Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Yeah, unless Metroid Dread is some absurd, undisputed masterpiece with enough 10/10s, no chance it will be nominated beyond maybe one thing.

Though unfortunately the bar is low enough that I'll simply be happy if the awards go to a game that wasn't made under irredeemably terrible amounts of crunch.

Idk why anyone still puts stock into Game Awards knowing the bias toward big budget, high dollar games, bias toward certain devs and studios, and complete disregard for anything on Nintendo platforms that's not Mario or Zelda.

Every year they show nominees for best soundtrack, and every year I think, wow... I played at least 5 games with a WAY better soundtrack than that.

We're in dire need of a new, grassroots Award Show that actually recognizes games regardless of their budget or popularity.

I'm playing MH Stories 2 right now and the soundtrack is god-tier. Maybe even just as good as MH Rise. Yet neither game will ever receive an ounce of recognition for it. Just like David Wise's score in DKC Tropical Freeze wasn't even given an honorary mention.

That said, I don't feel the need for games to be "recognized" by the elites anyways. We gamers who are in the trenches and actually playing all these games that get overlooked in Awards shows, we know what time it is. And nobody can tell us otherwise, no matter how many suits stand up on stage and insist their chosen game is better.

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I am happy to report Monster Hunter Stories 2 runs much better in handheld mode. When I was playing docked, it was choppy as heck in this area. But after spending 15 hrs in the PC version, I came back to Switch and tested it out in handheld mode. And it’s totally playable. Not perfect. But not choppy to the point it’s aggravating to play. It’s also incredibly smooth (like 60 FPS) in monster dens, your room, smaller towns, corridor pathways in the wild… the only area it’s really not is in the wide open areas.

Took a video so ppl can judge for themselves. This is the worst area I’ve encountered- this is the area that made me frustrated and put it down at first. But as you can see, handheld fares much better. Certainly playable, at least.

And that’s good, because I HIGHLY recommend this game.

@JaxonH I'm playing exclusively on my Lite (it looks SO good on the Lite), and if that's the worst performance you've seen in handheld mode, I think I'm good.

Game never felt right when I was playing it docked. Although I do hope they patch it so docked users have a better experience.

@TheFrenchiestFry SMT V will be releasing too late to be in contention for TGA, I think.

@Ralizah
It does look incredibly good on the Lite.

After spending so much time playing in Native 4K on max settings, and thinking “wow, that image looks so crisp and the colors pop so much!”, I was rather surprised at the quality on the Lite. It impressed me just as much as a handheld title as it did in 4K as a TV title.

Battle system is so good, too. Not sure how far you’ve gotten but I am so in love with this battle system, I think it might be the best battle system of any RPG I’ve ever played. It’s that good. Nothing overly complex, but just the right amount of complexity. And once you unlock the Rite which has this SMT like mechanic where you sacrifice one monster to give a selected gene to another, and you can either put it in a blank slot or if you already have it you can “level up” the gene… I can already tell I’m going to spend so many hours with this in the end game.

Pokémon eat your heart out. This is now the king of the monster collecting genre. Although I really feel like it’s closer to mainline Monster Hunter than anything else. The entire structure of the game is nearly identical to the main series. Just in RPG format. It works incredibly well.

@JaxonH LOL You can cull monsters for their genes? That's brutal. I love it.

I'm gonna suspend my judgment on the combat until I get further in. As you probably know, I don't immediately like the basics of it, but I'm willing to see how it grows as the game goes on.

I found the first game almost impossible to get into, but I feel like I'm going to have a better time with this game.

@Ralizah
So, a few pointers about the combat.

You have Power, Techical and Speed in a Weapon Triangle fashion. Each monster has a specific type, and the goal is to learn that monster's type so you can take advantage accordingly. Their type never changes. So there's no guessing involved.

Jaggi, which are small and fast, are Speed, for example. Whereas Jaggia, their larger and more powerful cousins, are Power. And the large monster Great Jaggi, is Technical. I remember the small two based on that, and just remember the Great Jaggi is the third type the other two aren't. Most monsters types make logical sense.

But you have to also learn that when a monster gets enraged, their type always changes to where you want to USE the type they previously were. So, taking the Great Jaggi again as an example, he's Techical so you'd use Power against him. But once he's enraged you want to use what he previously was- you want to use Power. Once they're knocked over they usually revert back out of rage mode. Certain monsters like Paolumu, when he floats in the air like a helium ball, his type changes from Technical to Speed, so again you'd use Techical then. They always change one type forward.

