Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Ralizah Yeah, I'll probably get a handle on them eventually. Like I said, I plan on giving AoC's demo a better chance at some point. I never played a Dynasty Warriors game on PlayStation either.

That's fair. They are coming out fast, and obviously some of them can be consuming obviously. That little game called Xenoblade Chronicles 3 for one.

Finally bit the bullet - XC3 is ordered and due to arrive mid next week.

Timing will suit, as I’m basically close to making my ‘perfect set’ in Sunbreak + unlocking the A5 quests. (Currently I’m A-level 75 and you need 81 for the unlock I believe)

I’ll likely still do a couple of hunts a day, but ready to throw myself into XC3! Really looking forward to it, I’ve not actually dabbled in a JRPG since FF7R.

@CJD87 What? We'll actually see you playing something other than Monster Hunter Rise? Is hell freezing over?

@KilloWertz Haha! I'll be ice skating through hell very shortly...

I love Sunbreak for a lot of reasons, but mainly just how 'pick-up-and-play' it is. I've done a lot of meaty games this year (GoT / Elden Ring / Nioh) and its been nice to just play something more arcade-y, albeit with some nice RPG/build scope.

But for sure mate, I'm ready to sink into something big! How's XCDE coming along? Hit the halfway-mark yet? Someone told me recently that Melia is voiced by Jenna Coleman (!) I had no idea

@CJD87 Nothing wrong with that. I just can't help but poke a bit of fun because of the fact it's all I've seen you play since I got my Switch.

It's coming along good. I didn't play too much of it this past week mainly due to some personal things at home, but I was able to get back to playing it for several hours yesterday. I'm at the beginning of Chapter 9 now and at around 45+ hours, so a little over halfway I believe.

I wasn't really aware of who Jenna Coleman was until I looked up the voice cast. I never watched her time on Doctor Who even though I should, I've never watched Victoria, but it is kind of funny that I am now watching The Sandman, so I will see her in that once I get deeper into the season. Melia is one of my favorite characters in the game.

It's interesting to hear that someone who's had the PS1 as their number one favourite console for a long time now likes the Switch more. Usually people who have older consoles as favourites are more reluctant to having their minds changed by new systems.

But in this case, I do have to agree that the combination of great hardware design (being able to play on the TV or on the go) coupled with an extensive library of games has made the Switch one of my favourite systems as well. Unfortunately, I haven't played as many games as I would've liked on it. But I still find it to be such a convenient system with tons of compelling titles to play, both old and new.

Personally though, my number one favourite console is easily the PS4. I've spent a countless amount of time playing games on it. It has everything from niche JRPGs to ambitious first-party titles to the latest third-party games. I mean, I have like over 200 physical games on PS4 so that alone should be enough for anyone to see that I like it the most. Even on the Switch I have maybe less than 1/4th of that amount, but that's mostly because Switch games are in general more expensive compared to PS4 titles.

@LtSarge Dope. I've actually made this point before, but I think a lot of people who are increasingly making up Nintendo's modern fan base are older Playstation converts. There are loads of us who primarily loved the PS1 for its diverse library of exclusives and phenomenal Japanese RPGs, and Nintendo has been catering to this crowd pretty hard so far this gen.

Switch, PS1, 3DS, PS2, and the PS Vita would probably be my top five, in that order.

@Ralizah If they made a Switch that was Vita sized then I’d be set for life. I just don’t really find it very comfortable to play in bed, even the Switch Lite is a bit on the large side for me. That’s the only reason I’ve not taken to it the same way as I did with DS, 3DS and Vita. In terms of ease of use and such, I’d probably put PS5 pretty close to the top these days, I use it an awful lot and everything just works. Library wise, I can live with putting PS4/5 together when taking the PS5 into account, I do the same with 3DS instinctively because I was still buying both regularly. Maybe once my backlog of JRPGs on the Vita dies down then I’ll appreciate Nintendo’s output this gen a bit more!

@LtSarge I watched that video yesterday a couple of hours before you posted that coincidently. While I just recently subscribed to his channel, his videos are usually pretty good. He definitely gave plenty of very good reasons why he switched.

He was thinking about naming the PS4 his new favorite, but ultimately the Switch won out. I just got my Switch a little over 3 weeks ago, so I can't really rank it at all, but it's hard to argue with his points.

