@LoneHammerBro that's definitely how I approached it in the beginning; and the great thing about emulation is everyone getting to get what they want. Seeing the 3D in crisp high-res was amazing. Great for screenshots. But eventually all the little things started to build up for me, especially with pre-rendered backgrounds and UI: weird green aliasing where the transparencies didn't align, and the constant feeling that the characters didn't fit with the world they were running around on. A pixel didn't equal a pixel didn't equal a pixel, it felt amateurish and wrong, like the recent Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters which look like Kemco mobile games. It just wasn't the experience I was looking for. So found the settings which worked for me.
@-wc- does anyone else wish that you could turn back the "hi res" elements of FFVII on switch, though?
For sure, it reminds me of the late 2000s, after I had spent a decade playing on emulators, when it clicked with me that PS1 games actually look better as a whole if you run them in their original internal resolution. All of a sudden the mismatch between 3D polygons and pre-rendered CGI and UI disappeared and it's like yes, this looks so much better now. The backgrounds stop looking like a green screen / painting, and the characters look like they actually belong in the world.
Even fully 3D games look more realistic since the number of polygons and the resolution of the textures better match the number of pixels being displayed overall - it looks more like the mindblowing technical leap over SNES that it was at the time, as opposed to a quaint relic of a pre-HD age.
Couldn't care less about 2D Mario.
I know in my heart that these are surely not taking any development resources away from "real" 3D Marios, but I can't help but feel a bit ripped off whenever the latest Mario game that everyone's talking about is one of these things.
Woo, I've been waiting for this review! Mudrunner on Switch was also blurry but the experience of it shone like a diamond, to the point where I've avoided playing Mudrunner or Snowrunner on PC since that would likely ruin the Switch version for me. Those were already impossible Switch ports and now we have Expeditions, even more impossible. As long as they haven't completely botched the port (and it sounds like they have managed it as well as the other two) this will be excellent fun. Looking forward to this.
I agree that turn based combat seems like a weird fit to an otherwise immersive atmosphere where you want to feel connected to the world around you. Makes me think of an indie developer sidestepping the things that they're not good at. Still I love the vibe and I'll be really tempted to get this.
Why would you walk anywhere when you could build a hoverbike in seconds? Roughly 400 hours in and I still find myself only really busting out the vehicles when the situation really calls for it. But maybe that's just me: I barely even rode the horses in this or BOTW. Something about clambering everywhere by foot or by hand really makes me feel attached to the place, and appreciate the scope. On the other hand, it's amazing tech and this fan mod is also really impressive.
It's not like we need SwitchStars to warn us about these scam games. They are all pretty obvious. But man it does feel good to see it "shouted from the rooftops" as it were, on a successful YouTube channel, as opposed to just becoming a cynical fact of life on the eShop with everyone just silently putting up with it.
Yeah half a billion dollars is a lot of money. But they're leaving with over 3000 employees. This isn't some "indie dev had to buy the rights to their freedom" gambit, this is more like if Activision bought itself back from Microsoft.
I rented Blast Corps when it was still fairly new, and I couldn't stand it at all. Weird, unintuitive controls, highly stressful gameplay, and a graphical presentation which could only be described as uninspiring after the heady 3D freedom of stuff like Mario 64 and San Francisco Rush. Later on when used cartridges were like $10 and I was better at games, I picked it up and challenged myself to 100% it. As a result I, like many, developed a fondness and respect for this game which had a huge amount of creativity and cleverness and it really puts the "action" on action-puzzler. But man, you really need to be thoroughly invested to reach that point, in my opinion. It's unfriendly to pick up and hard to master; it wasn't a looker even back when it was released; it's a game by and for game developers without much of a hook for a normie looking for a fun time.
There's definitely a market for this, and I'm in it. I always wanted to play the CDi Zeldas for the solid gold meme-iness, but their so-bad-it's-bad gameplay reputation turns me off actually doing it. But someone taking the meme-iness and the aesthetic, and putting it into something which isn't physically painful to play, is exactly the ticket. Plus I've heard the actual lines from Morbo and the king so many times by now that something evocative yet new is preferable.
Not to imply that there are people looking to learn Japanese just to play Ys 1 on the Switch. But if you're already a weaboo there's a pretty good chance that you're interested in classic games.
