Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Kermit1 Metroid Prime 4: Rivals or Revenge( it lead to Slylux hated of the Galactic Federation and Samus in general) and we descover why Slylux hate the Galactic Federation, is much more complex/complicated then we anticapated, this game we lead on the darker aspect of the Galactic Federation, making Samus question why i helping the Galactic Federation all this time, plot twist, Metroid Prime 4 is a sequel to Metroid Dread, is the reliable leaker/insider who mention @JaxonH is Slyluxhunter?

I did not see the news on the site. I guess not many people care, but as a Gothic fan, I think it's great news. I hope they announce the date as soon as possible.

Ugh, the Switch fan's getting really loud in a bad way every day now. It eventually calms done but I'm now having doubts it'll last a year.

The only games I’ve been buying are arcade games through Arcade Archives and both Capcom Arcade Stadium collections. Dunno why but I’ve had a hankering for nostalgia arcade gaming the past few months instead of bothering with the backlog of games.

I hope that gothic dev has a screen protector....

Retro Studios hire Steven Ray(3D animator that has worked on the cinematic of Ratchet e Clank:Rift Apart) and Nathan Ramos producer of the Horizon franchise.

Somebody is trying to bring back Conquest with that artstyle. One day the feeling of excitement will fade but super happy that there are two POCs (and that their eyes aren't blue...I hate that so much. As it is rare/genetic condition in most dark skinned peoples). Just got the ping from Gamestop that they are ready to take my money for the divine edition! I'm going to try to start a golden deer run, Blue Lions was dissatisfying even though it gave hints of more information just not enough because of the Boar Prince.

I decided with the Splatfest now over that my next game before FE Engage launches will be returning to Three Hopes and doing a Blue Lions playthrough. Don't think we'll see any surprises crop up this month and the NSO game is probably Mario Party 3 (don't have the Expansion Pack anyway) so making the rest of the month Fire Emblem focused seems like a good idea.

@SlashFuture my fan is going loud too and it's barely a year old. My old V2 Switch still runs perfectly, though my brother now has it.

@Ryu_Niiyama
So, when I played Three Houses I did Black Eagles (Church route split), and started a 2nd run in Blue Lions. I quit right after the timeskip, like 2 chapters past.

With Engage hype going into overdrive I started playing Three Houses again (Blue Lions route). I immediately got sucked back in, and it hit me just how good Three Houses is. They really did nail it with this one. It's a more serious Fire Emblem, which is somewhat in contrast to Engage, which seems to be a little lighter in tone and doesn't take itself as seriously.

I'm so ready for Engage though. It's been nearly half a decade since the last Fire Emblem. We were getting entries every 2 years in the 3DS era. So it's been a system shock waiting this long.

Also preordered at Gamestop, though I paid up front and am picking up in person next week Friday. Going to Indiana next week, coming home Friday, gonna hit GS on the way back and taking the following Monday off as a vacation day. It's gonna be a 72 hr Fire Emblem binge.

January's NSO icons are Switch Sports where wave 1 is Golf and Sportsmates.

@FragRed Well, usually when series begin getting remakes externally it's from a company we've never heard of. Tantalus and Grezzo for example. So if Prime is getting a remake, I'd expect it to be a lesser known studio like them, possibly a new one Nintendo is building relationships with.

Edit: or, as it just occurred to me, we don't know what MercurySteam is working on...

@SlashFuture @JaxonH Considering the dramatic improvement in visual fidelity that the Switch entries have enjoyed, I'm personally rather impressed that the gap between Three Houses and Engage was only 3.5 years.

It also helps when stuff like Three Hopes launches in the interim. Fire Emblem fans are VERY well-fed.

Still knee deep in Shadows of Valentia. I can't believe it took me so long to get to this game. I really, really like the serious stories in games like this and Three Houses.

Engage does look good, though. It essentially seems like the Xenoblade Chronicles 2 of the Fire Emblem series, at least tonally and aesthetically.

@JaxonH Hey sorry, work has been beating me up. First I wanted to state my condolences to you and @Ralizah. I sorta froze a bit into thinking about my own parents even though they are "young" and moderately healthy (for two chain smoking non exercising people) and then the thread passed me by, but I didn't want you all to think I was insensitive to the information you shared. I'm trying to mentally prepare but yeah...I'm never gonna be ready I think. No one is I suppose.

I don't know, I feel like all the Fire Emblem games are serious (or are at least approached seriously) but they sorta have an out there mystical pseudo scifi vibe (Those that Slither use essentially nukes so yeah) with the dragons and magic bloodlines and summoning folks from the past and whatnot. Tellius games were just as involved as three houses war wise (and goddess wise technically) But some tell the story better than others. Yeah I wish I could take off like that to game but alas too much work. I'm heading into the last battle for blue lions and just geez...can these homicidal children catch a break? (I say this as I prep for Engage and maybe Three Hopes...trying not to overdo the Three Houses gameplay but I'm already planning another 2 playthroughs so I can recruit everybody. I suppose I want my replay of Silver Snow- which I consider to be the closest thing to a golden route considering you stop the main antagonists if not all their plots- to be as happy as possible.) I'm embarrassed to say I just realized you can grind on the battles in this play-through. It's weird I enjoyed the monastery before but now that I know how it works (like gardening for stat boots and using the mysterious teacher to see stat growth) and can start out with the maximum event slots, the game is really opening up. I suppose I should have done the Black Eagles run first (except I don't trust the Flame Emperor) from the start and then worked my way up to Silver Snow. Then again it's great that the game can pull me back in like this. Claude is the weird one/wild card though for me. Like the Flame Emperor and the Boar Prince are straight forward (even if they think they are not) but Claude is like CHAOS! I suppose I won't understand his angle until I play his route.

