Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@rallydefault I'm just saying for the time, it looked really good and the closest thing to real life I had seen in a video game, at that time..sure looks rough now though haha.

Cutscenes and facial expressions yes, but fluidity of combat and AI is just a result of practice makes perfect, standing on the shoulders of what developers had previously accomplished. You could make a game with the exact same fluidity of combat and AI on a PS3. A good example is Batman Arkham Asylum, which was doing that sort of thing over a decade ago. I think 99% of game releases could be done on a PS3 or 360. They wouldn’t look quite as polished and they probably couldn’t have as many NPCs, but aside from that they would be pretty much the exact same game. Rise of the Tomb Raider is a good example.

Of course, games downsized to hardware of that power will never look or run as good (see The Witcher 3). But if it’s built ground up for the hardware, it’s amazing what can be done on PS3/360/Wii U/Switch level of power. Assassin’s Creed Rebel Collection is such a great example, and it looks so good, too. Because the game was built with that level of hardware in mind.

We’re sooo close to having a hybrid that can run anything. Next gen is gonna be so exciting. Not PS5/SX. That’s moderately exciting just because all new consoles are to some extent, but I can’t say looking at the improvements from those Hellblade screenshots has me too enthralled. I’m talking about the next generation Nintendo console. The next hybrid. The generation that sees PS4/X1 level of power condensed into a hybrid form factor. Most any game can run on 7th gen Power, but every game will be able to run and look great doing it on a hybrid of 8th gen power.

@JaxonH while there's no question what you said is true to a degree, growing AI complexity limits the number of characters you can have on screen at once. Obviously there are ways to optimize this, but I doubt any solution out there has a complexity of 1. So more powerful CPUs not only make the upper bound higher, but more importantly allow for less time to be spent optimizing the AI to eat up less clock cycles and more time spent on improving it's quality.

Obviously being CPU bound has generally been less of an issue than being GPU bound lately, but to make this comparison simpler, could you imagine implementing Spiderman PS4's AI on SNES? N64? GameCube almost certainly could be done (Wii with it's coprocessor as well), but the question is at what price, when the CPU on that is limited as it is.

Probably an unpopular opinion here, but I don't think there's any less talent involved in creating something ''photo-realistic'' versus something ''cartoony''. Getting something to look realistic requires skill and creative use of the hardware as well. In fact, if you don't do it ''right'', it will look off, and the uncanny valley is stronger for realistic looking games. In the end it's like realistic art and abstract art, neither is superior, and just another way of expressing something.

Though the irony is that even cartoony games are chasing realistic graphics. Just look at the lighting for example. Ever noticed the texture on characters versus 10-20 years ago? Mario used to be a flat texture, but now his hair and clothes are textured like real hairs and clothing.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to next gen, if only because it will bring a massive boost to VR. PSVR is fine, but it definitely looks last gen, so there's a lot of improvement. And then there's some VR stuff that high-end PCs are currently able to do, with complex physics. I don't expect any of that right away, but that's something to look forward to, even though it will probably take another generation for that to become industry standard in VR.

Hell, Devil May Cry helped perfect action on the freaking PS2 and PS3 lol. It's very telling that DMC5 on PS4/etc is as good as it is because it's literally like DMC4 but with actual content and a ton of awesome QoL updates.

This gen pretty much gone completely into aesthetics, which made this gen really boring and unexciting as a whole for me unfortunately. Just wasn't very interesting until recently.

This gen seemed to focus heavily on open world for the sake of open world and massive grinds that promote a monetization system (e.g. loot boxes, battle passes, other microtransactions). Neither happened much on the Nintendo systems front (BotW for the former, a few Free to Play games for the latter) but Nintendo's approach to mobile this past year has been very heavy on the latter so it may seep into their main games more in the future.

I don’t see that seeping into Nintendo’s main games. They’ve made it pretty clear there is a distinct line drawn in the sand between their mobile monetization tactics and their dedicated hardware. They know more than anyone the kind of backlash that will bring for a fully priced AAA title. They might experiment with DLC and some might have more value than others, but at the end of the day, we are not going to see microtransactions in 1st party games unless it’s a free to play title. But even if they did they’d learn real quick people won’t stand for it. Not the Nintendo fanbase. Not for paid 1st party titles. Guarantee you the backlash would hit them so hard they’d still be feeling it next generation.

@linq I mean, all the interviews about Labo VR don't seem to have anyone at Nintendo thinking it's the future of VR, just a cool curiosity that people would be interested in. Ignoring their competition when it comes to graphical capabilities is fine so long as they're focused on making their systems portable in some fashion. I mean, the numbers don't lie, more people have always bought the less graphically impressive portable console than their home consoles. That's where they succeed, and I don't see them embracing it. And quite frankly, I doubt they spend all that much on lawyers compared to what they spend on R&D, likely a very small fraction. C&Ds don't exactly cost much to send out.

But what I 100% agree on is that Nintendo's stance on poor internet services has to change. From what we've heard, it appears to be on purpose too. They want their console to appear family-friendly and seem to think that sabotaging their internet capabilities is necessary to accomplish that. What I don't think they've realized is that the parents these days more and more are actually from a generation who gets electronics, and don't consider the internet unconditionally bad for kids, so much as something that they need control over (which Nintendo does do well). While VC gets a horrid rap on other consoles (I can't imagine Nintendo will ever implement VC in Splatoon for example) and will probably always be handicapped by Nintendo, there's plenty of other features that are totally viable to bring over like messaging assuming they can be restricted (which they surely will).

