SwitchVogel

@Retrogamindaddy I wrote this review

Tremendous news, the original was the epitome of a hidden gem!

@gcunit I gotta say, I was kinda disappointed by this one. I definitely liked it, but it felt rather anticlimactic after such a long wait. With all the behind the scenes issues, I guess we're lucky we got anything at all, though. I'm just hoping that despite its flaws, it finds an audience so they can justify making a follow up that feels like a more proper evolution.

@dimi The PS4 Remaster minus the rollback netcode.

@Neoicelord Neither of those things describe me, the story mode is actually just poorly paced.

Just a heads up to everyone: Zen is developing a new Pinball FX for all platforms (including Switch) due to come out in the next couple months. It'll be a new engine, and even though they're planning on porting some tables forward, you'll have to rebuy everything again in the new game. So, if you want this, I'd recommend waiting to get it when the new game comes.

Now I want him to do the DS2

@AlexHarford Highly agree with you there, that game got robbed hard. And it's from the makers of Rogue Legacy, too! You'd think that pedigree would've gotten it more attention.

@shgamer You joke, but watch this be the only way to play P4G on a Switch.

I wonder if the remote play function would work here, it'd be interesting to play PS4 games on the Switch.

@Pod Good point, but that just further proves the point that they made these for an audience that didn't care. Everyone who bought Shovel Knight on PS was factored into those stats. It's not like anybody's obligated to see through a game to its end, but if I were a dev I'd be pretty bummed to know that despite all that effort I put into what is effectively a new game, only a small percentage of my players could be bothered to put in the minimum five to eight hours needed to reach the end.

@jojobar If you're referring to the original Lydie and Suelle release, yeah that was awful. They've since fixed most of the issues, but now it's at the point where I think the Switch is more of the problem than the developers.

@Skitrules Highly recommend it, I really enjoyed how much it was clearly inspired by Super Mario World. Also, Joustus added a lot to the game, I'm impressed at how much effort they put into it.

I'd bet this was mostly due to how much Avengers sucked. They didn't do enough to make sure people knew this was it's own thing. It's a shame too, I absolutely loved the PS5 version; wish we would get more linear big budget games like this.

@brendon987 Yeah it's been designed for offline play. I think they did a pretty good job of making it feel like a console game, but some stuff just couldn't be stripped out or reworked without completely changing the game.

Man, that comment on the Shovel Knight DLC hits hard. I've been playing through King of Cards again on my Vita and noticed that only 3.5% of players actually beat it on PS consoles. Of all the DLCs, Specter of Torment had the highest percentage at a measly 10.3%.

Think about that for a minute, at best only one in ten people who got Shovel Knight bothered to see through any of these DLC campaigns, despite each one bringing a ton of new gameplay mechanics, story beats, level designs, and more. I'll forever respect the sheer time, money, and effort that went into that project, but it feels bad to know that most of it was simply ignored by almost all of the community.

Okay, one of you needs to take this job and then come back here to report your findings to the board. We need to know why they're taking so long.

@somnambulance I'd go with this one, it's a little more difficult and I just liked the story here slightly more. Hard to go wrong with either, though.

@somnambulance I'd say about fifteen hours, no more than thirty for completion.

@CANOEberry Yeah, I'd be willing to bet we'll see a third one on early summer. My theory is that these were all originally planned as one game, and eventually they'll all be compiled into one.

I also suspect that these are all set in the same world and tell one big story. All the cards in the first game had a "VI" at the top of them, while all these ones have a "IV". Knowing Yoko Taro, that's not an accident; it could be that we'll eventually have six or seven of these.

This definitely means the ice rabbit lady is back

Realistically, I see this as being a cross gen game like BotW was. Though my heart wants this to go the way of Metroid Dread, where our first look is where the release date is confirmed to be only a few months away.

Hope this is good, PaD Gold was absolute booty.

I agree with this, Nintendo is very much creating its own demons here. If they had robust support for their legacy content and offered it for a reasonable fee, piracy wouldn't be a must have. I view this as an inadvertent concession from Nintendo though; they're finally just giving these consoles to the community to do with as they will.

@Sam_ATLUS For what it's worth, Metacritic currently puts this at a 68. I think Monark is the epitome of a flawed gem; I personally would disagree with a 4, but I can definitely see why someone would give it that.

Honestly, this is one of a few examples where I think a cloud version would make complete sense. You have to be always online to play the game and clearly they're struggling to get it to run well on the Switch, so why not bite the bullet and just run a cloud client?

I will never understand the obsession with this game

@Kiolu100 Lol it's grindy in both the literal and figurative sense. Especially around the halfway point and on, it's almost impossible to clear out everything in a level on your first try; you have to keep throwing yourself back in. Failure is part of the game design, though, you're expected to try over and over until you finally land that awesome combo or clear the gnarly route without touching the ground.

If you were a fan of the original two, I can assure you that you will absolutely love this one.

