Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Switch OLED is available on Amazon right now, fyi. Both variants.

Switch OLED White (Amazon)

Switch OLED Neon (Amazon)

My GOTY this year is Age of Calamity; it is the gift that keeps on giving. Its narrative structure allows for a more global perspective than that of Link (which I think skews the storytelling a lot by making him seem more important than he is) and it's got a TON of content...that doesn't feel grindy unlike the first HW game. I need this to become the norm for each new Zelda setting (so not BOTW2), new Hyrule/Legend, new HW companion game, because they really nailed this one. The character playstyles are pretty diverse, even with characters that are derivatives of each other, barely any framerate issues (I understand that wasn't the case in the beginning and I started after all the DLC and updates were out), yet you don't feel over powered either. The bigger enemies have no qualms with ganging up on you and force you use a little strategy and on higher difficulties you can get wrecked. I enjoyed the story...it's so Zelda in the gimmick that was used but it had a lot of fakeouts and twists that kept me engaged. With Zelda games you often have to find the lore in the environment or piece together what the NPCs say to get a gist of what really happened behind the scenes, but this game does a fabulous job of laying it out in a very enjoyable story, so much so that I want to see more of this level of story presentation in future Zelda games. Please note that I'm talking about the presentation (even though BOTW's story presentation makes perfect sense for the game itself considering what happened) and not the writing as for any Zelda fan it's mostly predictable, but what makes it great is really getting a chance to see the other characters shine while link (as he should) fades because the game isn't from his perspective. And the amount of content is insane. I got end credits only to find out I still have a whole lot more stuff to do. And they did a good job with making the game more re-playable.

....now I need another FE Warriors that focuses on Three houses.

My time sink though is Olive Town...it took a few patches to get it on the level and I think Marvelous should have let it bake a few more months, but aside from some slight complaints, this is my ideal SoS. They streamlined a lot of the stuff I dislike and I enjoy the idea of primarily profiting off of the land around you. It feels more focused than previous SoS games (to me).

Interesting. Hadn't heard about them ironing out the framerate. That's great! The demo was fun, but it was also extremely choppy at times. It's why I passed on the game at launch.

@JaxonH The OLED model has been pretty consistently available online for the better part of a week now. It's... eerie, almost. I'm so used to this post-pandemic world of scalper bots, perpetual scarcity of electronics, etc. that seeing a console readily available at MSRP just feels weird.

@Ralizah Yeah I sat on it because I kept seeing people hosing the frame rate and then I played and I was like...they must have fixed it because this is fine. I know some people are super sensitive (I am in music games for instance) but I had my first bit of slowdown yesterday and considering the amount of enemies and explosions that were going on when it happened...it was expected. Went right back to normal after I cleared out the enemies. I think the 60 frames or else people will find something wrong with it of course, but I didn't see any issues in the hundred and something hours I've played. Gonna put in a few more hours and then on to the next game.

@Ryu_Niiyama Yeah, the demo ran in the low 20s pretty consistently, and then dropped harder in a few spots. Particularly in that first Hyrule Field map, where the grass seemed to make the game chug. I found it bothersome, and I'm pretty easy-going when it comes to performance (I'm not taken to expecting a handheld the size of a bar of chocolate to run like a supercomputer). I might actually grab it now, because the game itself was a lot of fun, and I think I'm over my disappointment about this not being a real prequel to BotW.

Gotta play HW: Definitive Edition first, though. And Fire Emblem Warriors. And get deeper into P5 Strikers. These musou titles are really piling up.

Once again, a demo has hurt a game's reputation. This keeps happening.

Yeah, same thing happened to me. The game went on sale, so I gave the demo a go and the framerate was so bad it made me feel physically nauseous and I am someone who isn’t very sensitive to frame rates generally.

@Ralizah I look at it as a twofer personally. Does the story change making it a new timeline? Yes but that isn’t new for Zelda as a series. OoT is literally make an alternative timeline:the game. If Zelda had no time travel then Hyrule would have been toast (and technically is with OoT, WW and Spirit Tracks and kinda sorta SS) long ago. Even LttP And LBW cheated and used the triforce to fix things. So I feel like if someone was annoyed at the storybeats in AoC then they didn’t pay attention in other Zelda games. Good doesn’t really win…just buys more time.

That being said the game does a good job at running right up to BotW before diverging. And it’s partially the calamity’s fault for the divergence anyway. But there is a cutscene that pretty much shows how each champion dies. It gets flipped of course but if you fade to black right there you can walk over to BotW and look at the tragedy in a new light. And the game is good at keeping track of where to pivot as in if event a had been changed Hyrule could fight back and its a bit satisfying knowing where it went wrong before and seeing them fix it. The best part is that it still leaves the wth happened to Ganondorf (considering the Gerudo no longer birth males and their ears grew pointed over time.) question for BotW 2. And besides with the curse of Demise being eternal and BOTW set beyond the original LoZ (which destroyed evil forever or at least made into ashes) it’s not like this is a true happy ending. Just one more generation surviving a little longer until it comes back.

At least you don’t play the normal musou games or all of the other spinoffs. I still gotta get samurai warriors 5.

@WoomyNNYes
Thanks! Yea, my local Best Buy has them in stock today. Perhaps I'll take a spin over there.

