Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Got my Monster Hunter Rise Tetris theme! Just waiting on my OLED before diving back into Metroid. I want the full OLED handheld experience.

@Link-Hero
Assuming just because I lived there I have a bias for the area is no different than me concluding that because you haven’t lived there, you have a bias against the area. I am not biased for or against anyone. I don’t have any vested interest in representing it to be better or worse than it actually is, I’m just sharing my personal experience, which was more than just an anecdotal weekend vacation. It’s very possible I just happened to meet a few nice individuals, but it’s also true the other way for you. Unless you’ve met everyone down there you can’t really make any sweeping statements about the area either. And btw, I didn’t assume you were pointing out whites over any other group, but I appreciate the clarification nonetheless. Anyways, I’m sure you’ll find both good and bad people just about everywhere. My point was more that having lived down there myself for many years, I can dispel a lot of the misinformation and exaggerations that gets passed around, sometimes by those who haven’t even lived there. In my experience, most people are just normal people, no matter where you go.

P.S. And I’ll also say, living in Wisconsin now, people are incredibly cold and hostile here. For real. I took a trip to Indiana this past week and it was like stepping into a time bubble from 20 years ago. Complete strangers smiling and saying good morning, just a very friendly community in general. Not used to that. Kind of made me want to move there.

As for Dread, the controls are perfection. They really are amazing. Smooth as butter, to the point just moving around in the game feels fun. It feels very similar to Samus returns, but with refinement cranked up to 11. I think the 60 FPS does play a part in that though.

Random observation/realisation. Excluding PC (which is a whole other can of worms) after downloading Metroid Dread last night the Switch is now the platform I have brought the most games for. Even if you count the Wii VC and exclude NSO. It's still well short on the number of games I've actually beaten where somehow the Wii U wins but still.

I guess that probably explains my extremely vocal desire for Nintendo to NOT release a new platform that isn't tightly linked with the Switch ecosystem

The most games I've owned on one system is definitely the GCN, but 1. Most of that was bought by my parents back in the day 2. A good chunk of those were technically my brother's games and 3. Switch will definitely surpass that for me at some point

I usually buy more games for the current handheld, compared to the current home console.

The switch is definitely my “home” console with the most games… Probably because it is the current handheld console too.

Oh my gosh. Stupid FedEx said Delivery of OLED would be today, all day, until 7pm when it changed and said "sorry, it'll be there Thursday, Oct. 14th"

Come on...

Guess I'm playing Metroid on my OLED TV in the meantime. Which is just as well, given the incredible 5.1 surround I want to experience anyways.

@Ralizah
Tried Tetris Effect. I have a wild flurry of emotions right now.

Wow? Holy crap? Aghhh my eyes! My eyes! But it's so pretty! Still, my eyes!

The game floored me. I wasn't ready. Not sure what I expected, but it wasn't that. Every move of the tetrimino causes percussion that somehow manages to make a beat by using a variety of different pitches...

But seriously. My eyes. Idk what it is, but its like sensory overload to the point my eyes feel like they want to look away. They don't "hurt" they just... well. I think it's sensory overload.

But the rumble, the background effects, the music, the audio... this is Tetris like I've never experienced before. If not for my Fire Emblem and Monster Hunter themes in 99, I might never play another Tetris again. But those FE and MH themes are so good, so epic, nothing can really ever top that.

Some other stats, again excluding PC and this time excluding VC. The Wii U is the platform where I have the highest rate of game completion (89%). On the other end of the scale the Wii is the platform where I have the lowest rate of completion (49%). The Switch is well and truly on the Wii side of that scale

@skywake
I think there may be correlation between quantity of quality games released and percentage of game completion. The more games you buy, the lower the percentage completion becomes. 5 games out of 10 is 50%. Whereas 5 games out of 50 is only 10%

Not only that, but the higher the quantity of games you buy on a system, the more likely you are to become distracted with other games before you play to completion. I’ve found this to definitely be the case for me on Switch. I complete only a tiny fraction of games purchased. But I play a lot of games. On Wii U there really wasn’t much else competing for my time, so I beat a higher proportion of games.

