construx

Why is a mere mobile port in 16:9 HD and the real video game isn't...?

Everybody loves this Polish publisher for the love and user-friendliness they put into their products - but the language (subtitle) situation of this game is baffling.

I'm from Hungary and I'm not sure which version to buy because forums are full of people who bought the physical version in Hungary, but it didn't have Hungarian subs - yet others had them.
I mean, what can be so hard about making all available subtitles... available to all?

They don't like free services anymore.
Is the Pokemon Company greedier than EA...?

Switch online is a scam because Nintendo doesn't do anything to improve online gaming on the Switch as opposed to how it was when it was free.
It is the same experience.
No dedicated servers, no integration with other services.
Online gaming on the Switch should be free because Nintendo doesn't add any value to it.

Instead, they took a completely different service (retro games to rent) so they can make two different target groups to pay! (People who want to play the newest games online and people who want to play 25+ years old games. Those are rarely the same people.)

Nintendo definitely feels clueless when it comes to the internet and this is one of those bad things about it that they just wanted to copy from the competition (along with season passes and paid dlcs, yuck).

"People actually pay to Microsoft and Sony for online gaming, huh?
We want that, too!"

I found it disheartening that they'd asked money from people to port their own (already existing) game to the hottest console in the world.
And now this.

PlatinumGames is getting lower and lower in my eyes.

Can't wait to talk about prostate problems in a video game.

But seriously, episodic release is a big no from me (for any game).

People do realize that they'll have to pay for their own collection of monsters forever now?

Unless another game comes along that lets you dump all of them in it, your precious Pokemon that used to be yours for free, will cost you 15.99 each and every year.

How many full games' price will you spend by then? Nobody knows...

Who cares about unknown users' reviews?
There are enough well-known sites with professional reviews.
Just read those if you want to know about a game.

Since they've been the best video game software makers forever, they should be almost as big as Disney is.
And as Disney isn't only making cartoons anymore, Nintendo should expand, too.

I admire the president and the board to have the courage to finally do it and for doing it with quality in mind (in cooperation with the industry's bests).

Madden and NHL games please!

Wow, this seems like a bad joke.
The best part of pokemon games were the specified trades.
Now they took it out of the games and I have to pay separately for that?

Well, I guess, that was the last drop.
After 20 years, bye bye Pokemon!

A two hour game is an 8 because it's almost black and white (so obviously artistic, not cheap).
Proper, good-looking, 20+ hour long visual novels usually get a 3 or a 4 here.

Sure. It's not ridiculous.

I'm all for better graphics - but how?
Even if it would be a stronger machine, all games would still have to be made to run on the original.

Maybe Sony and MS paid good money for developers to make their games look better on their upgraded consoles because making a game at a better resolution takes a lot of extra money.
We all know Nintendo won't pay anybody anything.

And if the games would be exclusively made for this stronger Switch, that would mean a completely new console generation - which is out of the question in 2020.
Unless Nintendo wants to repeat the New 3DS exclusivity fiasco, which I strongly doubt.

So all in all, I would really like a stronger Switch but I can't see it happening logically.

50 bucks for the exact two remastered X360/PS3 games that had arrived for 40 on the PS4/X1 duo, 5 years ago...?

I'll wait for a sale.

@electrolite77 I interpreted that comment was referring to the sale in this article.
You interpreted it otherwise.
I get that.

I don't think we should argue about it. We both made our point.

@Heavyarms55 : There are a lot of games modes inside FIFA games.
The one you are talking about is called FIFA Ultimate Team (FUT in short). It is about making a team from scratch and go to competitions (offline and online ones are both available) with them.
The whole concept is to build a team.
If you could do that without any sweat or time investment, then what would my reward be?
If you just give players the best available cards for free after a while, then you'd literally take away value of 14.000+ cards...!
And then all matches would be the same, 90+ teams against 90+ teams - which would be the exact same thing as 80+ teams against 80+ teams, only faster.
It would ruin the concept.

There actually is an online game mode called Online Seasons where you can choose any existing club or national team, like Liverpool, Barcelona, France, Brazil etc. and use them in online competitions that are very similar to FUT online competitions (there are 10 leagues and you have 10 matches to win the league, get promoted, stay in the division or relegate, depending on your results ).

