Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@NintendoByNature I think once the gold pass is fully released and on sale, I'll dive into it. I definitely have my eye on the game but my backlog is already a bit too much for me right now.

@StarPoint it's definitely worth your time. It wasn't all too long either with some side quests. I think I put about 30 or 32 hrs in. Since we're so close to FE engage though, might be best to wait a bit. Of course, that's assuming you plan on getting FE engage.

@Buizel multiple screens for the Switch sucessor could be the next step for the hybrid concept of Switch, but can Nintendo translate well this concept to it audience? Switch sucessor could be Wii U 2.0

@NintendoByNature Yeah I’m planning on picking up Engage, which is probably gonna be a pretty big RPG timesink for me. I’ll pick up Sparks of Hope whenever there’s a relative break in releases next year.

@StarPoint sweet deal! I'm sure by the time spring rolls around you'll be able to get sparks of hope for close to $20.

Sonic Frontiers and P5R have gone 50% off on sale a few times now on Switch.

Even Bayo 3 was close to $40 at one point.

If you want to save money, probably best not to buy games immediately before the EOY BF+Christmas shopping season, lol.

Man, I can't wait for official confirmation that Oath in Felghana is heading overseas. The game is fantastic. Very much Falcom's Super Metroid/Symphony of the Night/A Link to the Past/etc. in terms of pacing and density of content overall.

Fire Emblem Engage is looking so good!

@JaxonH They had me at map creator.I'm bad at it myself but look forward to what others create.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Right!

I'm not much of a creator either, but I love Fire Emblem and would totally be down for throwing together a map or two. Definitely brings value through others sharing maps though. Gonna be so much good user content. Like Trials Rising, some absolute mind boggling courses designed by hard-core fans. You already know Fire Emblem is gonna be chock to the hilt from diehard creators.

Holy crud, it really is a successor to the 3DS games. There's even a rubbing mechanic!

The potential for what a map maker would add to this game is pretty exciting, but, on the other hand, the snippet they showed looked like you'd be pretty limited in terms of how you could arrange them. We'll see how it goes.

@EaglyTheKawaiiShika
Its rubbing your equippable rings to clean and polish it

Hit a bit of a wall with Hades I think. The game does a better job of most Roguewhatevers to not make failure feel like a complete reset every time, but I guess I am behind their curve of expectation in progress because things have really started to slow down a lot in terms of between run unlocks/progression and I am not really getting any further in the actual runs themselves.

Not to mention, the further I get, it almost feels half punishment as I know just how much I need to wade through to get back to where I once was, just sorta makes me long for conventional progression, but then I know it betrays the genre and just reminds me that for all the bells and whistles, I really don’t like this genre very much.

I picked up Sparks of Hope too. I remember hitting a bit of a wall in the first game, I can’t quite remember what it was, but later on they ramped up the difficulty by really limiting you as a player, I think it was like turn restrictions or something? I remember there being something that just frustrated me to no end like that and I gave up, which was a shame as I was really enjoying it up until that point.

Maybe this sequel will do that too, but so far it hasn’t, it also has a bunch of accessibility and difficulty options I don’t remember the first game having either? And it just generally has a really high level of polish. Enjoying it so far.

Me being me I thought I'd comment on this one

So there's a fundamental problem with this idea and it basically comes down to bandwidth and screen size. The bandwidth available to you over even like first gen HDMI is kinda monstruous compared to even the fastest wireless standards. The effective bandwidth of HDMI 1.0 was ~4Gbps and that was 1080p/60Hz MAX with no bells and whistles. The absolute best WiFi APs in real world benchmarks for a single point-to-point one direction link? Maybe you're pushing up against 1Gbps but just barely. For context the Wii U was probably playing with ~60Mbps and the Switch NIC can probably do ~200Mbps. So right out of the box the wireless stream has to be compressed pretty significantly. Worse, because it's real time it has to be compressed VERY fast

But does it matter? Well if you're on a small, 5-6" screen and you're sitting at 480p (Wii U) or 720p (Switch)? Probably not so much. You can get away with it. I loved the Wii U and I especially loved off-TV play and really the only time the compression really bothered me in real world user were super fast, super noisy games like F-Zero. If you blew that up to a 55"+ screen? It's not going to look that great. Especially compared to what you could be getting if you were just smarter about the configuration. The best result is going to be with the larger screen being directly connected to the thing that's rendering the image and, if any, the smallest screen being wireless. It just is

