A lot of products on the market today, such as all Toys-to-Life products, use NFC, near-field communication technology -Â or basically just a little receiver antenna that reacts to a radio signal to transfer information over short distances. Tons of stuff use tech like that, like contactless cards, security keys, etc. It’s popular because it’s cheap to make, like say this pack of 50 you can get for under $20 on Amazon.
Luckily, Nintendo never does completely BS design decisions in a game and ties it to products that are impossible to find and buy except through exorbitant markup in the aftermarket. So clearly this article wouldn’t be useful for things like that. That’s crazy, it’d force people to seek out 3rd party solutions to make their own versions of these instead…
What’s really cool about those tags is that you already own the tools you need to make use of them in pretty easy ways: your smartphone. Since iOS 13, and with an iPhone 7 or newer, you can write your own NFC tags using an app and a phone. On the Android side, support has been around longer on higher-end devices, but you’ll have to check on the individual phone to make sure it supports them. Any phone made in the last few years should have the support, though, as NFC is ubiquitous at this point.
I’ve got an iPhone, so most of my instructions are going to be with that, but there are a lot of great applications available on the App Store and Play Store for writing NFC tags. I’m going to select one totally at random… called… placiibo. It’s an app that takes binary files that you have backed up from your own amiibos, I’m certain, and not looked on places like Reddit or Google to find reputable copies of the files, and lets you write them to these temporary tags. And if you were to do something crazy like that, you take the risk of downloading things on the internet, so maybe, you know… be careful when you’re not doing that.
I really did keep just one amiibo from my whole collection, so I had a Link amiibo around for display.
It takes a little bit of extra step, as you have to put the files somewhere, like iCloud, Dropbox, etc., but once you have them, you can write them to a tag. Then, instead of dragging out your amiibo files, like the only Zelda one that I kept from my collection for Skyward Sword, you can just write it to a tag instead. You write with the phone, and viola! A perfectly useable tag that works with any amiibo game console.
Totally unrelated to the content above… there’s a new $25 amiibo coming out for Skyward Sword. It’s also the only amiibo the game is going to support. Said amiibo will also lock the good fast travel system behind owning the amiibo, effectively slicing off a part of the game and putting it behind a $25 Day-one DLC.
Don’t worry though, because the amiibo is already sold out, so you can’t get it anyway.
Man, totally missed my chance to finance this for four easy payments of less than a meal at McDonalds each month. Though it does look like doing so would have saved me 3 cents over retail.
We fossils that grew up in the 80s and 90s likely remember the start of the console wars, the idea that it was SEGA Genesis or Nintendo, and you had to pick a side. There were battle lines drawn, arguments made, and so many insults lobbed back and forth at one another. Full disclosure… I was a Nintendo kid through and through. I had an NES and an SNES, I watched Captain N the Game Master faithfully every Saturday morning (and I’m terrified to go back and watch it now), and I poured over my Nintendo Power when it showed up every month.
You know what’s kind of weird, especially in light of me recently writing about toxicity in communities? I remember those arguments and insults being intense at time, but they weren’t what the internet has since made possible. My best friend owned a Genesis, and we gave each other bantha poodoo all the time over the systems, but still frequently played the consoles at each other’s house. He owned Mortal Kombat, with its blood animations, and I owned Mortal Kombat, without them… and we had fun playing both versions.
I’ve mentioned the book before, but Blake J. Harris’ The Console Wars does a fantastic job of laying out how this played out on the business side, the back-and-forth between Nintendo and SEGA (and how SEGA ultimately imploded and Nintendo kept going). It talks about how EA and Activision were always kind of evil, Nintendo hasn’t really changed their business model in the decades since, and SEGA really hated the branch in America that made them what they were. More than any of that, though, it also points out how superficial a lot of the war was, and is… drummed up by marketing and pushing that initial Fear of Missing Out to lay seeds that have recently choked out everything else.
Communities have become more toxic over time. Gatekeepers crop up all the time to exclude people and belittle them for enjoying something wrong. Again and again, other factors come in and poison things; racism, classism, and misogyny frequently pop up in places we probably don’t expect, and privilege is just rampant among fan communities all over the place. I mean, just having this conversation, and discussing consoles that are going to cost hundreds of dollars, and gafmes that cost a couple of days of work at minimum wage (assuming you’re going to give up things like eating, having a roof, etc), and just ignoring that reality, is a privilege, especially given the state of the world and the economy right now.
Diminishing Returns and Console Power
The AAA industry and console manufactures have always banged the drum of the constant need for the latest and greatest, that the old is junk and the new is great. Really, technology as a whole has been going like that for a long time, with planned obsolescence seen as a valid business strategy. Unfortunately for gaming in general, they’re running into the reality that the roads they decided to go down can only take them so far.
I’m an Apple user, with my phone, my tablet, and my primary productivity computer (I have a gaming desktop that runs Windows, because it’s still really the only viable platform for doing the most). They are absolutely notorious for this, with the latest tech being the best tech, and pushing the constant need to upgrade. They’ve been smacked down on breaking things, leading to lawsuits and settlements that are great for lawyers but don’t really do anything for consumers, but they still introduce new things in the tech to make the old ones look unattractive.
Here’s a secret, though… older devices work just fine for a lot longer than they want you to believe. Sometimes, there will be valid reasons to update, say for a specific feature or the old device is failing, but most of the time, we’d be better served hanging on to our devices for longer than we do.
Consoles, in particular, are a weird technology. They effectively launch already being out-of-date to the best technology at the time (since their stack is locked in months before hand), and need to push on as long as possible with the same basic hardware to be viable. Your average console generation tends to go 6-8 years (the Xbox One and the PS4 first launched back in 2013), and the 360 was around for eight years before that. This generation, we were treated to the worrying development of a mid-generation “upgrade” that added more power, in the form of the Xbox One X and the PS4 Pro… though if anyone upgraded specifically for that, they were in for some disappointment on what it really provided.
Those particular upgrades were done to support “4K gaming,” though in truth, only the Xbox One X really support it, and it was fairly limited. If you buy a TV now, 4K is basically the only option available (or, if you have more money than brains, you can get more than that). Yet less than a third of all installed televisions were 4K as of 2018 (and that’s not even accounting for multiple televisions in a household); I’m sure it’s gone up since then, but that particular electronics segment had been lagging for years. I don’t own a 4K TV (our primary TV is also old, I think 12 years at this point), and I know I’m not the only one in that situation. I mean, yeah, if my TV dies, I’ll get a 4K model, but I’ve never been one for spending a fortune on my TV setup.
That’s not to say that the current generation of consoles don’t have problems. The Nintendo Switch, while an absolutely amazing little system, is an underpowered tablet that struggles to run games from early this generation, or sometimes, remasters from the last one. Both the PS4 and the Xbox One have pretty terrible storage options, especially given that most AAA game studios seem to have no care whatsoever for people with iffy internet speeds, bandwidth caps, or using the storage on a console.