@brendon987 Howlongtobeat puts the original version at 23 hours. This has some extra missions that weren't in the mobile game, so I'd estimate about 30 hours.

I think it could be really interesting if they did a podcast or weekly show together that was similar to Nintendo Minute, but less "corporate" than that show felt sometimes. Plus, we'd probably get to hear a lot of fascinating stories about what it's like working at Nintendo.

@Mario_is_a_Pratt No, but you can tap a button the instant you land for a 'perfect' landing that will also add a ton to your existing score for that combo.

@Dualmask I agree, this game would've been much more compelling if it had a silent protagonist. Better yet, I think it would've been improved immensely just by completely scrapping the 'spunky' 12 year old and the whole story with his dad. I don't expect a JRPG-level story out of a hack n slasher like this, but the narrative here was rough.

@blindsquarel I think this is a really good point, Nintendo hardware always sells on the merits of Nintendo software alone. Sure, people may (and often do) go on and buy plenty of other third party games, but the reason you buy the latest Nintendo console is so you can play the latest Zelda or Mario.

I think that's why Switch has done so well for itself, because Nintendo has really leaned into the 'second console' idea and effectively removed itself from competing directly with the other platforms. You don't choose between those other platforms and the Switch, you choose between any one of them in addition to a Switch.

To be fair, I would MUCH rather Activision be in Microsoft's hands than Facebook. Not a fan of the acquisition overall, but this was the best possible outcome beyond them continuing as an independent company.

"The word “sh*te” is heard in the game."

clutches pearls

@MisterMan 30 by default, but you can choose to downgrade the visuals a little for 60. It looks a bit blurry either way, so I went with 60 for my playthrough.

@Nugget_Humanperson I'm glad we came back around to it, this was one that got lost in all the noise of the end of year releases and it's a shame because I think a lot of people would like this if they actually knew about it. I'm not sure how well it did in terms of sales, but I hope the devs were satisfied with the turnout!

The more I see major game companies talk about this, the more relieved I am that the indie scene is growing and has never been more successful.

I've no doubt this is where gaming is going next, but fear not people, there will always be studios out there that just want to make fun games.

I agree with most others here; Octopath Traveler was a weird name, but it grew on me. Triangle Strategy, however, still feels like they just had an AI name this one with two random words that could be related to gaming.

That aside, I have no doubt this one will turn out great!

Love to see that Death's Door made the top five here, awesome game

I'm expecting an Iceborne level addition here, but I'm confident they're going to deliver. Rise was so good!

@LinkSword I know Risk of Rain 2 did this as well, but that game's initial state was still leagues ahead of this and only got better from there. There might be more, but that's the only other one I'm aware of.

Man, look at all that G A M E P L A Y

I know he's kinda torpedoed his reputation, but I hope this guy still finds success in what he does next. Say what you will about Balan Wonderworld, but I'm impressed by his fortitude.

Imagine his position for a moment. He was given the go ahead by Square Enix to make the 3D platformer he always wanted. He did so, only for it to eventually become an unmitigated disaster that tarnished his legacy and burned most of the good faith he still had from both his superiors and his audience.

Most people in that situation would just take their ball and go home, but Naka decided instead to throw himself into releasing simple, cheap Unity games for mobile. He probably knows he'll get made fun of a lot for doing this and I'm sure he understands that this 2048 release will be mostly forgotten by next week.

But he does it anyway. Because he loves making games, regardless of how they'll be judged, and he wants to continue sharing his projects with anyone who wants to play them. In an industry increasingly dominated by cookie cutter design and predatory monetization schemes, I find people like him to be both refreshing and undervalued.

Aww this was sad, you can tell Krysta was struggling to keep it together for this episode. I hope we get to see these two in some form going forward, it was always nice to have these friendly faces for a company that could be very secretive.

Does the series X even have Kinect support? The PS Move was always just a lame knockoff, but I think Kinect was interesting and distinct technology, it's just they never made any worthwhile games for it.

Laughs in American

@Meteoroid This is what I'm thinking, too. I just cannot fathom how any company executive could be so out of touch that they'd think this is a better investment of company resources than just porting the mainline games. I'm sure this will find some audience, but there's no way this would ever outsell any one of P4G, P5 or P5R.

If there isn't anything keeping them from releasing any of those and it really is just ineptitude, then I am genuinely shocked at how Atlus continues to be a profitable company 😂

P3 Dancing, coming to a Switch near you next summer.

I legitimately don't understand this company at all. 😂 We'll give you P5S, but not any version of P5. We'll give you P4A, but not P4. Then you consider that Switch is the best current console for RPG lovers, and I just... am at a loss.

Nobody is that inept at decision making, I'm convinced there has to be some behind the scenes legal conflict preventing them from releasing any of the mainline games on Switch.

Imagine having the distinct privilege of making an original game set in the LotR universe and choosing to make a game about Gollum

Man am I looking forward to this, Rise got me back into this series!