Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah I feel as if Royal has enough extra content to justify purchasing it. A re-worked story, redone art, better performance and resolution, some new characters/confidant additions, the extra semester added to the game's story as well as the My Palace feature and the extra event minigames, are more than enough for me to consider getting Royal even having owned vanilla P5.

@Grumblevolcano
At this point I’ll take whatever upgrade they offer. CPU would be a good choice, even if just to boost it enough to handle streaming assets in Links Awakening without drops. Maybe RAM like @link3710 suggested. Not enough to actually boost graphical fidelity. But enough to even out performance bottlenecks. Even that would be a win, I think.

@DarthNocturnal
Yea, that final boss was....not fun lol

Like I said before, the flying controls/physics and sense of the depth of field in that game frustrated me to no end, and I'll be the first to admit that I died on that fight many, many times. It was one of my biggest forces of will just to make myself restart that fight from the beginning every time. I kind of hated the game so much at that point that I wasn't going to walk away before beating it lol

Yooka Laylee is such a great idea. It has a great name, characters, pedigree, etc. But it's a total shadow of Banjo Kazooie. Banjo Kazooie had better worlds, physics, weight of the characters, flight controls, etc. I think the dev team really needs to focus on these things for any future games. I'll probably get Impossible Lair in the next couple months, and I'll see if they've made any improvements then, but yea. I really want the franchise to continue, but the gameplay feel needs to improve.

Having just finished Nightshade (and finishing visual novels back-to-back), I need a palate cleanser. Time to fire up Nippon Marathon, get some of those Takashi's Castle vibes flowing. After that, it's finally time to fire up DQ XI S. I held off on playing DQ XI on PS4 once the Switch version was announced, so I'm eager to jump in after enjoying both VII and VIII on 3DS.

I still hold out hope that S-E is considering an offline-only version of DQX some day, but I feel as though that ship has sailed. Translating seven years of MMO content probably wouldn't be worth the effort.

Yooka Laylee Impossible Lair is legit. I never played the first, so I have no opinion, but I can tell you this: Impossible Lair is one of the best 2D platformers ever made.

Not the best. I still think DKC Tropical Freeze and Returns hold that honor. But YL comes reasonably close.

And it looks gorgeous on Switch. People have this idea of what sub 1080p looks like in their mind... but in reality the game is nearly indistinguishable from other versions. Like Crash and Spyro and so many others, the art style helps blend it all in. Only this is just under 800p as opposed to those games, so it ends up looking reaaaally close to 1080p. I cant even tell the difference. And handheld looks reaaaally close to 720p, even though its 540, thanks to the artstyle.

But ya, whatever peoples' idea of what Yooka Laylee is, or was... I'd look at this game with a fresh set of eyes, cause it's really good. They nailed it.

540p is going to look noticeably softer than 720p undocked.

With that said, art style does make a huge difference. YCW was way lower res undocked and yet somehow still looked presentable, so I'm sure Impossible Lair will look good enough. The visual downgrade will be even less noticeable on the smaller screen of the Lite.

At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. If you're playing on Switch, it's because it's the only platform you own or because you don't want to be tethered to a television. And, in either case, this is one's only reasonable option.

People who need 1080p in every game are probably better off invested in a PS4 Pro or Xbone X.

@Ralizah well personally i prefer to keep as many games on one system and leave my xbox for things like fifa, nhl, cod.... but when games cant get to 1080p i pass. On the other hand mark of the ninja at 1080p is a compromise im willing to make vs xbox one x 4k. Crash Bandicoot didnt hit 1080p as well.. I just expect a nintendo system to be able to display cartoony games at 1080p but yoshi and captain toad couldnt so apparently my 1080p wish is a dream in 2019 where you can buy 8k tvs.

Just because 8k TVs exist doesn’t have anything to do with a video game console. 8k TVs existing is because tv technology has no financial cap, and can thus push technology to its limits even while its still expensive. They can charge $50,000 for a TV set if they want to. That and it’s just a completely different technology. Screen resolution is not the bottleneck of mobile gaming device performance. It’s advancing in its own little sphere of technology while mobile gaming device advancement is limited by a multitude of technologies and factors including mobile CPU, GPU, battery tech, heat dissipation, power draw, etc.

Not to mention, dedicated gaming devices are financially constrained. The tech to achieve a baseline 1080p exists, but for a $200 handheld, mobile technology can only offer so much. Even many games on the Xbox One S, a full current generation power console, fail to hit 1080p. So expecting 1080p for most games on what is boiled down to a $200 handheld is indeed a pipe dream, cartoony game or not. Some manage to do it... most do not. And of those that do, most of those are running on exclusive, proprietary engines built for the system ground up, or are extremely optimized 2D sprite indies.

