The Nintendo Switch

steamworld2 and golf story are recommended

steamworld dig 2 is excellent if you like Metroid style platformers

Pro controller was essential for me because I have giant hands and was cramping up using the joycon grip, give the grip a try first though if you're not in the same boat

that's what people mean by metroidvania, right? scrolling platforms?

+ upgrading abilities leading to backtracking to earlier sections of the game to visit new opened up areas that were previously inaccessible (e.g.., there was a tunnel high up on the wall on the first screen, but now that you've unlocked triple-jump you can finally reach it)

so og Zelda, too?

metroidvanias are necessarily side scrollers

Zelda 2 is closer

don't you mean zelda 3?

get sonic mania, and get enter the gungeon next week

xp ymmv
https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/what-is-the-difference-between-a-zelda-clone-and-a-413536/

xps pro controller not needed, the standard grip is just fine IMO. the only reason I might get one is to avoid the charging issue with the joycons (if you play docked, and your charge runs out, then you have to play in portable #firstworldproblems) even then a charging grip is half the price

that said i love this system enough to maybe spring for the pro controller anyway

am i the only person who just plays the system for all games with one joycon in each hand? it seems the perfect answer to gaming.

Probably not, it's p ergonomic, that's a sometimes food for me though (usually because I forget)

I mostly go pro controller

one joycon per hand is probably the optimal scheme for Odyssey truth be told, but i had a hard time getting used to that

it’s a console with lots of control options have some words lads

The iOS game market has really gone to crap, it seems to me

seems like the economics of game development have caught up. no way is a five buck game going to equal a flagship console game.

one of the reasons i got a switch is the staggeringly cheap games. au$69 for the biggest ever open-world super mario is just incredible.

homing hat is big advantage for odyssey

oh hey, for those of you who DON'T do the individual joycons-in-each-hand playstyle for Mario, I have some news for you: cappy can be thrown by using the right hand joycon like a wiimote! finding that accidentally while playing was one of my biggest OMG I LOVE THIS GAME moments

au$69 for the biggest ever open-world super mario is just incredible.

finished XC2. good game overall, would highly recommend to anyone who likes JRPGs but probably builds up way too slowly for people who aren't into the genre or the anime stylings. i wouldn't be surprised if this ends up being the best regarded xeno-series game besides xenogears but i'm not ready to call it a masterpiece.

pros:
+excellent music, mostly excellent environment design. these are what this series/studio is most known for and it shows
+good story that takes its time to blend in the weirdo JRPG mythology stuff before going somewhere really unexpected in the final act.
+combat system is fun once you have all the main mechanics available, and it does a good job of introducing small twists deep into the game
+very player-friendly save/retry system, you never lose any progress when you die which makes it way less stressful to experiment

cons:
-parts of the UI and especially the map UI are bad. in general, the whole game lacks the Nintendo Polish and it seems likely that Monolithsoft is still working independently on these despite being part of Nintendo now.
-the rare blade designs that were done by guest artists are extremely hit or miss
-the sections of the game where the story takes away one or more of the main characters were much less fun for me because this game's combat system is more about mastery of execution than tactics and thus taking away something you've been relying on is disruptive in a bad way rather than an interesting way.

good review, thanks. i'll probably give it a chance when it comes down in price

Wow that was quick, I’m on chapter 5 so roughly how far in am I?
I read somewhere that a lot of the main Monolith staff didn’t work on the game as they were called in to help on Zelda, so this game was made by a smaller more B type team. It shows as it is rough around the edges and as you say and lacks technical polish, even compared to the first XC which was a minor miracle of programming given the hardware they had to work with. I’ve had two occasions where I’ve been trapped in menus and can’t get out, had to reset the software - can’t remember the last time I had to do something like that with a Nintendo published game. And yes some of the character designs are truly awful.

