Nintendo Switch, the only console today making games which are games

[beardalaxy]

I got the 2 vouchers for the new Zelda and now am thinking on what to spend the other one on. Any hype games coming out in the next 12 months?

Out of the existing catalogue I was thinking maybe Animal Crossing or one of Hyrule/Fire Emblem Warriors. Any other suggestions?

Mario Kart 8, or Mario Party Superstars if you have friends, if you don't have either of those. Super Mario 3D World, Metroid Prime Remastered, Metroid Dread, all great games you won't find on PC. MP Remastered is probably the best remaster I've ever seen.

I haven't played the new Hyrule Warriors but the old one was pretty fun. Those Warriors games aren't very mechanically deep or even really challenging, but it can be good to just turn your brain off once in a while. I'd really only recommend getting those if you specifically want the theming of Zelda or Fire Emblem, otherwise any other game in the Warriors series will satisfy the same gameplay urge.

How would you improve Mario Kart?

Mario Kart 8 is already pretty damn perfect. Obviously more hardware power would be nice to allow for 60 FPS with 3+ players.
I think the gliding sections could be improved upon greatly, because as of right now it's pretty 2D. If you could move in more ways than left and right and take different paths while gliding, if there were more moments with hazards, if there were longer stretches of gliding with items that could utilize the air better... you know, stuff like that.
Realistically, though, the expansion pass just adding way more content is all you can really ask for. Take a basically perfect game and just add more stuff to it for a lower price? Heck yeah, $25 is totally worth doubling the content in the game. Some people were upset that there wasn't a new Mario Kart coming out instead, but that would have cost another $60 and there's not much more they can do with the tight formula they have right now. A new Mario Kart would probably introduce some gimmick that would fundamentally change the way the game plays, something like Double Dash.

Or, you know... they could just make another F-Zero.

 

[Ash]

"Nintendo Switch, the only console today making games which are games"​

Probably true. But the big issue is almost all of them are somehow ugly as shit. Gives me eye cancer. Nintendo games used to be beautiful and charming, in the SNES days. then since the N64 their games went 3D and some of the ugliest known to man, at least in my eyes. 3D generally looks worse than 2D, yes of course, but nintendo's particular flavor of 3D is so fucking offputting to me. I try my very best to judge a game by its gameplay content first and foremost, but man is it hard to swallow nintendo of the past 25 years. especially with certain other traits they adapted like all the "woo-hoo" style sound effects in all their mainstay games. Makes me want to seppuku time. I also hear their games are piss easy now.

"Mario Kart 8 is already pretty damn perfect."

The moment they introduced new insane powerups with a level of power above 1 red shell or the star, mario kart died. That was with Mkart64 in 1997 or whatever (multi-red shell, bullet, blue shell, multi mushroom). It makes the game a random mess of no skill. Since then, they introduced even more insane lol-so-random dumb shit. No thanks. luck-based games are for tards. An element of randomization is fine, good even, but when luck becomes the base, the very core, the game becomes dumb.

 

[Elthosian]

I got the 2 vouchers for the new Zelda and now am thinking on what to spend the other one on. Any hype games coming out in the next 12 months?

Out of the existing catalogue I was thinking maybe Animal Crossing or one of Hyrule/Fire Emblem Warriors. Any other suggestions?

Mario Kart 8, or Mario Party Superstars if you have friends, if you don't have either of those. Super Mario 3D World, Metroid Prime Remastered, Metroid Dread, all great games you won't find on PC. MP Remastered is probably the best remaster I've ever seen.

I haven't played the new Hyrule Warriors but the old one was pretty fun. Those Warriors games aren't very mechanically deep or even really challenging, but it can be good to just turn your brain off once in a while. I'd really only recommend getting those if you specifically want the theming of Zelda or Fire Emblem, otherwise any other game in the Warriors series will satisfy the same gameplay urge.

