Topic: Nintendo Switch Discussion

@SplooshDmg Pikmin 4 and Metroid Prime 4 are the only Nintendo games I'm excited about since Switch launched in 2017. Pikmin 3 is a bit disappointing because it is easier than 1 and 2 but I still like it. Luigi's Mansion 3 is supposed to be a highlight for me but it isn't as special as 1 and 2. Although Breath of The Wild is the most overrated game in history (in my opinion), I love Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask and Twilight Princess. Those are some of my favourite games on any platform but Breath of the Wild has nothing to do with them so it's not surprising that some Zelda games are my favourite games and some others I can live without.

In short, I'd recommend you Pikmin 4 🤣.

EDIT: I was also excited about Super Mario Odyssey but it's the most boring Mario 3D game.

EDIT 2: I played Pikmin 3 on Wii U where I think it's better.

@Banjo- I'll probably wind up with Pikmin 4. I was pleasantly surprised that Nintendo didn't expect me to redeem both vouchers at once. I had never bought one before, so I just had this expectation that you redeemed them both at once. So, I just have that other voucher on the back burner now. So, who knows, maybe something will crop up at 'not E3' that wins me over and claims my voucher. But right now, it's def looking like Pikmin 4.

@SplooshDmg Since Nintendo games are only 33% off once in a blue moon, those vouchers aren't that bad. I miss Nintendo's Player Choice and all that.

@Banjo- Yeah, I'm not too chuffed to pay $50 for a good deal of Nintendo's 1st party stuff, especially if it means a day one discount on something like TOTK and Pikmin 4. Plus I've grown to like digital better on Switch, since I'm having to carry tiny cartridges around with me. So it works out.

@SplooshDmg The vouchers are an insanely good deal if you stack them with discounted eshop cards. TotK cost me the equivalent of $45 at launch!

Really impressed with the draw distance in this game for a Switch title, btw. Link is seamlessly falling from the sky islands, and as he's descending, I can spy shrines dotted across the landscape and mark them on my map before hitting the water.

@Ralizah That's actually exactly what I did. I cashed in for $50 of Walmart gift cards with my MS rewards and bought some digital eShop cards there. Then I have those GameStop PowerUp Pro accounts for myself and my wife and I get two $10 eShop cards for $5 a piece every month with the $5 coupons. I then bought the remaining credit I needed at Target with my RedCard and got the 5% discount. I paid next to nothing for Zelda. Lol

But yeah, so far I'm really liking the game. I like that I can attach an apple to a stick. 11/10.

@SplooshDmg Way to game the system!

What sort of games is your wife into?

@Ralizah She doesn't game, really. She played ACNH a bunch when that set the world on fire, but she just has a PowerUp membership so I can double dip on the monthly discount. She's more of an Asian drama/book geek.

@Ralizah Okay, I'm so beyond hooked on TOTK. I just finished this shrine where you had to attach rockets to a mine cart and blast to the other side. Well, I defied physics and only put a rocket on one side of the cart. So rather than shooting to the other side, I just spun through the air wildly and all the way up to the end of the shrine. 😂
Everything about this game has just been a joy so far.

@SplooshDmg lmao

Once you play the game, you really understand why previewers were saying they felt like they were Wile E. Coyote with his Acme devices.

I feel like the ultrahand mechanic has given the physics suite from the last game a chance to shine. You could do some wacky stuff in that game with enough effort, but the mechanics didn't encourage creativity quite as explicitly.

Of course, brute forcing your way through puzzles can be funny, too. There was a shrine where the intended solution was to get a ball from one end of a body of water with a rushing current to another by constructing a boat. I said "nah," dragged a car I'd made from earlier in the shrine into the room, disassembled it, and combined its materials with the materials in the room to create a rickety tower of tires and boards that I used to bypass the water solution entirely.

Combined ultrahand, recall, and an insanely long series of boards glued together to just barely manage to cross a massive body of water in another shrine as well.

@Ralizah It was seriously a Looney Tunes moment. I was genuinely laughing by the time it was over.

The Ultrahand is seriously just such a game changer. I love that the puzzles feel like they just all have a number of solutions. It's kind of that same fun of replaying a Bethesda game, and just choosing different solutions to different quests. At least in Zelda I don't have annoying companions that tell me how to solve the puzzles after nine seconds of looking at them.

Finally finished up XC3: Future Redeemed last night. Don't want too say too much because the whole thing is kinda spoilery, but it was pretty great. Kinda like Torna, I kinda liked that it was a tighter, more concise adventure. That said I kinda wish it were a bit longer, but that's just because it was so good (without getting too spoilery, I would have loved it if that "memory" was fleshed out into an entire region).

