#and the video is botw items in real life part 3

[raventroll80]

I was watching a video about irl counterparts to plants in LoZ BotW when I saw something pretty familiar

It’s called a Torch Lily, doesn’t it look familiar

I think the the new torch flower in Minecraft is probably based on the torch lily.

They both have long leaves and a greyish stem with a tall red and yellow flower. Though the colours of the flower itself have been swapped. I will also mention that torch lilies don’t have purple tipped leaves but other than that they’re pretty much identical.

[repentantsky]

The difference Between JRPG’s and WRPG’s, and why we should stop comparing them

If you’re like me, you love RPG’s of many different genre’s. Whether they cover fantastical realms like Skyrim and Final Fantasy, or more technologically advanced ones like Borderlands or Star Ocean. 

Like all genre’s most RPG’s of different genre’s also suffer from different problems because of tropes and reused settings that people can grow tired of, but talking about RPG’s from two different parts of the world, is a whole other problem. Japan for example, is mostly marketing itself to Western players, while Western RPG’s, are mostly marketing themselves to Western players...uh wait, why does that make them different? 

It’s all because of style choices. See, Japan like most countries, has a lot of traditions that make a lot of it’s products fairly same-y. As I said that happens with everyone, but Japan has to try harder with smaller series to get western appeal, which is required to have a successful selling game, unless it’s a mobile title, since those all do really well in Japan, because people can just game on their way to and from work. I digress, but Japan is so rooted in tradition, that you can watch an episode of Gigantor, the anime that is considered by many to be the first anime ever created, and Demon Slayer, and notice a lot of similarities in the way the characters are speaking, because Japan has always made their shows where actors talk like they would in real life, which isn’t always true in other acting platforms around the world, which of course means, this translates to video games. 

Specifically what it means, is that Japan has to hop a cultural barrier that Western games don’t, and they have to rely on a lot more tropes, because there are only so many ways to translate the same basic plot of a JRPG, for Western audiences, before things become too cliché. A lot of RPG’s are successful in doing this, like the aforementioned Final Fantasy, and other JRPG’s are coming through with successful games to, like Fire Emblem. Persona and Shin Megami Tensei, Atelier, and several others. All of the games coming through lately, lead people to believe that JRPG’s are a thriving genre in the west, but that’s not really true. 

If you were to ask any random person what the most successful JRPG of all time was, a lot of people would probably think of a Final Fantasy game, but not even Final Fantasy 7, has come close. In fact the only JRPG that even made it to the top 10 best selling games ever, is Pokemon Red/Blue/Green/Yellow as a collective, with four different versions. The next best selling one is Pokemon Gold/Silver/Crystal, and in fact, only 11 of the top 49 best selling games of all time, are RPG’s, and all of the JRPG’s are Pokemon titles. Final Fantasy 7 has still been wildly successful, as the original has sold over 11.8 million units, and the remake over 5 million, but the fact of the matter is, that even though RPG’s as a whole are the biggest genre of the top 49, the few that made it are exceptions to the rules. In fact, of the top 10 best selling games of all time, 6 of them are by Nintendo. The other 5 excluding Pokemon, are Wii Sports, Super Mario Bros. Mario Kart 8/Deluxe, Wii Fit/Plus and the original Gameboy version of Tetris, which itself is on there twice because EA’s version is number 3. so you’re actually better off in Japan, not making a JRPG. 

There’s a lot more that can be gleamed from looking at the list, so you can check it out here if you want: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games 

The point is that JRPG’s, aren’t always as successful as people think they are. I mean sure, you don’t have to be on the top best selling games list to be successful, but Persona 4 Golden on PC is considered a massive success for selling only just over a million units since it’s release, and the Tales of Series, which is one of the longest running in gaming, as recently as April of this year, had it’s sales numbers made public, and Tales of Symphonia, the undeniable Final Fantasy 7 of the series, sold a total of 940,000 units in the United States, and the game, easily the most successful title from Tales of, only managed 2.4 million in total. None of this is to say, that JRPG’s are struggling, because most of the ones I brought up are shining examples that they aren’t, but going back to that top 10 list, Minecraft and Grand Theft Auto V,  just the top two of that list, have sold 345,000,000 total units. That not only beats the entire mainline series of Pokemon, it’s only about 2.5 million short extra, of beating the original 151′s total sales, with how many spare units the two games over Pokemon’s  300,000,000 million total sales mainline games, which means likely, the two of them will beat the series out at some point in the future. 

