Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Kermit1Pineapple @JaxonH
Just my take on it but maybe I'm not being imaginative enough, I don't think the form of devices changes too much beyond what we already have. Basically desktops (or home consoles), laptops, VR headsets, portable consoles/tablets and smartphones

My long term prediction/gut feel about it? I think the only way forward for VR is to split itself away from PCs. I think in the medium term Valve releases a Steam-Deck like stand-alone x84 VR headset, a Quest competitor, that has access to the Steam Store. In the slightly longer term I think the "home console" becomes the cheaper option as they continue to stop pushing the spec as hard in that space with diminishing returns

..... but even in that world power guzzling gaming PCs will continue to be a thing. I think smartphones still largely exist as they do now. I think laptops for work/school still exist as they do now because keyboards are useful and Windows will probably remain the "work" OS. And desktops generally outside of gaming? There will always be room for shaving a bit more time off a render/compile/whatever

I honestly feel like I have hit a bit of a wall with Tactics Ogre, I know it is an older game and isn’t a full remaster, which is probably why it is missing what I would class as basic things for a modern game. I am some 15 to 20 hours in, and still have absolutely no idea what anything does.

You get some really basic tutorials which basically tell you what buttons are and then you are told to go on your way. You have this extensive stat sheet for every character, but have to guess what every stat does, and every change I can make be it class, weapon or gear all significantly guts all of my stats and only improves on a couple and not nearly enough to make up for everything I lose, so why would I change anything? No idea, the game doesn’t tell you.

As a result of this, I can’t tell whether the game is really hard and full of infuriating difficulty spikes, or if my lack of information from the game has meant that I have accidentally built all my characters wrong, but man, I just hit will after wall. And the game also doesn’t autosave after every battle completion, so sometimes I will clear a battle quite comfortably, then get immediately curb stomped on the next one, and because it didn’t autosave I have had to go back and do the mission I cleared, and now I can’t clear it for some reason without losing half of my team.

In fairness to them, losing team members isn’t really a massive deal, you can just buy more soldiers from the shop, but then the game has to come to a standstill while you level those soldiers up from scratch, as for some reason they always start at level 1.

They have also tried to - whether intentionally or not - circumvent some of this tedium with the AI profiles for troops, including the MC, which means you can almost make this like into an auto battler, but I guess to stop you from using the game in this way, the squad AI is absolutely atrocious.

In most missions, there is usually only one or two units you need to kill and then you clear the mission. Beelining for these targets and clearing them as fast as you can is the most efficient way to play, you may get less buff cards, or items or XP, but the shorter a battle goes, the less likely you are to lose any units and have to get back onto the grind treadmill.

But for whatever reason no matter what AI profile you set, and even if the boss unit ends up directly in front of one of your own, they just seem to refuse to engage them until they’ve gone all the way around the edge of the map clearing each and every regular unit first. It is completely maddening. I wish I had way more control over the AI profiles I was able to give to my Units, I think that would solve a lot of my frustration.

what is your favorite Bayonetta 3 weapon?
Color my World
Scarbough Fair
Love is Blue
G-Pilar
Ignis Yoyo Arane
Dead End Express
Simoon
Alruna
Tartarus
Cassiopea
and Cruel Altea
mine is Ignis Yoyo Arane, what is yours?

@skywake
I think their reply was in sarcasm. None of us think VR will ever be anything more than a niche segment of the market (well, aside from at least one person here who thinks it's the future and will dominate everything).

Switch is the final form. Switch 2 will certainly continue the 3-in-1 hybrid form factor. It's the final evolution of video game hardware. There's nowhere else to go. Unless a day comes where some other form of relatively cheap media consumption takes over the market, this is it. Switch is the foundation for the future of Nintendo. From here they just iterate, and add some cool new bells and whistles.

@JaxonH I still think a Switch 2 (or 3) having a camera is somewhat likely.

I really didn't think I was going to like Pokemon Scarlet, and I do still wish they'd carried over certain design choices from PLA, but the game is surprisingly engaging. This is the most fun I've had with a new mainline, dual-release Pokemon game in memory.

I also feel like it's a little less easy to become overleveled. Some of the Titans and Team Star bosses actually put up a decent challenge. Just beat the final Team Star base, and only two of my six Pokemon were still alive at the end.

The tech issues are unfortunate, but this year has totally redeemed the Pokemon franchise for me. And, tbh, I've found that MH Stories 2's unlocked framerate is more distracting than the slowdown in this game.

