Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@JaxonH Nice. Keep me posted on the SMT V stuff, if you don't mind. If they're sufficiently high quality, I might just relent.

I do wonder if this does play a part. I see a lot of the negativity towards S/S comes from jaded fans conjuring up these elaborate Pokemon games in their head that don’t exist. I don’t think I’ve played a Pokemon game in like ten years? So to me, it being still sort of the Pokemon games I knew, with a fresh lick of paint and some updated animations wasn’t the be all and end all for my enjoyment. Maybe if I had played every generation I would feel the same as others, but I haven’t. And I am not saying they are wrong for feeling how they do, but I do think franchise fatigue has created a lot of untrue hyperbole around S/S so called “failings”.

I know you like your games on the harder side, so I can imagine this being less interesting for you. The game’s general technical/performance issues are what I feel fall into the “objective” problem category. I do think for a Switch game, the game is surprisingly vibrant and crisp, it has a lot of really great art design and looks pretty excellent both docked and in handheld. However, the cost of this seems to basically be non-existent draw distance, which sorta kills the whole wild area concept, because you look around and all you see is an empty field, until you are literally like a centimetre in front of a Pokemon and they pop in. Plus, like you say, if you switch from local to online, the wild areas seemingly run in single digit FPS even docked, it is just awful. And given gives like SMT V and BOTW and others, there is just no excuse for this.

Personally though, I thought the Raid encounters were pretty fun, once you clear some gyms so you are able to take on higher challenges, you get a really nice selection of bosses to face and I caught some really cool Pokemon doing these battles as well.

And yeah, I’ve heard some really good things about the DLC, so can’t wait to get started on them once I clear the post game content.

@Pizzamorg I think there's 2 main factors regarding the main negativity you see about Sword/Shield:
1. BotW has led to people wanting every game to become [insert franchise] BotW, I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if Legends Arceus gets backlash closer to or at launch given more recent trailers suggests its more like MH than BotW.

2. The whole National Dex situation that had been going on since 5 months before launch.

The main issue I had with Sword/Shield was the pacing of the game from the Fairy gym onwards seemed way too fast (felt like the story was rushing to the end at that point onwards) but overall I found Sword and its DLC an enjoyable game.

The point about [insert franchise] BotW does worry me about the future of many franchises including Zelda. At this point the best I can hope for regarding Zelda is that Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD gets ported to the Switch.

@Pizzamorg Glad to hear that you enjoyed Shield!

I agree with @Grumblevolcano on the circumstances leading towards the negativity around these games, although I'll also add:

3. The move to a "home console" meant that people were expecting more from these particular Pokemon games (this kinda links into #1).

Personally I think that Sword and Shield are in the same general ballpark of quality as X&Y/Sun&Moon, they just got mixed up in a lot of controversy so people like to take every opportunity to hate on them. I'm generally of the belief that every Pokemon game, regardless of their relative quality, is a good time (I even think there's a lot to enjoy about Sun and Moon despite them being my least favourite in the series). As a long-term fan who favours gens 3-5 I have a lot of criticisms about the newer games, but none of them really apply to Sword and Shield in particular for me.

This worries me as well, not necessarily for the Zelda series itself, but because I don't really think every series, including Pokemon, needs its own "Breath of the Wild". I remember a while ago the hot topic being that Pokemon should become an MMORPG - I honestly can't think of anything I'd like to see less in the series myself.

Another Atlus game is coming to Switch:

13 Sentinels Aegis Rim for Switch is releasing on April 12th 2022

@Grumblevolcano YESSSSSSSSSS

Too bad I finally cracked and bought it on sale earlier in the year, but whatever. Heard nothing but good things about this title. It'll be an amazing match for the Switch.

Hopefully Sakura Wars is next.

@Buizel I'd put them in the same boat of quality (though slightly worse) as SuMo, but not XY, which I'd rank above them. But that's also part of the problem, the general perception that the series has been on the decline since either HGSS or B2W2 (depending on who you ask), and that SwSh did nothing to reverse that trend.

I still think my #1 criticism of SwSh is that one of my favorite tenants of Pokemon (Exploration) is totally missing. It was already reduced in XY, and again in SuMo), but in SwSh (at least the base game), there's literally no sense of discovery outside of the Wild Area. And that only lasts for... maybe 10 minutes to see the whole thing? Otherwise, the game is basically a line with nowhere to turn off it. No optional areas, no getting lost (even the woods halfway through are literally a straight line, Viridian Forest style).

But, we will probably never have a Pokemon game that allows people to get lost ever again, so it's kind of not worth discussing. The age of Pokemon games being allowed to let people get frustrated is gone.