Western RPG’s, don’t often suffer from as many problems, because they don’t have a border to hop, and it shows with Elder Scrolls, which has sold 58 million total copies with only five mainline games, and 30 million of those came from Skyrim alone. It took Pokemon, the undisputed champion of JRPG sales, 20 mainline games to reach 300 million, which means arguably, by the time Elder Scrolls reaches it’s 10th installment, it will have caught up to Pokemon’s first 20 games total sales. Borderlands, which is arguably the Tales of to Western RPG’s in most people’s eyes, has actually outsold Elder Scrolls with only 4 mainline entries, one of which is considered bad by many, with a total of 60 million total units sold. The better comparison, surprising for many I’m sure, for a Tales of comparison, is actually Fallout, which has sold 13.51 million units, to Tales of 23.5 million units. 

Enough about numbers for a few minutes, 3 paragraphs about it is a bit much, but the fact of the matter is, Japan struggles more overall to make successful RPG’s in the West, than the West does in the West, and it’s all due to how much of a challenge it is to hop that border. 

Outside of sales numbers, the other major difference between JRPG’s vs Western RPG’s is how they are classified. Generally, when someone thinks of a JRPG, they think of a fantasy world, with leveling, where rare items can be won off bosses, but your main way of improving stats is to level up, and have enough money to buy the best equipment at each new town you enter with a shop. However, a lot of games have been getting that label slapped on them by their marketing teams or fans, and some of it is just wrong. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is one such game, despite the drops from enemies being the only correlation between BoTW and JRPG’s. The correlation was made by fans, which might seem like an innocent mistakes, and in fact could be nothing but that, but then there’s Monster Hunter, which actually does have two JRPG’s attached to it, in the Stories 1 and 2 games, but who took the reigns of JRPG to market, calling Monster Hunter World, a JRPG. despite it having few differences from other Monster Hunter action games, outside of having a story, and having nothing more to do with JRPG’s than Zelda. A lot of fans of Japanese games will classify simply playing as a fake character an RPG, which normally would be fine, but in games, that’s not how genres are defined. If that were the case, all of Yakuza’s games would be JRPG’s, instead of just Like a Dragon, and in fact most games would be RPG’s, and they obviously aren’t. Bubsy 3D RPG anyone? No? Ya sure? Yeah I didn’t think so.   

The west has the exact opposite problem of under classifying it’s games as RPGs. While sure, you wouldn’t call Halo an RPG, unless you know, Master Chief was shooting an RPG, you absolutely should call Ratchet and Clank one. Think about it, your main playable characters all have HP, most of them have weapons that can level up, and the action setting of these games, basically should make Ratchet, a response to Level 5′s Dark Cloud series, which did all the same things for combat. However, it’s just seen as series of action games, despite it also being a lot like Borderlands. 

The point is, there are a lot of things that differ JRPG’s and WRPG’s from sales, to marketing, to style and so many other factors, I would run out of characters available to me, before I get through them all. There’s nothing wrong with these genre’s being different, but people classifying them as similar, could harm either since they don’t often jell that well together. So please, think before you compare, and for those rare RPG’s, where you can’t tell the difference, makes sure you find out where they were developed, because a lot of games you might think are JRPG’s, could in fact be Korean or Chinese. 

[zaggitz]

VIDEO GAMES 2017: ONE MILLION GAMES ENTER, TEN GAMES LEAVE.

Well that sure was the best year in video games since probably 1998, wasn’t it? Nintendo put out a new console and 3 major franchise entries, basically every anticipated game of the early 10′s finally frickin’ came out, we got 4 new English Falcom games, 3 of which with good locs, and they made a new Nier? What??? 