Still enjoying it though, seeing that “battery low” message so often is a good indication that I’m having fun haha

heh, i feel that one!

you're probably close to halfway? there's 10 chapters but the last one is mostly just cutscenes and the final boss & ending

i think my final playtime was under 60 hours but i really rushed through some bits, i'd guess 60-70 hours would be normal

That sounds about right, I’m about 38 hours in. Extra levelling up at inns feels like cheating!

the inn mechanic is, i assume, essentially a difficulty slider so you can do a lot of sidequests and not outlevel the main quest if you don't want to

ciderpress does your completed save file let you go run around and hunt down named monsters to fight and whatever or do you pop back to outside the boss room

For some reason I get annoyed by the latter system, like i just want to run around in Zelda with the world saved

same thing as zelda, it saves that you beat the game and you get a nice final title screen but when you load up you're outside the boss room

I accidentally played Vostok Inc for like six hours today.

xp oh well I’ll live (we’ll see how much noodling around I’ll actually want to do if I beat this thing) (my partner is going to be gone for 10 days over New Years of course I’m going to beat it)

I watched an ex-ilxor play Mario for about 30 seconds and two months later I still have pangs of wishing I could learn to throw a cap

fuck throwing a cap

I can't turn my power bar into a heart

oh one other thing about XC2 if y'all haven't figured it out yet is the skill in the skill tree that lets you cancel arts into arts is pretty much mandatory for maximum enjoyment - once you have that you can chain combo through every art on all 3 of your equipped blades if your execution is good and get huge multipliers

also if you're playing as Rex i recommend an eventual setup where you have Pyra, Roc, and a greataxe rare blade (i had Agate) which lets you do an entire topple -> launch -> smash sequence on your own off of Nia's break. if you're able to combine that with the above you'll practically one-shot normal enemies. it's pretty fun.

I’m just glad I finally got to the point where I’ll have enough elements in my party to pull off blade combos more easily and not end up with as many dead ends

Getting a topple or launch while the stage II special status is on is so clutch, the status meter refills a bunch and sometimes you get party meter. There’s another possibility or two for the bonus but I can’t tell what it is.

Anyway love chain attacking a boss with 2+ orbs and doing 46000 damage or whatever

ok, I've got my heavy hitter cartridges, what download or indie games should I consider? keep hearing binding of Isaac, cave story ... what else?

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, December 8, 2017 10:34 AM (two days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Just don't make the same mistake I did with Binding of Isaac i.e. be aware that there is a lot of poo in it before you buy it.

Picross S! But if you're already a Picross addict, you knew that

boi is a really really good game fwiw

I agree! But the above caveat is important if you're easily grossed out like me. :)

It was actually one of the first two games I bought when I got my Switch a few months ago (along with Mario Kart)...I didn't think I had time to get lost in Zelda yet, and this was right before there were suddenly large piles of Switches at every store I went to so there was a sense of urgency when I found one. Checked Metacritic, saw it was highly rated and saw "roguelike" in the description and that was that. I literally could have done 20 more seconds of research and realized what I was getting into.

so help me I've been reading video game message boards just to get my fix of Nintendo release calendar speculation, the Nintendo Switch has made me extremely stupid and hungry for marketing

they've been awful stingy with it!

yeah we're entering mystery territory now, i suspect they're gonna have a Direct right after the holidays to announce stuff for the first half of 2018

i'm fine with this, actually, there's always other systems and platforms to backlog through. also it with all the cross-platform games announced it sounds like most the big companies are going in on Switch and probably have a lot of stuff in the works for late '18/'19

Here’s some arbitrary shit I hope to see on Switch that’s not probably a total given, the sooner the better

2D Zelda with a novel art style
2D Mario with a novel art style
New Golden Sun
New Final Fantasy Tactics
Some brand new local multiplayer game from Nintendo (Flip Wars is this technically but I didn’t buy it…)
A new Paper Mario that’s good and not bad like the Wii U one apparently was
The whole Game Boy Advance library
A Zelda game where you play as Zelda, ideally Zelda from after the end of Breath of the Wild