That said, I’ve still beaten a fair few Switch games. Zelda BotW, Splatoon 2, Mario Odyssey, Mario 3D World (2nd time), DKC Tropical Freeze (2nd time), Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, Monster Hunter Rise, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Xenoblade, Xenoblade 2, Monkey Ball Banana Blitz, Bayonetta 2 (2nd time), Wonderful 101 (2nd time), Pikmin 3 (2nd time), Final Fantasy X (2nd time), Final Fantasy XII, Paper Mario Origami King, Cruis’n Blast, Ikaruga, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (2nd time), The Witcher 3, Unravel two…

But compared to how many games I own, it’s like, Idk… 5-10% completion rate. Soooo many games I’m halfways into and just never got back around to playing. Too many to list.

I've completed nearly every Switch game I've played. And technically one of them I haven't is Megaman 9, a game that was on Wiiware in 2008.

For much of the rest its just a matter to getting to play them at all. But if a game can be reasonably completed and I like it, I almost certainly will.

@JaxonH
True. On Wii U the only "completeable" games I didn't beat were Splatoon, The Wonderful 101 and Child of Light. And it's not like I didn't put time into those games.

I think it's also a bit to do with how I play games on portable consoles v on TV. Somewhat paradoxically, I played the Wii U as a "portable" more than I do the Switch. All the portable consoles except Switch I had a completion rate in the high 80s. Home consoles I'm in the 50s... except Wii U

@JaxonH Oh yeah, Tetris Effect is an experience. Totally exceeded my expectations when I played it on PS4. There are settings that'll dial down the flashiness of the visuals, btw. I had to turn down the flashing when a line was cleared, as it was distracting me from the game, but even then, it's still gorgeous.

The musical, hypnotic nature of it borrows a lot from Tetsuya Mizuguchi's experience with other modern classics like Lumines and Rez. The ultra-stylized presentation adds a lot more to the game than I initially expected (I was prepared for it to be pretty but shallow, like so many other highly vaunted premium PS indies). Although, as with anything else, it only fully works because Tetris Effect is also just a really damn solid, fully-featured version of Tetris. Something we haven't had in a while, tbh (at least one that's all about Tetris; Puyo Puyo Tetris is an excellent game, but the Puyo Puyo stuff ruins it for me).

I like Tetris 99 for what it is (just got the MH Rise theme earlier), but it's not enough to fully satisfy my Tetris needs. Tetris 99 + Tetris Effect is, since you get the one with the cool crossover themes and probably the best version of Tetris ever made, but, until now, I didn't spend as much time with it as I wanted because I don't like playing Tetris on the TV. It's always been a handheld series for me. There are a few series like that where I love them, but can't force myself to play on the TV, like Monster Hunter (have owned MH3U and World for years, and still never played either, lol) and Smash Bros (I figured out why I could never get into the first few entries in that series after I played the 3DS version; Smash just feels RIGHT on a handheld).

I need to download Tetris Effect on my big Switch. I play so much on my Lite that I've started forgetting a lot of games have HD Rumble.

The Switch port of Corpse Party is finally being localized.

lol this game has been around in some form since the 90s and they're still adding stuff into it. I love it.

Now they just need to port Book of Shadows and Sweet Sachiko’s Hysteric Birthday Bash.

@JaxonH @Ralizah Agreed. Dev relationships guiding HW and building business relationships is wonderful right now.

I do feel there is less risk taking by devs in general and as much as I like indies, there is a dearth of Japanese indies (and of lot of the western inspired by JRPGs indies miss the mark) to fill the B-AA lister role. However that is understandable with both the cost and logistics of game dev and distribution.

However we are at the same time with switch in some sort of genre renaissance. You may not play the latest game but there is something for everybody and the increased relationships with third parties, especially the big players is a boon. I do wish some of the western devs didn’t drag their heels so much, for all the jokes about Japanese devs hating the west if the Switch were region locked Japanese region owning Switch gamers would be screwed. I want to see EA actually double down (this is likely the Nintendo shareholder in me talking) because it is nuts that Switch only has (legacy) FIFA when they should have, even if only in legacy versions, put the rest of their sports catalog on Switch. For better or worse they are the only game in town for some sports. It’s not like they haven’t done it before as the wii got a surprising amount of support from EA. From tailor made games (mysims) to retooled sports games. Since the Switch kept a lot of the wii/ds DNA (motion and touch controls even if they are barely used now) even if EA wanted to be lazy they could port 360 games and revive their Wii specific catalog. Granted Switch is slowly gaining the trust of Sony only JRPG devs which is fantastic.

