Developers on 3DS did a good job of making text legible on the small screen. Developers on Switch do a terrible job making sure text is legible on anything other than an HDTV. I had to play all of Three Houses on the TV because the text was so small in handheld even on a standard Switch. The Lite is much worse.
I had no such readability issues, personally, but this is definitely something that can vary from person to person.
There is a super awkward zoom option since version 8 of the system or something. Pressâsome button combination and a zoom window will appear.
Itâs a slight concession to us dotards, but besides developers giving a damn about font size, it is the only workaround.
Well, excepting an actual magnifying lens, that might work too.
I smell a business opportunity!
The extra light will be a tough sale, or you might claim it will give OLED performance to the older screensâŚ
It seems like even if you had no plans on using it docked the standard switch would still be the way to go unless cost is a major concern. One, just on the off chance that playing in docked mode is a possibility (so many great multiplayer games on Switch that are fantastic played on the couch). And two, as others have said, if thereâs an issue with the joy consânot just joy con drift or failure, but if, say, you donât like the button layout or the d-pad (which many say is not optimal for certain kinds of games)âyou can switch them out for a different model.
Also, the catalogue of games on the Switch is fantastic so I donât think quality of games is a problem. It might take some research to find something that appeals to you and the Switch store is not presented that well to help you discover new games the way Steam is, but with a little research that shouldnât be too much of issue. Itâs easily the best game console ever released, and I was never an especially big Nintendo guy prior to it.
Fire Emblem is pretty text heavy, and most of it is voiced, but Iâm not sure itâs entirely appropriate or even interesting for a four-year-old. But yeah, now that you mention it, I canât really think of any other first-party Nintendo series that feature a decent amount of text or spoken dialogue. Maybe Paper Mario/Mario RPG?
I havenât had issues with text legibility in handheld mode, but Iâd still never recommend a Lite as your only Switch, due to all the great couch multiplayer games that youâd lose access to, and because youâd be stuck with the built-in controls.
As you mentioned, first-party Nintendo games are expensive. If youâre already looking at buying, say, 5 of them plus the system, itâs not cheap. You can think of it as comparing $500 vs. $650 to have a much nicer screen in handheld mode and the flexibility to play on the TV or swap out the controls, which benefit all of those games plus whatever else you buy down the road. If the priority is saving money, you might be better off just hunting through bargain bins for the best of whatever you missed on 3DS.
I have a lite as my only switch. Itâs awesome.
The smaller form factor is nice if you use it as a mobile console. I havenât had any problems with text on it and I have terrible eyes and progressive lenses.
Youâre cheating!
So⌠if anyone else runs into the âjoycon not working when attachedâ issueâŚ
The official fixes that worked a few times in the past did not work any more.
But I docked my Switch for the first time in an age to play it⌠and the joycon was fine afterward. Might be coincidence, no idea.
Yeah, I suspect youâre right. Now my status just says âDelayedâ.
Phew, more procrastination from me. Iâm relieved.
I got the Switch Lite as a follow-up to the 3DS (since there likely wonât ever by another Nintendo dedicated handheld), so only think of it as a handheld console. Iâm mostly playing single player games, lots of RPGs, so donât really care that much about multiplayer.
While I do wish developers would consider proper text/menu scaling in their Switch games, knowing full well they will also be played handheld, there have only been a few games that have really bothered me, so far.
Heck, I wish developers would have flexible text scaling on every platform. Iâve never had an issue on Switch (6" screen held 18" away from eyes is probably roughly equivalent to a 32" TV at typical couch distance).
But I have a 42" TV that I use while on an exercise bike, and there are all sorts of games that just barely miss being legible from across the garage. It wouldnât take much of a boost to make them work fine, but few support scaling.
This seems like a spectacularly simple thing to do, and yes itâs unfathomable that developers donât have this available as an option.
From my limited experience with fluid/flexible/elastic web design and just general experience with graphic design and how minute size changes can throw whole layouts off, Iâd say in the context of games itâs probably a huge headache. Keeping things tidy visually is one thing, but increasing the size of text will increase the space needed for descriptions which in some cases will necessitate scrolling and additional inputs. If you need to compare things then screen space becomes an issue. Some UIs are very tight/rigid before increasing the size of certain elements so thatâs another potential problem with no easy fix.
I think with the Switch and soon the Steam Deck, decent scaling will steadily become more widespread but it doesnât seem to me like an easy thing to do retrospectively. Iâm not a developer though!! :-)
Youâre correct. There can also be technical issues associated with font scaling - you canât just scale up the texture and get something readable. You usually have to render out the font at a higher point size. Depending on the tech in use that may or may not be a simple thing to do.
Yeah, that was something I was going to mention but Iâve no idea how game engines treat text and icons ie. raster or vector.
Grim Dawn scales its font on PC, and man, it looks really ugly. But I still scale it up so I can read things. Sometimes Iâm jealous when I look at other peopleâs screenshots though.
âOh man, how come your Grim Dawn looks so much nicer than mine?â
Itâs not trivial, but a lot of what you need to do to make text scaling possible overlaps with what you have to do to support additional languages anyway, since you canât guarantee that a given block of text will take up the same amount of screen space once itâs translated. Whatever container youâre using to present text to the player should be designed to handle an arbitrary amount of text, via scrolling or pagination.
Obviously that doesnât apply to fixed interface elements, where scaling gets more complex because they can bump into one another. But the vast majority of issues Iâve had arenât with static elements, but with dialogue boxes, card text, help text, and the like.