nhSnork

One of those estimatedly hybrid-themed weekends which handily coincides with another (and, until autumn, potentially last) batch of new Switch backlog items, 80% of them (Besiege, Deliver Us the Moon, Arcade Paradise and Skul: The Hero Slayer) actually squeezed on board even if it did entail shelving Sea of Solitude and tossing Carto over to NS2. The latter consequently boasts a whole 1.5 Gb left - now that looks like a legit nhSnork-owned console!😂 But the new machine may yet see more storage juggling in the visible future since I've already reached Delta Labs in Doom 3 and plan to advance further alongside more progress in the other local playthroughs like Cyberpunk, Pillars of Eternity and the aforementioned Carto. And of course, there are still more pastgen backlog itches ranging from the usual JRPG bunch (led by the XCX/Yumia/Azuma triad with a chance of one or multiple Personas), more roguelites like Tallowmere 2, Undermine and Flinthook, some horror in RE0 and Dementium, some more crafting in Terraria and Terratech... maybe even the retro binges like Super Mario Kart or Zero Mission.

The performance can be up to 360 fps for all I care but the "new story" bit is more of a headturner.

snobbishly said the guy who is still busy with Origins anyway

It's impossible to overestimate Iwata's impact on the entire medium, be it everything he had time to do before his passing or the legacy seeds he sowed for the following generations. Can't even imagine what it would be like with him still around today because it takes Iwata to estimate the whole range of what Iwata could have come up with over these ten years. But even the reality he did help shape is something this gamer remains quite indebted to him for.

"Essentially, iFixit believes that the work required to simply reach the controller's battery for potential replacement is far too difficult for the average consumer"

Ah, hence the tone. Too much work accessing the battery for replacement = too little motivation to buy dedicated kits.😏

So yet another scenario which can't happen without someone consciously putting a compromised item up for sale. Marketplaces like eBay largely refusing to ship electronics to Belarus (for ages, not just since 2022) may have come to be a blessing in disguise.😅

@Samalik yeah, props for at least attempting a comparatively discreet name, I guess, but that abbreviation may have well backfired.😅

Seriously, though, considering the range of Switch game filesizes, you'd think its dedicated high seas segment would have long moved to torrents by now anyway. Or was this site mainly catering to Germans?

@Ryu_Niiyama I don't tend to indulge in that stance's thespian snark either (although I do think that applying the notion to the matter at hand might shoot companies in the foot because it blurs the line between digital retail and subscriptions, potentially eroding the appeal of the latter). But that's beside the point, as are different editions of other fiction media which don't necessarily get in the way of preservation access. The issue with server-crutched games isn't even about ownership or consumer entitlement as much as it is about the basic FOMO - all the more topical these days when the majority of gamers (aka the accumulated prior generations thereof) only have so much time to catch up with everything and all the more starkly different from most other games whose preservation and long-term accessibility options (whether via debated community endeavours or future re-release options) remain at an evident advantage. And that includes a wide variety of titles that offer online functionality but aren't designed to enforce it (from Burnout Paradise to Xenoblade Chronicles X).

No one in their right mind asks for the servers being kept online (let alone supplying new content) forever, but the detrimental degree of dependence on such servers is only ever made more glaring by their expiry and subsequent loss of everything already amassed - and if the industry is supposedly running out of templates where this degree of dependence is easily avoidable or fixable, then I have all the more incentive to stand by calling the entire gamedev model at hand atavistic and flawed. Except there are still exceptions challenging my skepticism even in the mobile freemium field, like the recently unplugged Alchemy Stars which gave the players a fair heads-up to prepare a data backup and patched the base game to use this backup for offline access to the entire available storyline. It's clearly possible in theory - and, if "too expensive" in practice, brings us back to my other rant about budget bloaters to potentially revise the development process around.

A bit of a bummer, although I've only used them once in all these years, and a good few eligible titles have made more sense to target in separate bundles with respective DLC instead. Still, here's hoping I'll manage to invest in at least one more pair, possibly around the winter holidays.

