Switch Buying Guide

Is Gar's gravy like mart's game milk?

Milk, milk, lemonade…

oh my god

Mario Rabbids is £14.99 on the estore at the moment.

Mario Rabbids is £14.99 on the estore at the moment.

That is tempting. I almost bought it on Amazon for £26 the other day.

It’s a brilliant game. A cross between XCOM and a bag of Skittles.

Bought. Because of course it was.

I own a physical copy and i still bought it.

I just found Rogue Trooper Redux on the Switch shop. It was a fantastic game back on the PS2 and I'm sure it's still great (if a little linear) and it's only about £6.50.

Also has anyone played Gris? The artwork looks stunning but it wasn't clear from the video if the actual game is any good.

The former seems to be getting quite meh reviews from people on rllmuk. Wasn't the original, arguably, one of the first games with a cover mechanic in 3rd person? I'm sort of tempted. One of us should take the plunge.

Gris looks nice. Again, waiting for someone to take the bullet.

It was one of the first cover games. It was probably the first good one. I really liked it because right from the start you have a fun set of weapons and gadgets and can lay mines, set an auto turret, snipe and maybe some other stuff I've forgotten.

I've already bought it, I'll let you know how I get on.

OK, Rogue Trooper Redux is exactly what I expected, a good PS2 game with a pretty good graphical upgrade, which plays better because these sticks don't have a massive dead zone. It's still fairly low poly and the animations are basic but it all glows nice blues and greens. It looks a lot better on my TV than it does handheld.

Gameplay is slightly clunky but still fun. right from the start you can run&gun, take cover and aim your shots, actually snipe, or crouch and sneak around. I think there's a silencer too. I don't think you can snipe from cover, which is odd. If you find a gun emplacement, something will appear on the horizon for you too shoot with it. It's mostly set outdoors in big corridors with cliff faces for walls.

I like it. I might not play through it all just now but it will be nice to have it on the Switch to dip into when all the bright colours in Mario give me a headache. It was never worth £20, but £6 seems about right.

OK. You might've convinced me.

TALES OF VESPERIA IS OUTTTTT

TALES OF VESPERIA IS OUTTTTT

I saw that, I get confused with the various Tales games though. Is this a new one or a remake of a good old one?

It's a remaster of the PS3 version of the Xbox 360 one.

It's hard to believe that anyone would get confused, really.

Originally NTSC-J 360 exclusive.

It's one of the best Tales titles. Also has a cracking opening song.

I remember playing the demo on 360 and not clicking with the combat system - those hack-and-slash action RPGs just don't do it for me. It keeps coming up as a great game, though, so I am curious about it – though there's unusually little discussion of the characters or story for an acclaimed JRPG.

Can anyone recommend Super Mario Bros U?

Consider I never had a Wii - not have I ever really played a 2D Mario.

If you've never played a 2D Mario, you might be better spending 70 quid instead of 40, and buying a SNES Mini. (That's a genuine suggestion, not sarcasm. )

Haven't played the new one, but it looks a little soulless?

No it’s really good. The best 2D Mario for years and widely under-appreciated. Buy with confidence.

(though Donkey Kong Tropical Freeze is even better)

I remember playing the demo on 360 and not clicking with the combat system - those hack-and-slash action RPGs just don't do it for me. It keeps coming up as a great game, though, so I am curious about it – though there's unusually little discussion of the characters or story for an acclaimed JRPG.

The characters are interesting. The whole thing subverts quite a lot of tropes (though leans on many too). It has some quite deep themes running through it.

The combat is a bit Marmite, but I have to say after a while the flashing real time stuff becomes less irritating and actually has a fair amount of nuance and depth to it.

I think overall my feelings about it is that it's just a likable game full of likable characters.

Not gonna start a thread about this one because I don't think it's got the staying power to warrant such effort.

I've played through all four missions in the demo for anime mech shooter Daemon X Machina that dropped after last night's Direct and I think that's more than enough for me.

The character customisation and mech decision stuff actually had me going this would be the kind of game I could get my teeth into, but the actual mech piloting is overcomplicated, twitchy and the objectives are really badly communicated despite the ungodly amount of UI on the screen.

It's a real mixed bag visually, too - the final boss fight against a colossal mech in the desert is bright and open, but two other missions are set in a cluttered city level with short sight lines and evening/night time lighting they just makes everything look really muddy and indistinct.

The controls are fine, apart from an extremely twitchy auto-lock which takes too long to lock, meaning that tracking any quick-moving enemies (especially in close quarters) or trying to single out one in a group is an exercise in frustration.

You've always got at least a couple of AI squamates backing you up, though they'll pretty much finish missions by themselves, if you let 'em and I still felt hounded and outnumbered a lot of the time.

It doesn't really have the sense of speed that I wanted either; maybe upgrades to the mech will make all the difference, but I'd have expected the demo to showcase the full experience a little better.

