Comment by rpdillon

Comment by rpdillon 2 days ago

28 replies

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> The only real issue the Switch had was being able to keep up with some of the games put on it with FPS but it still had beautiful games (like Tears of the Kingdom)

A bit of an aside, but... Tears of the Kingdom looks just awful to me. My kids played Breath of the Wild and when they got Tears of the Kingdom I walked in and was astonished at the graphic quality. I think I had just finished Doom 2016 at the time and I felt like I was rewinding the clock 15 years in graphical quality. I've heard literally zero other people have this complaint, so I suspect it's just my take on the aesthetics of the game.

I think the state-of-the-art on Switch is really Panic Button's work on the Doom and Doom Eternal ports, but those are frame locked at 30 FPS, so I think getting a spec bump in Switch 2 would certainly help the demographic that plays games like that. My family has left the Switch ecosystem for Steam Deck, and that does a lot better. Would be interesting to compare with the Switch 2 in terms of specs.

3836293648 2 days ago

Tears of the Kingdom's only graphical issue is framerate and resolution. Maybe some ground textures.

If you have issues with it it's entirely with the style, the graphics are fine.

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  • UltraSane 2 days ago

    The world is noticeably empty due to hardware limitations.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • raydev 2 days ago

    The style is entirely informed by hardware limitations. They did their best with what they could.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • 3836293648 a day ago

      Yes, hardware limitations of the Wii U, not the Switch

      Reply View 1 reply
      • cbarrick a day ago

        Tears of the Kingdom is a Switch exclusive.

        The style is influenced by Breath of the Wild, but nothing about the development of Tears was held back by the Wii U.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • nothercastle 2 days ago

    Lack of ram meant it could only handle a couple trees at a time

    Reply View 2 replies
    • 3836293648 a day ago

      That's not true. There's a couple of forests that are as dense as gameplay can reasonably allow.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • nothercastle 12 hours ago

        Most of the environments are empty planes with a 1-2 trees I think they needed to use a lot of tricks to have more than that. It might have also been an ai pathing issue

        Reply View 0 replies
buster 2 days ago

To me, Nintendo is more about gameplay then graphics and i hope it stays that way.

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  • nerdjon 2 days ago

    I would say gameplay and art style instead of what the rest of the industry calls graphics (polygon count basically).

    Nearly all Nintendo (game freak is not technically Nintendo) games look beautiful thanks to having a great art style instead of just focusing on higher polygon count.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • tshaddox 2 days ago

      > what the rest of the industry calls graphics (polygon count basically)

      IMO the focus of cutting edge triple-A graphics is physically based rendering.

      Reply View 1 reply
      • dcrazy 2 days ago

        “Physically based rendering” does not mean “photorealistic rendering.” After all, PBR was pioneered by Disney for use in their animated films. I would be surprised if Mario Odyssey doesn’t use PBR.

        Reply View 0 replies
  • sefke 2 days ago

    I agree with you, but in some newer games it just doesn't make sense to me.

    They want good graphics but the Switch can't handle them, but they still try to make them.

    For example, Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.

    Gameplay and the game design for me personally is really great, but I can't stand the graphics. I would rather play on worse graphics just to not have constant frame drops and in some parts of the game N64 graphics and in some 4K ones.

    Reply View 4 replies
    • jamesgeck0 2 days ago

      Scarlet/Violet look atrocious even next to other Switch Pokemon games. The art direction wasn't great, and it was a really poor game technically.

      https://www.eurogamer.net/digitalfoundry-2022-pokemon-scarle...

      Can't find it right now, but someone did some side by side comparisons of Scarlet/Violet next to similar Breath of the Wild scenes, and it's night and day.

      Reply View 3 replies
      • Phrodo_00 2 days ago

        Neither generation of Switch Pokemon games looked or performed decent, but I guess bad performance is a gamefreak constant since at least the 3DS

        Reply View 2 replies
  • dylanz 2 days ago

    Agree completely. I loved Tears and didn’t once think it looked bad in any way. It was a very clever game and made me feel like a kid again. That’s what I’m looking for in a Nintendo game. I’ll jump on my PS5 if I want to be wowed graphically.

    Reply View 0 replies
  • mingus88 2 days ago

    Exactly. If you want to be dazzled with AAA titles running at 120Hz/60fps/4k then there are plenty of ways to spend your money. Frankly that segment of the industry feels like a treadmill of never ending upgrades for the same basic game.

    My whole family shares and island in animal crossing, firing up some arcade brawlers on the couch. We’ve been playing the hell out of our switch for years and never once have we complained that it’s not flashy enough.

    Reply View 2 replies
    • rpdillon a day ago

      My main issue with the art style is that it's very flat, with large areas of a single, solid color, when more shading would add a sense of nuance and depth. A character's face, body, or hair will have a single light color, and a single dark color. This isn't about 4k, 120Hz, or huge polygon count, it's about basic shading to convey that things are 3d.

      I've played mostly 20+ year old games for years, and don't own a gaming machine or high-end console. I'm into Doom from the 90s, OpenTTD, and Morrowind. But TotK should have been better, in my opinion. The art style just isn't my cup of tea.

      Reply View 0 replies
    • acjohnson55 15 hours ago

      Is sharing an island possible to do across multiple Switches?

      Reply View 0 replies
xnx 2 days ago

> My kids played Breath of the Wild and when they got Tears of the Kingdom I walked in and was astonished at the graphic quality.

You must have good eyes! I've played through both and would be hard-pressed to tell a scene from BotW from TotK at a glance.

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  • rpdillon a day ago

    TotK seems extremely washed out and low-contrast is a majority of the environments. I played a bit of BotW and thought it was much more vibrant.

    Reply View 0 replies
steve_adams_86 2 days ago

I can see the lower quality of the rendering, but the graphical content is stunning in my opinion. The art in the game inspires me a lot more than more photorealistic games tend to. I think they did a stellar job given the resource constraints and the scale of the game.

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manojlds 2 days ago

State of the art imo is Metroid Prime

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  • PaulHoule 2 days ago

    It's a beautiful game, one of the first to use programmable shaders, and one of the earliest that doesn't look dated at all. The shaders make everything look smooth without looking blurry.

    Loading screens are hidden, it's not like the contemporaneous PS2 game Mafia where you wait a few minutes to load, spend a few minutes driving across town on a mission to shoot up some people at a restaurant, get yourself shot up, then have to wait for it to load all over again.

    Reply View 1 reply
    • scop 2 days ago

      As soon as you said Mafia I felt that loading in my bones…

      Reply View 0 replies
  • rikthevik 2 days ago

    Beautiful art direction to be sure.

    But let's be real, it's Super Metroid. :)

    Reply View 0 replies