While this is a non-starter for me due to the language barrier, I think it's great that they are releasing this worldwide and not just restricting it to the Japanese eShop. Plenty of Japanese speakers (and people willing to learn) outside of Japan.
@Mgalens I completely agree! I don't need original hardware to enjoy classic games, but I'd still prefer that they look and play the same way they did originally. And for sure I wish we could just buy them once-off.
Personally, zero interest in remakes. People who love or are interested in the original can play the original (or at best a remaster if that's the only way to get it on your modern console). People who have no attachment to the original can enjoy new games without needing to get some kind of nostalgia transplant.
I really appreciate this review. I saw this on the e-shop, got drawn in by the screenshots and seriously intrigued by the trailer. But really there was no way to tell whether this was a 20-minute amateur experiment in visual aesthetics or a solid and satisfying work of art. And it's exactly the kind of release which slips through the cracks and never gets reviewed. So it's great to read here that it's not just good but really good. The review itself may be going overboard a bit with its praises... But perhaps not. I think I owe it to myself to find out.
I could have done with one of these 5 years ago, before investing thousands of dollars into legitimate Switch games! Now my backlog is so daunting that I wouldn't want one of these if it was free!
Oh and Gary Bowser would have to be a true maniac to get himself associated with this thing. I highly doubt that he's part of it at all.
In theory, console lifespans should be getting longer and longer, as the plethora of indies and retro ports and AA games prove that there's a huge appetite for experiences which don't necessary push current technology to its limits.
However, in practice, devs are getting negligent, third party engines are deprioritizing Switch performance, and games which could have run comfortably on the PS2 or Gamecube are struggling to hold frames on the Switch. And that's for the most popular console of the last 20 years! I'd love to keep playing my Switch for another 5 years but at this point a successor is obviously needed, even though the same problem will just happen again - likely sooner and sooner if Nintendo's next console slips further and further behind the level of its contemporary Sony/Microsoft consoles.
If you like this topic (but completely different gameplay) and have a beefy enough PC I'd recommend The Talos Principle 2, which just released recently. It's not shy about putting its mouth where its money is though - it has plenty of dialogue and will make you think twice about your own opinions, regarding both the state of our world today and the fantasy of fixing it.
This reads like a really minor patch - fixing a couple of low resolution textures and adding a couple of extra display/audio options. Certainly doesn't seem like something indicative of a lazy unfinished release. Sure I wish I could get the whole thing on a cart and MGS3 at 60fps, but those were clear business decisions which don't look to be changing.
@NinjaNicky not at all; good developers can optimise a game properly and you don't feel like you're getting a substandard experience on Switch at all. It's just annoyingly common now that they don't.
@Slim_in_Blue I'd say that this is a big issue with Game Pass in general. It's why I quit it after a couple of months. You have access to everything, you don't own anything; gotta sample as much as you can before the day they delist it or you stop your subscription. Backlogs and wishlists are far too long already without a distraction like that.
Every so often I think to myself: why is Minecraft so successful? Why is it still so culturally and commercially important and (by many metrics) unsurpassed today, 13 years after its creation? The reason is that it doesn't have unlocks, or sorting, or merging; it doesn't have cute sofas, or any sofas, or even houses at all, really. A block is a block and you make of it what you will. It's ultimate power; ultimate blank-canvas creativity, even if most of us aren't especially creative ourselves. So many games have come along over the past decade which offer more... but Minecraft's secret sauce is that it offers less. Anyway yeah enjoy Lego Fortnite if you like.
Unless we're talking about a crazy impossible port, there is no excuse for shoddy performance. Games have been running perfectly smoothly on consoles ever since consoles have existed - you are supposed to build the game so that it runs properly on the hardware it's built for. The Switch is much more powerful than a PS2 which runs DQ8 just fine. It has become no less powerful than it was when it launched... Games later in a console's life are supposed to perform better as developers get better and more knowledgeable about the hardware. Instead for some reason the opposite is true with the Switch - everyone seems to be starting their projects with PS5-level expectations and then just lazily pruning things back until they can say that technically "it runs". The only exceptions seem to be Nintendo themselves (obviously) and their close second-patties such as Retro Studios and Monolith Soft.
