The Nintendo Switch

I don't know what backend dashboard crap is, so I assume I'm a long way from getting there!

Setting aside the post-game game of Hollow Knight, which I haven't played and which ups the platforming challenge considerably, I'd say Ori so far is more challenging. Well, challenging in a different, more Celeste-y kind of way. HK's challenges are more in the Dark Souls vein, but there are bits in Ori that have made my thumbs hurt.

josh we need to get you some more refs besides Celeste and Dark Souls =D

I know where you’re coming from, but it’s kind of like comparing all music to Pink Floyd and Ray Charles

That does cover a lot of musical bases! For sure Celeste is too new to invoke as a comparison, but tbf, Dark Souls is like the ur-comparison. "The Dark Souls of (x)" etc. And also tbf, Hollow Knight is heavily indebted to Dark Souls!

You should play civilization (V), which is like gamelan combined with Boris

I would totally listen to Indonesian trance metal.

Imagine doing that for a couple dozen hours while trying to convince Gandhi not to nuke you in a turn based strategy classic you won’t soon forget!!

(It is also a touchstone reference for games, like Beethoven or Al Green)

The only downside is losing your job after poopsockin it (nsfw) for three weekday nights in a row

I would totally listen to Indonesian trance metal.

you are in luck https://sublimefrequencies.bandcamp.com/album/sujud

Sublime Frequencies ftw! That music is insane.

I nearly bought a Switch today but changed my mind at last minute because I found out Witcher arrives tomorrow and that seems up my street...

But then I read a review saying the PS4 version is superior.

And then I realised a PS4 would let you browse the internet and watch Netflix, Now TV etc, right? And Switch doesn't? It might be the dealbreaker as right now I don't have a smart TV

the majority of my ps4 time is spent using it to watch netflix, hulu, mlb.tv, etc. performance-wise, it'll handle The Witcher 3 a lot better than the switch can, too.

it would certainly save me a lot of time in dicking around with my laptop and hdmi every time I wanna watch a film.

if you like 16bit RPGs at all you it to yourself to buy Cosmic Star Heroine as it's currently 70% off at £3.29/$4.49
about 50 hours into Dragon Quest XI, still absolutely loving it.

i liked cosmic star heroine fine but it softlocked on me like 2/3 of the way through the game and i hadn't saved in an hour and that put me off from finishing it, it wasn't good enough that i wanted to repeat an hour

also i'd say its visually more like playstation 2D RPGs e.g. suikoden than 16 bit, it looks way too nice for SNES

also yeah if you're interested in the witcher and not specifically interested in the switch's portability then PS4 is the way to go for that, that game is going to be severely muddied up on switch

I wish there was some sort of shared save mode, to play it on PS4 but also switch to Switch as needed.

I just made it past the Forlorn Ruins/second escape in Ori, which was really tough but so creative I didn't really mind. Man, even the angry bird has a sad backstory. Been a long time since I found a blue energy cell, which I think I need to do to open those other gates. I've been stuck at 3 cells for a while now.

is there anywhere that reviews all the random cheap-looking games in the eshop that sell for like $1-$10

You could! I’d back your patreon.

these guys - and particularly their forums - are pretty good for that
https://toucharcade.com/

one of the review sites that has 'nintendo' in the name reviews every switch release but i forget which

nintendo world report or nintendo life maybe

Return of the Obra Dinn out today for Switch. bought it, worried i'm not smart enough for it.

i had to trade notes with a friend who was playing it at the same time to get unstuck at least once

I had heard such good things about it but it really seems (by design) like a computer game, something you sit down in front of at a desk with a notepad.

you can use a notepad on your lap, famously

But I need two hands to hold the Switch!

you can store the notes in your mind palace

i just assumed the rest of you were also taking "mental notes" with google glass the past several years. ok glass, take a note: the guy to the left of the blurry face with the pipe was also in the captain's cabin, the guy in the upper-left corner of the set of pictures, i mean. end note.

ok: the pipe was in the cabin, in the upper left corner to the left of the guy with the blurry face

ok glass

that game rules, though. i need to return resume, i never even finished.

Heh, you all spend so much time teasing me for *not* starting games that it's a red flag when you concede there's one you never even finished.

https://i.imgur.com/dLoPiuF.jpg

it's rare for me to finish games - probably end up ditching games more often than not. but i find it difficult to struggle on when my enjoyment has ended and the end isn't in sight.

