Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Dezzy This is pretty much consistent with my observations. There's probably something about the algorithm used that makes it optimal at ~720p.

@timleon

Yeah probably something like that.

I just found my best usage of it so far. Metal Gear Rising on the Xbox One/Series X. That's normally only 720p, but the jump up to 1440p makes it look amazing. Of course it's 60fps as well. Improves it so much.

So another remake of Corpse Party was announced for the Switch, releasing next month in Japan. Currently it has not been confirmed for a western release, but I think the chances are pretty high. I'm both happy and sad, happy for the release but sad because I just bought a copy of the game for the 3DS on ebay 2 days ago for a pretty hefty price.

@Dezzy
Ya, they say 720p upscales best to 1440p because it's a perfect multiple. But if the game goes to 1080p it looks better just outputting at 1080p, for example.

As for retro games, never really paid attention. The mClassic has a switch for retro game mode (unless you bought the older mCable), so enable that. The thing to remember is it cleans up micro jaggies best- that's its strong suit. So large pixelations wont really get any benefit. But any game with micro fine stair stepping jaggies, those all get smoothed over. Some retro games benefit, as I've seen in videos. But I'm not sure which generation of games benefits most.

@Cynas The Back to School Edition on 3DS must have had a pretty low print run, since it got expensive pretty quickly.

https://www.siliconera.com/corpse-party-blood-covered-repeate...

Seems like they're adding more content. Again. Corpse Party first released in 1996 and has been getting ported and remade and expanded for almost two and a half decades now.

I wonder if they'll re-release Book of Shadows at some point? Would be weird to have the first and third games on the Switch, but not the middle entry.

I bought it on Steam, but I really want a Switch port of Sachiko's Hysteric Birthday Bash. I hate reading VNs on PC.

@Ralizah Luckily the version I chose to buy was the Back to School edition, so hopefully it retains its value when the Switch version comes out. Mainly because I would be sad to see the price significantly drop after I just paid a little over $100 for it, but I know that's just me being selfish.

Now my dilemma is: Should I open the 3DS copy or wait until the Switch version comes out? If the Switch version is going to have more content I feel like it would be better to wait it out, but I've been wanting to try it out for so long and we don't have a confirmation on the western release yet.

Why cant they bring that "Curse of the Curry God" game over to Switch? The one that was on Vita?

Or remake Jeanne d'Arc. Or give us a Stella Glow sequel.

Seems like all the cult classic strategy games are forever trapped on legacy hardware.

I was also totally a PSP guy honestly. I owe that system a lot for being the console that got me into Megami Tensei and Final Fantasy in addition to being the first console I played games like Mega Man X and Ghosts n' Goblins on.

I know the DS was the more widely owned and welcomed handheld of the two but the PSP was such an amazing system, especially for Sony's first crack at trying to match Nintendo's handheld success. The Switch kind of recaptured that magic that I first felt playing the PSP as a kid. It may not have my childhood classics like Persona 3 and Peace Walker, but the Switch is basically the full realization of what Sony wanted handheld gaming to become in my eyes. I still have my 3000 model from 2011. I sunk god knows how many hours into stuff like LittleBigPlanet, Chains of Olympus, Peace Walker, the Final Fantasy ports, ModNation Racers, Secret Agent Clank, the Persona 1 and 2 remakes, Persona 3 Portable and so much other stuff.

Other than a few games I absolutely love, the PSP's library has never really done much for me.

3DS was my portal to Megami Tensei. SO many good MegaTen games on that system.

I also played my first 3D Zelda on it.

@Cynas If you didn't buy it for collection purposes only, I'd say you should go ahead and play it. It's a really solid port of a classic game. If you keep the box and stuff in good condition, it should maintain its value.

Just... be sure to play it with headphones on. It was an early, but still very effective, showcase for 3D audio. I remember the effect of a fly buzzing around my ear really wowed me when I first played the PSP version.

@Rambler
you can say that again

I’d better not. Any more text walls and I might need a publisher 😉

@Dezzy
Holy smokes.

I just swapped my HDMI cable I was using for Switch, from the stock one to a 2.1 HDMI (I know switch can’t output 4K, but the stock cable is still limited to 1080p I think), and then checked out Monster Hunter Rise, comparing by toggling the cable on and off, and ya, it makes a pretty noticeable difference. The game looks insanely gorgeous for a Switch title, but if you get really close to the 4KTV screen you can see all of the imperfections. But they are so much worse without the M cable on. Like, noticeably worse. Edges are way more jagged, face detail didn’t look as clear, backgrounds didn’t look quite as sharp. I’m actually kind of taken aback by the delta between off and on. I’m not sure if the new cable had anything to do with that, or if it’s just been so long since I looked at a switch game on the TV without the mClassic on I’d forgotten what a difference it makes.

But suffice it to say, this little experiment has given me a whole new appreciation for mClassic. Overall I suppose yeah, it’s still relatively small changes. But because Switch games run between 720p and 1080p, even small deltas can have a reasonably sized impact on perceived fidelity.

What do you mean? The controls are the same they've always been. I find them to be tight and responsive. Odyssey feels floaty and loose to me. I've been saying that on this board since Odyssey came out. Something just didn't feel right about Mario's physics and control feel, at least to me. Maybe I'm just used to the tighter feel of the earlier 3D games.

@rallydefault Having played both games relatively recently, I couldn't disagree more. Mario's movement in 64 is VERY slippery. He feels weightless, and any kind of forward motion makes him feel like he's bulldozing his way forward. I never felt fully in control of Mario in that game. And that's putting aside the fact that even the tiniest changes in level geometry will send him sliding across terrains made of rock and grass like he's on the world's slipperiest ice.