What a classic; I'd love to play this with dual analogue sticks but for the true experience I'm happy to jump back into this now with the Switch N64 pad. Took me months to finish back on the original N64, there's essentially no way to reach the end other than 100%ing this beast, but I proudly did it with no guidebook whatsoever and then promptly switched it off in relief, happy to never touch it again. Having save states available now is going to be a game changer. With some classic titles it can be a real moral dilemma when or if to use save states, but with Jet Force Gemini I think save states can pretty much add two points to the review score.
Cats getting married? Now I've seen everything. Too bad they don't go the realistic route of just letting you get busy with every warm body you come across.
And the little building out the back of Lon Lon ranch, a 10 minute walk away from anything else. And the way the river at the bottom of the gorge at Gerudo Valley will wash you away to Lake Hylia. And the magic carpet guy in the haunted wasteland. Man I think it's time to play OOT again.
For me it was the places which were off the critical path and able to be overlooked. The back alley in Hyrule Town is definitely one, but there's also that one puzzle room in Dodongo's Cavern (a child Link temple) that you can only get to if you go back as Adult link and have the scarecrow song and can figure out exactly where to play it. Also the diving pool next to Lake Hylia, with its caged shark. Technically the pool has a purpose but it always felt as though there was more to it than met the eye...
I wonder how you initiate the trial chambers. Reminds me of the Vault Hunters mod; I suspect it will put you into a different dimension as opposed to anything which actually exists within the overworld.
I agree that the early 2010s were a very different time for indies. But Braid was a genius gameplay concept which nobody had ever seen before, and to this day I don't think there's many (if any) games which let you reverse time with no limit like this. Perhaps Baba Is You but that's not exactly real-time movement.
The word "upscaling" is used a few times here... But don't phones have higher resolutions than the Switch does, even when docked? If anything this would be downscaled.
I get that release-first-patch-later is just the state of the industry now, but (since review scores being important is also the state of the industry) I wish that all games being released in an unplayable state were just given a flat zero. Releasing a game which literally can't be played or finished properly is such a middle finger to the customer that it should not be tolerated even though the technology is there for them to weasel out of it later. If a game was released like this in the old days, when it couldn't be patched after the fact, the publisher would be run out of the industry. That should still be the state today. By all means, enhance your game with post release patches. There's always going to be bugs. But we have to draw a line somewhere.
Great list, but in addition to bad discoverability on the e-shop, I'm hoping that they figure out how to make it actually run better. I have a spectacular internet connection but the e-shop can only scroll through about 10 games before it starts really struggling. Every row will start taking longer and longer to load in, screenshots will stop cycling, and if it's a long browsing session you can guarantee that it will crash to the home screen before you hit 15 minutes. This is web browsing, and furthermore it is surely the main revenue driver for the entire Switch ecosystem and Nintendo haven't bothered to polish it properly throughout 6 and a half years! Goes to show just how successful the Switch has been, really, because minimum viable product really has been good enough to be profitable in this case.
On the topic of hockey games, I picked up Bush League Hockey in the hopes that it might scratch that Wayne Gretzky 64 itch. It certainly looks the part. But personally I found it to be unplayable. It's just mad crazy complicated - I felt like at any given moment you need to be pressing 3 different buttons at the same time; there's like 10 different contexts where the buttons do completely different things; it's just all over the place. Add in long load times and there's really no compulsion to put in the hours it would take to get the hang of playing it. Friends and random partygoers certainly aren't going to. It would be great to have a fast-paced, simple arcade hockey game on the Switch.
Count the number of times the author had to temper their praise with the qualifier "2D". Mario 64 changed the playing field; it's been 3D or bust for over 25 years now.
By the way, did anyone else get a survey from Nintendo after playing Metroid Prime Remastered which asked if you bought it physical, and then asked you why? I found that very interesting, both as an insight into Nintendo and as an honest thought experiment for myself.
I'm all for it, as an option for other people. And if the Switch 2 is digital only, so be it. But luckily for me I'm doing well enough these days that the idea of sacrificing functionality to save a couple of bucks is just ludicrous. I'll pay the full price for the full console, thank you very much.
Hot take!
The arguments for why it's not in Nintendo's interest to add backwards compatibility are crystal clear, and that's exactly why I'm concerned that we won't get it. But it's definitely in our interests.
For me, never in history have I spent so much and built up such a huge library as on the Switch. I'm all about the N64; I got every game that I'd ever wanted on it by about 2005, but that worked out to less than 30 titles. With the Switch it must be about 400 by now. And many of them were bought "for the future" and remain completely unplayed. This has reached Steam level of comfort and confidence that the platform is here for the long haul, and it would be devastating for that to not happen.
