Messages

1

Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: July 25, 2025, 10:50:37 PM »

Well, with Switch 2's becoming easier to come by I figured I might as well pick one up. I'd like to play Donkey Kong and it's not like these things are...ever...going to get cheaper. In fact, they'll probably go quite the opposite. Besides, I've been meaning to give my Switch games more time, and having them run better on Switch 2 might just be the extra motivation I needed to do so. I have no interest in Mario Kart so I just went with the base model.

Spent tonight just getting the thing setup and getting my data transferred off my original Switch, which ended up being more of a "thing" than I thought it would be, especially after how simple previous transfers on Nintendo consoles have been like Wii -> Wii U. There's just a distinct lack of clarity of what it's doing, especially with DLC now considered "game cards". So...is it redownloading all the updates for Splatoon 3 or just the DLC I bought? When I checked the save transfer, I had a LOT of save data for "?" games. Stuff like that could use a lot more clarity in the UI. As it stands, I'll just have to go on faith that the process worked as it should, though I still had to go into my Nintendo account and nuke my Switch 1's access to the "virtual game cards" from orbit, since the transfer didn't do that on its own like you'd think it would.

It's nice to see that Nintendo apparently has no plans to ever create an actual download manager on the Switch series, so you know what is currently downloading, how far along it is, and what is yet to come. It's likewise also nice to see that you still have to manually select every...single...game...on your console and manually tell it all to check for an update. Because apparently no console manufacturer thinks it's worth it to just add a button to have your console check that everything you have installed is up-to-date.

With everything allegedly downloaded and installed that was on my original Switch, apparently I still have 149 GB left of the internal storage, so it looks like I'm going to be able to get away with not shelling out for an SD Express card for a while (especially if I can stick to just games that are fully on the cart). I had been coasting on a 64 GB microSD card with my original Switch, which mostly worked out fine until very recently. Planning on keeping my new Switch 1 Pro Controller (because I quite like it, I just got it earlier this year, and it's fully compatible with Switch 2) and taking everything else in to my local GS to trade towards DK Bananza.

So far, it's hard to say how I feel about this new Switch until I have a Switch 2 game to play on it. It's definitely much faster than the original Switch, but the familiarity of the UI feels like both a positive and negative. It's an extension of the Switch, but aside from speed it doesn't really feel like anything was improved.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Sells 3.5 Million Units In First Four Days To Become Fastest Selling System In Nintendo

« on: June 12, 2025, 02:38:19 PM »

"Plus the 3DS with all its problems still managed to sell over 70 million units in the end so I'm not sure why you picked that as an example.  I'm sorry but using the 3DS as an example pretty much shows the worst case situation for the Switch 2 is around 100 million units which would still make it a very successful console."

Yes, after Nintendo abandoned the Wii U altogether, put their entire development focus on the platform, and cut the price severely. Let's not pretend the 3DS was a roaring success in its first few years. Have people seriously forgotten the disaster that the 3DS was early on? The "Ambassador" program?

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Sells 3.5 Million Units In First Four Days To Become Fastest Selling System In Nintendo

« on: June 12, 2025, 07:53:49 AM »

I think any claim about the Switch 2's success, positive or negative, will be premature until a year or 2 from now. With rare exceptions, consoles sell out at launch, either through legitimate purchases or scalpers. Nintendo had abundant supply this time, so they had more to sell out. Even the Wii U & 3DS sold out at launch IIRC, and how'd that work out for both of them a year later?

As everyone else is saying, I think the dramatic increase in game prices is going to do serious damage long-term to all the console manufacturers. Nintendo pushing for everyone to adopt Game Key Cards also doesn't help matters. I'm not buying a Switch 2 until there is actually 1st party content worth buying. Never been much of a Mario Kart fan, so I'm waiting for the real games a year or 2 from now.

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TalkBack / Re: Switch Software Version 20 Now Available, Adds Virtual Game Card And GameShare Support

« on: May 03, 2025, 10:07:27 AM »

And the update has bricked a LOT of Switch systems, mine included, and Nintendo's only response is that they are "looking into it".

