Nintendo Switch Catch-All 2.0

Stele wrote:

Nintendo web store wasn't letting me download Octopath. Apparently my ad blocker prevented the popup when I clicked the download button. Jeez.

Looking forward to playing around with it tomorrow.

Thanks for mentioning the ad blocker. Yesterday, I was messing around in the eshop website, and was getting really annoyed that I couldn't figure out how to buy digitally, or even see prices. Turns out if you have an adblocker enabled, the price and purchase buttons get hidden, and half the site functionality doesn't work. Which is SUPER WEIRD.

*watches latest nintendo direct*

yeah.. Yeah I'm pretty happy with my Switch purchase, you guys.

shoptroll wrote:

I didn't leave myself enough time to clear the demo (picked Olberic) last night but my brain is having a hard time making sense of how to effectively clear even the simplest of encounters. Like trash mobs have way too much HP to balance out the Burst mechanic. Which makes sense but it causes trash mob fights to drag out way too long.

Also in the case where I was fighting a trash mob of 2 things with Shield Level 2 I got into a rhythm of Burst x2 Attacking one of them and alternating between the two targets which pretty much stun-locked the encounter. This works great to prevent taking damage instead of focusing on a single enemy (and allowing the other to keep attacking) but it really dragged the fight out due to the bucket of HP each enemy has.

I do think the Burst mechanic is interesting, but it feels like they need to do something about the HP levels on the mobs, although I suspect this might be less of an issue once you have multiple party members. For 1v2 or 1v3 fights the balancing makes things a bit tedious.

So most of the enemies in the Olberic demo are weak to sword attacks and you have an abilities that hits everyone with a slash. The fastest way to clear an encounter is to use single attacks to keep the strongest enemy in a stun lock until you get the 4 points and do a lv. 4 burst on the whole screen.

But I do agree that you would think bursting with regular attacks should have them dead in 2 burst or something like that...but it ends up taking 5 or more depending on if it's a stronger version of the enemy or not.

I wonder how much of this stuff will be remedied when you get a party going, but until release I doubt we'll get an answer to that.

Really surprised at the negative impressions of XC2. I thought it looked absolutely stunning. And JRPG voice acting is always bad out of context in trailers and a bit better when you're actually playing the game.

I thought XC2 looked great. I like the world they created. Of course I know I won't play it because it will require 100+ hours and I never devote that much time to one game anymore but I still think it looks great.

Warriorpoet897 wrote:

Really surprised at the negative impressions of XC2. I thought it looked absolutely stunning. And JRPG voice acting is always bad out of context in trailers and a bit better when you're actually playing the game.

Agreed. This looks like a much better battle system than XC1, which was pretty lame after 10-20 hours. My interest in XC2 was incremented positively after this Direct. Might even buy it!

I also think the different factions/races have potential to be interesting. Obviously it's always lame when they're like "here are 6 different factions with different histories and prerogatives...and oh yeah there is the evil one".

I also didn't mind the narrator Titan. I kinda like him, even. Do I just have bad taste?

shoptroll wrote:
tuffalobuffalo wrote:

The battle mechanics are great. They might not be as innovative as something like Cosmic Star Heroine, but they are doing a few new things and feel quite satisfying. Died a couple times trying to figure out how everything worked on the boss fight, but realized how everything worked by the third time and finished it easily.

I didn't leave myself enough time to clear the demo (picked Olberic) last night but my brain is having a hard time making sense of how to effectively clear even the simplest of encounters. Like trash mobs have way too much HP to balance out the Burst mechanic. Which makes sense but it causes trash mob fights to drag out way too long.

Also in the case where I was fighting a trash mob of 2 things with Shield Level 2 I got into a rhythm of Burst x2 Attacking one of them and alternating between the two targets which pretty much stun-locked the encounter. This works great to prevent taking damage instead of focusing on a single enemy (and allowing the other to keep attacking) but it really dragged the fight out due to the bucket of HP each enemy has.

I do think the Burst mechanic is interesting, but it feels like they need to do something about the HP levels on the mobs, although I suspect this might be less of an issue once you have multiple party members. For 1v2 or 1v3 fights the balancing makes things a bit tedious.