And let's be honest with each other: you can say that it's easy enough to dig out the old machine from the drawer anytime, but how often do any of us really do that? Have you looked at a PSP recently? It's a clunky junkbox compared to anything released in the last 15 years. Sure it can play Burnout Legends and Sega Rally, but with that analog stick?
I enjoyed the first Horizon Chase - the graphics were slick, the music sublime, the 60fps an eye-opener. And it was pretty fun to boot. But I couldn't really call it a racer, not really. It's like those old 16-bit games where you can sort of slide left and right. In my opinion, if you look at a racing game and wonder: what would happen if you weren't on a linear track? and realise that the whole engine would fall apart, then you're not really driving a car. I'd say the same about Cruisin' Blast too. Still arcade fun mind you. Just missing that tangible feel of control that proper racers have.
Rocket League is the perfect palate cleanser. Fire it up, then it's 5-minute bouts of don't-think-just-act for as long as you have the time.
Ooh, and Descenders - it has a similar "joy of movement" to it except it's a comfy single-player game.
That con is right: I had great fun with this for one or two tunes before the joycon stopped registering any movement at all. Not the first game that's happened in either, they are absolutely no Wiimotes that's for sure. But man if this game doesn't make me laugh.
Comments 1,212
Re: Save Up To 70% On Square Enix Titles In The Publisher's Latest Switch eShop Sale
@LoneHammerBro that's definitely how I approached it in the beginning; and the great thing about emulation is everyone getting to get what they want. Seeing the 3D in crisp high-res was amazing. Great for screenshots. But eventually all the little things started to build up for me, especially with pre-rendered backgrounds and UI: weird green aliasing where the transparencies didn't align, and the constant feeling that the characters didn't fit with the world they were running around on. A pixel didn't equal a pixel didn't equal a pixel, it felt amateurish and wrong, like the recent Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters which look like Kemco mobile games. It just wasn't the experience I was looking for. So found the settings which worked for me.
Re: Save Up To 70% On Square Enix Titles In The Publisher's Latest Switch eShop Sale
@-wc-
does anyone else wish that you could turn back the "hi res" elements of FFVII on switch, though?
For sure, it reminds me of the late 2000s, after I had spent a decade playing on emulators, when it clicked with me that PS1 games actually look better as a whole if you run them in their original internal resolution. All of a sudden the mismatch between 3D polygons and pre-rendered CGI and UI disappeared and it's like yes, this looks so much better now. The backgrounds stop looking like a green screen / painting, and the characters look like they actually belong in the world.
Even fully 3D games look more realistic since the number of polygons and the resolution of the textures better match the number of pixels being displayed overall - it looks more like the mindblowing technical leap over SNES that it was at the time, as opposed to a quaint relic of a pre-HD age.
Re: Poll: Do You Want To See 'Super Mario Bros. Wonder 2'?
Couldn't care less about 2D Mario.
I know in my heart that these are surely not taking any development resources away from "real" 3D Marios, but I can't help but feel a bit ripped off whenever the latest Mario game that everyone's talking about is one of these things.
Re: Review: Expeditions: A MudRunner Game (Switch) - Performance Bumps Can't Run This Sim Off The Road
Woo, I've been waiting for this review!
Mudrunner on Switch was also blurry but the experience of it shone like a diamond, to the point where I've avoided playing Mudrunner or Snowrunner on PC since that would likely ruin the Switch version for me.
Those were already impossible Switch ports and now we have Expeditions, even more impossible. As long as they haven't completely botched the port (and it sounds like they have managed it as well as the other two) this will be excellent fun. Looking forward to this.
Re: The Apocalypse Gets Cosy In 'Highwater', Sailing Onto Switch Next Month
I agree that turn based combat seems like a weird fit to an otherwise immersive atmosphere where you want to feel connected to the world around you. Makes me think of an indie developer sidestepping the things that they're not good at. Still I love the vibe and I'll be really tempted to get this.
Re: Random: Zelda Modder Recreates TOTK's Ultrahand In Ocarina Of Time
Why would you walk anywhere when you could build a hoverbike in seconds?
