Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

@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.

You might want to buckle up and brace yourself for this hot news... from a GAME (UK) employee:

Said employee happens to be on friendly terms with a translator, and said translator has heard news of a Switch Pro coming at the end of this year, leaked in Japan 5 days ago. Said GAME employee went on to explain that the Switch struggles for power, which is why games such as Witcher 3, Skyrim and Doom are dependent on cloud-based streaming to be able to run on the Switch 🧐🙄

I was tempted to inform said GAME employee that they were talking ***** and that I owned all three of those games on Switch, but they had already talked at me unsolicited for 2 minutes and I had no intention of giving them and their 'insider' knowledge anymore of my time.

Had I not just bought the last copy of their nicely reduced Tactics Ogre Reborn I'd have been even less patient with said employee. The absolute dog-dirt they must tell less-informed parents and kids...

Frankly, there couldn't be a better time for Advance Wars.

2021 was jam packed with strategy games. From Triangle Strategy to Mario Rabbids Sparks of Hope to Tactics Ogre, and now 2023 can continue that trend with Fire Emblem Engage, Redemption Reapers and Advance Wars.

I gotta be honest though. Advance Wars never appealed to me like Fire Emblem does. I'm sure it'll be fun enough, but I'm much more into the knights and mages and fantasy setting with support convos and a story (doesn't have to be deep, just something to push the game forward).

I think Advance Wars could do with a reboot, something much more in line with Fire Emblem. Like, keep the army soldiers and stuff, but create unique characters with conversations and a basic story to string it along. Give it a unique art style and throw in some experimental mechanics to differentiate it from FE a bit. I'd be all over that.

@gcunit I always hated employees like that. I was always taught that whatever your job you be the best at it you can be so when people wither willfully or just because their bias blinds them it’s an insult to professionalism. I may have been known as the Nintendo Lady in my GameStop region (I was a rover) but I could talk about almost any game semi knowledgeably and often played genres I hated (fps) so I could give an informed opinion. I’m sure that was just a kid you spoke with but do people not have professional pride anymore? Better tell that guy we are getting a new Tingle game instead of TotK this year. My Uncle told me so.

@JaxonH I don’t know… changing the formula benched advance wars. It has such a specific identity (more than FE) that the market may freak out. Well you know. More than normal.

@JaxonH Respectfully, Advance Wars is probably the most unique tactics series I've ever played. It's far less similar to Fire Emblem than virtually any other series in the genre.

• No RPG elements. Everything you need to master a level is already available to you.
• Units are disposable, and you WILL need to be comfortable with sacrificing them in order to execute optimal battle strategies.
• Moreover, units are balanced. You can't run through levels with a few over-powered ones: every unit type is useful for specific scenarios, and have their place on the battlefield.
• CO powers will tremendously shake up how you approach a given level, as their effectiveness can be devastating if played right. This is true of the opposition as well.
• Advance Wars also distinguishes itself in terms of the scale of conflicts, especially when you're playing competitively with someone else. Fire Emblem battles are almost always skirmishes, whereas battles in Advance Wars quickly become multi-front regional conflicts that benefit from higher-order tactical analysis. Success in larger maps often requires quickly seizing and maintaining tactical footholds in key areas, for example.

I don't necessarily disagree that the series will likely need an entry that shakes up the formula to reach a wider audience, though. IS tried to do that with Days of Ruin, but unfortunately the player base just wasn't feeling the stronger plot focus and grimdark atmosphere. It sucks, because DoR is possibly the most impressive and tightly-designed turn-based tactics game ever made.

@Ralizah
I'm aware it distinguishes itself, and I'm perfectly OK with it not only distinguishing itself, but expanding on that even more to form its own identity.

What I'm saying is, in order for the game to appeal to me, it does need to borrow some ideas from FE that helped that series appeal to me. I think having actual characters you can grow attached to would be a massive appeal for the game. Even with disposable soldiers, they could work around that and have a small group of key characters, even if they're a "tactician ordering the troops" or something. Just something to latch on to, ya know? Paired with a story- even a basic one, it would be an immediate intrigue for me.

Doesn't mean it has to "lose" the distinguishing aspects of the franchise, it merely needs to add some things on the side. I envision an anime-ish story of war (think modern day Fire Emblem custscenes) with a story and military meetings before chapters where the general hands out orders and stuff. Could have barracks where units work out for stat boosts, chores on a battleship, etc.

Idk. They could think of something, and find some way to make it work. Just... get me emotionally invested somehow. I'm not high maintenance. I don't need high literature here. Just something along the lines of what FE does to keep things interesting beyond just the scope of gameplay.

Maybe most people wouldn't be into that. I would though

To me, part of the appeal of Advance Wars is that its such a light, largely silly war story. It's a very Nintendo take on the subject, very optimistic characters dealing with fairly silly villain and rival characters (without being a straight up comedy), that doesn't need too much more than that. I wouldn't be against expanding the storytelling, but I feel like Days of Ruin was just the wrong game/wrong tone/wrong time. Certainly was for me. I do feel kinda bad for having given up on it so quickly, to the point that its one of my many regrettably sold games.

Though I'm also not the best person to ask about an IS strategy story though, since people kept telling me Sacred Stones had a really good story and I was like...its fine. It's ok. Eh. The support conversations were the best of that game's story to me, by miles.

This is interesting and actually surprising. I expected this from Sony but not Nintendo or Microsoft.

@FragRed Microsoft's absence is probably to do with the Activision acquisition as they'd likely want their summer showcase to feature a load of Activision games on Game Pass. Not sure about Nintendo though.

Sony, Microsoft e Nintendo will be skipping E3 2023 and could Nintendo Switch use this Nvidia chip?

https://www.ign.com/articles/xbox-nintendo-sony-skipping-e3-2023