bilboa

@LinkSword Makes sense. I haven't tried this game, so I don't have my own opinion about it. I know what you mean about getting to know the reviewer. I'm not very familiar with this reviewer, but in the past I've had a similar experience, where I came to realize a certain reviewer often criticized games for being unfairly difficult, and when I'd try those games I didn't find them so.

@LinkSword I agree that in a real life survival situation, luck would play a big part. However, being realistic often does not lead to fun gameplay. In a survival game, I would want it to be possible to employ strategies which mitigate the luck aspect of the game. If the gameplay just boils down to rolling dice, I'm not going to find that fun for long.

I'll take any ports, but the ones I'd most like ported to Switch are Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. For some reason I just feel like those benefit more from being played on a big screen than ALBW, and since I don't own an N64, a Switch port is the only way I'd get to play them on a TV.

@Archius9 Exactly. Lack of analog triggers prevents any more simulation oriented driving games from coming to Switch unfortunately. Overall I love the Switch but that's one limitation I think is too bad.

@dizzy_boy "Needs more racing games"

Agreed. Though the lack of analog triggers for throttle control limit the kinds of racing games that would work well. Doesn't matter for arcade style, but more realistic racing games would suffer.

@Prof_Yoshtonics I disagree. There's no reason to think just because someone likes a genre of game, they'll rubber stamp every game in that genre. If that were true, most game reviews would be rubbish, since it's more common than not for reviewers to like the genre of game they're reviewing. There's no need for a reviewer to love the genre of game they're reviewing or be an expert in it, but they probably shouldn't fundamentally dislike the genre either if they're going to write a useful review.

For instance if I was reading a review of a turn-based RPG, and the reviewer didn't like it, and kept saying things like "you're going to be bored, unless maybe you're one of those people who likes turn-based games", I'm probably not going to bother finishing the review, since I can't rely on that reviewer to give a good account of how the game compares to other turn-based RPGs if they clearly dislike the genre as a whole. Or for another example, I don't like horror games. It doesn't matter how well made one is, I just don't like being shocked or grossed out by a game. So I'd be a bad pick to review a horror game, since I almost certainly wouldn't like it, and wouldn't be able to say how good it is as a horror game.

@TheMudHutDweller Just to be clear, I don't actually know for a fact whether or not Nintendo officially supports third party controllers. I'm just saying it's a valid concern. I'm interested in one of these, but I'd like to have some certainty that it's going to keep working correctly across Switch OS updates before plunking down $50 for one.

@TheMudHutDweller Actually I can think of at least few reasons someone might be concerned if this isn't a licensed product.

1. They might think there's some ethical problem with not getting approval from Nintendo.

2. They might think it's a sign that the product isn't good enough quality to get Nintendo's approval.

3. They might be worried that it's using some undocumented and non-officially supported protocols to communicate with the Switch, which might change in a future Switch OS update and render the controller useless, at least with the Switch.

It seems like you assumed the OP was concerned about one of the first two reasons. Personally, I am not at all concerned about 1. I'd be a little concerned about 2 if 8bitdo didn't already have a good reputation, but since they do I'm not.

3 on the other hand seems like a valid concern to me. If Nintendo doesn't officially support 3rd party controllers, then they're not under any obligation to maintain compatibility with 3rd party controllers in future OS updates. I'm not saying they'd maliciously try to break 8bitdo controllers, just that they might change something which unintentionally breaks compatibility.

A similar thing happened with the Switch 4.0 OS update and older TVs or monitors without HDMI ports. People who were using HDMI-to-DVI adapters suddenly had their display start displaying 480p instead of 720p. I was one of those people, and called Nintendo support about it, and was told they never intended to support HDMI-to-DVI adapters, it was just an accident that it had ever worked, and they were unlikely to ever fix it. Oh well.

@shani

That's the thing though, prices for eshop games are often hard to find

I agree that it would be useful if NL mentioned the price. Up until recently I actually did see the prices listed in the "Game Info" box on the right of the page on NL, but now it's not there.

I wonder if part the reason for removing the price is because developers often change the price, and NL doesn't want to be responsible for tracking price changes, or for hurting sales for a game by continuing to list an out-of-date price.