That being said, all of that alone don’t really feel like enough to push to the next generation. Sony is apparently banking almost entirely on the fact that they discovered that SSDs exist (while PC and Mac users just snicker); Microsoft is reintroducing memory cards (though it’s not as sinister as that, and the devil is in the details when it comes to pricing). The reason behind this is that when you look at the breakdown of the consoles, they look almost identical from a technology perspective.
Sony has shown basically nothing when it comes to gameplay for the PS5, and Microsoft hasn’t done much better, despite having two different streams promising gameplay (and pretty much just showing us Halo). What has been shown has been pretty well slammed or praised, mostly because so little of what we’ve seen looks drastically better than what the current generation of consoles offer.
There’s a reason for that…
The Graphics Dragon has been Slain
So, fun fact about the Microsoft gameplay video for Halo on the Xbox Series X… it looks better if you stream it, and watch it, on a 4K display and stream. Of course, while 4K screens are getting more common, even if they aren’t the majority (my 4K screens are on laptops and my primary desktop, so I’m not without it) – but 4K videos and streaming are far more rare than having the screens available. The digital revolution is here, from streaming videos, getting games digitally, and pretty much everything being the cloud has ended the era of media… but bandwidth and networks, especially here in the US, haven’t kept up.
Ultimately, though… graphics can only go so far, for two reasons, really. First and foremost… as resolution goes up, it’s takes more and more effort to make and create textures. The defenders of the AAA industry and their bad behaviors, like raising prices on games and including predatory monetization schemes, are right in the fact that it’s more expensive to create games (but ignore all of the other things that offset that increased cost). This chase after graphics and resolution has been going on as long as there have been games, but it really kicked into high gear with the 3D revolution and the introduction of consoles that supported it.
The second reason is a lot more basic… things can only improve so far and still be viable and accepted by consumers. We’re seeing that with characters and facial animations in games. The biggest gains were the jump between PS2 and PS3… and while the PS4 looks better than either of those, it wasn’t nearly the jump as before. As we’ve already seen from the “next gen” gameplay / not-gameplay trailers… the just to the PS5 will likely be even less.
Metal Gear Solid has seen a release on every Sony console, but that’s going to change with the PS5, because Konami is the worst
That’s not to say that graphics aren’t improving… they absolutely are, just not in the centerpiece items. Increasing stuff like draw distance, pop-in, environmental density, and effects are all important pieces, but they aren’t what wow the audience and sell the marketing. Unless you’re Square and you’re putting out a boring-ass movie and want to talk about strands of hair, I suppose.
PC gamers have seen this development coming for some time; it used to be that there were generational jumps with video cards in the PC space used to be excessive, and the gains were fairly marked. Since the previous generation… that’s fallen off quite a bit, and it’s been two years between releases with no real sign of what’s coming next and it looks like the next generation of nVidia cards will get announced in September. The gains were not really gaming related (the virtual currency bubble sucked up a ton of GPUs), outside of the same things that the updates to the current console did… 4K support and support for VR for the couple of dozen people that still care about VR.
For a long time, the gains in PC gaming have been in things other than raw horsepower… its been power efficiency, thermal ratings, and utilization. That’s now coming to consoles, and it’s why they’re so eager to talk about the memory architecture and the storage solutions.
Of course, there’s also the fact that a top-end graphics card on a PC costs more than a PS4 Pro and a Switch and a game or two…
Yes, graphics in games could absolutely be improved, but the more detailed and demanding they get, the more it will run up against the uncanny valley and the more money it will take to do less and less. There’s long been this idea that gamers will reject titles that don’t look as good, or don’t keep improving, or don’t push for the latest and greatest. It’s this weird blend of FOMO and a need to constantly make more and more from the companies (which is a whole different issue) that seems to press it, and why we get a new generation when the games on the current one, games like God of War, Forza Horizon 4, Ghosts of Tsushima, and so many others look amazing.
There’s also a simple way to refute this push and drive, and show that gameplay is and has always been king. Let’s point to some of the biggest games of the last decade: Minecraft, which is never going to win any graphical awards; Fortnite, which I think runs on more devices than Skyrim does at this point; the Nintendo Switch, which is never going to win awards for its graphics but is still, arguably, the star of this generation. Yeah, the PS4 has sold more units overall, but the Switch has sold more than half of what the PS4 has in half the time.
These games were from the same generation. Want to enjoy what is effectively engineering porn? Go read up on the crazy hacks they were doing to make music and graphics work on the NES
Nintendo as a company has always understood that gameplay is ultimately what wins, and they’ve found ways to push their hardware constantly to get the most of out it while still delivering things that gamers love to play, rather than just stuff that looks cool. Just look at their best selling titles of this generation, Breath of the Wild (14.7 million), Super Mario Odyssey (17.1 million), Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (18.8 million), and Animal Crossing: New Horizons (13.4 million after 6 weeks).
In case you are curious, only Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and Marvel’s Spider-Man have sold more than any of these games among Sony’s first-party exclusives. Only Grand Theft Auto V has sold more copies than those two games (and really more than anything else in the generation)… except for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which has sold a staggering 24.77 million copies. That’s close to one copy of the game for every two switches sold, which is just mind boggling.
I’d take Breath of the Wild over almost any AAA game of this generation, and I have some serious hang-ups with the game
Yeah, the Switch is underpowered, but turns out that a lot of consumers don’t mind. No, you’re not going to go and play Grand Theft Auto V on there anytime soon, but you can go play The Witcher 3… even if it makes compromises on the graphics to get the gameplay and fun there.
Past that, you can also look at the biggest sector in gaming, by far, and see that power isn’t the real driver for it: mobile gaming. Almost 60% of the revenue being made in the entire game industry is made on mobile at this point. Sadly, a ton of that is on predatory microtransaction games, but there’s a lot of it that isn’t. Apple Arcade has shown that there’s still a market for good games without all the nonsense, and there are an increasing number of ports of classic games coming to mobile that aren’t available anywhere else (looking at you, Final Fantasy 1 and 2).
The Remake Generation
If it feels like there have been less new and unique titles coming out this generation, that’s mostly because that’s true. Much like how movies feel like everything is a sequel or a remake (contrary to popular opinion, Hollywood has always been like that, it’s not something new), games feel like they’re following the same path. The reasons behind that are simple economics, really… there’s more risk to a new IP and property, and more cost in its development and design than using an existing game.
Both the PS4 and the Xbox One, specifically the upgraded versions, are the most powerful consoles ever made. They’re capable of making some amazingly beautiful games and environments, and some of the most amazing games released in the history of gaming have been on those systems. They’re also the systems most defined by remasters, re-releases, and remakes… and given that the next generation is touting the “free upgrades to next gen,” that pattern isn’t changing anytime soon.
There are a few decades worth of games that could get the remaster treatment on the Switch
Controversial opinion time… but I don’t see that as a problem for the most part. I don’t tend to keep the older generation of consoles around, as I rarely come back and play the older games (especially if they’re available on PC) on those machines. The consoles take up space, and I’ve only got so much living room and closet space available.
