Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Grumblevolcano i hope and expect Monster Hunter Rise and Metroid Dread is nominated for GOTY 2021.

Game Awards nominees, heh.

Monster Hunter Rise, Metroid Dread and Shin Megami Tensei V are the 3 best games I've played this year, and all 3 land somewhere in my all time faves list. But games on Nintendo platforms have to fight twice as hard for recognition, barring Zelda and Mario games (which seem to be the only ones the masses and journalists are willing to concede on for token Nintendo nominations).

And so, none of them will be included for GotY save perhaps Metroid Dread, and that will only be as a nod due to Keighly harassing Reggie over it- it won't actually win.

The Awards have, more and more over the years, become biased toward the marketing machine and big AAA games focusing on realism (bonus points if its chock full of cinematics).

Games like Deathloop or Forza Horizon 5 will win (and they'll definitely include Returnal and Ratchet due to their obligatory 2-3 Sony exclusives being nominated each year). But honestly, it'll probably be Forza since Microsoft hasn't had an exclusive win in many years. And, I can't disagree it's a phenomenal game. I do actually think if any other game should win, it should be that one. I just don't personally think it's better than Monster Hunter, Metroid or SMT.

As soon as I saw journalists saving face with Death Stranding and TLOU2, pretending the games were flawless masterpieces simply because they were too prideful to admit the hype machine led them astray, and then seeing those efforts reinforced at the Awards as if to prove they were "correct", I knew any semblance of fair and unbiased recognition had gone right out the window.

Of course, I started questioning how fair and unbiased the Awards were long before that. DKC Tropical Freeze wasn't even nominated for best soundtrack in 2013. Thats a crime. They nominated Transistor Transistor Child of Light, but not DKC TF. Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate didn't even win best mobile game in 2015. That went to Laura Croft Go. Absolute madness. Monster Hunter World should have won GotY in 2018. It's a far better game than God of War. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 didnt even get a nomination in 2019 (it released past the 2018 deadline, then got ignored in 2019, for soundtrack, for RPG, for everything). And Fire Emblem got ignored to the point the fans had to vote it in as the best "as voted by the fans" game. It's the only way it could actually get recognized. Persona 5 on PS? Automatic GotY nominee. SMTV on Switch? Doubt it'll even get an RPG nomination. It's just a complete joke.

So ya. Grab some popcorn for the announcements. And a shaker of salt for the winners.

I believe Rise is on average the highest reviewed Switch game of this year, so if any Switch game makes it into the GOTY conversation, I assume it has to be that one. I guess Dread is like the “trendier” choice, but I’d be surprised if that takes up a slot, as I see that as much more niche than MH is when taken outside Nintendo audiences.

@JaxonH I'm honestly expecting Metroid Dread to win and the nominees being something like:

• Monster Hunter Rise
• Metroid Dread
• Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
• Death's Door (indie pick, last year had Hades)
• Resident Evil Village

The 6th I'm not sure about. While FH5 would totally be a good fit for GotY, racing games always get snubbed. SMTV would also be a very good fit for GotY but with how many reviews seems to basically follow the infamous IGN review I'm not sure it'll be nominated. Bunch of others seem possible.

Maybe Halo Infinite given there's lots of rumours/leaks about multiplayer shadow drop tomorrow?

I think Forza is the best reviewed game on average of the entire year, if that isn’t included then it is just nonsense. I think Psychonauts is the token indie used rather than Death’s Door. Deathloop and It Takes Two are for sure going to take up two nomination slots.

I think the nominees will be

• Returnal
• Resident Evil Village
• Psychonauts 2
• Metroid Dread
• It Takes Two
• Forza Horizon 5

Returnal will no doubt be the winner. Honestly though, this year's potential nominees are filled with a lot of the type of games that are great but wouldn't get nominated most years in favor of the bigger name AAA titles (save for RE of course). Kinda nice to see more variety.

Personally, the best game I played this year was the ME: Legendary Edition but given that is technically a rerelease my top five is probably:

1. Monster Hunter Stories 2.
2. Life is Strange: True Colors.
3. Biomutant.
4. Monster Hunter Rise.
5. Far Cry 6.

SMT V may sneak into my top 5, but it is too early to say yet.

I played a lot of good games this year, but I'd say it's a 3-way tie for my GotY. If I absolutely had to rank them it would be as follows:

1a Monster Hunter Rise
1b Metroid Dread
1c Shin Megami Tensei V

@Pizzamorg
I don't think they go by MC ratings as a rule. It's just that, as imperfect as they are, there is correlation between higher rated games and those more likely to be nominated.

Forza Horizon 5 is like Metroid Dread. It's in a taboo genre for the masses. But I still think racing genre is generally not frowned upon as much as, [gasp] a 2D Metroidvania (well, Metroid, not metroidvania).

You didn't play Metroid? Or just didn't like it? I highly recommend it if you haven't.

Monster Hunter Stories 2 is exceptional. I just didn't like it as much as Rise. But it's still one of the year's best.

I also think Neo: The World Ends With You deserves at least a nomination for RPG of the Year. Throw Monster Hunter Stories 2 in there as well.

Psychonauts 2 will certainly be the "indie" wildcard.

Kinda wild if they don’t use the review consensus for the basis of the nominations. Submitting a worse reviewed game in the place of a better reviewed game (on average), would surely just show what a farce all these so called ‘awards” are? I think Forza, on average, is the best reviewed game of the year by a significant margin, if it gets snubbed because it is a racing game then what is even going on lol.

No interest in Dread for me - brutal difficulty + platforming + stealth + aimless bumbling around + puzzles,, I couldn’t think of a worse combination.

