The Nintendo Switch

at least the one i played felt pretty generic vis-a-vis atmosphere/design :/

also videogames’ greatest metaphor for recovering from depression imo xp

I think the straight faced spooky fantasy look is really what kept me from being interested in it all this time, it just has a really generic video game look to it

Dark Souls is fucking WEIRD, man. like i get how the surface is all Dungeons and Dragons and Knights, but its a strange and foreboding and lonely game that you unwrap. Super unique.

xxp

bloodborne has a more original look (and some genuinely weird and unsettling stuff in it) if that’s what you’re after

also, re dark souls’ difficulty: you have infinite lives!

I prefer easy games. Well, I like challenging games, up until I plateau and can’t get any further, then I want a way to turn it down a notch so I can proceed. Dark Souls was fun until I got to a certain point where maybe I could have proceeded after trying it 1000 times, but I was just done by then.

I have Dark Souls on 360 but I've never gotten into it because the threads on it are so forbidding. like, it sounds like you have to be very careful in how you use extremely scarce resources, and that sounds horribly stressful for me. like, how can I learn from my mistakes if I can't redo how I use those resources? ugh.

it’s def not reliant on resource management in that sense - the only thing at stake is losing your collected souls after you die and don’t get back to where you died to pick them up again

but you can always collect more souls, so really you’re not losing anything apart from time

aaaaaand when you reach a really tough spot you can usually summon another player to help

i think for games with a significant combat element, there is a relationship between how good the combat system is and how hard you want the game to be. if you have a varied and strategic combat system you will get more out of it if you are presented with more of a challenge (relative to your own ability/comfort level). i think one of the few failings of witcher 3 was that they did a really nice job with the potion/decoctions/oils system and it was essentially wasted as they was never any need to really go deep on them even on hard.

i really believe the souls games would be intrinsically worse if they were easier - ppl got mad at the idea of them adding an easier setting when it was proposed and i am def not like that, i think that every game should have the option of a slider, but i do think the appeal of the game would be sufficiently lessened that you might as well play something else, which is fine there are plenty of games.

also, i always think back to dead space and how that really clicked with me when i increased the difficulty and was suddenly scrambling for ammo and on edge - any type of 'survival' game is a special category wrt this.

i do think my parenthetical disclaimer is important tho, it's not about whether you are playing on easy or hard setting but the challenge of the game as you personally experience it.

right it's those collected souls...it always sounded like you'd wasted a lot of time if you died and lost them, and that you would die a lot, and so you could waste a lot of time, and I hate wasting time in games (like games with unskippable cutscenes right before a really hard battle, the absolute worst)

An important Dark Souls lesson is that souls don't really matter. While it's a good idea to use them after a big windfall (like winning a boss fight), you can always get more. The real progression is in getting better and playing the game and learning the mechanics...it's more important than spending souls on levels or upgrades, and only really happens through dying and then trying a different approach.

ok cool I will try it again...maybe on switch this time...

jordan otm

i am also pretty intimidated by what I've heard about the Souls games, but I have Demon's Souls on my PS3 still waiting for me to crack open.
Adam's comment about TLOZ/Zelda makes me more likely to do this though (but I'll admit Mega Man 1 was on the side of insanely frustrating for me, and I've only beaten Contra without the 30-life code a couple times).

hate wasting time in games

I have some very bad news for you about: games

his favorite game is Turbo Tax

I suspect I’ve said this before, but the key for me is whether the game itself is fun: if I enjoyed the time spent. I remember that the point at which I realised that the 30-level cave in Wind Waker was actually a 50-level cave, and I was delighted, was the point where I realised it was a properly great game.

And I get that’s what a lot of people love about DS, that they really get into the Guard - Turn - Parry - Dodge - Spin - Thrust, but is suspect I’d be more oh Jesus this guy again I’m terrified.

That said I’m totally getting Shovel Knight when I get a Switch.

I have some very bad news for you about: games

lol

Can the Switch play online in portable mode?

Yeah, no cell obvi but WiFi works in portable mode

tether that shit to yr phone and pwn n00bs in starbucks imo

wait starbucks has wifi

pwn n00bs at the beach imo

And I get that’s what a lot of people love about DS, that they really get into the Guard - Turn - Parry - Dodge - Spin - Thrust, but is suspect I’d be more oh Jesus this guy again I’m terrified.

heh you have to connect the second part of your sentence to the first, that's where the magic is. the memories of OH SHIT NO WAY I AM FIGHTING THAT and then a few hours later you are rolling thru hits and decimating them. Dark Souls has great presentation here (one reason the standard fantasy stuff is so more impressive) of rolling out bosses, new areas, enemies, etc. the combat/fighting and world exploring is intricately tied. exploring the world is at least 50% of it for me.

xpost i agree w Nhex Mega Man 1 is a hard as heck game + Contra needs the 30 lives code. but they are not impossible!

