Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

@Ralizah, yeah, I was definitely doing a lot of comparisons to Origami King, which honestly was a much more fun game to play with environments worth exploring.

Now, I do think the newer games could still use a bit of work making their casts more memorable (but OK was a lot better at this than Sticker Star) and still need to figure things out in terms of what they want out of a battle system (maybe just go full action at this point similar to Super Paper Mario?), but I just hadn't realized how weak the level design in the older games was until now.

Part of me has always wanted to replay the 64 game as it was one of my favorites as a kid, but maybe I should leave the memories alone if it's anything like TTYD.

@RR529 Everything is better than Sticker Star, lol. I played that game for three hours before turning around and selling it. Never had such a strong reaction to a game before. And it was my first Paper Mario, too!

I do think Nintendo needs to ditch turn-based combat if they're intent on new Paper Mario games not being RPGs, but SPM's gameplay was honestly just awful. I think TOK would have worked fine with basic fighting mechanics, and it would have removed the one element of the game everyone seemed to hate.

You could still leave the puzzle battles for the bosses, which used a somewhat different system anyway.

@Yousef- I had a really hard time getting into the original Paper Mario, for some reason. Despite TTYD's flaws, I think it benefited tremendously from the more farcical tone compared to the original.

Finally beat Xenoblade last night. One of those white whales for me, had it on Wii but never finished it, kept meaning to go back. Well… the story goes absolutely mad after the bit i was on back in the day. I seemingly missed the part where it goes from good RPG with cool setting to batsh*t insane but top tier RPG. Like I can totally get why it would be up there with the genre greats now. The entire Alcamoth situation and the way it’s reflected across every facet of the game is masterfully done. I can get over the slow start and the somewhat basic combat because the story, exploration and marriage of narrative and quest design is so brilliant. That ending too… properly rivals Final Fantasy games with how definitive it is and how great of a culmination it is of your journey. Reminds me of Final Fantasy X’s ending quite a bit actually. Onto the side story thing!

The more I think about it, the nicer it is that they were able to get Jenna Coleman back for Future Connected. She’s much much bigger now than she was when Xenoblade originally came out so I’m surprised they managed to get her back. It’s interesting how her voice has changed too, but it’s 10 years later after all.

@nessisonett that’s a pretty good and thorough description of the game, it’s really helping properly convey the type of experience this is. I’ve ran into my fair share of products that have a really slow start until the inevitable “oh snap” moment and the game gets good, so while this isn’t uncharted territory for me it’s still helpful to know this as it’s not something you can discern on your own.

I appreciate this kind of description, I appreciate having this kind of knowledge in advance as I tend to prefer knowing what to anticipate for things I’m not too keen on. This game sounds like a blast. Kinda wanna get it physical though. I feel pretty boneheaded for taking so long to find that the physical trilogy was in kuwait right under my nose haha.

@nessisonett Took me three tries to finish it. Wii, 3DS, then finally Switch. So it was a bit of a white whale for me, too.

Still need to play the expansion, though.

@Ralizah It’s hard to talk about post-Mechonis without speaking in massive riddles but personally I thought that portion of the game justified the more uninteresting areas. I never played the 3DS port but I’m pretty amazed that they managed to get it running at all even on a New 3DS, it really was an incredibly well optimised console by Nintendo towards the end. It makes me laugh that they’re trying to plug this bloody PS5 Pro when you know fine well that if anybody put the sheer ingenuity into optimisation that Nintendo do then they could be pushing the PS5 a million times harder.

So the Switch Online vouchers seem like a good deal. Can you keep buying them or can you only buy them once?

@LtSarge you can keep buying them.

@LtSarge Combine those with discounted eshop credit and gold coins and it's a sweet little digital ecosystem for early purchasers.

@Yousef- Thanks!

@Ralizah Yeah it really seems like it's more worth buying the games digitally than physically, especially for early adopters. Nintendo games never go down in price anyway and their file sizes are small, which means I don't have to worry about my storage running out.

I started thinking about doing this when I was planning on how I was going to purchase the upcoming Mario Party game. Considering I'll only play it with friends, it'd be more convenient having it digitally so I won't need to switch out games constantly. Top that with a Switch voucher and that I'll gain a fair amount of gold points from the purchase (which I'm guessing you'll still do even if you use the voucher?), it seems like the best option for me.