So, that's what I was thinking initially. You can burst lock some of those early enemies and whittle them down slowly. Then I got to the boss and that tactic doesn't work. You have to burst stun them with whatever weapon they are weak to then follow that up with an ability which then does crazy damage. I imagine it'll get really interesting when you actually have a full party with lots of weapons and abilities to work with. It should be really fun figuring out weaknesses.

Sounds like Persona battles.

Stele wrote:

Sounds like Persona battles.

I definitely felt that there might be some influences there. Things are different enough to keep it from feeling derivative, though. There's a little bit of FF XIII feel in there too with the breaks and how you do a lot more damage after breaking an enemy.

Unfortunately, it's really hard to tell how well it will hold up over the course of many hours just from playing the demo. I think it's a lot more interesting than Bravely Default's combat or I am Setsuna's combat at least. Bravely Default's combat never clicked with me and I am Setsuna's just got very samey at a certain point.

It's also really hard for me to tell how long the full game will be. It seems like you'll actually go through and play each character, so it's possible this could be a fairly big game, especially since it's not coming out until 2018. I absolutely love the idea of 7 or 8 10-15 hour character stories that interconnect which is my hope for how it's structured. I don't want a 60 hour slog through a single story.

Yeah I loved Stories Path of Destinies.

Multiple routes that link together to form the full story

As I looked at my Steam wish list I saw Stardew Valley and I remembered I was holding off on buying it because I thought it would work better on the Switch - they didn't mention it at all. I assume it is still far away then.

It was submitted to Nintendo for testing earlier this month. It's definitely on its way to being released.

I am often baffled by the testing process.

Stardew Valley has been submitted and we don't have a release date but Xenoblade Chronices 2 does have a date. So has it been submitted for testing? Are very large developers allowed to test themselves?

I'm listening to the Axe of the Blood God podcast right now where they are talking a lot about Octopath Traveler. They both played it on the Switch screen thinking it would look better that way. While it looks good on the Switch screen, it looks stunning on a nice TV in 1080p. I was really surprised how much detail is packed in.

So, try playing it on the TV if you can, it's really hard to see all the detail on the Switch screen.

I'll have to try the second character on the main tv I played handheld as well and it still looked great.

Really wish this was coming out this year, is it getting a physical release or is it download only?

I'm debating trying bravely default now I skipped that but if it's anything like this it will be exactly what I'm looking for.

Rave wrote:

I'm debating trying bravely default now I skipped that but if it's anything like this it will be exactly what I'm looking for.

Well, it feels pretty different. There are some similarities to the battle system, though. The actual default system is kinda where that boost orb stuff comes from in Octopath.

farley3k wrote:

I am often baffled by the testing process.

Stardew Valley has been submitted and we don't have a release date but Xenoblade Chronices 2 does have a date. So has it been submitted for testing? Are very large developers allowed to test themselves?

Two things:

First, Monolith Soft is owned by Nintendo. They definitely got their hands on dev kits much earlier than the Stardew Valley dev.

Second, Japanese developers are a lot less interested in transparency. They most likely submitted for testing months ago, but didn't post on twitter about it.

Switching topics, I'm curious about Octopath Traveller. When it was announced I honestly thought it was vaporware, so I'm surprised there's already a demo. The pedigree worries me. I've given both Bravely Default games over 20 hours to win me over, but I never got over the hump with either.

Regarding Octopath Traveler

I played for about an hour last night. I really liked the Persona-esque weakness system, and the FFXIII style of break > massive damage, it was a simple but enjoyable little quirk. Hopefully they mix it up enough to carry the mechanic throughout the rest of the game.

My main uncertainty is with the 8 different characters, I'm concerned it's going to be 8 small stories. I would rather develop a party of characters over 50-something hours rather than have a clean slate every 10 or so hours. But if each character has an introduction as strong as the Dancer, I'm all in. I was shocked how adult and bleak it felt, I loathed the ringleader. I haven't felt such disgust with a villain in a long time. I'm excited to play the Warrior's introduction after work tonight.

I'm ridiculously excited to see more of this. I'm getting Final Fantasy VI vibes, and that's a very, very good thing.

Yeah that main villain was giving me a real Kefka type vibe, evil just because he can be. It was great, I'm hoping all the story's /characters are this well done.

