Nintendo Switch Thread

[Polident Hive]

Potential size of the game is a little daunting. With BOTW, must’ve put an embarrassing amount of time into it on one playthough. Just south of 100 hours. Four days of my life. Didn’t even go for 100% collecting seeds for the poop.

Nintendo is pulling out all the stops
https://twitter.com/helene_lareine/status/1655979235138318337

What a wild ride, from BOTW DLC to a 30s clip, to 10 minutes of gameplay to a 3 minute trailer to possibly the biggest and best (Zelda) game of all time.

Literally today: walk to train station, see ads in the street. Ads plastered around the station. Playing the commercial on the train. Get off train, see statue of Link with glowing arm. Any store with a screen or monitor is playing the final trailer on loop. Can’t escape it.

[Nintex]

I like how the ad is literally like

Dear Salary man, you have to take the bus because you had to sell your car
The outside world is bleak and dreary
You come home late and your wife goes to bed early with a headache
The only thing your stomach can still handle is a glass of water
Your plants are dead

BUT there's a bright new adventure waiting for you to escape from the real world on the big ass TV you bought for movies you never have time to watch
Even though you will completely suck at it, it will brighten up your day and you can even play it on the bus.



I feel like this game could have the Post Pandemic effect for games that Top Gun: Maverick had for movies.
The one game everyone has been waiting for. Not a remake, classic beloved IP, no micro-transactions/GaaS shit, stable performance and a 10/10 experience.


The shipping for the Amiibo showed up in my Postal services app. Now we wait for the CE to finish 'processing' and 'preparing for shipping' 

[MMaRsu]

https://www.nintendo.co.uk/News/2023/May/Ask-the-Developer-Vol-9-The-Legend-of-Zelda-Tears-of-the-Kingdom-Chapter-3-2383821.html

Aonuma:
It was just my natural response when playing The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Like, "Man, I want to dig a hole right here". (Laughs)

Everyone:
(Laughs)

Imagine that if nothing had leaked this would be the first time we learned this game has HUGE dungeons. 

Takizawa:
Making a "wide variety" was pretty challenging. The four Divine Beasts were the dungeons in the last game, and they shared similar designs. This time, the dungeons are huge and each carry their own regional look and feel, just like traditional The Legend of Zelda games. We think they will provide a satisfying challenge for players. They were certainly a challenge to develop! (Laughs)

It does? 

spoiler (click to show/hide)

To be fair I only have done the Water Temple so far and it wasnt that big, nor was it a temple or a dungeon. But it was pretty damn cool.

[close]

[Svejk]

That was a depressing ass commercial. Jesus.  Not the Zelda feels I was searching for. 

[Nintex]

That was a depressing ass commercial. Jesus.  Not the Zelda feels I was searching for.

It was probably directed by Aonuma personally because he's the master in creating this kind of melancholy. I expect they will touch on the pandemic in one of the next interviews.

[MMaRsu]

This post on gaf was spot on about the dungeons

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[There are barely any enemies in any of them that I've seen. It's much more a series of small puzzles you can tackle in any order. Again, just like the Divine Beasts were.

One dungeon is mostly based around using trampolines to fly around and icicles to attach to things as levers. Another is based on using mine carts to go up/down levels while you shoot switches to change the tracks. Another is just a big open area in the sky with some water pools in it.

There's like... a black bokoblin or two in there? Some blue chuchus, if I recall?

Worst part is that because they don't know which dungeon you'll do when, they replay the same cutscene at you every time you beat one - and it's a long one. Yes, the companion changes, but it's almost word-for-word the same.

But on the other hand, they DO fit in with the world around them, they ARE elemental themed, and there are classic Zelda bosses that DO reward you with heart containers. For a lot of people that might be enough. It's not like the Divine Beasts where they even looked like the basic shrines. But if you're someone who can analyze game design, you'll easily see that they're just the Divine Beast-style dungeons in fancier clothes.

EDIT: I will say this, the *approaches* to each dungeon are pretty fucking cool, and if you consider them part of the overall experience then that elevates things a lot. It's just linear platforming and puzzle solving on a treacherous route to the dungeon itself, whether in the sky or underground, but it's fun as hell./quote]

[close]

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1656373704979369987

[Svejk]

This post on gaf was spot on about the dungeons

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[There are barely any enemies in any of them that I've seen. It's much more a series of small puzzles you can tackle in any order. Again, just like the Divine Beasts were.

One dungeon is mostly based around using trampolines to fly around and icicles to attach to things as levers. Another is based on using mine carts to go up/down levels while you shoot switches to change the tracks. Another is just a big open area in the sky with some water pools in it.

There's like... a black bokoblin or two in there? Some blue chuchus, if I recall?

Worst part is that because they don't know which dungeon you'll do when, they replay the same cutscene at you every time you beat one - and it's a long one. Yes, the companion changes, but it's almost word-for-word the same.