What a time to be alive.

Let’s not waste any time getting to the list, lord knows VIDEO GAMES 2017 has already sucked out enough time from me for a lifetime.

Before we begin, here’s my lists for 2015 and 2016.

Honorable Mentions:

Persona 5:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jaIo82uT0qs

It’s insane that this game isn’t in my top ten, hell, it’s insane that it isn’t in my top five. It’s less a commentary on Persona 5′s quality and more that the games that did make the list resonated with me a whole lot more. VG2017 truly was too powerful.

P5 is mired with stiff localization problems, but even without the loc in consideration, the thematic through-line of the game gets muddled and becomes a toothless version of the promising rebellious first ten hours the game provides by the time you reach the finish line, which also just happens to come 20 hours too late, in my opinion.

What a great looking and feeling game though.

Tales of Berseria:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYXwD2CfxOs

On the flipside we have this game, the first Tales game I’ve enjoyed since Tales of Vesperia back in 2008. This game has an amazing story and great characters with a thematic backbone that sticks to your ribs after you finish it.

Now if I didn’t hate the act of actually playing it and having to scour its way too big boring empty dungeons and crappily designed world, it’d be a list maker for sure.

OKAY NOW IT’S TIME FOR THE CERTIFIED BANGERS:

10. Metroid: Samus Returns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhQWJG-_Oco

Somehow my least favorite Metroid game got two remakes that both made my list two years in a row?? This game is pretty great in it’s own right though it has a few control scheme imperfections and I could see a switch port easily being the definitive version to get.

The reason this game really makes the list though is because of how it lives up to its title. Finally an official Nintendo Metroid game that comes out and undoes Sakamoto’s vile character assassination of Samus back in Other M. . 

The queen is back, and she has been missed.

9. Horizon: Zero Dawn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FD0DByDxJBA

An engrossing open world, great stealth/hunting/gathering systems AND robot dinosaurs are just a part of what makes this first outing for what seems like an extremely promising series great.

No, what really sets this game apart from its contemporaries is how it fleshes out its backstory, culminating in the creation of what might actually be the most despicable piece of shit villain ever put to writing for a video game. And he’s been dead for a thousand years so you can’t do shit to him.

Fuck you, Ted Faro.

8. Night in the Woods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2UUFFMGcgY

This game hit extremely close to home for me. Forced to come back home to a small, dying town full of people clinging to the good old days instead of doing anything for the generation after them, having this game to play and have it be said out loud that yeah, other people are living this nightmare too, was insanely refreshing.

For as much as we all need a bit of direction sometimes, sometimes what we also need to know being a directionless 20-something asshole trying their best is okay too.

Also Gregg rulz ok.

7. Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNgph1g422Q

Great gameplay, great music, fun characters, one of the most fun to explore worlds in an action adventure game. This game truly nails the sense of pure adventure Ys is known for.

It’s a shame then that it’s plagued with one of the most laughable translation efforts in the industry, much of the games personality comes from the fact that even a bad localization job can’t overwrite some character quirks, but this still leaves the rest of the script feeling extremely stiff at best and incomprehensible at worst.

I hope the re-translation patch is good. Until then, Fuck NISA and have a good day.

6. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiU65nQdZE8

I would describe this game as a great first step in evolving the Zelda formula. That’s not even really that accurate, the real first step was in Link Between World’s item rental/no dungeon order systems. 

Nevertheless, BOTW amazes with a sense of scope and exploration no game has ever really come close to, and achieves it almost effortlessly by simply giving you the ability to climb anything.

More music, more proper dungeons, a deeper story and a few durability tweaks are basically all you need to make the next Zelda game the easy best in series.

5. Yakuza 0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYB-D9qEwzI

This isn’t the best game this year, but it is easily, no question, the MOST video game this year. 110 hours in and only 60% complete, Yakuza 0 is the game that keeps on giving, with an enthralling true crime story that reshapes what we know about its protagonists. It’s pretty much a non stop emotional thrill ride to the finish line.

