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The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

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Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#501

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused because the last sentence seems to directly contradict the rest of the post. Mind clarifying?

Might've worded it poorly. Just meant that a game running at 60fps is always better than that same game running at 30fps. In the worst case scenario, they're the same game.

Not always better. A 30 fps game that you can play twice or three times as long before having to recharge the battery may be better.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a big problem with any switch upgrade plan: Current GPU architectures are too different to the original Maxwell GPU arch, so it is impossible for Nintendo to make a better console that is hardware compatible to the switch. The games themselves include low level GPU driver stuff, so they won't run in any other GPU architecture without an emulation layer. In the past, Nintendo either forgone backwards compatib…

Would it be possible to just put an entire Switch in the Switch 2? (see: PS3)

Is that how the wii u ran wii games? The 3ds also showed the old ds interface to configure ds games. I’m not sure if either one actually just dropped a second soc in there though

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#503

I caved and bought a Switch last week. It’s the best tech purchase I’ve made in years! The games on it are fun, the versatility of the Joycons is incredible, and the loading speed is a breath of fresh air. My main console is an original PS4. I upgraded to PS5 last year and returned it. It’s just more of the same. Huge game downloads, huge update downloads, a huge console, and long load times. And tbh, I didn’t see a…

> Huge game downloads, huge update downloads

I have uncapped gigabit internet. (Like many of us, I WFH, and want the most "internet" I can get.) I recall redownloading a game I wanted to play recently. It was 40GB. I thought I would go get a coffee while I waited. It was done before I rounded up and got my shoes on. I don't think the game and update sizes really matter to most of the target demographic of a current-gen console any more. But, hey, I could be extrapolating my experience in a terribly shortsighted way.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#504

I was listening to a gaming podcast last week and they were talking about how this release was pirated and available for the last week or so on torrents. That in itself wasn't surprising, but the interesting point they talked about is that the game is much more enjoyable when played on PC with an emulated copy because modern gaming PC hardware is much smoother and higher resolution than the stock Switch. It really ma…

You can play it at 120 Hz, 4K, ultrasmooth, what have you, when you buy the next gen Nintendo console for 350+ eur/$. Not using a small cheap box... Knowing Nintendo.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#505

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they have a couple advantages: 1) Zelda on Switch has very basic graphics compared to modern AAA titles on other consoles and only a 30 fps framerate. 2) The last Zelda game came out in 2017 so they've had tons of time.

I know people say this, and of course the art style is stylised. But playing it last night and watching the day-night cycle, the grass moving around on the first sky island, the physics simulation as I dropped my clumsily-made creations and I thought it was pretty impressive. I do think it's a wonder this runs on a low power tablet computer from 2017 but if I open up Teams on a brand new machine it can be a laggy mes…

> I do think we have lost track of how much computing power we have and how poorly it is used.

I think this is the real lesson to take away from the Switch. The device is woefully underpowered, but developers know there's a huge market out there so they just have to Make It Work. The end result is that many games, especially first party ones, are super well optimized for their hardware. You could see this with the 3DS too, the things those 285MHz could pull off were definitely very impressive.

On PC and other amd64 platforms there's so much raw CPU and GPU compute available that it's possible to get away with performance impacts. Doom Eternal is one of the few well-optimized big games that just seems to play well on any device with a GPU you throw at it. Compare that to some recent releases and you really wonder how bad things must've gotten.

Of course, highly optimized game development takes time, effort, and skill, and that doesn't come cheap. As long as gamers accept the inefficiencies on other platforms, games will continue to be released in a subpar state. Nintendo cares more about the quality and reputation of their brand (in some areas) than it does about making money so it goes the extra mile; I doubt EA or Bethesda care as much as long as they keep making money.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#506
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People complaining about the Switch being underpowered are expecting PS5 level performance on a mobile device. Even if a new console would be twice as fast they still would be disappointed. It's perfectly possible to create innovative and - most important - fun games on something as powerful as the Switch.

> People complaining about the Switch being underpowered are expecting PS5 level performance on a mobile device. I mean, the SoC on the switch was long in the tooth at launch. It's almost exactly the same hardware as in the tegra shield that came out two years prior, but Nintendo clocks it down to 1Ghz, about half the speed of the shield. There's some legitimate complaints that it's a dog slow system because of that.…

Switching to an ARM SoC and off the (basically dying) POWER architecture was a smart move on Nintendo's part, in order to take advantage of industry economies of scale, etc.

However it also potentially makes them vulnerable to being on the upgrade treadmill that e.g. phone manufacturers have to be on. Expectations and pressure will be there to be on the "next" SoC platform.

But more so it makes them less "unique" and "bespoke" and it becomes very hard to differentiate the Switch from any mass market phone or tablet. It's basically that, but with Nintendo's own OS instead of Android, and along with that their highly sandboxed environment.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#507

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Switch combines lower powered A57 (a soc from..2012 on a 20nm process) with a Maxwell GPU (9+ years old at this point) Honestly this is the time to start working on a Switch successor, they could easily more than double the current compute capabilities while keeping the same or lower power envelope. That doesn't even counts the untapped bonuses from much higher memory speeds. I would instantly buy this, we would…

>Honestly this is the time to start working on a Switch successor, they could easily more than double the current compute capabilities while keeping the same or lower power envelope. They've been working on successor for 4+ years now. That's how long new console cycles are now. PS5 dev cycle stated 2 years after PS4 released.

I mean, that might be gaming industry standard, but they should be able to do better than that given that the Switch is essentially just a fairly standard ARM SoC-based tablet, with some joycons attached. Phone and tablet manufacturers are constantly pushing new skews.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re pirating you would probably also pirate the keys and you wouldn’t need to do the console exploit (as far as I understand it anyway)

That’s not at all equivalent to just plugging a box sold by Nintendo however which was the point I was making. Pirating is an involved process. The fact it exists doesn’t at all make a business case as the parent comment was implying especially considering that PC gaming is already a niche market.

It is really not that much of an involved process. Reading a wiki page and downloading a few files from the first hit of a Google result is probably similar effort to setting up whatever potential product you have in mind.

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#509
post #77

Has Nintendo ever talked about how they do software development? Can we all drop the thousands of books that have been written about software engineering in general and just figure out what they do? Game aside, the reviews have been pointing out how the game performs well (after day 1 patch) and is not pestered with bugs, which is an impressive feat for such an open world game where most things are able to interact w…

Sakurai (creator of the Kirby and Super Smash Bros. series) has been running a youtube channel about his game design/development philosophies.

https://www.youtube.com/@sora_sakurai_en

Re: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Release

#510
post #216
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do agree that progression is slow, but I never felt it was grindy. Stuff broke, but my inventory was always full of other stuff so it hardly mattered. I guess if you felt like you needed to complete all the shrines it could feel grindy? They’re all different at least.

Inventory was always full with sh*t. Nothing really helpful. Sure you had to collect some stuff in OoT too, but at least the sword was always available and mostly enough to get around. The shrines are fine for me, it's just annoying to spend time to have meaningful weapons, not just sticks. I stoped playing it and wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Would rather tell them to play TP or OoT.

Did you just play the tutorial and stop when you didn't have a master sword half an hour into the game?

Weapons are literally everywhere. You kill a monster, it will generally drop it's weapon. They're scattered all over the ground. They're in chests. There is never a lack of weapons, and that is one of the core points of the game.

Literally the only way you could be stuck with tree branches is if you stuck to the opening part of the Great Plateau or intentionally pretended all the weapons didn't exist.

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