Given what the update is addressing, it might have something to do with how many games you have downloaded from the eShop. I barely use my Switch for digital games, and it handled the update just fine.

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TalkBack / Re: Some Form Of Chrono Trigger Release Coming?

« on: May 02, 2025, 06:37:25 PM »

As someone whose favorite game is Chrono Trigger and who has been very unsatisfied with every port Square's done of this game since the original release...yeah, I really don't have a lot of high hopes here. I stopped playing FF7 Rebirth out of boredom. I do not want to see what they might do to butcher my favorite game THIS time, ESPECIALLY if it means adopting that soul-less "HD 2D" look.

On a side note, we might not have to be concerned about such a thing, anyway, as apparently footage has come out of the event that does not confirm that the conversation in question ever happened.

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General Gaming / Re: 5th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 27, 2025, 04:23:55 PM »

Regarding Okami, I largely agree with you, Luigi, but my biggest issue with the game is that it doesn't actually FUNCTION, and I feel the game largely got a pass for that because it was so goddamn easy that it didn't HAVE to. It didn't matter that half the brush techniques in the game never work, because the 2 that do are the solution for every combat encounter. It doesn't matter that the invisible walls and hit boxes are so clownishly assigned that Amaterasu dash bounces 5 feet away from every object in the game like everything had a personal force field, because the platforming has no stakes.

I would hope that Okami 2 doesn't get the instant pass that Okami 1 god just because Zelda was going through a rough patch at the time. Unfortunately, Zelda seems to be going through another rough patch with the generally mixed reception Tears of the Kindom got (not to mention how polarizing Breath of the Wild is), so history might be setting itself up for a repeat.

Funny you should bring up Mega Man 4, because it's my favorite of the classic series, being the one I actually owned. I only rented the others. I probably beat that game every day after school back in the day. I still don't understand why people **** on it, especially since IMO MM3 isn't all that great given all the re-used content it has and MM2 has some severe game design issues. Like, it's very easy to **** yourself over in Wily's Castle in MM2 if you blow up the wrong walls with the Crash Bombs.

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General Gaming / Re: 5th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 25, 2025, 07:38:21 PM »

I've tried to get into the X games, but the only one I've ever really enjoyed was the first one. Every game in the series since has had some sort of timer put on it where you have to do stages in a very particular order (without dying too much) in order to complete certain time-sensitive objectives and obtain the best ending.

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General Gaming / Re: 5th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 24, 2025, 06:16:40 PM »

Whoops.  My apologies.  I got a little click happy.  It's back now.

Much appreciated. That one took a while to write.

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General Gaming / Re: 5th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 24, 2025, 04:42:10 PM »

Well, looks like my post may have been inadvertently deleted with all the Russian spam posts. Oh well.

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NWR Feedback / Re: For the love of Iwata, upgrade the forum software to something from this decade.

« on: April 24, 2025, 04:38:24 PM »

What, you don't enjoy Russian bots spamming dozens of new topics every single day? -_-

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TalkBack / Re: Rusty Rabbit (Switch) Review

« on: April 24, 2025, 11:26:01 AM »

If I had a nickel for every Chinese-affiliated Metroid-style 2.5D platformer I'd seen starring a rabbit in a mech suit... I'd have 2 nickels, which isn't a lot but it's still weird that it happened twice.

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General Gaming / Re: 5th Annual NWR Four on Four

« on: April 23, 2025, 09:45:40 PM »

Alright, I have 4 games. More, actually:

Representing PC/Mobile, but played on PS5: Balatro - I've managed to achieve a successful run in the game. I know there's more to do, but it's a Roguelike card game. It could go on forever, & strategy pales in comparison to RNG. I'll take my Participation Trophy at having 1 successful run and call it a day.

In general, the game's OK, but I really don't understand all the gushing over it and I don't think it belonged in the game of the year discussion. It's Score Attack Poker. Yes, that can get addictive when you get a run going, but at the end of the day that's all it will ever be. And while you do unlock new Jokers you can buy on later runs, new decks with their own modifiers, and new difficulty levels...that's it. That's all there is to the Roguelike elements, and that's just not enough for me.