If the Switch successor can pull those final hold outs in some form and the system is BC then Nintendo is poised to have one of the most versatile systems on the planet. Affordable, console exclusives, hybrid functionality and respectable graphics (Nintendo may not have all the power but only fanboys think the switch doesn’t have some gorgeous games on it). Iwata-denka’s push for a single ecosystem is paying dividends. And if you consider this is the first real trial run of the one ecosystem concept (3ds/wiiu were laying the OS groundwork) it’s pretty amazing. Nintendo only has to not drop this ball and keep improving.

As a multi-system gamer getting close to 40, I welcome the potential to have a onestop genre shop that, combined with PC gives me the majority of the games on market. (Sony keeps losing their console exclusives so I am inching closer to dropping them. And xbox doesn’t care where their games go so long as you buy. ) I look at my nearly 500 Switch game library and I can’t help but think this is an amazing time to be a gamer.

I do wish MS would use the Switch as a cheap dumping ground for their old bethesda and arkane games though. As they have easy pickings with Nintendo only gamers and hybrid gamers that would double dip.

Switch is still 2nd for me in terms of total number of purchases, Wii U is by far in 1st because of VC though maybe Switch will overtake Wii U around 2023/2024 if Nintendo hasn't moved on to the Switch's successor by then.

It all comes down to the fact that Switch's retro offerings are still very poor in comparison to the Wii U and the NSO expansion pack likely won't change that much. For example, it's crazy how Switch just got a new 2D Metroid game but you can't play the game it's a sequel to.

For current gen consoles, I own the most on Switch physically. Around 80 right now. It's a very collectible console and I feel in about 10 years long after the next Nintendo system comes out the sales of more limited distributions of physical games and collector's editions will skyrocket and people will be trying to gobble them up. I actually play my Switch more than my PS4 and my Xbox (but not more than PC that's my main gaming machine). It's amazing how much momentum the Switch has compared to the Wii U and more quality games over the Wii. While it's not the most games I own overall for one system (I believe with PS1 I'm at nearly 200 games and original Xbox is around 130) it might be up there in about five years.

The Switch is just too expensive for me to own many games. Maybe I’m spoilt by being a PC gamer, but you never really have to pay full price for any game on PC. I’m not talking about piracy, just different store fronts will usually always have some kind of discount on a title. Whereas I find with Nintendo, at least when it comes to the games I want, they rarely ever go on sale and rarely by a significant margin. Even like going on to say Amazon, sometimes the games are more expensive than just through the Eshop directly. It is one thing I really didn’t take into account when buying my Switch. It is cheaper than it’s counterparts to own the actual console, but accessories and software are just as - if not more so - expensive.

Meanwhile, after I rewrite what games I can build for my PS4 games library, looks like there are a lot of multi console release games I decided to get on PS4 version instead of Switch version as i still prefer PS4 cover version with Blue box and blue banner on top than Switch version with red spine and generic fonts.
I have registered 60 PS4 games on my list after some changes.
And for Switch library games on my list, even i gave more games for PS4 version, there are already 100+ Switch titles on my list.

@Ryu_Niiyama @Ralizah
It's just nice having flexibility in how you play. In ever other facet of our lives we've moved on to mobile experiences. Be it phones, tablets, casting between screens, etc. Having that same freedom in video games is... well, I won't say priceless, but it does feel hard to put a price on it.

BTW, playing Tetris Connected handheld seems like the perfect fix for the eye overload. Problem is, I suddenly lost all interest in playing handheld on a non-OLED screen, and that thing won't be here for another week from Target (and Walmart hasn't even started preparing shipment lol... oh man this sucks). I'll get around to it next weekend and let ya know how it goes 😀

Ok, time to make a pot of coffee and get back to Metroid...

Oh my gosh. This never happens.

Metroid Dread is #1 on the eShop. Not just in the "30 best sellers that aren't free" but on the entire storefront, even eclipsing Pokémon Unite, YouTube, Fortnite, etc.

@JaxonH Not sure what you mean. When has a Metroid game ever launched on an eshop before, apart from Samus Returns? What are you comparing it to?

@gcunit
Other games, not "other Metroid".

It's been forever since I've seen a game do this. Diablo 2 certainly didn't do it, and that game absolutely smashed. Zelda Skyward Sword didn't do it. Mario Golf didn't do it. Warioware didn't do it. I'm not even sure if Monster Hunter Rise did it, tbh.

I'm sure some games have over the years- Zelda BotW, Mario Odyssey, anything mainline Pokémon, but ya.

This is a major feat, especially given the fact it's a 2D Metroid game.