There are absolutely no restrictions about picking any team in this game mode. You can play with Ronaldo or Messi if you want and you don't have to unlock anything to be able to do that.
Even their rating changes throughout the season, based on real life performance.

Like I said, nobody forces you to play the Ultimate Team mode, to dedicate so much time (or money) to it to use the best players.

@Heavyarms55 : Hey, no arguments there about most of what you wrote.

I don't like watching football. It's boring. A game is 90 minutes long and there are only a couple of events during that time (if at all).
But the video game is different. First of all, a game is only 12 minutes long and there are usually more events. (But even if there aren't, since you control your players, you still won't get bored because you have to concentrate constantly.)

I don't like EA, either. I agree with you, they're a greedy company.
I also agree that selling a roster update in form of a full game (Legacy Editions) is a bad joke. (Even though I understand that this happens because of licensing issues.)

I am unlocking players through skill. That's what the marketplace is for.
I understand that players like to cry about the fact that they can't just buy any player card for real money ingame. They only can buy card packs for real money and they have a very low chance of containing the player(s) they want.
But nobody is forced to use that method.
Since 13, I've always had the best available players in my teams (TOTY and TOTS cards) - and I have never paid real money ingame.
You have to use the marketplace to buy low and sell high and most people are too lazy or too stupid to do that.
If EA allowed to buy players for real money, then rich kids would have the best teams - which would be worse in my opinion.

You can decide if you want to buy a virtual lottery ticket for real money (which, I think, is just stupid). Nobody forces you.

But since EA gets more and more money from this (now maybe even a billion dollar a year), I must agree with you that a lot of FIFA players are, in fact, daft.

(Btw, this whole issue had been kind of solved on other consoles that contain the Weekend League mode inside FUT, where you can actually get upgraded player cards as a reward, if you play well. But unfortunately, Weekend League isn't present in the Switch version and since EA doesn't care about the Switch anymore, it probably never will be.)

I also totally agree with you about licensing issues.
There shouldn't exist such a thing as an "exclusive" license.
Competition is what makes everything better.

@electrolite77 : I was talking about the "major games" in this article which are first party games, all of them have physical versions and their price doesn't seem to go down (so far).

If you want to talk about all existing digital games, that's a completely different matter, of course, but this article isn't about them.

@jarvismp
@Heavyarms55 : I have 1500+ hours in both 18 and 19 and hundreds in 20 already.

Fifa is a live game, that's why people buy it every year. There are 15000+ real players, hundreds of real teams and they offer live rating changes throughout the whole season, plus improved cards every week for 52 weeks in Ultimate Team.

I mostly play the online modes (Seasons and FUT) because it gives me a rush to play against people instead of the AI.

Most of my many hours go into the FUT marketplace which is crucial if you want to have the best possible team (and you do).

So yes, it's important to me that EA has the licenses because that makes most of the game.
I wouldn't play nearly as much with fake players (that's why I rarely play PES, even though it might have been better than FIFA in some iterations).

I usually try to explain to people who don't understand the appeal to FIFA, this way:
imagine that it's a Pokemon game with real time 11v11 battles. But instead of measly hundreds of characters, you can choose from 15.000! And as opposed to Pokemon, they exist in real life!
And they even have live stat changes throughout the year, depending on their form!
Doesn't that concept sound better than Pokemon?

I only have 4 of these. None of them digitally.
And I'm in Europe so I don't count anyway - but it's still interesting that I have zero digital games from this list. And I have, like, 50.

FIFA 20 probably sold less than 19 because the Switch versions were unfortunately, identical. ;p

(I don't seriously think that, since FIFA sales on the Switch usually contributed to less than 5% of the total sales - but I still think killing the series on the Switch was a dick move from EA.
I've been playing the series since '13 but the built-in cheating system in FUT online mode got more ridiculous every year. I switched to the Switch version hoping EA didn't care much to implement it into that and I was right.
I have more than 1500 hours in FIFA 18 and FIFA 19 on the Switch, just to realise that the only iteration that doesn't suck as much in FUT online is the version that gets killed off...
Now I have little hope of NHL and Madden on the Switch, which is strange, considering it's been the world's hottest console for quite some time now..)