Roughly 400 hours in and I still find myself only really busting out the vehicles when the situation really calls for it. But maybe that's just me: I barely even rode the horses in this or BOTW. Something about clambering everywhere by foot or by hand really makes me feel attached to the place, and appreciate the scope.
On the other hand, it's amazing tech and this fan mod is also really impressive.
Re: Publisher Midnight Works Allegedly Targeting YouTuber For Calling Out Its "Scam" Switch Games
It's not like we need SwitchStars to warn us about these scam games. They are all pretty obvious. But man it does feel good to see it "shouted from the rooftops" as it were, on a successful YouTube channel, as opposed to just becoming a cynical fact of life on the eShop with everyone just silently putting up with it.
Re: Reynatis Is An Urban Fantasy RPG From Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts Writer
Look at those empty, empty Shibuya streets.
Re: Saber Interactive Is Reportedly Splitting From Embracer Group
Yeah half a billion dollars is a lot of money. But they're leaving with over 3000 employees. This isn't some "indie dev had to buy the rights to their freedom" gambit, this is more like if Activision bought itself back from Microsoft.
Re: Review: Blast Corps - An Absurd, Exhilarating, Explosive Gem From Rare's N64 Days
I rented Blast Corps when it was still fairly new, and I couldn't stand it at all. Weird, unintuitive controls, highly stressful gameplay, and a graphical presentation which could only be described as uninspiring after the heady 3D freedom of stuff like Mario 64 and San Francisco Rush.
Later on when used cartridges were like $10 and I was better at games, I picked it up and challenged myself to 100% it. As a result I, like many, developed a fondness and respect for this game which had a huge amount of creativity and cleverness and it really puts the "action" on action-puzzler. But man, you really need to be thoroughly invested to reach that point, in my opinion. It's unfriendly to pick up and hard to master; it wasn't a looker even back when it was released; it's a game by and for game developers without much of a hook for a normie looking for a fun time.
Re: Review: Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore (Switch) - An Adroit Homage To The Worst Zelda Games
@JohnnyMind thanks for the tip!
Re: Review: Arzette: The Jewel Of Faramore (Switch) - An Adroit Homage To The Worst Zelda Games
There's definitely a market for this, and I'm in it. I always wanted to play the CDi Zeldas for the solid gold meme-iness, but their so-bad-it's-bad gameplay reputation turns me off actually doing it. But someone taking the meme-iness and the aesthetic, and putting it into something which isn't physically painful to play, is exactly the ticket. Plus I've heard the actual lines from Morbo and the king so many times by now that something evocative yet new is preferable.
Re: Nihon Falcom's Original 'Ys' RPG Arrives On Switch This Week
Not to imply that there are people looking to learn Japanese just to play Ys 1 on the Switch. But if you're already a weaboo there's a pretty good chance that you're interested in classic games.
Re: Nihon Falcom's Original 'Ys' RPG Arrives On Switch This Week
While this is a non-starter for me due to the language barrier, I think it's great that they are releasing this worldwide and not just restricting it to the Japanese eShop. Plenty of Japanese speakers (and people willing to learn) outside of Japan.
Re: Don't Expect A Remake Of Final Fantasy 6 Soon, If Ever
@Mgalens I completely agree! I don't need original hardware to enjoy classic games, but I'd still prefer that they look and play the same way they did originally. And for sure I wish we could just buy them once-off.
Re: Don't Expect A Remake Of Final Fantasy 6 Soon, If Ever
Personally, zero interest in remakes. People who love or are interested in the original can play the original (or at best a remaster if that's the only way to get it on your modern console). People who have no attachment to the original can enjoy new games without needing to get some kind of nostalgia transplant.
Re: Review: Bahnsen Knights (Switch) - Perhaps The Best Yet Of The Brilliant 'Pixel Pulps'
I really appreciate this review. I saw this on the e-shop, got drawn in by the screenshots and seriously intrigued by the trailer. But really there was no way to tell whether this was a 20-minute amateur experiment in visual aesthetics or a solid and satisfying work of art. And it's exactly the kind of release which slips through the cracks and never gets reviewed. So it's great to read here that it's not just good but really good. The review itself may be going overboard a bit with its praises... But perhaps not. I think I owe it to myself to find out.
Re: Sea Of Stars Physical Release Sails In This May
That's awesome, I was sure it would end up as Limited Run.
