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Forums - Nintendo Discussion - TotK really makes Switch feel dated

curl-6 on 16 May 2023
VAMatt said:

I have a little time into Tears of the Kingdom at this point. I like the gameplay a lot. However, in many respects, it looks two or three generations old.  The way foliage moves reminds me of the PS2, OG Xbox days.  Link's hair looks like crap. The graphics in general feel like a quality indie game from 10-15 years ago.  

Come on this is absurd hyperbole. Go back and actually play a game from 10-15 years ago, they don't hold up as well as you remember.

VAMatt said:

Yeah, that's all true.  I believe they are further behind tech-wise right now than they ever have been though.  This is the first time that I've ever really felt like it was a problem. But, if they're going to stay two generations behind everybody else, I imagine it won't be the last. 

They're not two generations behind. That would be PS3/360. Switch is significantly above those systems in terms of graphical capabilities.



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JackHandy on 16 May 2023
VAMatt said:

I have a little time into Tears of the Kingdom at this point. I like the gameplay a lot. However, in many respects, it looks two or three generations old.  The way foliage moves reminds me of the PS2, OG Xbox days.  Link's hair looks like crap. The graphics in general feel like a quality indie game from 10-15 years ago.  

I know this is all to be expected with Switch.  And that is the problem.  It was one thing with Breath of the Wild, 6 years ago.  It was just cool to have new Nintendo hardware at that point, even if it already felt outdated when compared to competitors.  But, we're now at the end of the Switch's life cycle, and well into a new console generation for Sony and Microsoft.  And, I find it disappointing that I am playing one of Nintendo's flagship titles on hardware that feels so out of date.  

I've used my Switch a lot the last several months, playing Mario Kart and Kirby with my son.  Those games are fine on Switch. They don't need great graphics to feel like great games.  But, Tears of the Kingdom could clearly benefit a lot from more powerful hardware. I'm finding it hard to feel like it's a truly great AAA game when it is just so graphically behind modern AAA titles

I hope that a Switch successor comes soon, and that it isn't quite as far behind technologically as the Switch was in the eighth generation. 

Technically, Switch is a ninth-gen system... which makes everything you said even worse lol. 

I'm sure Nintendo will make a far more powerful tenth-gen console, though. But it'll probably be on par with XB3 and PS4, not XB4 and PS5. So if you're going to demand cutting edge tech to enjoy Zelda, you're probably going to continue to be disappointed when the games launch. 



Soundwave on 16 May 2023
TheBraveGallade said:

I mean... nintendo has never really done too well when they tried to appeal to the market by sheer hardware power.

its almost always been when its the most affordable option/ has a killer feature/app while still being affordable that they won.

they barely outsold the genesis in the 16 bit war, completly bungled up the n64 and gamecube sales wise, and when they tried to one up the competition by opening the generation like 2 years early with the wii U they crashed and burned.

even more so with handhelds. gameboy had none of the flashy expensive stuff and it blew everything else out the water by being cheap and long lasting battery wise, and the 3ds struggled initially untill they dropped the price by 40% (something that the more advanced vita, already loss leading at 250, could not follow).
the only sucess i can think of where nintendo blew competition out of the water and working was the GBA, which with its superior hardware and decent price literally blew away any semblence of niche competion in the hardware space that still existed at that point.

N64 would have beaten the Playstation if it weren't for the CD-ROM issue, that's not really the N64's fault. It got shot in its foot at birth for no good reason. The more I think about Nintendo in the mid-90s, the more I think Yamauchi was smoking crack cocaine because crippling the N64 and thinking the Virtual Boy was not only a product worthy of a full blown hardware launch but that it could actually sell 3 million units in a few months (Yamauchi's projection) was totally into crazy town. 

GameCube had a myriad of marketing and software library and timing issues on top of looking like (well) a 8 year old's lunch box which was never going to fly in the early 2000s. Giving the PS2 an 18 month headstart was also an absolute back breaker, you've already lost before you've even entered the market. 

Super NES did fine, it's just that the Genesis was a much, much more fierce competitor than the wet fart that was the Sega Master System and still Nintendo probably would've trounced them but Sega caught a lucky break in Nintendo censoring Mortal Kombat in 1993. But they would allow blood in for 1994 with MK2 and got Donkey Kong Country and Sega imploded.  

Last edited by Soundwave - on 16 May 2023

V-r0cK on 16 May 2023

I felt this way when I played Bayonetta 3



Ka-pi96 on 17 May 2023
haxxiy said:

The art style carries it as far as it can but it definitely looks dated.

Not only it is a 900p 30fps game but some of the more barebones areas (like the mountains around Kakariko village for instance) make me think I'm playing Oblivion again back in 2006.

Edit - or, at least, BOTW on the Wii U (a game done with a CPU that ultimately comes from the GameCube and late 90s PowerPC archs). Makes me wonder if that will be detrimental to the game since parents will look and think it's just BOTW again and they've already paid for that.

I don't think that logic really works considering the games most often bought by parents are things like COD and FIFA.



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masschamber on 17 May 2023

I think every switch game makes the cumbersome wasteful tv tethered dinosaurs of the ps5 and xsx feel dated, you are stuck tied to a television burning like 200 watts, ughhh savagery just to get some more graphics,
I don't understand how anyone can play a console that is missing the freedom feature the switch has



I HAVE A DOUBLE DRAGON CAB IN MY KITCHEN!!!!!!

NOW A PUNISHER CAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Slownenberg on 17 May 2023

I laughed out loud when the OP compared it to PS2 and original Xbox. Like oh my god you don't like the graphics cuz they aren't as good as newer console systems, but like this is just ridiculous. Why do people make such absurd statements about Switch. It's so silly. This isn't the first time I've seen people try to compare Switch games to PS2 or even PS1 lol.

BotW looked great. TotK looks great. Most Switch games look great.

To the people on here saying Switch is so far behind and Nintendo needs to catch up to PS5 and XBox Series....you do realize that Switch is a handheld right? A handheld will NEVER be as powerful as a console. It's also a handheld that is several years older than the current consoles. In no world is it disappointing that games from a 6 year old handheld don't look as good as games on a 2.5 year old console that is also more expensive! What even the point of trying to make such a silly argument or statement?? The successor, assuming its another Switch will not be as powerful as the consoles because again: it's a handheld! I don't get this bizarre concept of wanting to compare handheld graphics to console graphics just to try to make it seem like the handheld graphics are bad, and then turn up the absurdity meter to 11 and claim a modern game has the graphics from 10-15 year old indie games or 20 year old AAA games when it clearly is farrrrrr advanced from them.



Spindel on 17 May 2023

My suggestion is that people should start playing games instead of watching games.



KratosLives on 17 May 2023

Art design/level design trumps resolution and textures. I loved the last botw game, and the graphic quality wasn't that great,  but the game was immersive and looked beautiful. I played it on a wii u. I'll be happy playing totk tomorrow



Kakadu18 on 17 May 2023
VAMatt said:
Kakadu18 said:

I completely disagree. At no point did it occure to me that anything looked crap.
I actually think Link's hair look better than the hair in many far more graphically advanced games look. Hair are often a weak point in almost photo realistic games.

Like any art, some of it comes down to personal preference. That said, like any art, there are also some objective criteria that can be used to evaluate. 

So TotK looks objectively graphically worse than Skyrim? Bullshit!