@Ralizah Yeah, unfortunately their library isn't anywhere near as diverse as it once was. I'd say they still had quite a diverse lineup with the PS3, which probably would be my favorite console because of how special my experience with it was. It introduced me to a lot of PlayStation's franchises of that time. I had a PS1 and a PS2, but I didn't play either enough to really rank either as highly as I probably should. I was a big Sega guy, and they were just killing their presence in the console business with the Sega Saturn right around the time the PS1 came out. I passed on the Dreamcast because of how quickly they killed a system (the Saturn of course) I paid a fortune for at the time, but even in the PS2 era I started playing primarily sports games when I gamed. I did play some others of course, but I was far from the type of gamer I am today.

If I wasn't a big Sega guy, things would probably be a lot different too. I probably would have just continued with Nintendo since obviously the NES was out well before the Genesis, but the latter killed any interest I had in the Super NES, and the rest is history. I never bothered getting back into anything Nintendo until now, and I obviously missed the vast majority of their most beloved games and franchises because of that. Maybe the Switch would be amongst my favorite as well if I got it much earlier, but regardless, I look forward to the experiences ahead of me while not completely shoving PlayStation to the side.

@nessisonett Sony really wants me to buy one of those things. I've received three "invitations" to buy one to date. I'd get a lot more mileage out of a GPU upgrade, though. And even then, very little that I want to play would benefit from a stronger card. I'll look at maybe grabbing a stronger card when FFVII Rebirth comes to PC. I was going to upgrade for Cyberpunk, but I don't get the impression that game is worth upgrading any rig for.

The size of the Switch doesn't really bother me, since I've never been the type to shove handhelds in my pocket, and it's not particularly heavy. What did bother me a bit was the cheap feel of it, but the SWOLED solved that issue. The metal frame and gorgeous glass screen make it the most premium portable console I've ever used. It just feels nice to use, like the Vita did back in the day. And the improved colors look so nice that sometimes docked play feels like a bit of a downgrade now.

What Vita games are still on the list?

@Ralizah Due to the ‘expanded’ nature of my Vita, it’s a combination of actual Vita games, PSP and PS1 games, with the odd GBA game that I keep meaning to go back to (Golden Sun especially). I never did actually finish Persona 4 Golden, I got to Heaven and then my memory card died so there’s that, along with Eternal Punishment PSP and the FeMC route in 3 Portable. Then there’s Jeanne D’Arc as well as a couple other Squeenix games I missed out on the first time round like Vagrant Story, Parasite Eve/The 3rd Birthday etc. Vita-native wise, there’s still Digimon Cyber Sleuth 1 and 2, Utawarerumono and I do need to go back to Dragon’s Crown.

@Ralizah This has actually been my thing too. I grew up with a PS1, and a Game Gear, Saturn and Mega Drive too. Didnt have a Nintendo system until the GBA, but I used my PSP more. Then I got a DS which was a Pokemon machine really. Then a Wii....then a PS3.

And man, it was when the PS4 hit that I just realised....yeah I'm not vibing with most of Sony's output now. So I kinda dropped from gaming bar the odd Wii U/PS4 game. Then March 2017 happened.

I have a PS5 for Ratchet, and thats it. I'll probably pick up Spider Man 2, I did enjoy the Remaster after all. But man, I look at Sony's rather glacial output and think wow, on more than one level a lot of these games are very similar in scope and style, and thats not something I liked in the PS4 days, so I think the company's output just isn't for me now.

Plus, my newly upgraded beast of a PC is outpacing the PS5 in performance so......whoops I guess.

@KilloWertz I didn't miss out on Nintendo's older 3D home consoles, but I might as well have. I shamefully admit, for example, that I only used my N64 to play Pokemon spinoffs like Pokemon Stadium and Hey You, Pikachu! I was a little better with the GameCube, since I primarily used it to play horror games that were exclusive to the console. Admittedly, there weren't a lot of them, but REmake is still an incredible game, and Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem was never ported to anything else. I hated (and, honestly, continue to dislike) the Wii, but it did eventually introduce me to Super Mario Galaxy, which revitalized my waning interest in both gaming and Nintendo at the time.

Thankfully, with a Wii U and a 3DS, I was able to explore the majority of Nintendo's back-catalog that I missed out on.

I did happen to entirely miss out on the PS3, but thankfully most of that system's best games were made available in remastered form on PS4. Although I fear I'll likely never end up playing Metal Gear Solid 4, as I'm not inclined to buy some ancient seventh gen console in order to play one game.

@nessisonett If I included emulated games as part of my 'backlog,' I'd probably lose my sanity.