I dunno whether I think Stories is a better game than Rise, but with Rise’s lack of a proper end game, I spent a lot more time with Stories 2 because there was meaty endgame to engage with and I felt like it had more meaningful updates than all of Rise’s ***** sticker quests. Stories kept me coming back long after I finished the campaign, so I have to rank Stories 2 higher.

Oh and if I was using rereleases, the Switch port of Dusk would be for sure on my top five as well. Lucky for Nocturne too, as if I did included rereleases, I’d rank it as the worst game I played released in 2021 lol.

@Pizzamorg Forza Horizon 3 was reviewed higher than most of the GotY nominees for Game Awards 2016 and all it was nominated for was Best Sports/Racing (which it won).

I think the second highest, on average, is It Takes Two but that came out early in the year so I wonder if people will forget about that when it comes to award season.

could we have informations regarding Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild 2 at the Game Awards 2021?

Since when is Phsychonauts indie? Granted, it's never been a series I've been particularly interested in, but the original seemed to be a pretty prominent platformer back in the day, and the new one is backed by MS.

Granted, I think the nominees will end up being something like RE: Village, Metroid Dread, Returnal, Ratchet & Clank, & Forza Horizon 5.

I'd love to see Tales of Arise get a nod (which it probably will in the RPG category) too.

It also depends on how rigidly they apply their fairweather rules on re-releases/older games. Last year they nominated Among Us for a few things even though it wasn't a 2020 release (nominating it simply because it got big), I think Persona 5 got a second chance with the Royal re-release (even though they ignored Xenoblade: DE), & they padded out the fighting game category with re-releases like Mortal Kombat 11: Ultimate Edition. Keeping that in mind it's entirely possible they upend a category with something like the Mass Effect remasters.

It was a kickstarter game, Microsoft didn’t really have much involvement until pretty late which is why the game was multiplat.

Regardless of what game wins their "esteemed accolates", this had to have been the best year of gaming I can recall.

3 games released that I would consider to be among my all time faves. That almost never happens. 2017 Switch did it with Zelda BotW, Mario Odyssey and Splatoon 2, but tbh, taken as a group, I like Monster Hunter Rise, Metroid Dread and SMTV more.

2022 might give 2021 a run for its money though. With Bayonetta 3, Zelda BotW 2, Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, Splatoon 3, and both Triangle Strategy and Mario Rabbids as potential greats (I do love the first Mario Rabbids a lot more than I tend to give it credit for), a potentially great Kirby game and a possibility of a Metroid Prime remaster, Rune Factory 5 and some great games on other platforms like Horizon, GoW and (even though it's too difficult for me, Elden Ring has Souls diehards excited), 2022 could be the best year in gaming like... ever.

@Pizzamorg
Metroid is very similar to Zelda with its puzzles, except I always considered Metroid to have better puzzles than Zelda and the best of any video game franchise ever. It's not so much bumbling around as it is exploring. If you like exploring its fun. The game is very well designed to guide you without having any idea where to go, while at the same time giving you free reign to explore and backtrack as you get new abilities which can access previously blocked off areas. Its not like Hollow Knight where you're hopelessly lost with no idea where to go. Difficulty isn't that bad (certainly not "brutal"). Maybe if you've no experience playing 2D games, but if you grew up playing NES/SNES games it fits like a glove. It's about the same as DKC Tropical Freeze, I'd wager. Tough, but fair. Idk. Some ppl have found it hard. I found it just right- challenging enough to be engaging but not so much to be frustrating. It helps that it gives checkpoints outside of bosses and EMMI zones.

Not using reviews as basis is a double edged sword. On the one hand, it can omit great games in favor of lesser games, but on the other hand, it can omit overrated games that scored high due to reviewer bias and represent underrated games that scored lower due to reviewer bias. Although, the latter almost never happens. When a game is overrated, the Awards is their chance to save face and feel justified- if an overrated game wins, they can use that to deflect criticism.

Whereas I thought 2021 was one of the worst years for gaming in recent memory. The last couple of months have been good, but earlier in the year it was just a wasteland, so long between releases I really cared about and a number of games I was interested in released and turned out to be garbage. I spent most of the year playing old games over the last decade or so I missed. I finished like three AC games, all of the Dragon Age games and probably a bunch of other stuff I forgot just waiting for games to come out.

GTA trilogy is now at #1 on the UK eshop, not even Pokemon preorders are beating it.

@Pizzamorg
Not really.
For me, year 2021 is a pretty good year for some upcoming casual and kids games such as My Universe games, The Smurfs Mission Vileaf, Paw Patrol, Blaze & the Monster Machines, Kitaria Fables, Key We, etc.
I like those upcoming games during year 2021.

I took at the release calendar, I don't even know if I played a 2021 release for the first four or five months of the year? I think the first thing I played was Outriders? (I didn't play Rise until much later in the year). Like I say, there was either just nothing coming out I was interested in or the stuff I was interested turned out to be garbage.

I actually played a couple hundred hours of Outriders if you include the time spent in the demo, but that game had all kinds of problems top to bottom, I was just so desperate to play something new, I kept playing long after the fun stopped.

I think ME Legendary then came out like a month or two later and I could finally put Outriders away. Once I did, I basically never looked back although apparently they have a big announcement tomorrow?

It just really sums up 2021 in gaming for me that I was basically half way through the year and the first good 2021 game I played was a rerelease. It then took a couple of weeks and Biomutant came out and it was the first good 2021 release I actually played, that wasn’t a rerelease. In any other year I don’t think I’d put it in any kind of GOTY conversation, the game had all kinds of problems, but the year was just such slim pickings I took all it would give me at that point.

And from there, the story just goes and goes. Months of wasteland, a release, months of wasteland further.

@Pizzamorg
I think you just never tried some casual or non popular games to balance your gameplay.
Nothing wrong for adult gamers to play casual or kids games.