But on the other hand, they DO fit in with the world around them, they ARE elemental themed, and there are classic Zelda bosses that DO reward you with heart containers. For a lot of people that might be enough. It's not like the Divine Beasts where they even looked like the basic shrines. But if you're someone who can analyze game design, you'll easily see that they're just the Divine Beast-style dungeons in fancier clothes.

EDIT: I will say this, the *approaches* to each dungeon are pretty fucking cool, and if you consider them part of the overall experience then that elevates things a lot. It's just linear platforming and puzzle solving on a treacherous route to the dungeon itself, whether in the sky or underground, but it's fun as hell./quote]

[close]

Please answer me this.. in the shrines and/or wherever shrine/dungeon like places, can you actually grab ledges and pull yourself up?

[james]

[Kevtones]

Any word on the Famitsu score?

[Potato]

Any word on the Famitsu score?

It's Famitsu, just make up some numbers and add bonus for moneyhats

[bork]

Any word on the Famitsu score?

Do we need review scores for this?  It's gonna get high marks everywhere even if it were somehow complete shit.  The only thing noteworthy would be someone giving an average score and actually meaning it instead of just looking for clicks/views.

[james]

I'm giving it a 7 on account of the price

[Potato]

I'm giving it a 7 on account of the price

Dunno what you guys are complaining about. I paid AU$74 from Amazon, which is about US$49. That's total price including sales taxes.

[archnemesis]

I bought Zelda with a game voucher. Then it's the same price as other first-party games.

[MMaRsu]

This post on gaf was spot on about the dungeons

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[There are barely any enemies in any of them that I've seen. It's much more a series of small puzzles you can tackle in any order. Again, just like the Divine Beasts were.

One dungeon is mostly based around using trampolines to fly around and icicles to attach to things as levers. Another is based on using mine carts to go up/down levels while you shoot switches to change the tracks. Another is just a big open area in the sky with some water pools in it.

There's like... a black bokoblin or two in there? Some blue chuchus, if I recall?

Worst part is that because they don't know which dungeon you'll do when, they replay the same cutscene at you every time you beat one - and it's a long one. Yes, the companion changes, but it's almost word-for-word the same.

But on the other hand, they DO fit in with the world around them, they ARE elemental themed, and there are classic Zelda bosses that DO reward you with heart containers. For a lot of people that might be enough. It's not like the Divine Beasts where they even looked like the basic shrines. But if you're someone who can analyze game design, you'll easily see that they're just the Divine Beast-style dungeons in fancier clothes.

EDIT: I will say this, the *approaches* to each dungeon are pretty fucking cool, and if you consider them part of the overall experience then that elevates things a lot. It's just linear platforming and puzzle solving on a treacherous route to the dungeon itself, whether in the sky or underground, but it's fun as hell./quote]

[close]

Please answer me this.. in the shrines and/or wherever shrine/dungeon like places, can you actually grab ledges and pull yourself up?

Shrines no

Dungeons sure

But what I dislike is the 'ability' you get for completing them. They were cool in BOTW here its just meh.

[Nintex]

I bought the CE which is actually cheaper than the BOTW CE and TWWHD CE.

[Polident Hive]

With regards to abilities, well, I’ll phrase it like this: in BOTW I didn’t do the beasts until later on, only to discover abilities they grant make traversal easier. Is it like that again? Is it best to complete the current thing you stumble upon ASAP? Natural instinct in these games is to go left when the arrow points right.

[MMaRsu]

With regards to abilities, well, I’ll phrase it like this: in BOTW I didn’t do the beasts until later on, only to discover abilities they grant make traversal easier. Is it like that again? Is it best to complete the current thing you stumble upon ASAP? Natural instinct in these games is to go left when the arrow points right.

I must say I only have the one done, so I cant speak to all of them. But what I've heard is that there are basically no 'abilities' that you unlock. Which is why it sucks because I really want revali's gale

[Polident Hive]

Haven’t read reviews but the gist seems to be the typical best game of all time since the last best game of all time (elden ring)



The day one patch keeps it reasonably close to 30 fps. The ultra hand thingy takes it down. At least moment to moment it’s better than pre-release impressions of prolonged 20 fps moments.

[Nintex]

My god brehs

https://twitter.com/Open_Critic/status/1656632162681233408

[Svejk]

Reviews are up. Sitting at 97 MC. Big shocker.  All the ones I've read all sound like the same journo schlock.  Not sure why I waste my time reading them.

[bork]

Reviews are up. Sitting at 97 MC. Big shocker.  All the ones I've read all sound like the same journo schlock.  Not sure why I waste my time.

[Svejk]

My Amazon currently shows arriving tomorrow by 11pm.   