I've spent like double the money on gifts and stuff compared to last year lol Oh well, only live once I suppose.

Yesterday I bought Saints Row IV, Siberia 1 & 2 collection and Siberia 3 in the Nintendo eShop sales.

I already owned Saints Row 3 for Switch but was wondering if they ever patched that game? I remember there being problems when it launched. Was thinking of playing it again now.

@kkslider5552000 Full version was reportedly pretty rough when it came out as well. If it's in good shape now, then they've definitely been patching it.

@Ryu_Niiyama I don't think there would have been as much disappointment over the story if Nintendo hadn't built it up as a true prequel instead of something that explores a "what if?" time travel scenario. Many people, myself included, were expecting a well-executed tragedy, like XC2's Torna expansion, because that's the natural expectation you'd have coming from BotW.

But I'm a big believer in appreciating games for what they actually are, so I'm glad I'll be able to go into it without a chip on my shoulder.

I can't imagine playing all of the various Warriors games. There's so many of them! The idea of playing 10+ Kiseki games and the ten Yakuza and spinoff games I've missed is intimidating enough.

@rallydefault If you see Best Buy has stock, you should still ago as soon as you can since there's still high demand, especially for Christmas. Good luck!

Took me almost eight hours, but I finally unlocked a new class in Loop Hero, The Necromancer. Kinda amazing how much this is able to refresh the gameplay - for the lack of a better term - ahem, loop, in a game that is so deceptively simple on the surface. I wasn’t sure on this to begin with, especially as I don’t like rogues, but playing a couple of loops a day and usually only doing one or two loops in a sitting has made the game really addictive for me. I think maybe if you played this for hours on end it would be maddening, but it’s perfectly suited to the drop in and out handheld experience on the Switch I think. A real surprise gem and deffo on my “best of 2021” list for sure.

@FragRed
Yes, they did patch Saint's Row 3.

The issue it had was, it looked sharp and native res, but that led to frame drops and stutters. So they patched in dynamic res to alleviate the chokepoints, and it's pretty good now. You can see res dropping momentarily when it's at work, but it stays running smooth, the way I like it. I also haven't had any crashes since the patch released, which, I had 2 on loading screens before that.

@Ralizah hmm, I will agree to disagree then. They explore pretty well how everything keeps going wrong and make a clear showing of points that if there hadn’t been a change, then abject failure is the result. So unless someone needed to see blood and guts spattered (which won’t happen in a Zelda game) it’s pretty easy to go “crap so that’s what happened”. And Hyrule is still pretty battered by the end. I do wonder how it impacts lines of succession/personal lives of characters involved that either didn’t die or had their lives altered. I suppose that is what fanfic is for. That being said if you played this before BoTW I can see some of the outrage. Because it will be harder to pick out what is divergent vs original timeline.

I’m thinking I will go back grinding on Octopath Traveler. I have a general idea of the true ending because I have the guide but I am trying to 100 percent the side quests so I can put it to rest. Almost done with GAA 1 as well. Backlog work is hard work.

@Ralizah
No doubt. Switch OLED in stock, and the Series S is also starting to appear in stock regularly. And now I understand why MS made the Series S. They were playing chess, not checkers.

I bet Nintendo is just cranking them suckers out on the assembly line.

@JaxonH Excellent. That’s great to hear. I’ll definitely boot it up. I’ve never played the fourth game so getting it bargain price made it perfect timing to jump in on that.

@Ryu_Niiyama It's good to hear you're taking so well to the game's narrative angle.

Did you play the DLC? I rarely buy additional content for games, but it adds a decent amount of story/narrative content, it might be worthwhile.

@JaxonH I see at least a few Series S consoles pretty much any time I hit a Walmart or GameStop now.

Always saw Series S as a smart move. Not necessarily from the angle of 'maybe this'll be easier to supply to people in a pandemic that has disrupted supply chains,' but it goes well with M$'s focus on sucking people into the Game Pass rabbit hole.

Keeping fairly steady with Sony in the hardware arms race is a big win for them, because basically all they need to do at this point is buy time until their Game Pass exclusives machine starts to go into overdrive.

Got my first d-pad modded joycon in the mail today. And despite not having a pivot, it's pretty good. Dang good. It can do every move with Ryu in Ultra Street Fighter II except the half circle fireball 🔥

There's just no topping that Hori d-pad, which is by far the best d-pad I've ever used in my life. It's that good.

But because you can do fireball half circles with the analog stick, it's really not an issue. And it has all the other features like HD Rumble, Gyro and wireless. I'm still gonna try to figure out a way to get that Hori d-pad into the modded joycon shell, but until then, this is 98% of the way to perfect.

@Ralizah
It's true that ppl buy what's available. Just having products on store shelves is a win. It's almost like they pulled a rope-a-dope. News outlets and leaks focusing on MS making, "the most powerful console in the world", which forced Sony's hand to go all out in response, then they come in on the sly with a $299 console that still plays all the same games and can actually remain in stock for the most part. Like... I'm starting to recognize these guys know what they're doing.

Wow, so unlocking the Necromancer was the key to clearing the second boss. Second run as a Necro, got to the boss for the first time and beat it on my first go. Sadly I had some sort of bug with the text so I missed all of the story associated with that boss, so that kinda sucks.