What's so good about Switch's graphical capabilities anyway?

[henrymidfields]

So a rant that I have, which I've been realizing as of late:

I really do not understand this obsession about the "good graphics" of some of the Nintendo Switch games I've been hearing. What the fuck makes them such hot shit anyway when there's already been stuff like this since PS3? Okay, fine, Zelda's actually good considering how the depiction of Hyrule adds to the worldbuilding. But Mario? Fuck you man, you just a polished turd to me when it's just the same her royal idiocy lacking the brain to use her Smash Bros moves against Bowser and at least put up a fight. Or Link's Awakening Remake? Fuck you too - you're no different to the GB original with only a couple of extra content. 

Even some of the PS games those feels more like some vanity project and a giant timesink sometimes. And I can say this because I've done some rendering work myself for architectural stuff, and they are very time-consuming. And it feels like some of the graphics aren't worth it when I hear bad rumors about shoddy gameplay or poor story etc. For example Final Fantasy 13's cities etc may look cool, but it doesn't feel like if they add anything substantial to the story which I've not been a fan of. The exceptions I've made were Final Fantasy 7 Remake, the modern Persona series, or Yakuza. All of them depict the setting very well, I feel, and adds to the narrative to the game, whether it's the destitute Midgar slums, or the every-day looking Japanese cities of Iwatodai/Yasoinaba, or the brightly-lighted and clastrophobic districts of Tokyo. In all of these cases, it also kind of helps that there is signage that I can actually read too. Another justifiable exception/reason would be stuff like Gran Turismo, FIFA or real-world sports game where the realism (including the high-fidelity graphics) is actually important.

Edited December 17, 2022 by henrymidfields

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

The Switch doesn't really have good graphical capabilities, just a lot of the popular games tend to have good art direction that masks this problem.

Edited December 17, 2022 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Armchair General]

3 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

I really do not understand this obsession about the "good graphics" of some of the Nintendo Switch games I've been hearing. What the fuck makes them such hot shit anyway when there's already been stuff like this since PS3?

It's an cope for which way the tide of the Console Wars are heading and it's not really worth paying an lot of attention to.

[indigoasis]

When it comes to video games, graphics aren't a high priority for me. I'm more interested in gameplay and story (and performance). That doesn't mean I don't appreciate a good-looking game (so long as I can figure out what I'm looking at), but it won't mean much if I don't enjoy what I'm playing.

The Switch isn't a graphical powerhouse by any means (I don't think it was ever meant to be), but I think it's portability and controller options make up for that in terms of hardware, not to mention some of the incredible games it has in it's library.

[Hawkwing]

Well this is new. Usually when I hear complaints about the Switches graphical capabilities, it's about the systems performance and how some third party games straight up can't run on the system, or require a lot of optimization wizardry to get it working. Granted, I am in the "The Switch needs a hardware upgrade" camp. Mostly because I'm tired of how even recent first and second party Nintendo action games can sometimes struggle to run properly, and if I want a good fast paced title, I usually have to look earlier in the systems life or buy an E-Shop game that's usually a port of a decade or two old game. There's a reason people were annoyed at how the last (non-movie related) Nintendo Direct largely consisted of JRPGs and farming sims.

4 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

And it feels like some of the graphics aren't worth it when I hear bad rumors about shoddy gameplay or poor story etc.

Game development is a wild beast, and it's usually a group effort. Sometimes the team in charge of graphics and art direction is focused and produces something wonderful, while the team in charge of writing may have struggles that result in a flawed story, and/or the development team may not be able to find out solutions to gameplay problems in time. Sometimes these situations are flipped, and you can have games with a wonderful story and terrible gameplay and graphics, or a game that has amazing gameplay that isn't much to write home about in terms of looks or plot. No one sets out to intentionally make a bad game, and money and time constrains and other unexpected issues always play a factor. Heck sometimes players will turn a blind eye to these issues, recommending a game for the story or gameplay alone even if other aspects are lackluster.

4 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

But Mario? Fuck you man, you just a polished turd to me when it's just the same her royal idiocy lacking the brain to use her Smash Bros moves against Bowser and at least put up a fight.

We get it. You hate the Mario series. Just say it's not for you and move on. You don't need to keep saying it's a "polished turd" or whatever just because the games don't place emphasis on their stories when that was never the focus.

And if you want Peach to do something, look at the spin-off games. Maybe you'll find one you actually like?

4 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Or Link's Awakening Remake? Fuck you too - you're no different to the GB original with only a couple of extra content. 

The graphical upgrade wasn't made overnight, and the Game Boy original could have really used the extra buttons. It was an impressive game for it's time, but it was trying to be a console Zelda game when it didn't necessarily have the controls for it. It was a game that would have benefited from a remake, and it did.

It shouldn't have been $60 though, but I haven't heard anyone defend the price.

