Metroid Prime 4

[StevenC]

Hi, resident nerd here. So in broad strokes... kinda? Thanks to an Nvidia hack that happened a few years ago, we know quite a bit of the Switch 2's capabilities. Think of it as a PS4 but without anything that made the PS4 suck. No slow HDD, an actually decent CPU, more memory, etc. On top of that it'll be able to do raytracing. Image quality wise is where the PS4 comp comes in. Don't expect much 4k stuff here, though there's no doubt going to be a game or two that gets there.

It's going to be to the PS4 what the Switch was to the PS3. Yeah in terms of brute force power it's around that level, but the underlying specs and capability tell a different story. Xbox 360/PS3-era games run far better on Switch, it got PS4 ports, and its exclusives are games that just flat out wouldn't be possible on the X360/PS3. The Switch 2 is going to be the same here but for the PS5. It's more a weaker current gen console due to its rendering capabilities, rather than a portable PS4.

This is Xenoblade Chronicles X erasure and I won't have it.

Switch has so many Xenoblades and none of the good one

 

[MFB]

Meanwhile the Switch has had the best game of the PS4 era and the PS5 era.

IF you like Nintendo's specific brand of game, which I personally couldn't care less about, so I'd say that's not quite accurate; if you're basing best of sales, sure go ahead and call it the best, but that then means every time there's a new Call of Duty and it sells to the same people who bought the last one, it's also now "the best" version of it.

I feel like a lot of people adopted the Switch early on and then didn't get a ton of bang for their buck with it, although definitely more than the Wii-U when it launched. That one was brutal to see, people coming in buying games to just to justify something new to use on it.

 

[Cannibalcricket]

Death Stranding! In the words of Roger Daltry/Pete Townshend, I won't get fooled again.

Was it any good? I enjoy kojima's stuff and thought about getting the final whatever edition. Twin snakes/substance on gamecube was fun. Baby in a jar in a weird torn land. Looks interesting

 

[StevenC]

IF you like Nintendo's specific brand of game, which I personally couldn't care less about, so I'd say that's not quite accurate; if you're basing best of sales, sure go ahead and call it the best, but that then means every time there's a new Call of Duty and it sells to the same people who bought the last one, it's also now "the best" version of it.

I feel like a lot of people adopted the Switch early on and then didn't get a ton of bang for their buck with it, although definitely more than the Wii-U when it launched. That one was brutal to see, people coming in buying games to just to justify something new to use on it.

No, I'm not basing it on sales. Though several Switch exclusives have sold more than any COD game. I'm basing it on BotW being the best game I've ever played and Mario Odyssey being a very close second.

2017 was without a doubt one of the greatest years ever for video games, and that was largely due to Nintendo's output that year. Generally 2019 is considered the bad year for Switch, still had more games than either current console.

I'm going to need to know your favourite games, because not liking Nintendo games makes you untrustworthy.

 

[wankerness]

No, I'm not basing it on sales. Though several Switch exclusives have sold more than any COD game. I'm basing it on BotW being the best game I've ever played and Mario Odyssey being a very close second.

2017 was without a doubt one of the greatest years ever for video games, and that was largely due to Nintendo's output that year. Generally 2019 is considered the bad year for Switch, still had more games than either current console.

I'm going to need to know your favourite games, because not liking Nintendo games makes you untrustworthy.

I appreciate your passion with Nintendo, but it's so weird how aggressive and mean you're being to everyone who doesn't say Nintendo Switch is the best platform when it sounds like you just said you've played one game on any other console. Unless your point is purely about "true exclusives" and you're qualifying the others as PC games, or something, and you're just saying Nintendo has the best games that aren't available on PC? Which, sure, I guess. But as someone that doesn't want to spend money on maintaining a top of the line gaming PC, that doesn't come into my calculus at all except with older games my PC can actually run.

I think botw and odyssey are great, but then there’s a pretty big gap of anything I’d put in my top 25 of the last 10 years until you get to TOTK. MAYBE the Link’s Awakening or Metroid prime remake, too. I’ve played plenty of animal crossing new horizons (I definitely like it, but it’s very deeply flawed), smash bros/mario kart (only fun when friends are over IMO), and then everything else I’ve gotten I’ve just bounced off very quickly, like within an hour or two I just had no desire to play more. Luigi’s mansion 3, skyward sword, dk tropical freeze, some Pokémon game, Mario 3d world, mario 3d all stars, etc. A couple of those I might go back to and finish someday, and I might get pikmin 3/4 some day if I ever saw them for 40 bucks, but I found the originals too stressful to say I really loved them, either. I have basically no interest in 2d platformers or some of their other exclusives I've never played (ex Bayonetta 3, anything related to Fire Emblem, Xenogears stuff). People aren't crazy for not being interested in Nintendo games. They're crazy if they dismiss them all outright given the variety and general standard of quality, but even for people with pretty diverse gaming tastes it's not hard to find more stuff to enjoy on other platforms.