Re: Nintendo Hacker Gary Bowser Says He's "Not Involved" With New Switch Flash Cart
I could have done with one of these 5 years ago, before investing thousands of dollars into legitimate Switch games! Now my backlog is so daunting that I wouldn't want one of these if it was free!
Oh and Gary Bowser would have to be a true maniac to get himself associated with this thing. I highly doubt that he's part of it at all.
Re: Talking Point: Could Nintendo Go Another Year Without A Switch Successor?
In theory, console lifespans should be getting longer and longer, as the plethora of indies and retro ports and AA games prove that there's a huge appetite for experiences which don't necessary push current technology to its limits.
However, in practice, devs are getting negligent, third party engines are deprioritizing Switch performance, and games which could have run comfortably on the PS2 or Gamecube are struggling to hold frames on the Switch. And that's for the most popular console of the last 20 years! I'd love to keep playing my Switch for another 5 years but at this point a successor is obviously needed, even though the same problem will just happen again - likely sooner and sooner if Nintendo's next console slips further and further behind the level of its contemporary Sony/Microsoft consoles.
Re: Review: Terra Nil (Switch) - Satisfying Climate-Cleansing Strategy, With Some Switch Issues
If you like this topic (but completely different gameplay) and have a beefy enough PC I'd recommend The Talos Principle 2, which just released recently. It's not shy about putting its mouth where its money is though - it has plenty of dialogue and will make you think twice about your own opinions, regarding both the state of our world today and the fantasy of fixing it.
Re: Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection's Next Update Launches "Early" January 2024
This reads like a really minor patch - fixing a couple of low resolution textures and adding a couple of extra display/audio options. Certainly doesn't seem like something indicative of a lazy unfinished release. Sure I wish I could get the whole thing on a cart and MGS3 at 60fps, but those were clear business decisions which don't look to be changing.
Re: Review: Outer Wilds (Switch) - A Sublime Spacewalk That Stutters Can't Spoil
@NinjaNicky not at all; good developers can optimise a game properly and you don't feel like you're getting a substandard experience on Switch at all. It's just annoyingly common now that they don't.
Re: Review: Outer Wilds (Switch) - A Sublime Spacewalk That Stutters Can't Spoil
@Slim_in_Blue I'd say that this is a big issue with Game Pass in general. It's why I quit it after a couple of months. You have access to everything, you don't own anything; gotta sample as much as you can before the day they delist it or you stop your subscription. Backlogs and wishlists are far too long already without a distraction like that.
Re: GTA 6 On 'Switch 2' Would Be "Very Tricky To Pull Off", Says Digital Foundry
What are these guys even talking about? A pre-rendered trailer for GTA 6 and an entirely hypothetical Switch 2.
Re: Soapbox: If You're Not Playing LEGO Fortnite, You're Missing One Of The Best Survival Games
Every so often I think to myself: why is Minecraft so successful? Why is it still so culturally and commercially important and (by many metrics) unsurpassed today, 13 years after its creation?
The reason is that it doesn't have unlocks, or sorting, or merging; it doesn't have cute sofas, or any sofas, or even houses at all, really. A block is a block and you make of it what you will. It's ultimate power; ultimate blank-canvas creativity, even if most of us aren't especially creative ourselves. So many games have come along over the past decade which offer more... but Minecraft's secret sauce is that it offers less.
Anyway yeah enjoy Lego Fortnite if you like.
Re: Review: Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince (Switch) - A Near-Royal Return For The Addictive Monster-Catching Spin-Off
Unless we're talking about a crazy impossible port, there is no excuse for shoddy performance. Games have been running perfectly smoothly on consoles ever since consoles have existed - you are supposed to build the game so that it runs properly on the hardware it's built for.
The Switch is much more powerful than a PS2 which runs DQ8 just fine. It has become no less powerful than it was when it launched... Games later in a console's life are supposed to perform better as developers get better and more knowledgeable about the hardware. Instead for some reason the opposite is true with the Switch - everyone seems to be starting their projects with PS5-level expectations and then just lazily pruning things back until they can say that technically "it runs". The only exceptions seem to be Nintendo themselves (obviously) and their close second-patties such as Retro Studios and Monolith Soft.
Re: Review: Jet Force Gemini - Another Rare N64 Gem, Flawed But Fun
What a classic; I'd love to play this with dual analogue sticks but for the true experience I'm happy to jump back into this now with the Switch N64 pad.
