Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah this is the issue I had the first few months with the OLED... Suddenly my TV wasn't good enough! Optimising the saturation and contrast has helped to a point, but I'm still waiting for the day that I have a spare £1000 for an OLED TV...

Wait, so the OLED version of the Switch makes your non-OLED TV look worse than if you used the old non-OLED Switch? Glad I didn't bother then. I'm not gonna buy a new 4K TV just for Nintendo. My 4K TV wasn't even bought; my Singapore ISP provided it for free when I upgraded my Internet subscription contract.

@Maxenmus, I'm assuming playing on TV is the same no matter whether you're using a normal or OLED Switch, it's just that the OLED screen looks so good they don't want to go back to playing on an LCD screen (Playing docked on a normal Switch would look just as bad to them now).

@RR529 Ah, right. lol My mistake. That makes more sense, an LCD TV screen.

It's hard for me to invest in an OLED because I usually play my Switch on dock, and my 4K TV already looks good enough playing the Switch with no visible issues.

I was a bit annoyed at first though that the retailer who sold me the Switch told me it's the latest Switch model when I bought it, only to have the OLED model released a few months later. I went back and complained but he gave me a line about how there's very little difference or something. I can't remember what exactly it was he said. I think he was just trying to cover his butt for the screw up he made. Not that I could refund anyway because of misinformation like this.

Let it go bud. It's not the retailer's responsibility to give you advance notice of hardware yet to be released.

@gcunit True, but lying is lying IMO. I asked, "Is this the latest Switch model? No other Switch models would come out anytime soon, right?" And he said "Yes." I'm not savvy with gaming news, so I asked. Maybe I should've done my research, but he should've just said "I don't know" if he didn't know. I would've bought the Switch anyway. It's either that he didn't know about the OLED model and gave me bad advice, or he did know and lied about the existence of upcoming Switch models and tricked me into buying an older one because he wanted to make a sale.

Furthermore, while I said earlier that the OLED model came out "a few months later," I might've been mistaken and it might've been even sooner after I bought my Switch, like a month or less later, which was why I felt like I got tricked. Unless you're telling me Nintendo kept the OLED model secret a month or two prior to its release.

Also, it might not be his responsibility to give advanced notice of upcoming consoles... but he sure loves to act like it is his job description anyway. He would usually tell his customers about upcoming models even if we never asked, acting like he knows his gaming. Apparently not... I mean, I guess that's what salespeople are supposed to do, influencing you to come back and buy more upcoming consoles and games, even if some of their pitches are based on false information.

@Buizel @gcunit This sort of thing is why I'm not in a rush to adopt 4K yet (aside from the fact that it would also mean upgrading my GPU, buying a new TV, and just spending a lot of money that I don't have). 1080p still looks fine to me.

@Maxenmus I just mean that the vibrant OLED screen makes my LCD monitor look washed out by comparison. It's less noticeable with some games, but games with a lot of blacks and vibrant colors benefit tremendously from the new screen technology.

@Ralizah Ah, gotcha.

To be honest, I'm one of those technology-illiterate folks who couldn't really tell the difference between a LCD TV or an OLED one. When I first learned about the OLED Switch, I had no clue what they're talking about. I still don't on some level. lol I'm a simple guy. As long as a TV screen is big and doesn't have obvious distortions, I'm happy with it. That's why I bought my 27 inch iMac in the first place (before I realized it couldn't run next-gen games).

Retail employees don’t have the inside scoop people think they do. Information is filtered from management and possibly internal memos or changes to the POS system. Usually however that happens after an official announcement is made. You honestly find out more being a nerd about it and looking up rumors. I used to have to sneak apple keynotes at work because nobody told us what to expect. That was forbidden by the way.

OLED was announced June 2021 I think. If the system was bought before then the sales rep would not have known. And worse case at the end of they day they need to move stock. If that is all they have on hand and no major announcement has been made nobody is going to tell a potential customer to wait (unless the new system could be preordered). I doubt the rep lied unless it was after the initial OLED announcement.

Source: Me, former Gamestop Assistant Manager and former Applecare Tier 2 rep.

Oh yeah. He lied big time. Thanks for confirming this. I bought the Switch on September 9th, 2021. I had to look up my bank statements to confirm.

To be clear, it's no big deal, really. It's not like I held a grudge against him or anyone working retail. I just don't like being cheated with unethical practices, and I'll call them out. But it's not like I was trying to make a big fuss out of this. I was merely casually mentioning the incident that happened to me in the beginning.

@Maxenmus oh. Ok I will give you that one because Nintendo was pushing hard that the OLED would come out same day as Metroid. So I guess the rep wanted the sale? I would have just gotten you to preorder the OLED.

That's one reason I don't like Singapore retails. I'm not saying America is a perfect country, but GameStop employees have a reputation for integrity. I've heard stories of them refunding customers their money if they found the game to be bad, or informing customers on the quality or even ESRB ratings of a game even if it meant they'd lose a sale. I'm sure there are GameStop employees out there who push a sale out, but I don't know, I never felt the same customer experience of trustworthiness and professionalism in Singapore gaming shops as some of the GameStop customer experiences I've heard. Most Singaporean employees these days feel like one of those teenagers you see in movies, just leisurely using their phone in the middle of work. I've worked retail before, and I get that it's boring and tedious, but even I wouldn't be caught dead pulling out my phone when there's a customer I need to devote my attention to (unless there's an emergency call, of course, but these kids were acting like they were browsing YouTube or something on their phone). I take my job seriously. Kids these days just aren't familiar with the concept of "customer service" anymore.