@shani The difference is that there really is a lot of useful information I can get from reading a review that I can't get just from watching gameplay videos, such as how well the controls work. Plus reviews can avoid spoiling things in games where that's relevant (obviously not relevant for a driving game). Price on the other hand is a simple number that anyone can understand. Once I've read a review, I can decide if I want to pay the price.

I don't mean to completely dismiss your point. I agree there's a subjective element to deciding whether a game is worth the price, and I would be interested in hearing the reviewer's opinion on that. I'd just prefer that it be kept separate from the review score, so the review score can be about the quality of the game itself, independent of the price.

@VinnieMii I can believe it. I remember the 3D effect being the most impressive thing about it to me, since all the other games we had didn't even try to look 3D.

@shani It's not self-evident to me. It is obvious that I would take the price into account when deciding whether to buy a game, but not that it needs to be part of the review score. I'm perfectly capable of reading a review, and deciding that while a game sounds fun, it doesn't seem worth what it costs. I guess I could see an exception in a really egregious mis-pricing, like if some very casual puzzle game that you can play through in 3 hours was selling for $60, then the reviewer maybe should score it lower due to that. In general though I think buyers can decide for themselves how much they're willing to pay based on what the review of the game tells them about the game's quality.

@VinnieMii Thanks! Zaxxon brings back memories. One of the first games I got into as a kid.

@OorWullie I would say the reviewer should mention it but it shouldn't affect the score. The score is just an indication of how good a game it is. The price may change and often does. Partly this is motivated by what I think is useful. I need reviews of some sort to help know whether I'll like a game I've never played, but I'm perfectly capable of understanding a price without a reviewer explaining it to me. So it wouldn't be useful to me for reviewers to factor the price into the score, since I'm capable of deciding for myself whether the price seems worth it to me.

@roboshort Thanks, never played Diablo 1. Actually, reading around more I see you're right, there were lots of games that used actual isometric views, or at least as close as technically possible. It also seems to have been fairly common for games to be called "isometric" when they really just have a fixed overhead-from-an-angle camera view.

@roboshort Can you give an example of a game that uses an actual isometric projection? It seems to me that most games I can think of that are described in reviews as having an isometric POV aren't truly isometric, in that objects do get smaller with distance. For instance Diablo III is described in reviews as isometric, but isn't really. This article also seems to confirm that this misuse of "isometric" in describing games is more the rule than the exception. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isometric_graphics_in_video_games_and_pixel_art

@StuTwo Totally agree. I could imagine possibly buying a second Switch for my daughter, but it's difficult to imagine buying two copies of every game we want to play together. Family sharing is a must if this is really their strategy.

@crudfish I also got a problem with the resolution after the update, but not what you're seeing. In my case it started only displaying in 480p when connected to the TV after the update. Everything is normal when undocked. Kind of ruins docked mode.

I've got no problem with the price, but I just can't get past how ugly it looks.

@dystome The only warriors game I've played is Hyrule Warriors, but in that game, which difficulty level you choose makes a huge difference. On easy difficulty levels you can get away with just spamming the same attacks, but on harder difficulties you need to be more creative with your various offensive, defensive and strategic abilities. It sounds like maybe your friends had the game set on "easy" when you were playing.

@gatorboi352 "Nobody is playing Switch like that". I use the controllers that way to play multi-player, and would miss that ability more than a d-pad, and friends I know who have Switches also use the single joy-cons that way. Don't assume that just because you don't use them that way that it's true for most people.

Same with the d-pad. As you can see from the comments here, many people don't care about having a real d-pad, even for 2D games. It seems to me to be largely a generational thing. People who started gaming before analog sticks were universally available are much more likely to consider d-pads to be a requirement.

@JasmineDragon Ah thanks, missed that.

In any case, I've played this on an iPad, and thought it was pretty good. Unlike some mobile games, the gameplay didn't feel dumbed down too much for touch controls. The mobile version supports bluetooth controllers, and in fact plays much better with a controller than touch controls. It doesn't have quite the production values or depth of a AAA console game, but I think it would be considered a good indie game on any platform. I wouldn't read too much into the typo, other than that the company probably didn't hire a native English speaker to check the English version of trailer, which is par for the course for an indie game made by a Taiwanese developer.

@Pod To be fair, cinematic trailers with no actual gameplay footage are very common for console and PC games too, so I wouldn't read anything into that.

