Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@PS5_LOVER21 Depends on how frequently you play in handheld mode.

I you play mostly docked there's no reason to upgrade beyond the ethernet port.

@PS5_LOVER21 I had a year1 Switch, and the battery was complete knackered by the time the OLED was released... so I was really in need of an upgrade. The additional storage space is nice, and of course the OLED visuals are nicely noticable on some games.

The white joy-cons and white dock look slick, and the kickstand is much better!

But if your original is in good shape, I'd perhaps wait until TotK to see if "Switch 2" is on the horizon. No point getting the OLED if a bigger and badder Switch is soon to be released

@PS5_LOVER21 It's a gigantic upgrade for portable mode. The screen looks dramatically better, the battery life is immensely improved over the V1, and the new kickstand is great. Extra on-board storage doesn't hurt, either.

No real improvements for docked play aside from a bit more internal storage, though.

@PS5_LOVER21
It’s a must-have for anyone who plays their Switch in handheld or tabletop. And frankly, I think it would become a must-have even for those who don’t, as the 7” OLED screen with amazing kickstand actually makes you want to use it portably. I’ve spoken to more than one person who was pretty much TV-only until they got a Switch OLED, and now use handheld and tabletop just as much as docked. That goes doubly for tabletop, which was always “usable” but wonky and unstable and only offered one set angle. Now? Not even an earthquake could tip the Switch OLED out of tabletop, and you have an infinite choice of angles between 0 and close to 180 degrees.

Aside from all that, the battery life is practically double compared to the v1 Switch. Pretty much every single game is guaranteed 5 hours minimum at max brightness. And when you don’t have to constantly worry about the battery, it makes you more inclined to enjoy the two portable modes of play.

@PS5_LOVER21 Just wait for Tears of the Kingdom, at worst you get the opportunity to get a Zelda themed Switch OLED meanwhile at best you get the opportunity to get a more powerful Switch.

So, I'm not one to really fixate on the technical performance of games, but I do have to say, playing a game like Metroid Dread without any sort of detectable compromises has been delightful. Playing undocked, it looks pin-sharp and runs smooth as hell. I'm really impressed with how well the 3D character models blend in with some of the clearly 2D level elements. It doesn't look 2.5D at all, and the game just seamless blends in 3D cutscenes with the side-scrolling gameplay. Despite the differing design elements, the aesthetic feels utterly cohesive.

Mercury Steam did a great job. This blows Samus Returns out of the water on pretty much every level. It's long for a 2D Metroid, though. Apparently a little more than twice as long as Zero Mission, which I felt was the perfect length to just blow through over the course of a lazy afternoon. So I definitely won't be replaying this as much.

I ended up picking up Final Fantasy 9 (my favourite of that era) and 12 (my blind spot) on Switch. Only played an hour or two of each to give them a go.

In terms of 9, it has some of the weirdest presentation I have ever seen? It all takes place on what looks like flat low res and blurry paintings, so it makes it almost impossible to tell with your eyes what is a door you can enter or what is something you can interact with. Was it always this bad? It also isn’t widescreen, they’ve just slapped these weird bars on either side of the screen and because they aren’t just black bars I am worried they’ll burn in on the OLED screen.

In terms of 12, I really don’t like these style of battle systems at all. However, I was told you eventually unlock a system to give your party AI commands, if it is as granular as people have said, I think this will solve a lot of my issues. And I know, the solution to a battle system shouldn’t be not playing it, but I quite enjoy auto battlers where you set the characters up and then press go and see how it turns out.

@Ralizah Yeah, Metroid Dread is one of those extremely rare games that surpassed my expectations in a way I wasn't expecting, playing Samus Returns beforehand really showed just how much they improved, it's crazy how they managed to make SR obsolete even though I adored that when I played it. I'm honestly incredibly impressed, especially considering Mercury Steam likely had a fairly low budget due to SR's mediocre sales and they still pumped out this gem. Though I will say, I do think they likely cut content in a few areas (mostly speculation on my part) but that doesn't detract too much from the game, it would literally be perfect otherwise imo.

