One of the very few games in the past decade, which I can refer to as “actually got significantly held back by technical limitations of the host platform”. Same with Pokémon Scarlet/Violet and Shin Megami Tensei 5.
I am not picky in terms of graphical fidelity or anything like that, very happy to play older games, even those that don’t run that well. But I had to straight up step away from SMT5, despite how much i was excited for the game, because it felt like I was controlling a blob of pixels at under 30fps most of the time. While pokémon games i mentioned above had slightly more stable performance, Arceus was the most lifeless and depressing open world i’ve seen in a very long time.
Which is such a shame, because you could obviously see the devs tryng to evolve the pokémon formula in an exciting new direction, only for it all to be squandered and met with criticism due to not necessarily the fault of the devs, but the host platform. And that’s why I am upset about Switch being so weak. Would gladly play more games on it, but it is extremely unappealing when even a lot of the top tier AAA exclusives look awful (exceptions apply, e.g., zelda games), have lifeless worlds, and cannot even run at stable 30fps.
I am not asking for PS5 tier graphics or anything like that. I am even willing to grind my teeth and forego 60fps. But ffs make it at least a stable 30 and let the world of a game (Pokémon) that is supposed to be full of “wildlife” and nature not look like it was annihilated in a nuclear strike the day prior to the events of the game taking place.
At this point, i would only count first party mario-universe type of games to be not held back by anything (and maybe Zelda, but you can obviously see how the devs had to push it to the max of what’s even technically possible with it). And that’s pretty much how Switch ended up just as a “mario- and party- game machine” for me.
I am not picky in terms of graphical fidelity or anything like that, very happy to play older games, even those that don’t run that well. But I had to straight up step away from SMT5, despite how much i was excited for the game, because it felt like I was controlling a blob of pixels at under 30fps most of the time. While pokémon games i mentioned above had slightly more stable performance, Arceus was the most lifeless and depressing open world i’ve seen in a very long time.
Which is such a shame, because you could obviously see the devs tryng to evolve the pokémon formula in an exciting new direction, only for it all to be squandered and met with criticism due to not necessarily the fault of the devs, but the host platform. And that’s why I am upset about Switch being so weak. Would gladly play more games on it, but it is extremely unappealing when even a lot of the top tier AAA exclusives look awful (exceptions apply, e.g., zelda games), have lifeless worlds, and cannot even run at stable 30fps.
I am not asking for PS5 tier graphics or anything like that. I am even willing to grind my teeth and forego 60fps. But ffs make it at least a stable 30 and let the world of a game (Pokémon) that is supposed to be full of “wildlife” and nature not look like it was annihilated in a nuclear strike the day prior to the events of the game taking place.
At this point, i would only count first party mario-universe type of games to be not held back by anything (and maybe Zelda, but you can obviously see how the devs had to push it to the max of what’s even technically possible with it). And that’s pretty much how Switch ended up just as a “mario- and party- game machine” for me.