Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

Not sure about shops, but I looked around online and they were out of stock everywhere I could see (in the UK I mean). You in the UK as well? What physical shops are selling them?

Yeah, picked one up. Worked out to about 285 quid I think with conversation, so cheaper than buying from the UK direct which I think is about 310 quid? I am in Lanzarote, my family live out here.

Well, Game has them in it's online store, at least, @Pizzamorg .... Had a few OLED boxes on the shelf a couple of weeks ago when I was in my local store last & hadn't heard about shortages of it particularly
My parents went on holiday there once but that's about all I know of the place, lol. If it's cheaper to get it there, anyway, that sounds like a great idea

@Pizzamorg
Be sure to put a tempered glass screen protector on. It's glass but it has plastic anti shatter film that can scratch, and fingerprints and dust don't easily wipe off, but oleophobic coating of tempered glass makes it smooth as an ice rink.

Okay good to know! I hate trying to get those screen protectors on, but if it is necessary for the OLED I guess I will try.

@Pizzamorg
These come 4 to a pack and include an alignment frame.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B09B4MJ9H3?psc=1&ref=ppx_p...

Though personally I did it by hand because dust could fall along the crevice of the alignment frame.

Tools Needed

• Scotch tape
• Hot Shower steamed bathroom
• Switch with joycon removed
• Tempered glass

Optional

• Can of compressed air

STEPS
1 Thoroughly clean screen with no streaks or dust.
2 Take into bathroom with hot shower running until mirror is fogged
3 Wash hair at minimum to prevent dandruff
4 Remove shirt
5 Take scotch tape and dab screen all over to remove dust. Check from different angles in the light
6 Take scotch tape and dab tempered glass on both sides before removing the protective film. This removes as much dust as possible from falling onto screen during application.
7 Once screen is 100% clean without a single piece of dust, and you're sure of it, quickly peel protective layer, with sticky side facing down, throw plastic on the floor (no time for being tidy at this juncture, you can clean up later, every second counts because dust is in the air), and apply immediately
8 Run finger along the middle of tempered glass lengthwise, forcing air to top and bottom. Let gravity do the rest.
9 Once air has worked out, press as needed along edges and corners to work out any remaining air.

IF YOU NOTICE A PIECE OF DUST UNDERNEATH AFTER GLASS IS APPLIED, HERE'S WHAT TO DO
1 Get scotch tape pieces ready and hanging off edge of counter
2 Carefully peel up glass from the corner, making sure you don't fracture it or touch the sticky side beneath.
3 Use tape to dab screen dust, and then dab the sticky underside of the glass all over. You never know where new dust may have stuck when removing.
4 Once you're sure screen has no dust, not a single piece, and you've dabbed entire sticky side of glass with tape, re-apply

I Once repeated those steps 4 times with the same glass and eventually got it perfect. Sometimes you mess it up and have to use another, but this method buys you multiple attempts per glass, on average. With 4 included, you should have no problem getting it perfect before running out.

This sounds very daunting, but thank you for the guide! I might not attempt this on Christmas Day as I can see myself getting extremely frustrated, but I’ll sit down a couple of days after to give this a bash.

In terms of the gaming front, I finished the S/S postgame content and the first DLC and I am not sure whether it is just burn out or what (50 hours or so in like just over a week on one game is pretty wild for me, but I am on Holiday with not a lot to do so there we are) but I definitely felt less good about these two things than I did the main game.

Firstly, talking about the postgame S/S, I don’t really understand why this wasn’t just a part of the main campaign? The credits roll after like forty or so hours and then the game tells you it is the end. When you wake up in your bedroom, there is no initial indication there is any more content, so I wonder how many people just turned off the game at this point and then missed on whatI would say is kind of essential content really, given how much of the main game is about the two Legendaries.

I also don’t sorta get the whole thing, if I am being honest. While incredibly goofy characters, I at least understood the motivations of the villains in the post game, I actually couldn’t really tell you what the villain’s motivations were or the mechanics of any of the events or the internal logic ticking away in the core game. I think this narrative could have easily been the main narrative of the title, the muddled environmental message of the main title was simply not needed.

The main problem with the post game for me really though, was just how easy it was, I am not sure why the levels of the bosses/trainers were lower than Leon but it just meant I was overleveled for all of this, steamrolled right the way through it and it felt like it was over in about five minutes. I did manage to capture my Legendary without using the Master Ball and without save scumming, so I was pretty happy with that.

