ashaka

Three more:

• You can win handheld books and magazines in Redd's Raffle. They have neat customization options (a music magazine with K.K. and a guitar) and you can sit somewhere and scroll through them.
• Shank now sells handheld bags.
• No big secret, but you can build vacation homes for Blathers and K.K. by inviting them with the amiibo phone.

Looks like the share dropped after the Steam Deck got announced. I've been quite enthralled by this one at first since I love having games like Witcher and Skyrim portable, but after seeing how big and heavy it is in comparison to the Switch it has almost moved into hard pass territory for me.. Would not want to be seen with such a thing in public, and a lot of other questions remain (dock? compatibility and ease of use? battery life? technical quality, given that Valve has no experience delivering consoles to the mass market?).

So if this is the reason and the Steam Deck turns out to be niche the stock might recover.

I've finished the main game in 2020, totally worth it. I've set my long-term goal to "finish the game" and otherwise just used it to complete the 30min daily exercise my fitness tracker demands of me on the days when I had to shelter at home. So slowly but steadily even my lazy ass could complete it.

Currently preferring Fitness Boxing because it allows for quicker sessions. I sometimes open RingFit Adventure to 100% some of the worlds. It seems some of the side missions are too difficult for me though. Have not started the new game+ yet.

@VoidofLight I’ve picked up New Leaf after seeing so many players recommending it over NH, and sorry to say, but it’s not even nearly as good as New Horizons. It is missing lots of QoL features (fruits don’t stack automatically! You have to manually stack them on the touch screen) and has a lot of superfluous stuff instead that they replaced smartly in NH, villagers move out if you don’t do annoying boring tasks for them all the time, the museum looks boring, it overall looks like ***** (and I’m really no graphics schmo), and most importantly it does not even remotely have the same relaxing effect as New Horizons, and relaxation / iyashikei is all this game is about. I can fully understand players who want to have some of the content back (like museum descriptions and Brewster), but recommending NL over NH feels like yet another internet delusion to me. NL feels like they just exploited the engine of the old DS game as much as they could. NH is rebuilt from the ground up, extremely polished and deserves its success even though some things are missing that should be there at this point.

This Direct leak sounds so underwhelming that it rings true. Rayman (!) in Smash? :/

Looks good. Too bad it‘s another roguelike with, as a consequence, boring generic (literally) levels. I kind of just don‘t like playing with random number generators.

will_be_able_to_dream_for_few_more_hours_about_Geralt_in_Smash_before_being_disappointed_by_something_lame_again

@TG16_IS_BAE I’d like to see evidence that Ocarina of Time, which ran at an unstable 17fps, triggered a wave of migraine attacks. Current gen Sony / XBox marketing really left its mark with some guys. And I’m suffering from immobilizing migraines (including vomiting at the end of the day if unlucky) as well, but video game frame rates are definitely not what is triggering them.

Btw, magnesium helps some people (take a lot over a couple of days but don’t take all at once). There are other effects, check out the “magnesium and the brain” article over at PsychologyToday if interested.

@Daniel36 Indeed, a few people seemed to like it; but people still write 10/10 reviews for Xena and Hercules to this day as well. I do understand the appeal of entertaining trash and it's fine if people like it, but if this is Netflix' ambition then they should stop comparing their entertaining trash to GoT and better keep away from ambitious licenses with actual potential like the Witcher series or Death Note.

If they are unable to satisfy the expectations they generate by grabbing these licenses and are unable to actually focus on telling the core story and staying true to the characters (instead going for lots of distracted tweeting and questionable decisions like pedophile-catering age differences), then the harsh backlash is just deserved.

Netflix Witcher was so bad and embarrassing. It felt completely rushed, and as if their creativity was stuck somewhere in 90s fantasy trash where the 'best' series was Xena. Really hope nobody has been kept away from playing the brilliant games because yet another episode of Netflix' terrible waste of the best licenses.

Not at this price.. Last week I imported a regular Nintendo Hanafuda set for 12€ from Japan..