Backwards compatibility is a weird thing in this space, one where Xbox has a clear advantage, because, you know, they’re actually doing it. The numbers are on the side of Sony, to an extent, here… the majority of consumers don’t go back to previous generation to play games. At the same time, how much of that is because it’s so difficult to actually do that? They’re relying on the PS2 to PS3 comparison when those systems still had it, but ignoring that the PS3 took a long time to catch on, and didn’t really hit big numbers until after they removed it.
For my own point of view, I would love to get some older PlayStation titles available on my PS4… like all of the Metal Gear Solid series, which is only available on the PS3 if you purchased a very particular version of the game. Or the old PSX Final Fantasy anthology and chronicles titles, which are the only way to play some of the classic games without using my iPad for it (with those controls, just ick) or paying a fortune for an old GameBoy advance, DS, and 3DS (they’re spread out across all of those systems).
The value of Game Pass cannot be overstated
All of the major three consoles have survived and thrived on remakes this generation. The Last of Us Remastered is one of Sony’s best-selling titles. The Witcher 3 is another top-seller… and a last-gen title. Same with the number one selling game, Grand Theft Auto V. On the Microsoft side, backwards compatibility was a killer feature when it launched, and they’ve continued to build on and expand it. They’re not without their own remasters, though, with Halo: The Master Chief Collection and Gears of War: Ultimate Edition both coming in (along with AAA titles like GTA V, the Witcher, Skyrim, etc.). The huge draw of the Switch is that a great deal of the releases have been remasters and remakes of great games people missed out on because they never had a WiiU.
There’s something distinctly different in how Microsoft and Sony are going about the philosophy of gaming, with Sony trying to present a narrow “you should enjoy it this way” and creating limits to how you consume it, and Microsoft putting up the big tent and trying to give as many avenues as possible to enjoying gaming the way you want to play. That’s kind of stunning when you think about it, and compare it to what the generation looked like at the outset, with arrogant Microsoft crapping the bed and the PS4 firing on all cylinders.
Of course, that’s all in the marketing.
When is a Console Worth it?
Ultimately, it was all just marketing. Microsoft had some real anti-consumer and pro-publisher stuff baked into their consoles (like an always-online requirement or games would stop working), were requiring a Kinect at purchase (which isn’t even supported anymore), and had the more expensive console. Sony touted their game sharing, the lower price, and showed off a lot of potential in it.
I bought a PlayStation 4 the day it came out; I still have that same machine, actually… I’ve never had to upgrade it or replace anything on it. I did have to take it apart once because a certain child of mine decided that it would be a great idea to get into his mother’s purse and jam a couple of cards inside the disc drive, but it survived unscathed once they were removed.
Not the playing kind…
I’ll also let you in on the secret… buying the PS4 on release date was a mistake. The initial console lineup was a joke, it didn’t have backwards compatibility (and still really doesn’t), and there wasn’t a “big” release on it that I couldn’t get elsewhere for a couple of years after it came out. All of those first-party IPs that people point to when they call the PlayStation the superior console? They weren’t really there, and most came in the latter half of the generation.
Killzone: Shadow Fall was a release title and it was… honestly, I can’t tell you anything about the game. I got bored with it and ended up trading it in. Knack was also a launch title, and it was terrible. inFamous: Second Son came out six months later, and it was a fun game, but not one that gets talked about in the “great” games of this generation. The first game that could be called great (even if it’s not my jam) would be 2015’s Bloodborne. For me, the first “I need this console” game was 2016’s Uncharted 4 (I was one of those sales mentioned above). I could have easily waited the two years and just gone along happy with my PC or the Xbox One I picked up a couple of months after launch.
I need to go back and periodically replaying these games, like I do the Mass Effect games
Though it’s not like the Xbox One fared all that much better for releases; I bought the console so I could play Titanfall, which was a mistake in and of itself… the first Titanfall is terrible. The sequel, which EA has gone out of its way to bury and kill, is one of the greatest first person shooter campaigns that has ever been made, and is absurdly fun to play. It was also available on other consoles, while the original was an Xbox exclusive.
I was on that console because my friends and I had been playing on the Xbox 360 together for years, so we stuck with the Xbox One… mostly for games like Call of Duty, Forza, and other multiplayer titles. That being said, I don’t even remember the last time I played a game on my Xbox One… it’s been just a streaming console for the rest of my family (anything else aside, it’s interface is vastly better than the PS4; didn’t start the generation that way, but certainly has ended it like that).
This is my current binge. It has nothing to do with video games, LEGO, Star Wars… and certainly isn’t for younger kids. It’s just really good.
Xbox has, and has always had, the superior online experience over Sony’s “okay, just go do whatever” approach. Yeah, the original console announced had a lot of extra junk, and focused on a lot of features that few needed or wanted, but it still had a better core. What Sony did with the interface that was so smart was basically ripping off the 360 interface and making it all slick. Which was fine when the amount of titles and utility was limited, but really doesn’t work now with the place gaming is at and what consoles represent in most people’s lives.
Like I mentioned, my Xbox is mainly a streaming station. It’s got Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime, CBS All Access when I need to watch some Star Trek (that reminds me, Lower Decks came out, so I suppose I should go renew it)… it’s also got Vudu, which is where most of my digital movies are. The Blu Ray drive crapped out on me ages ago, but I rarely pick up games on disc, and luckily, the PS4 has a Blu Ray for the movies I have there and don’t have digitally. My TV is older, and not a smart TV… even if it was, I likely wouldn’t use it, because I’ve never found a Smart TV interface that didn’t seem to be like some exercise in rage and hatred of the users.
Sometimes, missing out will save you
FOMO got me in both of the consoles in the last generation, when I would have probably been better served enjoying my PS3 and Xbox 360 for longer. I did that with the PS3… waiting until the release of Uncharted 2 before I picked up the console. You know, like everyone else, because Sony charged a fortune for it and no one wanted to pay what they were asking. Marketing worked, and looking back on it, I want to kick myself for it.
I keep having to tell myself… the really good games won’t be out for some time. Yeah, we’ll get graphical overhauls of some late generation titles, and newer stuff like CyberPunk 2077 will run great (and other stuff like Watch Dogs Legion and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla will likely go unplayed for some pretty obvious reasons). I don’t have a 4K TV, and I don’t plan on getting one before the new consoles come out. With Xbox, everything is on Game Pass, and most, if not all, will also see a release on Windows as well.
There’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales, slated as a launch title, which is either an expansion pack, a stand-alone game, or a “new experience” that’s bundled with a remaster of the old game. Sony and its own dev studio can’t seem to agree on the specifics. After that, until Horizon Forbidden West comes out, supposedly next year but likely 2022, there isn’t a marquee title that’s been officially announced. I’m not even aware of anything being rumored… there are some smaller titles, and the normal AAA stuff, but that’s about it.