Representing the PS2, but played on PS5: Indiana Jones & the Staff of Kings - Yes, this is unfortunately the same version of the game as the Wii version (instead of the allegedly superior PSP version), but without the motion controls and packed-in Fate of Atlantis port. However, that's what was on PSN, it was $6 and I had a $5 credit so here we are, and really...for $1 I could have played a lot worse and I was in the mood for some Indiana Jones. The game's extremely simple (not to mention glitchy) and not particularly challenging, but what's here is fairly solid and the button-based QTEs are only mildly distracting instead of outright unplayable like they apparently were on Wii. It's actually kind of amusing how much it feels like a prototype for the original Uncharted, right down to the cover-based shooting segments and arbitrary vehicle levels that play like ****.


Representing the PS4 (though it could also represent the PS2, PS3, or Wii): Okami - I have been trying to complete this goddamn game for 13 years over 4 different attempts, and I finally managed to force myself to get through it all. So...was it worth it?

No, not really. There have always been 3 reasons why I could never get through this game before, and they're still very bad now:

1. The framerate - The game is hard-locked to 30 FPS, and with some of the visual effects (especially early on) I found it very easy in earlier versions and on earlier (and smaller) TVs to get motion sick playing this game. I know it can't be helped because the animations were tied to the framerate (much like Tales of Symphonia), but it's still a very noticeable problem, especially since the game clearly doesn't always hit that 30 FPS.

2. The Celestial Brush - I love the idea of Okami, but the furthest I ever got in this game was on the Wii, and I quit it because of the controls. At the time, I thought it was the Wii's fault that the Celestial Brush only correctly guesses what you draw about 2 out of every 5 attempts, because that was the story of Wii controls in general. But no...that's just how this game is. The longer the game goes on and the more brush techniques that get layered on that use similar brush strokes, the less reliable the entire gameplay experience becomes. By the end of the game, I stopped even bothering to use any brush techniques outside the simple slash and wind gale, because nothing else every worked on command. Do you have any idea how much times I'd go to draw a simple circle around something to do the regeneration technique, only for the game to interpret it as the wind gale? It's pure aggravation.

3. The pacing - Okami has a notoriously slow opening and some of the most glacial text crawl conversations in the history of mankind, but on top of that the game's story is a colossal mess that doesn't know when to end. The plot more or less reaches a climax and starts over 2 separate times. It's just too much.

And that's really my problem with Okami in general: it's just too much. It just keeps layering on more and more nonsense until the game sinks under its own weight. The upcoming Okami 2 is the main reason I finally pushed through to complete this game, which is funny because now that I've finished it I don't want to even think about playing Okami 2 unless they REALLY learned how to make a better game since.

And finally, representing the PS5, Slitterhead - So, this is a weird one. It's clearly not a good game, and I played the game in a way that makes it very unpleasant and makes all its faults all the more obvious, but I still kinda...liked it?

The biggest problem with Slitterhead (besides the story, which is just complete incoherence) is that the game starts out terrible, and the player has to work to unlock the actual game experience as intended. Please note that for the Platinum, you have to complete this game on its hardest difficulty, Nightmare. And yes, that difficulty lives up to its name.

And yes, I have the Platinum for Slitterhead, as well as the ones for Okami & Indiana. And Slitterhead may be the hardest Platinum I've ever obtained, and if it's not it's damn close.

As you play through the game, you unlock more permanent characters to possess, and you unlock skill points you can use to make them strong enough to actually be fun to play. Until then, you either completely master this game's combat system, or you just get hard stuck. And this is a combat system completely built around one-on-one encounters that completely goes to **** the moment more than 1 enemy gets tossed into the mix. Oh, and all your most powerful abilities you can use to kill enemies? Yeah, they cost HEALTH to use.

