Switch Buying Guide

Kids seem to love Splatoon 2.

That’s because Splatoon 2 is awesome. I think 6 might be a little young for it though, and it requires a Switch Online subscription for all the good stuff.

Six year olds these days are playing competitive League of Legends and online Bitcoin trading.

Yes. On Saturday my Satisfye grip and the Hori Joycon witht he Dpad (no wireless so strictly handheld) arrived. That makes such a difference if you are a someone who plays a lot of handheld, or like me is entirely handheld. The grip is a fantastic, and they will ship them straight from Hong Kong now instead of via their base in the US. So got it for about £26 total or thereabouts. Where as was previously always looking at being about £50 plus from the states. Now regret not getting their bespoke carrycase.

I finally bought and started playing WarGroove. Still a long way from knowing if this is closer to the gaming perfection of Advance Wars or the near miss of Fire Emblem.

It's not a game to play if you like dogs though.

Did anyone else go for Cadence of Hyrule, or was it just me? I'm loving it, it's easier to get into than Crypt of the Necrodancer, but I can understand a lot of people balking at the price…

I posted about this in the other Switch thread, but a friend and former co-worker of mine has released a game on Switch - Gyro Boss DX is on sale at the moment for just a pound.

Nintendo have confirmed the Switch Lite (they missed a trick not calling it the Lite Switch, if you ask me) - a smaller, handheld-only version of the Switch. It'll be out on the 20th of September; RRP is $199 in the US, but a UK price hasn't been confirmed yet.

Presumably the lack of TV support is to save on whatever hardware components are required for higher resolution and framerate, but not having to bundle it with a dock probably helps as well. It doesn't come with JoyCons, but you can connect them (or the Pro controller) if you want - though the lack of a kickstand will make that an interesting proposition. Accessory manufacturers will be very excited, I'm sure.

I imagine there will be a metric shit-tonne of these being unwrapped by kids, alongside Pokemon, come Christmas morning.

RRP is $199 in the US, but a UK price hasn't been confirmed yet.

I expect it'll translate via a 1:1 Euro conversion, rather than straight from dollars, which would make it ~£180 at current exchange.

If there's an Animal Crossing-themed pack, I expect we'll have one soon enough.

It could all have been so different if only Sony had released a banana-coloured Vita.

If there's an Animal Crossing-themed pack, I expect we'll have one soon enough.

That will break me.

I found out about this five minutes before the announcement…

Is Captain Toad worth £25?

Nah. It’s slow, twee and repetitive. Without the Nintendo branding it’d be a ten quid indie game at best.

Nah. It’s slow, twee and repetitive. Without the Nintendo branding it’d be a ten quid indie game at best.

I disagree, I loved it (long before I worked here). And it has a full blown co-op mode which you can play with your kids.

Sounds like if I do buy it, I want to be able to sell it on when I'm done.

Maybe I'll buy Katamari or the Rabbid's DLC instead.

I brought the Switch on holiday to France, it's been great.

Little Miss Bloodaxe has been playing Mario Kart and has advanced from 50cc with assists to all good trophies on 100cc with no assists. I think I maybe let her play it too much.

I played some Mario Kart too, it's a bit mental. Sometimes it's fantastic sliding around interesting tracks managing drifts and speed boosts, dodging attacks and karts and throwing your own weight around. Other times you just can't physically make your kart turn with the track and you fly off into oblivion, or you get caught in the blast of a blue shell just as you were finally overtaking 1st place, or you get shot by one opener and then his five friends dropping you back six places just before the last corner. I can not figure out if the difference is good tracks and bad or just random change. Either way, I enjoy it for a bit and then I get annoyed and leave it for a couple days.

WarGroove is surprisingly challenging. It is just Advance Wars reskinned, but in AW if you grabbed as many towns as possible in the first few turns those extra resources would usually be enough to see you walk through the level. In WarGroove though, you have to do that to have a chance to survive and it takes a long time and bit of preseverance to get through a level. It's not exactly relaxing holiday gaming.

