Jalex_64

@Chaotic_Neutral Ok but you being as competent at the game as you say you are does not negate the fact that this is a Nintendo game designed to cater to the abilities of the majority, including children of 10 or above.

Indeed, just because you didn't need to upgrade your armor throughout the game, it doesn't mean the majority of people would be able to complete TOTK by doing the same.

Admittedly, the blood moon is perhaps the most egregious aspect of playing TOTK but there are very solid hardware reasons for its integration. Hopefully this is negated with the next console, so that it appears far less or not at all.

The towers on the other hand were one of the more enjoyable inclusions, as at least you got to see Hyrule from a different perspective, open up the map, pin a few shrines and visit the odd sky island. They offered players a very different experience of towers to the one we encountered in BOTW, but even in the latter game, there was often a mini puzzle to reach the top.

To summarise, the difficulty scale can't possibly scale to every player but it seems for the most part, Nintendo has got as close as they're going to get with this game. Perhaps Master Mode DLC, which I presume is coming in a few months time, will be more to your taste.

@Chaotic_Neutral The main reason to take down the bases are for better weapons and monster parts, to upgrade your armor, with any treasure simply being a nice bonus.

The game has an XP system built in, whereby the more experienced you are at playing and further ahead you are with the story, the better the monster parts and weapons will be.

So it's a pretty logical system all told and IMHO, a far cry from being 'useless'. Of course, if you're not progressing with the story too much, I can see why some may get frustrated.

@Otoemetry 'Year of Assessment (YA) refers to the year in which income tax is calculated and charged as defined by the IRS for individuals and companies. The chargeable income and the associated income tax are determined on a preceding year basis.'

eg. 'LEGO SW and ER provided tough YA (Year of Assessment) competition.'

Strongly recommend saving space and some cash by picking up an amiibo card set for the price of one of these. There's a 28 pack for £14.99 on Amazon right now. So much more convenient if you've no plans to display these and just want the scanning ability.

Anyone who thought there were too may shrines in BOTW has a rude awakening here 😄 As with its prequel, my primary goal is to seek out all the towers to uncover the full maps, before taking as long as I need to soak it all in and just enjoy it.

Visiting the main towns to see what has altered has been a fascinating ride thus far.

With so much quality content clearly in evidence, it would be a shame to rush through and not fully appreciate the time and effort put into this by Nintendo.

Lots of Lets Plays appearing on YT now, no doubt. Must resist for a few more hrs..

Looks like we're in for a treat guys! Time to jump back into Hyrule..

@KoopaTheGamer Yes, FLOPS (Floating operations per second) aren't a perfect measurement. But for the layman, it offers a comparable ballpark figure when it comes to raw processing power, so can still be useful.

The confusing scenario you suggest, whereby two chips with differing architectures have the same amount of FLOPS, does not apply when comparing console generations, as the number of FLOPS has always gone up exponentially on the newer hardware.

@rjejr To put it more simply:

Wii U: 176 GFLOPS
Switch (Docked): 500 GFLOPS
Switch (Undocked): 393.2 GFLOPS

Yeah, pre-ordered yesterday. Shame I'll have seen the credits by the time it arrives but hey ho.. those korok seeds won't find themselves!

It has to be said, Piggyback do an incredible job with their guides, with detailed, colourful illustrations, maps and every location, recipe, enemy and weapon etc catalogued in amazing detail, so it should definitely be worth the wait for those interested.

@shgamer Indeed. I'll be picking up the Switch again for TOTK, after largely abandoning it due to so many less than stellar 3rd party ports in recent years, and I know I'm not the only one in this boat.

Most of these titles I am fortunate enough to play on a high end PC these days but I strongly suspect a holiday release of a backwards compatible 'Switch 2' would be widely welcomed by most Switch owners, and I for one would snap it up in a heartbeat.

If Nintendo can win back some love from third party publishers with a PS4 - PS4 Pro equivalent console release this year, it would be fantastic, as the gap between Switch and PS5 is simply too wide to breech right now.

It's time.

@Axecon Xenoblade Chronicles 3 currently sits at 1.86 million lifetime sales 👍

@jco83 I agree up to a point but it sure was nice to have a guide on hand to help point you in the right direction when needed, thereby making time spent with the game that much more constructive and rewarding.

It didn't reveal any of the story if you simply used it as a reference book, so spoilers weren't an issue. Having the durability and strength of every weapon, the XP of every enemy or the ingredients of every tonic on hand etc in one guide were invaluable for many of us.

@arabiansanchez Absolutely, the more gamers that Nintendo can reach with its diversity of IPs, the better IMHO.

@SoIDecidedTo Happy to help. It is a little surprising considering how popular 2 was in Japan, in particular.

@arabiansanchez Yep, it's pretty disappointing considering the hype at launch with the shadow drop etc, but I guess this is the reason we've not seen a new game in the franchise for so long.

