Switch & Nintendo News/Discussion

[DjchunKfunK]

UK price is £309.99.

[Alan]

30quid more than the switch at launch 4 years ago or less than a game from a PS5. Nintendo ain’t no mugs but they know their customers are! In a sane world this would replace the old switch at the same price and a new lite with tv out (dock separate) would replace the old lite. This ain’t no sane world though and it’ll still fly off the shelves.

[Raid]

Yeah, I'm genuinely surprised they're not releasing this as a replacement for the original model at the same price.

Part of me thinks that this is being offered as a stopgap solution, that the Switch Pro has been delayed due to the ongoing silicon shortage, and Nintendo need something to prop up their balance sheets as their financial forecasts would otherwise be taking a hit. I'm willing to bet that a 4k Switch would need a chipset produced with a more modern process, because if they're cramming all of that extra power into a handheld, they can't exactly just make the thing bigger. The newest chipsets from Nvidia can only be produced at a handful of factories, as nowhere else has the necessary equipment, and the rumours are that a new model Switch would be making use of technologies like DLSS to provide 4k quality visuals on lower-end hardware.

Of course it's also possible that the Switch Pro is just a complete fabrication and Nintendo aren't planning on releasing one at all.

[DjchunKfunK]

Yeah, I'm genuinely surprised they're not releasing this as a replacement for the original model at the same price.

Part of me thinks that this is being offered as a stopgap solution, that the Switch Pro has been delayed due to the ongoing silicon shortage, and Nintendo need something to prop up their balance sheets as their financial forecasts would otherwise be taking a hit. I'm willing to bet that a 4k Switch would need a chipset produced with a more modern process, because if they're cramming all of that extra power into a handheld, they can't exactly just make the thing bigger. The newest chipsets from Nvidia can only be produced at a handful of factories, as nowhere else has the necessary equipment, and the rumours are that a new model Switch would be making use of technologies like DLSS to provide 4k quality visuals on lower-end hardware.

Of course it's also possible that the Switch Pro is just a complete fabrication and Nintendo aren't planning on releasing one at all.

I think they might have originally planned to have a Switch with a new chip inside before the chip shortages but now I don't think it is worth doing that and the sensible thing is to announce a Switch 2 at the end of 2022 for release early 2023.

It feels like price gouging to not have this come in at the price of the current model and drop that model down, the console was making a profit at launch so the innards have only got cheaper. I guess maybe the chip shortage is impacting even the old Nvidia chip and so they can't reduce the price but I don't know.

[Mantis]

https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2021 ... tendo-icon

Essential score from Eurogamer for the new Metroid.

Despite loving the Metroidvania genre and playing a bunch of the contemporary titles in it, I've never actually played a Metroid game. Might be a purchase in the near future for me.

[Alan]

Despite being the genre’s primary name I always find them some of the poorer designed metroidvanias. I’ll still pick it up but expectations are a bit low.

[Raid]

Despite quite liking the trappings of the Metroid games, I haven't actually played many of them. Super Metroid was one of the best games on the SNES, and I've played all three of the Prime games (although I never got far into the third as I hated the motion control aiming), but that's it.

I'm interested in Dread, but I really struggle with the thought of paying fifty quid for a Switch game when I've got so much stuff on Gamepass I could be playing almost for free. I've also never been keen on precision platformers that use an analogue stick for movement (and the Switch Pro Controller's d-pad is too awkwardly placed for me to be a sensible movement controller).

[Alan]

Well I am a sucker for metroidvanias. So for the asking price they could have designed at least a few different bosses. The alien isolation elements are kind of neat but the loop of 3 cut and paste bosses and poor map design sure is grating! It’s also very lacking in style and imagination. It’s not bad it’s just not good enough imo.

At this point I’d say pick it up second hand on the cheap in a few months unless you’re a big Metroid fan. There’s no dearth of great metroidvania games that this anywhere near justifies its price tag. I’ve put in about 6 hours and it feels like there’s probably isn’t much more to go. SG1 on telly in the background sure does make it more interesting

Everyone else seems to love it though!