[Nintex]

My boi vooks

https://twitter.com/VOOK64/status/1656630975663849473

[MMaRsu]

RE: Dungeons and whats in them

The dungeons are mostly filled with the construct dudes

The bosses are bland and easy they actually make me appreciate the Ganon blights from a design perspective.

And they follow the exact same formula from botw;
You activate 5 terminals, do 5 mini puzzles that are obvious and easily accessible.

There is no central item, no boss key and no exploring in the dungeons.. you have a divine beast spread out into 5-6 rooms.

You can keep shifting the goal posts. If people could see a stream of these dungeons they would be pissed.

Also yes you can fuse anything to a weapon but it looks dumb as fuck and I wish I could get some cool looking weapons that arent degraded to shit

Not saying the game isnt amazing but yea

[bork]

My Amazon currently shows arriving tomorrow by 11pm.   

Waiting for the game to unlock and be playable in a little over an hour. 

[team filler]

seems like they knew fans wanted dungeons, but weren't going to spend the resources it takes to make real zelda dungeons. so you end getting some half assed stuff, but it's better than nothing.

hoping they use the link's awakening engine to make more regular zelda games.

[Svejk]

RE: Dungeons and whats in them

The dungeons are mostly filled with the construct dudes

The bosses are bland and easy they actually make me appreciate the Ganon blights from a design perspective.

And they follow the exact same formula from botw;
You activate 5 terminals, do 5 mini puzzles that are obvious and easily accessible.

There is no central item, no boss key and no exploring in the dungeons.. you have a divine beast spread out into 5-6 rooms.

You can keep shifting the goal posts. If people could see a stream of these dungeons they would be pissed.

Also yes you can fuse anything to a weapon but it looks dumb as fuck and I wish I could get some cool looking weapons that arent degraded to shit

Not saying the game isnt amazing but yea

Feels like I've kept my expectations in check then.. Sounds more like BOTW Reroll, but still overall better than BOTW.  Some are saying there's a big oh shit moment in the story, so I'm curious about that. 

[MMaRsu]

Its def better than BOTW

[Joe Molotov]

Eurogamer gave it a 4/5 (aka 80%). Sounds pretty mid.

[james]

With regards to abilities, well, I’ll phrase it like this: in BOTW I didn’t do the beasts until later on, only to discover abilities they grant make traversal easier. Is it like that again? Is it best to complete the current thing you stumble upon ASAP? Natural instinct in these games is to go left when the arrow points right.

I must say I only have the one done, so I cant speak to all of them. But what I've heard is that there are basically no 'abilities' that you unlock. Which is why it sucks because I really want revali's gale

No revali's gale??

[Polident Hive]

There’s this. Nintendo showed it off weeks ago. Basically the same effect as a disposable item.

https://twitter.com/ZeldaOfficialJP/status/1651511511289053186

[Nintex]

I wanted dungeons in the sense of BOTW Hyrule Castle and bigger shrines so this sounds exactly like that. Obviously you can't have 'classic' style dungeons with this much freedom. As long as there is enough variety in challenges I'm game.

[Svejk]

I wanted dungeons in the sense of BOTW Hyrule Castle and bigger shrines so this sounds exactly like that. Obviously you can't have 'classic' style dungeons with this much freedom. As long as there is enough variety in challenges I'm game.

Agreed.  Nothing wrong with Nintendo taking another whack at the botw formula.  Rather they do it now while the hardware and assets are well familiar and they bring all new approach for the switch successor.

[thetylerrob]

I'm hype to hear impressions from everybody else now. It's really fuckin good fyi.

I feel like you don't really need Revali's gale anymore because there are a lot of new ways to accomplish the same thing now.

One of your abilities rewinds time and there are platforms falling from the sky constantly.

[MMaRsu]

I'm hype to hear impressions from everybody else now. It's really fuckin good fyi.

I feel like you don't really need Revali's gale anymore because there are a lot of new ways to accomplish the same thing now.

One of your abilities rewinds time and there are platforms falling from the sky constantly.

Hmm well not constantly.. or everywhere

[Nintex]

https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/ask-the-developer-vol-9-the-legend-of-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-part-5/

Aonuma: I wonder how many times I’ve played the game to debug ( 8 ) it... I've played this game from start to finish about 20 times, and I can say that it's more fun with detours, even more so than in the previous game. When testing the game, I sometimes needed to rush ahead to clear the story, but later on, as I started to go off on side paths, I realized... it's a whole different game! (Laughs) Some discoveries made me think, “Wow, you can even do this at this point in the game?” Even when sticking things together, there are so many different combinations that even I don't know all of them. I even discovered something new the other day while shooting the gameplay demonstration video. So, it may take some time, but as you take detours and try out whatever you can at the time, I think you'll be able to enjoy the game in your very own way. So don't head straight for the ending! (Laughs) I've cleared the game many times myself and never felt bored once. You have my word!