Nintendo were right, sadly but at least we are still guaranteed at least one more game in MP4, which is a lot more than can be said for some of their classic IPs, many of which have lain dormant for decades at this point.

Edit: Who knows, maybe if Metroid Prime 4 launches with the new console, it could get a boost in sales ala Breath of the Wild, thereby saving the franchise from extinction. Stranger things have happened..

@Joker1234 Thanks, have added this now 👍

@jco83 The map and recipe guides were incredibly useful in the BOTW release, not to mention the list of side quests, shrine quests, mini boss locations etc. All incredibly useful stuff for us completionists, as well as being a great coffee table book to browse.

Who seriously expected the Switch to outsell the PS4 in March 2017? Come on now, own up..

Will also add these relatively new games from the report, for those interested:

Pokemon Legends: Arceus – 14.83 million
Splatoon 3 – 10.67 million
Kirby and the Forgotten Land – 6.46 million
Fire Emblem Engage – 1.61 million
Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe – 1.46 million
Metroid Prime Remastered – 1.09 million
Bayonetta 3 – 1.07 million

What is going on with the official guide? Not available until mid June?? That's crazy!!!

@Debbiee "I think they should have an Easy, Regular and Hard mode"

Well they kind of did this with the harder Master mode and DLC to be fair, but I appreciate the wider point. It's unlikely Nintendo will make it significantly more difficult than BOTW, as that would go against the ethos of the company, with their games usually being designed for all comers.

From their website: 'Nintendo's mission is to put smiles on the faces of everyone we touch. We do so by creating new surprises for people across the world to enjoy together. '

On top of this, they're a business like any other, that likes to make money by attracting as many people to play their games and remain in the Nintendo ecosystem as possible.

So I wouldn't worry too much. The majority of players seemed to manage the basics of BOTW just fine with a little time and effort. Defeating Lynels or other larger enemies wasn't essential to completing or even enjoying the game. You could comfortably avoid them and of course, there was so much more to discover and appreciate.

Indeed, many people argued that the game became a little too easy after a certain point, as the ability to recover with pre-prepared dishes, fairies and Mipha's Grace during battle made you all but invincible after completing divine beast Vah Ruta.

I respect everyone has different levels of ability but Nintendo also has to strike the right balance, offering enough challenge to keep the majority happy whilst helping less accomplished players by not making things too arduous. Which, when it comes to Zelda, they usually get right a lot more often than not IMHO.

@Lightsiyd Lol, it's just an inside joke, a quote from BOTW, to be clear 🤓 Anyway, have a nice day 👍

@Lightsiyd But no one asked you to remember? Can you not read? 😜

@timp29 Haha. Fair enough but lest we forget, you're amongst fellow Zelda addicts here, so it's all good. Remember, "courage need not be remembered, for it is never forgotten" 😁

@timp29 Only 50??? Ninja disapproved

@Vortexeo I'm guessing this is more for those still on the fence or who have yet to hear about the game and don't have a Switch. One final extra marketing push for what could be the console's last big release can surely only help, even at this late stage.

Any word on Piggyback's official guide yet? Checked Amazon and it states a 23rd June release date, which seems a little odd. Was sure BOTW's guide launched same day.

After a 17 month wait, order finally confirmed, praise be! 😁

@westman98 No one's pretending to state absolutes here, these power projections are based on leaks by Linux kernel developers referred to in countless other online articles.

Sometimes it's just fun to speculate, regardless of what the eventual outcome will be.

Even a Switch that's 3x as powerful would allow most modern games to run reasonably well at 720p in handheld mode.

Speaking for myself and no doubt many others reading this, that's a pretty enticing prospect worth talking about.

@kal_el_07241 It's likely that sort of power will only be available in docked mode, with handheld performance being closer in equivalence to a base PS4 model or better, much like the 20% trade off in power we see with the current Switch.

Still, decent enough for the majority of us I should think!

@YoshiPilot Emulation is one route they could take, that's a given. Personally, I'm hoping for a more elegant solution than that but the raw processing power will be there if the need arises, absolutely.

@betterman It's unlikely, the T239 is much cheaper to manufacture than the chipsets in PS5 & XBSX, due to the less advanced architecture e.g. Larger transistors, less CPU cores, reduced VRAM etc.

It would probably be closer in cost to the Switch in 2017, relatively speaking. Remember, prices for these chips are coming down all the time, so the profit made on each console goes up pretty rapidly during its lifecycle.

@PeteW Well the T239 mentioned in the article is much closer in power to the PS4 Pro than the base model, so we're probably pretty safe on that score.

For reference, the T239 chip has roughly the same amount of compute power as an XBox Series S, which is a 10x increase on the Switch's current 0.4 TFLOP output.

In other words, this should be more than enough for a new Nintendo handheld device in 2024.