Not to mention that I can buy and start playing the games immediately without having to wait for the delivery. I completely forgot that the new Zelda game came out today, so if I wanted to play it I could just get it and download it now.

Speaking of which, is anyone playing the new Zelda now? How is it?

@LtSarge You still get gold coins from vouchers, yes.

Vouchers also completely nullify price hikes on certain games. I bought TotK with a voucher, so the game cost me $20 less than it would have at MSRP.

@Ralizah Good stuff!

That's very convenient! There really are many benefits with the vouchers and getting Nintendo titles digitally. I'll probably go for it next month when the new Mario Party comes out.

Nintendo finally dropped news on new hardware!

It's a $100 alarm clock.

@Ralizah oh nice timing, I was gonna acquire a few of the regulars of this about a tiny tiny matter that’s occupying my mind at the given moment.

Found a Zelda themed Switch OLED. It’s 94 Kuwaiti Dinar (300 USD), which is already a decent price, however there’s an even better thing; I can get at a much much lower price if I get at a specific point, it’s complicated to explain but I can get it like… 60 KD (200 USD) most? Probably even 40 KD (120 USD) if I’m lucky. Killer deal, yeah? So sweet it’s giving my sweet tooth a run for its money.

One problem, kinda premature yeah? I mean, Switch 2 may or may not have an OLED but… it’s still not likely very far. Is it too late to upgrade? Is the OLED not worth it at this point? Is it better to wait? So many questions!

@Yousef- The successor is probably dropping next year, yeah, but whether it's "too late to upgrade" depends on your plans. I'd say if you can get it for a good price ($200 USD is a VERY good price for an OLED), and you plan to wait on a bit for the new hardware, it's a worthy upgrade. Especially if you're still rocking the original model. The battery life, improved screen, sound, and feel in general was worth the upgrade for me. It's very comparable to Steam Deck OLED in that respect (no surprise, since Valve modeled their revision after this).

I imagine you can also sell it off to help fund the Switch 2 once you decide to upgrade.

But if you don't play your Switch very often and/or want to get the successor ASAP, then probably not worth the hassle, yeah? Especially if it's backwards-compatible, which it probably will be.

It's not too late, but I do think it depends on your priorities.

Very helpful, much obliged!

I feel like there could be some very creative scenes used for Alarmo. Like the Zelda one with "Wake up Link" is perfect. Another would be from Sonic. This track would easily wake me up:

It would also stress the hell out of me every morning lol.

@LtSarge Yeah, no thanks, I don't want to experience a state of abject anxiety every day due to my alarm clock. That's what the rest of the morning is for.

So I've played Fire Emblem Awakening for about 10 hours now and I can easily say that this is the most enjoyable Fire Emblem game I've experienced thus far. I don't have to get frustrated if a character dies and I have to restart a chapter all the way from the beginning, thus resulting in up to an hour of lost progress. I don't have to worry either about constantly creating save states like I did when I played some of the games on the Wii U. Not to mention it's easy to grind now, which opens up opportunities to experiment with other characters that you may think are weak but then become really strong the more you use them (like Donnel).

Also, this game has introduced what is in my opinion the most interesting and game-changing mechanic of the series at that point, which is pairing up. This makes it easier to level up weaker units as you can pair them with stronger ones. Not to mention it's more doable to defeat strong bosses as you can pair up two strong units to make them even stronger.

Skills is also a really cool addition to the series as some can be incredibly helpful for certain characters, like being able to heal 5 HP more with Lissa.

But the most important part for me is that the difficulty (I'm playing on Normal) is just about right. It's not too challenging and not too easy, which has made my playthrough of the game incredibly enjoyable. I'm seriously loving this game so far, it's just pure bliss. If it's like this the whole way through, then it might become my favourite game in the series thus far.

Just a heads-up. The Nintendo Music app is very cool. If they add some more music to it and the ability to cast, it's perfect. Like the cloud saves for PS Plus, this is such a smart way to keep me subscribed to Nintendo Switch Online forever.