Vita/PSP (oops, beat me to it)
Fwiw, I don’t think Switch is a “game changer” for indies. The only point I wanted to make was that some of us are quite happy to see more and more Steam fodder showing up in the e-shop. That’s all. I know that doesn’t excite you, which is fine, too.
It makes more sense if you think
What other “mobile” device could these Steam games possibly even appear on?
And the answer is, surprisingly … almost nothing? Smartphones / tablets are usually out due to utter lack of controls. I mean you can bluetooth a controller on Android, I guess, but does anyone really do that?
So I guess I can kinda-sorta warm up to Switch as the second coming of indie mobile gaming, because there’s just nothing else out there?
True, but I have to ask myself how much avoiding shopping at Walmart on Black Friday is worth to me. ;)
So who is playing DOOM on the switch? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller…?
Anywhere else? I’d love to buy it for 30 bucks. Maybe Almazon will match?
http://cms.ipressroom.com.s3.amazonaws.com/219/files/20149/SHIELD_family_Titanfall.jpg
I did my part to make it happen…
FYI, for any U.K. Folks, Tesco is apparently throwing in Mario & Rabbids free with purchase of the Mario Switch bundle (includes Odyssey and red joycons for £329)
If there are ever 10,000 games on the Switch store, I would be absolutely delighted.
As poorly as the Vita sold, it’s important to keep in mind that the PSP sold as many units worldwide as the GBA, and is still the only successful non-Nintendo handheld ever, at least where hardware sales are concerned; it’ll always be a shame its software numbers got wrecked so hard by the combination of piracy and tiny retail presence in the west. Sony may have tried to get some of those early indie hits onto the PSP if the indie explosion had started a few years earlier, though that may have still gone poorly due to the platform’s age and ease of piracy.
Back on topic: I wouldn’t mind seeing pretty much every PSP and Vita game I own ported to Switch. (Including the first-party ones - I’m sure Sony would sell more copies of a Patapon collection on Switch than on PS4, anyway!)
I was going to try online, honestly. I’ve shopped BB and Target on BF, but I’m not thinking I’m up to Walmart.
After about a dozen missions, I bailed. It strikes me as more of a puzzle game than a tactics game. Maybe that changes as you get further into the mission structure, but I was hoping for something along the lines of XCOM or Disgaea. Instead I got a bunch of “oh, so that’s how I’m supposed to solve that mission!” nonsense with characters bouncing on each other’s heads and moving through tubes and so forth.
-Tom
Sumbitch they made a Switch version of Rocket League…could I actually buy my first Nintendo system since the original DS?
Rumour is it’s in a bit of a sorry state. Wait for reviews, or patches!
Yeah, I agree with this 100%. I’ve gotten to a point where everything feels more like trial and error puzzles than actual tactics. Still, it has some neat mechanical twists on the x-com formula. Firaxis really needs to port the x-com games to Switch.
I picked it up and have played it a bunch. Its a mixed bag, to be honest. The core gameplay is still as fun as ever, but it seems like kind of a lazy port. The graphics look worse than my mediocre laptop, and the menus are too small on handheld mode. Still, its portable Rocket League, for better or worse.
I wanted to love TumbleSeed for its concept and presentation but I found it incredibly frustrating, not because it’s tough, but because a lot of the game’s pick-ups/special abilities are liabilities. Those turrets for example, are so horrible to use that you end up killing yourself just to get one shot off accurately. I seem to remember there being negative feedback loops too where losing seeds would be very difficult to recover from and make the game even harder. I didn’t even get past the tutorial hills before the mountain! It’s brutal. People talk about the Souls games being difficult but they haven’t got anything on TumbleSeed.
I’m amongst the few that has it pegged as my Game of the Year and, as I’ve said in various places, I’m not a huge fan of Mario, the Rabbids or Firaxis’ XCOM so I’m pretty amazed by what Ubisoft have managed to achieve with this unlikely mix. I finished it a couple of months ago and I really miss it.
A good chunk of the challenges are puzzles but you’ll have not got to those yet. The majority of the campaign skirmishes however, are tactical battles. Early on it can certainly feel like a puzzler because you’ve only got three characters, a handful of abilities, some simple enemies and you’re fighting in tighter spaces. Later on however, as the roster of characters and enemies expands, more abilities and status effects are unlocked, environmental elements and wider (and taller) spaces are introduced, the decision space opens up and it becomes much richer tactically (and too chaotic for a puzzler).
Team jumping across the map, chain dash attacking enemies, bouncing off their heads and moving character (and sentries) through tubes is what it’s all about. You gotta move; that’s what you should be learning early on. It’s one of my favourite things about the game and incredibly satisfying when you orchestrate a bunch of intricate manoeuvres to cleanly take out a batch of enemies.
@cpugeek13 you shouldn’t need trial and error to do levels; there’s ample room for planning and tactics. Be sure to have a good look at the map before choosing your characters (and don’t fall back on to the same ones, Rabbid Luigi included); formulate a strategy around them, their synergies, the map and enemies you’re up against; identify vantage points, flanks, good cover, tubes and other ways of reaching them quickly; be prepared to move and adapt as the battle develops.
This is geggis, Mario + Rabbids fanboy, signing off.
The GameSpot review mentions the graphical downgrade but also says matchmaking across systems works really well and that the gameplay remains intact:
Doesn’t sound like a bad port considering the power they have to work with.
I had no idea this thing had the X/Y and A/B laid out the way it does. Having spent the vast majority of my gaming hours over the last decade using a 360 controller, this is going to take a bit to get used to.
It’s funny because Nintendo’s layout was standard until Sony came along and swapped X for O as the “confirm” button on the PlayStation, but only in the West. Funnier yet is that on credit card terminals everywhere now, they do it the opposite way and show O as the “confirm” and X as the no. Microsoft just followed Sony’s method while Nintendo hasn’t ever changed, but only on DS/3DS and Wii U because the Gamecube and Wii had non-standard layouts.
You do adjust, though.
Ah, I always wondered what the order was with all that. If I remember rightly, FFVII had confirm on the circle button too.
I find I’m okay when I’m playing almost exclusively on one system, if I start flitting between two it scrambles me! I loved the non-standard GC and Wii controllers.
Super Nintendo controller holds the key…
