Topic: The Nintendo Switch Thread

I've always equated it to only listening to Lady Gaga and other trendy pop songs on the mainstream radio stations.

It's catchy music and there's nothing wrong with liking that, but if that's your obsession to the extent you snub your nose at any music from an artist that's not guaranteed to top billboards, you're cheating yourself. And lying to yourself if you think just because those albums sell the most records and win all the awards, that means it's actually the best music.

Almost every game I play nowadays is AA. And that's not because I specifically seek AA games out. It's just how the cards fall. It just so happens that all the good stuff that appeals to me seems to not be AAA, because as was previously mentioned, AAA is confined to a very specific recipe nowadays, to the point those genres are homogenized more and more each year.

There's a few AAA I love, like Monster Hunter Rise, but for every one of those, there's a dozen Fire Emblem's and Octopath Traveler II's and Triangle Strategy's and Mario Rabbids and Xenoblade 3's and Trails of Reverie's and Pikmin 4's and Redemption Reaper's and Persona 5's and Splatoon 3's (though I suppose you could categorize Splatoon 3 as AAA).

I haven't played Hi-Fi Rush, but it looks exactly like my kind of game. I've always felt Xbox had high quality fun gameplay in their games, but because of their proclivity to follow Sony in making nearly every game a massive AAA or bust, they miss so many opportunities to appeal to Switch gamers.

Halo Infinite with gyro, Gears 5 with gyro... these games are straight fire. Ori games? Straight fire. And now Hi-Fi Rush too? Instead of investing in 5 massive AAA titles, invest in 3, and take the resources from the other 2 and pump out half a dozen AA games that don't need to be constricted by that mega-budget cookie cutter. Not only would it flesh out their release lineup, it would provide far more variety. Those games may not sell to their core base but it would certainly appeal to gamers like me who aren't their core base. And if they want to grow, they need to draw more gamers in than just those who love western AAA and gamepass freebies.

@Ralizah in addition to people wanting their money’s worth with games/movies I’d throw in they just want to chase the zeitgeist conversation about the big event release.

Maybe it’s an introvert/extrovert thing where the group discussion of the event like a big production release of movie/game is more important than the experience of a movie/game itself. It would explain why people keep complaining why x franchise sucks but they keep talking about it rather than going for the thing they would like/gets legitimate praise.

My 1TB microSD card arrived and everything's now transferred over to the new card. I'm now officially ready for the next Direct. Cutting it a bit close but my old one (400GB) was so close to running out of space that all it would've taken is a few shadow drop announcements like "Octopath 2 demo out now" and I wouldn't have had enough space.

@JaxonH
I don't even care or like with AAA games like you have mentioned from your post.
I prefer the underrated / unpopular games that still have their fans.
And speaking about music, I prefer the underrated / unpopular musics too like Super Eurobeat songs, 90's Eurodance songs, 80's remix songs by Youtubers, BEMANI rhythm games music.

@Grumblevolcano In before Nintendo announces they couldn’t be bothered to optimise their games, so these shadow drops are all going to need separate 1TB SD cards each.

sadly Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom will be the first Nintendo game priced at $70 eesh

@Giancarlothomaz I'm still buying that game on day one... or two depending on how it looks.

I locked in my preorder mere minutes before the online listings were yanked, lol.

I wonder what this means for the voucher program?

It's possible that $70 listing for Zelda was an error, but we'll have to wait and see.

@Giancarlothomaz
Sadly?
Smash and BotW were €70(tax included) already here. I'd say it was inevitable. They saw that they could sell it for that price.
Just buy them physically. They are cheaper most of the times.

Gonna say both Smash and BOTW were £60 here.

@Ralizah Wouldn't be surprised if $70 priced games simply aren't included in the voucher program.

In the UK/Europe Smash and BOTW are already a tenner extra than standard and both are part of the 2 game voucher thingamajigger.

Any predictions for today's Direct?

Will we finally see Metroid Prime announced? Or F-Zero?

If even one of those things happens I'll be extremely happy. But I dare not hope.

@JaxonH My conservative predictions:

Almost guaranteed:

• Tears of the Kingdom news
• Mario Kart DLC wave
• Something about the Mario Movie

Highly likely:

• Fire Emblem Engage DLC
• Advance Wars release date
• More info on Pikmin 4
• New NSO games (less likely: something interesting like Diddy Kong Racing, Super Mario RPG or Gameboy/Advance games)

Somewhat likely:

• First look at Metroid Prime 4

I also don't know why, but my gut tells me we're randomly going to get something Animal Crossing related.

@JaxonH The predictions I gave in the Direct thread were:

Adding to this, I also think they'll announce Odyssey DLC and save the next new Mario platformer for the Switch's successor.

Odyssey DLC would kind of stink if you ask me. I'd take a new 2d outing over DLC for a 6yr old game. Unless it's pretty substantial of course.

I’m not sure music works as a comparison myself since music is generational and a lot to do with vibe.

Like the 80s metalhead teens have not moved onto listening to contemporary metal like Bring Me The Horizon or Parkway Drive since they want their metal of Slayer and Metallica, oddly though younger metal fans have not got a problem listening to the old stuff. Then vibe is a massive deal too since they gravitate to their thing rather than the biggest act going, it’s why a lot of angsty teens getting into an artist will say something specific like artist x speaks to me personally which I’ve seen Gaga fans do alot of whilst people into AAA games generally speak in terms of the game being the bestest experience ever, its a 10/10 game, GOTY etc.

I find music snobbery seems to go the other way of liking the old stuff and writing off newer acts or preferring the unknown cool acts before they are big and then writing off everything else as sell out music as opposed to liking the big acts.

Speaking of Lady Gaga I actually had a chance to see her last summer for free. A mate offered me a VIP box at her London gig. I was tempted by the offer since she apparently has a great live show but I was getting knackered last year seeing so many live acts constantly due to everyone taking a few years off for covid resulted in everyone touring at the same timer. Bloody great though, I saw so many cool acts yet rather annoying my most anticipated gig was Rage Against The Machine. I had 2 years of build up and their free Finsbury Park gig to celebrate their song getting to number 1 in protest of X-Factor remains one my most cherished experiences however their 2022 UK gigs never happened as the frontman hurt himself before the European leg of the tour.

I try not to do into Directs with expectations, although all of the smoke around Advance Wars and now TotK makes that impossible. Aside from the expected (DLC wave updates, reminders of upcoming games that were already previous announced like Kirby/Octopath/Theatrhythm/Fatal Frame/etc.), I'll be shocked if we don't get a proper trailer for Tears of the Kingdom (alongside with the eshop listing going live, which will confirm the pricing confusion one way or the other) and some sort of release date news about Advance Wars.

I do think Square-Enix will have a significant presence as well. There's a decent amount of stuff coming up for Switch which should theoretically already be done or close to done (Front Mission II remaster; Dragon Quest III HD-2D; Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters; etc.)

And, this one is less likely, but I do think we'll see something Mario-related to accompany the release of the film in a couple of months. Odyssey DLC is possible, but my hope is a 2D side-scroller styled after the movie.

Rumored remasters/ports that may show:

Baiten Kaitos remaster
Kid Icarus Uprising remaster
Metroid Prime 1 remaster
Batman Arkham Collection
Bravely Default Collection
Final Fantasy Tactics Remastered
F-Zero GX remastered

I'm guessing at least one of them makes an appearance. Maybe two.