TrixieSparkle

The official dock is so fragile, I hesitate to take it anywhere with me. After hauling it in a bag one time with a few other gaming gadgets, the front part flexed in similar to the images responsible for Switch horror stories of screen scratching. It was able to be corrected thankfully, but it's very bad design.

This looks more like something I can use and take along with the system with no fuss. Sold!

These days, my PS4 is mostly used as my Vocaloid box while exercising on the treadmill (Project Diva: Future Tone is sooooo good), and the occasional wander into the realm of VR.

And Persona 5 was pretty great! Definitely a game worth playing for the story and atmosphere, if you can swallow a story-driven game that will definitely break the 100-hour mark.

Having multiple systems as gaming options is definitely good for variety.

That's a creative and well-executed cross-over!

Still very "eh" about the idea paying annually for the "privilege" of being allowed to use the basic features of a system I already own for games I already own, through the internet I already pay for.

Will at least say I'm glad the window for the non-subscription service has been extended. Sounds like I might get good mileage out of Splatoon 2's multiplayer later this year, regardless of whether or not I bite on their subscription in the following year. So that's something.

@thesilverbrick

I was not aware. Thanks for the heads-up!

Always good to have more options of where to shop.

@Rafx

Step 1: Sign up for the Best Buy Gamer's Club, it has an up-front cost for a 2-year membership (usually $30) but pays for itself almost immediately (possibly the same day, depending on what you buy). Gives 20% off ALL new physical game titles (unlike Amazon Prime's competing 20% deal, which only applies for the first two weeks of release). The 20% off also applies to select gaming accessories (includes amiibo).

Step 2: Enjoy the savings!

I'll take all that free Pikmin 3 DLC and the 3DS theme, because why not.

Hopefully they'll start putting out some Switch rewards at some point.

@Agent721

Just as a heads-up, there is a way to display everything in the shop, as well as filter it into lists. On the search screen, click "Search filters" without entering any keywords into the search box. You can filter the whole catalog by price range and genre.

@Crono1973

This is true, but the next batch will most assuredly sell out before the holiday season arrives. So anyone concerned about the issue should be in the clear by the time the holidays roll around. It's a bum deal for affected early adopters, for sure, but it could be much worse in terms of response time from Nintendo for a hardware issue.

Good to know an official fix is established. Hopefully this means anyone who picks up a Switch during the holiday season won't have to worry about dealing with this issue.

@NEStalgia

I don't claim to know the plights of those who broadcast their own radio stations as a hobby, but there must be a maximum threshold for such matters regarding various radio signals in consumer electronics. Otherwise places like Best Buy and Amazon wouldn't be able to stock and sell signal boosters for cell phones, wi-fi networks, etc. Which takes the idea of extending antennae to the extreme, adding additional voltage sources and everything.

I did pick up a Switch on launch, and had occasional non-responsiveness with the left Joy-Con while docked sitting about 7 feet away. Enough to annoy me.

A home fix is easy enough, though! Just need to open the Joy-Con and solder on a suitable wire for the antenna, as demonstrated by Spawn Wave on Youtube (although he has the "don't try this at home" disclaimer at the beginning). Given the video in question was trending on Youtube for a while and the number of comments on the video which said the fix worked for them, I'd say a fair number of people just took matters into their own hands. It's, like, 5 minutes of work to open, solder, and close, if you know what you're doing.

All I hope is that Bethesda brings Fallout 3 and New Vegas to the Switch if Skyrim does well on the system.

Having those games fully portable on a readily accessible device would be great. Maybe they could bundle them together, even, and do some minor graphical touch-ups to sweeten the deal!

I like Disgaea 5, but never picked up any of the DLC on the PS4 version.

Having all the DLC included makes the Switch version an easy sell!

The most disappointing part of this announcement was finding out the base game does not include all difficulty settings, and apparently a Cave of Ordeals/Trials, which has been a staple of the franchise for several iterations and their remasters, also does not exist by default.

So prior to even having the game, they've effectively announced Breath of the Wild is missing features the previous games had.

@Shellcore

You get feathers from participating in the battle arena, occasionally from talking to party members and friend list representatives in the castle, and you can also get feathers from disposing of unwanted party members.

The disposing of unwanted party members is where the inability to buy feathers is technically incorrect. There's nothing stopping anyone from buying spheres to get party members for the sole purpose of trashing them for feathers. It's not a particularly practical way to collect feathers, though, as only higher-ranked units pay out much in return.