Geoff Keighley says he ‘hasn’t felt this good about a show in a while’ regarding TGA according to Video Games Chronicle. You know what this means don’t you? KID ICARUS UPRISING COMING TO SWITCH WORLD PREMIERE TRAILER 🤪

@Ralizah
If and when they patch performance I'll give the game a spin. They said they're working on a patch so, I'll hold off for that. I do hear a lot of good things about it.

@Kermit1Pineapple
Maybe, maybe not. But a camera is pretty useless nowadays. It was a novel concept in 2006 before smartphones took over. But now? I don't think anyone cares about a camera on a handheld. 99% of games aren't gonna use it and the ones that do, well... I have yet to play a game that's convinced me a camera is a good idea for gameplay. The AR cards were a neat party trick for 3DS but ya, it's a pretty useless feature almost nobody used.

@FragRed
He says something similar every year. And every year it's a disappointment.

@JaxonH I know, it’s why I deliberately made the post in a sarcastic/cheeky way. It’s always overblown and everyone moans only to then get excited next time.

Does anyone else ever have any issues with the Platinum Coins on their My Nintendo account?

For a while now, the coins will just suddenly drop for no reason, despite not having redeemed anything. Was at 2750 for a bit, now, it's suddenly at 1540 for no apparent reason at all. The most that's just been suddenly shaved off at random now.

@Nahr_Alma Points expire 12 months after you earn them if not used.

@Grumblevolcano I get that, but that would mean that I'd had to get over 1,000 Plat coins 12 months ago in one day, I'm assuming, for that amount to just suddenly vanish like that.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika No worries lol. I'll get them back in no time. It's fairly easier now, since they've got the weekly plat coin rewards with the subscription. I haven't so much been saving them itself, as I've been waiting for other worthwhile things in the Nintendo Rewards list with the keychains, posters, Mario ornament, etc.

@JaxonH A recently released patch apparently improves performance somewhat, but I'm still noticing plenty of slowdown. Maybe the widespread attention being paid to this issue will cause Nintendo to keep some level of pressure on them in this regard.

I'm not too worried about it either way, tbh. Playing it digitally from my internal memory in undocked mode, I can say that the game, for me, is enjoyable as is. Most Switch games with "performance issues" are, I've found.

Personally, if I could only choose to improve one aspect of this game, I'd keep the performance as in and add in voice acting for the cutscenes. There's some emotional cutscenes that would have been much more impactful with voices instead of eerie silence.

Since I’m seeing people asking for things on here, I’m gonna throw a curveball and say when are we going to start seeing 3D sprite based arcade games released? Arcade Archives is good and Capcom are doing a fairly decent job releasing their arcade catalogue but there’s lots of cool 3D sprite games from the 80s and 90s I’d love to see. Okay, that’s my drunken rant over. Carry on as before.

I do wish devs other than Capcom would open the 90’s, 00,s vault on fighting games. I would love to play a soul calibur on switch or virtua fighter. I keep hoping the sega ages will include VF.

@FragRed Geoff Keighly said TGA this year or this year is gonna be amazing,i don't fall for that, TGA just show a bunch of generic AAA games.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika i watch TGA since it beginning, for lastest editions it full of boring games and is dragged on, also i need to cover the event if is boring(for my YouTube Channel).

@JaxonH
Sarcasm or not I think the gaming landscape will end up with two forms of devices in the mainstream. Portable consoles you can dock like the Switch and Steam Deck and standalone VR headsets like the Quest. I think the latter is Valve's next big move and the former is probably a space that Microsoft dips its toes into. No idea where Sony lands, probably stubbornly sticking to the same thing long after the ship has sailed as they usually do

I think the "traditional" home console eventually just becomes a budget option. We're seeing the gap close between portables and home consoles on both price and perceived performance. Portables are increasingly "good enough" and home consoles don't push the spec anywhere near as hard as they used to. But portables have a screen, battery and thermal constraints. Eventually they'll become the premium product

But even in that space desktop PCs still have a reason to exist. There will always be a demand for more and more number crunching power in commercial spaces. They'll continue to convince people with more money than sense to buy into that for gaming. And people such as myself who need a PC or just generally like having a more open platform like a PC? We'll continue to go "oh and lets also throw a decent GPU into it"

VR is an entirely different product, it'll continue to exist. It can't be consumed by the push of this portable/hybrid form because a VR headset is by its nature too bulky to be also a handheld. I think in terms of hardware form factor it overtakes the home console eventually but I don't think it becomes anywhere near being the dominant form

Oh and mobile games, mobile games won't change I don't think