OmnitronVariant

@Willo567 The proof is the release date. Look, I enjoyed the base game, but the DLC releasing this soon means it finished development before the game even came out, and is going through final QA now. So it's per definition content "cut" from the base game, which we have to pay a premium for.

I'm not doing it. It doesn't even look like it adds anything that adds to the base game in a meaningful way, nor fixes any of its fundamental issues of battle losing any challenge past a certain level with only ranked pvp — which they just gimped in a patch — proving any challenge whatsoever.

Guh.

I don't like to subscribe to access a games library, and Nintendo's online services are terrible, at least here in Scandinavia, so I didn't renew my NSO let alone the NSO+ I have.

Emulators elsewhere have significantly better features for free if I really feel like retro gaming, but I rarely do these days.

Oooh that's good news. Been mildly curious about this one, so I'll give the demo a go.

@bosh I'm the only one among my gaming friends with one as well — and most of them got the Switch 1, but see little reason to get a Switch 2 yet. Ancedata for sure, but still. I do wonder how these sales are counted; are they sales to customers, or sales to stores? Because the stores are all overstocked with them here.

Does nothing for me, will pass on this.

I'll try a demo, but I haven't really jelled with any of these style of games so far — from the first Hyrule Warriors to Fire Emblem: Warriors and Age of Calamity, so I don't think I'll enjoy this one either, even if it at least looks prettier.

I’m interested in these but the price is a lot. I hope there’s a demo at some point, otherwise will wait for a sale.

@GetontheStiix You don’t have to tie game logic to framerate. In fact no modern game engine does because it’s inherently stupid. I speak as someone who develops game engines for indie games. Your own argument is uninformed.

It’s more fluff but not more core Animal Crossing. I’ve moved on and this is unlikely to be bringing me back.

@Bolt_Strike Weird the parents aren’t buying millions of Star Wars games then. Or Hello Kitty. Or SpongeBob. Hmmmm.

> Frame rates capped at 30

Why? What is the damn point? Good thing the content update is free i guess, I’m not paying for that Switch 2 upgrade.

@Bolt_Strike Or maybe they simply enjoy that? Look, I don’t enjoy gacha games at all and I can’t fathom why anyone would buy COD every iteration, but also, I enjoy games other people feel the same about.

What makes me question the entire premise of buying based on brand alone is because if people don’t enjoy a game, they’re unlikely to buy the next one. If they still do and that one also isn’t enjoyable, many people stop there. I know I do.

I know it’s not satisfying to have to acknowledge that maybe people genuinely enjoy Pokémon games you don’t, but it’s going to be more likely than you want to admit.

People genuinely enjoy playing CoD. People genuinely enjoy wasting money on gacha games because they have different values and preferences. I can’t see eye to eye with them, but I’m not going to dehumanise them either.

Pokémon ZA is one of the most fun games I’ve played this year when there’s been so many disappointments to me — MKW and Bananza were definitely not for me. And Arceus and Violet were both tremendous fun, whereas Sword was not. But there’s people in these very comments that say Sword was their recent favourite. Maybe we just have different tastes.

This comment field shows exactly why GF is doing the right thing: There’s no consensus here about which games are good or bad. Because they’re making varied games that might not always appeal to the same people. And they can afford to do that because they’re not doing «AAA» development.

You cracked the code peeps.

I've never enjoyed a Warriors style game, so I'm sitting this one out as well. Maybe when it hits a more palatable price point with a deep discount I might give it the benefit of the doubt.

@SpaceboyScreams You conveniently ignored the other points in my comments. Like budget and comparing to the rest of the industry. You might have an inner cartoon reality where investors are so silly they only look at an isolated graph without any context, but here in reality, the context matters.

So Z-A sells 5.8 million in a week and "journalists" and pundits are bending over backwards trying to find a negative spin on sales numbers.

Meanwhile Assassin's Creed Shadows sits at ~2.8m after half a year, and Star Wars Outlaws didn't breach 1m in its first month, yet journalists bent over backwards trying to put positive spins on them.

Really makes you wonder...

I don't understand people's love for HG/SS. And yes I bought it on release. It was OK. I think people should try replaying it today and refresh their nostalgia vision.

@JohnnyMind Given Legends: Arceus released during peak covid lockdowns, I'd say it's really impressive this game is so close, when game sales in general are way down compared to the covid years.

@1UP-HUSKY The further you get in the story, the more populated the city becomes. During daytime there's people moving about almost everywhere.