Nintendo has been thriving in this industry since the late seventies, and is one of Japan's wealthiest and most successful companies. They clearly know what they need to do to survive.

Anyway, I'm fairly certain that the amount of money Nintendo spends on corporate lawyers is entirely irrelevant when considering the amount of money they put toward R&D.

Can I say Astral Chain is an exceptional game! Platinum's best to date. It's oozing with atmosphere; it's very immersive, the legion mechanics are enjoyable, and to top it all off, it's very stylish.
What is with Japanese games being so stylish and fun? Unlike the dribble, we see every day on these consoles.

Because as I've said before, western publishers have limited themselves to making the same games in the same couple of genres that often look the same, and making less games in the first place. And those ones are often the ones with the biggest marketing budgets.

But to be fair, at this point that only accounts for like a dozen (maybe two dozen with the annual sports games). It feels like Nintendo released more games this year than EA, Activision and Bethesda combined tbh.

That’s what I was saying about Astral Chain after having played it.

Then I played Bayonetta 2 to check out how it looked on Switch Lite (looks amazing btw) and was like weeeell, maybe Bayonetta is still my favorite.

But it’s so good, I don’t think it’s really necessary to compare. It’s one of Platinum’s best, up there with all the other A game titles they produce. What more needs to be said.

My favorite looking is Wonderful 101, its more my style. But Bayonetta 2 and Astral Chain definitely are more impressive.

Platinum really doesn't have any misses when it comes to their own IPs. I am curious to see what enters the pipeline for them next. Between Astral Chain's release and them leaving Granblue Fantasy:Relink, they've got a lot of staff available. Babylon's Fall looks pretty close to completion (I'd expect it to be out late next year or early 2021 at the latest given it's probably getting a release date at E3 as it's not targeting PS5) and Bayonetta 3 was announced 6 months prior to that so it's entirely possible it's a summer title next year. They do tend to usually hit 3 year dev cycles after all. So I'd say it's fair to assume they have 1-3 projects we don't know about in development as well...

@JaxonH

I understand the concept of diminishing returns, but I'm just saying it's not clear how much it actually applies to video game graphics. The example of polygon counts that that Guerilla Games artist mentioned is an example where it absolutely does apply. No question, increased polygon counts from this point onwards won't be worth that much.

There are some issues like that where you will get diminishing returns. Those are issues where you have improvement along a predetermined scale that can be identified ahead of time. Other examples of that will be things like texture resolution, screen resolution, frame rate, etc etc.

But then you also have situations where there's just a complete revolution in how certain things are done, where a new technique is developed and it completely replaces everything that came before. Things like normal mapping, post processing, deferred rendering, are all in this category. Ray tracing will be too.
With these areas, you can't know ahead of time whether there will be diminishing returns because you simply don't know how developers will end up using them.

A good example in the last decade, that a lot of people have mostly ignored but it's incredibly obvious if you go back and compare, is the switch to using motion capture for pretty much all the animation in AAA games. In the PS2 era, almost no-one used motion capture. Now everyone does. It's lead to a massive improvement, especially in terms of facial expressions on characters (which it's almost impossible to do by hand)

Western publishers' only talent is making games look exceptionally realistic. Everything else is just mediocre to garbage.

Astral Chain is above Bayo 2(for me) just for the atmosphere and legion mechanics. Love that you can tag-team a guy with ease.

I'd put Astral Chain at the top though I wouldn't say I gave Wonderful 101 a fair chance. It wasn't until I played through Bayonetta fully last year that I realized that for each Platinum IP to start on easiest difficulties and work your way up to harder difficulties.

By that time though, the speed at which Wii U games were being ported to Switch meant it made sense to wait for a Switch version. Felt the same way about MPT though that Game Awards 2018 rumour seems to have gone the same way as Mother 3 localization.

I liked Astral Chain a lot. It definitely is very fun and had some great set pieces.

At the same time, once you get all the legions and have unlocked all the abilities, it almost becomes a bit too complex. There are so many options to attack the enemies and it all becomes a bit too cluttered for my taste. It does a good job at not throwing the kitchen sink at you all at once, but nonetheless I still felt sorta confused by it.

I also think I prefer DMC 3 to 5 because of the fewer options it gives you (obviously since it is an older game).

Still both awesome games that I’m happy I played though.

Sure, you can cherry pick the rubbish like FIFA, Anthem and Fallout 76; but it it only shows you don't play a lot of games outside of those

I mean, just this year alone we had Control, Jedi: Fallen Order, Dreams, The Outer Worlds, to name a few. And there's probably a bunch of great games I'm not even aware of. Good games are released every year, from every region, you just need to know where to look, and ignore the obvious money grabs.

@Dezzy
Oh I think its crystal clear. He was talking about more than just polygons, even if that was the subject of the OP's post. I mean he said it straight up, the difference between each generation is less and less and eventually the focus will have to shift to features. They can have the biggest disruptor they want, it will still have less and less perceived visual fidelity. Everyone can see the perceived improvements are less and less. Hence the Hellblade pic comparison.

It applies to video games more than anything I've seen. You can get technical and say oh they're making all these improvements, mocap, and ya, they are. And yes, its certainly improving. And yet even so, the perceived improvements are still less, and less, and less, and have been for some time.

I refer you to the Hellblade pic comparison. It's really does say it all. Have never been able to see such a small difference across 3 generations of power. And it's only going to get smaller and more nitpicky. When I can look at the new gen graphics and can't tell the difference from a photo, believe me, they don't have much wiggle room in perceived difference left.

It's just an inherent truth that the hard limit of realism exists, and any time a limit exists, so does diminishing returns.