"In addition, many titles are designed from the ground-up to be online-only"

That's the very problem at hand, though: the kind of game design where merely progressing past the title screen and from menu to menu, let alone accessing any content, requires checking back with a finite longevity server, is increasingly atavistic in itself. Then again, so are other budget bloaters like resolution/framerate/VFX excesses, and half the industry still remains under the false impression of their indispensability. And not starting the reevaluation and adaptation process for either case in advance will only end up losing them a lot more money once the bubble bursts (although a fair few executives might be simply hoping to bai- retire before it happens).

@Ryu_Niiyama fiction works are the very kind of product that last forever (short of specific circumstances the majority of which is supposed to be solved in the information age), and most video games out there fit the bill as well. It's a clear-cut layer of flawed game design that grew to beg to differ, the clamoured solutions to the problem focusing on the period beyond the affected works' profitability regardless. It can be reasonably hard to believe that implementing a content check toggle down the road is going to balloon the development costs while stuffing the game with frixel junk (which the industry itself admits has exponentially increased said costs, especially since the so-called "HD era") doesn't.

I don't even need half of what the new console touts and hypes, but the rest is what I've always been in the market for and got in excess now. New journeys like Cyberpunk, more room for the long benched pastgen playthroughs like Pillars of Eternity and a bunch of Gamecube games are already summer makers in their own right, and there's more to come (and/or to await next doses of disposable income on my part) even in the already announced range before getting a single general Direct this generation. The likes of Bravely Default, Yakuza 0, Star Wars Outlaws, Split Fiction, Kunitsu-Gami, Mario Kart World and Bananza are already lock'n'loaded in the wishlist (albeit facing the usual long-term competition from the ever bottomless Switch one), but literally any day and week ahead may throw a curveball name with the power to steer my wallet away from them all. What did Reggie Fils-Aime say on the topic of corporal preparedness, again?

@Suketoudara this buzz began after the cancellation of the early Neptunias and a new Death end re;Quest westside, but it's a tough one to corroborate with all the other third party stuff (from more Neptunia games on Switch to Cyberpunk on Switch 2) continuing to hit the hybrid landscape just fine.

The weekend's NS2 sessions will focus on the finally procured Cyberpunk (whose prologue only took a few hours to get through because I was glued to every terminal I could access😆) and Super Mario Strikers alongside some NMS and the BC playthroughs like Doom 3 and Pillars of Eternity. Most of the latter, of course, remain on the Switch menu in more senses than one, including Curious Expedition (for now, the only of the most recent Gen 9 release recruits to get installed while the others like Tormented Souls, Alan Wake and Port Royale 4 will wait until a future storage shuffle on either hybrid), franchise-spanning moods from Xenoblade, Rune Factory and Persona to Atelier, Tales and Castlevania... and another bunch of probable sessions ranging from Lost in Random, Portia, Katana Kami, RE0 and Borderlands 2 to Tallowmere 2, Anuchard, Dying Light, Carto and Cruel King. Devil May Cry, on the other hand, ultimately got shelved once again (to leave at least a few gigabytes of the NS2 storage free while the rest went to the transferred bunch of N64 apps - the nextgen-exclusive rewind might prove worth it after all), but I did finally get through that stage 16 boss, so I look forward to resuming it in the visible future nonetheless.

On the other hardware, it's also big plans biz as usual - FFXIII/XV and more Tales, Watch Dogs and Horizon, Ciel Nosurge and Ar Tonelico, EOU and Fantasy Life, possibly more inFamous and MotorStorm Apocalypse... the next month or so promises relatively more hobby time windows (followed by the annual fortnight-long opposite in the second half of August😆), so I'm resisting even more temptation to just list half my game collection here... and find it already being Monday by the time I hit "Reply".😅 And I'm audacious enough that I'm also hoping to work on my anime backlog over the next few weeks as well.👀

@Freek Lost Epic hails from the creators of Earth Wars which is more mission-based akin to MonHun games but can give off the same select Vanillaware vibes otherwise. And elsewhere, Sword of the Vagrant seems to have a similar inspiration source put to good use as well. And of course, there's always Dust: An Elysian Tail.

