Topic: Nintendo Switch --OT--

March 20, 2025 release date. Switch 1 has all Xenoblades now!

I wonder how this will affect the Switch 2 reveal and release?

@Herculean I wholeheartedly agree. At first when I watched the trailer, I thought this was such a stupid idea as they should just put their soundtrack on Spotify like everyone else. But then it said that the music app is included with Switch Online and that's when they sold me.

I'm using it now and it's so awesome to finally be able to listen to Nintendo music on the phone. Coincidentally, I've recently started listening to gaming music on Spotify on my phone while I'm out and about. I was just thinking how I would've liked to listen to Nintendo music as well and now I can. It's so cool, not to mention it makes having a subscription to Switch Online more worth it now. Good job Nintendo!

I'm replaying Ocarina of Time again. Will I make it to the end? I'm not so sure. Listening to its soundtrack on Nintendo Music, made me realize I haven't revisited that game in a long time. It's good, it's a good game. I don't want to say it, but I'm gonna: I think the game is a bit underrated these days.

The game's pacing is excellent, its story has some great ideas (especially at the time) and the combat remains fun. Talking about the combat, it's not just fun. There's something almost unbelievable about how well that combat was crafted, how Zelda-y it feels, but how at the same time it was Nintendo's first shot at a 3d action adventure game. Blows my mind to this day. 🌞

I know this probably isn't the best place for this, but I've been having a ton of fun with the Pokemon TCG mobile app, and I don't typically play F2P mobile gacha games.

I've only been playing it for a few days and haven't spent any money, but it seems a lot more generous at giving you rarer/better draws than the other gacha games I've tried in the past. I already have 30 different Holographic cards, including the featured pulls of each banner (EX variants of Charizard, Pikachu, & Mewtwo).

As for actual Switch talk, I completed Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom last weekend. I thought Nintendo was having a pretty meh year so far (as a newcomer to it, I was even a bit disappointed by TTYD), but Zelda really turned things around and was a real delight.

Went back to Trails of Cold Steel 4 on the Switch. Frame drops ABOUND but it’s the Switch after all. Just thought it started off alright after the genuinely good Cold Steel 3 but then after Act 1 the lesbian rape jokes were back and now there’s a f*cking catgirl.

@Herculean Ocarina of Time was the first time I had to stay up all night for a game. I would place blu tak over the power light on the N64 and the ready with the contrast control so my parents wouldn’t see if they popped in. Absolutely incredible game and you are quite right, possibly underrated in modern times.

@Herculean @Bob_Salat Ocarina is timeless (pardon the pun, I couldn't think of a better word). The simple, yet elegant design is on point. It's amazingly constructed for a game of the era, which I think is helped by how free from fluff and jank it is.

@nessisonett Is that drunk-Phil era? He's not wearing his beanie. Pretty shocking how the Trails series became infested with that crap (although Xenoblade 2 was pretty bad). Incest aside, the Sky games were generally free of it, weren't they? I didn't like the harem in the first Cold Steel.

@mookysam The Sky games are more sort of classic anime in the art style and the lack of harem. There were occasional slips, Schera is well-written but still reduced to her body too often and the writers still have that weird rapey lesbian stereotype in there, but they’re far less dodgy than Cold Steel. I know that they move with the times and the 2010s were rife with fanservice becoming glossier and more mainstream but Cold Steel often feels like they were written by 12 year olds. It’s a shame, there’s great games underneath it.

From the outside looking in, the Cold Steel games just look like 00's-era ecchi rubbish from the character designs alone.

Maybe Ys gets weird at some point, but I - III and VIII sure don't, aside from, like, one scene at a hot spring.

Picked up Xenoblade 3 in the sale. Sorta don't know how I feel about it, played like three hours. Story and world right now feels extremely bland JRPG fluff, but its opening out so I'll give it more time. As a game, it seems to have learnt from the first Xenoblade because I'm not even at a point where I can manually switch characters yet, which has made the introduction to combat feel like way less of a clustereff as I remember the OG being. Maybe it is me who has changed though and I'll go back and like that game. Or maybe as 3 introduces more mechanics, which opens the door for more messiness, maybe I will like the combat less here.

@Pizzamorg give it time. While I do think 3 is the weakest of the bunch, it’s still a strong title in the series. The side quests and characters you encounter feel more meaningful and are rewarding in their completion, you’ll probably enjoy that aspect of the game. Story of course hits in a few ways, despite what I thought was one littered with poorly done cinematic intervals, but the writing and character bonds deepening are thoughtful and touching. I do think it’s an overrated game (sorry, I’m probably not doing a good job hyping, just being honest), but it delivers on a couple fronts with exceptional prowess. The music speaks for itself as you play I imagine keep going, you might be pleasantly surprised after more progress, there’s a lot to enjoy yet.

Aside from a slow-ish start, Xenoblade 3 is the best JRPG I've ever played, and it's not even close. Super excited to see what Monolith does in the future, as the evolution in quality from XC1 to XC3 is honestly insane.

I'm like six hours in now. The opening has been excruciatingly slow and hand holdy, but it is probably a necessarily evil as its throwing so much at you, that if you had more time to embed certain things the tutorial would be longer than most games.

I now have a full party (I think?) and yeah, combat has descended into a complete mess like I remember from previous games. There are like 40 rings and 80 lines, everyone is running in circles dropping abilities every two seconds and I'm not sure how any person is meant to manage this tactically. Like it feels like there should be the option to pause the combat or something and queue orders, but you can't, you can now switch characters mid combat which I don't believe was possible before, but its just a frantic mess as you desperately try and cycle from one person to another and micromanage everything.

It feels so bad, I can't imagine this is the intended way to play. But if that isn't the function of why the character swapping exists. I can't really work out what the other reason would be. As far as I can tell you can't stop the AI from using abilities, so even if you set up some insane six person combo that required every Art to be used in a perfect sequence, the AI is going to mess that up.

Combat has so far been at its best for me when I've basically just ignored like 90 percent of it and defaulting to whoever is easiest to control. If we get outnumbered generally we get absolutely melted, so I guess that hints to the AI doing a poor job, but I dunno what the answer is. Maybe I should be picking one of the healing units and just controlling them specifically and babysitting my team.

@Pizzamorg I imagine the handholdy tutorials were a reaction to almost universal player confusion regarding Xenoblade 2's combat, which isn't nearly well-explained enough in game for how complex and layered it gets. This game has elaborate tutorials AND a section to go back and check them out again, as I recall, so it's on players if they don't get it.

Most battles in XC3 don't require much micro-management. Especially on Normal difficulty, which is pretty easy throughout. Hard is rougher to manage, but even then, chain attacking is still broken (although 6 hours is probably too early to have gotten to that yet). The AI is generally pretty good about following up your attacks if you inflict Break on an enemy.

Be sure to focus your party's attacks on individual enemies, try to make sure you balance of healing/defensive/attacking units is on point, and that you're canceling attacks consistently.

Ordered myself a Switch OLED + Super Mario Bros. Wonder bundle. I did own a Lite, but sold it a while ago. It's currently at Argos waiting for me to pick it up and I'm on the fence wether I'm going to get it or cancel. I can't decide! There are several games I want to play, but I'm wondering if it's just worth waiting for Nintendo's next console.

@Bentleyma I'd say go for it. Although the Switch 2(?) will be 'formally announced' this fiscal year, so by close-Q1/25, there is no guarantee as to when it will hit the shelves.... for all we know, Nintendo may target a September-October release which is a year away.

Backwards compatibility has been confirmed, so all your games and overall investment into the ecosystem (physical and/or digital) will still stand upon the successor release.