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JWeinCom on 06 February 2021
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Raven said:
JWeinCom said:

For people who don't have a friend to borrow Mario 3D World or who wouldn't want to? Seems pretty straightforward.

AngryLittleAlchemist said:

"Over the past year" isn't the current day and time, nor is it the next few months. And that's all I'm talking about. 

I don't particularly care for a lot of the big games releasing like Persona 5 Strikers or Bravely Default II, but I'd be lying if I said Bowser's Fury, Monster Hunter Rise and New Pokemon Snap aren't titles I'm excited for. I'd even go as far as to say the first few months of this year is actually the most packed Switch has ever been in it's first few months in a year (2017 Switch kind of got a pass for releasing in March and I guess you could say 2020 is technically the most impactful for Animal Crossing, but neither were definitely the most consistent for new releases). It's nice to have a 3rd of the year where there's enough big releases that I can say I'm satisfied whilst also not particularly caring for a lot of the new big games. 

If it doesn't matter to you than whatever, but it does to me. In 2018 for instance, the first half of the year was slow, but Xenoblade Chronicles, Mario Odyssey, and FE Warriors had all come out pretty recently, so I didn't mind that nothing big was coming out. But this year I don't have a big backlog on my Switch, so the wait is less palatable.

As for this year's lineup on its own merits, it's meh. We'll see what Pokemon Snap does, but if it follows in its predecessors footsteps it will be a charming diversion, not a major release. Bowser's Fury is DLC that can't be purchased separately. And, that's all that's coming from Nintendo themselves, which is pretty week. Even with one major and one semi major 3rd party release (Rise and Bravely) it's still a fairly week lineup imo.  

I feel like it's difficult to debate in these terms mainly because I don't find those to be mutually exclusive qualities of a games. By many reviewers and critics descriptions, Animal Crossing: New Horizon was the de facto "charming diversion" of 2020. It was also a major release that has taken up over 600 hours and counting of my time with the Switch. Because Pokemon Snap is heavily dependent on replay value, I don't see how people wouldn't be able to spend a lot of time on the title as well, perfecting their scores and taking just the right poses to share on Twitter or other social media. 

Aside from that I think it's not really fair to say that 3D World is 'just' a DLC, when the entire original game was rebalanced to be faster, online MP was added, and the Captain Toad segments were changed to allow for 4 player co-op among some other bits I might be missing. If you're not interested in it there's nothing wrong with that, but I don't think it's really fair to say it's just a rerelease of the original with some DLC tacked on.

It's a rerelease of the original game, with some DLC, balancing changes, and improved multiplayer. Not going to quibble over terminology, but it's much less in terms of original content than a full game. And Mario 3D World is amazing, but for fans who already played the original, it's much less exciting than a full game would be.

The original Pokemon Snap was very light in terms of content. There were... I think 5 or 6 levels on tracks. There really wasn't a lot to do, and the gameplay was very basic. If you really liked it you could play it over and over again, but you could say that about any game.

By comparison, Animal Crossing has a lot of content in it. Whereas you could easily see everything Pokemon Snap has to offer within 5 hours or so, that's not possible with Animal Crossing. Animal Crossing is also better at incentivizing you to continue unlocking stuff. 

Again, not going to argue over terms, but that's why I wouldn't consider Pokemon Snap a major release. Of course, the last one was about 2 decades ago, so this one could be much more ambitious.

Either way, Nintendo's output lately has been lackluster, and kind of troubling. The last major original game we got that was developed by Nintendo was Oragami King back in July. Between then and presumably April, we've had two enhanced ports with added DLC (Xenoblade/3D World), one collection with virtually no improvement (All-Stars), Hyrule Warriors (which Nintendo had a minimal role in), and New Pokemon Snap. 

It's a little puzzling that they've been producing so little. Maybe the flood gates will open at some point, but their output lately has not been great, and I think it's reasonable to expect more.