Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@nessisonett You might have played these already, but I'll throw a few in the ring!

My #1 for 2023 so far (albeit released last year or even 2021?) is 'Inscryption' - a fantastic indie gem, and absolutely unlike anything I've played before. It is part roguelite, part deckbuilder, part RPG.... with some interesting meta twists and a tremendous narrative. Some light horror elements, but honestly very minor. The bulk of the game is deck building, which is a genre I was previously unfamiliar with, but I loved every second. It reminded me a lot of Hades, in which it manages to pull the rogue-esque elements in to the narrative. I'd highly recommend, but also suggest you read up as little as possible on this game. The entire experience is really heightened by going in 'blind' - don't spoil it for yourself!

Eldest Souls is also pretty decent if you don't mind a steep difficulty curve. It is an isometric take on boss-rushing, a bit of a cross between Hades/Souls. Pretty good and addictive, and certainly not too high a skill ceiling if you played through any of FromSoft's portfolio.

I've also enjoyed Slay The Spire - which is another deck-builder I picked up to fill the void that was left by Inscryption upon beating it. (StS is probably a better 'deck builder' but IMO Inscryption is the better overall game/experience).

Lastly I played Darkestville Castle, a very 'Monkey Island-ish' take on point-and-click. If you played and enjoyed Return to MI, and are looking for another adventure game, this was pretty good. A similar length to Return, similar humour and puzzles aren't too obtuse (but difficulty enough to feel rewarding when you beat them).

All in all though, and assuming you haven't played it, Inscryption would be a good time for you potentially. Only about 11-12 hours to beat, so it is not a time sink either...

@nessisonett Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom (feels closer in quality to a full retail release with extremely meaty dungeons, goes pretty low in digital sales, and has some banging tunes from Yuzo Koshiro).

Gnosia (This feels like a cross between a visual novel, a Zero Escape game, a social deduction murder mystery simulator, and an RPG, and it has a brilliant, looping progression structure)

I'll also second Paranormasight, based on the few hours I've played so far. It's supernatural horror... kinda... but the whole game has this creative, meta vibe to it, and the opening story arc has major Death Note/Mirai Nikki vibes to it.

@Ralizah Gnosia looks really interesting! Can't believe I haven't heard of it until now. I'm definitely adding it to my wishlist.

@nessisonett Ah I see. Well I was going to suggest Signalis but that's also a horror game. Picture classic Zelda with a top-down view where you go from screen to screen and mix that with classic Resident Evil. Maybe you'd be interested in something like that anyway!

I've also heard great things about Chained Echoes, which is reminiscent of classic JRPGs. I also want to mention Rogue Legacy 2. Apparently it hasn't come out on PlayStation yet despite the first one being on PS4/Vita, but the sequel is at least on the Switch.

@nessisonett I'm playing Axiom Verge 2 at the mo on PS5, but it is also available on Switch. I'm having a good time with it, but have come completely stuck a couple of times, and I would have not progressed without watching a walkthrough.

@LtSarge It's a criminally underlooked game. I did a review of it when it first came out, but, suffice to say, it's probably the most unique experience you'll ever have on your Switch. Just bursting at the seams with cool ideas.

It's also one of the few games to explicitly provide a non-binary gender option to players, which seems to change aspects of the writing. Which actually fits well with the theme, since the game is rife with post-humanist far future themes, and a lot of people aren't going to be stuck in the same older gender roles that typify modern life.

I didn't play my Switch games for more than 1 week.
When I didn't play my Switch games for more than 1 week, that was not a good sign.
That was mean I really had low hype to continue my Switch games, even my precious ACNH.

@Ralizah
Btw, why some peoples call themselves non binary when they still have body by physically still based on their actual gender ?
Like the case when Ayumi Hamasaki wanted to be called non binary so peoples will not call her Ms or Mrs.
Is non binary a statement from individual to be not called as either male or female despite they still have male or female body ?
I still don't understand this.

@Anti-Matter It's sort of an umbrella term to encompass people across a range of non-traditional gender identities. A lot of people act like it's 21st century silliness created by bored millennials and zoomers (and, to be fair, there is a lot of that, especially on social media), but the reality is that many major civilizations across the span of world history have had social categories for people who didn't fit into the traditional gender binary for whatever reason, so it's clearly a recurring human phenomenon.

It's difficult for a lot of people without these feelings to understand, and that's perfectly OK.

@LtSarge Signalis does sound interesting!

@Ralizah I really should have got round to Gnosia before now, I was going to grab the Vita patch before it got a release on Switch.

@JohnnyShoulder Axiom Verge 1 was a game that took me ages to appreciate but I did like it on Vita so I’ll probably give the second one a go through PS Plus!

@nessisonett Also consider ElecHead. It's a short, creative little puzzle-platformer where you manipulate electricity to progress through levels.

@Ralizah I've got Monster Boy lined up as a palate cleanser in the not too distant future, seeing as was one of this months additions to PS Plus Extra.

@JohnnyShoulder Nice. It's WAY better than I expected. One of the best 2D games I've played in recent years.

Finally got around to playing around with the tracks from the last 2 waves of MK8D DLC.