I'm torn on the Switch.

On the positives:

$300 as a price point of entry really is very reasonable.

I really like the portable/home console concept, and have already enjoyed it first-hand for years with the Playstation Vita/Playstation TV, which has provided true home console experiences on the go by delivering games available for PS3/PS4. But Vita is starting to show signs of its age, so something to step in and take its place would be ideal.

Seeing 3rd party game ports like Disgaea 5 and Skyrim is promising. If porting older games is on the table...hey Nintendo, get Bethesda to port Fallout 3 and New Vegas to the Switch (or make it known this is happening), I will buy a Switch immediately, no questions asked. A solid drawing program early in the launch cycle would also be enough to push me into a purchase.

While it won't be available on release, the new Mario game looks fun.

On the negatives:

...You know what, there's already enough negativity here. So I'll just say I have concerns which I hope Nintendo will address. Preferably quickly, before I go spend my tax return cash on something else in the coming months.

Easily one of my top 5 favorite games on the PS4!

Switch players are in for a treat if they haven't played it before.

It wasn't okay when the Xbox did it, it wasn't okay when the PS4 did it, and it's certainly not okay when the switch does it, either.

All I can do is implore people to not support these money-grubbing practices. If you want your online fix on a modern system, I would suggest sticking to PC and mobile. Where the services are free and likely always will be, since they're not closed platforms capable of holding features hostage, and the features in question cannot justify being a paid service.

Unless the local play is very, VERY satisfying, paying to play online with the system is a dealbreaker for me for this game. I already play online multi-player on just the PS3, Wii U, and the PC because paying for online on the Xboxes and PS4 makes no sense and serves no justifiable benefit to the consumer.

Apparently PC and mobile games are the only options now for modern systems that offer quality online gaming if you don't want arbitrary, monthly, and fairly steep utility fees. Every console manufacturer has fallen prey to the allure of free money which some people are willing to pay for reasons I cannot comprehend (And if people are willing to pay them for no reason, why wouldn't they take their cut? Sigh...).

There's plenty I saw that I liked about the Switch's line-up, but paid online really dampened any enthusiasm I had.

It really is impressive how much unique dialogue is packed into Dragon Quest VII.

Your team members often have a comment to add or a thought to share about whoever you just talked to in the game, if you choose to talk to them immediately afterwards. I didn't even realize team members had so much NPC-specific dialogue until a good ways into the game.

And the dialogue of town citizens both in the past and present timelines updates after basically all major events involving them. Even revisiting islands in the past well after you've finished solving their problems will often provide new insights on how the citizens are getting along with rebuilding/reflecting on the past events. It really helps the game feel like a living, breathing world.

@AcclaimDev

I think most people would be happy with something similar to the Wii U digital deluxe program, where it rewards buying from their digital store with store credit to put towards additional purchases. If they want to keep the "coin" aspect, they could set up a system where if you save up coins for longer, you can redeem bigger credit for less coins than if you'd used them in smaller amounts. A countless number of store loyalty programs and credit card distributors already do this. It keeps consumers happy because then they can use their rewards on anything they want, and it keeps businesses happy because people will spend more to aim for the higher tiers of credit rewards. No guesswork of suitable reward items or games, no need for monthly updates and rotating rewards, etc.

I wish the WarioWare game was still available. Made the mistake of prioritizing the Zelda Picross (still available, and I have over 1,000 platinum coins at the moment so I could've still gotten that as well) so it seems I missed out.

If they don't want to give out games for platinum points, I wish they'd at least make more 3DS themes available. It's not like a few stock images with a short music loop of already existing music they own thrown over it really costs them anything.

I also wish accumulating gold coins worked more like the Wii U's digital deluxe promotion, where it just keeps track of money spent until landmarks are met. A lot of games and DLC items I've bought fell below the $5 mark (many being $4.99 before tax).

@pokedude583
You get the option of adding slots to equipment and shuffling abilities once you reach level 20 for 30,000 coins per use by talking to Spyke.

I didn't buy the game, but played through the entire campaign at a local game center one evening last week.

