Nintendo Switch Game Recommendations

We have joined the latest gaming platform, but don't have many games yet.

Zelda, of course; have not played it much.

Untitled Goose Game - fun, silly, and harder than you think it would be. We finished the main game and are going to do the bonus rounds.

At some point we will pick up a mario kart because of course you need that.

Any good multiplayer games? We have rocket league on the ps4 already.

I’m out of the loop, but Splatoon 2 had good buzz.

I don’t know how much this thread contributed, but I had a sudden urge to get a Switch.

The ancient Nintendo collection is what’s driving it.

Had a chopsocky nostalgia night. Final Fight, Knights of the Round, and River City Ransom.

So it's worth checking out these ancient ports then! :D

That’s actually a hard question to answer. :)

The unambiguous good thing about these bundles is quantity of games. If one isn’t holding your attention, here’s a bunch more which might. Let your ADHD tendencies have free rein.

From there, it gets a little more dicey. They’re a museum of 20th century video games. Well worth the price of admission if that’s something you geek out about, but probably not if it’s not calling to you as much or more than what 2020 has to offer.

Got some time on my hands, so I picked up BotW.

I like it. It’s clearly well done.

OMG does it start out sloooooooooow. I played all day yesterday and still feel like I’m in the tutorial.

Agreed...

we picked up Luigi's Mansion for the pandemic home time, and borrowed mario kart for a while. Mario kart is just better than all other racing games. We have some for PS4 that are just not as fun.

I’ve been eying that, because I’ve had a sudden itch* for a racer.

I’m torn between that, and something more where you twiddle around with real cars.


*I think what I’m really looking for is Wipeout, which is F-Zero in the Nintendoverse.

It’s picked up a bit, I’m out of the tutorial zone at least, but I’m getting my ass kicked a lot.

I dislike weapon breakage.

Hunting is fun, though, so I’m looking forward to some grinding today.

Decided to figure out the cooking system via experimentation instead of guides.

Maybe tomorrow I will start BoW myself. I've mostly watched the kid play. Not as exciting as Horizon Zero Dawn, but fun.

Watching the kid play luigi's mansion is not that interesting... too easy looking? We're going to unlock the extra 2 player levels.

Animal crossing, I didn't think much of it (cute animals = little kids game) but reviews are good?

Oh... I had the original Animal Crossing. Don’t let the style put you off.

It was brilliant. Exactly the type of game which makes Nintendo what it is.

Have you seen/played Stardew Valley?

Older kid had that on DS, I think?

That may have been something else. I don’t think that was ported to the DS.

Take a look at the Stardew Valley page on the Switch store and see if it grabs you or the fam. It’s an idyllic “life simulator” on a farm. If you’ve seen or heard of Harvest Moon, it’s cut from the same cloth, but adds a bajillion more things to do.

Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing are very different, but they’re both aiming at the same place, which is why I brought it up as a point of reference.

Stardew Valley is easier to understand at a glance. It’s “Sim Farm”.

Animal crossing is like, I dunno... offline Second Life? It’s not really quite a game in the traditional sense. It’s a place you visit for awhile each day. Unlike in a normal sim game, time isn’t accelerated. If you want to catch the fish that only appears at night, it has to be night in real life.

An unfair comparison is it plays a little like a mobile game you can only play for a bit and then have to wait awhile before going back. It’s not trying to jack real money out of you though, which is a key difference in how that shakes out.

Splatoon 2 is pretty fun. Fortnite, if you're into that sort of thing...

Still waiting on the new controllers.

Fired up Animal Crossing. I’m only kinda half liking it. The “play for awhile each day” isn’t really the game I’m looking for right now.

It’s gorgeous. Does a great job of taking GameCube era 2.5D and giving it a high-def mirror polish.

It doesn’t play the same at all, but for whatever reason the game keeps making me think of a low-key Viva Piñata.

After pushing it near the absolute maximum you can play it in one day, I realized Stardew Valley might be more the game I’m looking for, and impulse purchased.

Playing SV for an hour, that definitely seems the case, but the graphics are “pixelated mess” retro, and the UI is an absolute disaster.



A funny aside about Animal Crossing is how much of it feels like Zelda. Your “weapons” break. You catch dragonflies and fish. You harvest apples.

Warming up a bit to AC, but there’s not much to do at the moment other than grind for in-game currency.

I just can’t with Stardew Valley. It’s like, DOS ugly.

Eventide Island nearly had me rage-quit. I liked the idea of "start over with nothing" challenge, but not being able to save... led to several heartbreaking just-about-to- finish deaths. The giant's healthbar resetting if you go out of range seemed like an fu from the developers.

That was a shrine I noped out of immediately.

Now that I’ve put a few days in it, I’m enjoying Animal Crossing. I’m noodling up a review, or more precisely an attempt to explain just what the hell the game actually is.

First attempt:

(Hunting + Crafting + Interior Decorating)/Hello Kitty




Edit: and to give an idea of how glacially chill the pace of this game is, most critters you hunt are seasonal. This means waiting months of real time if you “gotta catch ‘em all”.

Attempt two...

Beachcomber: Hipster Furry Edition



Joycon Pro arrived! Almost positive it had gotten swiped. Charging now.

I caught a fish once that was this big.

https://imgur.com/5jTiW1T.jpg

nice!

I progressed into the fish people world, and earned some swimming armor.

I have a very annoying memory of that part.

There’s a guy sitting at a fire who tells you the basic lay of the land.

He says the island you need to find to get to the Zora is east.