I'm wondering if the characters come together at some point, like the separation section in FF6 as a larger plot is revealed. It looked like the two main characters appeared in a party together in the trailer though maybe I'm wrong. If all these are all just individual stories set in the same world that could be really interesting as well, I don't think I've played an jrpg with that as the story telling device since Uncharted Waters: New Horizons.

garion333 wrote:
shoptroll wrote:

That doesn't preclude there being a DLC pack with it

That's true, except if they didn't do it for XCX I doubt they'll do it for XC2.

I feel like Japanese VO DLC became a lot more common after XCX's launch. We'll see

Dyni wrote:
BNice wrote:

Pretty surprising that Bethesda is so in on the Switch.

Yeah. I figured it'd just be Skyrim because at this rate, Skyrim is going to be playable on Roku within a year.

My guess is this is part of Bethesda's attempt to try and break into the Japanese market. They've had some luck with Skyrim on PS3 (250k copies) but it looks like PS4's comparatively anemic install base might be hampering their efforts this generation. Switch is currently selling at roughly 2x the rate of PS4 right now and that's largely due to constrained supply. Getting their games in early means there's less competition and they can benefit from a long tail strategy as the install base grows.

Rave wrote:

I'm wondering if the characters come together at some point, like the separation section in FF6 as a larger plot is revealed. It looked like the two main characters appeared in a party together in the trailer though maybe I'm wrong. If all these are all just individual stories set in the same world that could be really interesting as well, I don't think I've played an jrpg with that as the story telling device since Uncharted Waters: New Horizons.

Generally speaking, in this style of JRPG the individual characters (or some sub-set) come together eventually to form a single party.

I'm expecting a 20-40 hour playthrough with the game encouraging additional replays via different party compositions.

farley3k wrote:

I am often baffled by the testing process.

Stardew Valley has been submitted and we don't have a release date but Xenoblade Chronices 2 does have a date. So has it been submitted for testing? Are very large developers allowed to test themselves?

Release dates have nothing to do with the testing process. There's a self-created obligation to make sure you are out of testing before your release date, but that date itself is completely arbitrary. Some people choose to announce and market it, some people choose to wait until they're sure it's releasable and then say.

temptings...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/IFKFcuQ.jpg)

Bubblefuzz wrote:

temptings...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/IFKFcuQ.jpg)

I'm holding out hope for a holiday Zelda bundle.

billt721 wrote:
Bubblefuzz wrote:

temptings...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/IFKFcuQ.jpg)

I'm holding out hope for a holiday Zelda bundle.

With a Classic Link Green joycon and a Tri-Force Yellow joycon?

After saying I would never use it I've been really digging the Switch in handheld mode, I'd even say it makes the joycons less annoying to use. I'm not sure if it's the more set position that makes the directional buttons easier to get at but I'm feeling some sort of improvement over using them free hand, saying that the motion control probably feels better holding them individually.

I'm growing accustomed to holding the handheld, I've got a case ordered as when I take it to work or I go to town on the bus I take my big bag with me & wrap the Switch in a shirt so the screen doesn't get damaged.

I've been playing Zelda a good bit & despite the smaller screen size & drop in resolution it looks excellent.

Is there any accessories you all would recommend? I particularly would love a good pair of thumb grips for the analogue sticks.

I can tell you that the grips you can get for the PS4/Xbone are not really Switch compatible. The Switch sticks are a bit smaller then the other two, so the grips float around a bit. You could probably use them, but I wound up taking mine off (which was fine because I'd gotten a second PS4 controller anyway).

Spikeout wrote:

I've been playing Zelda a good bit & despite the smaller screen size & drop in resolution it looks excellent.

Not sure if it's since been patched, but at launch Zelda actually played a lot better in handheld mode. The resolution drop is unnoticeable since the screen is small and the FPS is higher in handheld mode.

I'd buy a set of those joy cons. Hopefully they sell them seperately.

Free wrote:
Spikeout wrote:

I've been playing Zelda a good bit & despite the smaller screen size & drop in resolution it looks excellent.

Not sure if it's since been patched, but at launch Zelda actually played a lot better in handheld mode. The resolution drop is unnoticeable since the screen is small and the FPS is higher in handheld mode.

Yeah it's sharp cause of the screen size, I always forget about resolution scaling better to smaller screens.

I think with patches Nintendo pretty much got the frame rate sorted on the undocked mode to be a consistent 30fps.

One other question can you charge the Switch via USB without needing the dock?

Spikeout wrote:

One other question can you charge the Switch via USB without needing the dock?

Yep.