@Zoda_Fett No, I explicitly wrote:

> There’s not a single indie game even remotely **like this game in gameplay systems or world building**, nor in terms of cohesive art style and overall design. I love indies but let’s not kid ourselves. Do you have any concrete examples I might’ve overlooked?

I wasn't talking about games in general. That's comparing apples to oranges. But where did your comment go that listed them?

@Zoda_Fett None of these games are anything like Pokémon Z-A..? Not in gameplay, not in general concept even, nor in production value. I've played most of them. It's like comparing Super Mario Bros to Dragon Quest and complaining either doesn't have what the other has.

@Elektrogeist1287 I play mostly indie games, including Palworld if you consider that indie. There’s not a single indie game even remotely like this game in gameplay systems or world building, nor in terms of cohesive art style and overall design. I love indies but let’s not kid ourselves. Do you have any concrete examples I might’ve overlooked?

@Zoda_Fett That’s fair then. Many people that comment negatively haven’t so I felt like doing a spot check. Personally I was not convinced before I tried it, and 30+ hours in I’ve really enjoyed the game so far

@Elektrogeist1287 Did you play it?

@UpsideDownRowlet Same, same. I was really critical about this based on promo material, but the moment I started playing it, I realized I'd been dead wrong in my assumptions. It's such a good game.

@kal_el_07241 Yeah I play a lot of other games, there's no games that have all the things these people criticize this game for not having. Which makes me wonder: Why are people so nitpicky about Pokémon? Is it some weird form for "jealous" because the games keep selling well despite not catering to their particular taste and not looking the way they want them to look..?

@Jeronan What gets me is that I've played state-of-the-art open-world city-based games like Cyberpunk and most NPC's are static there as well! It's only in tiny pockets where they have the "crowd" dynamic but then every fifth NPC is a carbon copy of another because of memory limitations on most hardware, even on my high-end PC.

The expectations people have with GF's games just because their games sell a lot are bizarre.

@Jeronan ... wow. I read your comments before they got nuked, there was nothing wrong with them. I think I might end up leaving if this is the response they have to legitimate criticism

@Jedrus_Lilac The games are so wildly different this makes no sense. And I enjoy both, but for very different reasons. Z-A is a significantly more polished product than Palworld mechanically, and it's got a story and quests and systems Palworld has none of.

@Jeronan I feel the same, absolutely worth the money. I'm still a tiny bit miffed it cost more on Switch 2 "just" for the resolution and framerate bump, but it is still worth it by far in how good it's been so far, 30+ hours in. Best game I've played this year by far. It might not be a looker in screenshots and promo material, but when playing it, on a Switch 2 in handheld, it looks really good. The game changed my mind entirely when I tried it for myself.

@iLikeUrAttitude Oh I really don’t care what other people think in terms of my own enjoyment of games. If I did I would indeed be miserable.

I just find the excessive nitpicking by people who haven’t even played the game in these comments bizarre. The whole premise of this article is also objectively false versus what I’m seeing when I play it.

I think this is just cynical ragebait like so much of the internet now, and it brings forth the worst in everyone.

@tseliot "I'm going to buy this new Pokémon game and if it isn't the perfect amalgamation of The Witcher 3 + Cyberpunk + GTA 6 (my inner idea of it) + a story to rival Tolkien but with Pokémon in it, then it's a lazy effort 1/10"

Probably the mental state of some people. I don't know. It's wild in here.

@PressTurn I know, it's really annoying even if it's an "opinion" article. It feels like this is here just to feed the negativity and farm comments. I guess it's succeeding...

> I imagine putting another few million dollars in development would net them more sales and more good will

You can imagine that but that's not how it works. Look at Assassin's Creed: Shadows. It's estimated to have sold up to 3.4m copies only, with a budget confirmed to be over €100 million. Not that I should need an example: Spending inordinate amounts of money on a product doesn't make it sell more, that's banal. What it causes is creative freedoms being restricted because the risk of not selling well are so high you have to make the gameplay mediocre — to cater to as many as possible. Except then you excite nobody.

I'd much rather have games like Z-A that make a few vocal people really mad it doesn't look like their other "AAA" game releases visually, but has the gameplay and charm that makes people like me enjoy it that much more. It's tempting to want it all — the best visuals possible, the best gameplay, the best audio, the best voice acting, and on and on. But that's not realistic. So here we have a game with really great gameplay and character, and amazing atmosphere and audio, and innovative new mechanics. And sure it doesn't compete technically with the best of the best on a visual level, but it beats them in fun. I'd take that any day.

