Topic: Your Latest Switch Purchase

The Takeover.

@KilloWertz Most people that complain about weapons breaking in botw never found the workarounds.

You can fight with bombs. It's not optimal, but it allows you save good swords for when you need them. The bombs rune you get at the beginning of the game, which gives you infinite bombs, they never run out, and can be upgraded, boosting the power of the bombs and reducing cool-down time. MANY people that complain about weapons breaking never upgraded their bombs fully when he game directs you to the lab & character that offers to upgrade your Shieka Slate (the source of your infinite bombs).

There is a way to farm arrows, and get lots of arrows. So, shooting arrows is another way to save swords for when you need them.

And, the best place to reliably find shields & swords is kind of a spoiler? If you get 10-15 hours into the game and haven't found this good place for stronger, more powerful weapons, just ask in the botw thread.

@CJD87 Yeah, I had planned on doing that after Xenoblade Chronicles. I just haven't decided what for sure. I was considering getting Bayonetta, as it was a game I was really looking forward to trying but it didn't work for me as hoped when I did several years ago, but I don't believe I gave it enough of a chance. That and I've ended up liking several games over the years after giving them a second chance, plus wanting to play the sequel (and upcoming other sequel). We'll see.

I may very well end up agreeing with you in the end, as it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong with my expectations for parts of a game. Aside from the weapon breakage, I did like what I say from gameplay footage of the combat, so gameplay wise I should be ok as long as I am wrong about traversal (hopefully rain doesn't have me throwing my controller, gently of course. lol).

I'm at the beginning of Chapter 13 at a little under 70 hours. I have admittedly been slacking off on it a bit over the last week playing stuff on my PS5 when I should be focussing on Xenoblade Chronicles, but I'm all in again after experiencing the great Fiora rescue, the great scenes between her and Shulk at the beginning of Chapter 12, and then the rest of that chapter over the last two days.

I will admit that I haven't loved it quite as much as I had hoped, but the story is still really good for the most part and I like most of the characters. Side quests are boring mostly, with combat being a bit of the JRPG equivalent of button mashing (just spamming all attacks without any thought needed) until you reach a fight where you have to actually use your brain, and the Colony 6 reconstruction bogging down to just randomly fetching things that are sometimes ridiculously hard to find even if you are still in the early stages of it. Still, expectations might have been a tad high given that it's one of the major reasons I bought a Switch, and I am still enjoying the game on the strength of the story and a portion of the characters alone. That does say something that I've been willing to put almost 70 hours into a game so far that I have issues with. I guess they aren't quite as big of a deal as they may seem.

@WoomyNNYes Thanks, I appreciate all the tips. I will try to remember them whenever I end up actually playing Breath of the Wild. Actually, I'll just copy and paste your post onto my computer. Then I can't forget it, as those will probably be very helpful.

The weapon breaking thing is a non-issue in BotW. You're practically swimming in weapons through most of the game. My biggest consistent issue with the game was trying to find the materials to upgrade my weapon storage slots so that I didn't have to keep passing them up.

tbh after playing The Witcher 3 and practically swimming in weapons that I kept needing to put into storage, I really missed Zelda's approach.

Just think of weapons like ammo and you'll have a better idea of what to expect.

@KilloWertz Climbing in rain is undeniably annoying. No getting around that. Thunderstorms are even worse. Wear metal gear (heh) during one and you'll quickly see what I mean.

The game prominently features survival/simulation elements, and the developers clearly wanted weather to be something that impacts the gameplay. Although the... interactivity and 'livingness' of the world is part of what I love about the game. The open world isn't just a big space to run through when going from objective to objective. In many respects, the open world itself IS the game. How you feel about this design philosophy will heavily influence your overall feelings on the game itself.

@Ralizah Thanks, and I look forward to giving my verdict on whether the game works for me or not. Again, it will likely be a while, but I will check that required box at some point.

Now I'm wavering between Bayonetta and Splatoon 2 as my next game before I tackle another long game. Just reading about Splatoon 2's singe player portion basically being a 3D Mario game intrigued me. It seems that finding levels can be annoying at times, but otherwise it seems surprisingly good. I still won't jump into the multiplayer much, as I don't play multiplayer games much, but oh well.

@KilloWertz I agree with all your comments on XBDE, and especially the monotony of the side quests. I actually think of XBDE in a similar vein to the DeS remake on PS5..... sometimes it is easy to forget these games are nearly a decade old, despite looking graphically comparable to their modern contemporaries.

