the look of Ryza's environments and combat, so I'm going to give this one a chance at some point.

@Knuckles-Fajita Welp, this is what I get for going from memory. I was sure Super Mario Maker was the first week of July and NSMBU was end of December, I ignore LABO usually, and I just completely blanked on Yoshi's even existing, whoops. Tetris 99 wasn't available for purchase, so I blame that for me forgetting it (despite all the craziness surrounding it)

Still, I think next year stands to improve on this years first six months even with those additions.

Agreed, this is pretty sweet news. The OG La-Mulana is a really cool, if punishing, game, and it never really broke through over here the way it should have, with the exception of the infamous DeceasedCrab Let's Play. I'll be really happy to have both on my Switch!

The issue I have is that there are too many games coming out and not enough time for me to play them. I still have to beat BOTW and get good at smash so I think I'm set for this fall/winter. I might pick up Link's awakening though as it's a shorter more relaxed game.

La Mulana is the best game I'm certain I'll never beat.

Atelier revolves around crafting. If you hate crafting, you'll hate Atelier.

I love crafting though. It's what makes games like Monster Hunter and DQ Builders great.

Atelier is slower paced though, lower budget, and no English voice over. Its not typically my style, but something about it feels comforting when I play (and I haven't played much, just a few hours of a few entries).

But this new one looks AMAZING. Way, way better than previous entries. They've really blended it into being not just a crafting game but a hybrid JRPG as well. The graphics are much improved, performance on Switch is reportedly impressive, the combat looks great, environments beautiful, gorgeous color palate, and of course a refined crafting system from decades of fine tuning. And I like the character designs more this time too. Although I hope at least one character wears a frilly dress and sombrero-sized hat with a bow on it. Its trademark Atelier at this point.

So question for dq fans. I've played like 2 hours of the demo and i noticed every 10 steps i take a cut scene pops up. I'm not knocking it, but I want to know if the rest of the game is to be like this? I'm not a cut scene guy honestly but when you actually control the character it's pretty fun. Just wanted to see if this is the way the game just is or if it's only like this throughout the beginning.

I just noticed this morning that I've got slightly more than 100 games on Switch. A little less than half of which are physical. Though only a few of the download titles had option (at least at launch) to buy them otherwise. By far the most games I have ever owned for a single system! Goodness but do I love the Switch. Still really want the Switch Pro to happen and to have two SD card slots.

I'm practically at 200 physical Switch games now, with 200 digital games. Actually more, because there's 60-70 top rated and/or AAA games I own both digitally and physically. That's way, way, way more games than I've ever owned for any console, by an incredible margin, and in just 2.5 years!

Even my Xbox One, PS4 and PSVR collection, something I've been building and amassing for six years, when combined all together falls 20-30 games shy of my Switch stack....

DS
64 physical games
3DS
124 physical games
GameCube
40 physical games
Wii
47 physical games
Wii U
67 physical games
Vita
75 physical games
PS4/PSVR
91 physical games
Xbox 360
36 physical games
Xbox One
80 physical games
Switch
198 physical games

@NintendoByNature
Um, I've played several hours and I dont recall it being that frequent. There's a healthy number of cut scenes in the beginning setting up the story (which I personally love) but I doubt its going to maintain that frequency over the course of a 100 hr game.

But it's kind of a moot point since, one of the new features of Dragon Quest XI S is skipping cut scenes the first time around. Which means you can bypass any and all cut scenes you wish.

@JaxonH hmm well I may have been exaggerating a bit, but it's pretty frequent at least it is for me. Again I'm not knocking it, just wondering if that's to be expected (never played a DQ game). It just seemed like a bit more than I'm used to. But if it's going to die down I'll continue playing and see what it's like.

@JaxonH 200 physical AND 200 digital?! My goodness! Did you double dip with a bunch of limited run games or something?

The Switch is my first console since finishing University and having a comfortable full time job that I really got into - thus I have far more Switch games than any previous console. But even looking at the games I would have bought but couldn't afford when I was younger, the Switch still towers over them in numbers.

@Heavyarms55
Ya, all those digital games that release digital first, physical later got me good. Also got thinned out by games releasing on PS/Xbox that I would purchase, and then release on Switch later. After that happened enough times I just stopped buying games on other systems until a few years have passed and I know for sure whether they’re coming to Switch or not (unless it’s a game I want to play ASAP, but there’s probably less than 5 games a year that fall in that category).

But also, I’m kind of in flux as I transition to digital for the big top-shelf retail games, but can’t seem to let go of my penchant for physical. Which results in me buying games twice for the big ones (Fire Emblem, Astral Chain, Ni No Kuni, Dragon Quest, Witcher, Luigi’s Mansion, Pokemon, etc etc).

Switch is benefitting from consolidation of handheld + console software development. It took a little while for people to realize there was a significant increase in the output of 1st party content, but it’s more than clear by this point. On top of that, the floodgates have been opened with third-party developers who are selling all the best games made over the last 15 years or so. Nintendo failed to provide a viable platform for third parties for so long, Nintendo platforms just didn’t get third party games. Now they have a viable platform (weaker hardware and an audience somewhat less inclined toward realism aside), so all these great games are pouring in at once.