It’s west, and I spent hours trying to find the eastern island.

Hit the wooden fish Animal Crossing wall hard, so I’m picking up Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a/k/a XCOMario. That XCOM 2 for the Switch is coming out soon is what gave me the bug.

The original XCOM is one of my favorite games of all time, and I like the new one a lot, but they’re both very stressful. I’m hoping the cartoon nature of this eases it off a bit.

Finished the first world. I don’t think I’ve played enough of the game to form a solid opinion, but I can make the following observations.

It is indeed, far less stressful than XCOM.

It’s very well done.

Rabbid Peach is one of the best video game characters ever.



Ever.

Five words.

RC cars rigged with explosives.

Today, Bioshock, Borderlands, and XCOM2 were released.

Word on the first two is they’re good ports, but the hardware can’t handle XCOM2.

They’re all kinda huge downloads.

The first two are tempting because I never played them. Bioshock especially. The thing is, I’m only marginally into FPSes. Too twitch.

I feel like I have similar games on ps4 if I want FPS post-apocalypse/dystopian space action.

LEGO City Undercover is amazing and super fun. It's a GTA-styled open-world game with a linear storyline plus a lot of little side jobs and 100% completion type things. The voice acting is really good, and the plot isn't too bad for an all-ages video game.

Also Yoshi's Crafted World is a fun one. The graphics are really great.

I only played some of the LEGO Star Wars stuff ages ago, but thought they were fantastic.

I didn’t know there was a GTA style one. That sounds like a great idea.

We were just saying we missed those lego games.

(actual quote when discussing rewatching the star wars saga, and in which order: You know which version of the prequels is best? Lego Star Wars. None of the romance, all of the Obiwan.")

It's hilarious - when you run over people, they fall over and then get back up. There's all kinds of funny things random NPCs will say as they're walking around town. You don't carjack...instead, you're a cop, so you can just take cars as needed.

All the cities you visit are little microcosms of real places - San Francisco, Miami, Chinatown, etc. I wish the world was bigger, but it took me like six days of nonstop gameplay to complete it, so it'll last you awhile if you aren't unemployed and playing vidya games all day...

Five words.

Princess Peach with a shotgun.

We tried Mario Rabbids and so far I think the verdict is meh. Still doing the training levels though.

Do you think it’s this type of game, or the implementation?

I’m definitely biased because like I mentioned, the 90s XCOM is one of my top 5 games of all time.

I feel it picks up once you get Luigi, who has a bunch of movement skills and a sniper rifle.

Smash Bros is indeed fun, although I suck at it.

I know I said I’m not playing games right now, but during these long stretches in the desert I tide myself over by imagining playing games. :)

I tend to really dislike fighting games, but I know Nintendo often has unique takes on old standards. Does this have some secret sauce?

Each character has different moves, so each battle has more opportunities to be different. That said, it is a button-masher.

Has one stuck out to you as a favorite?

Not yet. The kid likes Samus.

Has anyone played A Short Hike?

I picked up Unravelled 2 for $5 which looks like it might be light fun.

I’m finally feeling the pull of vidya again, but I have no idea what to play.

I’m afraid of loading up AC, because everyone on the island is going to yell at me.

I’d like to get back into Kingdom Battle, but with that I feel like I’ve forgotten all the nuances of playing. Both in terms of strategy, and just what button does what.

Well, there's no rule saying you have to chat with the island peeps. Just go have fun finding all the sea life!

We haven't been playing AC much lately. Briefly checked in around Halloween for the cool decor etc.

Haven't been playing zelda either.

What has been getting play? Old wii mario kart, kirby, and ... Minecraft.

In the “old” department, I’m eyeing the Super Mario 64/Sunshine/Galaxy bundle.

Finally gave in, but decided to dip even farther back into the archives and play River City Ransom. Never played it back in the day, so there’s no nostalgia involved, but for years I’ve been hearing it’s one of the best NES games.

Well, the one nostalgia aspect is I’m using the NES controller and Christ... my button thumb hurts. :)

It’s hard to tell if I’m playing it right without a manual, but it seems like it has grinding, which I’ve never seen in a beat-em-up before. I love grinding, and I love beat-em-ups, so it’s got a lot going for it.

So far, the gameplay loop is,

1) Beat the shit out of people with 2x4s, bicycle chains, and trash cans. Don’t worry, they had it coming.
2) Take their money.
3) Use money for waffles and sushi.

Ha.

I'm eying a few games for christmas shopping. LInk's awakening, minecraft dungeons (because microsoft won't release it for mac java, boo). They are for the kids. Yes, the kids.

I feel like Link’s Awakening is on sale now.

What’s kept me from it is literally every Zelda game I’ve played other than BotW I got hung-up at some point and couldn’t go any farther without a guide. Usually pretty early, too.

Even though I was enjoying River City Ransom, the call of Super Mario All-Stars was too alluring.

Now I’ve got to wait 20 minutes for it to download. :mad:

Okay, here’s something I didn’t expect to have happen.

Got All-Stars going. Each game has an attract screen, which is just snippets of game play.

I felt completely overwhelmed by each one. They all seemed like, way the hell too complicated.

Suddenly the simplicity of beating people with a bike chain and eating waffles was a lot more appealing than I thought it was. Same with a controller that’s just two buttons and a D-pad.

Link's awakening was on sale. I changed my mind after reading some reviews. So I didn't buy anything.

Mario all stars looked good, but I didn't read far. We have so many side scrollers that they don't seem unique any more.