Take a guess what this game's favorite way of ramping up the difficulty is. The weakest trash mobs are the kiss of death in this game. They kill you in a few hits, usually take more than few hits to kill, and they kill all the civilians in the arenas who act as your lifelines while you're busy elsewhere. That is, when they spawn in at all. Sometimes the game just glitches and doesn't spawn the civilians, meaning you're completely screwed if you get knocked out since you have no one in the area of possess. And checkpoints are for poor people, especially during 10 minute long boss fights. Git gud. -_-

And I really hope you like the 3-4 environments in this game, because this game taking place in consecutive time loops means they're all you're going to see.

And yet...there's something to this game when it's firing on all cylinders. Once I got used to the game's incredibly weird control stick directional parry system; got my characters leveled-up; and started getting a feel for the game's structure, I was having a good time. There is an intriguing idea in here, and it can be quite exciting to take down a boss by just continually laying the smack on it as you just keep switching bodies every few seconds. It's kind of refreshing to play a game that's willing to be extremely cryptic about its secrets and refuses to hold your hand. It's willing to be inconvenient in ways modern games just wouldn't ever be.

And then **** like this happens.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLKcfAKISeg

This is the penultimate boss of the game. This boss has 3 phases, and in each phase she instantly kills you if you don't stagger her within 60 seconds. At the start of the 1st phase, she also spawns in 1 hit kill mobs (who also die in 1 hit). At the start of the 2nd phase, she summons a dozen 1 hit kill mobs (who also continuously heal themselves) who go down in MANY hits. Oh, and during all this she's casting spells that half your max HP, prevent you from using skills, and poison you. And she does this while teleporting around the room, casting AOE damage, flinging homing missiles at you, and just being a royal pain in the ass in general.

I've never seen such a finely-honed gauntlet of utter bullshit in my entire gaming lifetime, and considering the nonsense that went on in the NES days THAT'S saying something. And yes, I did beat her (https://x.com/i/status/1910896975765033277]). And the final boss was actually a pretty big pushover after that.

In general, Slitterhead is rough and its systems don't really work, but there is "something" there. In order to face the final boss, you have to reduce the number of civilian casualties you've accumulated throughout the game by replaying missions, and I was allowed to reduce the difficulty in order to do it. And on lower difficulties where the game isn't trying to murder you quite as much, there's a lot of fun to be had here. The game is just extremely poorly balanced, and I suspect it was barely playtested.

Other games I could have talked about: Spider-Man 2 PS5 (which I've completed) and Indiana Jones & the Great Circle (which I'm still playing and will be on the backburner for Expedition 33 tomorrow).

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TalkBack / Re: All Known Upgraded and Updated Switch Games Coming to Switch 2

« on: April 10, 2025, 10:25:28 AM »

Apparently, Nintendo also accidentally leaked a Yoshi's Woolly World Switch port in one of their videos where they scrolled a library of Switch 1 BC games

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Will you be willing to buy Virtual Game Cards, or would go all digital instead?

« on: April 10, 2025, 08:54:05 AM »

As someone who buys physical primarily to future-proof my collection as much as possible (because all these digital services WILL get taken down eventually), I just don't see a reason to buy Game Key Cards. It's like buying physical games that require an always online connection to play. What's the point? I might as well buy digital-only and save myself the trouble.The only advantage I could see in Game Key Cards is that MAYBE they go on sale more often because retailers want to get rid of them?

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TalkBack / Re: Switch 2 Preorders In United States Delayed Due To Tariff Impact

« on: April 09, 2025, 02:25:52 PM »

Apparently, they just announced a 90 day pause on the tariffs outside China, so I expect we'll start seeing some finalized pricing and preorder dates now.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: April 05, 2025, 01:57:53 PM »

Has anything been said about cross-saves between switch 1 and 2?

I haven't seen Nintendo come out and actually confirm cross-saves, but considering their official page on Switch 2 "Enhanced" games very concretely describes the Switch 2 versions as "updates" to the Switch 1 games (and not unique versions, and Nintendo just confirmed that all the Switch 2 version "Game Cards" are just Switch 1 versions with mandatory patches), I think it's safe to save we have cross-saves.

https://www.nintendo.com/us/gaming-systems/switch-2/transfer-guide/games-with-free-updates/

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack Adding Switch 2 Exclusive GameCube Library

« on: April 03, 2025, 10:30:11 PM »

I would be very interested to see if Nintendo suddenly remembers they own Eternal Darkness when it comes to adding GameCube games to that service, not to mention several other obscure GameCube 3rd party gems like Lost Kingdoms 1 & 2.