It effortlessly incorporates the best side story aspects from the many games in the series to come out before it, and utilizes them with a fantastical glee that keeps you with a smile on your face for the whole run. This is easily the funniest game I’ve played this year. Thank you SEGA.

4. Hollow Knight

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1unm0LS10ao

God I can’t wait for this game to get ported to consoles. I bought a new laptop basically just to play this game and the absolutely enthralling metroidvania world design, hand drawn and animated aesthetic, and fantastic npc characters blew me away.

The encounter designs are tough but fair(except maybe the Colisseum) and the DLC so far has been great. I can’t wait for all the post release content to come out so I can play through it all again on Switch and probably PS4. 

It’s insane only 3 people made this game.

3. Super Mario Odyssey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhciLj5VzOk

Nothing to say here that hasn’t been said by hundreds of others. SMO is pure joy distilled into video game form.

I can’t wait for Odyssey 2 to come out and somehow blow this one out of the water like Galaxy 2 did for Galaxy.

2. Nier: Automata

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKOM3lNFajE

An amazing contemplation on what it means to be alive, and a thoroughly satisfying conclusion to a story that, for me at least, has been told since Drakengard in 2003. Game after game of sad tragic stories with bad endings and characters fighting an imperfect world imperfectly and only making things worse while temporarily making things better for themselves.

And really even in those cases there’s caveats.

Caviats???? Anyway.

Ending E of this game finally brings some semblance of peace for this fucked up world where a deranged killer and his dragon fell through the sky and made things the worst for everyone for literally tens of thousands of years. Finally Devola and Popola can sleep. All is well.

1. The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wld2q4mLhYM

Another year, another Trails game at number 1. I’ll be real with you, I’m about to drop a bunch of personal rambly stuff about what this entire trilogy means to me so if you don’t wanna read that, that’s fine. 

This game is basically a perfect epilogue to a game that means a whole lot to me and serves as an amazing capper to an amazing jrpg trilogy.

When I first played Trails in the Sky First Chapter, it was the PC version in 2014. Now in 2014 I was coming off being in college for about 6 years, switching majors a few times and not really being into what I was doing but, yknow, you gotta major in something and then you gotta get a job, that’s kind of what getting started as an adult is. 

So I played this weird little jrpg that was, fundamentally, about a country and the people in it trying to move on from a tragic war years prior, hiding their still fresh wounds in plain sight and just trying to go on with their lives. 

It was an extremely interesting game, for how plot-light it was in the early goings, you got to really feel the struggle of these people and the unseemly past they were trying to run away from or avoid repeating. This underlying conflict builds and builds until we can’t ignore it anymore.

When I played Second Chapter a year later, I had been laid off from a job I got right out of College and had no employment prospects. I hated the fact that I’d spent basically my entire adult life up to that point doing something I wasn’t passionate about and then got let down by the system. 

At the same time, the shame of my situation lead me to close up and not tell anyone about the problems I had, I was broke, I owed two months rent, on the verge of getting evicted, I felt extremely alone.

All this to get to the point that Second Chapter was ultimately a game about pulling out the dark shit we don’t like talking about and saying “it’s okay to talk about this stuff, there’s always someone who will listen.” It got me to get over myself somewhat and actually reach out for help, and I’m really thankful for it not letting me hit rock bottom.

Two years later still, I’m in a much better place, I finally feel happy about where my life is and what I’m doing and oh boy here comes Trails in the Sky the 3rd.

Completing the journey I started back in 2014, I found myself playing a game all about how it’s okay to acknowledge the bad things that happened to us, so long as we learn and move on from them accordingly.

This trilogy has so much heart, and so many memorable characters, and so much to say. It’s so, so special to me, and I was openly weeping when all the characters I’ve come to know and love over 4 years finally parted ways.

Thank you Falcom for making these games, and thank you Xseed for bringing these games to us.