Once you get that down, you'll want to leverage it to win Head to Heads. Any monster targeting you, if you win a H2H, you charge your kinship. That can be expended on skills, or if filled, riding the monster. And that can be used strategically because it takes your HP, uses it to fill your monstie's, then refills your HP all the way. So you can time it to your advantage when your HP is low, or your monstie's is low.

Furthermore, once riding your monster, the goal is to win Head to Heads to charge up your Kinship meter to the 2nd and 3rd level, then let rip a massive Kinship Attack.

Then there's weapon type. Slash, pierce and blunt. After you attack a monster with a weapon type, it'll show up from then on as effective or "extra effective". But this also changes up when the monster becomes enraged. And, it's different for different monster parts. Targeting the tail might have Slash as super effective while targeting the body has Blunt as super effective.

As long as you have some Kinship meter, you can dictate to your monstie which attack to use. I don't use this much but it may play a bigger role later in the game.

Skills are also dependent on having Kinship meter. At least, many of them are. Some skills cost nothing to use (like the Bow's paralysis shot), while others require weapon specific charges. Gunlance, for example, gains an ammo shell every round. You can save them up and use on Shelling or Wyvernstake attacks. Or you can use 100 Kinship for Wyvernfire.

Different weapon types have different weapon type specific skills. Hunting Horn has songs to cure abnormal status and heal all allies a bit for 5 turns. But tends to not be quite as powerful as hammer. Likewise, Sword and Shield tends to have Bonus defense as a passive stat bonus and has Guard as a skill, but tends to not be quite as powerful as Great Sword. Etc etc.

You'll also notice that, if you attack the same monster as an ally, and use the same attack type (Power, Technical, Speed) they are using, you'll do a double attack. And, if you're both riding your monstie and both do a Kinship skill on the same turn, you'll do a double Kinship attack.

There's a lot of strategy to these systems and, if you dig in deeper to weapon specific skills you may find you prefer one weapon type over another (Greatsword vs Sword and Shield for slash, Hammer vs Hunting Horn for blunt, Bow vs Gunlance for pierce).

It's insanely addictive once you learn the system and start learning the monsters' types. It's kind of like learning the monsters' tells in the mainline series. Once you learn the monsters' tells you can exploit their openings; likewise, in Stories 2 learning their types is similar to learning their tells, and it's how you exploit them.

@Ralizah I think SMT V will be a few days shy of the deadline considering that usually happens around mid-November like around the 20th or so. I'm not actually putting serious stock in it getting nominated though. It was just a thought after how much Persona 5 blew up at TGA 2017 even next to BotW

@JaxonH I was probably going to play this game on handheld mode anyways so I'm glad that MH Stories 2 looks great portably.

Optional gyro controls in Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania:

@IceClimbers Cue people wailing about the gyro controls being bad when in reality they are probably fine, but just take time to get used to. I seem to remember the 3DS version got a bad rap for the gyro controls, but I've found them fine.

@IceClimbers I'm usually not a fan of gyro, but this is Monkey Ball, so I'm willing to try it out.

@gcunit The thing with the 3DS is that not only are you turning the controller, you're also turning the screen, which is vomit-inducing for many, including myself. It's not like light gyro like with Mario Kart 7, with Monkey Ball 3D, you're turning the damn system all around. I had a similar issue with Monkey Ball on Mobile.

check out how Brewster could be added in Animal Crossing New Horizon

Yoooo! Gyro in Monkey Ball?!! They didn’t even do that for Banana Blitz!

But I’ll be the first to say- gyro makes Monkey Ball way harder. For aiming it makes games easier, but for this it makes them harder. And the games included in Banana Mania are the three hardest games in the entire series already. I don’t think I could handle playing those games with Gyro. Super Monkey Ball 3D? Totally. The game was made way easier to accommodate Gyro. But these games I can’t even beat using button controls, much less using motion.

But I will say, it is incredibly fun to play these games with Gyro. Incredibly fun. At least, until you get to a stage so difficult you just can’t do it. It feels like one of those marble games you had as a kid in the doctors office waiting room where you tilt the box to roll a ball around the maze without falling into a hole.