MP Remastered is kind of a disappointment having paid only 10 more bucks for Metroid Prime Trilogy in 2009, which also had a gorgeous physical edition. New graphics are nice and a full blown remake would have probably resulted in the game getting skewered, but I'm rather fed up with how they're padding the Switch's catalogue with low-effort remasters of games they had already remastered two gens ago.

That said, if you haven't played Metroid Prime before I guess it's the best way to play it nowadays.

My recommendations:

- Pikmin 1 + 2: really lovely games if you like simple RTS mechanics and exploration, kinda contradictory as they're even more barebones ports than MPR, but you get two games instead of one, and it will also help you gauge whether you will like the upcoming Pikmin 4.
- Metroid Dread: serviceable 2D adventure, nice combat but the game kinda funnels you into a single path without leaving much room for exploration.
- Fire Emblem Three Houses: cool SRPG, suffers a bit from weeaboo elements but Maddening difficulty is really enjoyable.
- Bayonetta 3: I really liked the first one, and I haven't heard anything bad about the sequels so this one is probably fine.

 

[beardalaxy]

The moment they introduced new insane powerups with a level of power above 1 red shell or the star, mario kart died. That was with Mkart64 in 1997 or whatever (multi-red shell, bullet, blue shell, multi mushroom). It makes the game a random mess of no skill. Since then, they introduced even more insane lol-so-random dumb shit. No thanks. luck-based games are for tards. An element of randomization is fine, good even, but when luck becomes the base, the very core, the game becomes dumb.

Once you learn the maps and know how to use the item system better you'll be taking top 3 pretty much always, until you get into that one lobby with only Japanese players all using whatever the current meta kart combo is. There's an element of luck to it, but part of being good at the game is adapting to situations. Simply racing better than your opponents and making good use of drifting/turbo is still the majority of the gameplay. It's really important to hold on to certain items when you get in certain positions, race better, then use the items only when you have to. Sure, items in a racing game aren't everyone's cup of tea, but as far as the actual Mario Kart formula goes, MK8 Deluxe has it perfected.

Fire Emblem Three Houses: cool SRPG, suffers a bit from weeaboo elements but Maddening difficulty is really enjoyable.

I don't know about Three Houses as much, but at least with Fire Emblem Engage the localization team pretty much butchered it. If you're going to play Engage and have a modded Switch then it is definitely worth checking out the uncensored translation mod: https://varishangout.com/index.php?threads/fire-emblem-engage-uncensored-patch.1730/

Bayonetta 3: I really liked the first one, and I haven't heard anything bad about the sequels so this one is probably fine.

Unfortunately, Bayonetta 3 suffers from Switchitis and runs poorly while also looking like an early PS3 multiplatform title. Again, if you have a modded Switch, you can overclock the memory to achieve some more stable frame rates, thankfully. I really don't like the way the dithered transparency looks in this one, it's probably the worst example of it I've seen. Bayonetta 1 and, to a lesser extent but still great, Bayonetta 2 are both awesome games that play super smoothly on modern hardware so those are great fun, but Bayonetta 3 is a pretty big step back IMO.

 

[Elthosian]

Regarding Fire Emblem, the funny thing is that Three Houses also has a poor translation but it’s mostly due to the translators not getting some of the characters right during pivotal scenes. In Engage something similar happened (which shouldn’t matter since the story is absolute garbage) but they also censored the pedo romance options causing a ruckus among the anime enthusiasts that were brought in by the weeaboofication of the series starting with Awakening.

As a result we do not have a translation fix for the game that actually has a semi-tolerable story That said, the game still has a lot to offer and I would just play it as it is as there’s not much interest for fixing the localization errors.

Btw, I don’t see the issue with randomness in MK, you’re supposed to play it with actual in-person friends for maximum enjoyment and it’s precisely there where it adds the most fun.