Crazy to think that Aonuma, the producer, actually finished this game 20 times and took part in debugging. I wonder if that is the big difference between Nintendo and other studios, everyone involved (even the higher ups) are laser focused on creating the game and playing it. They would never be blindsided by a turd like Redfall.

[thetylerrob]

Hopefully the Switch 2 port has a photo mode.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

[close]

[Nintex]

Digital Foundry looked at the performance.

Pretty much perfectly polished game



He does note however that TOTK looked different in older trailers with more advanced rendering techniques.
So probably somewhere in the basement at NCL, Aonuma is debugging a next-gen version of this game

[Kevtones]

I’m just… man. I’m just so hyped.


Like, fuck. Outside of family, friends, sex, Diet Pepsi, the 4th season of The Wire, and maybe Laughing Stock by Talk Talk - Zelda is my favorite thing in the world.

[Nintex]

Today a shipping noticed showed up and it would delivered between 14:00 and 16:00 hours. And then I got a message "Sorry we missed the delivery window, we'll send you an update soon"

I felt like salary man from the ad but then the reviews dropped and I know the wait is worth it

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

Eurogamer gave it a 4/5 (aka 80%). Sounds pretty mid.

To be fair, any action game released in 2023 where you can’t switch what target you’re aiming at with the right stick deserves 3/5 at most.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

/s kinda.
Game is fun, just wish they had put some kind of effort into improving the interface and controls.

[close]

[Potato]

My order is due to arrive in the next couple of hours. Working from home today, so guess who is clocking off at lunchtime!!!

[Nintex]

Got a new shipping notice, package should arrive tommorow.
Actually having it delivered at the office in case the neighbours aren't home.

Can't leave anything to chance to secure a copy of this video game 

[Nintex]

That got me thinking of how I will approach this game. I played BOTW on Wii U basically non-stop until I finished it as well as not challenging Calamity Ganon until I got nearly all the Shrines.
This time around I'm going to try a more balanced approach to keep the story progressing and the main quests challenging.

[Kevtones]

I’m doing a 9pm launch at GameStop tonight. Had to go in at 3pm and do some grouping shit. The layer of BO was thicc and there were probably 100 people there for the prelaunch thing.


Thirst is pretty damn high.



Also I heard on a podcast today that you can fuse Koroks to things which makes this the GOTY already.

[Svejk]

That got me thinking of how I will approach this game. I played BOTW on Wii U basically non-stop until I finished it as well as not challenging Calamity Ganon until I got nearly all the Shrines.
This time around I'm going to try a more balanced approach to keep the story progressing and the main quests challenging.

That's kinda what I was telling my son earlier.  As much as I love open world games (and Zelda), I'm gonna have to keep a steady balance of progression.  I dug so much into botw, I got really burned out on it and was too OP and underwhelmed with the end boss (castle was great though).  Would rather that not happen with this.  Would like to savor it as long as possible.  Not like another Zelda will be coming around again anytime soon. 

[Potato]

Got my delivery about an hour ago. Got one more meeting and then need to finalise a document and will then be tearing into it after that.

 

[Kevtones]

When you first get out into the world it actually feels fucking staggering how big this game. JFC.


Also, controls will take time to home for some but once you get used to the powers it’s really fucking cool.



This is the game. It’s really, really fantastic.

[Potato]

Meeting went for ages and I only got to play a couple of hours. Still on the first sky island, so haven't really done anything of note yet. Somehow this feels fresh, even though it's built on top of BotW and follows the same basic mechanics and structure.

[Polident Hive]

Been looking at just buying a second switch. Definitely an addict. Switch Lite is the cheapest option. Probably would keep it. OLED Switch, would go with the Zelda model, would probably replace my launch switch. I hear launch switches go for more because they’re easier to hack. Trying to hold out. Getting the shakes.

[MMaRsu]

Why didnt I think of this...

[Nintex]

Have the CE sitting on my desk

[james]

My delivery got delayed until Monday but it's fine since this weekend is all about the new fall guys season with creative mode

[Svejk]

Mine shows out for delivery  Of course they're painting our breezeway ATM so who knows if they'll actually drop it at my door now.

[james]

Should I finish BOTW? I dont know where I left off

[bork]

Really impressed with how well Zelda runs and how polished everything is overall.

[Skullfuckers Anonymous]

Should I finish BOTW? I dont know where I left off

If you ever want to finish it yes. TOTK makes it so BOTW has no reason to exist.

[Nintex]

Really impressed with how well Zelda runs and how polished everything is overall.

Nuts & Bolts vehicle building, same overworld, complex physics engine that runs on an outdated tablet and beats anything seen on 'next-gen' platforms.

Aonuma once again low key creating the best game of all time on hard mode during a pandemic. 

https://twitter.com/NintendoAmerica/status/1657060757068972039