The Nintendo Switch

I want to say also that Dark Souls Remastered seemed priced the same across the platforms, though of course, it came out for other platforms last month and remains MIA for Switch. Which makes me suspicious of what they are doing to it to fix whatever problem they were having.

Nintendo's whole strategy is "protect the selling price of our games" which has a halo effect on indie devs of allowing them to do the same. $20 indies seem unjustifiable to steam shoppers when AAA games are 75% off three months after launch or whatever but they look like a good deal on the eshop

anyway I would've paid $60 for Celeste

would have paid that for Golf Story, Brodus

games are not expensive software for the amount of resources that go into making them, even at $60

'full price' has held at $60 through 2 decades of inflation and games have like 20x the content they used to at that price

lumines remastered is out next week, kinda feeling like I might need something meditative like that in my life right now

I'm gonna get that. I hope Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Expensive Tetris Tetris Effect comes to Switch. Announced for PS4/PSVR but nobody has said the word "exclusive"…

lumines is like the one puzzle game that's even more primal & hypnotic than tetris

'full price' has held at $60 through 2 decades of inflation and games have like 20x the content they used to at that price

We've gone over this before. In the case of Donkey Kong specifically, "full price" means more than the more or less same game cost just a couple of years ago for the previous Nintendo system. I totally get why God of War or whatever would cost $60, but when we're talking smaller indies ... if Hollow Knight can be $15, more indie titles can be $15. And if Dark Souls Remastered can be $40, more games can be $40.

if someone thinks they can make more money charging $40, they will do it. but i suspect there are more axes than old/new and nintendo/indie when you break down game pricing.

maybe imagine that ganondorf is in charge of nintendo switch game pricing if that will help inspire you to actually play zelda

also any game with a physical release is hard to price under $40 because of the manufacturing costs and Nintendo doesn't like it as the platform holder when there's a difference between physical and digital price

"doesn't like" I believe here means "strictly forbids"

they allow it sometimes with indie games if it's like an after the fact limited print run thing for the small subset of people who want physical copies of every game they play

switch is apparently very popular w.indie devs because it's easier for them to make money on it. are nintendo less aggressive in taking a cut ?

I hypothesize it's (1) land-rush effect, (2) less price-sensitive customer base than Steam shoppers. I certainly expect indie sales on Switch to regress to the mean somewhat as the eshop gets more crowded, especially if its discovery experience never improves, but on the other hand all the reasons to prefer a console to a PC for gaming when all else is equal apply to the Switch and the "portable" hook is a hell of a hook.

inside is so good btw. if you've never played it, you should definitely pick it up

Depends on the price!

I'd love to know what the eshop is up to, crowd-wise, because there seem to be a million games in there! It's pretty poorly designed, too.

And anyway, I get that there are costs etc., but I still haven't heard a good explanation for why Tropical Freeze was more money on the Switch than it was on the Wii-U, other than "because they can."

it's capitalism, there doesn't need to be another reason

the question is more 'why did tropical freeze get discounted on the Wii u' and the answer is pretty stupid, there was a big backlash against it pre release because people felt they were entitled to metroid prime 4 from Retro and it was not that, it even got slammed in some reviews for not being a completely different game than it was.

im still waiting for a good explanation why a 720p game upgraded to 1080p and playable on an entirely new system complete with portable functionality should be cheaper than the worse initial version

usually old games get discounted because they age but that game would look & play exactly the same if it was made today. the wii u port thing is a weird situation where it was a console that no one bought but had a ton of good exclusives so why not just rerelease them as if they're new

I'd be more ok with these money grabs if they'd at least offer a discount to those of us who were stupid enough to buy a Wii U and buy them the first time around.

wii u probably had the 3rd best game library of all time after 3ds and ps2. i Believe in the switch's ability to surpass these though

been playing a ton of rabbids but spend most of that time wondering if I'm actually enjoying it.

