The Nintendo Switch

i think part of it is that whether due to covid disruption or whatever else nintendo doesn't have a big tentpole fall release this year and so this thing that would normally be a release calendar filler is being treated as such

by both nintendo and by the audience, i should say

they shd make more games hire some more guys maybe

they love prototyping so much that they forgot to make games afterward

xpost I guess in the end it's just a different strokes different folks situation. I had the original Nintendo, then never got another Nintendo system - console or handheld or anything - until the GameCube. I can't really remember *why* I got the GameCube, but I honestly don't remember playing it too much, either, despite loving games like Eternal Darkness and Luigi's Mansion. Next machine I got was the Wii, which at first I didn't play much either, and sold. But then *rebought* several years down the line after I learned how to hack it and stock up on games from the library. *That* one I did play, and my kids liked it, too.
I skipped the Wii-U mostly because we were still doing fine with the Wii, but I did buy the Switch because I thought my kids would enjoy it. Yet weirdly, they have not! Not particularly. In fact, games they used to love on the Wii (like Just Dance and Animal Crossing) they outright *dislike* on the Switch.

Now, I never bought any of the other Sony or Microsoft systems, either, but as I remember it I finally relented and bought a PS4 after "Dark Souls Remastered" was delayed indefinitely on the Switch. I think I thought to myself, you know, I bought the Switch thinking it a good compromise that would get some of the big games that other systems got, but also get some cool Nintendo games. Which it did, at first. Then "Dark Souls" was delayed, then "Doom" was delayed and/or ran like shit. Buying "Doom" in particular made me particularly wary of ever paying $60 again for a dubious port when, in this case, the uncompromised version on the PS4 was going for literally 1/10th the price. And as I've been diving into ridiculously cheap PS4 games I'd never played a second of, with graphics better than anything I'd ever seen before, the Switch is sorta seeming more and more disappointing to me.

Now, I'd probably have no problem if Nintendo really was releasing "2 or 3 really great headline games" a year, but ... they're not? The games I've played and enjoyed the most on Switch have been indies like Hollow Knight or Ori or Cuphead and Steamworld that were released for all systems, or other systems, not Nintendo exclusives. With the rare exception of stuff like BotW, but that game seems to be a rare exception full-stop. Otherwise, yeah, it's the Nintendo games that are not drawing me in. But that's probably just my personal tastes, which I'm learning leans toward stuff the Switch couldn't handle even if they released it.

Zelda, Odyssey, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing

that's pretty solid imo, a nice mix of big single and multiplayer titles. it's worked very well for me cause i've been living with friends and between Mario Kart / Tennis Aces / SSB / Rocket League i've probably sunk more hours into local multiplayer in the last 2 years than since i was very young and it's been a total blast. i guess i had reached a point where online games and first person shooters like COD and single-player AAA stuff like Dark Souls just wasn't ever gonna work for me again, it doesn't provide what i want from video games

even a game like Mario Party which in itself is nothing special has been a huge hit in my household, it's got my gf, my female flatmate, other girl friends and partners of good friends of mine (p much all of whom had previously expressed contempt at the very idea of video games at some point) playing together and having a whale of a time. i don't think any of the other systems offer anything close to the accessibility of Nintendo and that's a big plus.

interesting that your kids aren't bothered - are they teenagers? do they enjoy Playstation or Xbox? i'm contradicting myself slightly cause i already said that i didn't actively avoid Nintendo stuff growing up cause it was too cartoony or whatever, but I definitely think that for most teenagers yr GTAs, Red Deads and Skyrims are more immediately appealing than Mario or Zelda

reading that back and it was very clumsily worded - i guess what i was trying to get at was that 'gaming' for me growing up was pretty exclusively a boys thing, lots of COD and Battlefield, lots of Fifa, lots of PC strategy games. the Switch is the first console i've ever owned where girl friends of mine have been just as interested as the boys and it's been really great