If the discussion is purely "true exclusives" then I don't really find it interesting cause a good game is not good cause of what platform it's on.

 

[wankerness]

Hi, resident nerd here. So in broad strokes... kinda? Thanks to an Nvidia hack that happened a few years ago, we know quite a bit of the Switch 2's capabilities. Think of it as a PS4 but without anything that made the PS4 suck. No slow HDD, an actually decent CPU, more memory, etc. On top of that it'll be able to do raytracing. Image quality wise is where the PS4 comp comes in. Don't expect much 4k stuff here, though there's no doubt going to be a game or two that gets there.

It's going to be to the PS4 what the Switch was to the PS3. Yeah in terms of brute force power it's around that level, but the underlying specs and capability tell a different story. Xbox 360/PS3-era games run far better on Switch, it got PS4 ports, and its exclusives are games that just flat out wouldn't be possible on the X360/PS3. The Switch 2 is going to be the same here but for the PS5. It's more a weaker current gen console due to its rendering capabilities, rather than a portable PS4.

Ah, that makes sense. If it performs better than a PS4, great. I just think the longer they delay the worse it's going to be for actual ports of anything from other systems. I mean, it's looking like there's going to be a PS5 pro before a Switch 2, and the PS5 is already now massively outclassed by even a middle of the road gaming PC.

I have zero problem with "low resolution," I'll take a really well optimized/designed game at 1080p over anything in 4K any day. I think Mario Odyssey is one of the best looking games of its generation, even if it's "TECHNICALLY" not nearly as impressive as something like Uncharted 4 or whatever. I especially find 4K pointless if the thing's designed to be handheld - why would you waste so much energy on a graphics mode that some users will never even use? Resolution is like, the least of my concerns unless you get into a FF7 Rebirth sort of situation where 60 FPS mode looks like someone smeared vaseline all over the entire screen and also melted all the characters' faces compared to 30 FPS mode.

My problem with the switch hardware is it actually seems to be creaking and wheezing with some of the first party games. I think TOTK ran a bit better than BOTW, which I remember really having framerate dives in a few areas, most obviously Kakariko village, but it also was clearly demonstrated to have overshot its technical limitations as soon as people with half decent computers played it on emulator. I don't care if the graphics have low detail and are heavily stylized, but I like things to run consistently well! I went through the SNES/N64 eras playing tons of games like Starfox and Goldeneye that would frequently go down to like slideshow levels of framerate, so it's not like I dismiss a game if the framerate dips, but it certainly is something that shouldn't be happening in normal gameplay these days.

 

[TedEH]

I feel like a lot of people adopted the Switch early on and then didn't get a ton of bang for their buck with it

I'm not quite in that camp, but more adjacent to it. I got a Switch because I was behind a few generations in Nintendo first-party stuff and wanted to catch up. It was a Zelda machine, then a novelty that I could carry some decent games around in my bag, then it sat on my shelf for years once the novelty wore off. Then it got busted out again the odd time for Metroid Dread, and TotK, but after that, they sit again. As opposed to having a PS5 and a Steam account where there's a constant flow of pretty good games at any given moment.

Yes, some of Nintendo's first party games are GOTY contenders for a lot of people, but you're talking about a small handful of games. It's not like we're going to stop at "oh well, the best game has already been made, we don't need any more." I absolutely put BotW / TotK on some top-games lists, but honestly if I was listing them, most of the rest of the games on that list would be on other platforms, or, as I alluded to earlier, be big multi-platform titles. Like if I was in a position where I had to choose only one platform, the Switch is at the bottom of that pile, even a speculative new Switch - because I, like many others, would prefer to have access to thousands of games that span the whole gamut of quality for different reasons, compared to having like 3 games be 9/10, a handful of compromised ports, and a bunch of shovelware.

I don't think it's meaningful to speculate at this point that "it's a portable PS4" level of hardware or whatever, because even if we assume the leaks are correct, it tells us nothing about how it's implemented or actually performs. You can see this happen in desktop and laptop hardware and cell phones - two machines with exactly the same on-paper specs can perform wildly differently, and when it comes to bespoke console hardware, you also have to depend on devs knowing how to get what they want out of it.

 

[MFB]

No, I'm not basing it on sales. Though several Switch exclusives have sold more than any COD game. I'm basing it on BotW being the best game I've ever played and Mario Odyssey being a very close second.