And yeah, I'm not a performance junkie, but man does it feel good to play a hyper-polished silky smooth 60 fps game that looks this good. It's one of those games that make it a bit hard to go to 30 sometimes, makes me wish every switch game was 60 fps

It reminds me of Bayonetta 2, which I replayed recently purely in TV mode and its performance actually wow'ed me, an almost unbreakable 60 fps for a game as intense as this feels amazing. Bayo 3 also to a certain extent (replaying it right now!), but its framerate does dip a bit in comparison
I can only think of like, Splatoon, Hades and Mario Odyssey in that category 🤔

And let me tell you, I don't think the length affects the replayability that much, at least for me, I played it 5 times last year and that last playthrough, where I managed to sequence break the game in ways I never thought possible, was magical, and I'll definitely replay it soon.

acording to Slyluxhunter, a new 2D game of the Donkey Kong franchise is not in development for the Nintendo Switch.

https://twistedvoxel.com/2d-donkey-kong-game-development/

@Ralizah Were the big frame drops later on in the game fixed then? Some of the late game boss fights were definitely rough because of the frame rate tanking.

@Pizzamorg Your SWOLED will be fine.

tldw guy has a SWOLED set to a static image that he never turns off to test burn in. Took him 3600 hours of continuous use to even start seeing mild discoloration.

Bottom line, even assuming the worst case scenario of fanatical use of the Switch with games that all have screen elements in the same places, it'd likely take years before anything happened to the screen.

@GreenTea Several games come to mind: Captain Toad, MK8D, Disgaea 5, Ys Origin, etc. There's basically an entire subclass of indies and less demanding exclusives that shine on the system. And Mario Odyssey, which I'm still trying to figure out.

We'll see how it goes. The games I've replayed numerous times over the years (ToeJam and Earl; Metroid: Zero Mission; Spyro the Dragon; Portal; Castlevania: Rondo of Blood; Contra; etc.) are almost all games you can comfortably finish over the course of 2 - 5 hours. Anything more feels like a commitment. The only exception I've discovered is Shantae GBC, which is more in line with something like Dread or SOTN in terms of playtime, but which I've cleared through numerous times over the years.

Even if I don't, though, it'll have still been a very worthwhile experience for me. I thought I'd at least clear it on multiple difficulties, but normal has been pretty brutal so far, so we'll see how it goes.

@Grumblevolcano No idea. I'm probably six hours in or so. Only performance dips I've noticed have been during loading sequences between map areas, lol.

@Grumblevolcano
Shrugs

I beat the game from start to finish, never had a problem with any late game boss fights.

Samsung could be responsible for the chipset of the Nintendo Switch sucessor

@SlashFuture usualy in most of Nintendo games they use a custom engine based on Unity, the remake of Link Awakening was made on Unreal Engine 4 for example, on most of Nintendo Switch games, Nintendo use a custom engine named Bezel, that a sucessor of Nintendoware(the game engine they used on Wii U games), in short they use a custom made engine for they games with some exceptions like the Link Awakening remake with Unreal Engine, using a difrent game engine on the Switch sucessor, will depend how is the archteture of the Switch sucessor, if Bezel(Switch game engine can easily be adapted for the Switch sucessor or they will need to complety create a brand new engine for the sucessor of the Switch(just in case theres cross-gen games on both consoles, Nintendo will problably made the archteture of the Switch sucessor as smootly as possible for it developers and third party partners, after all they want to continue the third party suport Switch currenty is getting.
https://nintendo.fandom.com/wiki/Bezel_Engine

Would I like either Kirby Forgotten Land or Mario Odyssey if I don’t traditionally like platformers?

@Pizzamorg It depends what you don't like about platformers. SMO rarely features obstacle course level design like the 2D games. It's an exploratory sandbox collect-a-thon with large and varied environments to explore. The "platforming" aspect of it mainly comes from the player needing to utilize Mario's abilities to thoroughly explore levels and defeat enemies.

Kirby is more of a traditional 3D platformer in that you're running through tightly designed levels. And the goal is usually just to get to the end, with various sub-objectives along the way to complete.

Anyone got a new Switch Pro Controller recently? My sister just got one and the sync, +, -, home and capture buttons are all raised and very clicky, the D-Pad is mushier, and the triggers feel cheaper.

true handheld consoles/gaming is dead, because of Nintendo Switch(thanks Nintendo i guess)

@Haruki_NLI
Sounds like she bought a knockoff. The way to truly tell is test vibration rumble. If that feels off, it's for sure a knockoff.

@Giancarlothomaz @SlashFuture
Samsung and other companies have always made chips for Nvidia. Samsung making the chip doesnt mean its not Nvidia still

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-nvidia-samsung-elec-idUSKB...