TL;DR

[chipznstix]

A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch

Chipz is back at it with another post! But this time it’s about my experiences so far with owning the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario Odyssey just came out last weekend on October 27th, 2017. Boy was there A lot of hype behind that game, and to be honest I expected it to do well. However, with the release of Super Mario came a bundle deal. In this bundle you get a digital code of the game to download along with a Nintendo Switch with Joy-Cons that have the iconic red color, the same as Mario’s colors. In the bundle you also get a carrying case for your Switch console with a new character named Cappy on the front which is also in red.

Super Mario Nintendo Switch bundle with Cappy on the front of the carrying case

Now this isn’t my first time owning a system from Nintendo, as I’ve had the NES, N64, a few of the Game Boys, and the Nintendo 3ds. *I just recently purchased the Super NES classic.  I’m going to state some of the things that I like about the Switch and then say what I don’t like, and give you some insight as to what I’m used to from being with Sony for so long.

PROS:

Hybrid between portable and console system

Having this advantage, you can take your games with you anywhere you go. Literally. As I’m writing this, my Nintendo Switch is in my book bag, in the carrying case(you gotta protect your stuff man).

HD compatible 

Pretty much all of the games depending on the developer will be in full HD. When docked they will run at 1080p and when in hand-held mode they automatically go down to 720p. Honestly though, what console ISN’T in HD? It’s 2017 people, they better be!

Full motion controls

Now I feel this particular PRO is on a case-by-case basis. I’ve only had the system for a few days now but I haven’t had any problems with it, I think you can even turn off motion controls with most games if you don’t like it. So far it’s a plus for me. I need to exercise my arms anyway!

Expandable memory

The good thing with the switch is that it takes micro SD cards for additional memory. You can expand the memory of up to 2TB of data…of course when these actually come out. Nonetheless, the Switch supports it. Below are the types of micro SD cards that are compatible:

microSD (up to 2 GB)

microSDHC (4 GB – 32 GB)

microSDXC (64 GB and above)* This requires a system update*

With that said, here’s what can be saved to the memory cards:

Downloadable software

Software update data

Downloadable content (DLC)

Screenshots & video captures(part of the latest 4.0 update)

CONS:

Battery life

The battery life in hand-held mode can be very short. This depends on a few things like what games you play and the settings on your system. It was reported back in March when playing Zelda: Breath of The Wild the maximum amount of time you can get out of your system would be approximately 3 hours. Granted at the time that was one of the main games that came out, but you pretty much get the idea. Some games drain more battery life and some don’t. Speaking from personal experience, I played Super Mario for about an hour and a half and I ended up with roughly 30% battery life. Either way don’t expect a long gaming session if you’re in hand-held mode.

On-board memory

The Switch comes with 32gb of on-board memory. That’s horrible. No debating this point, so don’t try. While game saves don’t take up much memory, game data does. Perfect example: Super Mario takes up 5.3 gigabytes(gb) and an indie title named Stardew Valley only takes up 909 megabytes(mb). If I wanted to install Zelda: BoTW I’d be losing 13.4 gb of space. You also have to take into account the Switch’s OS, game title and software updates.  Some people and myself included, feel 32gb shouldn’t have been the starting point for memory. Cell phones don’t even come with 32gb anymore!

No cloud storage

Staying on the topic of memory here, there’s no cloud based storage for the Switch. You’d think Nintendo would want to come out swinging and going for the knock out but they didn’t. There are gamers out there in the world that download their games and buy physical copies. Some stick to digital downloads only, and some stick to the physical copies only. Either way you’re losing out on space. It might be really slow or it might be really fast. The end result is this: you’re being forced to opt for a micro SD card which can cost you upwards to over $100.

Transferable data

As of right now the only data that you can transfer from the console are screen shots, video captures, and game data. Not game saves! This is also a bad move since game saves were transferable from the Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS to a USB device. Nintendo has confirmed that game saves aren’t transferable, or at least they don’t want them to be right now. A Reddit user posted that he had to send his console in for repair and Nintendo gave him a brand new one. After doing a thorough check he noticed his game saves were on the new system that was sent to him. So this begs the question- will Nintendo eventually enable Switch users to transfer game saves in the future? If so, why not give us that option from the beginning?