2017 was without a doubt one of the greatest years ever for video games, and that was largely due to Nintendo's output that year. Generally 2019 is considered the bad year for Switch, still had more games than either current console.

I'm going to need to know your favourite games, because not liking Nintendo games makes you untrustworthy.

Ironically, OOT IS my #1, but since then none of them have captured that same feeling for one reason or another. I didn't play MM at the time because by then we were a PS household, and then as an adult the timer turned me off on it; I THINK WW could be close to it from what I've seen, the gameplay is obviously in line with the others, but the aesthetic is also on point. Twilight Princess did nothing for me and was a bit of a bummer actually, and then I've never played another since.

After that, my top 4 in order is probably: Halo CE, Resident Evil 4, DOOM (2016), and ...maybe GOW (2018)? That #5 slot is always a nightmare to pick and feels like I'm selling so many other games short.

 

[StevenC]

Was it any good? I enjoy kojima's stuff and thought about getting the final whatever edition. Twin snakes/substance on gamecube was fun. Baby in a jar in a weird torn land. Looks interesting

Yeah, I loved it and am super hyped for DS2 which I would have bought a PS5 for except I'll probably have a good PC by then.

I appreciate your passion with Nintendo, but it's so weird how aggressive and mean you're being to everyone who doesn't say Nintendo Switch is the best platform when it sounds like you just said you've played one game on any other console. Unless your point is purely about "true exclusives" and you're qualifying the others as PC games, or something, and you're just saying Nintendo has the best games that aren't available on PC? Which, sure, I guess. But as someone that doesn't want to spend money on maintaining a top of the line gaming PC, that doesn't come into my calculus at all except with older games my PC can actually run.

I think botw and odyssey are great, but then there’s a pretty big gap of anything I’d put in my top 25 of the last 10 years until you get to TOTK. MAYBE the Link’s Awakening or Metroid prime remake, too. I’ve played plenty of animal crossing new horizons (I definitely like it, but it’s very deeply flawed), smash bros/mario kart (only fun when friends are over IMO), and then everything else I’ve gotten I’ve just bounced off very quickly, like within an hour or two I just had no desire to play more. Luigi’s mansion 3, skyward sword, dk tropical freeze, some Pokémon game, Mario 3d world, mario 3d all stars, etc. A couple of those I might go back to and finish someday, and I might get pikmin 3/4 some day if I ever saw them for 40 bucks, but I found the originals too stressful to say I really loved them, either. I have basically no interest in 2d platformers or some of their other exclusives I've never played (ex Bayonetta 3, anything related to Fire Emblem, Xenogears stuff). People aren't crazy for not being interested in Nintendo games. They're crazy if they dismiss them all outright given the variety and general standard of quality, but even for people with pretty diverse gaming tastes it's not hard to find more stuff to enjoy on other platforms.

If the discussion is purely "true exclusives" then I don't really find it interesting cause a good game is not good cause of what platform it's on.

I didn't intend to come off as mean to MFB. Apologies for that.

Come on, wankerness, you know I've played at least two games on PS4 because you've heard me complain about how much I thought the second one sucked.

My point from the jump has been that how powerful the Switch 2 needs to be is overblown. The Switch is under powered and has been for arguably its whole life, but I'm not arguing against that.

A lot of games run like shit because they're poorly made. And a lot of games run OK because they're poorly made on an overpowered system. And a lot of games are like FFVII Rebirth or Cyberpunk where they run bad and take 9+ years to make for no discernible reason. The AAA industry is dying from long dev cycles.

We can talk back and forward about what games people want to play all day, but tbh, I do think it's super concerning that people with PS5s think the Switch doesn't have any games when it's got tons of super diverse games just from first party.

You made a point earlier about Nintendo charging $60 for a Switch 2 patch for Zeldas. Have you seen what Naughty Dog has been doing lately? Still the best PS5 exclusive is Demon's Souls.

Ironically, OOT IS my #1, but since then none of them have captured that same feeling for one reason or another. I didn't play MM at the time because by then we were a PS household, and then as an adult the timer turned me off on it; I THINK WW could be close to it from what I've seen, the gameplay is obviously in line with the others, but the aesthetic is also on point. Twilight Princess did nothing for me and was a bit of a bummer actually, and then I've never played another since.

After that, my top 4 in order is probably: Halo CE, Resident Evil 4, DOOM (2016), and ...maybe GOW (2018)? That #5 slot is always a nightmare to pick and feels like I'm selling so many other games short.

That is ironic. You should definitely endeavour to play Breath of the Wild to see what you think.

