Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah Hm... that's a tough question. Mega Man 3, Final Fight, and Ducktales by Capcom in Q4 1990?

@Ralizah Blue Dragon, Halo 3, Project Gotham Racing 4 and Mass Effect by Microsoft from August 28th 2007 - November 20th 2007 comes to mind. Sure Mass Effect became multiplatform later on but the same will happen to Triangle Strategy (you can pretty much guarantee that's going to PC around March 2023 and perhaps even Xbox given Octopath).

@mjharper

No worries there. Nintendo will most likely broadcast a Direct in June, as per usual.

@Grumblevolcano Fair enough. That's a LOT of good exclusives in three months!

Makes me nostalgic for the days Microsoft was actually a really strong competitor with top-notch exclusives.

And yeah, Triangle Strategy is 100% going to PC in a year or so. It'll be nice to have a 60fps option.

@link3710 Mega Man 3 and Ducktales are both pretty good, yeah.

While it's a longer space of time, Capcom had a pretty good five-month run last year with Monster Hunter Rise, Monster Hunter Stories 2, Resident Evil Village, and The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles.

@Ralizah
Mid April to Mid July will see:

• Nintendo Switch Sports
• Mario Strikers
• Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes
• Live A Live
• Advance Wars (would have been anyways)
• Splatoon 3 (maybe)

And to sweeten the pot we get House of the Dead Remake and Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak in that 3 month window also.

@JaxonH I'm guessing Splatoon 3 will be the major release in August, and AW is kicked back to late 2022 if we're lucky.

Which means April, May, and most of June will be a nice breather period before the next onslaught of games starting in late June.

Which is good, because, honestly, I have so many games to play as is.

Gamecube launch had Luigi's Mansion and Pikmin and then Smash Melee weeks later. But considering they had two systems, Nintendo did put out Animal Crossing in September, Metroid Prime and Fusion at the same time in November, and then Kirby Nightmare in Dreamland. Though this makes the Gamecube launch even crazier, with Advance Wars and Golden Sun on the GBA. And IIRC, those games' sequels came out around the same time as Warioware and slightly after Wind Waker.

Admittedly the closest non-Nintendo example I have is the original Xbox launch (Halo/Project Gotham Racing/Munch's Oddysee).

Started Banjo-Kazooie and completed the first world. First time ever playing this.

Why on Earth do you see the game over screen when you save and quit? Seems like a thoroughly bizarre design choice.

@kkslider5552000 Really strong launch lineup for the GameCube.

@Ralizah Probably so players wouldn't have to waste time losing all lives to watch the scene. They did put quite some work into it.

@BrazillianCara It's an easy way to confuse players, though, and seems to imply that there is something wrong with saving and quitting through the menu.

Not the end of the world, but... eh. I don't get it.

I think the joke is that if you quit, so did Banjo and Kazooie, so its the same as if they ran out of lives.

@BenjyK Well, it's not our for another 3 months so who knows? It's an NLG game though, not Camelot, so it's almost certain to have more content.

@BenjyK
They haven't really shown anything for Strikers beyond the initial reveal trailer, so nobody knows.

But as far as Tennis and Golf, I loved both of them, regardless of what "reviews" had to say. Not to mention both games got a slew of content added via updates. Mario Golf has roughly double the number of courses it had at launch. I can't remember the Tennis updates but I know it got quite a bit of added content, modes, etc. I think they're great Mario sports games. I do think the motion control aspect was a bit overlooked, which is unfortunate, but even so, both Golf and Tennis have extremely solid gameplay with plenty of content.

The good news keeps coming.

Not only has 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim previews dropped saying it's an excellent conversion, we now have multiple reports of LEGO Star Wars on Switch saying it's also a quality release, with video footage of some sections to back it up. Claims suggest a good framerate and 720p, great in handheld mode.

And, new footage of MLB The Show has dropped which shows a pretty drastic improvement yet again, and definitely above the threshold to where I feel comfortable reinstating my order.

It's nice seeing multiple Switch releases from 3rd parties back to back in a competent state.

edit
The gameplay for LEGO Star Wars looks sooo much better than the LEGO games of old. Who would've ever thought a LEGO game would be a legit contender for one of the most hyped releases of the year?

Honestly, in general, this has been one of the strongest starts to the gaming calendar that I can recall in years. Even if you may not like some of the games that have come out, on a sheer banger to banger to ratio, it is something else.

It looks like the middle might be a little dry, but the last few months are also looking insanely stacked too, for Nintendo and elsewhere. Should enough of these games land, this surely will have to go down as one of the greatest years in gaming, ever.

I guess this is the result of companies all catching up with their Covid delays finally, so we’re getting like three years worth of releases all in one year. I wonder if this means we’ll get a quiet few years after this as companies finally get to move onto new projects.

Oh my god, the second world of Banjo-Kazooie is AWFUL. So massive and poorly designed. And the sound design actually hurts to listen to.

Really close to dropping this.

@Pizzamorg Yep. Horizon Forbidden West, Elden Ring, PLA, Triangle Strategy, and Kirby in the first three months of the year is pretty insane. I guess I should probably mention Gran Turismo as well, even if it doesn't personally appeal to me at all.

@Ralizah
And I was wondering for some peoples keep defending some of N64 games when some of N64 games were aged badly and looked too outdated to be played again. PS1 games are the most ancient retro games that I still pick in this 2020's era as they have better games choice than N64 games in my opinion. My new standard for the most Retro games I will collect are started from 2000's era (6th gen consoles).

@Anti-Matter I still like some of the N64's games, but the tiny library and laser focus on 3D games definitely made it age worse than the PS1's library overall.

I got past the second world, so we'll see if B-K improves. I'm really trying to give it a chance.

With that said, despite the system's reputation for 3D platformers, I'm inclined to say that the Spyro trilogy on PS1 trumps everything I've played in a similar vein on N64 to date.

@Ralizah which world is that?

I've tried to pick up Banjo-Kazooie multiple times in the past few years and, while some stages (including the first) are fantastic, there are a few too many tedious stages that put me off the whole experience :/

@Buizel "Treasure Trove Cove"

It's a giant, tedious island level with music notes scattered seemingly randomly throughout the level. Seriously, there's no rhyme or reason to item distribution here.

The way people talk about it, you'd think this game was some masterpiece of 3D platformer game design.

We'll see. First world was fine. Maybe it gets better from here?