For the Xbox Series X… I’ve got a PC, and I’ve got Game Pass. If I want the console, it honestly makes more sense from an investment standpoint… my Xbox One has been slowly dying and the drive doesn’t work. But do I even really need that, if I can play the games on PC and enjoy them? Their big title, Halo Infinite, just got delayed until 2021 and won’t be a launch title either, so is there much to chase after?
Does this Generation Even Make Sense?
In case you haven’t noticed… the world is kind of messed up right now. Do people even remember that the the fires in Australia were this year? I’m not going to do a run down of the life we’re all living… but let’s suffice it to say, it’s kinda been a year. What I will focus in on with that is the thing that’s often getting overshadowed by all of the other terrible things… the economy is kind of in the crapper right now.
I’m not talking about the stock market, which only tells us how the 1% and the companies that exploit us as consumers and workers are doing… I’m talking about the actual economy, production, and GDP. Here in the US, about 20% of the working population has filed an unemployment claim this year. The actual unemployment numbers are at a level worse than the great depression in the US, and the effects are rippling worldwide. Yeah, sorry world… you’ve all done better at this whole “actually doing something” in the face of a pandemic and meltdown, and we’re mostly at “it is what it is” and we’re yelling at store clerks because of a bit of cloth might accidentally help someone other than ourselves, and that’s un-American now.
Think of how many board games you could get for the price of one of these console. Like… four!
All of that is to say… who is going to be able to buy these consoles? Yeah, there was a real boom in the market when lockdown started and we were all stuck at home, and there’s still demand that’s being pent up because the supply chain was so thoroughly emptied… but I have strong doubts of that carrying forward. Especially when you look at the real cost of a new console being likely a couple of hundred more than your initial investment, and that two of them are coming out at roughly the same time.
Yeah, Sony and Microsoft have poured a ton of money and R&D and marketing capital into making these consoles… and those are creating some jobs. But they’re also gigantic companies that could easily still put that effort into the existing generation, and hold off on this release because it’s not especially needed. The world won’t end if the PS5 and the Xbox Series X don’t come out this Christmas. I’ll survive, you’ll survive… everyone will be able to hold on a bit. They don’t need to whip up FOMO on this at a time when people are struggling to pay rent and groceries and medical bills.
I really like the Dual Shock 4… remains to be seen on the 5. Honestly, though, the Xbox S-series controller, which dates back to the late Xbox, is the absolute best controller available. Even if I don’t grab a Series X right away, I’ll get the controller for my PC
There’s a weird mix here, as we’re a pop-culture site devoted to things that are all “nice to have” purchases. No one needs video games, LEGO, movies, or toys… but they all make our life better. All I’m saying that, right now, maybe we should be focusing on a bit more basic stuff and preparing for what’s ahead, because I’m going to let you in on an unfortunate truth – we’re not through the worst of this yet.
I won’t hold it against anyone who’s still excited for the new console generation, or who plans to buy one. I won’t hold it against anyone who wants to get both… only hope that you’re able to do it and get your bills paid while we wait for the Bell Riots and our United Earth future to finally start to materialize. I’m still not certain where I will fall in this, to be honest, or if the FOMO monster will get me despite repeating over and over and over that I don’t really need these things.
I’m not thrilled with this controller… but I’m going to reserve judgement until I can hold it in my hands and get an idea. Not like I haven’t had a terrible controller before… I’ve own a WiiU, had an N64, and a PS3, and a PS2, and the old Xbox Dinner Plate controller…
All I’m really saying is that this generation jump, more than a lot of them, feels forced and artificial. The game that they keep playing, pushing for technologies and forcing the upgrade or else, all feel wrong. Xbox is doing a better job, with at least giving an outlet for games that sit between generations to come out both places; Sony is taking a much harder stance, and they’re apparently already done with the PS4, as there are no more big releases slated for the system in their pipeline (the AAA companies will support it for a little while). The current generation of consoles look and play great, and more than ever before, it just doesn’t feel like we need to make the jump.
Beyond that, in the immediate hype cycles and the upcoming release… the consoles are going to still be around after Christmas. There’s an excitement to getting something new on launch day… followed by a sinking feeling when you see what you spent and realize there are only like two games even worth playing on it. The only way this cycle will change is if enough of us stop buying into it… or more tragically, aren’t able to buy into it because the world is a wet dumpster fire right now.
I guess Nintendo didn’t want to be upstaged by themselves, and decided today was a great day to announce a new Pokemon Snap game, a follow-up to a Nintendo 64 cult classic. A lot of fans had been clamoring for Snap to get released, so seeing a whole new one (it doesn’t look to be a remaster, more a sequel) is kind of surprising.
Update: They posted a video after I’d started this draft, and it looks pretty interesting, and very much like snap, only better looking.
There aren’t a ton of details on it, like price or a release date (though a $60 price point seems kind of a given). It’s not being developed by Game Freak, which is good and bad, but by Bandai Namco, who has worked in the franchise before with Pokkén Tournament Deluxe. Of course, I don’t know anyone who bothered to play that, but I won’t hold that against them. It is a little bit odd that HAL Laboratories wasn’t asked to make the sequel, given that they made the first one. They’re still firmly in the Nintendo stable, having worked on Kirby Star Allies, and have a very close relationship with big N.
Of course, the big news for today is the launch of the major DLC for Pokemon Sword and Shield. I enjoyed the games, but the business model around it has been a cause for much wailing and gnashing of teeth. The DLC is a hybrid of a true expansion, building out the game, and the “expanded” editions that came before, since it puts a whole ton of new Pokemon back into the game. The pass runs $30 for each game, and includes this DLC and one that will show up later in the year, The Crown Tundra.
I’ve been trying to write this review pretty much since Pokémon Sword and Shield came out back in November. I honestly don’t know why it’s been so hard for me to get it done and out there, or why I’m deciding to revisit it now after my time has been dominated by an infernal raccoon and his mortgage bubble schemes, but here we are.
The lead up to the latest releases in the mainline Pokemon* RPG series is the most toxic that I’ve seen Nintendo and/or Pokemon fandom get. I mean… the Pokemon Company and Game Freak have never really been above criticism; people were right to get frustrated with what happened with Ultra Sun / Ultra Moon. Released about a year after Sun and Moon came out, they were basically just remixes that felt more like DLC than a game, despite adding a lot of “content.” Had they been spaced out more, or just a single game (like Yellow, Crystal, or Emerald), it would have felt different… but this just felt more malicious and greedy.
*Yes, I know it’s supposed to be Pokémon, but that’s such a butt to keep typing.
The Danger of Buzz
I’d normally say a 2-on-1 fight isn’t fair, but very few of the random challenges were ever actually challenging
The initial buzz around Sword and Shield was actually pretty positive. There hasn’t been a Pokemon game on a home console in ages, and there hasn’t been an RPG on it in… ever. Well, kind of… we had Pokemon Let’s Go, which was a remake of Yellow, but designed around the Pokemon Go mechanics. Let’s Go is actually a very polished and incredibly fun game to play, but I totally get not being able to get into the game because of everything that’s missing.
