Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@skywake
That's the kind of thinking I don't get. From your post it seems you are essentially willing to call Animal Crossing a "big game" or at least a game worthy of mentioning in whatever list supports 2020 not being a huge year for first-party Nintendo games, but then you flippantly exclude something like Origami King for... reasons?

Origami King is a brand-new game just as much as any other new first-party Nintendo game. BotW. ARMS. Whatever. They're all brand-new games. It's a huge game, too, high production quality, etc. etc. etc. Why are you and some others just dismissing it in your bid to call 2020 not good, and others aren't jumping all over you for doing it? I really don't understand. What am I missing that makes something a "heavy hitter," as you say, and what makes Origami King not as good as Odyssey? I already have more hours in Origami King than Odyssey and far more enjoyment from it. Anecdotal, yes, but you're immersing yourself in subjectivity with this entire discussion anyway.

So going back a few months to EAs seven games on Switch thing and how one of them was rumoured to be Plants Vs Zombies Battle for Neighborville

Yeah that game gets its last update this month and all the planned content they announced is scrapped.

I think the most likely Wii U ports to appear next are the Zelda remasters for the 35th anniversary and XCX.

@skywake Thank you, that satisfies me immensely.

@Wavey84 *Woolly World. And I mean, a Switch port would pretty much guarantee 60FPS out of that game, now wouldn't it?

I’m all about ports. Seldom do we have the opportunity to amass all the greatest games onto a single hybrid platform. Now that the opportunity is here I want to see it taken advantage of to the fullest. Switch needs to become the platform of the greatest hits over the years, and that means piling on as many of the best games of past generations as possible.

Xenoblade X and Wooly World are the last two Wii U games worth bringing over, aside from the Zeldas, which aren’t really Wii U games in the first place.

@Haruki_NLI
That game is worthless as far as I’m concerned anyways. They screwed up the franchise with their online MP focus. The first one I would have been interested in, but definitely not the latest entry.

@Wavey84 I was more looking at the history of what they've done with Wii U ports. And besides which... only the hub is in 30 FPS. All the levels are in 60 fps, so like, I don't see the big deal. Who cares if the hub world is in 30FPS, it's just a glorified level select screen.

EDIT: Ducktales remastered has had a ton of legal issues so there's no surprise it hasn't been out on any other platforms. Also, it has nothing to do with Nintendo so...

EDIT 2: Also, I just remembered, I think Yoshi's Woolly World dropped to 30FPS in multiplayer mode, but again, that's the likely thing that would change with a Switch port.

@Wavey84 ...You really shouldn't judge games on numbers in general. I've seen some games that have pulled off low res or frame rates perfectly well. And generally speaking... plenty of the greatest games of all time had ~20fps or less rates (SM64, OOT, Super Mario World etc), it's certainly not make or break. But that aside, Woolly World is probably the best Yoshi game of all time (and I know I'm about to get hate piled on me by Yoshi's Island lovers by saying that.) I'd definitely recommend that one more. Even if it was in 30 fps its perfectly fine because it's a relatively slow-paced game. Instead of focusing on speed, the game focuses on making you think creatively, exploration, and challenging your expectations.

Crafted World is perfectly fine, but definitely not as good as Woolly World. It's good for what it is, but you can tell that they had to abandon the original concept they were going for and salvage up a game from what was left. And within that context, they did wonders. But still, it's clearly a game that was designed around a mechanic that just didn't work out (the flip mechanic, which was relegated to bonus versions after completing each level instead of throughout the level), and it shows.

@Wavey84 Yeah, Woolly World runs at 60fps on Wii U/New 3DS. Only the 3DS port played on an older 3DS model runs at 30fps in the actual levels.

I don't know that I'd call it "better" than Yoshi's Island, but it is my favorite Yoshi game, and it's arguably a modern classic of the genre. Absolutely worthy of your time.

With the low dwindling numbers, glitches and being unoptimized on all platforms (been with this game day one and it never peaked) would not be surprised if the Switch port was canned. Why bother porting a flop? Shame I loved this game. Needed a lot more work or it should've gotten delayed.

I've only played the original game once, but the entire Plants vs Zombies franchise is clearly too good for EA. And I've been a huge proponent for putting the Garden Warfare games on Nintendo's HD consoles the moment Splatoon blew up. It's a shame that probably won't happen.

The best outcome for Woolly World would be a port of the 3DS version with the visuals of the Wii U version, so basically what happened for Hyrule Warriors.

@Grumblevolcano That was Koei Tecmo's work though. Knowing Nintendo expect the original Wii U version directly ported with all of the Amiibo functionality cut out. The game will release next year under the title "Yoshi's Woolly World Deluxe".

On the subject of Wii U ports though...

...wouldn't it be a good idea if Nintendo released the campaign of Splatoon 1 as DLC in Splatoon 2? The campaign was so good - once 3D World hits next year the Splatoon 1 campaign will possible be the best Wii U exclusive content that's not heavily reliant on the second screen. It'd also then justify Nintendo releasing a genuine "Deluxe" boxed copy of Splatoon 2 with two separate DLC campaigns thrown in.