Pretty sure I was one of many who brought up this point throughout last gen; guess it's the "Gamecube NSO when?" club's turn.😅 And we're not even getting started on the western app often getting twice the update size to house both US and European versions of a game.

I mean, the first game was on Vita. And a console like Switch certainly sounds like a friendlier environment for an online multiplayer game than a Deck whose OS many online games retain or spontaneously develop allergies to.

@fenlix neither are the likes of Star Wars Outlaws and Split Fiction.

@Erigen the series did that to people long before its devilish alliance with Switch. Or even with portables at all, for that matter - I've put quite a few hours into Revolutions subseries on NDS and Vita as well.

If I could, I'd probably be halfway through Lightning Returns on Switch by now, its predecessors replayed and completed. Despite IX being among my top faves in the franchise as well, I only idly fancy a remake thereof for a full voiceover the original reportedly considered but never went with.

First world frixel ball'n'chains bloating the game sizes (and, for that matter, budgets) in the first place have never been all that convincing in terms of worth or value either, but I don't see fan posteriors demand any defendant claims about them.

In all irony, I still see select spots in Minsk sell PC game bootlegs in no-download physical form (basically a 64 or 128 Gb USB stick packaged into a DVD case), but it's obvious where that form's costs are saved.😏

@Erigen

Paywalling the info that gets shot down immediately. Absolute journalism.

@Erigen "99% of comments are negative, pretty much saying it looks like minecraft on N64 hardware"

Ah yes, from the talents that brought you "N64 trees in Pokemon SwoSh". And "plain bad" holds the same value and authority as "terrible" in fanspeak. The genre is an evergrowing trove by now, most of the experiences mundanely familiar enough to make up the background for the more outstanding specimens like Rune Factory, Harvestella or Stardew Valley (as is the big picture of pretty much any other genre) - but none of them qualify as "plain bad" on the mere basis of thespianly saturated audiences stigmatizing the very notion of legit/alleged mediocrity. All the less so in the day and age where we all witness neural networks abused for the purpose of actual low effort ripoffs.

HDMI cables don't exactly cost like a snack bar here anyway (heck, you can have 2-3 work lunches for the price of a basic third party USB one), so I would have little incentive to go beyond the enclosed one unless it's malfunctioning or misplaced.

Speaking of NS2 joycons, though, I just discovered that, unlike last gen, it's entirely possibly (at least if you're me) to absentmindedly clip them on upside down.😅 Even the pairing indicator doesn't bat an eyelash, although a more conscious followup experiment showed that it does draw the line at controllers attached backwards (they keep working but remain "detached" from the console's perspective - both being full at the time, however, I'm not sure if the factual contact overrides it for the charging purposes). nhSnork will return with more nhSnork-brained factoids (or not).

@Erigen considering how unhinged the definition and usage of the word "terrible" is among gamers, that doesn't say much. But it can be morbidly amusing to see Natsume's in-house Harvest Moon entries recurrently distract the fandom from barking at the similarly recent Story of Seasons games themselves.

Doesn't sound like an upgrade I'll be going for, but at least I can sit back and count the gamers spitting out their drinks at the article's "the game will run at 6fps" line.

Me and my Switches will take more Tales (especially the Xillia duo), more God Eater (imagine getting an actual human Aragami protagonist this time) as well as the ports of Code Vein and Scarlet Nexus. And I will definitely not complain (but my wallet might😉) if Bamco's streak of spreading Sony classics has Gravity Rush dilogy in the pipeline next.

(Old and new Project X Zone stuff goes without saying but, being largely a Monolith Soft gig, it would be more expectable in a Direct anyway. And, while we're at it, so would the Xenosagas👀)

@Tayrailbridge well, if it's been told five billion times, then the fandom is in no position to complain about the franchise's release frequency.

I'd rather beat the entries after Black Flag without relying on Deck, personally. What's there to "remake" about a 2013 game?

XCX technically being a re-release, it's currently a tie between Atelier Yumia and Guardians of Azuma with me. I'm naturally more biased towards the latter but Yumia is an even bigger step forward for its franchise, mixing the gameplay and the lore into just what I like my alchemy games to be. And of course, there are enough other contenders to drop pedestals in favour of tiers - Fantasy Life i, Fuga 3, The Hundred Line...we're barely halfway into 2025 and its lineup is already nuts.