Smash would've been better if the online wasn't kinda broken-ish. But from what I understand the wifi performance on the Switch isn't even good (hardware or software-wise) compared to the competition. But yeah, still a great generational game even without that

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is supposed to be pretty great, and coincidentally I am cracking that open this weekend

Zelda, Odyssey, Mario Kart, Mario Tennis, Super Smash Bros, Animal Crossing

All of which (save AC) were released 2-3 years ago. Zelda I loved, Odyssey ... I just couldn't get into it. Animal Crossing and Tennis Aces I was never going to play, but it would be nice if they had something for the Switch like Wii Sports. The kids do like Mario Kart and Smash, but mostly as an occasional diversion. I've brought it up before, but afaict it's still largely boy-driven. Or at least of all my fellow parents, none have daughters into gaming, just boys into it, and those boys are reeeeeeealy into it.

My kids are now officially both teens, btw. The games they like are stuff they play with their friends online, like some imposter game ... Among Us? That might be it. And other phone games, mostly, though the older one loves The Sims. No interest in the PS4, but that could be because they see the games I play and those don't seem like games they'd like. But also they're into different things. My older daughter did see the trailer for the Harry Potter PS4 game, though, and thought it looked cool.

among us, like fall guys, got huge super fast.

it's weirder because it came out years ago and then suddenly got the Twitch Bump

okay I think I want something with a little more depth than Torchlight 2

should I pick up Dragon's Dogma, or Hades?

ok i just experienced total sensory overload watching a Hades stream so maybe not that one

i just finished playing hades for several hours in a row. it is a great game, i think. it's another refinement of the roguelite action genre (dead cells, rogue legacy, spelunky, enter the gungeon, etc). i'm admittedly a sucker for these kinds of games. but hades has quickly eclipsed dead cells (which i loved) for me.

josh, i think you kind of liked dead cells? imagine a similar kind of combat, but in overhead 3D instead of 2D, and with lots of story development that manages to be frequently witty or at least interesting, while also relatively brief each time. the "visit the home base" part of the gameplay loop is quick and interesting enough that it literally becomes difficult to stop playing the game. it is dangerous.

Dead Cells was a lot of fun!

I grabbed Hades and barely touched it yet but was immediately impressed by the feel of it, nice crispy friction

I think I'd be more cool with constant ports and re-releases if those ports and re-releases were not substitutes for new releases

i don't like rereleases for a number of reasons but they aren't "substitutes" for new releases and generally they barely affect the development time of new releases. new releases just take a really long time to make now. and nintendo doesn't like to shell out cash for big budget third party exclusives so you get what you get.

I suspect if Nintendo had a big, new release to anchor the 2020 holiday season - and maybe they still do! - that's what they would be pushing. These re-releases aren't substitutes in the sense that they are being worked on *instead* of new releases, they're substitutes from a marketing standpoint because they don't *have* any new releases to sell.

all I know is Switch is going to kill my wallet next year, got plenty of other games to play this holiday

they do have a new game with the botw hyrule warriors. it's just not on the same interest level as mario odyssey / smash bros / pokemon. that game this year was animal crossing and it came out 6 months ago

That's just it, that new Zelda seems like a minor stop gap as people wait for the big one. PS4 is literally end of console life, and they still released two huge AAA exclusives just a couple months ago. Even assuming someone is a fan of the Animal Crossing series, that game came out, yeah, 6 months ago. Has it always been a thing that Nintendo only releases one, maybe two top-tier games, max, a year? I guess I expected more, and I concede that's on me. But the prices they are asking for these re-releases and b-list games, that's on them.

Josh in Chicago is Josh in Chicago-ing again

It me.