The initial reveal of Sword and Shield looked nice, we were getting a different sort of setting in pseudo-Britain, and the ability to pick up and go, or sit down and play, with your Switch is still a huge draw. The starters all had a charm that Sun and Moon starters not named Litten really lacked (and I’ll admit that my adorable Fire Kitty’s evolutions were junk). That it was all on a more interactive world than Let’s Go had, but had the same aesthetic and styles, set any fan up to get excited.
Then… we got the biggest bombshell to drop on a Pokemon release in recent memory: that these games would be the first in the series to get rid of the National Pokedex. Not just “not available in the game” to catch, but not available to transfer in with Pokemon Home ( the replacement for Pokemon Bank). This situation wasn’t at all helped by the fact that Game Freak and Nintendo never bothered to clarify what it was going to be like, what would be missing, etc.
The assumption was that it’d be mostly later Pokemon cut… they had, after all, 3D and high-res models of the first generation, and the focus would be on moving more over and introducing the Galarian versions we saw in the preview. Unfortunately, as we got closer to release, we learned this wasn’t the case. The new Pokedex came in with just over 400 in early leak, and let’s just say that things were gutted. More than half of all Pokemon, including a lot of the first generation which had been done for Let’s Go, were gone. Squirtle was your favorite of the starters (as he should be)? Too bad, he’s gone. Oh, you like Ekans, cool because he’s just snake backwards? Nah, you’re going to get a snake that looks like he’s turtleheading and seriously needs to see a doctor.
The biggest improvement over Sun and Moon has got to be making the evolutions of the starters not suck
Of course, since that point (and well after I started writing this review), we got news that there were expansion passes coming to Sword and Shield that would be restoring around 200 of the cut Pokemon. That’s since come out, and it’s not perfect, but Pokemon Home has replaced Bank, and allowed for a one-way move that restores the “national” dex in Bank, and lets you import forward any of the restored Pokemon into Sword and Shield. The downside, which I’ll talk about more later, is that the moves right now are all into Home from Bank and Let’s Go, and only Sword/Shied can move in and out of the game.
Almost immediately, there was a loud backlash from a minority of fans that see it as the obligatory “slap in the face” – look, let’s just get rid of that phrase in regards to any product – which drowned out the legitimate concerns about the Bank. The top of those legitimate concerns is absolutely the price; while the new app introduces a new “free” tier, it’s about as close to useless as one can imagine. You can place a grand total of 30 pokemon in storage, you can only participate in room trades, but not host, are you cannot transfer them in from the old Pokemon Bank (i.e., no moving forward your old ones).
This guy was my favorite leader in the game, and the most interesting part of the story
The price to remove these limitations? $15.99 USD for a 365 days (they specifically call that out… or 12 months), $4.99 for 90 days, or $2.99 for 30 days (it says 1 month there, but 30 days would only cover 4-ish months, or give you a couple of bonus days in February). Compared to Pokemon Bank, which ran $4.99 for one year, it’s a sharp increase in price.
This, unfortunately, seems to be how Nintendo is going to work going forward with things like DLC, services, or the like. A mixture of “you have no choice,” “it’s not that much,” and exploiting FOMO. That’s how it works for Online, which still doesn’t really feel “worth it,” it just carries a more acceptable price than other online services. To be clear, I don’t expect Nintendo to just give away legitimate online services for free, but this feels especially odious for what you get.
Another Pokemon Game
If you’ve played a Pokemon game in the past, you’re not going to be shocked at the general story: kid goes to be a trainer, has a rival, there’s a champion, and someone is up to no good. At a high level, it plays on the same beats that Pokemon always has, and it won’t really knock your socks off with how the story unfolds or the world just exists. I’d love to see Game Freak actually get creative with the stories and take a chance, but I don’t see it happening until they see sales drop compared to a previous generation.
I honestly never really got tired of the fight introductions for Team Yell
That being said, it does do a number of things which shift the story more than titles have in some time. The biggest one is in the “generic baddies” that we get in the game, Team Yell – dating back to Team Rocket, they always have to be teams. They’re typically lumped under the title of villainous teams, but that honestly doesn’t apply here. It unfolds about halfway through the overall story, but they’re basically just superfans of a particular challenger and not tied to the big bad. Once you get past that gym and challenger, they fade to the background, and once the bigger story with the “bad guy” comes into play, they’re going to be on your side.
The big bad… honestly isn’t that big, or all that bad. He’s misguided, not evil, and Pokemon Sword and Shield take an oddly anti-corporate and pro-environmentalism stance, while at the same time, leaning hard into the idea of corporate celebrity and lifestyle. The whole thing that Chairman Rose is concerned about is making sure that the Galar region can keep generating enough power and maintain their way of life.
There was a surprising amount of variety in gyms between the editions
Fun fact… when I wrote that paragraph above, I was fresh playing the game at the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. The most notable thing was that Australia was on fire and there seemed to be a lot of bad things that lined up. It was before anyone ever heard “Coronavirus” or we started to talk about the economy in terms of the great depression, so, wow, way to talk about accidentally destroying to planet and somehow managing to be understated compared to real life.
I’d love to say that this takes as strong of a stance as, say, The Outer Worlds does in going after it’s core message, but the problem is that when you’re taking an environmental message and you don’t have “what if we change our way of life some” in the mix, it’s always going to fall flat.
While none of these things add up to making something that will just knock your (presumably pokemon-themed, like mine) socks off, they are different enough. It won’t surprise you for the most part… Chairman Rose is sickeningly nice throughout the story but you still know that he’s going to end up turning on everyone. You’re going to beat the unbeatable champion, and best your rival, because that’s what Pokemon games are all about.
Don’t buy into all the comments that the graphics don’t cut it. This game looks as nice as any 1st-party Switch game
That’s not to say that it’s a dull experience, not in the slightest. A big thing that helps, especially with gym challenges, is the music really draws you into it. Within those gym battles, or Dynamax battles in the Wild Area (more on that later), the music just ratchets up with the fight. If you’re like me, you really look forward to those fights just for the moment when you get the gym leader down to their last Pokemon (who they will dynamax without fail), the whole gym is cheering for the fight.
Ultimately, the base game is the base game. If you like the gameplay loop of literally every mainline Pokemon game, you’re going to like this. If you don’t, well, you’re probably not all that interested in this game or review anyway.
Game Beyond the Game
Pokemon has always been defined by what happens “after” the game. There’s the underlying focus to catch them all and complete your Pokedex. Normally, that means you are going to do a whole lot of wandering, and hatching, and all sorts of things like that. That’s still in Pokemon Sword and Shield, though the general mechanism for catching and finding is a fusion of what Let’s Go added, along with the classic game. You see a certain portion of Pokemon running around in the over world, and can just run up and initiate a fight with them.
The professor and researcher in the game is one of the NPC highlights.
There’s also a classic “tall grass,” though they aren’t random encounters, per se; you see where the movement in the grass is and can choose to avoid it, or try to grab it and roll your dice. Weather, time of day, and other factors play a part in what you can catch and where, but generally, you can be a bit more focused in what you chase down.