"(In the game, that is)"

Proper NS2 investments still up in the air until next week at earliest (or, as I previously dared hope, until last night, but our accounting office begged to differ), the new hybrid on the block will be kept busy juggling some NMS, Pillars, Doom 3, Skyforge, Amalur, Immortals and Outer Worlds (plus a few more futile attempts to get through DMC's mission 16). Its physically smaller but still capacity-dwarfing big sis, on the other hand, faces the usual itches from Xenoblades, Ateliers, Rune Factories and Castlevanias to a similarly typical motley crew of Star Ocean, RE0, Katana Kami, Echoes of Wisdom, Theatrhythm, Danganronpa and possibly an emulated classic or two like Zero Mission or Yoshi's Island. And then I still have a bit over 10 Gb free which, being me, always feels inexplicably odd to have. The possibilities are not endless but fairly rich - redeploying one or several more shelved titles from Palia or Trials Rising to Layers of Fear 2 or Snake Pass, reinstalling and finally starting AI: The Somnium Files or ev-

...😳

Beyond the hybrids? Yup, possibilities like Eternia and Ciel Nosurge, FFXIII/XV and Watch Dogs, Fantasy Life and Chase Begins... maybe even a bit of Bloodborne if I don't get my dose of failures and rollbacks from DMC alone.😏

Silky 60 fps can go smooth themselves, let's wait and see if the upgrade offers something more tangible like Forgotten Land or No Man's Sky. Incidentally, the latter's NS2 version is 25 Gb versus the (hybrid) original's 5-6, and I would certainly hope for a similar blo- er, increase to come with a bit more than extra frixels.😅

I'm not an adult woman, but again, such an announcement from ASW is even better news than a fighting game in my book.

After several gluttonous Switch storage upgrades, I'd rather go for a 1 Tb Express card from the start. But then again, I'd rather keep both of my kidneys in the process, stones and all.😅

@ParsnipHero everything with a "Switch 2 edition" runs in its native format as it is. I wouldn't expect a business to feel apologetic about an option to earn some extra moolah by selectively humouring the fandom's generation-long "SO TIRED OF PLAYING MY SWITCH GAMES AS VASELINE SLIDESHOWS" hysterics.

Speaking of which, am I the only gamer lacking familiarity with what smeared vaseline even looks like?🤔

Looks like I can skip this one, although I still had to download the game to make sure.😄

DL1 is fine as it is. An arguable priority would be to give its sequel a proper port after last gen's "cloud version".

Not even playing devil's advocate for the guy here, but... a "Beerio Kart" tournament? "You must finish your beer before the end of the last race in the cup"? What could possibly go wrong during such a merry pastime.🙄

Hype-wise, it's the Switch version confirmed alongside the Switch 2 one; userbase-wise, I'd say it's vice versa.😉 I'll be defaulting to the Gen 9 release myself, already a fair distance into the first game whose "enhancements" don't turn my head so far and whose unspecified (or unreported?) QoL features seem unlikely to include a save transfer.

@RainbowGazelle they helped bring Spirit and My Little Pony to consoles for the first time since the 2000s, so there's that for sure.

Okay, maybe now NS2 is not completely nintendoomed.

I might have been interested even at a higher price, but the cited control scheme limitations are more of a dealbreaker here. Still, here's to it finding resonance with those who can accommodate it - the game itself looks very worthwhile. As for the online demography, Nintendo will probably just poke it awake with occasional tournaments and game trials.

@Zeebor15 if a retail game is "rental only", then what's the name for the stuff on PS+ and GamePass? Redownload servers have been known to last for decades so far, the period that can actually see physical media deteriorate beyond readable. Sure puts the preservation topic into perspective.😅

Fighting games are cool and all (I mean, I used to have zero interest in the genre before experiencing Guilty Gear XX in the first place), but I'm also in the market for more Damascus Gear and Code Shifter. Or even more detective games, perchance.

