Troll_Decimator

@SmaggTheSmug Definitely, but it's a mixed bag, sometimes negative reviews are clearly from a person that doesn't like this type of game. Metacritic does not cherrypick reviews from people that know what they are talking about, so in general I don't put much stock into it, I prefer doing my own research for any given game, and maybe reading or watching a couple video reviews from people I trust.

Preordering popular games months in advance is utter nonsense.

@sikthvash Ratchet and Clank games never had any serious legs, if it sold 1.1m copies within the first few weeks, it probably won't ever surpass 2m lifetime. Kinda sad, really, because it's a much more interesting game than "AAA Open Worlder #395". Unfortunately, most games don't have the trajectory of Nintendo 1st party games, and that's also why they get heavily discounted (and still don't sell much) a couple months after launch. Case in point, Ratchet has already been down to 25-30 quid here, and its launch price was 70.

@Chunkboi79 Maybe you should look up the laws, because what you said is 100% wrong. What isn't illegal is dumping your own cartridge and playing it on different hardware via emulation. BUT, downloading a pirated copy is 100% illegal, even if you own a legit copy.

Also, as I said, don't play dumb, 99.9% people emulating Switch don't own the original games, they see this as a "free option". I hope Nintendo prosecutes every single one of them, they are literally criminals, and if you partake, you are the same. No ifs or buts.

@CallingSonicSpeed Their own console is 5 year old, genius. If Steam Deck wasn't more powerful, it would be an absolute disaster.

@Chunkboi79 Don't play dumb.

Nintendo has a responsibility to protect their business and intellectual property. I fully support them taking down people that are encouraging pirating Switch games. Because let's not fool ourselves, nobody uses Switch emulation to play "backups". Whoever says otherwise is lying through their teeth. It's one thing taking down emulation for 20 year old consoles and another creating an illegal market concurrent to their newest console.

I don't understand why people say "tired of rumours". If you're tired of them, don't look for them, it's that simple, it's your own damn fault. Either way, buying the Switch Pro/2 when it drops day 1. It's only a matter of when, not if, and anyone that doesn't understand this has single digit IQ. I mean, what do you think, that Nintendo will close down shop, or drop the hybrid system? Not gonna happen.

@Marioman2020 Ok, I was hoping it's a joke, these days I'm reading so insane things that I can't take anything for granted.

@Yorumi Except people won't do that, they expect their system to work, most are not comfortable with tinkering.

@Joeynator3000 Except the Deck doesn't have detachable controllers that you can easily replace, if you get analog drift, you are screwed and without a console until you get it fixed. Laughable how somehow managed to spin this positively for Valve lmao. That said, ALL analog sticks CAN develop drift, this is nothing shocking.

If you're in UK, base.com sells most of these cheaper.

@UglyCasanova I always laugh when people suggest unreasonable things like this. This War of Mine is a game that has flatlined, so they can afford to do this, it isn't dozens of millions on the line. Besides, if you care so much, why don't you start with your own salary? Every little bit helps.

@I-U Being a remake doesn't make it take much less time, they still made all those assets and code from scratch, the only thing they kept from the original was the design.

@blindsquarel Absolutely irrelevant whether they are in the same series or not. Arceus is not the same as mainline anyway, it's a spin off.

@I-U Did you forget about Link's Awakening? Those games were never done by the same team anyway, but the thing is, Zelda on Switch requires so many more resources than Skyward Sword, that it's basically gonna take all the people you throw at them. They probably have everyone working on Breath of the Wild 2. That said, I do agree that I'd like to see more top down Zelda, absolutely. I bet we won't have to wait too long for one, been a while since we heard what Grezzo is doing.

@UglyCasanova All of them different genres by different developers except for Arceus and Scarlet/Violet. And GameFreak themselves have released games even closer to each other before. Play what you like and ignore the rest, very easy to do.

@I-U Yeah, but it's fine for some games to take longer, while smaller titles fill the gaps. This keeps more people satisfied. There is a certain crowd that will pick up a Switch only for games like BotW2. I think Nintendo has found a good balance. Besides, Zelda has often taken a very long time in the past too, look at WW to TP to SS to BotW. On the other hand, Mario taking 5 years plus is mad.

I'm into niche games but these are too much even for me. East Asia Soft is smoking some good stuff.