Took me months to finish back on the original N64, there's essentially no way to reach the end other than 100%ing this beast, but I proudly did it with no guidebook whatsoever and then promptly switched it off in relief, happy to never touch it again.
Having save states available now is going to be a game changer. With some classic titles it can be a real moral dilemma when or if to use save states, but with Jet Force Gemini I think save states can pretty much add two points to the review score.
Re: Cute Cat RPG 'Cattails: Wildwood Story' Snuggles Onto Switch Today
Cats getting married? Now I've seen everything. Too bad they don't go the realistic route of just letting you get busy with every warm body you come across.
Re: Review: The Walking Dead: Destinies (Switch) - One Of The Worst Games Of The Year
What a name. Gamemill. Pretty much tells you all you need to know.
Reminds me of that other purveyor of eShop crapware, InstaMarketingAndGame.
Re: Talking Point: Going Home - Ocarina Of Time's Best Locales
And the little building out the back of Lon Lon ranch, a 10 minute walk away from anything else. And the way the river at the bottom of the gorge at Gerudo Valley will wash you away to Lake Hylia. And the magic carpet guy in the haunted wasteland.
Man I think it's time to play OOT again.
Re: Talking Point: Going Home - Ocarina Of Time's Best Locales
For me it was the places which were off the critical path and able to be overlooked. The back alley in Hyrule Town is definitely one, but there's also that one puzzle room in Dodongo's Cavern (a child Link temple) that you can only get to if you go back as Adult link and have the scarecrow song and can figure out exactly where to play it.
Also the diving pool next to Lake Hylia, with its caged shark. Technically the pool has a purpose but it always felt as though there was more to it than met the eye...
Re: Minecraft Unveils Trial Chambers And New Mischievous Mob
I wonder how you initiate the trial chambers. Reminds me of the Vault Hunters mod; I suspect it will put you into a different dimension as opposed to anything which actually exists within the overworld.
Re: Braid: Anniversary Edition Out Next Year, But There's No Mention Of A Switch Release
I agree that the early 2010s were a very different time for indies. But Braid was a genius gameplay concept which nobody had ever seen before, and to this day I don't think there's many (if any) games which let you reverse time with no limit like this. Perhaps Baba Is You but that's not exactly real-time movement.
Re: Review: Air Twister - An Arcade Blast From Yu Suzuki's Past, And A Missed Opportunity
The word "upscaling" is used a few times here... But don't phones have higher resolutions than the Switch does, even when docked? If anything this would be downscaled.
Re: Review: Ebenezer And The Invisible World - A Good Metroidvania Launched In A Ghastly State
I get that release-first-patch-later is just the state of the industry now, but (since review scores being important is also the state of the industry) I wish that all games being released in an unplayable state were just given a flat zero.
Releasing a game which literally can't be played or finished properly is such a middle finger to the customer that it should not be tolerated even though the technology is there for them to weasel out of it later. If a game was released like this in the old days, when it couldn't be patched after the fact, the publisher would be run out of the industry. That should still be the state today. By all means, enhance your game with post release patches. There's always going to be bugs. But we have to draw a line somewhere.
Re: Zelda Voted 'Favourite' Tears Of The Kingdom Character In Recent Famitsu Survey
Did nobody vote in the food question at all?
Re: Talking Point: Along With Joy-Con Drift, What Does Nintendo Have To 'Fix' With 'Switch 2'?
Great list, but in addition to bad discoverability on the e-shop, I'm hoping that they figure out how to make it actually run better.
I have a spectacular internet connection but the e-shop can only scroll through about 10 games before it starts really struggling. Every row will start taking longer and longer to load in, screenshots will stop cycling, and if it's a long browsing session you can guarantee that it will crash to the home screen before you hit 15 minutes. This is web browsing, and furthermore it is surely the main revenue driver for the entire Switch ecosystem and Nintendo haven't bothered to polish it properly throughout 6 and a half years! Goes to show just how successful the Switch has been, really, because minimum viable product really has been good enough to be profitable in this case.