Nintendo Smart App/Network

The Smart App was designed to be used as a chat system while you’re playing the game with other people. However that didn’t work out so well in the beginning. A good friend of mine named Avidan Smith spoke about this more in-depth. * Click here to get the full breakdown of what’s wrong with it. A lot of these issues are things that never happened on the other consoles.  Another issue is that you can’t purchase any kind of content from the app itself. You can make purchases from the website but as of right now I’m not sure how that works. If it’s the same way as the PSN store, then you can purchase content and it’ll be linked to your account to download later.

Nintendo Smart App

But here’s the thing with that too: on the PSN you can have your content automatically download to your console once the purchase is made. I routinely do this from the PSN app whenever I want to buy content to enjoy later on. I follow through with the  transaction process and have it download to my PS4 and by the time I get home it’s ready to go once I turn it on. I feel like this is something that should’ve launched with the switch, and if not shortly afterwards. However, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to see if there are any real improvements that are going to be made.

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Playstation Network App

PSN App second sceen

I’m not going to count the fact that the Switch is lacking something called share play. Share play is a feature available on Playstation 4 where you can watch a friend’s screen for a certain amount of time via internet connection. You can watch a buddy play a game, or even take control and play a game that they have to get the feel of it or just to have a little bit of fun. I use this often with my friends to see if I want to play a game that they have and I don’t. This really gives you some purchasing power and makes up for the fact that there isn’t an abundance of demos and timed trials available on the PSN. The reason I’m not counting it as a CON is because Nintendo seems to give you demos of new games that are coming out, but it would be a nice feature to have when the console is docked.

So there you have it folks, some pros and some cons.  Nintendo actually had a pretty good start seeing as how they were so far behind with the Wii-U. If they can fix these issues I feel it can REALLY be a contender. On top of that they’re starting to get quite a bit of third party support. The momentum is strong with this one. I’m a PlayStation fan-boy(yes..I’ll admit it) but I can see when something’s good and/or bad and call a spade a spade. The PS4 is my preferred system of choice, it’s one thing I’ll always go back to. Coming from a Sony fan, I can say this is definitely worth buying so go pick one up. I’m honestly looking forward to playing as many games that will come out for the Switch cough cough Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yoshi and Donkey Kong cough cough. Overall I do enjoy having the Switch and I’m having a good time with it where ever I go. Who says you can’t enjoy the best of both worlds?

*A review of the Super NES will be coming shortly on youtube so stay tuned!

*POST EDIT: Reggie Fil-Aimes, President of Nintendo North America has stated that Nintendo is aware of the issue with game saves. He sat down with Mashable earlier today and stated the following:

You’re talking to someone who has completed 120 Shrines, and I think I’m at 400 Korok seeds and growing [in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]. So I understand what it’s like putting a lot of time into content, and the thought of that content not being there.

We’re aware of the concern. Certainly, Nintendo is a consumer-oriented company [and] we want to make our consumers happy. We’re aware of the concern and it’s an area we’re going to continue working on to make sure that we can alleviate some of those consumer fears of having a content-based issue.

Because of the type of platform we have — it’s something that is on the go as well as connected in the home environment — there are some added complications. It’s not as simple as a piece of hardware that never moves and is always connected in an online environment.

Of course you know I have to call Bull—-! Throwing little jabs like these at Sony and Microsoft isn’t winning Nintendo any brownie points or favoritism from the gaming community. Simply because Sony and Microsoft figured out a way to back up game saves for their systems. Sony especially did this with the PSP/VITA with cross-platform play. Anyway, with this recent statement from Reggie coming out just earlier today everyone can predict we’ll be getting cloud storage within the next year. I’m going to go as far to say it’s coming but it’ll be included with the paid online subscription from Nintendo.

Should you buy a #switch ? #nintendo #console #gaming #sony #playstation #ps4 #videogames A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch Chipz is back at it with another post!