Once you beat the various somehow undefeated people, the trials open up where you can go and grind out all sorts of battles with leveled teams and things like IVs and nature have meaning (and people like me have to go google them every time). If that’s your thing, more power to you, but it’s never been what brought me back.
The new feature introduced in Sword and Shield, though, hits well before the endgame, and just keeps unfolding: The Wild Area. In the map, it’s a huge section that is inside the normal route loop, and is a pseudo-open world where you run around and can catch all sorts of Pokemon. They are area specific, and in the area, weather has far more of an effect on what you can find.
You also see a whole ton of other trainers running around in the “not really multiplayer but come on we’re trying” system, and they hand out food (used in the camping curry cooking mini-game) or useful items. You can also find normal stuff, shake trees for berries, or collect a special energy currency from Pokemon dens.
This bike basically on magic
Those dens are the real draw of the Wild Area after you get far enough in the game, because they are what drive raid battles – your chance to catch powerful pokemon, and often special pokemon that have unique Gigantamax looks (they appear different when you Dynamax them, like a Snorlax lying down and a forest growing on his belly). These are the main ways to farm items and XP candies, which greatly improve the grinding process.
Once you hit the endgame, the Wild Area is just a fun way to waste time and hunt for stuff… but it’s not without it’s frustrations. The biggest issue is that the weather that controls when a lot of the Pokemon spawn, is typically connected to the month you are in, not random effects. It looks like it could just happen, in how the messages pop up, but only one weather can really happen in any given month. Ultimately, this means you either have to wait a lot to finish your Pokedex, or do what most of us do and just go change the clock on your Switch to find the ones you want.
More than the timing, though, there is an added frustration with the Wild Area that was introduced in addition to the “pokemon don’t obey you” mechanic that was in place from previous games. For those who aren’t familiar or don’t trade, if you had a pokemon above a level you could control from outside your game, it would randomly just ignore you. Getting badges is how you got around that, and by the time you had all your badges, you could use any Pokemon you want.
In the Wild Area, the badges also prevent you from catching the Pokemon above a certain level as well. It won’t even let you throw a ball at them, even should you weaken them down or slug one out with your team (which, if you’re playing in the Wild Area much, will be over-leveled for whatever point you are in the story very quickly).
By the time you can capture everything in the Wild Area, you don’t need to capture anything in the wild area
I understand that they didn’t want a bunch of low-level trainers running around and grabbing a Pokemon a few dozen levels above with some lucky throws, but keeping the disobey mechanic in place for that would have worked just as well, and still let you complete your Pokedex. Given the rarity of some spawns, it’s disheartening to see a Pokemon, only to start a fight and needing to run away.
Beyond that, though, there is an upcoming DLC packs that is going to extend the experience (and also reintroduce a lot of the old Pokemon back into the game – including some old legendaries). This likely spells the end of the “remake” versions of the game, but it has also rubbed a lot of people the wrong way for the price and how old pokemon are now behind a paywall…
… sort of. In what is kind of a nice move, the new Pokemon (and those that come in through Home/Bank) can be pulled in by those who own the DLC, but traded to anyone who has the game – even if they haven’t purchased the DLC yet. It will be tougher, especially without Home, but it is possible.
Let’s Talk Camping
Every Pokemon game has some little thing added in as a weird minigame or flavor-piece that has comes up an inordinate amount of time. Sun and Moon had the island you could drop your Pokemon at, where they could passively level and get you a whole bunch of berries. It also had a grooming system where you could smudge your 3DS screen up a ton to get your pocket monsters to like you. You have the farm, or hatchery, or things like that (the nursery is still in Sword and Shield)… and they’re often forgotten in the next title.
With Sword and Shield, we saw early on that there was a camping system with the Pokemon, a way to gain happiness that seemed to be an extension of the grooming system. It is that, in a way, but instead of focusing on one Pokemon at a time, it lets you do things with the whole team. You can throw a toy, get new toys and throw them, or “talk” to your Pokemon, which is really just a way for you to check your affinity.
The real WTF moment in the early reveal, though, was the introduction of the “Currydex” and a cooking minigame. Cause when I think Pokemon, I think… curries? It was just bizarre, and the way they pitched it, it was some sort of ground breaking reveal and huge part of the game. In truth, it’s “optional” except it sort of isn’t, because it’s the easiest way for you to heal up and rest your Pokemon outside of hitting a Pokemon Center.
More than that… the most insane thing is that the stupid little curry cooking minigame is just a little gameplay loop that’s fun. Really fun. Much like that little visceral feedback of Breath of the Wild’s cooking, except far more involved, it’s a dumb thing in the game that for some reason I enjoyed every time I ever did it.
I played the curry game a lot more than I’d care to admit…
It tied into the social settings of the game more than anything, because if you were online, you could put down your camp and others could join, and the more people that joined in to the cooking meant you could potentially get higher rankings for your dex, and better effects from it. There are five levels, Koffing is the worst and does little, Wobbuffet above that heals up half the teams’ HP, Milcery refills everything and removes status conditions, Copperajah heals and restores PP, while Charizard, the best, does all that and grants a huge XP bonus (each tier gives some XP and affinity bonus). In general, doing everything well hits Copperajah, which makes the minigame essential to long sessions trying to grind or capture without having to run back to a center to heal up.
Pokemon Needs to Evolve
The new stuff added to the game is all pretty great; the fusion of Let’s Go “show the Pokemon on the overworld” and the classic running through the grass really feels like a best of both worlds solution. I’ve spent a whole ton of my life playing random encounter RPGs, and the more I play games that are messing with that formula (like Final Fantasy VII remake, for example), the more I find that I’m just over RNG battles.
There are some decent quality of life improvements as well, but so many little things are starting to feel dated and tired. The menu interfaces and organization has some improvements (like being able to access your boxes anywhere), but other things, like having to click through a half dozen prompts to do anything, are just tired. Inventory management continues to be a chore, and there are just too many steps to do much of anything.
At least it was only one button click to rest the pokemon, rather than 2-3 of previous titles
More than that, though, the formula is just starting to feel stale. The game did little to surprise you, and it takes absolutely no risks. I’m not expecting this kid’s game to suddenly starting going in insane directions, but once upon a time, the story did do interesting things (like say in Black and White).
It’s kind of sad how little of the base game has actually changed, since Sword and Shield are ultimately the start of the next era for Pokemon games. It’s no longer strictly a handheld title, it’s entered the home market. To be fair, it isn’t just Pokemon… the dated feel permeates almost all of Nintendo’s games (come on you stupid Dodo, you saw the Nook Miles ticket, just give me that option). But it feels especially hard here.
Conclusion
I’m not going to lie, but every time I hear talk about “slaps to the face” or “being stabbed in the back” by fans of a series I am not going to have a lot of sympathy for the person complaining. Ultimately, the reality is that this is a product, and that’s all. They don’t owe us anything past delivering a game, and we don’t owe it to them to buy it. In the end for Nintendo and Game Freak, and they are looking for how to continue it and keep it going. There was no promise that was broken, customers aren’t entitled to their specific vision, and the companies aren’t owed any money.