@electrolite77 I think there's plenty of logic in it.

In my country, you can sell used first party Switch games very close to their new prices. (And looking at GAME prices yesterday, it must be the same in the UK, too.)

So should you buy these games digitally at 33% off?
That depends on whether or not you have a big enough SD card and whether or not you want to keep the game after you finished it.

If you only want to play the game and then you don't need it, you can sell it for ~25% less (say, 30 GBP for a game that cost you 40 as new).

So basically a digital version (which you can't sell) would only be worth it to you if you could buy it for less than 10 pounds - which would be 75% off, as the original comment had said.

@KBuckley27 : It's a live game which changes player ratings every week based on live performances in online mode and (in a different way) Ultimate Team, too.

Let's look at it this way: it's like Pokemon but with real time battles, 11v11 and you can choose your team not only from a measly couple hundred but from 15.000+ characters!
(And as opposed to Pokemon, they exist in real life, too!)

;p

I own 3 from the top 10 on the Switch (if we count Pokemon S/S iterations as one): FIFA 20, Mario Kart 8 and Pokemon Shield.

Remember how these knock-offs came with 8 and 16 bit games in the 90s?

Well, 20 years have passed and they're still stuck at 16 bit games...
That's the real retro! ;p

@RiasGremory : if a VN's protagonist is a girl, it's aimed at girls in my opinion.

Thank you for the heads up!
I still have around 6 dollars left on my USA account so I'm thinking Giana Sisters.
I already have in on PS4, part of a super cheap Humble Bundle but I never got around to play it to the end because I rarely have the time to play in front of the TV.

@TDRsuperstar2 : it's fun and creative at the same time.
It plays like most 3D platformers, you have to paint buildings or blocks of buildings to certain colors by touching them or jumping to them.
By the end of a course, you'll make a colorful scene instead of the grey one they were at the start.
Of course, there are enemies, too and sometime you also race against the clock.

I would recommend the Blob games to all.

I guess these are aimed at girls so I'll pass but I'm happy to see more and more VNs coming to the Switch.
They found an excellent home on the Vita and now they found the perfect home on the Switch.

I think the Switch is The Ultimate Console.
I wish more third party developers would think the same and published more recent AA/AAA titles on the console, instead of the many-years-old ones it mostly gets..

Just finished this game.
It took me 25 hours since Good and True Endings are really hard to reach.
I managed to collect most things (all words, CGs, Special CGs etc.) but I still don't have one character's Voice Collection...

While I can see the reviewer tried to understand this game, I don't agree with this review.
This is a fun school mystery game with occasional puzzle elements. The story is decent, the voice acting is decent (even the side characters have voice acting, which is not very common in my experience), the matching 3 game varies from easy to hard.

If shooters don't get bad reviews because you have to murder people in them, I think it's unfair if VNs get them because there are underpants in them..

@Camari : they published at least one iteration of Madden on the Gameboy Advance, DS, 3DS, Wii and Wii U, too.

It would be very strange if they didn't publish one on the Switch.

The best racing simulator for a console is a digital-only release?!

That's unheard of.

Still waiting for Madden on the Switch...

They're probably good for simulators but for arcade racing games that were built for abusing the analogue sticks... well, good luck!

I once bought a similar steering wheel for the Gamecube, to play Burnout 2 with it.
Well, it was fun..
But ultimately, totally unplayable. It requires way too fast movements.

720p in docked mode with anime-style graphics seems a bit low.. It's literally PS3 era.

Awesome game. Exercises are fun with it.
It's very carefully, professionally and creatively made. I use it regularly.
Kudos to the developers!

I'm not. Just an average customer here.
3DS's 3D technology ruined my eyesight (basically gave me a lazy eye out of nowhere after I was 30 and had never had such problems before).
That technology makes your eyes focus on two points independently. And as it turns out, your eyes may not be able to recover from that.

I tried VR once out of curiosity and my eyes immediately felt worse. That technology forces them to an unnatural position, too.
And I've already seen where that can lead.

I'm not saying it's dangerous for everyone but I'm the unfortunate living evidence what forcing your eyes in an unnatural position over a long period can do to your eyesight.