 

[GhostCow]

Engage got a fan translation because it uses Unity for the engine and is easy to mod. It's so easy to mod that even a retard like me figured out how to do it and made my own mod. Three Houses might have gotten the same treatment if it was as easy to do, but it's hard to say since the translation isn't as bad.

There are no "pedo" romances in Engage unless you consider the 18 year old MC dating girls that are around 16 to be pedo, in which case you as retarded as the localizers.

 

[Elthosian]

The 3H translation is bad too, not sure about the engine but it’d definitely justify a patch. There are a myriad of other reasons why a translation can be awful aside from censorship issues and 3H sadly suffers from a lot of them.

As for the romances in Engage, they went bananas removing anything <18 but there was also a romance option with a 11 years old. Honestly can’t care about them messing around with that as they already had gone down the weeaboo sewer so shamelessly. I’ll of course be annoyed when they remake FE4 and censor half the plot, though, so hopefully the backslash regarding Engage has some impact on Nintendo’s localization team when the time comes.

 

[GhostCow]

Treehouse doesn't care how much people bitch. Nintendo's response to all of the bitching about the translations in previous games was was to get Treehouse involved during development so they can censor as much as possible before stuff even makes it into the game. Even then they still make dumb changes compared to the Japanese original. They care nothing about accuracy.

 

[Neuromancer]

 

[Jrpgfan]

That stand must have cost more than the consoles and the TV and he won't be able to replace it for a bigger one(which looks small from the video btw).

Pretty cool though.

 

[Kjaska]

Mario Kart 8, or Mario Party Superstars if you have friends, if you don't have either of those. Super Mario 3D World, Metroid Prime Remastered, Metroid Dread, all great games you won't find on PC. MP Remastered is probably the best remaster I've ever seen.

I haven't played the new Hyrule Warriors but the old one was pretty fun. Those Warriors games aren't very mechanically deep or even really challenging, but it can be good to just turn your brain off once in a while. I'd really only recommend getting those if you specifically want the theming of Zelda or Fire Emblem, otherwise any other game in the Warriors series will satisfy the same gameplay urge.

Thanks for the recommendations. I'm fairly set on the new Mario RPG for my remaining voucher, but if it hadn't come out in time I would have gotten the Hyrule/FE Warriors game. I enjoyed the mainline FE games and the Warriors spinoffs on the 3DS and bought Three Houses right away (way before Zelda) which turned out to be a big disappointment. I hear only bad things about Engage, so I'll instead just emulate it.

 

[Great Deceiver]

I really enjoyed Hyrule Warriors; probably the best Musou game I've ever played. I haven't really played the sequel (Age of Calamity) past the first hour or so, though. The framerate is awful.

 

[Kjaska]

Yeah, I have fond memories of that "adventure mode" or whatever they had, where you were the 8-bit link traversing an overworld. I really miss overworlds from games nowadays.

 

[Elthosian]

Pikmin 4 outsold Popamole Fantasy XVI's first-month Japanese sales in just three days:

https://videogames.si.com/news/pikmin-4-sales-launch-week

Pikmin 4 sold 401,853 copies so far, Final Fantasy 16 a total of 401,376 games – again, these are the totals for physical units and do not include digital sales.

Pikmin 4 has easily outsold every one of its predecessors as well, making it the most popular entry into the series already – Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto had hoped that the Pikmin series would sell better and it seems like he’s getting his wish. That, in turn, is great news for fans, who are hoping that they won’t have to wait another decade for the next iteration.

Seems like a lot of parents are getting the game, and children love to imitate the lil' creatures:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...e-using-pikmin-to-keep-their-children-in-line

"Same here. My son in middle school and daughter in grade school love Pikmin, so when I imitate blowing a whistle while shopping, they come to me and gather round. They also want to carry toilet paper and other stuff like little Pikmin. I’m so thankful to Nintendo."

You see this Squenix? You don't have to go that far into making your game a single-button mashing affair to appeal to a broader audience.

