It's only been the weekend since Nintendo released their Nintendo Switch Online service to the masses. Before its release, there was plenty of chatter about everything from how behind the times with their cloud save feature, to only releasing NES games, to still requiring the Nintendo Switch App for voice chat in Splatoon 2. What I am looking at, from the perspective of someone who does enjoy cloud saves, who does enjoy NES games, and who would rather not have to hear other people talking to me/at me/about me, is that for $20 a year, I am pretty happy over all. However, I do have some minor criticisms.
I should also note, that I am not planning on going into all of the things that Nintendo Switch Online does not have, but what it currently does have and why I feel the way I do about it all. If I were to include all of the features that I wish were included, the article would probably double in length and become too unwieldy to take out in public. So maybe stay tuned on that front?
I should also note, that I am not planning on going into all of the things that Nintendo Switch Online does not have, but what it currently does have and why I feel the way I do about it all. If I were to include all of the features that I wish were included, the article would probably double in length and become too unwieldy to take out in public. So maybe stay tuned on that front?
I have never been one in communicating with other people while playing video games. The Kid learned early on that this was the best tactic for beating me when we would play against each other in either Dr. Mario or Tetris Attack, was to talk to me. Even when I was trying to beat Aztec on 00 Agent in Goldeneye, I got unreasonably annoyed when people would talk to me. Maybe this still continues to today, but hopefully it is relegated to boss fights and Theatrhythm Final Fantasy: Curtain Call. I do not do well, be it a puzzle game or first person shooter when I am expected to communicate with other people on my team. The only exception that I have come across was playing the Left 4 Dead series, and even then it was to just nearly mimic what the characters say when you have a team full of computer controlled players. So the option of Nintendo not (somehow) integrating voice chat into to Switch's console/controllers was never on my wishlist of things I wanted Nintendo Switch Online to be. I also recognize that I am possibly in the minority when it comes to Switch owners who do not want integrated voice chat outside of the Switch App.
Regarding cloud saves, this is something that I appreciate, but do not want to have to think about. I want my games to be saved in the case the my system bricks, is stolen, or broken beyond normal happenstance. As long as I know that it is working there in the background and is not something that I have to actively think about, I will be happy. From what I have presently experienced, it appears that the games with auto-backup without any intervention from me. A handful of the games that I did check, Breath of the Wild, Battle Chasers, and Skyrim all said that the files had been saved to the cloud for my particular profile; we did not do the family plan. There were a couple of games that said something along the lines of "This title does not support cloud saves." I guess that is fine as I have heard games like Splatoon 2, and Dark Souls have this ability disabled in order to deter (or at least slow down) people who would "hack" the games in order to improve their online performance against other players. As long as this feature happens automatically and does not require me to create cloud saves manually, I will remain happy.
The selection of the 20 available games for the Nintendo Entertainment System portion of Nintendo Switch Online, I think is pretty decent. Of the 30 games available for the NES Classic for the North American release, there are 12 crossover games that are available on both systems, which is better than I was expecting, but more than I would have wanted. To clarify, I am glad that there is some crossover between the NES Classic and NES games from Switch Online, since I know that there are probably a fair amount of people who never picked up the retro console and who would still like to play some of those games. I also recognize that there is probably come copyright issues that allowed the games to be used for the NES Classic, but maybe not for the online service? It is pretty much speculation on my part. Of the eight new games that were not included on the NES Classic, I think I am most excited to play some of the older sports games like Ice Hockey, Tennis, and Baseball; kinda sad that Golf was not included, but maybe it will be included in a future release, but in the meantime, NES Open Tournament Golf will be released next month.
As for what I want to criticize, is the "Special Offer" that had been touted since the early mentions of the paid online service. Presently, the only special offer is a pair of NES controllers specifically designed to work with the Switch to use when playing the NES games. These $60 controllers are only available to subscribers of Nintendo's service. I cannot think of much else to say other than I probably will not pick these up unless they drop in price by at least 50% because I have used the Joy-Cons just fine while playing the games so far and it works. Plus if/when Nintendo releases a selection of SNES games, these controllers will not work with those games. Also, the Splatoon 2 exclusive in-game jerseys I do not particularly care about seeing as how I do not even have Splatoon 2, I guess I could offer them up to someone else unless that code is directly tied to my account?
I guess the tl;dr of this, is that with the exception of the Special Offers, I am pretty happy with Nintendo Switch Online, and hopefully Nintendo will listen to customer feedback to only improve upon the service that we, for one, have already invested in for a year worth of service. $0.38 down, $19.62 to go.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental
As for what I want to criticize, is the "Special Offer" that had been touted since the early mentions of the paid online service. Presently, the only special offer is a pair of NES controllers specifically designed to work with the Switch to use when playing the NES games. These $60 controllers are only available to subscribers of Nintendo's service. I cannot think of much else to say other than I probably will not pick these up unless they drop in price by at least 50% because I have used the Joy-Cons just fine while playing the games so far and it works. Plus if/when Nintendo releases a selection of SNES games, these controllers will not work with those games. Also, the Splatoon 2 exclusive in-game jerseys I do not particularly care about seeing as how I do not even have Splatoon 2, I guess I could offer them up to someone else unless that code is directly tied to my account?
I guess the tl;dr of this, is that with the exception of the Special Offers, I am pretty happy with Nintendo Switch Online, and hopefully Nintendo will listen to customer feedback to only improve upon the service that we, for one, have already invested in for a year worth of service. $0.38 down, $19.62 to go.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
Instrumental
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