Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

i recal the first time hearing a cd i alsmot cried it was so amazing sounding

So, I've always liked the Life Is Strange series. Going all the way back to the first one, something about it just intrigued me. I've been asking for this series on Switch for years.

Except taken from an interview with Square Enix concerning Life Is Strange: True Colors which releases in a few weeks on Switch...

Jon Brooke, co-head of studio at Square Enix External Studios, also said:

• “We’re incredibly excited to finally offer a Life is Strange experience on the Nintendo Switch, enabling players to enjoy Life is Strange: True Colors at home or on the go. This is the most advanced game in the series, so it was important for us to maintain a high standard of visual quality, performance and optimization when bringing the game to a new platform. We’re delighted with how the Switch version turned out and we can’t wait to expand our wonderful community of players even more with this release.”

Life is Strange: True Colors is initially hitting Switch as a digital download on December 7. We’ll then be seeing the physical version on February 25, 2022.

I played True Colors on PC this year and it is easily one of my favourite games of the year. It isn’t quite as grand or epic as previous stories in the series and the power Alex has is sorta just… there. However, I think when you’ve experienced true grief, you can tell the difference in media pretty easily between a plastic portrayal of grief and a genuine one. And this is probably one of the best portrayals I have experienced in any medium. I also just thought the characters were all just so wonderful and I loved playing as Alex and seeing the world through her eyes, even during the most difficult of times.

Metroid Dread might have indicated who is the next vilain in the next game of the franchise and what Nintendo could show/ reveal at the 2021 Game Awards.

Glad they're bringing the Remastered collection to Switch also, and it doesn't depend on the success of True Colors.

From what they showed in the Nintendo Direct, it looks pretty good port-wise.

edit
Got the Gamestop exclusive Dying Light physical edition that comes with a Witcher 3 like box (and for only $35! it’s sold out now but normal version is $35, all on cart, one of the most impressive ports on Switch- looks better and plays smoother than Witcher 3, that’s for sure).

Also got some custom slip covers for Metroid Dread and Zelda Link's Awakening.

So I finished the full regular game of Shield, I am making a start on the post game and then I have the DLCs to tackle.

Took me about forty hours in total to clear the core game, although about a quarter of that was probably just grinding, doing stuff with my Sister and general exploring. It is genuinely one of the best times end to end I’ve had on my Switch. As I’ve already shared here hence the criticism I’ve gotten here, there are lots of games I’ve played on my Switch where I’ve loved parts but really hated others, but with Shield nothing I disliked ever really created a barrier for me from engaging with the parts I did like. This is not me saying it is a perfect game, or even necessarily a masterpiece, but it’s just a great time.

I do agree there are some objective problems and some more subjective ones which I can kinda see in places and others I think are way overblown, but for me this was an enjoyable 8 out of 10 experience, which is probably the highest I’d rate any Switch game I’ve played. I have played other games that delivered greater highs, but they delivered greater lows too, so they balance lower for me.

For Shield, I thought the difficulty curve was really well tuned, maybe the game was a little on the easier side or maybe it’s just because I played the other games as a small child and they’ve always been like this, but to me being on the easier side isn’t a bad thing.

Had a few close battles along the way, I think I lost to Hop once along the way, I lost to Allister the first time and lost to Leon the first time, and a bunch of other Leaders could have probably taken me out if we ran the battles a dozen times.

Admittedly, usually when I lost, in the rematch I completely blew them out, but again, to me, this is just the lesser of two evils. I don’t like when you hit those inevitable walls in a JRPG, where they spike the levels or whatever else, forcing you to fall really far behind and claw your way back. It is a cheap pacing mechanism that adds nothing to my experience. Here, any failure could be overcome with a little grinding and some team shuffling and if anything, those couple of hours spent are almost like a nice break from the sheer momentum of the game.

Like I say, to some they’ll see that as a negative but for me when I am playing a game I just want it to keep moving and here they delivered in that regard. The forty hours felt like five minutes with the game constantly pushing me to new locations, offering me new Pokemon to battle/catch, introducing me to new moves (some of which are awesomely animated, so it is a shame some are basically not animated at all). Sure the story was crap, the villain’s motivations made little sense, the game could be overly handholdy at times and if anything, it may have almost been too fast at points but I’d take it over the opposite of feeling trapped in a zone and forced to grind. Just each session I felt like I achieved something, experienced something new. I never came away feeling defeated and like my time was wasted, and that to me is the mark of a great experience.

@Pizzamorg
I really loved Sword. I hadn't played a Pokemon game all the way through in a looooooong time, though. But I found it pretty much like you: A truly enjoyable romp for 30-40 hours. I'm even in the middle of doing another run of it after a few months away.

I really wanted to like Pokemon Shield, but I got extremely bored with it about ten hours in. The laggy wild areas and horrible raid-style bosses in those areas didn't endear me to it either.

I do want to finish it one day, though, if only so that I can say I did. Also, I hear the DLC is decent.

But either Shining Pearl or Legends: Arceus will be my next Pokemon game. Not sure yet.

@JaxonH Those slip covers look nice. Ebay?

@Ralizah
Etsy.

They have a whole bunch. I asked them if they could make some for Shin Megami Tensei V and Monster Hunter Rise, and they said they’d put it on the to-do list, but it wouldn’t be right away.

Also have another guy who makes manuals who said he’d make on for Monster Hunter Rise, and another who’s going to do Shin Megami Tensei V.

Can’t afford them for every game, but for those special games, ya. Can’t resist. The Metroid one is kinda holographic, too.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1080743224/metroid-dread-metalic...

This thing is also super worth it

https://www.etsy.com/listing/781115096/nintendo-switch-dual-s...

@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.