Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@JaxonH That XC3 CE box is sick.

Oh nice, you got the Taiko drum. I haven't used mine in a good while, but I can confirm it indeed works well for the game.

From my experience, how difficult it is to drum on it is contingent on how you hold the bachi. My immediate inclination was to grip them in my palms, but this keeps you from swinging them quickly. It's best to hold them somewhat loosely and away from your palms, which gives them some room to bounce and allows you to drum them in quick succession.

@JaxonH I'll see if that's doable in my budget lol.

I just bought the OLED, me and my dad forgot to bring bags so while we got supper in Wal-Mart... I got some odd looks holding the OLED like a baby with the warranty paper.

Me:

@Kermit1
It's like $7.44 for a 4 pack. But totally worth it to protect your purchase. That OLED screen has an anti-shatter film on it that's extremely prone to scratching, and fingerprints don't easily wipe off. Good tempered glass with oleophobic coating solves both those issues.

https://www.amazon.com/Tempered-Protector-Designed-Alignment-...

@JaxonH I put them in my cart. In Canada there on sale.

@Kermit1
Good call. You'll be glad you did.

Once that glass is on the screen you can breathe a sigh of relief. You can scrape with keys, drop in dock as rough as you want, do whatever, without worrying about the screen being damaged.

@NeonPizza
Yes. And aside from the whole 120fps thing you mentioned, I basically agree 100%

I've never liked R&C. Every time I play one it's the same thing- gorgeous visuals and cutscenes... boring gameplay. No gyro just makes it even worse. I'm not sure gyro would fix the fact it's just not that fun, but it would at least make it tolerable.

It feels like how Ubisoft approaches AAA games. "Just follow this recipe" banking on high production values and spectacle to sell it. But the core gameplay loop is as dull as they come.

They've never made good platformers imo. The best one I've played from them is Tearaway, and even that was alarmingly mediocre. But at least it was creative.

edit
I take that back- that Astro pack-in game for PS5 was actually good. Mechanics were a little too shallow for my taste (Mario has all kinds of cool mechanics- mid air stomps, rolls, long jumps, etc, which makes it fun to just move around). But the variety in gameplay- bow and arrow with gyro, spring machine using gyro tilt, etc... Definitely a game worth playing.

@NeonPizza I kinda wish games wouldn't throw 3 cut-scenes at you at a time, it breaks the "vibe", one second your beating up robots and jumping the next second you get a cut-scene for something that could have just been text.

idk I'm not everyone and 100% not all of the youngins, so I have no clue if tons of people like that gameplay.

@Kermit1
I hate when cutscenes are blended into gameplay, taking away control from the player suddenly. It makes for a more "cinematic" experience but at the extremely high price of diminishing the gameplay experience.

I don't mind cutscenes when done right- a good balance for the game's respective genre. Platformers are not the kind of game I want a bunch of cutscenes in. JRPGs on the other hand- back up the truck and load em up (just so long as they're not seamlessly integrated with gameplay to where it takes control away when you expect to be able to control the character- few things in video games frustrate me more than that).

Certain fanbases like cinematics more than others. Because Sony makes all their games cinematic, their fans accept it and then want all games to be that way. Which is why Final Fantasy VII Remake had cutscenes constantly interwoven with gameplay so that you'd be controlling the character one moment, and the next they're not responding to inputs. Because the seemless transition makes it "more cinematic". And that doesn't seem to bother them- as long as the camera is zoomed in super close to his sword so they can see every detail and crevice, they're happy. Same reason Monster Hunter World did the same behind the back close up shots. Despite it being absolutely atrocious from a gameplay perspective.

For others who value gameplay first and foremost, it's an irritating trend spreading to more and more games which want to please the large PS market.

@JaxonH
I like Ratchet & Clank games after I played the PS3 version. I have All the games on PS3, PS4, some of them on PS2 & PSP. Will get the PS5 version.
Before that I have no interest at all with Ratchet & Clank games.
Also, the games are still fine to play even without Gyro option because not every games have to be designed with Gyro option.

@Anti-Matter
Not every game needs to be designed with gyro. But every game with aiming as a core mechanic without lock-on definitely needs to be designed with gyro, otherwise the rigid, archaic aiming risks putting off players, more and more of whom are realizing how dated and insufficient right analog stick alone is.

@Eagly That cut-scene needs to have unicorns in space shooting lightning singing I Saw The Light while yoga instructor jugglers juggle flaming cannon balls to be cool.

@Eagly... 24 Hour Cinderella, best cut-scene ever.

@Eagly your right it is.