Re: Random: This Drink Driving Game Is A Nasty Blemish On The Switch eShop
It's a blemish because it's crap. We've been drink driving since at least GTA4 (and drug driving since San Andreas)
Re: Mailbox: The Future Of 3D Mario, Indie Sequels, Deadlines - Nintendo Life Letters
On the topic of hockey games, I picked up Bush League Hockey in the hopes that it might scratch that Wayne Gretzky 64 itch. It certainly looks the part. But personally I found it to be unplayable. It's just mad crazy complicated - I felt like at any given moment you need to be pressing 3 different buttons at the same time; there's like 10 different contexts where the buttons do completely different things; it's just all over the place. Add in long load times and there's really no compulsion to put in the hours it would take to get the hang of playing it. Friends and random partygoers certainly aren't going to. It would be great to have a fast-paced, simple arcade hockey game on the Switch.
Re: Review: Super Mario Bros. Wonder - The Best 2D Mario Since The Super NES
Count the number of times the author had to temper their praise with the qualifier "2D".
Mario 64 changed the playing field; it's been 3D or bust for over 25 years now.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Buy A Digital-Only 'Switch 2'?
By the way, did anyone else get a survey from Nintendo after playing Metroid Prime Remastered which asked if you bought it physical, and then asked you why? I found that very interesting, both as an insight into Nintendo and as an honest thought experiment for myself.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Buy A Digital-Only 'Switch 2'?
@JalapenoSpiceLife the e-shop going down doesn't mean that you can't play your games anymore. Just that you can't buy more.
Re: Talking Point: Would You Buy A Digital-Only 'Switch 2'?
I'm all for it, as an option for other people. And if the Switch 2 is digital only, so be it. But luckily for me I'm doing well enough these days that the idea of sacrificing functionality to save a couple of bucks is just ludicrous. I'll pay the full price for the full console, thank you very much.
Re: Soapbox: 'Switch 2' Doesn't Really Need Backwards Compatibility
Hot take!
The arguments for why it's not in Nintendo's interest to add backwards compatibility are crystal clear, and that's exactly why I'm concerned that we won't get it. But it's definitely in our interests.
For me, never in history have I spent so much and built up such a huge library as on the Switch. I'm all about the N64; I got every game that I'd ever wanted on it by about 2005, but that worked out to less than 30 titles. With the Switch it must be about 400 by now. And many of them were bought "for the future" and remain completely unplayed. This has reached Steam level of comfort and confidence that the platform is here for the long haul, and it would be devastating for that to not happen.
And let's be honest with each other: you can say that it's easy enough to dig out the old machine from the drawer anytime, but how often do any of us really do that? Have you looked at a PSP recently? It's a clunky junkbox compared to anything released in the last 15 years. Sure it can play Burnout Legends and Sega Rally, but with that analog stick?
Re: Review: Horizon Chase 2 - More Arcade Racing, With Some Bumps In The Road
I enjoyed the first Horizon Chase - the graphics were slick, the music sublime, the 60fps an eye-opener. And it was pretty fun to boot.
But I couldn't really call it a racer, not really. It's like those old 16-bit games where you can sort of slide left and right. In my opinion, if you look at a racing game and wonder: what would happen if you weren't on a linear track? and realise that the whole engine would fall apart, then you're not really driving a car. I'd say the same about Cruisin' Blast too.
Still arcade fun mind you. Just missing that tangible feel of control that proper racers have.
Re: Soapbox: What Do You Do When Nintendo Ticks Off Your ENTIRE Most-Wanted List?
Kate ask them to let us purchase N64 games on the Switch so that we can keep em!
And bring back the San Francisco Rush series - the old ones and a new one.
You have this power, you have to use it for good!
Re: Talking Point: What Is Your Video Game Palate Cleanser?
Rocket League is the perfect palate cleanser. Fire it up, then it's 5-minute bouts of don't-think-just-act for as long as you have the time.
Ooh, and Descenders - it has a similar "joy of movement" to it except it's a comfy single-player game.
Re: Poll: Do You Prefer Zelda: Wind Waker HD's Bloom Lighting Or The "Flat" OG?
It's toon Link! I'll never understand why they de-toonified him on the Wii U. Bold flat colours was the whole point.
Re: Review: Trombone Champ - A Hilarious Party Game That Blows A Big Raspberry At Perfection
That con is right: I had great fun with this for one or two tunes before the joycon stopped registering any movement at all. Not the first game that's happened in either, they are absolutely no Wiimotes that's for sure.
But man if this game doesn't make me laugh.