I pre-ordered this from Walmart and was blessed by a bug where they matched the price to 0 and refunded me, essentially giving me the game and a nice Pikmin bottle for free Can't wait to try it on Yuzu

 

[J1M]

Put it on the wrong wall.

 

[J1M]

Pikmin 4 outsold Popamole Fantasy XVI's first-month Japanese sales in just three days:

https://videogames.si.com/news/pikmin-4-sales-launch-week

Pikmin 4 sold 401,853 copies so far, Final Fantasy 16 a total of 401,376 games – again, these are the totals for physical units and do not include digital sales.

Pikmin 4 has easily outsold every one of its predecessors as well, making it the most popular entry into the series already – Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto had hoped that the Pikmin series would sell better and it seems like he’s getting his wish. That, in turn, is great news for fans, who are hoping that they won’t have to wait another decade for the next iteration.

Seems like a lot of parents are getting the game, and children love to imitate the lil' creatures:

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2...e-using-pikmin-to-keep-their-children-in-line

"Same here. My son in middle school and daughter in grade school love Pikmin, so when I imitate blowing a whistle while shopping, they come to me and gather round. They also want to carry toilet paper and other stuff like little Pikmin. I’m so thankful to Nintendo."

You see this Squenix? You don't have to go that far into making your game a single-button mashing affair to appeal to a broader audience.

I pre-ordered this from Walmart and was blessed by a bug where they matched the price to 0 and refunded me, essentially giving me the game and a nice Pikmin bottle for free Can't wait to try it on Yuzu

The solid demo and promise of carrying over save data surely helped introduce a new generation to enslaving insects.

 

[grimace]

Is there a new thread for Switch 2/the next Nintendo system?

Nintendo sent out devkits for next system

https://www.videogameschronicle.com...-switch-2-targets-2024-with-next-gen-console/

Sources: Nintendo targets 2024 with next-gen console | VGC
Key partners have development kits ahead of a planned launch, sources tell VGC

Sources: Nintendo targets 2024 with next-gen console
Development kits for Nintendo’s next console are now with key partner studios, with launch planned for next year, sources have told VGC.



According to multiple people with knowledge of Nintendo’s next-gen console plans, the company is likely to release new hardware during the second half of 2024, to ensure that it has ample stock available on day one and to avoid the kind of shortages seen with PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.

Although specific details on the console are being kept closely guarded, those VGC spoke to indicated that the next-gen console would be able to be used in portable mode, similar to the Nintendo Switch.

Two sources VGC spoke to suggested that the console could launch with an LCD screen, instead of the more premium OLED, in order to bring down costs, especially considering the increased storage needed for higher fidelity games. The current Switch comes with just 32GB of internal memory, while many current-gen PlayStation and Xbox games are over 100GB.

Like its predecessor, the new Nintendo console will also accept physical games via a cartridge slot, the sources said.

Other details, such as backwards compatibility support for Switch games (physical and digital), remains unclear. Nintendo has said it wants to convert as many of Switch’s 100m+ userbase as possible to its next system, although some third-party publishers are said to have expressed concern that legacy support for Switch games could negatively affect sales of next-gen titles.



Nintendo did not immediately respond to VGC’s request for comment on this story.

Tokyo-based industry consultant Dr Serkan Toto told VGC that a 2024 console launch would make sense for Nintendo, since it’s projected to see double-digit declines in Switch hardware and software sales this year, after it cleared seven years in the market.

“I would generally say that looking at Nintendo’s financials, it seems clear that it’s time for a new piece of hardware in 2024,” he said. “Hardware is already projected to fall 16.5% year-on-year in the current fiscal, while the minus for software is expected to hit 15.9%.

“The only way to stop these losses from totally ballooning next fiscal is a new device, and the second half of 2024 sounds like a realistic release window to me.”

ReedPop’s head of games B2B, Christopher Dring, told VGC that a 2024 release would fit with Nintendo’s historical trend of launching hardware ‘mid-cycle’ compared to PlayStation and Xbox.