@Ralizah is right about BOTW, once you start thinking of 'weapons' as 'ammo' then it becomes a lot less heart breaking when something you've grown fond of shatters!

BOTW is truly an excellent game though, probably still the ultimate 'showcase' game for the Switch. It has aged really well actually, I can't quite believe it is now 5(?) years old. Let me know your thoughts when you kick it off!

XC3 has some of the best side content I've ever seen in a JRPG. The main story is probably a little shorter than in previous games, but there's SO much stuff to see and do throughout the various environments now, most of it is worth experiencing on its own, and some of the side quests rival main story content in terms of quality. Monolith Soft's game design has improved so drastically over the years.

@CJD87 I'd say BotW was the 'proof-of-concept' game Nintendo absolutely needed to ship alongside the Switch. It's one thing to hear about 'home console gaming on the go.' It's another to literally have a gorgeous, vast open world adventure in the palms of your hands. Playing it at launch remains one of the most memorable and surreal gaming experiences I've ever had. Imagine going from 3DS to this
.
I am excited to see how the sequel improves on the design of the previous game, though, as a ground-up, late-gen Switch release. Expectations will be sky high coming off the original, so hopefully Nintendo is equal to the task.

Yes, I'd say it is. I actually played Super Mario Party with a friend online sometime after playing Mario Party Superstars (my friend didn't have MPS at the time, that's why), and I just had a much better time with Superstars. SMP's minigames were generally decent, but I didn't really like how the team-up mechanic was implemented, and the boards weren't too great. MPS's boards and minigames are just so much better I think, and it's a loving tribute to the classic Mario Party games. I just wish it had one more board or two, and I would've loved to see boards from the GameCube games complement the ones from the N64 games.

@CJD87 Yeah, I guess sometimes it might be easy to forget that some of these re-released games are at least a decade old. XC:DE is still a pretty good game, but maybe only still a 9/10 or so for people who have to 100% games. Nothing wrong with being a solid 8/10 game though after 12 years.

I will do so. I put it in earlier to see if there was an update for it just for the hell of it and there wasn't, which was surprising.

@Ralizah I look forward to experiencing a much more all around experience whenever I do play XC3. Your description of the side quests reminds me of recent games like Horizon Forbidden West or even Cyberpunk 2077 where the side content was just as good as the story portion of the game. That helps elevate good games into great games.

Imagine going from the 3DS to a little dot?

@KilloWertz Oh hush, you formatting pedant!

Can't speak to HFW or Cyberpunk, but, going with similar examples I have played, I'd put the side-quests above the ones in Horizon Zero Dawn, but maybe a little below the ones in The Witcher 3. They're really good.

@Ralizah I'm not the one that screwed up my post...

That seems reasonable. The ones in Horizon Forbidden West are definitely better than Zero Dawn (not that they were bad in Zero Dawn). Like what you've said about XC3, a decent portion of the side quests have their own stories that make them seem like mini-main stories.

Strange that I have been putting down the side quests in Xenoblade Chronicles when I did several ones today in Fallen Arm, but overall I can't say the side quest portion of the game has aged well. I look forward to experiencing much better ones in the series eventually.

Got the Cowabunga collection the past friday. Had a great nostalgia run with the SNES Turtles in Time. Then I tried out the arcade games and the SEGA game.
Couple of things that surprised me: How much smoother the arcade games were than the SNES title, and how much the SNES title added to Turtles in Time. Seeing as how the first arcade title was in '89, it really took over a half-decade (not century) for home consoles to catch up to that. The experience of playing Turtles in Time arcade and SNES titles and Hyperstone Heist was interesting, since I saw how much there was in sharing assets between the three games, and how much they remixed the levels and bosses.
Currently going through the first NES game and I finally understand why people hate the water level in it.
I thank the developers for including the strategy guides in the collection.

ONE PIECE: Unlimited World Red Deluxe Edition ( $4 easy pick)

Cowabunga Collection.

Just bought bridge constructor portal. Its on sale for 3 euro 74 cent down from 15 euro. Didn't bother with the physical release

I picked up Switch Sports for the wife and a double dose of Turtle Power for myself in Shredder's Revenge and the Cowabunga Collection.

Splatoon 3. Actually only happen to cost $20 for me, so I'm pretty happy with how this purchase panned out.

Prinny Presents NIS Classics Vol 3.

@Ralizah Firstly, HOW DID YOU GET IT FOR $20?!

Secondly, glad you're jumping on the Splatoon wagon as well! I plan on getting it sometime very soon (maybe even tomorrow if I'm lucky) as well so maybe we'll come across each other in matches, who knows XD