Something nice happened in Ori today, when I hit some point in the game/story and iirc it actually told me I was at the halfway point, which was nice.

nice

if you like 16bit RPGs at all you it to yourself to buy Cosmic Star Heroine as it's currently 70% off at £3.29/$4.49

― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Monday, October 14, 2019 3:47 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

this game is sweet! hadn't heard of it before, it's like if they fixed absolutely everything wrong with old rpgs. really digging it. thx for the tip!

one more thing, RE: obra dinn

any screenshot won't do it justice. it is really a beautiful game when seen in motion - check out a video or twitch

"Bloodstained" was years in the making. Began as a Kickstarter in 2015, released four years later this past June, was a mess on Switch. The developers promised patches and fixes, which a) was pretty ridiculous, given the long wait in the first place and b) those fixes have yet to show up. I don't know if the Switch poses its own particular set of programming problems, but this seems to happen a lot - game or port gets announced for Switch, people get excited, game arrives in less than ideal state, developers take forever to fix it, if they bother at all. "Sexy Brutale," for example, was unplayable on Switch, by all accounts, but it's been two years and despite promises I don't think the developers ever bothered.

"Blasphemous," on the other hand, began with a Kickstarter in 2017, showed up around two years later this past September, and just got a massive slate of fixes and patches a little over a month later. That's the way you do it. Even PS4 games get patches super fast, it seems. And a AAA game like "Doom" on Switch got some major patches relatively quickly, including the addition of Gyro, which was awesome (people seem to love Panic Button). But a lot of these indies? The lack of attention on Switch accounts for my frequently reluctance to buy games. I've been burned too many times and have little faith fixes will arrive in a timely fashion.

This is why they don’t take audience Q&A during Nintendo Directs.

games that weren't built to run on hardware weaker than PS4 and then added a switch version due to insane demand for everything to be on switch have a spotty track record with switch performance, i agree with that much. it's pretty easy to just, not buy ports day 1 and wait for performance impressions though

I think if a game like Doom or Witcher can be made to run at all on Switch, let alone much better than expected, then a game like Bloodstained has no excuse.

I think you’re forgetting the “kickstsrter” aspect and what that implies

You mean small studios, limited staff? I guess. But if a skeleton crew can divise something as gorgeous and perfectly calibrated as Hollow Knight, retro pixel games don't have much of an excuse.

My approach to complaining about patches and updates is to wait until I have worked on a game that tons of people are playing before weighing in on how easy it is to fix

ok, that's a tad disingenuous - obv i complain about all sorts of shit that i've never directly had any experience working on.

but...do you have any idea what goes into making a patch and deploying it? i don't.

I assume it's a lot of work! That's not in question. What's in question is releasing a game with issues so significant they take months and months to fix, assuming they bother at all. Like, a lot of these games that people complain about, people complain on or close to *day one*, which means that the developers *must* know. I can only speak for myself, but I'd rather a game get delayed and run right than a game get released prematurely and take forever to get fixed after they've already got my money. Releasing games early (for the cash? to get the max out of releasing on all platforms at once?) is like distilleries that release "white whiskey" and pretend that it is some sort of special thing, or even premium, when everyone knows it's really a quick way to make a buck while the good stuff ages in barrels.

I did, btw, recently find at least a personal drawback to the Switch's biggest pro: I don't need reading glasses, but as someone in my 40s I'm more liable to miss little details in handheld mode than I am when the Switch is docked and on the big screen. I hit a wall (more or less literally) in Ori and had to look up what to do, and it turns out there was a lever right there that I just couldn't see in that particular environment on the small screen. Obviously ymmv, and I'm usually OK with it, but it's a potential strike for some against playing in portable mode. I want to say I've read reviews of Switch games in the recent past that made people complain about things like font size? Maybe Darkest Dungeon (until it was patched)? Octopath Traveler? Something like that.

octopath font was fine, fire emblem was the one that people rightfully complained about

I still have only used the switch in portable mode like, once. I use it docked pretty much daily.

I'm about 40 hours into Dragon Quest XI now. What a lovely game. I can't help but compare it to Breath of the Wild, and while I think it's a worse game than BOTW, I think maybe I enjoy it more? like, playing BOTW was sublime, like ~~~art~~~ in a way I'd never experienced in a video game until then---but that made it, like, harrowing to play: to be too brute was to break the sublimity, to make its lost world recede, whereas its magic was in making that lost world present. You tell its story, you are part of it. But that was work! By contrast the linearity of DQXI is easy and comfortable: nothing is left unsaid, unless you choose not to talk to anyone in the game, I suppose. There have been cataclysms in this world too, and the game too is to unravel it, but it is done more overtly: yes, monsters have destroyed this world before, and will do it again, and you are the light and they are the dark, and you will master the dark; but the ache of this eternal recurrence is absent, whereas it was everywhere in BOTW. And I guess I don't always want to ache when I'm playing a game.

DQXI is the video game equivalent of dad rock