Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Grumblevolcano It's weird. As someone who doesn't really like Ocarina of Time and find 3D Zelda to be vastly more complicated than 2D, I'm still wanting them to come to Switch as well. I was talking about a similar feeling I had with SS HD in how excited I am to get it despite being similar to something I'm not as big a fan of. The world works in mysterious ways I suppose.

Switch Sports is out now, and it's glorious!

I brought my Switch OLED to work today, and played some bowling in tabletop mode. Got my reports to come in my office and play with me. Told em we're having a bowling tournament lol 😆

The night shifter, Paul, couldn't bowl to save his life haha. Idk what he was doing wrong but the ball wouldn't roll. I'd take the controller and show him, here's how to do it, and roll a strike, then he'd goof it up again. Finally he got it though, it was kinda funny.

I love this game. This is an essential own. Spontaneous bowling and golf is just... a necessity.

@JaxonH I never get cool bosses like that. Only gossips and micromanagers . Sigh. Glad y’all had some fun!

Just got 13 Sentinels for the Switch. I already bought and played the game on PS4 previously but I couldn't resist picking it up a second time. Once Kirby and Xenoblade 2 Torna are done will play it.

@Ryu_Niiyama
The bowling special lanes are super fun. The HD rumble they add for the ball release is excellent. I was worried since you don't release the ZR button anymore, that would impact the feel of real bowling, but the rumble actually feels even better.

I can't wait for golf. I hope we get a ton of courses. Even though I know it's probably just going to be the same 3 Wii Sports Club had. Nothing will ever top Wii Sports Club golf. Hitting the ball off the gamepad into the TV was an experience.

Made a start on Brilliant Diamond before bed yesterday. Game doesn't exactly come out of the gates hot. Most of the first hour is clicking through text boxes as the game gives you all the same information and plot set up all of these games do. I appreciate that every new Pokemon game might be someone's first, but can I not have the option to just skip all of this stuff?

Even without that, the start is aggressively hand held in regards to what you can and cannot do or where you can go. The few bits of grass I can go into seem to have only have Bidoof in and I get this is all per the course, it is how every Pokemon game starts, but I dunno, even though I didn't love Arceus, going from Arceus to this just makes it feel extra rough. I am sure once I can start properly going on my journey and playing the game at my own pace, this will be less of an issue but I was too tired to push through the tedium of the tutorial section in one sitting last night.

I will also say, while I didn't like Arceus' battle system, I hadn't realised how much I just had gotten used to the pace of Arceus battles. Like BD just feels so slow by comparison. My Piplup still needs to land about five hits to take down a Bidoof like 6 levels lower than him. I'm not sure I ever used more than like 3 hits in the entire of Arceus in a battle, and the number of times it was more like two hits, would be in single digits.

https://www.play-asia.com/are-you-smarter-than-a-5th-grader/1...
Due to 23 August 2022

@Pizzamorg Could be worse. This could be the original versions which were so poorly optimised it took a decade for HP bars to deplete and EXP bars to go up, plus the surf speed was the same as walking, not running, and the game would also have extra long save times if you did anything involving a PC.

So if you think BDSP is slow, it's never been faster my friend 🤣

@Pizzamorg The game is aggressively handheld in design because they barely improved it over the original release of D/P. Playing it on a TV feels like a bad joke.

I'm willing to make some concessions for the the upcoming generation of games, but if random battles don't retain the snappiness of encounters in PLA, I probably won't bother. The idea of going back to battle screen transitions is already depressing to me.

@Anti-Matter Where's my boy, Jeff Foxworthy

@Kermit1
I'm okay with new host of Are You Smarter than 5th grader.

@Anti-Matter Ya, he looks not that bad (I might even get the game)

My brother came over today and we played 3 games together.

Splatoon 2 was first on the list. And we dominated in Salmon Run. Got my rank back up to Profeshional 90/99, and hit both Superbonuses. Then played some Turf Wars and leveled up some gear. What a fun time!

Switch Sports served as a quick interlude for some bowling and tennis. And it was so good! Nothing like some good old fashioned Wii Sports games. My brother loves the tennis so much. Even more than bowling. And I have to admit, once I played for a while I started really enjoying it. It's super fun.