These technologies aren't properly tested before released to consumers. These are not drugs so laws are probably not as restrictive.

We are the lab rats here, just like we were in the case of glasses-free 3D technology.
Thank God Nintendo abandoned that one.

VR technology is a dead end and a threat to people's eyesight.
It should be abandoned as soon as possible.

Wow, that console looks like Elon Musk's latest car!

Sounds great!
Physical for me.

Now we need Heroes of Might and Magic on the Switch, please!

Only 9 months for an online service before it gets shut down?
That must be a negative record.. :/

@SwitchForce I did buy a SanDisk card.
They sent me a black, flat disc-like object with 8 cm diameter. It looks like a very small frisbee. You can push its top and bottom and when you release them, they jump back at their starting position.

I don't know what that item is but it's definitely not a micro SD card...

This game is way less than 1 GB. It cannot be a worthy third party AA/AAA title.

It's not aimed at me but it's still a shame that companies ask full price for what looks like a mobile game.

And it cannot even be played in handheld mode?
Is this a joke?!

1TB is expensive because it's fairly new. It'll come down in price when bigger ones hit the stores.
I remember buying my 200GB card a year ago for as much money as 400GB cards go now.

(And now I need a bigger one, which I already should have - but Amazon sent me a totally different item so after sending it back to them, I'll buy the card in a physical store where I don't have to wait two weeks for nothing...)

If these were the base prices and the discounts would come off of these, that would be a great sale.

In its current state, where Switch multiplatform games mostly cost a lot more than on any other platform - it's rather meh.

There are some juicy discounts, too. But even those aren't much cheaper than the physical counterparts - which always comes first for me (unless there's a huge price difference).

"Fans of visual novels will no doubt get something out of this,"

Oh Jesus Christ, this is like reviewing FIFA as "fans of football will no doubt get something out of this"!

It doesn't make any sense!
Who do you think visual novels are made for?
First person shooter fanatics?
Platformer lovers?
Football fans?

Visual novels are made for people who like visual novels, for crying out loud!

This is a niche genre for people who don't mind reading a colorful novel with pictures, sound and music, for countless hours!
In fact, they usually enjoy doing this!
Probably as much as FPS fans enjoy killing countless virtual people!

Why don't they have a label?
Why visual novels do?

Oh well.

I will just enjoy myself with those VNs that luckily made their way onto the Switch.
Thankfully, it's a nicely growing number.

Despite these... "reviews".

Pqube has become one of my favourite publishers on the Switch recently.

They introduce us to a lot of visual novels on the Switch which is the perfect platform for them.

They try hard to release all of their (mostly very niche) games in Western territories in physical format, which is unique and honorable in itself.
But what I admire the most about them is how they try to add something extra to most of their releases.

I have Our World Is Ended, World End Syndrome and Root Letter: Last Answer. These are all much thicker than a standard Switch game because they all include a limited edition Artbook! (Plus a keyring with Our World Is Ended.)
(Even Kotodama has some nice art cards.)

Do they charge extra for these physical copies which would probably be called Collector's Edition and would cost twice as much as the regular game at most other publishers?
No!
They release these versions as the only physical version and they cost just as much as the digital version!

I personally don't know any other publisher that should be respected and supported more than Pqube for their stance on and obvious love and care of their physical games.

Anybody who is interested in visual novels, please refer to these reviews instead:

http://www.capsulecomputers.com.au/root-letter-last-answer-review/

https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/09/12/root-letter-last-answer-review-ps4/

https://www.dualshockers.com/root-letter-last-answer-switch-review/

https://www.playstation.com/en-gb/community.topic.html/_community_reviewr-8I2n/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1056510/Root_Letter_Last_Answer/

http://www.pushsquare.com/reviews/ps4/root_letter_last_answer

Not all of them are about the Switch version but since they're all identical, that shouldn't be a problem.
Those reviews will tell you what this game is really like. (This one does not.)

@Heavyarms55 : the live action models are an extra feature. The game does have the original anime-style artwork, too.
You decide which way you want to play the game.

You didn't get that from the review?

Yeah, that says a lot about it...