@Harmonie In Arceus, the last few bosses were quite challenging and it was open world, and to fight them you had to finish most/all the endgame content, meaning you were very leveled by default. It can definitely be done, it's just a matter of if they will opt to do so or not. Open world games give you the opportunity to have lots of optional post completion content that is extremely difficult, while still keeping the main story fairly easy for newcomers. Of course, grinding too much can always be seen as an "easy mode", but it's nice that the option is there. Just like it is in Dark Souls. Hence no difficulty level needed. You either get good, or you grind more.

@Harmonie Exp share is not an item anymore, it will be like in Arceus, that's simply how the games have been working for a while now, it's a built in feature. Not that I'm against an option to turn it off for a hardcore player, although I don't necessarily see the point. Most RPGs share XP among party members in some manner.

The thing is, people that think Exp share is why the games are easy should not drop their dayjob to pursue game design. You can still have challenge with permanent Exp Share, the two are not mutually exclusive. It's all about how the enemy trainers are designed.

@Axecon You're in the minority even among this whiny fanbase that we have here. This should tell you something. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but just saying, these games will sell like absolute hotcakes.

@Mijzelffan Do you prefer the review of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl instead, which was clearly written by a jaded, washed up Pokémon player? Why can't we simply have a normal person reviewing these? No need to be a megafan one way or another.

@Munchlax Maybe you can apply for Creative Director, I heard they are looking for one because they haven't been very successful...

Why weren't people complaining when Rare was making 4 games in a single year? Oh yes, because people back then were not the self proclaimed Twitter armchair expert generation, they were just playing games and having fun, and if they didn't enjoy one, two or even all of their games, they could gasp not buy them! What a novel concept! It's amazing to live in a world where we have choices! Like a choose your own adventure novel!

We've now reached a point where every single word in the English dictionary has been combined with "Souls" for a game title. Indie developers, if you want people to remember your game, don't include "Souls" in the title. Thank you in advance.

@UglyCasanova Nintendo updated their network last year and it's pretty much on par with the others now, the blame is 200% on Atlus.

@kalosn Not gonna lie, the wait for FF XV wasn't worth it at all, maybe if they released more titles in between, they would have gotten more feedback which means they would steer the boat better along the way. Then again that game was in development hell so it's probably a miracle it even came out at all.

@Octane Absolutely, but whether the games are good or not is in the eye of the beholder. You might have noticed that despite all the shortcomings, the newest Pokémon games are extremely well liked in Japan, and even in the west they sell like gangbusters despite detractors. It's a bit of a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation with some of the aspects. I am happy that GameFreak is changing up the games a bit even if they don't have to (because they are selling too damn well for their own good). I'll give you that lack of voice acting is annoying though, it was the one thing that held back Legends Arceus for me.

@Octane Yes, but ultimately, it doesn't matter if it was an early title, what matters is if it's a good or not. Plus, the only people that would care if it was an early title are those that were actually there at launch, i.e. a tiny minority of people. After all "early title" is relative, these days games are FAR more complex, and studios like Nintendo's EAD had a headstart compared to Pokemon which were still on 3DS, while Nintendo studios were already developing Wii and Wii U titles. The effort and team training is cumulative over many years. However, again, what matters is if the games are good or not, for Switch titles, they don't look bad; could be better, but hardly a deal breaker.

1. Love the new starters
2. Love the new player character designs, was never a fan prior
3. Love the Spain/Mediterranean vibe of the area
4. Love that it's confirmed to be fully seamless open world

It's gonna be an absolute banger.

@Octane It is, but only if you push it to the absolute limits. GameFreak was never a technical beast of a company by any means. Their strengths lie elsewhere. If you need a game to be as optimal as it can be, I'm afraid you'll find not even 0.1% of any given system's library does this and you'd be missing out on tons of awesome games. No game is perfect anyway, you either accept it with its flaws, or you move on. Mario 64 is also completely laughable technically compared to plenty other N64 games, and it's one of the best 5 games on the system.

@Dirty0814 That would make sense... Except you can buy 10 used Wiis for the price of a single GameCube component cable. I've heard that Gamecube with component cable looks better than using a Wii though, but I can't confirm, my eyes are not able to detect the tiny differences.

@Octane Why does it have to be an excuse? I think the trailer looks good. It's very likely that the game will look even better when it comes out. Will it look miles different? Of course not, but it doesn't have to. The graphics don't bother me one bit.