[Armchair General]

2 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

it's about the systems performance and how some third party games straight up can't run on the system, or require a lot of optimization wizardry to get it working

The only thing that I've seen about this is how erratic XCOM 2 is. Had random crashes because I've been playing on one file for too long, occasionally got an noticeable drop in framerate whenever I (unintentionally) set an house on fire, the game occasionally has trouble rendering the flying cargo ship after an certain point in the campaign.

 

Other than that, nearly everything else works as well as you'd expect.

[Hawkwing]

Just now, Armchair General said:

The only thing that I've seen about this is how erratic XCOM 2 is. Had random crashes because I've been playing on one file for too long, occasionally got an noticeable drop in framerate whenever I (unintentionally) set an house on fire, the game occasionally has trouble rendering the flying cargo ship after an certain point in the campaign.

To be fair, XCOM 2 is infamous for having bugs and graphical hiccups even on the PC version. And slowdown if you spend too much time on a Lost level.

It's really action based titles that seem to struggle on Switch nowadays. My problem is more how there are a number of third party games that I think would be a good fit on the Switch but are either too powerful for the system and/or can't fit on a cartridge. The fact that some retail games still need to download data onto the Switch storage or how some companies use cloud versions to get around the hardware and/or space issues is pretty telling.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

47 minutes ago, Hawkwing said:

It's really action based titles that seem to struggle on Switch nowadays. My problem is more how there are a number of third party games that I think would be a good fit on the Switch but are either too powerful for the system and/or can't fit on a cartridge. The fact that some retail games still need to download data onto the Switch storage or how some companies use cloud versions to get around the hardware and/or space issues is pretty telling.

It also says a lot about the games that make it through the port process. The word "scalability" has been thrown around a lot. To refer to a modern game that can run stable on extremely low end GPUs. It takes a lot of technical wizardry to optimize a game for multiple generations of hardware, console or PC. Developers will do it just so more people with non-gaming PCs can be potential customers. But if a console like the Switch pops off despite being multiple generations behind on tech, you've got a game that's ready to port. And it being a recent game means you still have some of the original developers hanging around with the know-how to port it rather than rely on emulation.

[Shanty Pete's 1st Mate]

8 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

But Mario? Fuck you man, you just a polished turd to me when it's just the same her royal idiocy lacking the brain to use her Smash Bros moves against Bowser and at least put up a fight.

You're not making a criticism of the graphics of Mario titles, but of the narrative. Personally, I think Super Mario Odyssey looks great graphically. Sure, it's a rather simple style, but it's still colorful, expressive, and outright fun. It's a great look within the Switch's admittedly limited graphical capabilities.

5 hours ago, Armchair General said:

It's an cope for which way the tide of the Console Wars are heading and it's not really worth paying an lot of attention to.

Which direction is that? The Nintendo Switch has already nearly hit the PS4's level of lifetime sales, despite debuting roughly three years after that console. And it's far surpassed the XBOX One and Series X/S combined over that same time period. The "winner" of a given console generation is almost never the one with the best graphical capabilities.

3 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

It's really action based titles that seem to struggle on Switch nowadays. My problem is more how there are a number of third party games that I think would be a good fit on the Switch but are either too powerful for the system and/or can't fit on a cartridge. The fact that some retail games still need to download data onto the Switch storage or how some companies use cloud versions to get around the hardware and/or space issues is pretty telling.

One game I noticed having some real issues was AI: The Somnium Files. There were a couple times it crashed on me, and plenty of instances where it just went weirdly slow. And it's principally a visual novel, so not the kind of game you'd expect to have those issues. I still love it, but the Switch certainly isn't the best system to play it on.

By the way, loving that profile picture! Reminds me of my Homecoming chaperone. He confiscated all the copies of Gex I tried to sneak in. Good times.

[Armchair General]

12 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

It's really action based titles that seem to struggle on Switch nowadays

Yeah, I knew what I was getting into with XCOM; I'd just assumed that they would have patched out the bugs when I got it. But it was around $10 at GameStop, so there's that. Speaking of action games, I also got some weird framerate issues with Three Hopes when I spam the Dark Knight's fire combo. But the only major thing that I had with was when it suddenly crashed on me after I beaten the final boss of Golden Wildfire. 

Also managed to induce an few crashes with an Need for Speed game by repeatedly restarting an level or something. Otherwise, it works fine when I'm going over 160 mph; although the traffic isn't as dense as it is in the other racing games that I've played, for some reason.

9 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said:

Which direction is that? The Nintendo Switch has already nearly hit the PS4's level of lifetime sales, despite debuting roughly three years after that console.

Most of the games that come out for the Switch generally sell well without making an big deal on what's under the hood; but there's an soft limit on just how sophisticated the Switch games can be, which rules out the possibility of quite an few ports and an few genres.