[chipznstix]

A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch

Chipz is back at it with another post! But this time it’s about my experiences so far with owning the Nintendo Switch. Super Mario Odyssey just came out last weekend on October 27th, 2017. Boy was there A lot of hype behind that game, and to be honest I expected it to do well. However, with the release of Super Mario came a bundle deal. In this bundle you get a digital code of the game to download along with a Nintendo Switch with Joy-Cons that have the iconic red color, the same as Mario’s colors. In the bundle you also get a carrying case for your Switch console with a new character named Cappy on the front which is also in red.

Super Mario Nintendo Switch bundle with Cappy on the front of the carrying case

  Now this isn’t my first time owning a system from Nintendo, as I’ve had the NES, N64, a few of the Game Boys, and the Nintendo 3ds. *I just recently purchased the Super NES classic.  I’m going to state some of the things that I like about the Switch and then say what I don’t like, and give you some insight as to what I’m used to from being with Sony for so long.

PROS:

Hybrid between portable and console system

Having this advantage, you can take your games with you anywhere you go. Literally. As I’m writing this, my Nintendo Switch is in my book bag, in the carrying case(you gotta protect your stuff man).

HD compatible 

Pretty much all of the games depending on the developer will be in full HD. When docked they will run at 1080p and when in hand-held mode they automatically go down to 720p. Honestly though, what console ISN’T in HD? It’s 2017 people, they better be!

Full motion controls

Now I feel this particular PRO is on a case-by-case basis. I’ve only had the system for a few days now but I haven’t had any problems with it, I think you can even turn off motion controls with most games if you don’t like it. So far it’s a plus for me. I need to exercise my arms anyway!

Expandable memory

The good thing with the switch is that it takes micro SD cards for additional memory. You can expand the memory of up to 2TB of data…of course when these actually come out. Nonetheless, the Switch supports it. Below are the types of micro SD cards that are compatible:

microSD (up to 2 GB)

microSDHC (4 GB – 32 GB)

microSDXC (64 GB and above)* This requires a system update*

With that said, here’s what can be saved to the memory cards:

Downloadable software

Software update data

Downloadable content (DLC)

Screenshots & video captures(part of the latest 4.0 update)

CONS:

Battery life

The battery life in hand-held mode can be very short. This depends on a few things like what games you play and the settings on your system. It was reported back in March when playing Zelda: Breath of The Wild the maximum amount of time you can get out of your system would be approximately 3 hours. Granted at the time that was one of the main games that came out, but you pretty much get the idea. Some games drain more battery life and some don’t. Speaking from personal experience, I played Super Mario for about an hour and a half and I ended up with roughly 30% battery life. Either way don’t expect a long gaming session if you’re in hand-held mode.

On-board memory

The Switch comes with 32gb of on-board memory. That’s horrible. No debating this point, so don’t try. While game saves don’t take up much memory, game data does. Perfect example: Super Mario takes up 5.3 gigabytes(gb) and an indie title named Stardew Valley only takes up 909 megabytes(mb). If I wanted to install Zelda: BoTW I’d be losing 13.4 gb of space. You also have to take into account the Switch’s OS, game title and software updates.  Some people and myself included, feel 32gb shouldn’t have been the starting point for memory. Cell phones don’t even come with 32gb anymore!

No cloud storage

Staying on the topic of memory here, there’s no cloud based storage for the Switch. You’d think Nintendo would want to come out swinging and going for the knock out but they didn’t. There are gamers out there in the world that download their games and buy physical copies. Some stick to digital downloads only, and some stick to the physical copies only. Either way you’re losing out on space. It might be really slow or it might be really fast. The end result is this: you’re being forced to opt for a micro SD card which can cost you upwards to over $100.

Transferable data

As of right now the only data that you can transfer from the console are screen shots, video captures, and game data. Not game saves! This is also a bad move since game saves were transferable from the Wii-U and Nintendo 3DS to a USB device. Nintendo has confirmed that game saves aren’t transferable, or at least they don’t want them to be right now. A Reddit user posted that he had to send his console in for repair and Nintendo gave him a brand new one. After doing a thorough check he noticed his game saves were on the new system that was sent to him. So this begs the question- will Nintendo eventually enable Switch users to transfer game saves in the future? If so, why not give us that option from the beginning?