“The original Switch released over three years after PS4 and Xbox One, which proved to be an effective move for Nintendo. A second half 2024 release for Switch 2 would be nearly four years after PS5 and Xbox Series X and S, so we would see a similar ‘mid-cycle’ launch for Nintendo,” he said.

“I’d argue that unlike 2017, Microsoft and Sony‘s consoles still feel relatively new at the moment, partially due to component shortages slowing the roll-out in the first two years, and software delays meaning we’ve not seen too many titles take full advantage of either PS5 or Xbox Series X. So it’s to be seen whether Nintendo will enjoy the same benefit.

“However, the biggest competitor Nintendo faces is itself. Although its core fans are eager for more hardware, its more family-orientated ‘casual’ fans will need more convincing. What will the next Mario Kart offer that they’re currently not getting from the current one, for example?

“Nintendo has struggled to upgrade players in previous generations, so how it approaches things like digital libraries, the Nintendo Account and even backwards compatibility may prove crucial in the next system getting off to a strong start.”

If Nintendo does release the Switch’s successor closer to Christmas, Dring said he’d expect a deeper launch line-up than what we saw with the first Switch, which arrived earlier in its launch year.

“In 2017, Nintendo spread out its releases, with a big game arriving almost every month,” he said. “By the time the Holiday period arrived, the firm had Mario, Zelda, Splatoon and Mario Kart – plus a number of smaller titles like Arms and Xenoblade – to push the console over the crucial Christmas sales window.

 

[beardalaxy]

Do you think Metroid Prime 4 will be a Switch 2 launch title? Maybe the reason it has been kept under wraps for so long is that when it transitioned back to Retro Studios, they began working on it as a sort of console seller. With how well Dread did, I can imagine that this would be one of the games they would want to show off on it, as well as whatever the new 3D Mario is. They'll probably have an enhanced version of Tears of the Kingdom ready to go as well, I would imagine. If gameplay footage of MP4 had already been shown, perhaps it would show Nintendo's hand with the Switch 2 too early. I'd think that with how pretty the remaster of MP1 looked, MP4 will look gorgeous and that's something they'll want to use to show off the capability of the new hardware.

Without backwards compatibility though, this console would certainly be a much harder sell right out of the gate. I'm sure they know that, and if it's literally just going to be a second Switch and still uses cartridges then BC is an absolute no-brainer. I know it's technically going to be hard for them to do that, but it's something they still ought to do. The thing I'm most interested in when it comes to BC is actually Mario Kart 8, because if I'm not mistaken it is one of a few of those Wii U ports that uses 32 bit instructions instead of 64, and Nintendo specifically made the system able to launch games in 32 bit mode for these Wii U ports. This means they would certainly have to include that for the Switch 2 as well. I'm not super well versed in that sort of stuff but it seems like that would make things a little bit more complicated in terms of BC, but it's still something I'm sure they're planning on doing because Mario Kart 8 is their best selling game and continues to top the charts somehow, iirc.

Then again, Nintendo is Nintendo, and they do wacky stuff from time to time. We still won't really know anything about the Switch 2 until they officially unveil it, which would be really cool to see at something in a Direct at the end of the year.

 

[Great Deceiver]

Even without back compat it would still sell like hotcakes. The competition is pitiful.

Every launch cycle it's the same shit: "oh, Nintendo is doooooooomed", and then they proceed to wipe the floor with everything else by actually releasing decent games. I still play my Switch regularly 5 years after buying it, and I'm a 43 year old man. The only other console I bought in the past roughly 15 years was a ps5 and it has been sitting gathering dust since I got it.

 

[talan]

The thing I'm most interested in when it comes to BC is actually Mario Kart 8, because if I'm not mistaken it is one of a few of those Wii U ports that uses 32 bit instructions instead of 64, and Nintendo specifically made the system able to launch games in 32 bit mode for these Wii U ports.

