Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah
I'm OK with individual games running at higher clock rates if needed. I'd sacrifice up to 25% battery life for specific games to give games a little boost that need it. But overall, I think the priorities were in order. v2 prioritized battery life rather than graphics and I'm glad it did. Now that battery life is where it needs to be, performance can be the next focus.

Ok, I couldn't think of a better place to ask this even though it's only partly Switch related and partly WiiU. Everyone talking about Xenoblade 3 has got me really wanting to play it. The problem is I haven't played 2 yet because I haven't finished X yet. I'm where you have to fight the guy who looks kinda like a tiger and his comrades in the snowy mountain area (I think it's chapter 9). But it's been a really long time (like years) since I've played, and it's hard to get back into it. Plus it's so hard to have to go back to playing on the TV (I know you can play on just the Gamepad, but this game is much better on the TV with the map on the Gamepad). So I guess my question is, is it worth trying to push through and finish X, or should I just give it up and move on to 2 (or even skip 2 and just go to 3)?

AFAIK, X has nothing to do with the rest of the series. I also never finished it and I've never felt much reason to and I played 2 as if X never even happened.

@Xyphon22 You don't need to play XC2 to enjoy and understand XC3, but doing so will enhance your experience with the latter.

But I'll say this: don't allow some notion of an "ideal" play order to keep you from playing the games you want to play. If you really just want to play XC3 and are OK with missing out on some references and callbacks to the previous game, then just play XC3. It'll still be a great time.

So, if you want to play them all anyway, I'd recommend playing XC2 first. But it's certainly not necessary.

XCX can be safely pushed aside until you wish to return to it, because it doesn't seem to connect to anything else in this series. It's its own little thing.

I had a V1 Switch for nearly 3 years and I can tell you right now: you're absolutely spot on. That thing had the 'Battery Low' message pop up more for me in those 3 years than it ever did for my 3DS XL which lasted me over 7. I finally bit the bullet and upgraded to the newer version that came out about a year after my original Switch and good lord, the difference is night and day I swear. I very rarely see that notification unless I consciously let my thing run too low, it's fantastic now. My old one is stuck in a box somewhere in the house now and I never want to look at it again for as long as I live honestly, even if it brought me some great memories of Christmas 2018 and beyond.

@Fizza
We tolerated it because we had no choice at the time. It was better than no hybrid experience at all.

But after the v2 upgrade (and even more so with the OLED), going from 5 hrs minimum at max brightness to 2.5 hrs max brightness is downright criminal. It's what makes Steamdeck so hard to swallow for me. Without steps taken to mitigate battery drain, many bigger games get 80-120 minutes. Like... what good is 60fps and 720p if the system is dead in less than 2 hrs? I have to cap at 30fps on low settings and set a sub-native resolution just to push 3 hrs, and in many games (like Spiderman and Horizon), just to actually hit 2 hrs.

My brother used to come over and play MHGU and Splatoon 2 with me over local wireless, and his Switch would consistently die every single time. Eventually I put together a charge pack with portable battery and USB-C cable in a mesh bag just for when he would visit. Ever since he got the OLED though, we can play all afternoon on a Saturday without issue.

I'm still perfectly fine with my V1 Switch in terms of battery life and screen quality. My pro controllers however are a different story, have to charge them pretty much every day nowadays and it's annoying. Yes, there is a solution (get the Sunbreak or Splatoon 3 pro controller) but it came to mind recently that Nintendo's been very quiet about the XC3 Special Edition so I've returned to holding out hope that a XC3 pro controller is being announced alongside the release date of the special edition.

@Grumblevolcano
If they were releasing a XC3 pro controller it would have already been released, or at the very least announced.

Nintendo isn't being quiet for secrecy's sake. There's just nothing to discuss at the moment. They told us what the deal is, they told us the rest of the CE will ship in September, and they'll send out shipping notifications when that day comes. There's nothing more to really say on the matter.

Pro controller gets 40 hrs easy. I can go 2 weeks before charging. I don't, because I nest it on the charge block when not in use, but there have been times I've tested its battery. If you're charging every day your battery is definitely borked.

@JaxonH For Europe it's different, the preorders go live in September. It felt like a potential way to pad out a XC3 segment of a Direct, "Here's what's coming in wave 2, by the way the Special Edition releases on [insert date] and we're also releasing a pro controller the same day".