And honestly? I am tired of people moaning about graphics while making the Switch their platform of choice. You are expecting amazing graphics on 7 year old tablet hardware? Only a few companies have the technical wizards required to get 100% out of any system. Either accept this, or sell your Switch and buy a PS5.

Damn, right when I stopped playing. Might have to pick it up again. But I'm not sure, my backlog is just too huge.

@ggnorekthx But it is not simply a matter of having the assets ready. They also need to place them in the world in a place that makes sense, and give them the full support that every other Pokémon needs, test that they look at least passable walking around this new environment, etc. There might not even be appropriate space in the world for a thousand different Pokemon. You need some spacing, you don't just place them randomly in the world and call it a day. If the games still had random battles, it would be easier to include more.

Also, on the asset side of things, while they do have a library of Mons they can reuse, they still touch them up for every game so that it fits the art style and such, look at the difference in shaders between this and BD/SP for instance.

@Dizavid Nonsense, only a tiny minority of players care about being able to catch a thousand Pokémon in the same game. It would be nice, in theory, but it's just unfeasible. Whether these games are good or not will have nothing to do with how many Pokémon they have. Most Pokémon games only give you access to a small subset of them anyways during the main campaign, mainly focusing on the newer ones.

@UltimateOtaku91 You best be trolling.

The fire croc will probably have the best final form, but I really like Donald Duck.

@Marioman2020 Which games are they remakes of, genius?

@kalosn No, this isn't built on Unreal Engine, this is using GameFreak's own proprietary engine. The same one they developed with Arceus, obviously with an extra year's worth of updates. Anyway, the only difference between other companies and GameFreak in this regard is that instead of working on a single game for, say, 5 years, they prefer to release some games as they are developing their tech as well. For example, with Sword and Shield, they already had some of the groundwork ready for an open world Pokémon game, but not everything, so they released a game with what they had at the time. Same goes for Arceus, albeit with a lot more in place.

Basically, we are just getting more games along the way, but eventually we would get the fully open world Pokémon game, which is exactly what Scarlet and Violet is. You can always simply ignore those in between titles if you are not interested. Personally, I didn't love Sword and Shield as it was too similar to previous Pokémon games and I am kinda bored of that formula, but Arceus was definitely worthy of its standalone release, as it's very different. I am very happy we are getting Pokémon games at a steady pace. I hate that AAA games these days take absolute aeons to complete development. I prefer to play games rather than waiting for them, and I don't care if trees are life-like or not, it's something meaningless in the long run so I'm glad they are not spending too much time on details.

@Saf01 Gen 10 on Switch 2, get hype. As a sidenote, they missed the opportunity to name Gen 10 "X", because there's already a Pokemon X. Big L right there.

@Xansies It's obviously not developed by the same team, do people really think a game of this size can be made in less than a year? Come on guys... it takes MONTHS to even pass certification with Nintendo to ensure that the game is ready for launch etc, so this means they only have maybe 6 more months of full production before they have to submit it.

@kalosn They've been working on this game for years, they didn't start developing it after Arceus, Arceus was likely a branch of this game, like a spin-off that uses some of the mechanics of this and is more experimental in its structure (no gyms, all about catching Pokemon etc). Separate teams for sure, obviously this isn't just a 1-year project. Most likely it is Arceus that had a lot less development time, and was also used as a bit of a proof of concept for some of these features.

Also, to put it bluntly, Switch titles don't take as long as AAA games on other consoles. The assets are much lower in quality because the Switch simply can't handle super high quality stuff, and there is also less detail everywhere for the same reason, meaning much faster production. It does make you wonder wtf the Mario team is doing all these years, but otherwise it makes sense.

@luckiernut You need a new pair of eyes, that's for sure. This is obviously using the Arceus engine. Not sure if it's fully seamless or like Skyrim where certain areas have a loading screen (i.e. between open world and towns), but either way, this looks a lot more seamless than Arceus even, you can actually see the big city in the same map as the open world.

@Snatcher Does it, though? I mean Arceus sold tons of copies. Most people don't watch these very early trailers anyways, they just buy the games at launch for their kids etc, once the real marketing drops (TV trailers etc). This is mainly for enthusiasts like us that are watching them and scrutinizing them closely to have something to moan about

@Snatcher Because they are genuinely showing how the game looks at that point in development, instead of showing a vertical slice that is perfectly propped up to look perfect but might not make it to the final product. Ubisoft and other AAA companies have been criticised a lot for doing the latter.