I played a bit of Zelda, but soon decided it needs the big screen.

Bought Katamari. It's great.

You say that as if it wasn't before.

I was worried that after playing four or five games which were made after this one, this one wouldn't hold my interest. I shouldn't have worried.

I bought the discounted BOTW DLC last night.

I bought Dragon's Dogma, finally. Excited to try it.

Is Y’s VIII Lacrimosa Of DANA - not just a mouthful of a title, but has anyone got an opinion of it?

I enjoyed what I played of it. Looks somewhat basic, but the combat is fast and snappy. It reminds me a bit of the Monster Hunterish game a bunch of us played on Vita for a while….. the name of which I can't remember.

None of this is any help, but from what I played it was good.

the Monster Hunterish game a bunch of us played on Vita for a while….. the name of which I can't remember.

Ragnarok Odyssey?

Quite interested in the reports about how improved the new battery actually is. Until recently been entirely handheld, although my missus wanted Mario Party having played it at a friends and so we now play that at least one a day with the little one, who doesn't really understand what is happening (not 3 till Nov) however loves the sound stage stuff and copying what the characters do on screen with her joycon, so does get actual points.

Anyway…anyone got the new model?

Everyone buy Luigi's Mansion 3 immediately. It's goddamn delightful.

It's also the third time a Luigi's Mansion game has been better than the flapship Mario game.

I will eat my words if I'm wrong but based of the last Luigi's Mansion games I find it very hard to believe the particular premise and gameplay loop or whatever is better than Odyssey

waits for Gar to say it's virtually unplayable

It’s nothing of the sort, but I am finding the lack of an invert option on the right stick a bit problematic - as I expected. It’s made doubly confusing by the fact the motion controls are inverted, but the stick isn’t. It’s odd, and I hope they patch in an option.

Lovely looking game though. When do you unlock the 2-player mode?

Lovely looking game though. When do you unlock the 2-player mode?

Spoiler - click to showWhen you get given Gooigi by the professor, because he's the one that can be controlled by the second player. A bit of advice though: while Luigi's health can increase throughout the adventure, Gooigi's doesn't and it's always very low. He can respawn constantly, but it's just something to be aware of in case the person controlling him isn't very good and keeps dying… if you're impatient, you might get frustrated.

Like Gar, I’ve found the right stick controls to be a bit daft, also trying to ‘claw’ the spectral torch and right stick is a real pain.

I’ve tried switching the control option to whatever the only other option is -unidirectional??? - but it hasn’t helped. It is a bit better playing on the big screen with the pro controller.

In fact, the visuals, and those hidden clues are a little more obvious on the big screen than handheld.

It doesn’t tell you this but all the light & hoover controls are also on the shoulder buttons. I think it’s LB and RB together for the dark light.

I've lost my Switch.

Well, to be more exact, I left my bag on the train, and when I got it back at lost property some scummer had stolen my Switch. And 10 games.

The money isn't even the worst thing – I hadn't been on wifi to back up, so I've lost all my bleeding Pokemon. I tried to explain how big of a deal this was to my wife, but she's not one of us.

Shit. Really sorry to hear that. (The Switch more than the Pokemon, admittedly).

That fucking sucks MPH.

If one of the games you lost was WWE 2k18 I've got a spare you can have.

Haha it wasn't but thank you. If you happen to know Undertaker IRL though, I know some train thieves who need a smackdown.

Anyone played the Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game?

I have a near complete set of the tabletop LCG cards and play solo every now and again, but don’t really get to play with friends often enough - now I love the middle earth theme and then FFG bring out this game.

I did look at one of the very early betas, at UKGE 18 months ago and dismissed it.

Just wondering if anyone has tried it on the Switch - a couple of online reviews seem positive.

Anyone played the Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game?