For the other two, it kind of looks like that the devs are pushing graphics over entertainment or an decent story, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

13 hours ago, Hawkwing said:

The fact that some retail games still need to download data onto the Switch storage or how some companies use cloud versions to get around the hardware and/or space issues is pretty telling

Yeah, the fact that stuff like Bioshock  did this is the reason why I've written off buying ports of old games.

[vanguard333]

I have never understood obsession with graphics. When it comes to visuals, I care far more about art style than graphics.

Regarding the console wars, as far as I can tell, it largely seems to be an exercise in corporate stupidity these days. It used to be that consoles and PCs had very different limitations and very different games as a result, so being the most powerful console was actually a viable selling point. But for at least the last 15-20 years or so, when it comes to pure hardware and processing power, no console can beat PC gaming without becoming too expensive, and as PC gaming has become completely capable of handling console games and is becoming increasingly popular, it increasingly begs the question: why buy a console? What can it do that a PC can't?

PlayStation and Microsoft have never found an actual, lasting answer to that question. Their current strategy has been to buy a bunch of game studios and rely on exclusive titles, which is not a viable long-term solution and is only possible thanks to how lax anti-monopoly laws have become.

Meanwhile, Nintendo learned this the hard way back in the GameCube era when the GameCube failed to grab sales despite having some of the best hardware and some of the best games of its generation for the simple reason that everyone instead bought the PS2 as a result of the PS2 not only being a games console, but also a DVD player that was cheaper than actual DVD players. Seriously; the PS2 was the best-selling console of its generation because people overwhelmingly bought it for playing DVDs, not for playing games. Nintendo learned the hard way that their consoles would have to stand out and do something that can't be done elsewhere to succeed, hence the Wii, the DS, the 3DS, the Wii U and now the Switch: all of which have had some core gimmick to make them stand out.

The graphical capabilities of the Switch arguably don't matter because it can actually do something no other console can do (or could do until the far more expensive Steam Deck came along years later): be a viable portable system.

Oh, and I probably should point out that I'm not a PC gamer by an means; I play entirely on consoles.

[Milo~]

I've never seen anyone unironically say the Switch has good graphic capabilities lmfao

[Florete]

8 hours ago, Milo~ said:

I've never seen anyone unironically say the Switch has good graphic capabilities lmfao

My thoughts exactly.

Best I've seen is that a game looks good "for a Switch game," or that it has a nice art style, which isn't the same as "good graphics."

Edited December 19, 2022 by Florete

[PostZordem]

On 12/17/2022 at 6:28 AM, henrymidfields said:

So a rant that I have, which I've been realizing as of late:

I really do not understand this obsession about the "good graphics" of some of the Nintendo Switch games I've been hearing. What the fuck makes them such hot shit anyway when there's already been stuff like this since PS3? Okay, fine, Zelda's actually good considering how the depiction of Hyrule adds to the worldbuilding. But Mario? Fuck you man, you just a polished turd to me when it's just the same her royal idiocy lacking the brain to use her Smash Bros moves against Bowser and at least put up a fight. Or Link's Awakening Remake? Fuck you too - you're no different to the GB original with only a couple of extra content. 

Damn, dude, what the hell did Mario and that Link’s Awakening Remake ever do to you? Mario games were never meant to have a strong, compelling narrative. That’s what games like Fire Emblem and Xenoblade Chronicles are for. In defense of the Link’s Awakening Remake, video game remakes are supposed to be 1-1 recreations of the original game but with updated graphics and refined mechanics. So it’s natural for there to be a lot of similarities between the remake and original game. 
Also, how do your opinions on Mario and Link’s Awakening RE have anything to do with the topic of Switch graphics? Doesn’t seem related to the topic at all. 

Ah yes, speaking of Switch graphics, here’s my take on it: The Switch’s graphics are not anything special in comparison to the Xbox One or PS4 (or their successors), but it is possible to make a Switch game have some pretty impressive graphics for the console. Games like Breath of the Wild, Super Mario Odyssey,  and Xenoblade Chronicles DE look quite stellar on a system that’s only a bit stronger than an Xbox 360/PS3. Let’s not forget third party titles, either. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Persona 5 Royal, and Dragon Quest 11 are some of the best third party Switch ports that the system has to offer with some pretty good graphics to boot. Now those are just examples of course, but I’d say that remarkable Switch graphics are less a question of “What makes a Switch’s graphics good?” and more a question of “How a Switch’s graphics can be made to look good?”.

[Karimlan]

The words "Nintendo Switch" and "graphical capabilities" are mutually exclusive, that much I agree with. However, it is a caveat that most people (I'd like to think) are very well in observance of. I, for one, pretty much made the decision to just buy titles on the Switch that I can't get elsewhere (granted, I made two exceptions because of nostalgia and portability-- Tactics Ogre Reborn and Crisis Core Reunion, because my PSP was stolen before I could get far in either game). 

Barring those two titles, I purchase for the PC any game that I can play on Steam/Epic.