One Year of the Switch Voting Thread (Third-Year Games Lists on Page 8)

Think something went wrong there Jay

That's odd as his gif was working for me earlier.

@Balladeer wrote:

Am I the only person for whom SWH really dropped off in its later stages? Nobody else seems to have that opinion, but it was a bit of a gut punch after how strong the first half of the game was. (Nowhere near Celeste, but it might have beaten down LM3.)

Not so much dropped off (although the 2D visor world is a low-point) so much as I think it was flawed throughout. A very good audio-visual experience at times, but not a great game, with varying stage quality and an imperfect overall structure. Not to sound overly harsh, I enjoyed it past first completion, but it didn't live up to what I was hoping for.

Re: Mario Odyssey, I just prefer those other 10 games Mas! It's a brilliant game, and Mario's movement is unparalleled. The actual worlds are what let it down a little for me.

I guess I'm meeting y'all somewhere in the middle! The experience outweighed the game for the first half for me, I guess.

@The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Cappa would have put it like 'JOHN WAYNE'S AN ARSEHOLE'

Ah, the all-purpose correct answer to everything.

@Treesmurf wrote:

Moving back to MK8D, the main reason it isn't in my current top 10 is that I mainly experienced it on Wii U, on merit alone it'd be in my top 10 but I want my list to be based on the Switch itself.

Oh, I completely agree! It's in my top ten games of all time, easily, but it doesn't make my top ten Switch games for precisely that reason. I just found it vaguely amusing that Link's Awakening places above it, because I really don't think it's that great in this day and age. Small audience -> fluctuating results, natch.

@masofdas wrote:

Think something went wrong there Jay

Obviously I don't agree with your BotW thoughts, but I hope this was a clever double-jab at both the image and Moyles' opinion. Anyway, he told you to BOGVONLGOQ. Surely that's clear enough?

Balla, I'm not seeing what Jay put, it's just text jibberish.

If he could repost or someone else can? At one point though I did think SMO would take spot again just because everyone would vote for it then I did OR's vote last, that's fair though.

I think why I place so high on my SMO is I missed SMG's that it's something I've wanted for a long time from Mario and one of the few true Switch exclusives that it has to be the best.

I can guess what that image showed and I'd assumed you could too.

Nothing that I say about other games should detract from my deep and sincere love for Mario Odyssey. It's an absolutely belting game, my second favourite ever, and definitely what I want from 3D Mario over and above the Galaxies. OR criticises the world design: I appreciate that it incorporates exploration for the first time since that game he didn't play. Maybe that's the difference?

I love exploration, I just don't think the worlds were that interesting to explore. New Donk City was easily my favourite and a great playground, and revisiting the Mushroom Kingdom was a huge nostalgia hit made modern, but otherwise while I appreciated the great variety in visual style the kingdoms just aren't that memorable to me. The Ruined Kingdom is, but that's more for the absurdity of a Dark Souls like environment than any actual level design - it's just a boss fight. Luncheon would probably be my next favourite after Metro, mainly for its theming.

As I say, Mario himself plays sublimely, the fun in movement alone is more than enough to carry the game. The level design is good, it's just not great - because of this, as an overall game I still much prefer the likes of Banjo-Kazooie or Jak and Daxter.

I think the lack of hub also hurts the game in that respect - the map screen world select is inescapably soulless. It was so much more fun in the game to discover a new world through a painting than it was to fly there in the Odyssey.

I can agree about the lack of hub, but it's definitely thematically appropriate to the game. SMO's a bit of a balancing act between exploration and a linear path, and I'd also agree that they didn't get it right everywhere, with the Sand Kingdom's vast empty expanses outside the central path being the key example - although even those are central to tearing up the place with a Jaxi. I do think they got a lot more right than wrong though; and as somebody who hadn't played many 3D exploratory platformers since the days of the N64 #playAHatinTimeeveryone, and didn't like Banjo much, it was a godsend to me.

I'll play A Hat In Time if you play Poi

I will if you play Super Lucky