The Nintendo Switch

overland -- i bought it in alpha -- was a fun little puzzle, but the block-slideyness of it prevented it from having any narrative punch. much as i hate to agree with RPS so lukewarmly, that review of theirs that said 'you have few reasons to play this when you could play into the breach' was about right imo

You're right, it's not up to it. https://retropie.org.uk/docs/Playstation-2/

― koogs, Friday, October 4, 2019 9:40 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

love my retropie but be warned that n64 emulation is a no go. ps1 is acceptable, but you might have to overclock the pi. the UI is a bit arcane but it will generally "just work" for about 95% of what you throw at it. for that other 5%, you'll have to deal with the even more arcane retroarch UI and some manual file editing over ssh.

well, i went back to Kensington Curry's (which had snes minis in the window, for the original price, last time i went past) only to find no sign of them (which i kinda expected). they had switch lites in window this time but they were nowhere to be seen in the pokey nintendo corner they had downstairs. turns out they were all in the bins by the checkout, and piled up behind the counter.

(i ended up buying a 3rd party ps4 controller from argos instead. am writing the retropie image as i type)

walking zidane around a quasi-3D church backdrop filled with pews, organs, and shit in FFIX should be a field sobriety test

lol; it is easy to get stuck in those environments, yes!

second post here is Jared Harris in a courtroom explaining some stuff to Cid Fabool https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/67461/realistic-airships

Played a bunch of Ori today. Still gorgeous and compelling, but I think I like Hollow Knight a little better. The latter seems to have taken a lot of lesson from the former, while putting its own spin on things.

ori's not really an action game like hollow knight, i feel like it's more at the metroid end of the metroidvania spectrum whereas hollow knight is all the way at the castlevania end except for that one platforming heavy area

There might be something to that. I'm still early in on Ori, but for example I haven't had to figure out any sort of fighting strategy yet. But the platforming, when it pops up, is moderately challenging.

Wow, just got past the rising waters tree challenge in Ori, and that's got to be one of the most thrilling gaming experiences I've ever had.

the escape sequences are Good

All the backend dashboard crap in Ori is A Little Much. Hollow Knight definitely refined and perfected that stuff.

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.