Modest Tech: The NX Generation (Nintendo Switch)

[marginalgloss]

I have a slightly unusual quandary that I was hoping to get some advice on:

 

I'm getting married in a few weeks, and as part of the thing afterwards we've booked the mini cinema room in the hotel. My plan is to plug in my Switch to entertain the kids (and some of the adults) for a while after dinner.  

 

Can anyone think of some local multiplayer Switch games that would be suitable for this occasion? In terms of content they would need to be suitable for everyone (i.e. 5 to 60ish years old) and easy to pick up and play without much guidance.

 

I have an extra pair of joy-cons so up to four players is doable. Mario Kart 8 is the obvious candidate, and I already have that, but I haven't got much further. If anyone has any suggestions I'd be extremely grateful...

[osmosisch]

Congratulations!

 

 

Snipperclips and Overcooked are the most obvious ones that come to mind. The first to build relationships, the second to destroy them.

 

I've also had quite a bit of fun with the wife/kids with Death Squared.

 

One thing to bear in mind is that there's quite a few joycons out there with limited range so depending on the size of the screen you might have issues with how far people want to sit from it. Test this out in advance.

[Roderick]

Congrats with the marrying business!

 

With a month extra I'd say Super Mario Party would be great, but that's out on October 5th. ARMS could be a good fit if you don't mind the teensy bit of cartoon violence. It might skew a bit younger, though.

[dartmonkey]

Congratulations! I’d add Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime to the list.

[Cbirdsong]

All of the Jackbox games are on Switch, and I know at least some of them have a "no PG-13 prompts" checkbox. Definitely put them on the list if you will have internet access and everyone will have phones/tablets/whatever to play with.

 

I'm not sure Snipperclips would be the best option, because it's more of a fiddly slow-paced thing?

[marginalgloss]

Thanks everyone for your very helpful comments! At some point this is going to be a thing I'm actually doing and enjoying instead of a thing I'm worried about organising, haha, oh god.

 

Think I'm gonna go for Overcooked and the Jackbox Party Pack. I wonder if anyone has any strong feelings about Overcooked vs Overcooked 2? It sounds like the sequel is perhaps more challenging so I might go for the first game...

[RubixsQube]

14 hours ago, marginalgloss said:

Thanks everyone for your very helpful comments! At some point this is going to be a thing I'm actually doing and enjoying instead of a thing I'm worried about organising, haha, oh god.

 

Think I'm gonna go for Overcooked and the Jackbox Party Pack. I wonder if anyone has any strong feelings about Overcooked vs Overcooked 2? It sounds like the sequel is perhaps more challenging so I might go for the first game...

 

I know that this is not going to be a super popular opinion, but another great answer for entertaining people in a goofy, approachable way for a while is the oft decried 1-2-Switch. I have pulled that out at a bunch of gatherings with friends and families and it's been really fantastically fun. Here's a photo my Dad and my wife getting ready for a showdown (on my parent's homemade back patio tiki bar):

 

 

we had more than a few hours of goofy laughter and fun. Overcooked and Jackbox are fine, but Jackbox requires a group of people who are all at around the same level of humor understanding, and Overcooked requires a bunch of people who want to work together and can communicate well. 1-2-Switch mostly just requires two people to play a simple game together, with people watching. 

[osmosisch]

I would love to try 1-2 Switch but the price is just so off-putting for a goofy party game.

[dartmonkey]

I'm waiting for 1-2 Switch to hit 19.99€

[Merus]

Nintendo games don't get cheaper as they get older. They'll stay at the same price for years (and they keep selling for years, so)

[jennegatron]

4 hours ago, Merus said:

Nintendo games don't get cheaper as they get older. They'll stay at the same price for years (and they keep selling for years, so)

 

I love nintendo games, i get older, and they stay the saaaaaame price. alright, alright, alright

[Dosed]

Tricksy Nintendoses

[Roderick]

That was a swell Direct though! And indeed, the emotional rollercoaster that was the Animal Crossing Switch announcement hit me right where Nintendo planned it.

 

Also, Luigi's Mansion 3 and tons of nice third party games. I am damn curious how Civ6 will play on Switch!

[Nappi]

Video in question:

 

Looking forward to playing Katamari Damacy for the first time.

[Henke]

New Super Mario Brothers U! Yeah, I wanna play that.

[Merus]

The World Ends With You is out. This is, I think, my third? playthrough of it.

 

I'm still angry at how good some of the game systems are. The drop system, for instance: every enemy drops one pin per difficulty, which can be a new ability, a special item pin, or vendor trash. If you play on a higher difficulty, you get access to new, more powerful pins, but you can still get the lower-difficulty drops. But because the drop rate for each pin is different, sometimes you want to play on easy because normal has a high chance of dropping a vendor trash pin instead. And, you can add a multiplier to the drop rate by playing at a lower effective character level, volunteering to fight multiple enemies in a chain (which gives them a difficulty boost) and, new to this version, using your partner attack, which also boosts your drop rate.