DS can also be broken down into lots of smaller action/puzzle segments, where you need to decide if you're going to methodically draw out one enemy at a time (because avoiding groups is a huge part of the game), go in like a martial arts movie, or just run past everything without getting caught.

WiFi works in portable mode

Heh, there will probably a new generation of invaders complaining about Starbucks wifi lag.

lol but not all games are a waste of time! or if they are, fine, but within my time wasting I don’t want to waste time!

at the risk of being a fanboy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN-rVlMIJZs

After lurking on this board for a while, I succumbed and bought one of these today. It's arriving tomorrow with Zelda and MarioKart and some steering wheels. If there are any good games for a lazy person and his partner, would love to know!

wait starbucks has wifi

pwn n00bs at the beach imo

― pee-wee and the power men (bizarro gazzara), Friday, January 12, 2018 1:51 PM (twenty-three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Wasn't online but when I first got my Switch last spring I was playing Mario Kart on the beach in Antigua. That's when I knew I'd made it. My wife read some dumb boring paper book.

welcome to the cult family Chuck

evan u are my hero

i mostly just use the portability to play in bed

I use it to play in the room where my son is watching pj masks

I'm using the portability to play during my breaks at work for the most part. Playing in transit makes me motion sick. Playing in bed feels decadent and disagrees with my Protestant work ethic or something.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-01-11-the-pitch-that-convinced-miyamoto-to-back-mario-rabbids

I'm at the point where i really wanna try this now

I tried it out (my friend who works for Ubisoft gave me a copy). I thought it was pretty cool, and that it would be right up my wife's alley, but she didn't dig it. I have a trip next week, and I think I'll give it a go.

Looks like Dark Souls will be $40 on Switch, which is what I wish more of these double/triple/quadruple dips would do. $60 for, say, Doom is super-steep for a reissue, let alone one with some reported performance issues/compromises.

Ehhh, Dark Souls and Doom not really comparable in that respect. 2011 game vs a 2016 game and it’s kind of a miracle that Doom can run on the system at all.

Though I guess Skyrim is looking like 60? That’s questionable, but ppl will absolutely pay for it.

Whether people will pay is another matter. Doom on PC is $15. Doom on PS4 is $25. Doom on Switch is $60. That's a big difference to pay for portable. Skyrim looks like it is about $20 more for Switch, too.

since folks are talking about shovel knight's old-school difficulty, i do want to mention that shovel knight also has old-school cheat codes, about a billion of them.

xp to Josh

I think a lot of that pricing is due to the novelty of it being a current-ish FPS (only FPS on Switch I think?) that nobody thought the system was capable of even running. Maybe is too high, but I don’t count it in the same category as DS.

The novelty can in theory justify the price, but given reported performance issues, or at least compromises, the price should be dropped.

Re: Shovel Knight, rather than cheat, per se, along with getting better I realized I can just play the first (easy) level again a couple of extra times to accumulate some quick cash. Upgrades have helped beat a couple of the tougher later bits, though I still think the second level (grim reaper boss?) is a significant enough incline in difficulty that the subsequent stages haven't seemed so bad.

itt: josh gits gud

£50-60 for skyrim is unacceptable imo. I'm sorely tempted by it as an idea (had it on 360 but never even got close to finishing iirc, would definitely replay) but I'm not paying north of 50 quid for a port of a 6 year old game. Especially not when I can download it for free on my laptop if I choose to do so.

Idk maybe people are paying those prices? Seems like bullshit to me

All legacy ports on the Sony and MS systems eventually drop hard in price, hoping this is the case with the Switch ports eventually. Probably not, but I'm still gonna hope.

Playing Shovel Knight for the first time cuz of this thread (just the latest installment, Specter of Torment) and man it’s really fun. Nice middle of the road level of challenge IMO. After 4 levels anyway.

Nintendo’s first corporate commandment is “protect the selling price of our games forever”. This gives cover for “old” games to command premium price on their platforms, even from third parties. So yeah, people are paying full price for Skyrim on Switch.

i'm kind of amazed that games aren't $80+ at this point. i remember buying street fighter II turbo for $70 back when it came out.

Yeah, that’s a constant source of amazement for me. Even NES games were like 50 bucks, right? Surprised my parents shelled out for that shit back in the day.