That doesn't sound right to me. The Wii U and Switch have completely different architectures and it would be much more involved running a Wii U game than just the 32/64 addressing modes. The game is most likely running natively on Switch.

 

[beardalaxy]

The thing I'm most interested in when it comes to BC is actually Mario Kart 8, because if I'm not mistaken it is one of a few of those Wii U ports that uses 32 bit instructions instead of 64, and Nintendo specifically made the system able to launch games in 32 bit mode for these Wii U ports.

That doesn't sound right to me. The Wii U and Switch have completely different architectures and it would be much more involved running a Wii U game than just the 32/64 addressing modes. The game is most likely running natively on Switch.

This is actually true. Both Switch emulators couldn't play these 32-bit games for a while (until 2020 or so) because that wasn't the focus of their development. I believe there are, or were, some homebrew apps that had issues running in one mode or the other as well, but I can't remember those off the top of my head and trying to search for really obscure stuff like that would be a pain. I don't know the full extent of developing for Switch or anything like that, but I do know that indeed, some of the Wii U ports run in this 32-bit mode. MK8 and Super Mario Bros U being two notable examples. For some reason, information on this topic is really hard to find... all I can dig up is stuff like Yuzu's Github requests and an article from wololo.

 

[talan]

The thing I'm most interested in when it comes to BC is actually Mario Kart 8, because if I'm not mistaken it is one of a few of those Wii U ports that uses 32 bit instructions instead of 64, and Nintendo specifically made the system able to launch games in 32 bit mode for these Wii U ports.

That doesn't sound right to me. The Wii U and Switch have completely different architectures and it would be much more involved running a Wii U game than just the 32/64 addressing modes. The game is most likely running natively on Switch.

This is actually true. Both Switch emulators couldn't play these 32-bit games for a while (until 2020 or so) because that wasn't the focus of their development. I believe there are, or were, some homebrew apps that had issues running in one mode or the other as well, but I can't remember those off the top of my head and trying to search for really obscure stuff like that would be a pain. I don't know the full extent of developing for Switch or anything like that, but I do know that indeed, some of the Wii U ports run in this 32-bit mode. MK8 and Super Mario Bros U being two notable examples. For some reason, information on this topic is really hard to find... all I can dig up is stuff like Yuzu's Github requests and an article from wololo.

Looking into it and you're right -- the Switch supports 32-bit games.
These games are still compiled specifically for the Switch as ARM32 (whereas Wii U games would use a PPC ISA).

I'd be interested in the rationale for it since not all games that are on both systems share the 32-bit-ness (e.g. BotW).

 

[J1M]

The rationale is Nintendo found a way to monitize backwards compatibility via their digital store, so they have an incentive to do it.

 

[karoliner]

This is out by the way.

 

[beardalaxy]

I'd be interested in the rationale for it since not all games that are on both systems share the 32-bit-ness (e.g. BotW).

I'm guessing that it's mostly a matter of whether the game was intended to run on Switch originally or not. BotW was developed for the Wii U and the Switch. Mario Kart 8 was intended for the Wii U all the way through development. That's just a guess though, there could be evidence that proves otherwise.

That Nintendo Direct was super Mario-heavy. Makes sense considering they just had a smash hit with the Mario movie, but I really wish we would see a bit more representation from other Nintendo franchises. Star Fox, anyone? Nothing about Metroid Prime 4, no news about a new Donkey Kong (a real one), and F-Zero getting shafted with the biggest gimmick in the world. I haven't tried F-Zero 99 yet and I probably won't, it's pretty disappointing seeing that be the first thing Nintendo has done with the franchise in damn near 20 years that wasn't just virtual console stuff.

However, I am moderately interested in Princess Peach Showtime. It looks kind of fun. I was also pretty surprised by that SpyXAnya game. Looks very wholesome.