themightyant

To do that they will have to significantly improve their output which will take a long time.

@Ryu_Niiyama No issue at all. I just thought it interesting you were saying Nintendo don't make mainstream games. When to my eyes games like Mario Kart. Mario and Animal Crossing are the definition of mainstream. But I guess that is subjective. Peace.

Mario Kart Tour at $4.99pm is definitely a live service and you can easily argue that Mario Kart 8 deluxe and Super Smash Bros Ultimate with all their staggered DLC packs are also live service games, depending on who's definition you use. One of the popular ones is:

"A live service game is a type of video game that’s designed to keep people engaged, so they play it for as long as possible. That means that instead of making one game and moving on to the next, companies create a game they can update for years to come."

Sound familiar?

Perhaps. Though personally as someone who rarely uses the Switch's USP (portability) it is usually the worst place to play everything. If Nintendo's exclusives came out on PC I likely wouldn't buy their console which would also lose them out on console revenue, 3rd party store revenue and having to share the cut with Epic/Steam. The same isn't true for PlayStation/Xbox for me. YMMV but I expect there a enough gamers in my position for them to take a hit overall.

I'd posit that Mario Kart and Animal Crossing's numbers certainly make them firmly "mainstream". But at the end of the day it's just subjective pigeonholing and unimportant.

After a year of being pretty idle (lockdown 3 was a killer) I recently got back into this and it was the starting domino that pushed me back into regular and more hardcore exercise. It really is a great fitness tool and game wrapped into one.

I'd love to see other games that use the Ring-con and as others have said multiplayer

I want them to take as long as needed to make Silksong a worthy successor to Hollow Knight.

At the same time the wait IS agonising.

It's been over 3 years since it was announced and in January last year it was the cover feature of EDGE magazine. Even then it seemed 'It can’t be too much longer, surely!', yet here we are almost a year and a half later with hardly a word on the game.

I'd be very dubious to take one man's word over another and base my viewpoint on it. Especially on that last quote which sounds pretty self indulgent, sounds like there is some bad blood and bias there.

@GsPandem Yes! the MUSIC is wonderful.
So much variety and every region has a different musical influence. 10/10. I deliberately take a long time on some bosses like Stormterror just to hear the crescendo. (Ganyu kills him in 10 seconds lol)

And you’re right it does SOME things better than BOTW even if it’s isn’t nearly as good a game imho

@Kirgo Nice! Meanwhile I got C3 Qiqi 🤣😂😔😢😭

I seem to lose every 50:50 on the character banner.

That said I get very lucky on weapons. Redhorn for Itto, Primordial Jade Spear for Xiao, Engulfing Lightning for Raiden, Aquila Favonia for Bennett, and R2 Wolfs Gravestone for Diluc. (Last two were on standard banner)

Enjoy the game

@Kirgo in a very similar boat. Played since day 1. Ultra-low spend, I’ve spent less than the price of one game, but didn’t have to at all.

Like you have about 40% of the 5 star character and (almost) all 4 stars. Not enough 5 star weapons though, that’s the main F2P difference, but I’ve got a few best in slot ones for my main DPS characters. Most decent 4 stars I have at C6 (C5 for Bennett!!!).

It’s a really good game at its core. But I don’t like the time sink it is, even just doing dailies. Love/hate but can’t escape 😂 core gameplay is just too good

@Kirgo 100% it’s clear reading many they haven’t played it, just being judgemental. That said if I didn’t play it I’d be bored of all the adverts, YouTube videos, coverage etc. that is still going after 18 months.

It’s a funny game parts of it are 10/10 other parts 6/10, plus there’s gacha. Despite putting far too many hours into it I flip flop on whether I’d actually recommend it to anyone. It IS a time sink by design which is the biggest problem.

