[Let’s Talk] What are you playing? – April 2017

A new month is here! We’ve just entered April, so that means we want to know what you’ve been playing.

Have you started up something entirely new for the month? Still playing Zelda: Breath of the Wild? Or maybe you’ve moved on to something else on Switch like Snake Pass. Whatever the case, let us know in the comments below!

Highlights from last week’s topic: Splatoon 2 Global Testfire impressions

ronin4life

Game is great. Lots of fun.

The controls, on their own, I think are… largely ok. But comparing them to the WiiU game, the controls just don’t match up. The ease and effortless glance of map management has been replaced with a comparatively clunky map that has forced a remapping of the Jump button, and while this has nothing to do with the WiiU version, the motion controls don’t work in handheld mode.

The map thing is a fairly big issue for me though in regards to changes between the two games. I always knew in Splatoon where our team stood in regards to the map state. *Always*. Now I struggle to. I play almost entirely Without opening the map up, in what is a mix of both conscious and subconscious decision making (not wanting to blind myself and then die, and just not wanting to bother distracting myself from map covering/forgetting that is how map management works now and how important it tends to be) Nintendo seems to be totally aware of this issue and has enacted a sort of fire control throughout the entire game: from the lobby to every death you are constantly reminded that ‘X opens the map’. ‘Press X to open the map’. You didn’t need this kind of pestering before, because the map was always there and it was 200% obvious how important it was.

Quite frankly: It. Doesn’t. Work. The game, on the whole, is fun. It isn’t unplayable and yes, a quick on/off gives you enough info to work with sometimes… but it is easy to struggle against your enemies as key points shift around faster than you can keep track of now that map management is a required and blinding toggle that takes away from what you are doing all that much more than the dual screen approach did.

Lolo

Sadly I have been so busy with work and I finally was able to get a switch thanks to Nintendoeverything on the heads up of toys r us today at 9 am having switches. I was number 2 in line out of 10 people.

Long story short, after a full time work shift today, and having to go to a hotel in another city, I made it at 10:57pm central time and only got to play 1 match. It was a fun first match, but I was having a hard time like everyone else, adjusting to X being map rather than jump. The Dualie dodge roll is cool but man, I am NOT used to that AT ALL, I got splatted too much for trying it. It’s a good game, I just need to get used to the dualies and get more practice in.

Eileen the Pizza Queen

Okay, Splatoon was hands-down my favorite Wii U game. I don’t know if I ever actually got “good” at it in an absolute sense, but nonetheless I spent a TON of time with it. For a solid half a year, my nightly routine after getting off work consisted of packing a bowl and playing a few rounds of Splatoon to blow off steam before I’d even think about doing anything else. My enthusiasm died out once Splatfests ended and there were no more updates, and I haven’t touched it in months, but the Global Testfire reminded me why I loved it, and there’s no doubt I’ll be annoying my boyfriend again with my repetitive routine this summer. ^.~

That being said, if these two stages are anything to go by, level design has taken a huge step backward. Not only do they feel incredibly similar, but they don’t even feel “organic”. They reek of being random assortments of platforms that only exist to be a video game level, whereas most of the original’s stages felt plausible enough as real-world locations. Of course, I know these are probably the two simplest stages and the more complex ones will probably also be more interesting, but it was a little concerning. Everything else was great though. Music’s trippy and amazing as always, virtually no lag online, and the new hairstyle options are amazing. <3