@JasmineDragon Which tagline are you talking about? "Never Lose Hope"? Where is the typo in that? Or are you talking about something else?

I think the review was right on. I played this game when it first came out on iOS, on an iPad. I thought the visuals and audio were impressive for a mobile game, but the gameplay got stale after a couple of hours for the same reasons the reviewer stated. Later when I got a Bluetooth controller for my iPad I tried it again to see if I'd like it better, but playing it with a controller just made it more apparent how dumbed down it was to cater to touch controls.

Bottom line, it's a pretty good game by mobile game standards, but pretty mediocre by console game standards.

The trailer did nothing for me since it didn't show any gameplay. Cinematic trailers always seem silly to me, especially for games which aren't heavily story-based. That said, I love Hyrule Warriors so as long as this is similar I'll definitely get this on Switch.

The article doesn't mention the fact that the USB ports on the official dock can also be used for plugging in an ethernet adaptor. Useful if you're going to use your Switch somewhere without good WiFi and want to play online. That's something missing with this dock. Most people probably won't miss it, but it's worth noting.

@Ralizah Same here. Not sure I care about motion controls for sword wielding, but motion control aiming is great, at least if it's implemented as well as it is in BotW. The one thing I didn't like about the console version of Skyrim compared to PC was how difficult aiming bows with an analog stick was. Motion control solves that for me with BotW.

@WiiHawk I do agree though that this definitely counts as a "real" game, as opposed to something like Candy Crush. Also, the visuals and audio are very good, and I think you'd have to play it for an hour at least to start to see its weak points. So I agree it's a good demo game of the potential of mobile devices.

If I were going to recommend some games which might convince console or PC gamers to take mobile as a serious alternative to portable consoles, I might recommend some console ports like Dust: An Elysian Tale, Bastion, XCOM, Baldur's Gate, Geometry Wars, or one of the many great turn based strategy games or RPGs like anything from Slytherine, Warhammer Quest, lots of great roguelikes, etc. There are lots of mobile games which don't seem compromised by virtual controls, and aren't poor imitations of some other game, that I think would stand up to scrutiny for more than an hour.

@WiiHawk I'll agree "mediocre" is subjective, and obviously not everyone agrees. I'll just point out that if you look on Metacritic the average review score for Oceanhorn on non-mobile platforms is in high 60s to low 70s, and that goes for both critic and user scores. I'd say that counts as mediocre. Remember "mediocre" doesn't mean terrible, it just means "moderate quality", i.e. nothing special, and that's the way I meant it. To me, the fact that a game which is considered by most to be just OK on other platforms, is considered great on mobile platforms, demonstrates that the quality bar is much lower for mobile games.

@WiiHawk I'm an informed mobile gamer, but when I see Oceanhorn touted as evidence of there being good games on mobile, I have the opposite reaction. By the standards of any other platform Oceanhorn is mediocre, yet mobile review sites fawned all over it when it came out. To me this illustrates why mobile gaming isn't taken so seriously by a lot of gamers.

To be fair, I think there are a lot of great games available on iOS (I've never owned an Android device so can't speak to that) that I'd point to if I wanted to defend mobile to a console or PC gamer. I just wouldn't use Oceanhorn for that purpose.

@idtgatt Same here. I played it on iPad when it came out, and found it ultimately too boring to finish. The graphics and music were impressive, especially for a mobile game, but the gameplay was tedious. The puzzles were very repetitive and simple, combat was boring with imprecise controls, characters lacked charm. I'm guessing the combat had to be pretty simplified compared to Zelda games to make it accessible with touch controls. Overall it struck me as a poor man's Zelda game.

For me, portability is worth a LOT more than higher resolution, so definitely the Switch version for me.

For those asserting that it's just laziness on the dev's part to not support 1080p, I really don't know what you're basing that assumption on. It's a fact that the Switch is quite a bit less powerful than other current gen consoles or a typical PC, so it seems quite plausible that the devs weren't able to support 1080p without compromising performance.

@Crono1973 "I prefer to see things from the consumer point of view. I think there is an imbalance when consumers base their debating points off of what is best for a corporation instead of what is best for consumers."

