Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@Ralizah not always we have the first Nintendo Direct of the year, in one year, we have the first Nintendo Direct of the year in march(but this is very rare, most of the Nintendo Direct in the begining as you say, is show in february, sometimes in march, game focused Direct also count)

@Giancarlothomaz We've reliably enjoyed Nintendo Directs in February every year since 2019. That's not a guarantee that the pattern won't eventually change, but a Nintendo Direct happening in February 2023 is a fairly safe assessment.

February is common though the 3 February general Directs were not at a specific point in February, the only trend was not being on Pokemon Day week.

The biggest hint of a general Direct in early February however is the absence of Splatoon 3 Season 3 news (launches March 1st), compared to this length of time prior to previous seasons (e.g. in October about Season 2's December 1st launch) we know virtually nothing about Season 3. All we know about Splatoon 3's future is:

• A new catalog every 3 months until September 2024
• League Battle is appearing sometime in the future
• Paid DLC is appearing sometime in the future

So the only thing confirmed for Season 3 so far is a new catalog. That's why for awhile I've been thinking February 1st/2nd.

Too right. That game looks decent but I find perpetually dark games, like that one seems to be, a bit of a turn-off.

@Magician @Ralizah
Yes, it's definitely bleak. And I agree the title is horrible and worse still is the ridiculous font for the title.

All that said, I'm a diehard Fire Emblem fan, so I'll be checking this out. The gameplay does look good, and the characters seem interesting.

Btw, IGN just posted a hands on gameplay video and mentioned 2 of the 5 characters are voiced by Dorothea and Jeralt from Three Houses. Furthermore, the soundtrack is from Rei Kondoh, the 3rd guy who helped make Fire Emblem Fates and Three Houses OST. And of course, the Fire Emblem Path of Radiance director is involved. That's quite a bit of FE influence.

They've even adopted the excellent FE battle forecast window

@Ryu_Niiyama
Speaking of Rei Kondoh, they did the soundtrack for Redemption Reapers. Just FYI

@JaxonH Holy crud, the gameplay looks a LOT like Fire Emblem.

They chose a terrible time to launch this. I'm still gonna be neck deep in Engage when this comes out.

If it reviews well, maybe I'll grab the physical in April, though. Hmm.

@gcunit Too often, I feel like people think Dark Fantasy needs to be literally dark and devoid of color. This would look so much better with a less muted aesthetic.

@Ralizah
Right! That's what caught my attention initially- the fact it looks so similar to Fire Emblem. Even if it doesn't review great, as long as it doesn't review terrible I'm on. Judging by the criticisms in the hands on preview, it's a lot of stuff that's true for Fire Emblem (chapters being "taking care of smaller problems from village to village" and "characters being more anime-like", etc). Just give me quality FE-like gameplay with a simple, decent story to string it together with some cool characters I like. That's literally Fire Emblem in a nutshell.

The few concerns I have are this: 1) There's no classic mode, only casual. Maybe this won't be a problem on the right difficulty, especially with just 5 units- lose one and 20% of your defense, aggro-draw and offense are eliminated. So it could quickly escalate out of control from there. 2) No support conversations, which is a crucial aspect of what makes FE so addictive. This may come down to the fact there's only 5 permanent characters though, and could be rectified with quality dialog among them in between chapters. 3) Weapon triangle substitute. I haven't seen one. That's not to say it needs something like that. After all, Three Houses and Shadows of Valentia didn't have one. But I would like some other form of strategic depth in its place. The follow-up attacks seem similar to how backup units work in Engage, so that's encouraging. 4) Class promotion. We don't know if there is a class system. Probably not, as each character seems tailored to a playstyle and upgrades skills to expand that role. We'll have to see if this approach can work as a proper substitute for a class promotion system.

Still, it's looking promising.

@SlashFuture is a possibity,

Nintendo could have patented a image impromiment technology for Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom

https://mynintendonews.com/2023/01/26/nintendo-has-patented-i...

@Giancarlothomaz
Did you read it?

It's for "displaying objects with transparency with lower processing load"

This is completely uninteresting to us as the end user. Not only is it a niche use, it doesn't "improve image", it simply helps processing load in the backend for transparent objects.

@JaxonH With Redemption Reapers, it looks interesting though timing is a bit awkward. I'd definitely wait for the physical version in April rather than get digital 2 months early but if Advance Wars does reappear in the next Direct I'd imagine that releases around the same time (March 31st or April 7th would be my guess to keep it away from TotK).

You know how there were some really crazy release lineups last year like June - July and September - November? I get the feeling after the next Direct, February - June/July will look similar.

@JaxonH Casual mode only is fine if it's balanced around that, which it should be, since it doesn't give you an option. Games like Triangle Strategy and Advance Wars manage to be hugely challenging at times despite all of your units being disposable, after all.

It really feels like we're living through a tactical rpg renaissance of sorts right now. Especially on Switch. There's SO MUCH. That'll be even truer if Nintendo ever deigns to actually release those AW remakes.

@Ralizah
I had that exact same thought last night. Switch has ushered in a strategy renessaince, though in truth you could trace its beginnings all the way back to Fire Emblem Awakening. The genre has found a captive audience on Switch and has never been more popular. And it ramped into high gear in 2022.

Just on Switch, Mario Rabbids Kingdom Battle kicked things off in 2017, followed by Valkyria Chronicles 4 and Valkyria Chronicles. Afterward came Civilization VI and an XCOM 2 port, Fire Emblem Three Houses, Triangle Strategy, Mario Rabbids Sparks of Hope, Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem Engage, with Redemption Reapers, Advance Wars and Marvel Midnight Suns on the way, and rumors of a Fire Emblem Echoes: Genealogy of the Holy War. And there have been others, like Digimon Survive, all the Disgaea games on Switch... it's impressive.