That’s just what it is. If that tradeoff isn’t worthwhile for someone, there are always other consoles that actually focus on such things. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting that, if graphical fidelity is your sole focus. Just don’t get frustrated with a car for not having a truck bed. We’re at least one generation away from a $200-300 hybrid device offering a baseline 720p handheld and 1080p docked. We saw a massive jump from the 240p 3DS to the Switch. Probably the biggest leap since the PS2 —> PS3. Let’s be grateful for what we are getting. Even at 540p handheld that’s still the max of what the PS Vita offered (which in reality, many games ran lower such as Mortal Kombat IX at 360p). The ceiling has now become the floor. It’ll take next generation for the current ceiling to become the new floor.

@Ralizah
Noticeably softer, but not significantly so. It’s amazing how good games like this hold up due to the art style. There are games that are low enough res it strikes you right away- this is lower res. But this game never struck me as such. When I fired it up, I immediately thought wow, this looks really good.

Even stacked up against the 4K X1X version, it’s pretty similar. Ya, there’s some compromises (there always are for a handheld device, especially for games running on full fat current gen power consoles). But... it’s pretty close. In motion it looks even better. This one shot focuses too much on the tiles, but the vast majority of the game isn’t like that, and looks much cleaner.

This is why I think games with a more cartoony or cel shaded art style are such a great fit. Not only are they [typically] less demanding, the art style itself blends away the lower res. Crash in 480p looked sharper than Wolfenstein 2 at 720p. The details of realism really makes lower resolutions stand out more.

Can people actually see the difference between 4K and 8K?

It really seems we're reaching diminishing returns on resolution. I'd much rather see the technology go elsewhere.

I wonder if people buy an Xbox1X and then complain they can't use it portable.

Yea I'm not picky. I just like good games

@Buizel most people cannot no, it's just the next big thing that OEMs will use to move units. Happens every few years. Projection > Flat screen > plasma > LED > 3D > 4K > HDR etc etc. 8k is just the next marketing Buzzword. While some of things do truly make a big difference (specifically HDR) I agree we're definitely at the top os the S curve now.

I was reading a review for enter the gungeon and I looked at the comments and sure enough anti matter was there in the comments hating on the game. I miss him.

@Lucarianzx did he leave the site?

@Arbor Yeah, after a ban. We talked about it in Chit Chat thread like 15 or so pages back I think. Bimmy had a message from him

It's probably like 50 pages ago tbh

It was a weird ban because he didn't look banned. But yeah.

why was he banned?

All I mentioned was that 8k exists. All I'm asking for is 1080p and people here are acting like I'm asking the world. I should have kept my original HD tv which was 720p if this is the tech I'm going to hook up to it. I love my Nintendo ips and gameplay but to say they couldn't benefit from a more powerful system is crazy. Just charge me $100 more then and make me a pro unit which will make dynamic resolution games better. The problem it seems is some people here are upset if some people can afford to upgrade when they either can't or don't want to. My question for these people are if your switch is good enough for you now then why would you even care if a pro model was out. Ignore it if you're system is really good enough for you.

@sixrings I mean, even the OG PS4 doesn't go up to 1080p with all of its games, and that's a power console that wasn't designed around the limitations of a mobile chipset.

Right now, the Switch is striking a compromise between hardware power, battery life, and price. I don't really think it's as simple as charging $100 and designing a more powerful unit. And even if it was, Nintendo is wisely choosing not to play the power game with Sony and Microsoft, and is instead intent on getting the Switch into as many hands as possible by cutting the price via the Lite while still consistently churning out excellent software for the platform.

I just genuinely don't understand why someone who clearly cares about image quality as much as you do would make Nintendo's console their main one when they've been behind the curve in this area with their last two consoles. If anything, the gap between Switch and the other current gen consoles is smaller than the gap between the competition and their last two consoles. Switch can, at least, run a lot of the same games as the other current gen systems with some downgrades. The Wii wasn't even able to play the same games as the PS3/360.

For the foreseeable future, Nintendo is likely to continue pursuing hybrid console design, because it leans into their strength as a developer of portable gaming software and allows them maintain a presence in the home console scene as well without splitting their development resources. It's a cool direction for them to take, because competitors really have nothing to answer it with, thus allowing Nintendo to excel within a niche. But that also implies certain limitations regarding how capable the hardware can be when compared to the competition.

Perhaps you could see the difference if you had a 70" plus screen, @Buizel & @redd214 .... ? I got a 21" full HD monitor for my XBox One S & it looks awesome, sat close
Of course, if it's actually a TV & you have a lounge, there's others to watch it, etc, then you might need a bigger screen