I’ve obviously talked about this before, both with LEGO and in gaming. Much like the backlash and anti-backlash to films and games, this is exposing some of the ugly side of fandoms out there. In truth, the companies bear a great deal of the blame… they stoked the “gotta catch em all” and systems that set a certain level of expectation, and traded on FOMO to get people excited. When they stepped away from that, people felt hurt, because that was the sort of relationship that was set up and exploited.
Even the world of Pokemon has been taken over by “influencers”
At the same time… fans take a sense of ownership that is kind of undeserved, and then lash out when it doesn’t meet their own personal expectations; but no two people will have the same expectations, and anger doesn’t make any argument valid. It’s perfectly fine to be disappointed, and to not buy the game, Pokemon Home, or any of the DLC.
All of that being said, and all the frustration with Nintendo’s pricing, or even the repetitive plot don’t change the fact that, at it’s core, Sword and Shield still make for a satisfying game. The reason that Pokemon works is because the gameplay loop is just that good and it works even when they phone in so much. The things added, and the game after the game is still fun to play.
Is Sword and Shield the best Pokemon game ever made? No. Is it still fun and worth playing? I’d say yes. There is so much I want to have changed, but none of it kept me from having fun. I like the DLC coming up, and look forward to it, even if my efforts to catch them all kind of fizzled out when new games distracted me (I owe that raccoon a lot of bells).
I understand the criticism that this is just a theme done so many times, but it’s not as fair to say this is just “the same” game again. It’s the same in the way that Sun and Moon were the same as X and Y, and X and Y were the same as Black and White. There’s so much to the game that still works, and I’m torn between a 3 and a 4 out of five. I had a ton of fun playing it, and both my daughter and I sunk a ton of time into playing it. That seems more than enough to call it a four out of five. Your mileage may vary, but I didn’t regret purchasing or playing the game, and given how the world is right now, it’s a great game to escape into when you’re tired of waiting for Flick to come and buy all of those spiders and scorpions from you.
Buy Pokemon Sword and Shield
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A Nintendo Direct happened two days ago (9/4), and while we talked about getting the post together, life decided that we were all to busy. Stupid adulting, getting in the way of us trying to play video games, talk about video games… and… stuff.
A lot of the stuff was rumored on the leadup, or leaked before hand, but that doesn’t make it any less exciting. The first big announcement, which I’m sure a lot of people are excited about but I’m having difficulty getting excited (despite really liking the game), is Overwatch coming to Nintendo Switch. Everything about this is cool… the game itself feels like it should excel on the mobile form factor, being able to play it on the go could be fun (though connectivity can be an issue), and there certainly is a ton of variety. But I, personally, cannot get behind anything Activision|Blizzard at this point, so I’m going to let some of the other staff members jump in with excitement.
A little bit of shame, but if they made Overwatch amiibo that would break me. It would break me hard…
A new “Free to Start” Kirby game was announced as well… it seems like a side-scrolling co-op brawler style that draws from Smash (I think). My daughter was excited, but since it looks to be a co-op online game that will have Free-to-Play transactions, it won’t be on my machine anytime soon.
Several games we already knew about were covered, like Luigi’s Mansion 3 (coming October 31st), Pokemon Sword and Shield (November 15), and the Link’s Awakening remake (September 20th). The amiibo for the remake will be coming out the same day, and the big thing that was added in with the trailer was that the dungeon maker can be transferred via amiibo.
Not that anyone here is hopelessly obsessed with amiibo or anything, and may or may not own nearly all of the Legend of Zelda amiibo. Stupid Bokoblin… I don’t want to pay that much for it.
On the subject of Pokemon Sword and Shield, there were more details, including a new game mode called the “Curry Dex” and… you know, I can’t really express my first thoughts without using expletives and confusion. Every Pokemon game has had a minigame system, and this one has the Pokemon camp, but this is taking the weird underlying food theme that Pokemon has always had and going to the next level. There are over 100 recipes to discover, and all kinds of spicy, which you know the kids all love*.
And by that I mean basically no kids love it… I have to spend a good portion of any given dinner explaining to my daughter that oregano is not pepper and does not make food spicy.
We got a few new pokemon revealed as well, along with models for a lot of old favorites that will be in the game (still not the full Pokedex – and I know I’m in the minority not being mad about that… I’m a developer, I get the cost involved at porting all that). The teapot, Polteageist, is the one that everyone latched on to, and should haunt your dreams the next time you make any tea.
Several other games were revealed, most of which were known but hadn’t had a lot of gameplay shown. The remaster of Trials of Mana looks… yeah, that’s… a style. I mean, I love the Mana games so I’ll buy it, but I’m not digging the overall look. I know Ace has some comments on it as well.
Game Freak found some time outside of making Sword and Shield to bring Little Town Hero, which looks pretty interesting and low-key in that Game Freak sort of way. Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, is coming in a two pack with AC Rogue. Let’s hope that the port is better than the hot garbage that the III port was. Another WiiU game is getting a second chance as well, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore, and I’m left wondering if they have to make a special label for the cart to fit that on.
Some surprises snuck in as well… Deadly Premonition, a weird game that is firmly in the “love, hate, or what?” realm for nearly everyone, is getting a sequel that’s a timed Switch exclusive. The original is also hit the store yesterday, if you want to enjoy the madness. Doom 64 is also getting a Switch release… a game in the series that I don’t own and I don’t know that I’ve ever played, but has a lot of people excited. The Witcher III continues to defy expectations as well… it can be a punishing game on most platforms, and getting it running on a Switch with all DLC is just impressive.
A bigger surprise for me was the announcement of Divinity 2: Original Sin, coming to the Switch with support for transferring saves between Steam and the Switch. This game is a perpetual “I really need to play this” for me… I’ve heard nothing but great things, so many I will finally bite the bullet and buy it. Also up were Dragon Quest XI (coming out a week after Link’s Awakening), pirate mystery game Return of the Obra Dinn, and a bunch of others were also there.
Animal Crossing got an extended, and I’m going to say boring, gameplay trailer. I know a lot of people love it… I’ve never played it myself… but that part of the stream just sucked all the air out of the Direct for me. Somehow, I missed entirely that the best multiplayer game this side of GoldenEye 64, Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast, is coming out September 24th (it came out later that Jedi Academy is also coming). That’s an instant buy for me, and I hope it has the multiplayer dueling madness that made the game so much fun.
Smash Ultimate got its new fighter teased as well, Terry from Fatal Fury / King of Fighters. If you’re one of the twelve SNK fans out there, or the ten or so that can name any characters or details from the game… well, congrats. I mean, he’s cool, but this feels so obscure; I may be out of touch, but I had to look up who he was.