I think the only thing I have left to do is clear out the last 4-5 unique monsters, but I think I'm going to leave them alone because there's no way to organically grow stronger to fight them (the only way I could see is to constantly grind the one closest to you in level until you're strong enough for the next one). TBH, I'm almost level 70 & I can't beat that level 60 T-Rex thing (don't know how I'd begin to take on the level 70, 80, 90, & 100 unique monsters).

Would love to start on Kirby or Zelda, but it's been a few months since the last time I touched my gaming laptop (since Prime Remastered released, I think), so I should probably play through something in my Steam library in order to put it through it's paces.

@NEStalgia Okay, I have accepted that I absolutely hate Tokyo Mirage Session. This is the most mind numbing JRPG I have played in a long, long time. The dungeons are so outrageously terrible. The story is so ridiculously stupid. I can't do this. Lol

@SplooshDmg I'm shocked honestly, I thought you'd love it! I loved the stupid. The dungeons are just old school smt grind. I definitely thought that would be in your wheelhouse.

@SplooshDmg @NEStalgia I can understand why it wouldn't click with most but for me it is a hidden gem of the system as the gameplay is stupidily fun!!

@Balta666 @NEStalgia I'm pretty adverse to grinding these days. It's just really not fun where I don't have as much time to play like I used to, but I do like the combat system pretty well, kinda reminds me of SMTIV with the follow up attacks and whatnot. However, I'm just so detached from the characters and the world, though. I seriously want to stay for all of the AVEX tunes, but the story and the characters are just lulling me to sleep. Lol

Edit: I'll also say that I'm trying to play this some while still knee deep in TotK. There might be a serious aftermath left by TotK where every other game just seems completely unsatisfying by comparison.

@SplooshDmg IDK how a Genshin fan could say TMSFE has too much grind and they're detached from the stupid characters and world....I really would have thought it would have bee a hit for you. Personally it's one of my all time favorites for the same stupid characters and world, and I can't stand Genshin even the tiniest bit....shrug

If you're trying to cram it in with Totk that could affect it. Though I'm doing the opposite, cramming Totk in in 10 minute increments in handheld and designating more time to either NMS or P5R as I go lol

@NEStalgia Genshin's a grind, but it's just not a comparable grind, they're just entirely different games and they play nothing like one another. Bear in mind, I just replayed P4G last summer and I still love it to death, so I'm not going to say it's dated gameplay turning me off here. I just feel like the trash mobs in TMSFE just take WAY too long. I don't really feel underpowered or anything because the bosses have gone down pretty easy, but the trash mobs just feel way too spongey, and there seems to be very minimal enemy variety. It's just sucking a lot of enjoyment out of the game because every battle feels like a bit of a slog and they're pretty frequent. The whole weakness system doesn't feel exploitable enough yet to really make these battles move along like it does in other ATLUS games. I've already maxed out the weapons I have and I don't seem to be able to get any more yet, so I'm not really getting much in the way of character progression yet. Maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm having a really difficult time finding which part of this game is actually fun.

Long story short, I cycle 20 miles a day on a stationary bike. I have mastered playing Switch and cycling at the same time. Cycling messes up the prospects of gyro aiming on TotK because your body is moving, so I'd rather not play TotK while cycling. I've been trying to work on TMSFE instead, and it just isn't clicking. I'll press on, I'm nearly to the end of the second Idolsphere, but I'd tell you I'm just bored.

@SplooshDmg That sounds like you're missing something about the battle system to me. I can't imagine how as it's pretty much an SMT battle system like any other. It's been some time (WiiU era) since I played the game, but I recall trash mobs basically "fall down, go boom" pretty easily. You hit the weaknesses, it does the One More thing and the full team duet musical number attack thing and that pretty much annihilates stuff. What characters do you have open? Maybe you haven't actually unlocked the full super chain combo thing yet? The weaknesses are surely exploitable just like any SMT game, if not moreso. I can't remember when things unlock but you might not have the "big" attacks yet. You hit the weaknesses, each weakness hit goes into the once more extra attack, and chaining up the comboes goes into the duo attacks, and/or the "all out" musical attack (including the standby cast.) Very SMT as you'd expect.

@NEStalgia Beats me, I'm hitting pretty much everything with a weakness when available. I often get the follow up, and sometimes even a second follow up. I've got a couple special performances so far, but they typically aren't powerful enough to one shot an enemy or anything. I'm still limited to the first three characters you get. So, boring MC, anime girl that is only cute in the Idolsphere, and JPOP dude bro. I'll try to keep going, it could turn into a Yakuza LAD situation where the game is truly amazing if you can survive the first six hours of mind-numbing boredom.