I'm so glad Fire Emblem turned me onto the genre because now it feels like being a kid in a candy store. Anyone who hasn't yet branched out to experience the appeal of strategy games is missing out big time.

New Mercenaries srpg actually looks decent?

Seems these games have been improving. The music is reasonably good and the visuals aren't bad for the style it's going for. Gameplay is the big question though.

Still, I might keep an eye on this and see how it turns out

@JaxonH you must have added that note after the edit. Tagging someone after an edit doesn’t notify them. Found that out the hard way when I have tried to ping someone. Anyway I will keep an ear to the ground for the ost at least. This is gonna hopefully be a lean year as I dig into the backlog and Zelda this year. So any games I might normally take a chance on I will wait for sales/BF. Since I have a small display space I am trying to buy less games this year so I don’t spend the year resorting my shelves.

@JaxonH In terms of tactical turn-based games that were critical to affecting huge change in the industry in recent years, I'd identify four releases as being particularly important.

Valkyria Chronicles Remastered (2010) - This doesn't get talked about a lot, but Steam (and, subsequently, PC gaming as a whole in the West) used to be a wasteland when it came to Japanese games. Jp developers were still purely targeting console releases in these days. PC gamers wanted that support, but lacked an 'in' to demonstrate interest. SEGA gave them that in when they released a remastered port of the previously PS3-exclusive Valkyria Chronicles on Steam. That game sold really well, which got SEGA to start putting more of their games on the platform, and this began a process that has ended with virtually the entire Japanese game industry supporting PC as a platform.

XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) - The success of a high-profile, AAA tactics game was crucial to demonstrating how much interest there was in the genre.

Fire Emblem Awakening (2012/2013) - This one is obvious: it saved Nintendo's long-running tactical RPG series, and provided more visibility for the genre. What it also started, though, was a subtle shift in Nintendo, which began to prioritize more Japanese-style releases in the West. There has been an explicit turn toward promoting JRPGs/tactics games/etc. in the Switch era, and a lot of that, IMO, started with the success of this game.

Disgaea 5 Complete (2017) - The surprise success of this port on Switch in North America and Europe caused NIS to go all in on Switch. When NIS eventually turned their interest toward distributing Falcom's games, it also led them to start developing Nintendo ports for their games, which has culminated with Falcom recently deciding to go all in on the platform and develop Switch versions in-house. This was a legendary JRPG dev that had ignored Nintendo for most of their history fully embracing the platform, and it all goes back to the success of this particular release.

@Ryu_Niiyama
Ah yes, the struggles of room management. I'm all too familiar. All those years of Tetris were good for something after all, it seems 😉

@Ralizah
Oh ya, didn't Disgaea 5 sell like 500k copies on Switch? That's nuts as a late port to 2017 Switch. I don't think subsequent entries have done anywhere near that (many were likely curious about the series having not played it, plus year 1 Switch boom of people looking for games).

I remember Valkyria Chronicles coming to Steam. It was one of the few PS3 games I was ride or die for and desperately wanted on other platforms. Think it sold some 200-300k copies. Probably more by now. We're lucky to have gotten VC4 on Switch day and date.

Nintendo sure has done a 180 in the past decade or so. From fans begging for Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower, Fire Emblem being given ultimatums and Metroid being on life support, to now seeing global releases marketed in the west selling millions of copies, Fire Emblem becoming one of their premier B-tier franchises alongside Metroid and Xenoblade Chronicles which sell millions of copies in their own right.

I think it was the rise of the internet and smartphone as word of mouth was able to spread amongst fans. Fire Emblem Awakening was the first game to launch after the smartphone and social media boom. Before that, only the most diehard of gamers used the internet and followed fan sites. Once it became prolific enough to reach the masses, popularity of quality titles surged.

@JaxonH Launching early in the system's life was definitely a boon to Disgaea 5. BotW might have been the greatest launch title of all time, but people were hungry for more stuff to experience on their Switch after finishing with that, and there weren't a ton of meaty experiences to be had on the system at that point. Enter this beautiful tactical RPG that you could play for hundreds of hours. I'm not surprised it sold so well. I don't know if we ever got exact stats on its performance, but it outsold the PS4's lifetime numbers just in preorders for the Switch version.

VC4's Switch port was awesome. Almost indistinguishable from the PS4 version. Absolutely my 2018 GOTY. It's just a pity the DLC never goes on sale for the Switch version.

Yup, Nintendo spent a long time only really wanting to promote the ultra-mainstream and cartoony stuff in the West, while their awesome JRPGs and whatnot stayed in Japan. Hell, the reason we even got Fire Emblem on the GBA in the first place was likely because of the interest stimulated by Marth's inclusion in SSB Melee. Now Nintendo is VERY loud and proud about its more Japanese properties and third-party exclusives.

Social media and smartphones have a been a huge boon to all sorts of more niche content. It really democratized gaming discourse, and made it so much easier to expose new audiences to obscure properties.

In the past, unless you were a dedicated geek who followed hobbyist publications and belonged to enthusiast communities, you were at the mercy of TV marketing and local rental availability. That wasn't a good environment for non-mainstream properties to flourish in.

@JaxonH it seens thanks to Fire Emblem sucess, theres a boom of strategy RPG on Switch e others consoles, we are witeness a renaicess of strategy RPG right now

Seems a bunch of retailers now have Advance Wars relisted (Walmart, Best Buy, Amazon Canada, EB Games). Between that, the eshop thing @Giancarlothomaz posted about and the release of Goldeneye it does really seem like the wait for a new release date is nearly over.