The Nintendo Switch

xp i found the gameplay loop of spiritfarer to be pretty empty, unfortunately, but maybe it opens up more later on (i stopped around 3-4 hours in)

will report back.

115 hours into Hades and pretty sure I will surpass Karl's 150

I’m on a hades break but I’m gonna go back in this weekend probably.

game should cost $90

I'm about 25 hours into Hades right now and am struggling not to slide off it at this point, tbh. The repetition of the grind is getting to me, and I haven't yet managed to get past Theseus and the Minotaur. Maybe I'll give in and switch to God Mode. I'm kind of surprised to hear that people have sunk 100+ hours into this, so I reckon the game itself must have some nice surprises still in store.

In the sale I picked up Ashen and Kentucky Route Zero. Will dig into those when I'm finished with Moon and Astral Chain.

I play with God Mode on. It makes the game better.

hades opens more once you start beating it

all their previous games have eventually gone on deep discount on switch - my backlog's big enough rn that I'm happy to wait

Speaking of, I did play a few bits of a couple of things I impulsively bought on sale.

Carrion: funny and gross you-are-the-monster game, pretty great creature controls
Shady Part of Me: Only played a minute or two, but like Gris this game is absolutely gorgeous.
I am Dead: Based on the recommendation above, plus a couple of year-ends. I played the most of this, and it's utterly charming and super low-key, perfect salve for things.

shd i get a switch in 2020 (2021)

do you want to play video games in bed / on the toilet / at the park
do you want to play mario

you forgot "on the plane/train/bus" but yeah this year kind of ruined that huh

yeah like ive had a lot of downtime this year and i don't like desktop for gaming. i only like sports games, really but i DON'T want a console

like, i should have bought one in march

Switch probably not the best for sports games

mario = parkour = sports

Sports games are just bad Mario games

Video games are a two-dimensional vector space where one axis is “Mario” and the other is “Zelda” and the origin is “Tetris”

thats video game science

cannot tolerate this invisiblization of turn-based rpgs

theyre zelda

mario rpg is zelda
link's crossbow training is mario

red is scarlet
blue is teal
so brush your teeth after every meal.

If zelda was turn-based I would be a heck of a lot better at dealing with darknuts

I rarely play my Switch undocked, fwiw.

All video games are turn-based, sometimes your turn is just 1/60 of a second long

I can’t wait to try my hand at the queen’s gambit edition of smash bros

mario rpg is zelda
link's crossbow training is mario

the best sports game is on switch

(super mega baseball)

the new one isn't though, is it?

yup
https://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/super-mega-baseball-3-switch/

oh dang

I loved 2 though and don't like 3 at all

what's bad about 3?

1 is the best imo but i haven't played 3

baseball games were actually a huge part of my NES experience. RBI, little league baseball, base wars, etc. I need a baseball game, so I guess the rec is to get 2 instead of 3?

gameplay in 3 looks very similar to 2. game now seems to have a more developed franchise mode and players have a number of new skills/qualities, which seems like a nice addition. it is pricey though

I started the second Ori yesterday. It looks great, and feels even more like Bambi meets Hollow Knight. (It's also trickier than the first Ori so far.) But the nicest reminder is how good the Switch Pro controller feels and how well it holds a charge, compared to the PS4 controller.

I can't really explain why I didn't like 3 - I loved 2, I was playing it non-stop before 3 came out. And then 3 came out, I played it twice, and I stopped. Everything about it just felt off to me - all the graphics were smaller (which is especially annoying on an undocked Switch), the controls felt fiddlier, having to deal with wild pitches and pickoffs was annoying.

Ori 2 is pretty tough, btw, both the platforming and the puzzles. I've had to look two things up already just in the first area, and the solutions were things I literally never would have considered or even discovered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDuQGng-ar8

Bowser's Fury Cat Island looking pretty dope

sick

into it

i bought the 3d mario all-stars. galaxy gives me vertigo, sunshine is basically a house-cleaning simualtor, and mario 64 fucking rules.

they're all great though

sunshine is maybe a lil underappreciated but i still hate that it railroads the order in which you can do the missions in each level. galaxy does it too iirc but its missions are a lot more even in quality

Hmm, Bowser's Fury looks good, I'll probably cop that. I haven't bought a Mario since Odyssey. I don't want to drop $60 on the All-Stars collection because the only one I *really* want out of that is 64.

Dragon's Dogma is on sale for $15 again on the eshop. I overcame my ambivalence and picked it up, and I'm glad I did! It is worth a lot more than 15 bucks. It is a little bit dodgy graphically on Switch, with some distracting pop-in, but it runs at a pretty smooth 30 FPS. But this game is *wild*.

For example, I picked up this escort sidequest that took me waaaay off the beaten path to some fortress in the middle of nowhere. There is no Skyrim-style fast travel in this game. Getting there felt like a real journey; my party had to face down several gangs of goblins, snakemen and bandits, all of whom were pretty tough. And then we had to get *back* to the main city, preferably before nightfall.

On the way back, we were waylaid by a giant cyclops. Taking it down took a few tries, and involved climbing up the monster's back, Shadow of the Colossus-style, which was particularly hard because I had made my main character an Andre the Giant-sized barbarian type (your character's height and weight have actual impact on things like how much you can carry, how easy it is to climb monsters, etc). Killing it like an actual accomplishment, like getting past a tough area in Dark Souls. And we still weren't even halfway back to where we needed to be. The relief I felt once we did finally get to a safe area where we could rest was fucking *real*. I'm only 9 hours into this game and I am excited to see how big this iceberg is, exactly.

*killing it -felt- like an actual accomplishment

i have not played 3d world and so will purchase it but im not sure if i can ever play mario without cappy again

when you jump on cappy you go far