 

It's incredibly simple - there's no drop table, no rarity levels. You can guarantee the drop you want if you boost the drop rate enough, the game helpfully keeps track of every drop, and it ties into all the game's systems in a way that makes the other game systems more interesting.

 

It's pretty close to perfect, honestly - every thing I can think of to 'improve' it would just make it more complex for no gain.

[miffy495]

I have never played the game, but seeing it for $65 is putting me off a bit. I finished Octopath's last character quest tonight and need my next thing. Worth full, or wait for sale?

[graddy]

Merus, what do you think of Gita Jackson's critiques here? Seems like the switch version was modeled after the mobile version?

 

https://kotaku.com/the-world-ends-with-you-final-remix-the-kotaku-review-1829697381/amp

[Merus]

It is, and they've made some changes that surprise me. I don't know how they would have bought it across, actually - the dual-screen combat from the original was the single greatest hurdle for people to enjoy the original, and the game didn't sell well enough, so it absolutely needed to be junked. I don't know how I feel about its replacement - instead of passing a puck back and forth and having to swap screens with the puck, you use your partner attacks to set up combos (and despite what Gita implies, those combos are actually more important in this version than in the original - certain enemies only take damage from combo attacks, where previously they only took damage if that character had the puck). I think it's a little underbaked, but the only obvious place to take it would involve changing the underlying mechanics enormously. Some of the attacks she says don't work in the remake, like the draw a circle ones, never worked for me in the DS version either. Some of the boss fights that were built for two screens are clunky in the remake - there's an early boss where you have to make Shiki do a combo finisher to go into a minigame, to get an effect that was previously something you managed on the top screen during the fight.

 

They've also stripped out mingle PP entirely, which makes the evolution system simpler, which shocked me at first but I think overall, probably for the best. Mingle PP was a neat feature when the game came out, and would have been really cool as a 3DS feature with the built-in mingle functionality, but on the Switch it simply wouldn't be fun. Evolution could sometimes be painful because you'd sometimes need to get a bit of mingle PP on a pin simply to stop it evolving.

 

But then the Switch port keeps the stuff that always worked - the level/drop/pins system is all pretty much intact - and brings nice up-rezzed graphics (it's nice to be able to make out details on some of the pins) and a soundtrack that's not nearly as limited by cartridge size as the original. And unlike the mobile port, the co-op game seems to be an effort at bringing across the original partner gameplay, so if you want that OG style you can turn on co-op and play on your own I guess? There's a reason why the original game was so rough.

 

I have noticed it's easier, but I think that's more because I'm familiar with the mechanics and some of the additions give you mid-to-late game pins far earlier than they're normally available.

 

I thought it was a bit expensive, as well, but this port exists because the developers are trying to get a greenlight for a sequel so I figure I'd vote with my wallet there. It might see a price drop at some point, although it seems to have made a bit of a splash on sales charts so who knows.

[Dosed]

How we feeling about that Pokeyman? I'm excited to play with my girlfriend and get some nostalgia tickles.

[miffy495]

I was fully on board until I learned that you don't actually battle wild pokemon. Now I'm very unsure about this game and so am waiting for reviews and impressions to hit. Remake Pokemon Yellow as a stopgap while waiting for a new game? Excellent idea. Replace the battles with Pokemon Go? Umm...

[eRonin]

I'm just heavily anticipating Smash Bros Ultimate, so I've been skipping a lot of Switch releases in the meantime. Just been playing Into the Breach and Hollow Knight besides my usual Splatoon 2 fix. I can wait until Gen 8 Pokemon comes out next year (or 2020?) and I think it'll be nice going into that without experiencing a watered down version first. 

[Dosed]

Yeah, I think that's gonna be pretty rough. It wouldn't even be so bad if you beat them and then threw the ball at them until you caught them. I think I'm pretty much mentally bought in at this point though. I believe gen 8 will be 2019, and I'm looking forward to Town, whatever that is, from the pocketmen team.

 

I've been loving Into The Breach recently. It's super cool and I love that I can just turn it on and off again at will.

[Roderick]

Let's Go is aimed at the most casual/newcomery Pokémon audience. It isn't so much stopgap as it is 'let's get those 80 million Pokémon Go players to buy a Switch'. The whole game is geared towards making it as accessible and friendly and non-threatening as possible. Bearing that in mind, it should be just fine.

[miffy495]

Fine, yeah. But also not for me.

 

I also picked up Okami again. May actually get past the second big dungeon this time...