So much SALT on this comment thread. Lol

IMO It’s a really good game but has some glaring flaws

Pros

• The core gameplay is fantastic, else people wouldn’t keep coming back or spend. This is #1
• It’s 100% a AAA game. Almost no expense spared. Great graphics, best voice actors (for all languages), fully orchestral score, etc.
• The world is a delight to explore, that part is the closest to BOTW I have played
• New characters change the gameplay and keep it fresh
• Release cadence is fast
• New regions bring new mechanics, keeping it fresh
• it’s FREE and you don’t have to spend a penny. Can complete all content with the starting roster of characters, and you get a lot of free wishes just for playing

Cons

• it’s a Gacha game. If you have ANY sort of addictive personality steer well clear
• upgrades are time gated (resin) and slow
• the grind is real once you hit a certain point, it’s a time-sink if it clicks
• too much filler, release of new parts to explore is slow (understandably as they are large and very, very good)
• writing is really inconsistent. Mostly not great but the occasional surprisingly deep quests
• it’s not finished. Only 3 of the proposed 7 continents are released.

Plot twist: They haven't they're just chasing after attention on an already broken TV.

@TechaNinja I own it.... but it's on my list of shame

Parts of this are very close, or even over, the line between inspiration and rip-off, but as Konami aren't doing anything worthwhile with the Castlevania IP i'm all for this.

Smart words as ever from Reggie.

More cynically does he have a book out or something? Seems to be doing the press rounds a lot right now /jk

Honestly I felt embarrassed playing the last game in front of my family. Pyra/Mythra was just standing still but still bouncing up and down. It's just unnecessary. Feels like it's designed for horny teenagers/old men still in their parents basements. Aside from that and the horrible 'gacha-like' summoning mechanic it was a really good game. Bring on XC3

So many good games to choose from... please don't be dross.

Wonderful news. Though kinda weird that this was announced as September just 2 months ago and now that date is pulled forward two months.

Optimistically I hope that's because they realise their are less bugs to fix than expected.

Pessimistically I hope it's not for the wrong reasons and won't release with bugs that will be patched later just to hit an arbitrary date they set themselves.

Gameboy (1989) and SNES (1990) were the same era and wins in a landslide for me. Famicon/NES was 1983.
Gameboy Colour was part of the Gameboy Line not a separate generation. Altering history to fit neat boxes.

@KateGray Great idea! But unfortunately I'm already doing one of these on the forums of PureXbox and struggle to get through one extra game a month as it stands. But i'll keep an eye out here and see when I can jump in. Best of luck with the backlogs!

They’re not great are they. Though I for one like the minimalism of some of these. Subtle enough that it looks kinda cool to the average punter yet those who know know, but not so in your face that you are walking talking garish billboard. Just a shame they aren’t better.

“It's got so bad that blue milk Luke is now going for higher prices than a copy of the game”
Sadly this isn’t that uncommon with these collectors edition extras. Plenty of people buy them and sell the models and other bits for large profits due to scarcity

X it's on all major consoles and PC.

@Daniel36 there was an article just the other day saying you couldn’t sadly.

Looks like they’ve mostly just put the backgrounds through AI upsampling. The trouble with updating the models and text is they no longer all sit so cohesively together. Seems nearer to a minimum possible effort.

Honestly don’t have high hopes

Sounds like a placeholder

They were always going to have to nerf the Master Sword in some way

@Leuke I think GOW: Ragnarok is more likely to slip. We've barely heard anything on that. Though like Bethesda, we rarely do from Santa Monica until they are ready to release.

But the rumour is that Starfield was playable last year and they had been given extra time to polish everything which was why they were so confident to give a precise launch date 11/11/22 over 18 months ahead of release.

Time will tell!

@TheRedComet Don't discount Starfield!

It's a proper monstrosity!

That music though! ♩♫♬♪♩

@Jumping_Dead You know things are BAD at MercurySteam when moving to Activision seems like a positive upgrade.

It’s promising, but a sample size of 1 means little.

Loads of people said LG TVs didn’t get burn in anymore yet I had an LG C7 that got it less than 2 years after purchase just from playing many games normally.

Once bitten twice shy.

@Krull “Maybe we just need to stop expecting or caring about ports” Perhaps. But to me at least that’s one of the greatest appeals of the system, especially for playing games like Ori, Witcher 3, Skyrim on the go. But we’ve got a point where the difficulty of porting these games is putting developers off, reducing the Switch’s game library.

”Switch is big enough as a platform to get bespoke software - and the bespoke software it does get is, generally, excellent, be it it first party or third party.” Again perhaps. There really aren’t that many third party exclusive games by comparison. I agree those that are there are often excellent but there really aren’t that many. I was looking for a definitive list of switch exclusives but couldn’t find one, but what I did find was best of lists that were 80-90% first party titles. Games like Astral Chain, Bayonetta 2, MH:Rise, Cadence of Hyrule are few and far between.