Zero issues here, with or without the comparison to the Deck screen whose measured "thrice the response speed" I've been dealing with for years now. But I'm aware I humour these reports at my jaw muscles' own risk.

The strict policy or the dishonest sellers previously on the receiving end thereof?

I haven't encountered "blurry characteristics" even in the non-upgraded BC titles so far, but then again, I was busy playing the games, not measuring nits for clicks. In fact, rummaging through the settings has revealed that the seeming entirety of this whole "HDR" blast processing can be turned off anytime, and I only didn't do it immediately because I was looking for something else at the time. As for the OLED laments, indeed, their sources might as well hold off on the OG model and save up an extra 50-100 bucks (depending on other bundled upgrades and/or on how wacky the world will be four years from now) for the theoretical revision.

Seriously, though, Nintencows - sorry, Nintencowz - might actually slap.

This weekend... of June 2025? Because it almost feels like April 2017 here, with a brand new hybrid console in my hands and a sizeable hole in my wallet.😸 The latter naturally means putting my visit to Night City on hold, even if the sense of deja vu isn't extending to a few fortnights of current gen experience focused on a bunch of demos. But besides two Gamecube apps being downloaded at the moment (I routinely add Japanese versions through a separate profile's account as well, just in case) and the eventual Cyberpunk investment to reserve another 60 Gb for, the rest of the console's storage might just get dragged into my favourite backlog game of "greedily pack the available space full, then morosely shelve title by title as more urgent playthrough itches pile up".👀 A few Switch mammoths like Pillars of Eternity, Skyforge and Attack on Titan 2 have been considered since April, yet more bulky titles like Immortals, Outer Worlds and Kingdoms of Amalur are beckoning after finally procuring their respective DLC a while ago, and THEN there are other variably sized linear playthroughs from Devil May Cry, Outlast and Snake Pass to Doom 3, The Missing and Pumped BMX Pro that look finishable in the visible future (right, because I totally won't just get stuck on that lategame DMC clown car of a boss yet again😏). And let's not forget No Man's Sky, the only owned game I've been motivated to "upgrade" so far! For all I know, my latest - and, short of Sony pleasantly defying belief, quite possibly last gaming hardware recruit for years to come may just spend the weekend downloading stuff. Hey, I knew what I was signing up for.😄

With all that in mind, the bulk of these couple days' sessions is likely to focus on Switch as usual, with the typically motley bunch of whims ranging from multiple Xenoblades, Rune Factories, Ateliers and Castlevanias to the likes of Creepy Tale 2, Wreckfest, Lost in Random and RE0. The handhelds remain on the table as well - Vita just saw the long-awaited release of Ciel Nosurge translation patch (nothing personal, Koeimo, I waited a whole generation for those Switch ports' official localisation, and I'm still ready when you are), and going for that one may just lead to more Ar Tonelico on Deck, too... along with more Xenosaga while I'm running the emulator anyway. Again, of course, I'm open to restarting all of these in legitimate possession and in the more properly portable form.

Until then, I'll be getting accustomed to the new chapter of said form in general. For one, I really need to stop blindly pressing the C button instead of the Home one!👹😆

I've seen people actually work around the crash on their own (by getting through the startup logos and screens in flight mode which they safely disabled afterwards), but it's certainly better to no longer worry about this at all. Good to see updates on other "5+ Gb" items like Kingdoms of Amalur (by now likely closer to 20 after I grabbed its DLC and thus a playthrough transfer candidate) as well - the latter still appears to have issues but with the Japanese version only.

"We need to talk about GameChat on Switch 2"

Totally Inaccurate Battle Simulator

@KBuckley27 they very much do, as Switch library itself is our witness, and they continue to put them there for people who wouldn't be likely to buy those games elsewhere at all. Pretty sure they also account for the bulk of launch preorders going to the loud'n'proud "you only need Nintendo consoles for Nintendo games" segment, but they're still here for the weirdos like myself eyeing Cyberpunk over MKW since April's Direct. Had I had the funds to spare back in April 2017, my first Switch game would have likewise been something like I Am Setsuna over BotW (and while the latter ironically ended up my second, the actual first later in May was Waku Waku 7😏).