@StuTwo I don't get you. Let's look at NIntendo proper Wii U ports then. (So no Pokken (B-N), TMS#FE (Atlus), Bayonetta 1&2 (Plat), Hyrule Warriors (K-T). Even if GoodFeel isn't actually Nintendo proper but w/e. Specs will be given in the form Switch Docked/Portable - Wii U TV/Off-Screen Mode

• DK:Tropical Freeze - All content + new character + resolution increase to 1080p60/648p60 - 720p60/480p60. Minor effects improvements, and loading times were cut by around 75%.
• Mario Kart 8 - All content returns + All DLC. New battle mode. New smart steering. New characters and vehicles. Two item slots. Local wireless. 1080p60 / 720p60 - 720p60 / 480p60. Also, Wii U version dropped to 30FPS for multiplayer (3+), Switch does not.
• Captain Toad - Treasure Tracker - Cut content, specifically the (quite frankly) horrible 3D World stages (I played one before realizing they were literally cut right from 3D World and literally just had you running through a stage not designed for Toad with 0 goal), but instead replaced them with the significantly better Odyssey based themed stages. All other content returned. - 1080p60/720p60 - 720p60/480p60. Loading times are massively cut.
• NMSBU+LU - All content returns, both games packaged into one. New character. First player is no longer forced to be Mario. The asynchronous play mode was removed. - 1080p60/720p60 - 720p60/480p60. Additionally, a few models and textures, and things like filtering and shadow quality were improved. Load times... may be improved, I'd have to directly compare to be sure since the game has such short ones.
  Future games:
• Pikmin 3 - All content + All DLC returning. New campaign. New difficulty modes. Rebalancing. New beastiary. New optional hint system. Based on promotional things released so far, likely 908p60/??? - 720p30/480p30, but it may have dynamic resolution implemented now.
• Super Mario 3D World - This is admittedly guessing but... All content (it appears) + a new campaign + online multiplayer. Based on the upgrades for other Wii U ports, this will likely become 1080p60 since the original ran at a rock-solid 720p60 with nary a missed frame. The one big question is Miiverse integration, especially since there were unlockable stamps in this game.

So now that we've established what the baseline is for Wii U ports, let's look at what a Woolly World port would likely do. As a game that was 720p60 with no lost frames, it'll almost certainly end up 1080p60 like the majority of this list. Possibly the hub and multiplayer might no longer drop the frame rate either, and if we're lucky they'll touch up certain textures that looked low res, even in the original. Finally, we could almost certainly expect reduced load times as a result of the Switch having a significantly higher data transfer rate.
For content? There's nothing in the game that's either low effort (to the point where the developers would cut and redo it) or dependent on the Wii U gamepad. There are miiverse stamps, but the 3DS port already fixed that by replacing them with stencil stamps (that contain custom costumes for Yoshi). So assume everything else would return. So that leaves what else would be added, since something always is. They may or may not bring the custom Yoshi designer back from the 3DS version, but I'd wager we'd see a bonus world or something added, since a new character wouldn't make sense.

Anyways, that's my thoughts on the matter. Nintendo has never cut anything from the Wii U ports amiibo related, so that really doesn't make sense as an expectation. The only thing that'll be cut is the Miiverse integration and likely replaced with its 3DS counterpart. Also, they always add some sort of selling point for their in-house games they can market around, so that can be expected as well. And finally, they always touch up the graphics,

@StuTwo Yeah, I missed out on the Wii U and Splatoon 1. I totally want Splatoon 1.

@Wavey84 kirby's game say hello on its terrible 30fps Gameplay...

@Balta666 Kirby had great gameplay. It was the level design that was terrible (at least for the main campaign), the gameplay itself was the game's saving grace. It felt really good to play.

@Wavey84 I liked Fatal Frame but Star Fox Zero completely depends on how well you can adjust to the maddening controls which are used for the sake of including the gamepad. Star Fox Guard made use of the gamepad much better and was one of my favorite games on the Wii U.

@link3710 relax. I was just being a little snarky. Let’s not forget we’ve only just been told about a Mario 64 port that will absolutely not have any of the improvements from the portable version folded in to make a definitive edition.

Nintendo’s second parties vary widely in terms of “effort” put into ports. Or even minor fan service. I mean in Smash Bros Ultimate the Magicant stage has Dunegon Man’s human face modelled and inside the dungeon. You literally cannot see it unless you put the camera inside him and it’s a deep deep cut reference to begin with.

That’s above and beyond - Peachette isn’t. Bringing DKC Returns up to HD alongside TF would have been above and beyond - Funky mode wasn’t.

Hyrule Warriors is an exception - but Koei Tecmo are always above and beyond in terms of chucking content into that series.

I’m not someone who’ll say “it should be cheap because it’s old” or demand that developers put in “more effort”. Both arguments are nonsense.

Woolly World is a very good game that’s stands. It’ll be welcome if it comes. But it’s be best if it had all of the extra content folded in and I’m just not sure to expect that.

Nintendo has taken the easy route with Wii U ports. I get it - they’re there, they still look great and barely anyone played them. It doesn’t mean I’m not disappointed though - I’d have liked to see a lot more content (especially for games that had no DLC or barely any worth noting).

@StuTwo
I think in every case a game had extra content on 3DS or Wii U, that content made it into the Switch port. At least, I can’t think of a single Switch port that omitted extra content that was on either Wii U or 3DS. Mario 64 is a bit of a special case, and was a DS game.

And many had extra content on top of that, even if it was just an extra character or something of the like. I struggle to believe Poochie would not be included in a Switch port. But... ya never know.

@jump
Star Fox Guard was a sleeper hit. It really did utilize the game pad in a smart way. I can’t imagine how they’d port such a game to Switch though, so it’ll probably be relegated to obscurity on Wii U for the rest of time.