You do also get the battle tower I guess for people who just want to mindlessly battle forever? Or maybe play competitively? But there is nothing really for me here, so I cleared a few levels and left behind this mode entirely.

Then the first DLC is sort of not bad necessarily but does just sort of feel like the barest minimum effort DLC they could have produced. It is basically one big new wild area, but not really new at all, as it is actually a more limited version than the one in the core game I believe. It does have slightly better technical performance, but that is about it. And by that I mean the pop in is still absolutely atrocious, but I didn’t find the game grinding to like 5 fps when online, like you do in the wild area in the core game.

You get a range of new Pokemon (or returning Pokemon) to capture, too but I dunno. There are some terrific designs, which drives that “got to catch them all” core loop, but after going through the entire game and building a core team, I just didn’t have much use for any new Pokemon. The actually unique Pokemon are guaranteed as part of the story, the stuff you catch in the wild was usually worse than what I already had. Plus given the levels in the DLC are lower than the end of the main story campaign in the core campaign and because of new things like friendship levels, most of the time I was just gimping myself by swapping a Pokemon out.

So yeah, if you are looking for any real substance, there isn’t really any here. If you just want more of the same, then it does kinda deliver it, but not really a lot of it and not really a lot of reason comes with it to justify it either. There is about maybe an hour of story content? This is padded out to pretty ludicrous degrees by giving you this Pokemon that you get at like 5 or 10 I think and need to get to level 70 to progress the DLC? Forcing you to go and do Raids for however long it takes to get the Pokemon to the right level. Just not a fun pacing mechanism at all.

The other thing is I couldn’t help but feel while playing this that I was just playing with bits of content either cut from the core game or wasn’t finished in time to be included with the main game and so they just sold it to me separately. Like why on Earth couldn’t Pokemon follow us in the core game? And you face gym leaders in the core game with Gigantimaxed Pokemon, but you can’t do it yourself unless you buy the DLC??? Plus like I say, there are no like new types of Pokemon introduced or like brand new biomes or whatever. You could easily stick this into the core game and it wouldn’t feel like a new experience, just part of the wider one. And I kind of have to assume that is exactly what it was, once.

Oh well, on to Crown Tundra.

@Pizzamorg
It's a bit of a hassle. But 30 min you should have it done. Only gotta do it once, then you're set for years.

I always dread having to do it too, especially as I've owned so many Switches. But... it's gotta be done.

@Pizzamorg Can you give me your opinions on the dlc, I never played it, but I would like to read your opinion.

Wish me luck, haha!

Yeah I’ll check back in when I’m done with Tundra (:

@Pizzamorg I 100% agree with you on the postgame, it really felt off to me too.

As for the first DLC? I really enjoyed it. Storywise there's barely anything there, but as someone who really likes the exploration and collecting aspects of Pokemon I was very pleased. It helped that I had completed the Galar dex at this point, so hunting down all of the new Pokemon was a priority for me. I also quite enjoyed the Diglett hunt and how the island essentially felt like an expanded and more diverse wild area. Maybe a break from the game would help you enjoy the DLC a bit more? That said, if you don't get any enjoyment out of the area itself / the Pokemon, there's probably not much that can be done.

Oh boy, hearing you complain about a game being too easy is a bit eerie! Just how badly did they mess up the balancing in the DLC?

I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re saying, it was certainly a bit more interesting navigating the wild area in the first DLC than it was the wild area in the core game, and like I said, some of the new Pokemon have terrific designs. I just don’t think it offered enough new stuff to justify being a full blown, paid, DLC.

Well what makes it even more baffling is this isn’t DLC, this is just the post game of the core campaign and so I just haven’t a clue why they balanced it in this way.

@Pizzamorg Woops, meant to say post-game, not DLC. But yeah, that's... bad.

I'm like you in that regard. I don't necessarily want hard, but something can only be so easy before it feels kinda pointless. Maybe it gets better throughout the core campaign, but the time I spent with SwSh felt that way to me.

While I do agree it was on the easier side, I had no real issues with the curve of the core campaign. Many JRPGs force grinding as an artificial pacing mechanism, however, I felt like each time I went to a new location with S/S, we were all basically near enough on the same level. As a result, most of my gym leader battles were pretty close and I lost a couple of times. There were a couple I absolutely blew out due to type advantages, however, I kinda hate this whole conversation.