I imagine the issue is that his every movement is intimately tied to slight alterations of the tall and stiff analog stick on the N64. The sense of movement translates horribly to modern pads.

Mario has a sense of weight in Odyssey. His every movement is deliberate, and the combination of the "heavier" feel to the character and the actually decent physics makes his movements much tighter.

And, in general, that has been true of every other 3D Mario game I've played. Only Mario 64 feels terrible to control.

@rallydefault I have to agree with Ralizah. Having studied the actual movement system of Mario 64 in depth, there's a few things to take into account. Gravity in that game is (I'm pretty sure) the strongest in any 3D Mario. This does have the benefit of landing faster, which might be why you see the controls as more responsive. But even Sunshine was about 40% slower in falling acceleration. (Though, do keep in mind I'm pretty sure terminal velocity is also higher in later titles, thus making many jumps take the same time or even less time than 64.)

When it comes to running, 64 will (usually, as long as slopes aren't involved) just instantly go to max speed upon moving the control stick all the way. Odyssey on the other hand has a small bit of speeding up when movement starts (consistently). Stopping functions about the same in each.

But what's probably the most notable difference in ground movement is Mario 64's turn radius. This is the love it or hate it part of the physics IMO. In 64, you can't just instantly turn while moving (at any speed). Instead, if you're moving at all, you'd have a turn radius as you turned around.

This actually works pretty well for giving it a nice feel while moving at a high speeds in open areas. But... in return, at low speeds and on tight platforms Mario will suddenly move in directions the player didn't press, typically walking right off to his doom.

Everything from Sunshine onward ditched that, giving full control of Mario to the player and never moving him in directions the player didn't press. I'd wager though that that turn radius and the higher gravity is why it feels more weighty to you, despite Mario's actual movements being far more refined in terms of momentum handling in later titles.

@link3710
But you're proving my point when you say 64's gravity seems the "strongest in any 3D Mario" - that gives weight to the character, which is exactly what I said. I mean... that's what gravity does. It gives weight. It provides a huge swath of the physics.

As for the momentum, again, that's exactly what I love. Yes, slopes and stuff affect him, but it feels better and (although dumb to say for a video game) more realistic to me. If you're gonna belly wop against a sloped surface, yea, you're not gonna go far, and then you're gonna start to reverse direction and come back down. You gotta compensate. To jump, double jump, and triple jump in 64 just feels awesome, and I know where it's gonna take me. Jumping in Odyssey feels slippery and I never quite know where I'm gonna land, for some reason.

Also, Mario's moveset in 64 is the de facto suite, in my opinion. No throwing of the hat to hit enemies or create platforms or spin a little circle around you. Just the good old-fashioned slide, long jump (probably my favorite), and, yes, the punch-punch-kick combo lol "Ya, wa, HOO!" It's just classic and I still love it to this day.

@Ralizah
So, yea, we just disagree totally lol (P.S. I hate Sunshine)

@rallydefault I wasn't proving your point exactly. I was trying to get across that Mario is quite literally heavier in Mario 64, which is what you mean, but that's not what most people mean when they talk about weight.

When people say a character feels weighty, they mean that the character has a proper sense of momentum and don't start and stop on a dime. That when they got an enemy theres a proper feeling impact. That slopes affect the characters speed while running.

Basically, the physics in Odyssey are much more in line with what our real world sensibilities tell us to expect. But 64's physics are so simple, that you can learn them if you spend enough time playing. To a new player, Odyssey will almost always feel better though.

My problem with the physics in 64 is how the game breaks its own rules regarding them.

Sometimes you turn on a dime. Sometimes you walk in an arc.

Sometimes you can walk up a near 180 degree stone structure, and in that same level a gentle stone slope is impassable.

Some slopes made of ice you can walk up. Some you can't.

It's not the surface determining what you can and can't walk up, which leads me to believe it's the angle of the slopes, but even then that's not true either.

Its like the game teaches you early on what is too steep and what isn't, how Mario turns and reacts to surfaces.

And then it quickly drops it.

@link3710
lol but if that's what I mean, then that's my point. I'm not talking about "most people," I'm talking about me. You did prove my point.

It's fine, I'm not here to "win" any kind of discussion. I'm just speaking my point that 64's physics, gravity, and character movement feel better to me than Odyssey's. I had issues with Odyssey's controls (and game design with too many moons and only a couple worlds I felt were truly fun) from the start, and as a result it became the only 3D Mario I haven't 100% multiple times. There were parts of Odyssey that were enjoyable, but for me it was shockingly flawed in some of the fundamental systems that just made the whole experience flat for me. I remember moving Mario for the first time and just being like... this doesn't feel right. And even after dozens and dozens of hours, I still couldn't get into the groove of it.

I think what's surprising (yet probably shouldn't be) is that by now there doesn't seem to be 95-100% consistency in how Mario moves from game to game. Odyssey moves differently to SM3DW, which moves differently to Galaxy, which moves differently to Sunshine, which moves differently to 64. But input devices change, game design changes, etc so I don't know why I'm surprised or even typing this FML

@gcunit

Pretty much impossible given the massive change in control scheme and camera control between 3D World and Odyssey. Something like 8 directional movement made perfect sense in 3D World, given that the levels were presented from a fixed camera angle, meaning they could line up the world with those 8 directional axis. It would make no sense at all in Odyssey though.