I should use my Vita more before it craps out or something, though. Presumably it's not going to continue working forever.

@Ralizah At some point I'll subscribe to Nintendo Online and experience some of the back catalog that's available through there. The only still running franchises I remember experiencing on the NES were Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong.

I'll still subscribe at some point this week to get one or two of the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 icons/avatars/whatever before it goes to the next batch, but I won't be playing any of the games on there anytime soon as I want to experience at least a portion of the Switch's catalog first. Some of them are doozies though of course (about to approach 60 hours and I'm on Chapter 10 in Xenoblade Chronicles).

Metal Gear Solid 4 was one of the primary reasons I bought a PS3. Obviously I wanted to experience Uncharted, Ratchet & Clank, etc., but that was the game that really sealed the deal and got me to buy the MGS4 bundle. Didn't hurt that somebody I worked with all the time really wanted me to play it.

It's kind of a shame Konami ended up the way they are today, as it does really make it impossible to play the game legally on anything but a PS3.

@Haruki_NLI I feel like ballooning development budgets exacerbate existing tendencies toward design timidity, as the sales threshold for making a profit also increases, making it important not to stray too far from established expectations. Sony needs a middle tier where they can experiment more with different genres without having to worry about the detailing of peach fuzz on the hero's face, you know?

@KilloWertz I would have bought a PS3 if it hadn't been so damned expensive at the time. I don't necessarily regret jumping ship, though, as the 360 was actually the stronger overall platform that gen. Especially with Microsoft spending heavily on Japanese exclusives at the time.

I've waited long enough that I should probably just figure out a way to emulate it now. Konami, once the best publisher in the industry, is barely even a shadow of its former self, and with the bad blood that exists between them and Kojima, further positive engagement with the Metal Gear IP seems unlikely.

Assuming that cost isn't too much of an issue, I think having a Switch alongside a current/next gen XB/PS probably allows you to experience the best that gaming has to offer today.

@Ralizah I was the opposite. I started that gen with the 360 and then jumped ship to the PS3. I was into online gaming at the beginning of that generation after playing a lot of Halo 2 on the original Xbox, but that completely changed after getting the PS3. I haven't played much of anything online since.

Yeah, I don't see another Metal Gear game ever coming out. He seems to be done with the series regardless, but even if he was interested, it would take a miracle for them to ever sell it even though it's pretty much dead. I'd definitely consider an emulator at this point. It used to be on PS Now for streaming, but obviously it didn't carry over to the new PS Plus.

Against all of my better judgement I've just started Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and I'm really struggling to get into it. I love Xenoblade Chronicles. It was one my favourite Wii games and one of my favourite JRPGs and I love the Definitive Edition too. I never got around to 2 based partly on having a billion games to play and partly on having cringed at the character designs.

Anyway, here I am, and I don't know what it is but I can't get into this game. It's superficially similar enough to the original game that there's something there for me, but there's something about it that just isn't sitting right. I don't know if it's the different battle system, or perhaps the weird blades thing, or the character designs, or some combination.

I know one thing thought. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 has the worst map/compass of any game I've ever played in my life. It's borderline antagnonistic.

@johncalmc I never got the sense from your posts that you were in any sort of headspace to enjoy the game to begin with. Just sell it and grab the third one. You'll miss a few references, but 99% of it stands on its own. The combat and environmental design are much closer to the original, but with improvements. Like actually being able to fight in the water, for one thing, and a robust navigational system that'll literally paint a line on the ground showing you where to go that can be turned on or off at will.

I actually love the dense, vertical map design of XC2, but I agree the in-game compass isn't up to the task of making it easy to navigate.

@Ralizah I think I'm struggling with JRPGs generally at the minute, particularly of the anime variety. I might have overdone it and I need some time away from them. I started Trails of Cold Steel 4 a while ago but only got seven or eight hours in and drifted away from it.

I think I'll get into XC2 eventually because there are elements of it that I like. I think the main character is fine and the music is great. And I don't get the battle system but it's not difficult so that's okay. I think it's honestly the map most of all that's putting me off. I never seem to know what it is that I'm doing and I have to look it up on a guide to perform even the simplest of tasks and it seems like it shouldn't be that way.

But I don't know. I defo won't sell it. I'm not the selling type. I'll either persevere and continue not liking it or persevere and warm to it or not persevere and leave it in the drawer for the next forty years. I suspect I'll probably get into it as long as I can get over that mad compass thing.