I have a near complete set of the tabletop LCG cards and play solo every now and again, but don’t really get to play with friends often enough - now I love the middle earth theme and then FFG bring out this game.

I did look at one of the very early betas, at UKGE 18 months ago and dismissed it.

Just wondering if anyone has tried it on the Switch - a couple of online reviews seem positive.

It's on Game Pass for free.

(That's not me saying 'Get an Xbox', rather that several people here can try it if they fancy to give an opinion)

I did just buy the card game as a Xmas gift for the boy. Looks pretty good, he's read the Hobbit and likes the world and we enjoy our co-op games so hoping it's a hit. The videogame has has had middling reviews but I might have a sneaky go of it just to get a headstart on the rules before Christmas.

You should do that, as if it's the FFG game the rules are a shitshow.

Brian: that WWE2k18 was a gift for life :(

Oh. Good.

Anyone played the Lord of the Rings Adventure Card Game?

I have a near complete set of the tabletop LCG cards and play solo every now and again, but don’t really get to play with friends often enough - now I love the middle earth theme and then FFG bring out this game.

I did look at one of the very early betas, at UKGE 18 months ago and dismissed it.

Just wondering if anyone has tried it on the Switch - a couple of online reviews seem positive.

OK, I've played this a bit now on Xbox and I quite like it. Apparently it's quite different to the tabletop game so I can't comment on that.

It's a narrative, adventure-based PvE game. You build a deck of cards consisting of heroes, allies and various effect cards and use them to take on pre-built storylines pitting you against different challenges. You lay your team out on the board and then each turn a character can either attack or use some sort of special power, or you can play a card. After your turn your opponent does the same. Each challenge features different objectives such as killing all the enemies or putting points into an "objective". It's a bit like a slightly clunkier Hearthstone.

There's quite a lot of strategy - characters can guard to make them the subject of the next attack, ranged characters are the only ones that can hit flying enemies and so on - and there's both a Fate meter (put points into it to get beneficial effects) and a Threat meter (which ticks up as you play, giving you an incentive to hurry up and granting Sauron various nasty bonuses as it hits certain thresholds).

Much of the depth seems to be in the deck-building, I'm already unlocking all sorts of extra cards and effects I'm keen to try out. There's a lot of variety in terms of the different powers characters can use and plenty of scope for constructing your own combinations. There aren't any random drops or loot boxes though, the main game comes with a pre-determined set of cards (many unlockable through challenges or in-game currency) and scenarios and future expansions will be the same. In fact that's my only real concern with this - there perhaps isn't a huge amount of content in the base game, just two chapters with five scenarios in each, plus a tutorial and some one-off levels, and while the decks and different difficulty levels obviously give a lot of replay value, it's clearly set up as a bit of an ongoing money sink for expansions. (Much like the original card game, I guess). I can see it really opening up further down the line with a few extra sets under its belt, and obviously I'm playing it for free through Game Pass so I'm not feeling ripped off, but on Switch it'd be a £20 upfront purchase before you even get into the game's DLC roadmap.

I'll let you know if it draws me in enough to make this a regular play, but I like what I've seen so far.

Also worth pointing out that I understand it requires an always-online connection, which might scupper your plans for playing on the Switch depending on where and how you play it.

It's like Slay the Spire was a gateway drug for Garwoofoo. In 3 years we'll find him in a shop doorway, unconscious, surrounded by open packs of Magic the Gathering and Yu-Gi-Oh cards.

I CAN QUIT WHENEVER I WAN-

plays Slipher the Sky Dragon on the pavement

I think I’m going to give it a miss. I’ve got a few gaps in the tabletop card game left to fill, so I’m going to spend my money on real cards.

Only three players showed up for D&D last night so we decided to play the Switch instead. So four player Overcooked, Towerfall and Mario Kart. Lots of fun.

How do we all become friends on Switch? I don't have anyone on my friends list.