Look at the state of this.

All that garbage taking up the entire right third of the screen, but no indication of how close to death the boss is. I have no idea what the icons under the Stamina bar mean. It shows the names of the AI squadmates but doesn't indicate their health status - not, as far as I'm aware, that I could help them out anyway.

I still don't know what Femto is.

I have only tried the first level of the demo but it felt almost exactly like a more anime Armored Core, and I did like me some Armored Core, so I'm going to at least give this the full runthrough before I cast judgement. Also, I heard you can change controls so you can fly and shoot both weapons easier so that's what I'm going to do next time I get on it asap.

Hearing al ot of reports of a terrible framerate, I don't really remember but I do think weapons felt a bit like peashooters, hopefully the others you get are okay.

Played the demo of Yoshi's Crafted World - it's a nice little game but it's pretty much the same as Yoshi's Woolly World so again I don't think I'll be getting this. I remain perpetually disappointed by the Switch, the number of Wii U ports or nearly-ports on there is ridiculous and I'm still waiting for some more original Nintendo titles of the quality of Breath of the Wild or Mario Odyssey.

While you are waiting, Towerfall is awesome. I just spent an hour playing two player versus with my son, we were both laughing like maniacs the whole time.

Pretty sure Towerfall has been in PS+ in the past (like, ages ago), so Gar probably already owns it.

It was on PS+ (and Ouya) but this version has more maps and up to 6 players so it's a bit of an upgrade.

Yep, I absolutely love Towerfall but as you say I've got it via PS+. I did buy the expansion for it though so I'm not a total cheapskate.

I just spotted Anodyne on the Switch store which is recommended if you think you would enjoy a surreal homage to Link's Awakening.

Of course there must be a pretty good chance that you all already picked it up in a bundle or a Steam sale and then ignored it, but if not, you might want to give it a look.

Are the issues with Hyrule Warriors handheld mode overstated? Or does it need to be played docked?

I've never played a Warriors game before, thought I'd give this one a go if I could find it cheap.

It’s genuinely one of my favourite games ever, and the Switch version has an insane amount of stuff in it. Even if the frame rate takes a hit in handheld mode, I’d find it impossible not to recommend.

OK, so my brother has got a Switch and has been playing all sorts of terrible random shit that he's picked up in the sales because he has no idea what's good and what's not. I've recommended him a bunch of stuff but what's good in terms of things that have been released on PS4/XB1 that have made their way over to Switch? I must be forgetting absolutely loads of games, I've flagged up Darkest Dungeon and Guacamelee but I'm sure there are loads more. If it's relatively cheap then that's a bonus.

Enter The Gungeon
Downwell
Ikaruga
Dandara
Crawl
Dead Cells
Yoku's Island Express
Steamworld Dig 2 (and Heist? Dunno, maybe)
Armello
Iron Crypticle
Darksiders
Hyper Light Drifter

for starters.

Ape Out!

I've always liked the look of Golf Story, though obviously I've never played it.

Puyo Puyo Tetris as well, maybe?

Puyo puyo is 17 quid currently at gamecollection.

I've bought a Switch too! Finally. Just when everyone else has gone off it, no doubt.

I've only got one game - Zelda. I'll get Mario Odyssey, and probably Raving Rabbids. Does anyone have any recommendations for games that a 6-year-old might enjoy? One that loves the Lego games and Tearaway?

At the moment I haven't even plugged it in yet. I'm too tired.

You can get Lego City on Switch (a port of the Wii U version).

But first you'll want to forbid them from playing for 100 hours until you've finished Zelda. (I'd be a bad parent.)

My boy was obsessed with Rayman Legends at that age, especially the touch-screen bits (which I think have made it over to the Switch version, but you might want to check).

You can't go wrong with Pokemon Let's Go.

We played some Lego City Uncovered on PC, but it never really clicked. Perhaps it will be more popular on the Switch.

That's what you do with the Switch, right? Buy a bunch of games you already own on other formats?

Pokemon is tempting, yes. Rayman on PS4 was another one he wasn't keen on.

Captain Toad Treasure Tracker? It's about as gentle as games get.

You could just abandon parental responsibility and stick him in front of Fortnite, of course.

Yoshi's Crafted World kind of has the same feel that Tearaway does, given the setting. It has an easy mode too, just in case your small one finds it too tough.

Our three-year-old loves just running around in Odyssey, but you've already mentioned that. (He can't do much of the platforming, but he discovered how to crouch-run and decided it was the funniest thing he had ever seen.)

I dunno if difficulty is going to be a problem. He's better than me at Tearaway.

Mario Odyssey should be fine. Little Miss Bloodaxe got to the end of it simply by ignoring any hard bits.

That's what I did to be fair.

The Switch is quite lovely, isn't it?