Solid top 5. You are trustworthy

 

[MFB]

For the record, I didn't take anything personally, I know Steven is a Nintendo fan so I definitely jabbed at calling Switch the best of the current gen or whatever the quote was; I disagree, but I do think to Nintendo fans they did get their worth from it by this point, but it seems like it's been a more peaks/valleys ride than MS/SONY with having a consistent stream of 6s at worst*

* If you're smart enough to avoid the obvious dog shit games that were gonna come out, like Kong Whatever or LOTR Gollum.

Nintendo is a company I WANT to like because I see how they're dedicated fans are, but then I also see business practices that make me think "but why?" coupled with games that just don't really interest me and I just stick to what's currently not broken.

 

[TedEH]

A lot of games run like shit because they're poorly made.

For what it's worth - part of my job for a handful of years was switch ports. From that perspective, this is a cop out. The switch sucks to work with. On every other platform you're going to be bound by things like memory layouts and how good you are at clever rendering or whatever, but on the switch you run into plain and simple CPU bottlenecks. It has impressively little to work with, and any game that's doing computation heavy gameplay is a small miracle. I can live with games that aren't top of the line visuals - but that's not what I'm criticizing here. The Switch underperforms in pretty much every way, and that limits what you can do in terms of design as much as visuals. Especially in a world where the overhead just to run a modern engine is getting heavier and heavier.

I don't know what evidence you'd have to point to "the games are poorly made".

 

[StevenC]

For what it's worth - part of my job for a handful of years was switch ports. From that perspective, this is a cop out. The switch sucks to work with. On every other platform you're going to be bound by things like memory layouts and how good you are at clever rendering or whatever, but on the switch you run into plain and simple CPU bottlenecks. It has impressively little to work with, and any game that's doing computation heavy gameplay is a small miracle. I can live with games that aren't top of the line visuals - but that's not what I'm criticizing here. The Switch underperforms in pretty much every way, and that limits what you can do in terms of design as much as visuals. Especially in a world where the overhead just to run a modern engine is getting heavier and heavier.

I don't know what evidence you'd have to point to "the games are poorly made".

I'm not talking about Switch ports in that paragraph.

 

[Cannibalcricket]

So does anyone plan on getting a Switch 2 (or whatever they call it) to play Metroid? I fall in that camp of hoping for more releases on Switch but was short changed a bit. Metroid Dread was ok but felt more confining than other games in the series. Too formulaic I think. Obviously Nintendo is going to keep cranking out Zelda games which I'm not fond of but my kids love. Just want them to give some of that Zelda and Mario love to Metroid. But they prefer treating it like a neglected step-kid.

 

[wankerness]

Come on, wankerness, you know I've played at least two games on PS4 because you've heard me complain about how much I thought the second one sucked.

Right, which was why I was confused when I thought I saw you say "the only PS4 game I ever bought was Death Stranding." I definitely remember your Horizon Zero Dawn hate! I thought "hmm, maybe he played the PC version" after reading that post.

My point from the jump has been that how powerful the Switch 2 needs to be is overblown. The Switch is under powered and has been for arguably its whole life, but I'm not arguing against that.

A lot of games run like shit because they're poorly made. And a lot of games run OK because they're poorly made on an overpowered system. And a lot of games are like FFVII Rebirth or Cyberpunk where they run bad and take 9+ years to make for no discernible reason. The AAA industry is dying from long dev cycles.

FFVII rebirth actually runs well and is an example of a really full, really polished single player game with basically no microtransactions, I just hate the two graphics modes. Cyberpunk at launch was a disaster so I'm glad I waited to buy it for years until it was polished and also much cheaper. That is why I think Nintendo's currently the best dev - while they don't make many games I'm interested in, as far as I'm aware they NEVER have released a buggy piece of crap game that had to be fixed with patches. Well, unless you count online multiplayer features for Smash Bros Online, but the switch's network hardware has always been so bad that I barely think that was a surprise. They actually seem to do things that everyone should do, like, DELAY A RELEASE TILL THE GAME IS GOOD TO GO. I don't know why that is such an insane concept to every other dev. Fromsoft and Naughty Dog are about the only other devs that consistently release really good, really complete games on release date, but they often have asterisks. Ex their PC ports are half-assed on launch.

We can talk back and forward about what games people want to play all day, but tbh, I do think it's super concerning that people with PS5s think the Switch doesn't have any games when it's got tons of super diverse games just from first party.