I'm not against cool cutsenes- on the contrary, I love cool cutscenes. But it's a matter of what type of experience you're looking for. I love movies too, but when I play a platformer, I'm not looking for a movie experience, I'm looking for an interactive skill based platforming experience. A few quick ones thrown in here and there is fine, of course. In an RPG I'm looking for more story as thats a crucial element of the genre, so I expect more cutscenes

But it's also a problem when it interferes with gameplay by taking control away during a gameplay segment where you want and expect control. When a game repeatedly makes inputs stop responding but doesn't make a clear visual cue for the cutscene transition, the result is frustration. But many devs seem to want to use this back and forth technique to weave cinematics all throughout the interactive gameplay, instead of sectioning them off as separate. Instead of gameplay > cutscene with a clear distinction between, they do gameplay > cutscene you don't realize is a cutscene so you wonder why your inputs aren't working anymore > frustration.

So ya. It's more of, "in the right dosage and done in the right way" kind of thing.

@NeonPizza
There's a large market for high production value realism, or what I like to call, "Hollywood games". Titles that try to present as a big, box office blockbuster. Which, there's nothing wrong with that, but... it's not my style. Not that I'm against it, I just find it adds little to the overall entertainment value. At the end of the day, how much fun I have and how engrossed I am has nothing to do with realism or budget (provided it meets a base level of modern expectations like being HD and having nice aesthetic appeal), but rather how fun it is to play.

But the hard truth is, graphics and realism and the "Hollywood approach" sells. There's a large contingent of gamers who value that above gameplay. Or at least, value it so much that they're not interested in any game, no matter how fun, if it doesn't fit the Hollywood format.

That's just what it is. And that's fine by me. It can be both a good thing and a bad thing. Good because it drives developers to make games that look more aesthetically pleasing, more polished, and that's always a plus. Bad because it drives developers to prioritize cinematics at the expense of gameplay.

@Eagly
The cutscenes in that game didn't bother me either, as far as I remember.

@StarPoint i aware of this.

@NeonPizza Based on how important very high framerates and gyro are to you, I'm surprised you didn't wait for the PC port and let the PS5 pretty much be a PSVR2 machine. Sony's shown their strategy regarding PC ports so we can pretty much be certain that these games will come to PC:

• The Last of Us Part 2
• Ghost of Tsushima
• Demon's Souls
• Returnal
• Ratchet & Clank Rift Apart
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Gran Turismo 7
• God of War Ragnarok
• Spider-Man 2
• Wolverine

I don't mind cutscenes. XC3 was my favorite game this year, and it sometimes hit you with hours of cutscenes at a time.

The crucial thing, though, is that, during the game bits, you got to play the game, and during the story bits, you got to watch the cutscenes. They, by and large, didn't neuter the level design and gameplay flow to allow the interactive bits to flow seamlessly into the story bits. And while your characters chatter perhaps a bit too much, it doesn't randomly slow the characters down to a crawl to accommodate this.

When it comes to Sony, their products largely fit into a certain cookie cutter mold. Their high production value products that never seem to stray away from action-adventure gameplay with crafting and light rpg elements are basically the video game equivalent of Marvel blockbusters: crowd-pleasers that stick with a certain format and avoid any risks or controversial game design choices. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, and I understand why people like their games so much, but it really taps into everything I don't want the medium to become.

Something, frankly, it would have already fully become if it wasn't for the continued disruptive influence of the Japanese side of the industry. American games are already going the way of American films, with the few large producers of high profile games consolidating into fewer and fewer mega-brands that pump out safe, overly corporate crowd pleasers, which is where all the money goes, with creativity only coming from the independent, zero-budget sector.

@Link-Hero I feel that Rift Apart is one of the more unique 1st party Playstation games recently along with Astro's Playroom, Sackboy and Returnal. If I had a PS5, those 4 would definitely be the first ones I'd play.

I will say though, I'd much rather have the 3rd person action/adventure single player games set in an open world approach that is very prominent at the moment with Playstation 1st party than the "live service" future Jim Ryan keeps talking about.

@Link-Hero
It's not trashing their effort. I know full well alot of effort goes into these things. I just don't like it. And one must discern the difference between attacking the creator and their effort, and simply stating "the end result doesn't work for me".

Whatever they're trying to go for, good for them, but I don't find it entertaining. I already acknowledged the big budget production values and high grade voice actors and all that, but at the end of the day those things don't compensate for boring gameplay, and I find the gameplay quite dull. It's not fun to move around, it doesn't feel rewarding to shoot. I know that's somewhat arbitrary and intangible, but it is what it is. Some games feel fun to move around in and perform attacks... others don't.