For a game that takes roughly 3 hours to complete (not including replays for new routes/objectives), they really overdid it on the number of control schemes they throw at the player. The arwing controls decently enough during the on-rails segments. But the primary vehicles (of which there are 5) have 3 separate camera systems (standard, cockpit, target mode) that adversely impact gameplay (not just point-of-view, but there are things which can literally only be accounted for in certain camera modes, such as enemy shadow placements and color changes). Then there's also the little robot that the gyrocopter deploys. If you average out the 16 different control modes across the 3 hour completion time, that's a new control scheme roughly every 11 minutes (it doesn't actually split evenly like that in terms of gameplay, but still).

It seems like they tried to do too much to "innovate", in relation to the length of the game. The lack of multi-player doesn't help matters.

Very odd for a first-party title to lack such a basic feature in the first place. At least it's getting added.

The most annoying game I ever encountered that lacked a save reset was Star Wars: Episode 1 Racer for the N64. Many exchanges needed to be made at game stores before getting a used copy that hadn't had all or some of its best course times hacked to 0:00:00.00, with no readily available way to correct it.

They had already said in a Q&A at PAX that they wouldn't be removing or censoring content in the western version of the game, so anyone and everyone who is upset with changes has every right to be upset. They were lied to, plain and simple.

Dragon Quest VIII is my favorite game in the JRPG genre. Glad to see the west will get a chance to relive the experience with new features, content, and gameplay tweaks.

Will certainly need to check out the Dragon Quest VII remake as well. Both are day one purchases, in my book.

Haven't played Pokemon Shuffle, but have had enough experience in other games to know this sort of thing will always be the end result in situations where someone can buy or trade for "skill" against other players. People find ways to circumvent the system.

I'm looking at you, random number generated team building, trading card booster pack, exclusive limited time boosts, pay-to-win pyramid scheme nonsense.

I have exceptionally good internet by United States standards and I linger in the S/S+ rankings on Splatoon, and feel comfortable saying there's definitely lag when dealing with a statistically significant number Eastern players.

It's only really noticeable in a few situations, though. Things like a direct one-hit KO connecting (as indicated by the sound) only to be killed by a delay-activated Kraken of a clearly not-KO'd player a second later, the visible sniper line not ever visibly being anywhere near me prior to being splatted, or someone somehow having time to drop an ink mine as they land when people are shooting directly at the landing point with high-impact weapons. I can say I've robbed Eastern players with similar favorable shenanigans on more than one occasion.

That being said, I generally prefer playing against Eastern players, as the matches are usually fast-paced and brutal compared to western lobbies, and I rarely don't have a fun time. Most of the lag-related shortcomings also have workarounds, like just never, ever staying out in the open when there's a good sniper on the field in position, generally use weapons that have some form of splash damage, and approach people that may have a Kraken ready/nearly ready with extreme caution.

I have yet to play a Senran Kagura title I didn't enjoy (I would go as far as saying it's one of my favorite series), and am very much looking forward to when this reaches the land of 'Murica on September 15.

My opinion is Nintendo themselves should be marketing a device like this, for people more interested in getting access to the content rather than a never-ending supply of figures/collectibles they mostly don't care about, if they care about them at all. This is also more practical as a portable device than a figure or even a card, making it better suited to 3DS games that use amiibo.

They could easily have something like this communicate with an app on the Wii U, the 3DS, whatever works. Sell an infinite amount of "characters" for prices somewhat below the physical toys. That would basically solve content supply issues, since I doubt anyone would bother to stockpile pricey key chains that exist solely to communicate with the eShop.

But as it stands, Nintendo is not selling such a device, and this has every reason to exist until this is not true.

The whole thing seems pretty pointless without a local mode, to be frank and straight to the point. In its current state, not really sure who the target audience actually is for this feature.

I went with Kirby's Dream Course.

Already have better ways of playing it, but Club Nintendo redemptions on the Wii U count towards the deluxe digital promotion. That supposedly ends this year, so I want to try to score another $5 coupon or two before year's end. Who can say no to free money?

Even though more content would've been nice, such as the ability to play a stock match or adjust the time limit, I think the demo showcases the game pretty well (Several new characters, several returning characters, the ability to play with and without items, etc.), while leaving a want for more. Looking forward to the final release!

I think it would be great if Nintendo released more demos. Hands-on testing of a game is always a better way to judge gameplay than watching a video, in my opinion.

Club Nintendo came through for me in the end, so time to spread some love!

My spare US Code: A05V697J1R6FG5QX

Have at it, finger ninja code warriors. Hope I've made someone's day.