Now are there ways technical ways to revisit the Wii U concept? Yes, definitely. I see two very easy ways Nintendo could do it right now. One option is to just use a second device that people probably already have. Have the Switch docked and then have either a phone app or even another Switch to connect to it. There are plenty of quiz games which use a web-app to more or less achieve the same thing, Clubhouse Games kinda does this but just not while docked. The other option would to be release a controller with a screen in it. Hell, throw a bunch of ROMs on it and call it the "portable classic & controller" or something. Mario Kart Live is effectively this but with a camera instead of a screen and in the opposite direction. Whether or not they'd want to do it or not I'm not entirely convinced but.... it's certainly something that could be technically viable

But more important to this discussion here, does any of this mean anything for new hardware? No. I'd suspect not. I don't think this is something they'd want to or even need to lock themselves into. They have a console that can be portable already, they don't need to leverage wireless streaming to achieve that anymore. At best its a neat idea for a game they could already do with the Switch as is, at worst it's a solution in search of a problem that no longer exists

And this is why I buy all my games on Switch.

Nothing beats tabletop mode on an OLED screen, controller in hand while in the office on the weekend

Juhu I beat Andro Dunos 2 on the normal difficulty. What a fun game. For some reason I feel like games are more responsive in handheld mode compared to docked. Like there is a little lag in docked mode. Very strange. I am definitely playing better in handheld mode. Maybe I will become a handheld gamer after all?

@SlashFuture
Amazing. It's about as good as you're gonna see on the Switch. When you just enjoy the game and performance is never on your mind, not once, you know the game is running well.

I definitely think it's a great game to start with. Combat is real time action but incorporates skills using AP, spells using MP and Limit Breaks which is a perfect stepping stone into both Final Fantasy and JRPGs in general.

I really do love this game, and it's perfect for Switch. Looks great, runs great, gameplay is fun, story and characters are interesting... it's a winner for sure.

And btw, totally agree. Tabletop is one of the key differentiators and reasons Switch is so indispensable. Handheld is phenomenal, as is instantly docking to TV. But setting up a miniature home console at work, feature complete controller and all, still feels like "the future". But it's the ability to instantly transition among those 3 forms that elevates the system from luxury to necessity. Any console can imitate one of the 3 forms. But doing all 3, that's the key.

@Jhena
It really depends on the game- I'd say the vast majority of Switch games I play have no discernable difference in latency between docked and handheld. Though it is true the joycon have less latency than pro controller, especially when connected to the system.

But there are some specific games that may have more noticeable lag docked due to pushing higher graphical settings. It's possible that is one of them.

I bought it when I went on my recent shmup binge but don't think I tried it out yet.

@JaxonH
Thanks. This could explain why it feels that way. It certainly feels more fun.

@JaxonH well i play my games in Handheld Mode most of the time, didnt Samsung was the responsible for the OLED display on the Switch OLED? could theres be a possibilty of Nintendo asking Samsung to use her AMOLED display techonogy on Switch sucessor? AMOLED is a techonogy of a display of OLED that Samsung use in all her phones, TV and computers, after seeying how pretty are the display of my new phone(a Samung Galaxy A73 5G), i started thinking of the possibilty of Nintendo not simply using OLED display for the Switch sucessor, but a AMOLED display, do you think this is possible? or Nintendo is gonna stick with OLED display for the Switch sucessor?

@Giancarlothomaz
I mean, anything is possible, but I wouldn't count on it.

For one, it's more expensive. For two, the difference in picture quality between the two is negligible compared to the jump from LCD to OLED. For three, AMOLED benefits are largely it's flexibility, which isn't really needed in a rigid hybrid tablet. They are a bit more energy efficient though, so I suppose if Nintendo could get a good price on them they might bite. But they'd have to be priced around the same as LCD.

So ya, it's possible, but I'd say unlikely. But it really won't make much of a difference either way. OLED is OLED, regardless of whether it's Active Matrix or not.