Nintendo Switch

I think that’s highly dependent on what you’re looking for in such a game. If you really want to be focused around your farm then Stardew Valley is probably better. If it’s just having a variety of daily activities to do around your little village then Graveyard Keeper might be it, there are a lot of different ways for you to split your time.

Once you get used to the Pro Controller, and months later you go back to the Joy-cons for some 2 player action, it suddenly hits you: Oh yeah, the Joy-cons have HUUUUUUGE input lag unless you have direct sight with the console. Ugh.

Even in a game like Captain toad, which doesn’t require too much precision or reflexes, the input lag is completely intolerable.

Hey kid, want to switch controllers?

Why are you crying?

I bought Hori pads that make NS look like gamepad. They’re not really high quality. From day 1 sticks started sometimes drift, but it passes after you do aa couple of circles and it only happened a couple of times. I’d say it’s much better for action games but it also misses vibration and motion controls you only need in games like that. Also no remote controls naturally.

Dorfromantik came out on the Switch at the end of September; I just picked it up today.

Haven’t played it before, and I was a little surprised at how long my first game took. I like it though, I can see getting into this as a relaxing game. October is going to be a busy month for me though so I’m not sure I’ll get much gaming in, but I look forward to dabbling more with this when I have the chance.

Are the controls ok? I was holding off on PC version due to apparently poor controller support.

Disclaimers:

  • I don’t know what the PC controls were like for mouse and keyboard or for a controller, so don’t know if the Switch is the same as PC controller setup.
  • I didn’t check, I don’t know if the controls can be adjusted at all in the Switch version

But I didn’t feel like I was fighting the controls in my two hours with the game so far. I would still occasionally rotate a piece when I meant to rotate my view sometimes, but nothing ever impaired gameplay—I never made mistakes because of the controls.

There’s no ambiguity or finicky issues when actually deciding to place a tile, the rest of it is all just about if you’re happy with camera controls as you consider the map.

I wish there was a button to quickly and temporarily zoom directly to the tile placement you’re currently considering, because sometimes the visual indicators for which sides of the tile match their surroundings can be obscured by the little pop-up icons for nearby goals. When I’m pretty confident I’m happy with what I’m about to place, sometimes that’s at the far side of the map from where the camera is focused or I’m simply zoomed too far out and it would be nice to just have that quick zoom to double check and then snap back to my current broader view. That was my only minor annoyance.

Ah nice, thanks!

I recall PC had non-functional stuff, like controller wouldn’t work in the tutorial, for example. Of course, I would expect that not to be an issue on Switch, but yeah PC also tended to work like you were controlling a mouse pointer with the analogue sticks, which is indicative of a non-native hack job. :)

I think I’m getting it, even though I don’t actually have time for games atm.

My little one is driving me crazy last couple of days. He discovered the four or so cases of Nintendo switch games in the drawer underneath the TV. So he looks at the case for Super Mario 3D Land and says he wants to play that! So sure, I somehow get the cartridge thingie open and put it in. Then a few minutes later, he looks at the cover for Kirby and the Forgotten Land and wants to play that! Then a few minutes later, he looks at the cover for Mario Kart 8 and wants to play that! Then a few minutes later he looks at the cover for Super Mario 3D Land and wants to play that! Then a few minutes later he looks at the cover for Kirby and the Forgotten Land and wants to play that!

Luckily I did discover that you can just leave that annoying little cartridge cover thingie open permanently. No need to close that thing.

It’s still very annoying.

The eShop has a demo games sale. So games that have a demo are on sale. $42 for the newer Metroid, the Yoshi crafted world game, Arms. $35 for Warioware.

All on my wishlist, but prices seem a little high to me, since they’re all ok games that I will likely enjoy a little, not a lot.

Yeah but the $60 first party games never drop below $40, so if you’re going to bite the bullet, now it’s the time.

I got the Dread demo and enjoyed it. But not paying $42 for it.

I was abysmal at playing this and foresaw much sadness in my future so I never picked it up. Huge bummer for me.

:(

You are bad and should feel bad.

Dread is an incredible experience, and one of my favorite games of the decade. Its tuned to a beautiful perfection.

And @Scotch_Lufkin I expect more from you. I am disappoint.

i am used to disappoint so it is normal I didnt find that demo enjoyable in the least either!

This was a game on my radar bigtime only to find out I lacked the reflexes to succeed at it. I was thinking it would be a fun Metroid type game, but the combat was more QTE-ish than I had hoped and I’m not great at that kind of parry/press button now! type of game, unfortunately (iirc it was some sort of melee counter, required to be good at the game it felt like). Also, being chased by an enemy you can’t fight and that it was game over if it caught you was a big “no fucking thanks” from me, dawg.

No one was more disappoint than I.

While I strongly take issue with calling it a QTE, the melee counter is very much a central mechanic and the game and enemies are tuned around its use.

Every enemy and every non projectile attack can be countered, though some are easier than others. And while you can beat normal enemies without using, it definitely will make your life harder. So if you never get comfortable with it, yeah you are going to have a rough time.

Personally I loved the EMMI sections too. They are brief, and all have checkpoints each time you enter the zone, so gettin caught isn’t very punishing. They can be difficult and stressful, but it was very much an intentional design choice for their intended experience. And it works beautifully for what they want.

But its like Dark Souls. They made deliberate choices, ones that made the game more difficult in ways, and those choices will either make you love the game, or turn you off from it.

Yeah, I call any time I have to push a button quickly and with correct timing or fail a QTE, which isn’t correct but it’s short hand (for me). It’s how I feel about the combat in games like Arkham Asylum or Spider-man, if you don’t push the prompted block/dodge, you are punished, so it’s not really a choice. Now, in Spider-man I got good at it and I ended up loving both of those games, and I’m sure I could get used to it in Metroid Dread and it’s still on my Deku Deals wishlist to get it later, but in the demo I was constantly fumbling that action even when the game was first teaching it to me, so that bothered me - and then cue the first time you run into the EMMI stuff, and I just quit out of the demo.

Now, I know later they added a difficulty option or two, and that is why it’s back on my wishlist, so some day I WILL play this as it seems like a game I’d otherwise enjoy, but there is too much coming up for me to want to get it right now. Plus I always need gift ideas for my folks around the holidays, maybe this will be a good suggestion there.

All that said, I feel the passion you have for this and I respect it. Clearly I’m missing out on something great here, so I will attempt to rectify that one day!

I picked up the game on the strength of the demo and have been playing it recently but the counters have been my biggest ‘issue’ with it overall. I’m not bad at them but I basically end up looking for the flashes more than anything else which upsets the sense of flow for me, particularly given how fluid the game feels. The first real boss has some attacks that (I think) you have to counter or else you take damage, and that felt about as good as failing to parry in a Souls game.

The finger gymnastics to fire a missile are also taking some getting used to.

I love the EMMI sections though.

I caught the very end of a Nintendo Switch commercial during a(n) (American) Football game this weekend. I was hoping they’d show it again, but if they did, I missed it again.

Looking around online, it was probably this commercial. Not bad.

Tapping into that quiet quitter market.

(Just kidding, don’t get me started on that.)