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Launches at $449.99 USD, £395.99, ¥49,980, and 469,99 €

« on: April 03, 2025, 09:24:26 AM »

Yikes. I want a Switch 2, but at that price I can't justify getting it at launch due to real world obligations.

Also, how can they justify charging $80 for Mario Kart World? I am sure it will be good, but $80 for any game is nuts.

It gets even worse when you find out that $80 is for the Digital edition. The physical edition is $90. -_-

Or $80.

https://www.walmart.com/ip/Mario-Kart-World-U-S-Version/15940407280

Interesting. People were posting links to $90 Mario Karts yesterday. Kotaku even referenced it. Guess it was a price error.

https://kotaku.com/switch-2-mario-kart-world-physical-game-tariffs-prices-1851774317

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TalkBack / Re: Nintendo Switch 2 Launches at $449.99 USD, £395.99, ¥49,980, and 469,99 €

« on: April 02, 2025, 10:29:49 PM »

Yikes. I want a Switch 2, but at that price I can't justify getting it at launch due to real world obligations.

Also, how can they justify charging $80 for Mario Kart World? I am sure it will be good, but $80 for any game is nuts.

It gets even worse when you find out that $80 is for the Digital edition. The physical edition is $90. -_-

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: April 02, 2025, 11:07:48 AM »

I dunno. Charging money for a goddamn tech demo seems pretty arrogant to me. Even Nintendo Land was free, and that looked like it had more real content in it.

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Nintendo Gaming / Re: Nintendo Switch 2

« on: April 02, 2025, 10:51:50 AM »

I was really underwhelmed by that showcase. Of what they showed, GameCube games coming to the service was one of the top announcements, and that seems pretty telling to me.

Of the games they showed, DK and legally distinct Bloodborne looked the most promising, but not enough to warrant a $450 console and $80 games in this economy.

I'm sure I'll get a Switch 2 eventually, but it looks like it's probably going to be a year before Nintendo has anything really worth my time and money.

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TalkBack / Re: New Metroid Prime 4: Beyond Footage Shown

« on: March 31, 2025, 11:14:06 PM »

This makes a lot of the negatively online right now look all the more embarrassing.

There's been a lot of negativity? Glad I haven't seen it.

Nor have I, really. I've seen some criticism along the line of Caterkiller's, aka "they've been working on this game so long, and THIS is what they have to show for it when shooters have evolved so much?" That said, I haven't seen anyone outright hating on the game.

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TalkBack / Re: Live Action Zelda Movie To Launch March 26, 2027

« on: March 28, 2025, 01:19:53 PM »

I have no faith in this movie whatsoever. Yeah, Illumination makes trash, but at least it's competently made trash. Sony's movie division (and increasingly their games division) can't even manage that these days, even if making this movie live action made any sense to begin with.

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TalkBack / Re: New AI: The Somnium Files Adventure Arriving In Summer

« on: March 27, 2025, 10:47:19 PM »

Eh...I feel like this series overstayed its welcome with that 2nd game. I'm sure this one will be fine (it's not like the 2nd game was bad), but I just don't feel a draw to go through another round of visual novel talking punctuated by puzzle sequences where cause & effect very rarely apply.

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TalkBack / Re: SMT Action RPG Spinoff Devil Summoner To Be Remastered In June

« on: March 27, 2025, 10:44:08 PM »

Of all the PS2-era Atlus games to bring back, this wasn't the one I wanted. I was hoping for Digital Devil Saga 1 & 2 to get the remaster treatment, as I'd tried to play the Raidou games back in the day and they were ROUGH. I'm willing to give this a try, but I remember finding these games kinda dull back then compared to some of the more polished entries like Persona 3.

Also, **** you, Atlus, for having Day 1 Cheat DLC for a remaster.