People are so critical of the Rock Paper Scissors foundation of Pokemon, yet so many games use exactly the same system but get praise for it. I think it’s just cool to rag on Pokemon, because it isn’t perceived as being as trendy as some of the other similar games. (That isn’t aimed at you, by the way, just speaking generally). I just like that Pokemon uses a streamlined turn based system still. I am so tired of every turn based JRPG having some kind of added novelty or twist, which just spoils the experience for me. I like traditional turn based gameplay.

I will say there were a couple of times where I was a little under levelled, but the game makes it fairly painless to close small level gaps. However, that is also possibly because I don’t go out of my way to catch every Pokemon and scour every inch of map etc So it might be more me, than the game.

However, I believe Leon’s strongest Pokemon is 66 if memory is serving me well. So why going into the post game is everything level 61 to 63? After beating Leon you have to be around level 70, so you are massively over levelled by this point. And like, I am glad it doesn’t do the opposite of suddenly making everything level 100 or something for the post game, so you have to grind out like 30 levels to engage with it, but they showed in the core campaign they could create a naturally flowing curve, so why did they just abandon that at the end? I guess we’ll never know.

So, I want to try out the new Shantae and the Seven Sirens Definitive Mode changes. The game is sitting on my Switch Phat, ready to be played. The Split Pad Pro attached to the console makes it, for me, objectively the most comfortable way to enjoy games in handheld mode.

Yet I went out of my way to redownload it on my Lite, and am now waiting for the download to finish.

Sometimes I question why I even own a Lite, but, for whatever reason, it really does feel like a different system to me, and some games just feel far more natural when played on it, even compared to the bigger model in handheld mode.

OLED Lite when, Nintendo?

@Pizzamorg Pokemon's combat is actually quite deep once you start looking at skills, natures, etc., which become important in multiplayer. If the games made you engage with their mechanics in the single-player mode and had better xp gain scaling/level balancing, they'd be super satisfying to play.

But there's no real benefit to laying into GF about the way they make the games. They're very Nintendo-like insofar as they tend to do whatever they want, and the games sell well regardless, so the bellyaching online tends to be a bit pointless.

SwSh going on to become one of the best-selling generations in the entire franchise is still the funniest thing ever to me, coming as it did off a months-long hate campaign from multiple Pokemon communities. It really just cements how little online consensus about a thing really matters.

@Ralizah you’re telling me! My sister is into the competitive side of things, so when she starts rattling through natures and the right items to hold, use and moves to sequence to get the most out of a Pokemon I am just like… holy *****! Was Pokemon always this complicated?! She must play next to an Excel Spreadsheet! lol.

But yeah, I don’t really know what the right answer is. I do also prefer a game push you to really engage with the depths of it’s mechanics, but push too much in that direction and I think a lot of the joy of the streamlined Pokemon experience would be lost. It is the same thing with the difficulty, too. If the game was even a little bit harder, there is a chance for frustration to creep in, which I don’t want. Likewise, if I actually had to worry about all the stuff my sister does in her competitive circles just to get through the regular campaign, personally I just don’t think it would be very fun.

And like I say, I think S/S has some objective problems, some subjective ones and some that are blown all out of proportion. I would never try and convince anyone it is a masterpiece or even necessarily a great game by conventional metrics, but it is the only game on my Switch that hasn’t traded soaring highs with infuriating lows. It just exists in this happy place in between and I can get why that disappoints some, especially hardened fans who have been there all the way, but it isn’t a position I have.

@Pizzamorg @Ralizah Personally I think the core gameplay mechanics of Pokemon are the last thing anyone should criticize about the series. While simplistic ("rock paper scissors") on the surface, there's a lot of hidden depth that has kept the competitive scene strong through all of these years. However the single player content within the games is usually easy enough that a casual player could think of the gameplay as "simplistic".

Obviously the gameplay mechanics need to evolve over time to keep things fresh, but I feel like this should be a slow and steady evolution rather than revolution (Pokemon has already had relatively major gameplay changes in Special stat split, weather/terrains, natures and Physical/Special split).

I think anyone who is interested in Pokemon as a concept but has no interest in the core battle mechanics should consider the many Pokemon spin-offs out there.

@Pizzamorg Is just Newer pokemon games suck at showing it.

Preach

@Pizzamorg
I just play Pokemon games on 3DS and Switch casually.
Don't think too much.