My only reticence here is IF developers stopped chasing ports would a few more consider Switch exclusives instead?

”I don’t pick up a 3DS and complain that it can’t run Dark Souls. Not really an apples to apples comparison. Switch is just as much a home console played on a TV as it is a handheld. (And it does play dark souls

”That said, as much as I’m being argumentative, I wouldn’t mind a Switch 2 by 2025. As long as it’s backwards compatible. I really don’t want a mid-generation upgrade, though. Should be like a DS to 3DS jump.” Agreed, though ideally I’d want it a little sooner. It HAS to be backwards compatible I feel - Nintendo has good history here on their handhelds at least.

TLDR: we’re coming from different angles here but ultimately what we all want is great games on the Switch. My concern is the lack of hardware will stifle that.

@Krull £1000? for a bleeding edge iPhone or Samsung, etc. yes. But there’s plenty of phones from Xiaomi, OnePlus or Hauwei that are about the price of a Switch. And several from Apple and Samusung and others in between.

But my point isn’t about the past, Switch was a good piece of hardware when it launched, it’s about the future and the Switch is being left behind. We are only just last year 1 or the new console generation and already many games don’t get a port, or get a bad one, or get a cloud version. This will only get worse without a hardware upgrade.

@Krull "Until the Steamdeck, no handheld was more powerful than the Switch" Reach into your pocket and you have the answer. Most phones released in the last few years have more graphical power than the Switch. That is the direct competition.

Look at games like Genshin Impact which simultaneously released on Mobile, PC and PS4 with feature parity. Switch version was cancelled as it couldn't handle it. Sadly we are seeing more and more Switch ports delayed, failing or not even attempted. Plus the dreaded Cloud versions.

@Medic_Alert Completely agree with your stance here. Simple fact is that we will see less and less ports to portable Nintendo platforms if the Switch doesn't get a successor soon. As someone who enjoys the freedom playing on the go brings that is a shame.

For Famitsu 35/40 is pretty average for a Square JRPG. All it tells us is it's not a stinker, which is enough.

It would be VERY Nintendo to release a Switch Pro at this late stage instead of a genuine successor (with full backwards compatibility) But i still think it's more likely to be the next gen system.

If it's by The Messenger's dev team they have my attention. Brilliant game.

The size and weight of this makes me realise again what a marvel the PS Vita was. Shame it wasn’t better supported. It’s still a great piece of hardware

@Erigen even if the sticks drift they’ve made them modular and very easily buyable and replaceable on SteamDeck. Though the tear down suggested they are far more similar to the Sticks in the Switch Pro Controller/Xbox/PlayStation than they are the Switch JoyCons

I love it. It’s really great localisation and imbues each character with unique personality. FAR far more interesting and unique than the usual cheeseball voices.

And sometimes it’s exceptional like Mr. Drippy being Welsh in Ni No Kuni, or Dragon Quest 8 or XI. Long may it reign.

I applaud this. Finding ways to make games work in spite of the less powerful hardware through optimisation and innovative solutions is brilliant and back to basics programming.

However it needs to be put in perspective. This is not a reasonable expectations for many teams or games. Having staff working for over 2 years on a port for a single platform just isn't realistic in most cases. It's only possible because Hello games made so much money initially on No Man's Sky they've been able to support it, and staff for years.

@westman98 That website is 100% Nintendo, big goofy smile on my face.
What a great share. Thank you.

@Pod AMAZING!!!

His grandson is named BANJO. Legend!
That is all I’ve taken from this.

This might come as a shock but i'm not looking for realism in my video games.

Having been burnt on the Wii U. I was a complete skeptic.

1-2 Switch and Arms wasn't convincing me and BOTW played exactly the same on Wii U. They even gimped the Wii U version (no map on second screen) to give parity with the Switch.

But then 3rd party developers, especially indies, embraced it like a lost son. Between proper portability (unlike Wii U) and a lot of good - not just Nintendo - games coming out for it the Switch thrived.

Finally took the plunge for Mario Odyssey. I got very lucky selling my Zelda edition Wii U, effectively swapping it for a brand new Switch, and rebought and 100%ed BOTW... again.