Looks like we are getting costumes from the Witcher developers too: https://twitter.com/witchergame/status/1262654632440061952

@PanurgeJr I avoid procedurally generated / roguelike games too and am also glad not “having to add them to my PoS”, but you shouldn’t completely ignore The Curious Expedition. It is very atmospheric, has great pixel art, and the randomly generated maps are actually made up of little written exploration stories. It has a very unique Jules Verne vibe to it. I hope they’ll make a short demo so that people know what it is about. It will be a great title to have on my Switch, happy that they ported it.

It’s the best action-RPG on the SNES. Actually, it is still one of the best ever. It has an epic story, great gameplay, pixel art, music. Hopefully it will appear on SNES online, but I would lay down some money for it too.

@Heavyarms55 Most people are satisfied with the Switcher, or even very impressed. There are some people for whom the resolution outside cutscenes is too low, or who would rather have acuity over hiding the lower res textures with lower resolution. But there is no 50/50 “mixed” split of opinions here. Most people are really happy about having this well-made portable version.

You mentioned you “haven’t started it yourself” yet...

@dirtymike1991 @Heavyarms55 It does not get “mixed reception” by far. This is an excellent port, both in handheld and docked, and highly stable. Most reviewers and even internet people agree on that. It’s obvious that they did the best they could do on Switch, so if you want a portable Witcher and don’t expect HD 60fps from the Switch you can safely go for this version.

If you don’t believe me, open some gameplay footage on the Switch YouTube app (but recent one by customers, it seems the reviewers got some older version as docked is quite fine actually).

@ThanosReXXX The key difference may be that it gives you the immersion and multiplayer of a stationary console while having the low access times and everywhere-flexibility of a handheld. (And it also adds pub and beach multiplayer. )

@Spudtendo OK, I agree about the bias.

@Spudtendo: Don't be unfair, there are many people out there who don't have to commute (a lucky position), or who don't have to travel for work. The portability is probably also no big factor for most people in education up to university, where you often still have time to game at home throughout whole weekdays.

@jly1987 The portability of games on the Switch is not "mere novelty". For many people out there being able to play AAA games on the go is a necessity, and the most important selling point of a game version. I know a nerdy research department where several assistant / full professors own a Switch. Academics are one demographic that has to travel a lot.

I feel that I am repeating myself here, so I just accept now that you won't contemplate with an open mind the importance the portability factor has over slightly better graphics, and that this may be driving the sales. You may still feel the sting of disappointment of the Wii U library (though 3DS imho still has the best library of all consoles), and I will agree with you that Nintendo may not be able to keep momentum if certain 3rd party support (both new games and speculated ports) does not come. But the Switch, unlike the Wii U does have several unique selling points that make it much more attractive than the current pure stationary and pure handheld consoles for many people, especially in Japan.

@jly1987 Well, there already seem to be plenty of people out there for whom the portability makes the Switch version of a game the superior one. Not 60FPS / 4k. There are people out there for whom it "makes no sense" (using your words) to glue themselves to their TV screen for hundreds of hours, not being able to continue during commuting, just for a slight graphical improvement. And these people seem to have plenty of money, otherwise we wouldn't see that many highly priced game ports that don't seem to get discounted (be happy that you are a PS4 fan here.. ).

If the point that people only buy because of Nintendo exclusives was true the Wii U would have sold way better.

The true danger for Nintendo will be that somebody might copy their hybrid concept at a lower price with better specs and a more attractive library. Not the next gen's big loud box.

By the way, the 3DS sold 75mio units as of the end of last year, and can still be recommended due to its excellent library (even not looking at backwards-compatibility to the vast DS library, and Virtual Console).

@jly1987 Other prediction: It may not change a lot in the new gen. Japans market is well-suited for the Switch. They don't have a lot of space at home and adults (young and old) commute for hours and are active outside their apartment a lot. If they are working they have almost no time for fitting in elaborate glued-to-your-own-TV-screen gaming. Switch is the best option for real games right now if you can't or don't want to spend a lot of time at home for finishing a 100h RPG. Similar pattern in the West for young adults who grew up with games and are working now, just not as severe.

The Switch already surpassed the total PS4 sales in Japan in December (when around the 7mio mark) - it wasn't even out for 2 years back then.

They are cheaply designed and produced and look awful. I strongly prefer amiibos and hope Nintendo stays away from that company.