I'm a Switch, I'm a Lover, Talk About It With Each Other

Hmmm...I might look into it then.

There’s nothing to lose by it. Freepost I think, and you get stuff back quick. I was prepared to pay each time but never got billed.

I've just got my three drifting out-of-warranty Joy-Cons back. Not sure if they're fixed yet, but it was definitely free! So worth a shot Jas.

Given that I've picked up two 3DS games recently, I've been struck by just how much my playing has changed from the 3DS era. I always used to turn the 3DS off whenever I went away from it, so it took that bit longer to start everything up again. Meanwhile I never fully turn the Switch off, meaning it's just a button-press away from jumping back into a game. That immediacy has a bigger impact than I'd appreciated: it's a higher barrier to entry for me to play a quick snippet of Pocket Card Jockey during my lunchbreak if the 3DS is off at the time!

Mind you, the 3DS has a Rhythm Paradise Megamix theme, so it's still better.

Hmm . . . with the whole clamshell thing I don't think I ever turned my 3DS off either. On the one hand, closing one game and loading another is quicker on Switch. On the other hand, the 3DS is much smaller and pocketable - I'm more likely to whip my 3DS out of a pocket on a five minute train ride than to try to unzip my Switch.

The most likely outcome, of course, is that I sit at the back of the carriage and unzip something else.

Buskalilly wrote:

On the one hand, closing one game and loading another is quicker on Switch.

Depends on the game to be honest! I've had some chunky fellows taking a while to load on Switch. Do you still have a launch model boss? I remember that they sped the loading time up on later models, which certainly doesn't help my view. Getting an OLED can't come soon enough...

I do have a launch one, yeah. And sure, it depends, but the kind of games I want a five minute go on are the ones that load sharpish!

Yearly stats:

Spoiler:

I don't think there's anything massively surprising in there.  I played 186h of TotK, 108h of Octopath 2 (a 6/10 game), and 62h of Chained Echoes (an 8/10 game, well worth a look for RPG fans).  Both April and especially November coincided with there being no big games I was into to play - my most played game in April was Persona 4, which I'd eventually dump, and in November it was one hour of Dave the Diver.  Every other month there was at least one big notable game I spent at least 19h on.  Three of those big notable games were TotK.

Did you not play Xenoblade FR in April?

Think I might have not got around to it until May. I wasn't gaming a lot in April anyway, I had a lot of days off spent with The Lady and friends.

Also, I know you use scores properly so 5 is average and 6 is above average, unlike the games' industry where 70 is a 0 on Fantasy Critic (And 77 is the avg score on the site).

Just see Octopath II get that score seems low, as sure not seen your IGNs etc mention it come GOTY chat but Nintendo themed YT channels along with RPG ones, Octopath II is super high on the lists.

It is one I still want to play, but may have my 2D-HD fill for the year in Star Ocean.

I try to for sure, and there are a lot of things to like about Octopath 2.  I think some other sites might be more forgiving about the onslaught of random battles that you can't really turn down unless you want to come out of the other side horribly under-levelled.  I also think that the Dancer drags the entire cast down, and that the writing on the whole isn't actually that good.  There's more about my reasoning here.

I really wanted to like Octopath 2 more than I did.  It's up there with my great gaming sadnesses from this year, along with Sea of Stars hiding its decent ending behind an awful game-spanning fetch quest, and playing through the whole of Melon Journey.

Not got my Switch recap stats to hand, but much like many of us I had May as my most played month thanks to TOTK. I thought TOTK would storm to the top of my most played chart, but I literally had the exact same hourly playtime for TOTK and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 which I played at the beginning of the year. My third placed game was Fire Emblem Engage, so that's a thing.

JayMoyles wrote:

My third placed game was Fire Emblem Engage, so that's a thing.

Ninth best game of the year, one better than Final Fantasy XVI

Clive Rosfield, a well written and fantastically acted protagonist obviously pales in comparison to bland toothpaste boy.

Spoiler:

Did somebody say end of year stats? No surprises with number one here either, it really is outstanding on every level, the equally outstanding previous game is also my number three with Dragon Quest Builders 2 sandwiched between them. You can tell that I was off work for most of July with that 106 hours of gameplay, even a baby couldn't derail that.

2023 Year in Review:

That’s 2023 in a nutshell, with Zelda taking up 72 hours, FC 24 taking up 30 hours and Pikmin 4 taking up 20 hours. Bayonetta 3 and Super Bomberman R 2 both got around fifteen hours, but mostly my year was spent playing games I could rattle through in about five hours. I'll need to give Super Mario Bros. Wonder and Sonic Superstars more time, perhaps that'll happen in the New Year.

My Switch year in Review:

Spoiler:

No real surprises for my top 3.

Other games I had a lot fun with this year were replaying remastered versions of Metroid Prime & Ghost Trick then stuff like Mario Wonder, Pikmin 4 & Vampire survivors. Also finally getting to play Excitebike 64 through switch online which I loved was a big highlight. What a year for video games.

(get the feeling I'm forgetting something though)

40 games, 614 hours. I think that's up on last year?

No surprises:

I like that on my monthly chart you can see Zelda and Mario come out . . .

Just to reiterate on the official post of Nintendo, my top three games were
Tears of the Kingdom
SNES online
Breath of the Wild (I forgot, at the end of last year I started playing it in Master mode)

Seems a bit daft, but I played Tears of the Kingdom for months. And I haven't got Super Mario Wonder yet, otherwise I suspect that'd take over (*wonders is Santa is listening*)