And actually, come to think of it, wasn't Animal Crossing delayed several months? I guess even pre-pandemic something is askew with their release schedule, because had that game been released last September they would have gone a whole year with no flagship.

in that magical world where delays don't happen other games that didn't make it this year would also not have been delayed though

all like 20 major nintendo series have gotten a solid switch entry in just 3 years of switch, hard to complain about anything thats not specifically metroid or f-zero or i guess warioware. are there diehard warioware fans out there?

my daughter!

baffling Nintendo decisions #23472: Rhythm Paradise Megamix and Warioware Gold not being crossgen with Switch

some nintendo exec must have legitimately thought the switch wouldn't immediately kick the 3ds to the curb

Traded my Switch with my ex for the Wii U

Decided to actually play, like, Twilight Princess, 3D World, Metroid Prime 3, replay Galaxy 2

Winter is coming etc.

Heh, when some of the best Switch games were released for the Wii-U, and for that matter when people are swapping the current console for the previous one, something is definitely askew.

Josh you should definitely trade in your Switch.

Look, I get it. I'm just annoyed and disappointed that there is not more I want for the system. But I'm still happy to have it around.

Boy I'd kill for a good Switch Warioware game

Josh, just go buy like a dozen back catalog titles on PSN to tide you over for the cost of two Switch games. Nobody can be a sole-Nintendo owner since the Wii days. Especially not that the Switch has replaced the DS line

It's just that we already owned those Wii/Wii U games but I never played them! Or: finished them. I think I passed on 3D World given how dire I found the revamped 2D Marios, but I've Been Told it's amazing so here goes...

Heh, my PS4 backlog will already likely last me well into the life of the PS5, let alone whatever Nintendo does next.

if anyone wants to go to hell,

Hades (from Supergiant, maker of Pyre, Bastion, Transistor)

I'll get to it after I play Transistor and Pyre...

i've never played transistor, i need to check that one out! i loved pyre (put it in my coint and plick) but i have already put about twice as much time into Hades, it is a ridiculously addicting game

transistor has a cool combat system but it doesn't ramp up enough, once you get the hang of it all the encounters are kinda samey even for a 4-5 hour game or however long it is

A brand-new Kirby game is available NOW! Choose from a cast of Kirby’s most iconic copy abilities and duke it out to be the last Kirby standing in #KirbyFighters2!

Download now: https://t.co/4EeCbC1m2b pic.twitter.com/5NrX452WvJ

— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) September 24, 2020

i'm not in the market for a kirby game rn but this exists

As someone who’s new(ish) to modern gaming, I will never understand this weird depressive strand of fan entitlement

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/super-mario-3d-all-stars-review

― Chuck_Tatum, 2020年9月20日 星期日 上午 4:29 (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

very late to this but i don’t agree that being annoyed by a lazy emulation of three games at full price is ‘entitlement’. the spyro three-game bumper pack was a full rebuild and cost less. 3d all stars is as cynical as it gets.

We'll never know if 3D all stars would have been different if it was not created in a remote working forced pandemic, or if they had had more time and not had to tie it to the 35th Anniversary.

I like to think that mario64 is such a swiss watch, that adding things like adding luigi would have plain broke sections of it, unless Luigi was the same size/weight and mass as Mario.

they were doomed whatever they did, but given the circumstances, I'll accept it as better than nothing. (except for that limited availability s**t)

Also Super Mario Sunshine is considerably better than the first Spyro, and that's the worst against the best.

GameCube controller support on Sunshine would have been nice and easy.

i have bought the marios and can report back that n64 mario is the best mario of the 3, the most pure mario, also the spray backpack is a huge bummer its an anti mario device mario is intended to run and jump and be free instead there is the fiddly shooting thing and many of his jumps have been taken away in favor of spray controls, galaxy is cool with the variety of planets but also maybe too many planets and too small constantly cresting a planet instead of being on flat ground is perhaps also an anti mario form and the lil star bits are dumb too much busy work

i have not played super mario 3d world or super mario galaxy 2 and i would like to in order to have complete 3d mario knowledge

Also is that Kirby thing just a stripped down Smash Bros or what?

i think its just a kirby platform fighter yeah. small scope multiplayer/party game