@JaxonH Yeah, I've got all of that. I do have a few questions, though, if you don't mind:

• I can instruct my monstie to perform certain skills, but not to attack in certain ways, so if my equipped monstie tends to attack in a certain way that's not conducive to winning head-to-heads, then it's better to switch it out with one that attacks differently, correct? Because even the monsters in your party still tend to attack one way.
• Is there a way to inherit monster field skills (or whatever they're called: swimming, rock breaking, jumping, etc.) genetically from monsters I already have, or am I just stuck carrying around certain types of monsters because they tend to have field skills I need?
• I'm a bit confused about the eggs. I've noticed the smelly eggs at the end of the nest tend to sparkle. Are those better or worse than plain eggs? If they're worse, is there any point in even hatching them? Can I sell eggs or something?
• Is there a way to set a sidequest as my active quest that shows information in the corner of the screen?

Thanks.

@Ralizah
Each monster has a specific type (Power, Technical, Speed), so as long as you switch out to a monster with the right type, you won’t have to worry about them losing head to heads. So if you’re fighting a Royal Ludroth, which is Power Type, you’ll probably want to switch out for Ranmar, your Velocidrome, because it’s a Speed type. Then just let it do it’s thing. As long as it’s type is correct it’ll do just fine on it’s own.

You’re stuck carrying certain monsters for their field skills. There aren’t many you need though. Swim and Vine Climb, Jump… maybe rock breaker? Maybe? At most you miss out on a chest with 3 potions here and there, nothing too major. For now, I have one for Jump (Ranmar), one for Swim (Royal Ludroth) and one for Rock Breaker (Blue Yian Kut Ku, which also does Nest Search I think). Anyways, I think the point of the game is that you strategize and change up which monsters you take with you at any given time, which encourages replayability as you come back to certain areas with different monsters and are able to access different secret areas and treasures. I take 3 of my favorite monsters, one of each type, regardless of skills, and the other 3 I pick for those field skills.

Sparkly eggs have better stat bonuses when hatching (+2 Defense, +2 Attack, etc). They also have a better chance of rare genes or rainbow slots. There’s no point in holding onto eggs. You’ll want to hatch them, but keep the extra monsties around to use for the Rite, and buff up your main monsties. I Heart my Favorite monsties- the best one of each (gotta collect em all!), and if I hatch a monstie with rainbow genes or something WAY better than the one I already have, I favorite the new one, un-favorite the existing, and then transfer a gene from the existing to the new. It doesn’t take long for your monsties to level up and catch up so it’s not big deal to do a swaperoo if needed.

You can set objective for side quests in the menu under Quests. By doing so you will see the blue marker for your objective on the map, but only if you’re in the correct area of course.

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Also, you’ll want to collect as many Bottle Caps as possible. You can get them from Everdens and certain side quests (the old man in Manana Village that asks you to bring certain types of eggs- which btw, anytime you have a lot of eggs, go check with him to accept a side quest for bringing him a new egg type- you earn Bottle Caps from the first few he gives you).
You can expand your stables using Bottle Caps. I always prioritize that if an upgrade is available from the Melynx. Once you’ve upgraded as far as you can, buy Nutriments for permanent upgrades to your rider’s stats.

@IceClimbers Gyro controls is gonna make Monkey Ball Banana Mania way harder to control.

I present to you...

My Switch Oled

Can't believe my mismatched 3DS is actually going to be trendy alongside my PS5 and Switch OLED. I almost feel compelled to buy a Series S now just because...

Honestly the only reason I'm considering a Switch OLED apart from the fact my original Switch has a bit of wear and some scratches from slotting it in the dock from time to time is so it can look color coordinated with my PS5 as well lol

The Switch insanity this fall continues with Cruis'n Blast now having a release date confirmed for September 14th.

@Grumblevolcano
I suspected as much. Gamestop's pre-order page for the physical had Sept. 14th. Good to have it confirmed. That's only 2 months away.

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ATTENTION ALL SWITCH PLAYERS.

If you are tired of drift, scared of drift, or simply want a more ergonomic controller with better travel range on analog sticks, dpad, all while retaining wireless functionality, quality rumble with 3 settings and Gyro that's every bit as good as official Joycon, now is the time to act.

The Binboks are on sale for $38 right now. I may even buy a 3rd pair at that price. They're just so good... SO good.

https://www.amazon.com/Controller-Compatible-Adjustable-Repla...