Also, another thing I found annoying is that, unlike GameStop, many pre-orders of AAA games could only be done through Amazon if you live in Singapore, because we sure don't provide the special service of stockpiling pre-orders for every AAA games, especially if they're not even AAA to begin with but a more niched video game like Digimon Survive. I'm not saying America has everything you could find as a gamer... but it kinda does have everything. Singapore, man. It's a small country.

But anyway, I don't want to derail this thread any further.

Just finished the Near Future chapter of Live A Live and holy *****, despite this having full dialogue, I was just as lost as I was during Prehistory. Was this all meant to be a dream? Is that why it's so incoherent and hard to follow? Like at times it's so bonkers you can't help but love it but I didn't have a clue what was going on for most of this.

I wiill say I liked it’s almost tokusatsu style trappings and the interesting way it builds upon the shared battle system across the chapters. However, I am still just thinking with each new chapter how much better Imperial China was.

They already realised the perfect formula for this game to me within that chapter, so I am just baffled by why they don’t seem to be able to repeat it or maybe just refuse to repeat it. Much like with Prehistory, this is bloated by so many meaningless random battles that Imperial China never had. It feels like it takes forever for the story to get going despite it only being a couple of hours long. And while it does serve the story, there is this whole mind reading mechanic that barely serves any purpose in the actual gameplay.

Had they just taken your traditional episode of a tokusatsu show and realised it as a grid based JRPG for the Near Future chapter, basically how they did with Imperial China and traditional kung fu movies, I just think this would have been so much better than whatever it actually is in practice.

Also, it wouldn’t be a post by me if I didn’t talk about difficulty, I was kinda nervous this would be a brutally hard grindfest being it is a JRPG from the early 90s, however, for the most part it has been fine. No clue if they adjusted this for a modern audience or whatever. There were a few moments where I needed a good few tries and some luck to overcome a boss or whatever, but I was never stuck long enough for it to feel like it spoiled my experience.

However, the Near Future chapter includes a boss about half way through and I just genuinely have no idea how you beat it through conventional means. It can two shot your whole party, and hit all of your party at once and is an insane bullet sponge to boot, with seemingly no vulnerabilities to any of your moves. Before all this, I actually took the time to explore, which meant loads of extra random battles (incredibly tedious random battles), so I assumed by this point I would have been slightly overleveled. But I guess not? This made me feel like I was a level one fighting a level one hundred. Luckily online I found a cheese for this, but I was kinda disappointed this was necessary and without Google I guess I would have just never finished this chapter.

I've had a thought for the last while that I've never really been ok with thinking in regards to Switch news as of late but, with the radio silence on MK8D's DLC, I feel like I have to say it at this point: it's been a rough year for news on the games I'm really excited for.

I have absolutely nothing against people who have been extremely excited for games like Xenoblade 3, Mario Strikers, FE Three Hopes and whatnot: you guys have been waiting for those games for ages and you absolutely deserve the amount of hype the trailers for them brought about. That being said however, there are three games that I am most excited for this year (well technically 2 and a half but still): Splatoon 3, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe's Booster Course Pass. Between ALL of those games, we've gotten a grand total of 7 trailers: 4 for Splatoon, 2 for Pokemon and only 1 for Mario Kart (being the bloody reveal trailer no less). Compare this to a game like Xenoblade 3 which has gotten not only 4 trailers alone (the same amount as Splatoon) but has also had a 20-minute Direct dedicated solely to it. Once again, I have nothing against Xenoblade fans whatsoever (I'd even love to try the series at some point!) but when everything else has been pretty much pushed to the wayside for it, I definitely feel a bit jealous. Maybe we'll get the next wave of MK DLC next week or a Splatoon 3 Direct in August or even a Pokemon trailer tomorrow, I don't know. But hopefully these games get the spotlight they deserve because goddamnit, despite all the silence surrounding them, I'm still so monumentally excited for each and every one of them.

EDIT: Literally as I was about to post this, the madlads did it.

second wave of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will be avalible on august 4th and check out the gameplay and music of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe new courses

@Fizza I think Nintendo may have asked TPC to put Scarlet/Violet promo on hold until XC3 is out, sure they're very different but on a very base level they're both JRPGs that have been marketed as open world. Splatoon 3 is for sure a Direct of its own in August and wave 2 has finally been revealed. I'd guess the ice cream track is why it's taken so long to announce wave 2 given the Mii costume teaser for the next tour looks like ice cream:

(0:29 in the trailer)

@Grumblevolcano i think theres also a possibilty Nintendo will do a Nintendo Direct dedicated for Bayonetta 3, just like they did with Bayonetta 2

I'm considering double dipping on MK8 Deluxe (as in getting digital as I got physical at launch) so that I don't need to take the XC3 cart out of the Switch to play wave 2 (judging by XC2, I'd imagine XC3 will take me about a month to complete).

The Japan site for wave 2 confirms that MK8 Deluxe is the game for August's NSO icons:

• Week 1 - Golden Dash Cup
• Week 2 - Lucky Cat Cup
• Week 3 - Turnip Cup
• Week 4 - Propeller Cup
• Week 5 - Bell Cup

So the final week will be the 2nd time a F-Zero related profile icon will be available (Big Blue).

Does anybody find the "left-stick button" weird to use. I'm scared to use it because I don't want the stick to get loose. I'm playing Skyward Sword and you click in the stick to do I think roll and I'm scared to press it in to much.