[Alan]

Finished Dread. Just over 8 hours and cant say it changed my mind any. I was hoping it would win me over like Bloodstained did but nope! Its a very polished vania but its so lacking elsewhere. I really hate that Metroid thing of having to randomly shoot walls to find hidden blocks which are the way forward. Its archaic, dumb and should have died with the GBA ones where it was already feeling old hat. Add to that the fighting the same bosses over and over and the bad map design I just couldnt recommend it over any other metroidvania I have played in quite some time. Well.... I'd put it above Chasm but thats about it :p Or Yoku... that was kind of bad too ¬_¬

[DjchunKfunK]

Switch Online Premium tier will cost £35 a year and includes the freshly announced Happy Home Paradise expansion for Animal Crossing which will cost £22.49 if you want to buy it on it's own. You also get access to the following N64 and Mega Drive games.

Nintendo 64 launch line-up:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Mario Kart 64
Lylat Wars
Sin and Punishment
Dr. Mario 64
Mario Tennis 64
Operation: WinBack
Yoshi's Story

Sega Mega Drive launch line-up:

Sonic the Hedgehog 2
Streets of Rage 2
Ecco the Dolphin
Castlevania: Bloodlines
Contra: Hard Corps
Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine
Golden Axe
Gunstar Heroes
M.U.S.H.A.
Phantasy Star IV
Ristar
Shining Force
Shinobi 3: Return of the Ninja Master
Strider

Upcoming titles:

Banjo-Kazooie
Pokémon Snap
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask
Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards
Mario Golf
Paper Mario
F-Zero X

[Mantis]

Eurogamer team chat over footage of the new Pokemon Arceus.



I'm not convinced that this will be particularly great because they've been so tight lipped about information on it. That said, it is quite a significant departure from the usual format of Pokemon game so I am quite tempted to give it a go when it releases in a couple of weeks. The series desperately needed a new spin, Sword and Shield were incredibly dull and disappointing.

[DjchunKfunK]

The talk about it being more like a Monster Hunter game is interesting. I've not been interested in a mainline Pokemon game since the GBA though, I'm not even sure what I would want from a new Pokemon game. Monster Sanctuary is probably the best Pokemon game I've played in recent years.

[Raid]

I've pretty much given up on the Pokemon franchise now. It's frustrating because the setting and core mechanics are brilliant, but the games are just so lazy and devoid of any challenge whatsoever. Visually this looks like an up-ressed Wii game, and I don't have any faith in the challenge being upped as the most recent games in the series, the Diamond and Pearl remakes, were apparently made even easier than the originals.

With all of the money that this franchise earns, the games could and should be masterpieces, but in 2022 they're still relying on things done because of technical limitations on the Gameboy from 25 years ago. It's ridiculous that they haven't yet given the Pokemon voices, and that the attacks still don't actually properly connect. I *know* that animating 900+ individual monsters is going to be a long process, but Sword and Shield sold 20 million copies, that's over a billion dollars worth.

And the difficulty issue is silly. Why can't they just add a "Pokemon Master" mode? Increase the penalty for type mismatches, boost the levels of the pokemon that trainers carry, that sort of thing. It's a fair bit of rebalancing, sure, but they can't possibly lack the resources to do that.

Obviously this is a new formula, so there's some amount of hope still, but nothing about the footage grabs me.

[Mantis]

I pretty much feel the same way, Raid. I haven't really properly enjoyed a Pokemon game since Crystal way back on the GBC when it still had an element of challenge with the puzzle areas and tougher gyms. I feel like the series peaked when you finished the Johto section of the game and they dropped the bombshell of the entire hard mode Kanto region on you, everything since then has been minor tweaks and additions that haven't really changed anything in a meaningful way.

I went out on a limb with Sword after having not played an entry for many years because it was the first time full console attempt and was left very disappointed.

[DjchunKfunK]

I don't think you can say the games should be X purely based on how much they sell. The main issue with Pokemon games remains that Game Freak are a small studio comparatively so they are limited in what they can develop in the time frame they are given to produce a game. You also have the age old problem of who are these games for? Are you trying to continue to appeal to young people or the older generation that has grown up with Pokemon? At this point they would probably be better served having two games, one for the traditionalists and one for the young generation but that would require more resources to be allocated to the developer and I don't think Nintendo or the Pokemon Company are interested in doing that.