Of course, the biggest announcement at the event wasn’t the new games… it was the old stuff. Nintendo announced that they’re adding a new line to drip feed us classic games, and making the Online pass a bit more valuable (though, like most, I would rather just buy them outright and wish the Virtual Console was still there… still not sure if it’s worth it overall), with 20 SNES titles that came out in North America last night (I think it’s going worldwide today).
I find your lack of Final Fantasy… disturbing. I know, most others want Chrono Trigger as well, but I still haven’t gotten around to playing it.
The cat was let out of the bag that this was coming because of an FCC filing for the wireless SNES controller that went in for certification, but still, seeing it, and the games, is a huge shut-up and take my money. I love that little controller, and will likely buy the “max 4” they allow for subscribers and wait longingly for Super Bomberman to show up.
It’s a real mixed bag that these are behind the Switch online paywall… but the $29.99 price tag feels startling reasonable when compared to other controllers. I know the 8bitdo controllers are a similar form factor and popular, but they just feel off for me. There’s no joycon functionality in them, so doubt you can use them for much, but if it’s like the NES versions, some functionality may be extended outside of the classic games.
Comic Con kicks off soon, but that doesn’t mean that no other news is trickling out. Following up on the announcement of the Switch Lite last week, Nintendo announced today that they’re going after the wallets of those of us who like fancy colors in our Joycons. I mean, I don’t need another set, but I’m not above saying that I would love to get matching pairs of the purple and orange controllers.
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) July 17, 2019
On other front, while any official news of the Switch Pro is still lacking (and Nintendo of America CEO Doug Bowser is on record saying there aren’t any more major refreshes coming this year), they did announce a change to the regular Switch coming in August that will significantly improve the battery life of the system. I love playing my Switch on the go, but it’s only good for about 3 hours, tops, on most games. If you’ve played Breath of the Wild, you know that’s not nearly enough time to get lost in Hyrule. It’s a great feature for those investing, but not really worth it if you already have a Switch (I would suggest a USB Battery Pack for anyone looking for more juice on the go).
The recent New Super Mario Bros. Deluxe is on sale today. First party Nintendo Switch games rarely go on sale. I think it’s half a mix of Nintendo’s unique power in the market and half the fact that the games often hold a whole lot of value after the day they come out, but most of the time a game never goes down in price until the next installment comes out and the old one goes into the “Classics” category. That or they just keep adding words to the end of them and confusing us.
If you’re not familiar with the New Super Mario Bros. games, they were originally released late in the Wii’s lifecycle, and a co-op twist on the classic side-scrolling platforming of the original Super Mario games. In other words, they are stupidly fun and made to play with others (but can be played solo). This particular version is actually a port of the WiiU version of the game (along with the DLC); given that maybe fifteen people owned a WiiU, that means that it’s new for most people.
Buy the game on Amazon, and help support the site at the same time!
I’ve been a Prime Member for years now; first for the shipping break and speed, then for the deals, and the streaming, etc. When Amazon bought Twitch, they quickly rolled it into being a perk for Prime Members as well… link your Prime to your Twitch account and get free stuff!
Right now they have an especially nice deal going on for Switch owners… in that they will give you up to 12 free months of Nintendo Switch Online (3 months now, 9 more months 60 days later). Chances are you’ve already got the service, and this is cumulative with any existing subscription. There are also free goodies for other games on a variety of platforms, free PC games. And if you have Prime, all you need to do is claim what you want on Twitch and link your account to their service.
And with this partnership, maybe that means that the Switch will eventually get some form of streaming support on the platform, but who knows…
Don’t have Prime? It’s worth the money for most people who shop through Amazon, stream stuff (I think it’s the only service with all the Star Trek shows, sans Discovery, right now), or do… basically anything. The Twitch Prime part is a bonus on top of that, and just comes as part of it. In short, it’s worth it.
I’ve actually never played Fortnite, but I do know that it’s basically the most popular game in existence right now. The release of the game was probably one of the worst kept secrets leading up to Nintendo’s E3 conference, and the rumor that it would come during the conference was also out there.
Nintendo finally announced the details of the Nintendo Switch Online service, which is slated to go live in September but had basically no details outside of a release date. I can’t really fault Nintendo for adding a subscription service to a console that’s ostensibly connected online (though most of the time you’d be hard pressed to prove it)… that sort of service isn’t cheap to provide to millions of customers.
However, as people who use Xbox Live or Playstation Plus know… there is an expectation that the service should offer something to users in exchange for money other than just unlocking a gate somewhere. Both Microsoft and Sony offer games and discounts, and Microsoft artificially gates off some apps from working unless you pay for the service as well, but they are also kind of pricey at $60 a year.
Nintendo in joining the mix now, and has announced the pricing of the service: $20 for an individual / $35 for a family for 12 months (like the other two, individual and 3-month options are also available, but the best deals are for a full year). That’s far cheaper than the others, but let’s be honest… it also offers quite a bit less.
The big feature is online play… something that was provided for free up until now, but in Nintendo’s defense, they said it was always going to be tied to a subscription eventually, it was just free for the initial release. It’s unclear if multiplayer games like Mario Kart 8 and Splatoon 2 will get the rug pulled out from them when it launches, or if it affects games going forward.
Outside of that, the other one that’s desperately needed on one hand, and awful that it’s tied to a subscription on the other, is the introduction of Cloud Saves. In case you’re not aware, the way the Switch handles game saves is placed somewhere between ridiculous, stupid, and asinine. Saves were tied to a hardware console and encrypted. They could not be backed up and saved. Machine damaged and has to be replaced? Kiss the 120 hours you put into Zelda goodbye. It’s good that these are coming, though in the Q&A after the announcement they let it slip that not all games will support the feature… but declined to say what games would.
The last big piece of note is the one that’s more of adding a problem, and that’s the introduction of classic games access as part of the subscription. They announced that 20 classic titles under the banner of “Nintendo Entertainment System Online” and made available to subscribers. The initial titles have the usual suspects, like Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Dr. Mario and the Legend of Zelda, as well as some new entries like Tennis and Soccer.
However, what this means, and what Nintendo later confirmed, is that the Virtual Console isn’t coming to the Switch, effectively killing the product. It’s a shame, because while I love the NES, I have an NES mini (and they are coming back in the summer if you don’t). I would like to see some NES games on the switch, but don’t feel like buying them again, and the hope was that it would be available to people who already purchased them. More than that, getting SNES, GameCube, and N64 games was a huge highlight of the Virtual Console on previous systems.
It’s so weird to me how Nintendo continues to struggle to solve problems that have been solved elsewhere for years. I love the Switch, it’s a fantastic system and has had some fantastic releases in its short life… but how Nintendo does things is strange even by their standards. I mean, I appreciate the humor of calling their “social app” a feature and not an elaborate (and buggy) practical joke, but how does a company release features that have been available everywhere else for a decade and have it look like a great deal for consumers?
On one hand, $35, max, for a family for a year is solid… on the other, it feels like being charged for stuff that should have been part of the console from the get-go. What are some thoughts of other Switch owners out there?
