Hey there! It's been quite some time since I've posted anything so let's start all over with this. Despite my lack of logging on, I've kept up with nintendo and still play their new releases when they interest me. So the ever elusive Nintendo Switch, what do I think about it?
I've got the neon colored Switch (on launch) and have been terrified of how I handle the joycons and screen when not docked. It's sleek, it looks nice, however the dock is not very well designed. It does its job well enough, but you cannot tell me that nobody at Nintendo didn't think to add some sort of padding for the pieces that hold the Switch screen in place when docked? They're is absolutely no padding in the dock whatsoever and as "professional" developers, this should not have been ignored. They wanted people to undock the console on the fly and regularly, yet there is nothing to keep you from scratching your screen if one mistake is made.
Eh, I love how compact the console is, but it baffles me that they can make this sort of mistake and brush off all the consumer complaints about scratched screens.
Anyway let's get down to the real meat of the console: The games, few as they may be. I'm going to cover them in order of my own personal experience and purchase date.
Breath of the Wild (Launch pickup): Fantastic, I poured hours into that game and loved every second. BUT it clearly wasn't optimized for the console, and was only patched to work better a month after its release. Why they would bother releasing an un optimized game at all is beyond me but Nintendo hasn't been too smart lately so I'll just brush it under the rug. I love this game, its environments, the story, the characters, and just the overall approach this time around. Solid entry that every Switch owner needs to own.
Super Bomberman R: This one, hoo boy this one has some of my biggest frustrations with the switch, but don't worry it has a happy ending. I love Bomberman, I always have. This game captures exactly what Bomberman used to be and is a return to formula not seen since the late days of Hudson Soft. So as soon as I begin to play I notice some things.
1: The characters are very slippery leading me to take extra steps and being killed by enemies (which only takes a single hit).
2: The bomberman bros can move in a complete 8 direction axis, regardless of the maze like structures in game. This led to being trapped behind corners when attempting to outrun an enemy.
3. 30 fps. At this point, this is unacceptable. No excuses.
4. Most unforgiving Bomberman game I have ever played. Boss Ai was outrageous and could not be fooled into death unless you died with them. Many complained about this.
I was pretty unhappy with this one and kind of stopped playing altogether as I could not beat the first world with the entire game working against me. but by the grace of an unknown light, Konami went out of their way to release a patch that fixed character controls and overall gameplay with more to come. "Sweet!" After the update controls were smooth and although the game was still very difficult, I was able to complete the game. A few weeks later the game would be later updated again fixing enemy difficulty, adjusting controls yet again, fixing camera issues and of all thing bumping up the framerate to a solid 60fps. The game plays and looks great now. It has great Saturday morning cartoon humor and a fun online mode (which still needs work in the form of latency). Overall this is a great game in my opinion that I highly recommend for Bomberman fans. Though, it doesn't have much content yet. Konami is still releasing free dlc, however.
Puy Puyo Tetris: Not much I can say about this one. It's colorful, charming, fast paced and a blast with friends. It's fairly cheap $40 ($30 digital) and has a lot of modes to SWITCH between. I'd probably recommend this to long time fans of the japanese Puyo series. Character portrait art is similar to that of Super Bomberman R and it's great. Super Charming.
Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: I was anticipating this game since the Switch launched. First off, this should have been a launch title, Nintendo what's the deal? Secondly, boy does this game have content. If you missed out on Mario Kart 8 on the Wii U then buckle up because this game is going to be one hell of a treat. It has a few more character than it's WiiU counterpart and a returning proper battle mode. There's also the addition of double items which some love and other despise. So you would think a port of one of the WiiU's strongest titles would hold up nicely? Well the short answer is : it doesn't as of yet. See, the online mode, which is where most are gonna get the most bang for their buck, is so poorly optimized that you're going to be having a harder time connecting to friends than with the actual races. Joining a random worldwide race alone will yield a better experience with only few connection issues every few races. Trying to join a friend is a nightmare returning from the release month of MK7 (was later fixed). You can only join a friend if there is room in the lobby (of course) but the kicker is that you can only spectate the race (in wait to join) if the people already spectating do not exceed 12 racers. Before this was rectified with continuous spectating until room was available. This game even gives you the option to now easily quit when spectating, though it's pretty much useless seeing how you'll likely NEVER spectate a race trying to join a group of friends, meaning joining that race at all will be an uphill battle.
tl;dr This game is easily the best Mario Kart in a while. Online mode needs work. Still worth every penny.
Yeah, I'm really enjoying the few games that I own but am not going to be willing to pay for their online services if issues are not fixed (btw I run 100Mb download speeds, speeds aren't the issue) and at this point feel as if nintendo is playing the ignorant card knowing full well the issues that are holding back some already great games. Let's hope we'll get updates fixing the rest of these issues like Konami did with Super Bomberman R. I really want to believe we'll get some great games and am looking forward to the release of Super Mario Odyssey, and less remakes/ ports of existing games but that's a discussion for another day.
I've got the neon colored Switch (on launch) and have been terrified of how I handle the joycons and screen when not docked. It's sleek, it looks nice, however the dock is not very well designed. It does its job well enough, but you cannot tell me that nobody at Nintendo didn't think to add some sort of padding for the pieces that hold the Switch screen in place when docked? They're is absolutely no padding in the dock whatsoever and as "professional" developers, this should not have been ignored. They wanted people to undock the console on the fly and regularly, yet there is nothing to keep you from scratching your screen if one mistake is made.
Eh, I love how compact the console is, but it baffles me that they can make this sort of mistake and brush off all the consumer complaints about scratched screens.
Anyway let's get down to the real meat of the console: The games, few as they may be. I'm going to cover them in order of my own personal experience and purchase date.
1: The characters are very slippery leading me to take extra steps and being killed by enemies (which only takes a single hit).
2: The bomberman bros can move in a complete 8 direction axis, regardless of the maze like structures in game. This led to being trapped behind corners when attempting to outrun an enemy.
3. 30 fps. At this point, this is unacceptable. No excuses.
4. Most unforgiving Bomberman game I have ever played. Boss Ai was outrageous and could not be fooled into death unless you died with them. Many complained about this.
I was pretty unhappy with this one and kind of stopped playing altogether as I could not beat the first world with the entire game working against me. but by the grace of an unknown light, Konami went out of their way to release a patch that fixed character controls and overall gameplay with more to come. "Sweet!" After the update controls were smooth and although the game was still very difficult, I was able to complete the game. A few weeks later the game would be later updated again fixing enemy difficulty, adjusting controls yet again, fixing camera issues and of all thing bumping up the framerate to a solid 60fps. The game plays and looks great now. It has great Saturday morning cartoon humor and a fun online mode (which still needs work in the form of latency). Overall this is a great game in my opinion that I highly recommend for Bomberman fans. Though, it doesn't have much content yet. Konami is still releasing free dlc, however.
tl;dr This game is easily the best Mario Kart in a while. Online mode needs work. Still worth every penny.
Yeah, I'm really enjoying the few games that I own but am not going to be willing to pay for their online services if issues are not fixed (btw I run 100Mb download speeds, speeds aren't the issue) and at this point feel as if nintendo is playing the ignorant card knowing full well the issues that are holding back some already great games. Let's hope we'll get updates fixing the rest of these issues like Konami did with Super Bomberman R. I really want to believe we'll get some great games and am looking forward to the release of Super Mario Odyssey, and less remakes/ ports of existing games but that's a discussion for another day.
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