Nintendo Smart App/Network

The Smart App was designed to be used as a chat system while you’re playing the game with other people. However that didn’t work out so well in the beginning. A good friend of mine named Avidan Smith spoke about this more in-depth. * Click here to get the full breakdown of what’s wrong with it. A lot of these issues are things that never happened on the other consoles.  Another issue is that you can’t purchase any kind of content from the app itself. You can make purchases from the website but as of right now I’m not sure how that works. If it’s the same way as the PSN store, then you can purchase content and it’ll be linked to your account to download later.

Nintendo Smart App

But here’s the thing with that too: on the PSN you can have your content automatically download to your console once the purchase is made. I routinely do this from the PSN app whenever I want to buy content to enjoy later on. I follow through with the  transaction process and have it download to my PS4 and by the time I get home it’s ready to go once I turn it on. I feel like this is something that should’ve launched with the switch, and if not shortly afterwards. However, we’ll have to wait until 2018 to see if there are any real improvements that are going to be made.

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Playstation Network App

PSN App second sceen

  I’m not going to count the fact that the Switch is lacking something called share play. Share play is a feature available on Playstation 4 where you can watch a friend’s screen for a certain amount of time via internet connection. You can watch a buddy play a game, or even take control and play a game that they have to get the feel of it or just to have a little bit of fun. I use this often with my friends to see if I want to play a game that they have and I don’t. This really gives you some purchasing power and makes up for the fact that there isn’t an abundance of demos and timed trials available on the PSN. The reason I’m not counting it as a CON is because Nintendo seems to give you demos of new games that are coming out, but it would be a nice feature to have when the console is docked.

So there you have it folks, some pros and some cons.  Nintendo actually had a pretty good start seeing as how they were so far behind with the Wii-U. If they can fix these issues I feel it can REALLY be a contender. On top of that they’re starting to get quite a bit of third party support. The momentum is strong with this one. I’m a PlayStation fan-boy(yes..I’ll admit it) but I can see when something’s good and/or bad and call a spade a spade. The PS4 is my preferred system of choice, it’s one thing I’ll always go back to. Coming from a Sony fan, I can say this is definitely worth buying so go pick one up. I’m honestly looking forward to playing as many games that will come out for the Switch cough cough Fire Emblem, Pokemon, Yoshi and Donkey Kong cough cough. Overall I do enjoy having the Switch and I’m having a good time with it where ever I go. Who says you can’t enjoy the best of both worlds?

*A review of the Super NES will be coming shortly on youtube so stay tuned!

  *POST EDIT: Reggie Fil-Aimes, President of Nintendo North America has stated that Nintendo is aware of the issue with game saves. He sat down with Mashable earlier today and stated the following:

You’re talking to someone who has completed 120 Shrines, and I think I’m at 400 Korok seeds and growing [in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild]. So I understand what it’s like putting a lot of time into content, and the thought of that content not being there.

We’re aware of the concern. Certainly, Nintendo is a consumer-oriented company [and] we want to make our consumers happy. We’re aware of the concern and it’s an area we’re going to continue working on to make sure that we can alleviate some of those consumer fears of having a content-based issue.

Because of the type of platform we have — it’s something that is on the go as well as connected in the home environment — there are some added complications. It’s not as simple as a piece of hardware that never moves and is always connected in an online environment.

Of course you know I have to call Bull—-! Throwing little jabs like these at Sony and Microsoft isn’t winning Nintendo any brownie points or favoritism from the gaming community. Simply because Sony and Microsoft figured out a way to back up game saves for their systems. Sony especially did this with the PSP/VITA with cross-platform play. Anyway, with this recent statement from Reggie coming out just earlier today everyone can predict we’ll be getting cloud storage within the next year. I’m going to go as far to say it’s coming but it’ll be included with the paid online subscription from Nintendo.

UPDATE: Is the Switch really any good? #nintendoswitch #gaming #sony #playstation #ps4 #gamers A few days and a few games worth of experience on the Switch Chipz is back at it with another post!