@Stormkyleis Yeah and they do that in this too, in the Battle Zones. And in the city there's people moving about as well, they're not all standing still.

The game is really good, 29 hours in so far. I don't play games for realism; if that's your thing, maybe play something else than a Pokémon game?

So it turns out the reason the buildings look more geometrically basic than an N64 game is because GameFreak load the entire city into memory, and the game needs to run on Switch 1 so they can’t have more geometry. Recent leaks show early prototypes with more detailed buildings but it ran even worse, so instead of modern optimisations they went this route.

From a programmer perspective, and someone who writes game engines from scratch, this is amateurish. It’s ridiculous. But hey, it sells. Kudos to GF for pulling off another cheaply produced premium priced cash grab. They are really good at it.

Edit: Now having played it, I must admit to being wrong. There’s technical reasons for this apparent when playing it and moving around the city given the vantage points possible. It’s a technical tradeoff but it does make sense given it needs to run on Switch 1, I think

@SuppressorSteve There’s currently only one 120hz game on the system AFAIK, which is Silksong. And yes some S1 games without framerate locks run better performance wise (and potentially hit resolution target more frequently) but those are rare.

The rest is objectively placebos.

@StewdaMegaManNerd They really don't, not in handheld. Switch 1 games target at best a 720p resolution, and Switch 2 simply stretches that to a 1080p image for its handheld display. Depending on a) actual resolution and b) anti-aliasing mode (or lack thereof) of the Switch 1 title, a lot of them look a lot worse, with distracting shimmer and artifacts from scaling.

From my testing, that includes Animal Crossing, Mario Kart 8D, Smash Bros, Stardew Valley, and more. They look significantly better on even the OG Switch 1 because there's no added stretching of the image, setting aside the screen quality differences between an OLED model and Switch 2

@electrolite77 Already explained why that’s not an apt comparison when you can’t tell an immediate difference between consoles without a technical breakdown.

@OorWullie The 3DS was a more powerful DS with a stereoscopic screen and a significant leap in what was possible technically. 3DS games could not have run on DS, and if you look at Mario Kart 7 next to Mario Kart DS you wouldn't be confused which one was new. Look at screenshots of Mario Kart World and MK8D and a lot of the time the former looks worse, and other times it marginally looks better.

Advance was equally as significant a leap from GameBoy Color as SNES was to NES, and opened up so many new technical possibilities. Heck even just the possible colors on screen at once via sprite modes make it obvious; 511 on GBA vs 51 on GBC, full transparency, markedly higher resolution, and on and on.

If you can't see the difference, I don't want to waste the comment space explaining it, but you can do that research if you even care.

@Member_the_game We don't need another Sony, so I'm just not amused whatsoever by this approach. That aside, the quality of the console itself is also disappointing to me. At least Sony makes high quality consoles.

@Member_the_game Different demographics. I just didn’t want Nintendo to become complacent and boring. They have.

I can't wait for my subscription to lapse and never pay for this again. I feel like such a moron paying for a year when I never use any of it, and the software quality is so bad compared to open-source emulators.

@electrolite77 Now think back to all the changes to the original Star Wars trilogy over the years. Was that a good thing? Was the CG replacement of the original practical effects a good thing? How about another author going back and fixing another author's original story to be more modern?

I want access to the originals. I don't want companies wasting time and resources trying to nickel and dime me with minimal-effort re-releases that distort the original vision. Make the originals accessible, and make new experiences with new visions instead.

The demo runs terribly on PC versus how it looks, so I'm curious how this'll pan out. I tried it and it also didn't feel good gameplay-wise, as someone with a lot of hours in the first game on both Switch and Steam/PC

@electrolite77 I don't like remasters of books, music, or movies, either. I treasure the originals, as they were.

Ah yes, that modern soulless CG look. If it weren't for the consistent amount of fingers and that scenery remains intact between cuts, I might even have mistaken it for some generative AI slop.

Nintendo is speedrunning irrelevancy to me. Even when I just check in once or twice a week at this point.

@Solid_Python Doesn’t make it any more interesting to me. It’s been available on every other platform for years and years. How many remakes and remasters and re-re-rereleases will we get this generation? Switch 1’s library was already full of it…

For your brand new console, here’s yet another old game. Maybe. Hope you’re excited