I don't think it's that they have no games, it's that they have a limited number of exclusives that I'm interested in. I couldn't care less about Kirby, Fire Emblem, Bayonetta 3 (after reading reviews), etcetcetc. I think Astral Chain is the only thing on my wishlist, and I don't even know if that has that good of a reputation. They have 8903489384 indie games, most of the good ones of which are available on other platforms, and Switch is always my last choice for playing any multiplatform game due to the lack of discounts over time and also the lack of achievements/trophies which I've always been a whore for since Xbox 360 days. I've bought and enjoyed a few indies on it, but most of them eventually came out on other platforms which I prefer them on (ex the Ori games, Untitled Goose Game). Of course if I cared about the portable aspect I'd use it way more, but I don't - I have too hard of a time seeing what I'm doing on that tiny dark screen (I have an original model) and I don't like the joycons compared to the pro controllers.

You made a point earlier about Nintendo charging $60 for a Switch 2 patch for Zeldas. Have you seen what Naughty Dog has been doing lately? Still the best PS5 exclusive is Demon's Souls.

Yeah, Naughty Dog had a 10 dollar upgrade for Last of Us 2 to make it run natively on PS5 at 60 FPS, and a total ripoff 70 dollar "upgrade" for Last of Us 1 because they inexplicably did a total remake on it (I most definitely did not pay for that - maybe if I see a disc copy on sale used for 20 dollars or less). I was thinking more about the HD versions of Twilight Princess and Wind Waker which were full price. But, my problem with Nintendo's pricing isn't their initial prices, it's that they almost never get cheaper. While with any other platform, if you wait several months you're probably going to see 50% off, and usually even more after that. I think I bought BOTW the first time I saw it on sale for less than 50 bucks, and that was years after release. Sony's unfortunately trying to copy that with PS5 games and their digital copies, but they still at least regularly get to 50% after a while.

Most of my favorite games are not exclusives, they're multiplatform where the best option is either PC or (often a distant second) PS5, and given my PC is an outdated pile of crap, PS5 wins. I think Bloodborne and FF7 Rebirth (which I know is eventually getting released on other platforms) are the only other two PS exclusives I am aware are exclusives that I really liked. But, there's a ton more games I love on the system but don't credit Sony for!

 

[wankerness]

Ironically, OOT IS my #1, but since then none of them have captured that same feeling for one reason or another. I didn't play MM at the time because by then we were a PS household, and then as an adult the timer turned me off on it; I THINK WW could be close to it from what I've seen, the gameplay is obviously in line with the others, but the aesthetic is also on point. Twilight Princess did nothing for me and was a bit of a bummer actually, and then I've never played another since.

After that, my top 4 in order is probably: Halo CE, Resident Evil 4, DOOM (2016), and ...maybe GOW (2018)? That #5 slot is always a nightmare to pick and feels like I'm selling so many other games short.

Wind Waker is really solid, I think it's the best "traditional" 3D Zelda. The HD remake in particular is fantastic and is one of the best-looking "old" games you can play.

I like Twilight Princess but it definitely feels a LOT more dated, mainly thanks to the wonky animations and the attempt at "realistic" graphics not holding up as well as the cartoony visuals of Wind Waker.

BOTW is pretty great, I just dislike the weapon breaking mechanic and the way enemies scale over time. However, I think its general traversal and world exploration is great and only its sequel and Elden Ring have given it a serious run for its money in quality open world exploration mechanics. TOTK is even better, though now that they patched out all the item dupe exploits I think it's really unnecessarily punishing with its constant grinds for drops. Ex, hey, here's an armor set (Froggy) you get late in the game, and you have to upgrade all three pieces of it twice via a huge collection of random rare enemy drops for it to be useful at all! And then a lot of the other armor sets are just in such illogical, bizarre places that you should just look up a guide immediately (hey, that's something in common with Elden Ring, although at least those armor sets drop all together for the most part).

 

[Demiurge]

So does anyone plan on getting a Switch 2 (or whatever they call it) to play Metroid? I fall in that camp of hoping for more releases on Switch but was short changed a bit. Metroid Dread was ok but felt more confining than other games in the series. Too formulaic I think. Obviously Nintendo is going to keep cranking out Zelda games which I'm not fond of but my kids love. Just want them to give some of that Zelda and Mario love to Metroid. But they prefer treating it like a neglected step-kid.

When the first Switch came out, I decided that I was going to wait to buy one until they put a Metroid game on it. Then that Metroid game was Dread and, not being a fan of the dev's past 2.5D work (their CV game and the Metroid 2 remake on the DS), I decided that I 'meant' the next Prime entry.

Now? I don't really do a whole lot of gaming and what I do is entirely on the PC, so I question whether I'd buy a system for one game I really want to play, a few other first-party games I'd be interested in, and- I dunno- download some of the low-system-req indie games I already have on Steam to justify its usage.