my experiences with the Switch so far

[Aussie2B]

I believe they had a big backlog that was originally mobile-only, so that made it easy to dump a whole ton of them on traditional handhelds and consoles in a short span. They also have multiple developers making them.

I bought the two that were released on PSP and all of the ones that got physical releases on Vita. I haven't finished all the ones I've bought thus far, but if I ever get through them all, I'd be up for buying more, probably the digital-only ones on Vita. But when I buy them digitally, I try to get them on sale. I think I got the PSP ones (End of Serenity and Mystic Chronicles) for around $5 each, and I definitely got at least 5 bucks of worth of entertainment out of End of Serenity (simple, breezy RPG that took me around 15 hours to beat, if I remember correctly). I was actually thinking this past week that I'd like to start up Mystic Chronicles.

[Edmond Dantes]

So have you guys ever had one of those experiences where you actually really enjoy a game (Despite it possibly not being that good) BUT THEN you can't recommend it because it has one really glaring, damning flaw?

I had that experience with a Switch game called Crimson Keep. From what I can discover everyone else who ever played it thought it was garbage, but I kinda like it... it basically reminds me of a jankier, more amateurishly programmed King's Field or Ultima Underworld but with semirandom dungeon levels. I was actually addicted to it for a bit.

AND THEN I discovered that it can crash while loading (the loading screens are usually brief, but sometimes they never go away, so I can only assume the game crashed). These loads are every time you transition between levels, and this isn't a game where you can save at will, so if the game just suddenly decides to misbehave that's hours of progress lost right there.... that kinda sucks. Like the game would actually be pretty decent if not for this one glaring issue that just can not be forgiven.

[Aussie2B]

Meh, I'll give people fair warning, but if I think a game is great, despite flaws, I'll still recommend it. Occasional crashing has never stopped me from loving and recommending Star Ocean 2.

[Edmond Dantes]

Yeah but in this case, Crimson Keep autosaves either whenever you close the game or else whenever you exit a level--there is no manual saving (this is also one of those games where your save gets erased if you die). So if you exit the level and it crashes, your save is useless and you have to start the whole game over (quitting and reloading your save doesn't help... the next level still won't load, unless you just have to be really patient or persistent).

Despite enjoying the game this basically dispirited me as it basically said even if I get good and survive, the game could just randomly screw me over anyway.

[Edmond Dantes]

So I wanted to update with some positives.

A long time ago I bought (on sale) a game called Wreckin' Ball Adventure. I don't know why I ignored it for so long, but I played it today and... its actually a lot of fun. It classes itself as a "puzzle platformer" but the main "puzzle" is you're a ball and the game has a physics engine. You start out just able to move around and jump but soon also get a grappling hook/zipline that is really fun to use. I wound up getting addicted to it for a bit.

Another game I bought but for some reason didn't play much until today was Skypeace... or SKYPEACE as its listed on my Switch. I don't know what this would be classed as... it looks like a shmup but you don't shoot, you only dodge enemies and try to maneuver into the path of coins and other pickups, and you get scored on keeping the string of pickups going.... it seems almost like something that would be a mobile phone game.... which, considering the Switch is a lot like a mobile device in some ways, makes sense it would be here. Still, I had fun with it.

My first ever pre-purchase was a thing called Crazy Zen Minigolf, because I had watched various youtubers play PC golf games like Tower Unite Golf and Golf It which all looked fun (this coming from a guy who had no pre-existing interest in the sport) and wanted something like those, but for a system I actually owned. Crazy Zen basically seems like its trying to fulfill that niche. It recently got a patch which improved the performance and fixed some camera issues, although I do think there is room for improvement in the latter area.

So yeah, three mostly-positive experiences...

On that note, Doom 3 on the Switch is actually pretty awesome. I have the original PC release but... well, my XP PC is sometimes kinda choppy with Doom 3, while it plays smooth on the Switch, so it may be my primary way to play. On that note Doom 1 and 2 recently got patched and now you can download custom maps from the Bethesda servers (though you need to make an account first--its free tho). One thing about that is I swear the enemies move faster on Switch than they do in the original DOS version, which is the one I'm most used to. This isn't a complaint.... its Doom on the go, and now finally has Final Doom, so I ain't complaining!