@Pizzamorg I don't need Pokemon to be hard. They'll never be hard games. They probably shouldn't be. I just want... one or two design concessions so that they're not braindead easy. SuMo, for all its flaws, actually tried injecting a little more challenge into the games, but they seem to have fully backed off of that at this point.

I think some of my frustration stemmed from the fact that I was constantly rotating Pokemon in order to keep myself underleveled to try and not one-shot enemy trainers and gym leaders, going into gym battles with the wrong types, etc., and eventually the absurdity of such a playstyle struck me like a brick. Then I'd go out into the wild areas, and those would run at 5fps when online and were just... barren... with nothing to find. GF doesn't understand open game design, which is why I'm still wary of how Legends: Arceus will turn out.

What really did it for me, though, was the way GF gutted the multiplayer suite in-game to push people toward their paid service. People can trash X & Y all they like, but those games had the best, most convenient trading features in the entire series. SuMo messed that up with its revamped system, but that was just an honest mistake. This was like... like they were deliberately making the game worse to shill a companion service. I already pay for NSO, so I should have full access to the multiplayer features in a Pokemon game. IN-GAME.

Putting aside the robotic character models and HORRIBLE wild area implementation, I agree the art style looks nice. It's one of the few aspects of the game I'll defend. It's a visually pleasing game when you're traveling on the routes.

@Ralizah
Everything you're saying is pretty much proving what is and has always been the hunch: Pokemon "people" are very exacting in their critiques, whereas the rest of us shmucks who play every few generations or so generally enjoy the games and don't notice too much that seems broken or horribly out of place.

@rallydefault I wouldn't necessarily call myself a "Pokemon person." I generally just follow the series from gen to gen, but even missed two of them (Gens 3 and 4, to be exact; I jumped back on after that), and only really play the single-player stuff.

None of what I'm critiquing is something you'd only expect from a dedicated Pokemon fan. Just someone who trades online occasionally and likes to complete all the sp content.

There it is- 13 Sentinels.

And this is why I hold off for Switch announcements.

First Vanillaware game on Switch, too. Surprised they never brought Muramasa.

@Buizel @Grumblevolcano
I can see why people will feel that way when they see what else the Switch has achieved, however, you can’t make up a game in your own head and then complain the game is not that. I think that is where some of the criticism becomes sort of overblown to me, however, I will agree the second half of the game can feel a little rushed. I don’t think the story resolved well or made a lot of sense in the end. I also have no frame of context over the whole national dex thing, so I’ll bow to your expertise on that.

In terms of difficulty @Ralizah and @link3710, I personally don’t want any frustration in my games, so I don’t see it as a bad thing if they are trying to remove all frustration from the experience. I can agree S/S leant on the easier side, but I think it was the lesser of two evils, any harder and I think frustration would have creeped in at points and that would have dragged the game down for me. I don’t want that.

I really had no issues with becoming over levelled, but then I avoid all the grinding I can in games as I think it is an antiquated pacing mechanism. I think a game should grow with the player and S/S mostly does that.

I will say the online infrastructure is pretty garbage, but so is NSO in general, so I am not really sure who is at fault there.

Switch Pro Controller is $49.99 at Walmart.

Good opportunity for anyone who doesn't have one.

@Pizzamorg It's not the difficulty. I can play through Platinum, HGSS, or Black and White without dying easily enough. It's that there's no optional areas, nothing to explore, nothing but the beaten path. It's totally possible to have explorable areas without the game being frustrating, but the series needs to be handholding enough that it's literally impossible to get lost, not simply highly unlikely. And that distinction is where a lot of potentially fun gameplay goes out the window.

@Ralizah
But again, I don't even know what "sp content" is lol Is that just short for single player? I don't trade online, either.

I'm saying there are plenty of peasants out there like me who really know nothing about Pokemon outside of watching the TV show and playing Red/Blue when we were kids. I just enjoy a good Pokemon adventure from time to time.

@link3710 Agreed. Sun/Moon were especially bad about this IMO. They didn't feel like an adventure, and more like a guided tour around the islands.

So, Life Is Strange True Colors doesn't even release on Switch until a week from Tuesday (digitally) and February (physically) yet BestBuy has the Switch version preorder on sale alongside all the other versions.

Life Is Strange: True Colors preorder on sale for $34.99 at BestBuy

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/life-is-strange-true-colors-nint...

@JaxonH Got to get that money from unknowing shoppers. I mean, look how many retailers put up games for pre-order that are still many years away from release.

So I started Brilliant Diamond, is time of day determined by the Switch's clock like Animal Crossing or is it a cycle that's less than 24 hours?

@JaxonH That's rather unheard of for a preorder to be discounted because the same game already released on other platforms is discounted.

@Grumblevolcano It's determined by the Switch's clock. However, you can't time travel like in Animal Crossing. If you try to do so it'll lock any time based events for 24 hours.