Comments 417

Re: Review: Resident Evil Requiem (Switch 2) - Action And Horror Combine In A Series Highlight

brakeman90

@lyle_catcliffe As a fan of the series since the very first entry, I think I'd score most of them an 8/10, haha. All fun in their own ways, but the blemishes and problems are part of what make them so interesting (for my money, I'd probably only score RE4, the RE2Make, and the RE4Make a 10/10)! In any case, it seems that my fears that this could be a repeat of RE6's misguided kitchen sink approach were unfounded. Can't wait to dig in on Friday night!!

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Team Consistently Aiming For 30fps On Switch 2 "Wherever Possible"

brakeman90

@Pillowpants That's fair - I meant "stripped down hardware" in the same way that the Steam Deck is stripped down compared to a PC, or the Xbox Series S is stripped down compared to a Series X, not a value judgment, but of course the fact that the Switch 2 is portable does kind of put it in its own category aside from the other home consoles I'm comparing it to. I get what you mean.

Re: Final Fantasy VII Rebirth Team Consistently Aiming For 30fps On Switch 2 "Wherever Possible"

brakeman90

@Vyacheslav333 Shoot, I couldn't disagree more - respectfully of course, I'm not trying to be a jerk! Developers at studios are working super hard under the gun all the time (the same as ever, sadly). If there are corners cut, I suspect it's from the management area rushing things out without giving the programmers and artists the time to polish their work. As an old-timer, this has always been the case; development has always been hard on the people who make our games.

(this comment brought to you by my recollection of the rushed, poor localization on OG Final Fantasy 7, and maybe a little bit by my recollection of the N64's Space Station Silicon Valley being impossible to finish because it got rushed to market before the game's final collectible had collision detection implemented, haha)

Re: Mini Review: Resident Evil Village Gold Edition (Switch 2) - A Solid First-Person Follow Up

brakeman90

For those who haven't played, I strongly recommend this game if you're into the more popcorn/classic-horror elements of the series. RE7 is great, but its constrained environment and more human-scale Texas Chainsaw Massacre-style approach to spooks didn't work for me as well as this game's campier tone. The final quarter of the game is quite polarizing, but I'd go to bat for it as one of the better end sequences of the series (outside of the ill-advised and brief switch to a different character for one late-game portion). All this is to say: if you have any affection for campy horror, don't miss it!

Re: Review: Virtual Boy For Switch 1 & 2 - Is It Really Worth Revisting Nintendo's Greatest Folly?

brakeman90

My only complaint is that I wish Nintendo offered an option to play on the TV - clearly the games can be displayed just fine in that way, as you can watch clips of them in the NSO App advertising the Virtual Boy. That said, my headset is on its way and I'm eager to dig into this much-maligned library; my last interaction with a Virtual Boy was trying one out at a Beat Buy kiosk in 1995 and thinking "no thanks," haha.

Re: Bethesda Releases Skyrim Update 1.2 For Switch 2, Includes "60Hz Mode" And Much More

brakeman90

@ShadLink This is a very odd comment. Are you suggesting that the only people who want 60fps are PlayStation fans? As a person who grew up with 60fps as a pretty standard framerate on the SNES and Gamecube, I'm confused. I play plenty of games at 30fps and enjoy them, but there are lots of folks (myself included) who have a hard time with motion sickness in certain genres when the framerate is low or unstable; first person games are the toughest for me because of this. Upgrading to 60fps makes a game more accessible to more folks - it's universally good. I don't get the frustration folks feel towards players wanting performance on par with what we often got in earlier generations, though I also don't get the idea that games are only worth playing at a certain level of performance. Different strokes for different folks, you know?

Re: PSA: Subnautica And Subnautica: Below Zero Switch 2 Upgrades Now Available

brakeman90

Just a heads up for folks who might buy the game based on this update (as I did): it's not remotely achieving 60fps. As early as the opening pod sequence, there are frequent drops into what seems to be the 30-40fps range, and things don't get better once you start exploring the open ocean. The visuals may be enhanced, but it's such a choppy mess performance-wise that I can't even play due to motion sickness. Bear in mind that this may be an error, since representatives from the studio indicated on Reddit that their testing reflected much more stable performance; time will tell whether a patch fixes the problem.

Re: Review: Dynasty Warriors: Origins (Switch 2) - A Super-Solid Port Of A Fantastic Reboot

brakeman90

@LastFootnote Normally I'd agree with you entirely on this, but I have a few thoughts about why that won't work with DWO: (1) the biggest processing lift is the number of characters on-screen, rather than strictly visual polish, and subtracting individual dudes might subtract from the overall draw of fighting a bazillion enemies at once (see Hyrule Warriors Legends on 3DS); (2) given the dark color palette, reducing what visual polish exists might make it look sludgier than a more colorful game; and (3) there is likely a ceiling for how well something designed from the ground up for PS5/XSX can run on Switch 2 to begin with. Tbh, what I'd like to have seen here is a togglable 40fps mode for VRR screens, since that would probably be the best of both worlds, but I think this type of game sings so well portably that I'll still pick up a digital copy rather than play it on PS5.

Re: Opinion: Resident Evil Requiem Needs To Solve The Series' Villain Problem

brakeman90

Good article! That said, I wholeheartedly disagree, haha. I actually prefer the approach of more recent series entries, as the recurring villain arc of Wesker outstayed its welcome during the middle era of the series. The earliest games are more similar to current ones, with RE1, 2, and 3 respectively featuring Wesker/Tyrant, William Birkin, and Nicolai/Nemesis as their primary villains. Wesker's recurring period coincides with the series' weakest entries, as he was a pretty consistent fixture from Code Veronica to RE5 (semi-excluding RE0 and RE4, which only reference him). Truth be told, I'd like to see the series continue to offer a unique antagonist in each entry that gets fully - or mostly - destroyed by the time the credits roll.