I'm not really arguing about what's best for Nintendo. I'm talking about what makes sense for Switch owners. If most Switch owners have already owned a Wii U and already own most Wii U games, then porting Wii U games to Switch and selling them for full price doesn't make much sense, for consumers or Nintendo. On the other hand if a lot of Switch owners have never owned a Wii U, and would be buying these ports for the first time, then it makes a lot more sense to fill out the Switch game library with ports. So, the question of how much overlap there is between Wii U and Switch owners is very relevant to this discussion, both from the corporate Nintendo point of view, and from the consumer point of view.

Speaking for myself, I've never played any Wii U games except for ones which were also ported to 3DS, so for me, if porting Wii U games to Switch is a quick way of filling out the game library I'm all for it. I understand Wii U owners will be less thrilled with this.

@Crono1973 You seem to have missed my point. Why I personally didn't buy a Wii U is irrelevant. My point is that, if Nintendo was assuming that most people who buy a Switch already have owned a Wii U, then I would agree that ports of Wii U games to Switch would be kind of a waste. However if Nintendo is assuming (or hoping) that many people who haven't owned a Wii U will buy Switches, then it makes a lot more sense to port Wii U games to Switch. The fact that Wii U didn't sell well at all compared to other consoles makes the second scenario a lot more likely.

@PanurgeJr Exactly! I'm in that group that never owned a Wii U, so any Wii U ports would be new to me. Considering how poorly the Wii U sold, I'm sure Nintendo is hoping a lot of people who never owned a Wii U will be buying a Switch, and for those people ports are fine.

@Sinton "I wonder how many people, with Netflix and/or Amazon Prime subscription, own a $300 Nintendo Switch, but don't own a smart TV or any other dedicated streaming device"

I don't know what that statistic is. I did see a survey a while ago showing that game consoles are by far the most used media streaming devices, at least for watching on a TV. This shows that it's something many consumers want to do. From the perspective of a company selling consoles, what consumers need to do is irrelevant, what they want is the only thing that matters. Here's a link to an article about that survey: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2014/09/report-game-consoles-most-widely-used-video-streaming-devices-in-us/

As for why people would want to do this, if you already use your console regularly and like its user interface, it makes complete sense to me. I don't have a smart TV because it was purchased before smart TVs were common, and it's still a fine TV. I've considered buying an Apple TV or Fire TV or similar streaming device, but never bothered because my Xbox already does what I want, and I like the simplicity of using one device for games and movies.

@crackafreeze Almost everything on this list is relevant even if you only intend to use the Switch for gaming. Only the first two items — no browser and no streaming video apps — could be considered non-gaming related. I'm not saying all the problems listed here are real, just that if they were real they could matter for gaming-only users of the Switch.

@Sinton "And I don't understand the need for media apps and web browser. Never used them on any of my other game consoles."

That's a bit like if I said "I don't understand the need for eye glasses. I've never used them". Personally, I don't understand why the fact that you personally haven't watched movies on a console would make it difficult for you to understand why other people do. If you'd like to watch Netflix or Amazon Prime on your TV, and don't already own a smart TV or other streaming device with that functionality built in, it makes perfect sense to use your console for that since it's already hooked up to your TV. For people who currently use their Wii U that way and would like to replace their Wii U with a Switch, I can understand why they'd be disappointed that they can't currently do so.

I played this on iPad when it came out and found it pretty boring. It was superficially like a Zelda game, and had impressive graphics and production values for an iOS game at the time, and nice music too. However the actual gameplay had very little of the charm and cleverness of a Zelda game. The fighting was dull with imprecise controls, and the puzzles lacked cleverness and variety. I never tried the console version, so maybe with a real controller instead of touch controls I might have liked it better.

To those saying the game is already easy, I assume you're talking about just getting to the end of the levels, and not getting the colored coins. It seems clear to me that the main challenge in Tour mode is meant to be getting the colored coins, not just reaching the end of the level. If you want a challenge and you're not going for the colored coins, then you're missing out on 90% of the challenge of Tour mode. OTOH if you find it easy to get all the black coins then you're a god among gamers.

I think the way Easy Mode is implemented is great. Unlimited time and bubbles, but any records you set while in easy mode aren't saved, including getting all the coins of a particular color. So easy mode doesn't compromise the achievements or leaderboards. It just gives you a nicer way to practice levels without it being so frustrating, especially for learning how to get all the black coins on some of the higher levels, without having to keep starting from the beginning.