Looks like Limbo is listed on the eshop (though not for sale yet?) at $19.99. Limbo is $9.99. Maybe that seems about right?

sounds pretty standard for recent indie game and old indie game

I think Hollow Knight is some kind of masterpiece, basically the best of so many of the best games I like. Challenging but interesting/compelling, looks great, fun mechanics, the whole deal.

Is it tons better than dig 2?

Hmm, I'd say it's similar but more challenging? Just a vast map, more variety of things to fight, really creative design (like Steamworld) and more mythology (though not yet sure if it is important to gameplay). Loved Dig 2, though.

How much better is Dig 2 than Dig 1

quite a bit, it pretty much obsoletes 1

Jeremy Parish is kickstarting a grip for playing in vertical mode, worth it if you play a lot of shmups
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fangamer/flip-grip?ref=517959&token=b02317deA

cool idea! but also kinda should just be a 3D-printable model on thingiverse

I think the controls are a little better in Steamworld Dig 2 than Hollow Knight--more immediate, more arcade-like. I don't think I've ever felt as perfectly in-sync with what's going on on screen than near the end of SD2 when all the mobility upgrades are unlocked. In hollow knight I was sometimes frustrated by the controls, it felt like there was sometimes a little lag, or that the animations got in the way. It happens pretty rarely, but in particular I hated that when your character re-spawns after stepping on spikes or other environmental hazards, you can move around immediately, but you can't JUMP for about a half second. So sometimes when you're re-spawned on top of a platform above spikes, and an enemy attacks you right away, you end up trying to jump and instead diving back off the platform directly onto the spikes again. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things, obviously.

In nearly every other respect, though, HK is better. The story, ambiance, the sheer SIZE of the game (and the incredible value that you therefore get in terms of dollars-per-hour of entertainment). There are more enemies, there are LOTS of cool bosses. There are lots and lots of secrets: hidden map areas, hidden bosses, hidden power-ups. I love them both, so for me it's like SD2: 9/10, HK: 10/10

(this is all on PC btw, maybe Switch fixed the control issues I experienced)

the controls feel ok to me on Switch (using a pro controller), but were maybe better for Steamworld 2? I'm still really early in HK but it felt like Steamworld allowed me to get overpowered pretty quickly, and I don't remember any of its bosses kicking my ass as often and as quickly as even some of the regular creatures do in HK.

That's another comparison I see with Dark Souls (from what I have read and watched of Dark Souls): you can't take anything for granted, it can all kill you pretty quickly if you stop paying attention! I've had lots of sloppy deaths in HK, and unlike Dig 2 I haven't found an easy way to quickly grind for gems or whatever. For that matter, I'm at an (early) stage of HK where I have a ton to spend and nothing to spend it on! That was never the case in Steamworld, iirc.

No doubt, HK is a lot harder (and that's good!)

I didn't have the I-have-too-much-money problem until very late in HK. Is it possible there are merchants that you haven't found yet? (without spoiling too much, have you found the squishy/kissy/giggly one?)

Oh, I haven't found much at all yet! I'm about to fight the double rally-polly shooting guys. Just defeated Hornet and only just now got the dash. I've got a ways to go!

Sound/music of HK is A+, too. Music in Dig 2 was good as well, but I only remember a couple of themes.

HK is a wonderful game. on Switch it plays like a dream.

gonna tennis the heck out of some tennis tonight

yeah I gave in on tennis. my primary goal is to win a tournament with every character

haven't started yet though

wish I'd bought hollow knight instead of golf story : /

golf story is fine but the story mode is quite thin and repetitive. the core golfing is solid tho

this is cool !
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fangamer/flip-grip

worth buying for ikaruga alone

I was a golf story skeptic, but it won me over. the core golfing is fun. the story is thin but often hilarious. most of all, I think the idea is wonderful.

Mario Tennis Aces is reportedly launching with some inexplicable jank (can't customize match length or directly select what court to play on) but at least it's jank that one might reasonably expect to be patched.

I felt the opposite about golf story, I enjoyed playing through the story mode but the course design was too gimmicky to want to play outside of that