@Ralizah
Shadows of Valentia was the one 3DS game I actually finished despite the Switch hype cycle. The gameplay was more basic due to being a remake, but the art style, characters, dialog and voice acting really elevated it.

I loved Shadows of Valentia, and I loved Three Houses, but it has been 2 games back to back with more grounded tonality. I'm ready for another Fire Emblem with Awakening vibes, as that was my first and has a special place in my heart. It almost feels like Engage is the Awakening sequel we should have gotten.

Speaking of which, I recently learned who was actually responsible for Fates falling through. It wasn't the guy they contracted for the story (which actually makes sense, as I found the story premise incredibly interesting). This issue was due to workload, they hired the company who writes for Senran Kagura to do the support conversations and dialog. That is what killed Fates imo. The story was fine, and the writer actually put together 1500 pages for it! So it was an incredibly deep, lore heavy story. But the writing let it down so bad, and now I know why. Who thought it was a good idea to entrust the support convos and dialog to Senran Kagura writers? No wonder none of the characters were memorable or interesting!

One day, if they ever remake Fates, they should redo the support conversations and dialog. If they did that, I bet that game would be best in the series.

@SlashFuture Yeah, but that's their other team. Every 3 years they release one portable game and one home console / PC release. We may know the PC release that'll probably launch in 2024, but not the portable one.

@Ralizah Gust is helping with the graphics of Fire Emblem Engage

Return to Monkey Island physical has been announced by LRG. Surely it's getting a general release too... no?

Only put an order in with them a couple of days ago, my first limited order evs. Perhaps I can amend it...

@Giancarlothomaz So I've heard. Which doesn't surprise me, since Engage is very... pretty, for lack of a better word, just like the Atelier Ryza games.

@JaxonH Yeah, the storytelling, music, amazing art, and atmosphere of Echoes really sold me on it. Deeply enjoy the dungeon-crawling and point-and-click gameplay elements as well. And I believe this is the entry that actually introduced the turnwheel/divine pulse mechanic, right? That mechanic pairs perfectly with classic mode, since you're no longer at the mercy of RNG, but still can't blithely throw away the lives of your units.

I feel like some of the footage I've seen of Engage makes it seem openly silly at times, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but also not how I'd characterize Awakening, tbh. There were bits of levity in the character interactions, but the story itself was pretty dark and engaging. I've yet to see anything as shocking in this series as Emmeryn's suicide early on in that game, even if it does stupidly backtrack on that in a paralogue at some point.

The problems with the Fates games go beyond the support conversations and character interactions, though. The writing is bad all the way down. If anything, the broad outlines of the plot are worse at points. I don't think you can blame the SK people for Conquest being a game where you try to convince the world's densest family that dad is clearly evil by tricking him into sitting in a magic chair. Or for all of routes hamfisting in the adult child mechanic from Awakening by sticking them in a magic portal incubator until they're old enough to be useful. Also, the localization of that game was pretty... questionable at times, so now you're also mixing up the choices and writing skills of the english localization team when it does come to the character interactions. They also wouldn't have had any say in Birthright being kind of bland overall conceptually, or Revelation having maps with questionable gimmicks, etc.

idk I just think a lot of people made a lot of questionable choices with those games, and the combined effect was something that didn't live up to its potential.

@Ryu_Niiyama No worries. I never expect responses to stuff like that, which is pretty awkward for the person reading it, as there's really nothing they can do to help. I'd not have even brought it up if the conversation hadn't kind of naturally led to that point.

You're, indeed, never ready for the passing of the people closest to you, though. All you can do is make sure to not waste the time you do have with them, so that when the time comes, you're not filled with regret. My mother and I were close and spent a lot of time together, so while I'm still extremely sad about what happened, I'm also not regretful that I didn't see her enough.

@Ralizah Agreed, my Grandpa always said "Give me my flowers while I'm living". So I pretty much talk to my parents as much as possible.

Localization is a little iffy in Three Houses as well, It isn't horrible but sometimes I felt like the team got a little inventive or missed the mark a little bit. As for fates I think if you combine the DLC with the base game (not just revelations but the other dlc Future something (can't remember the name)) Which sorta both explains why the Awakening characters are there, and Kamui's relationship to the big bad, it helps. But they don't do a good job of explaining why the big bad is nuts from the start (FE dragon (cuz they have the worst luck) AND splintered himself) and all the other history because they tried to stuff it in revelations (poorly) and tried too hard to be vague about it in the other two routes. I don't think the story itself is bad, just the storyboarding. Its like the writer gave the devs a book and not a script and the devs had to transpose that into the game format. Three Houses does the same thing but better, the nascent plots are hinted at in each route but so far they are told in a way that mostly allows them to stand alone. In part because of the unifying start because you get to know most of the players in the game and their stances. So again the same thing Fates tried to do but much more coherent (that and they used the time travel mechanic to somewhat function as plot glue). I actually would not mind a remake of Fates/if with stoyboarding overhaul.

I am a bit worried about essentially being Tiki/Chiki in Engage (divine dragon that took a long nap and has memory gaps...Byleth at least makes sense as she was kept in the dark and is a corpse vessel...) as I don't want a retread but I'm still hyped as heck.