Zombie Army 4 was the last game we played, and we pushed through several chapters in the 2nd main mission. It was a blast. The difficulty on Medium was just right. Hard enough we had to really try, but not so hard it was frustrating. Got some good level ups and upgrade packs, opened a new Perk slot where I get a second wind if I kill an enemy within a certain timespan after dying, and we were just toasting those zombies left and right. Oh my gosh, this game is pure gold. He already beat the game on PC, but bought it again on Switch. He's been telling me to play this game forever. Now I see why. It's so good in co-op. It's great single player too, but the online and local co-op, and additional horde mode, make for some truly fun gameplay together.

Excellent Saturday.

Honestly, once I got through that stodgy opening portion, I have been enjoying BD a lot more. I think I am around 5ish hours in now? That went by in a breeze, whereas the first 45 or so minutes felt like a lifetime.

We can remark at how basic and unchanging Pokemon games are, but there is just a real addictive nature to this well worn loop for me. I didn't like Arceus aimless catchathon loop, but this classic style of travelling town to town, beating trainers, collecting badges and building teams of Pokemon is just inherently satisfying to me. Sure, Pokemon may be a little too on the rails at times, however, I appreciate I am always progressing, always discovering new things, no gaming time feels wasted.

The one thing I will say is the first chunk of the game is surprisingly hard. The area offers a small, weak, selection of Pokemon who use predominantly normal type moves. Normal type moves do naff all damage in this game, for some reason, and then do even less than naff all given how aggressively you get debuffed in every battle. If you picked Chimchar, I genuinely have no idea how you would beat that first gym leader, that third Pokemon is just an absolute monster. (Unless you went in with like a team of six Zubats and just spammed absorb). Even grinding is weirdly not much of an option here, the XP offerings are so measly and I was at a point where I had defeated all the trainers and was far beyond the levels of the Pokemon in the grass around me.

Thankfully, I beat them (on my third go, lol!), and the game has opened up a lot since then. I am seeing far more variety in the wild Pokemon, and as my existing Pokemon level up, I am seeing far more type moves that at least help to speed things along. Very much finding myself going, I'll just get to the next Pokemon Centre and then I will save, come off and do some chores... then an hour passes and 'well maybe I'll just beat this trainer...' and so on.

@Pizzamorg Good to hear the game is starting to work for you. BDSP gets a bad rap but Sinnoh is still IMO one of the best adventures in the series...it just happens that BDSP is very closely based on the worst version of this adventure (the original Diamond and Pearl) with very still extra... But still a lot to enjoy there.

I agree about the game being handholdy but...that's just the Pokemon series at this point, unfortunately, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. It's especially disappointing having played Red and Blue, then Fire Red and Leaf Green, and then Pokemon Let's Go...to gradually remove player agency from what is the same game at its core.

mClassic is on sale for $80 (MSRP $100).

I have one and do recommend it for Switch. This, combined with increasing your TV's Sharpening to about 75% of max, makes Switch games look a ton better while docked.

Oftentimes people will complain about how bad a game looks docked, and I'm like, huh? It doesn't look that bad to me? And I think this is why

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07X6KDQ98/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&...

@Pizzamorg Anyone that picked Chimchar would grind until it evolves into Monferno at level 14. It'll immediately learn Mach Punch. Roark becomes a breeze after that!

@JaxonH Yeah, I've enjoyed mine significantly. It depends on the game of course (Persona 5 strikers & any main series Pokemon game see drastic improvements, games that already have some form of antialiasing not so much), but I definitely think it's helped give the system a bit more of an edge in looks against the PS4/XB1 versions of games.

@Pizzamorg Re: Normal type moves, Be glad you're not playing the original. Tackle was buffed significantly starting with Gen V, it used to do even less damage. I will say, as someone who's played through with Chimchar, status moves are your friend for Roark's fight.

@link3710
It’s not a drastic improvement, but it is a small improvement. Likewise, increasing sharpening on the TV for the input used for Switch is also a small improvement. But when paired together it makes for enough of a change that it’s pretty noticeable.

Oh yeah I forgot Chimchar had fighting moves.

By the way, I have beaten the second gym leader now too. Weird the game suggests using fire types against them, given I don't think I've seen any other than the starter I didn't chose. Thankfully some random old man gave me Jirachi (I guess because I played Pokémon Shield?) And that thing is resistant to grass type moves and confusion is super effective against some grass type Pokémon. It basically carried me through the fight. I think without it I would have struggled a lot more.

Funnily enough for the second time Zubat woukd have really come clutch here again as poison fang is super effective. Maybe Zubat will be the key to all gym leaders.