My Pro controller, which I have had since day one, finally was unusable. Down kept sticking which was really frustrating for menus and led to a couple of accidental quit games when I wanted to save! My new one came about a week a go and I straight away noticed the d-pad has improved. Much more precise. Well happy with it.

@Grumblevolcano
I see no evidence to suggest that is the case. Seems more a blind guess, without any substantial reasoning to believe so.

They don't need a surprise pro controller to "pad out a direct". They have more than enough content to showcase. They could make a direct 2 hrs long if they wanted, its just a matter of how much information is conveyed. If they don't have enough content to show, they just won't hold a direct. Or they'll announce on Twitter.

Any pro controller would have been announced at the same time as the CE. They're not going to wait until 2 months after the game drops to announce a pro controller, after Splatoon 3 drops with its own pro controller.

@GrailUK
Unfortunately I had issues with my Xenoblade 2 Pro Controller. Can't remember if it was the Left Analog not responding correctly or the Left D-pad, but something was messed up. Would only happen occasionally which made it super aggravating.

Eventually just set it on display and said the heck with it. Now I use a custom pro controller with magnetic Xbox Elite analogs (WAY better than actual Xbox analogs though which don't feel comfy under the thumb- these have a more shallow convex shape that feel amazing).

@JaxonH Oooo! Fancy pants! Hahah

@GrailUK
It's worth the cost to get a Pro Controller with proper analogs. I don't like how rubbery and slippery the default analogs are. It works fine, but by comparison this has so much more grip, and is more comfortable for the thumb.

Also recommend Basstop d-pad modded joycon. Everyone says ExtremeRate is better but I tested both. The Basstop d-pad is waaaaay better. Almost as good as a pivot d-pad, in fact. I can do every move in Ultra Street Fighter II repeatably, barring Zangief's pile driver.

@JaxonH We know that only the game moved to July, everything else remained in September as if the game was never moved forward. It'll be easy enough to get one of the other pro controllers if a XC3 one doesn't happen (Sunbreak one for example is still very much in stock and that released in June) so I'd rather wait to know for certain. As for the Direct segment, sure it is speculation but I'm not sure that the wave 2 contents on their own would be able to fill a headline segment.

@kkslider5552000 @Ralizah Thanks for the replies. I knew that X was kind of its own thing, but I didn't know if there would still be some callbacks or storylines that would make 2 and/or 3 better if I knew them. So I may do what you suggested and just put X kind of on the back burner rather than abandoning it altogether. Maybe when I get into 2 (which I definitely want to play so I won't skip it) I will get into a new flow with the mechanics and stuff and then be able to go back to X later when it might be a little easier. I know the mechanics will be different, but I think there are enough similarities to make X easier to pick up later once I'm used to playing 2 for awhile.

My Pro Controller is fine, aside from the D-Pad being almost unusuably bad, which is, I understand, just a flaw in the design of these controllers.

@Xyphon22 Honestly, I think this game has more references to Xenogears than it does to Xenoblade Chronicles X, lol. But no, the only games directly connected to it are the two previous mainline ones.

Anyone play super mario maker, is it any good, I have looked at YouTube videos, but is it difficult to make levels in it or is the game itself good fun.

@MarioLover92 I will......I also finally joined the land of my son......and bought a Pokemon game. I went with Sword and I'm kinda loving it. It's going to be a gaming winter for me I think......as opposed to the summer where it kinda fell off the radar for a couple months.....

@Xyphon22
Xenoblade Chronicles X still stands as one of my favorite JRPGs of all time. Never has a game offered better exploration imo. It's lighter on story than the main series but still, compared to most games the story was still pretty thick. Just not compared to the main series. And, I thought the story was good, too. Still had those big twists XC is known for.

But it's also the most technical and mechanically deep game I've ever played. Jumping into the series with XCX may well drive a new player to hate it. But if you play it after the main series, you'll understand the combat system well enough to acclimate. It's still different in how healing works and there's skell combat which is another thing to consider (if you crash your skell before abandoning you have to pay to have it repaired, and the cost is steep- so always jump out if you're about to die).

It's so good though.

@Ninfan
It's pretty easy to make levels. Anyone can do it. How much you get out of it will come down to your own desire to create. I was hooked on it back on Wii U and I'm not really a creative person.