Maybe it's just because I haven't played it in awhile, but man it seems like I'm getting slammed with items more often than I'd remembered. Especially on Rock, Rock, Mountain (it seems like I get double or triple dunked on every lap right before or after the gliding section at the end, like it doesn't want me taking the gliding shortcut over the pipes at the start of the track). Last go around I got double slammed by blue & red shells back to back every single lap at that point. Even on other tracks, getting hit with 3 blue shells during the race is annoyingly pretty common, at least on 50cc.

LOL I don't think I've played MK8D since the first DLC drop. By the time I get back to it, I'll finally have a brand new Mario Kart game to dig into!

Just finished Fire Emblem Engage a couple of days ago. The story is utter garbage, but the gameplay is absolutely superb. I was playing on hard, and nearly all of the last 9 chapters were nail bitingly tense, and you really had to use all of the tools available to you to win. The engage mechanic is a ton of fun as well. I had a great time with it, but was a bit sad that the incredible plot, world building, and characters of three houses was abandoned. I still prefer three houses overall, it's my favourite fire emblem game of the ones I've played for sure, since even though engage's gameplay is a big step up, three houses' gameplay was still pretty damn good.

It's just a shame they can never seem to nail both plot and characters Vs gameplay in these games. They've been alternating from Awakening (plot>gameplay), to Fates (gameplay>plot), to Three Houses, and then to Engage. Three houses gets the best mix overall, but I still find it frustrating that this series can't perfect everything. But who knows, maybe the next entry will!

@BranJ0 Awakening's map design wasn't ideal, but I definitely wouldn't say it was a plot > gameplay entry. If anything, Engage is HEAVILY reminiscent of Awakening, even down to the way the plot is structured.

Anyway, the wild difference in Engage vs Three Houses is explainable by the two games effectively having different developers. IS had input into Three Houses, of course, but it was primarily Koei-Tecmo's baby, whereas Engage appears to be an entirely in-house production.

But I sympathize nonetheless. While I don't think Engage's plot is particularly bad (if nothing else, it's miles better than Conquest in that respect), it obviously has nothing on Three Houses. It'd be nice to get an entry that runs well, looks beautiful, has a great story, and features excellent map design for once.

@Ralizah I'm inclined to agree with you for Awakening, but I do think overall the bare bones maps and easy-to-abuse pair up system make it a bit lacklustre in the gameplay department.

I was vaguely aware of Koei-Tecmo's involvement in 3 Houses, but I didn't realise it was primarily them, that's very interesting! But it also makes me a bit nervous to see if present day IS is actually capable of making a compelling plot.

Engage's plot has nothing on the disastrous mess of conquest you're right there! But I also just found myself completely uninterested nearly all the time, with the game wanting to have big emotional moments with characters that were one note and plot elements that felt completely unearned. It wasn't like Conquest where it actively ruined part of my enjoyment of the game, but I did struggle to actually care about a lot of the plot, which was a shame.

I've heard some of the older fire emblem games manage quite a good balance, have you played any of them? The only one I've played pre-Awakening is Sacred Stones, which was fun but I didn't find it to be anything too special.

@BranJ0 Of the last six pure IS Fire Emblem games (Awakening, the three Fates campaigns, Echoes, and Engage), the NES remake was the only one I'd say actively had really good writing. I didn't mind Awakening either, although it definitely had the Engage issue of characters with, like, one personality trait that they shove down your throat endlessly. And, uh, you already know how Fates turned out, although that appeared to be a result of them pulling in an outside writer, so I'm not worried about future games being as bad.

The same rumors that talked about the existence of Engage prior to its reveal also said a remake of Genealogy of the Holy War was coming. It's hard to imagine them screwing up that plot. If true, the writing should be way more in line with something like Three Houses, in terms of being shocking, intense, and more grounded overall.

The Radiant duology on GC/Wii is pretty unimpeachable in terms of its gameplay/story balance. Really hoping we get remasters at some point, since it costs a small fortune to buy them on the secondhand market.

I put around 60 hours into Engage, finishing it in early February and already feel like I remember next to nothing about it. I found my review on Nintendo Life I wrote at the time which got kinda lost in that thread I think, as I was a little further ahead than some others, who all generally liked the game a bit more than I did and one of the main things I said is how I'll probably not remember a thing about this come the summer and I'm certainly on track for this to come true.

"This game served a function and a purpose. It got me through one of the worst months of the year for me. I'd rather have had Engage than not.

Next year there’ll be a different January game to forget all about come July, but this year it was Engage.

Thanks Engage."

I love my pass agg closer on this review, I had to share it 😂

Started up Future Redeemed over the weekend! Just arrived in Colony 9, and this is looking like it's going to be much more of what I wanted out of the main game (not that I didn't end up loving it).

Think I spent half an hour on the second half of the Chapter 2 boss though. I had no idea you could target the two robot halves, so I was just attacking the Moebius in the center for 20 straight minutes doing jack all to him. I was seriously convinced I was supposed to intentionally lose the fight, but for some reason the boss wasn't strong enough to wipe me out (I had enough time to build up & use three different chain attacks before realizing what I was supposed to do, lol).

Was also going to post about it on the PX "Switch" thread, but it's recently turned into a page long circejerk about how terrible Nintendo is, and how they'd be better off going 3rd party/being a MS subsidiary, so I'm going to keep away for now.