So now that it's mostly done, what did you think of the Switch's 2018 lineup?

DeuceGamer said:

Can't find enough time to complete all the games I've bought on Switch, not to mention other platforms. I play my Switch daily as well so it's not a lack of playtime.

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Yup, that's me. When I hear people say "there's nothing to play on the Switch," I give them the same look of dumbfounded incredulity I give to people who say with a straight face "Donald Trump looks totally innocent." Like dude, WTF?

The bright side is that I am less tempted to buy even more Switch games because I want to finish the ones I'm playing already. But the stuff coming soon is really tempting...!

gordofredito said:

It looks like PS4's 2015, whole lot of nothing and trash, ports everywhere... then suddenly Smash. In PS4's case, Bloodborne

If anyone praises this year but criticized that particular year, shows an obvious bias imo

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Yup, people hype up PS4's exclusives like crazy, but the first couple of years were a drought, and it seems the same might be happening again lol. 2019 isn't looking too hot for PS4 while Nintendo and Xbox have some heavy hitters coming. Well, that's assuming TLOU2 et al. aren't dropping next year.

That being said, AAA third parties did carry the PS4 in those early years, unlike Switch which relies on indie games and exclusives.

This year has been a disappointment for me. I really want them to port over mario 3d.

For first party content, 2018 was weaker than 2017 for me, but overall, 2018's lineup was far superior. I've bought at least twice as many games this year than last year, and had almost no drought periods.

2019 is looking to be the real winner, though. Can't wait for Fire Emblem, TOWN, the Final Fantasies, etc.

Slam Tilt said:

Yup, that's me. When I hear people say "there's nothing to play on the Switch," I give them the same look of dumbfounded incredulity I give to people who say with a straight face "Donald Trump looks totally innocent." Like dude, WTF?

The bright side is that I am less tempted to buy even more Switch games because I want to finish the ones I'm playing already. But the stuff coming soon is really tempting...!

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Ditto. I'm currently sinking way too many hours into Stardew Valley. It's awesome but I got so many other things to play on switch!

I still only have Mario Odyssey and Zelda. Haven't bought any Switch games this year. I have a Wii U so I've no interest in any of the ports and all the other games which interest me are available elsewhere for much less.
I'm still interested in The Switch version of Doom but not for fifty fucking quid. I got the PC version on release for £40, and got the PS4 version as a gift for a friend for £15 a year after that.

Hopefully I'll bite on something before Bayonetta 3 hits.

I thought the new first party stuff was an absolute misfire. The Bayonetta ports were good and I had a lot of fun with Indies like Hollow Knight and Enter the Gungeon. An ok year but I hope Nintendo does much better in 2019.

Egida said:

Hollow Knight was the best game by far this year, and that can be played on any system.

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The game was actually console exclusive on Switch for the entire summer.

Overall a disappointment for me. Octopath was a bit of a letdown, I didn't buy Pokemon as I won't support that half ass control scheme and I only enjoy Smash when drunk buddies are over so not sure if I'm even purchasing that.. Torna expac for XC2 was alright, and I did buy a couple DRGPs for Switch over PS4 as handheld is a good fit for the genre. Other than that though yeah, PS4 saw most of my playtime this year.

It was good year for third party titles: Octopath Traveler, Diablo 3, Dragonball Fighter Z, Crash Bandicoot, South Park, Wolfenstein 2, Fortnite, Civilization 6, City Skylines, Monster Hunter Generations.

... but it was a mostly boring year for first party until Smash Bros/Pokemon came along. The problem is those titles came extremely late in the year.

The first half of the year relied way too heavily on Labo and Wii U ports.

It's really weird to think that out of the year, other than Labo, Smash will be the first Nintendo first party game I buy, yet despite that I thought it was a great year. I'll probably pick up a lot of the Wii U rereleases when they drop I. Price and the Mario Party Joycon bundle.

But the third party games are great and I honestly have too much to get through on the system as it is.

Is Okami on Switch as a present recommended?

Emily said:

It was good year for third party titles: Octopath Traveler, Diablo 3, Dragonball Fighter Z, Crash Bandicoot, South Park, Wolfenstein 2, Fortnite, Civilization 6, City Skylines, Monster Hunter Generations.

... but it was a mostly boring year for first party until Smash Bros/Pokemon came along. The problem is those titles came extremely late in the year.

The first half of the year relied way too heavily on Labo and Wii U ports.

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Someone get's it.

Slam Tilt said:

Yup, that's me. When I hear people say "there's nothing to play on the Switch," I give them the same look of dumbfounded incredulity I give to people who say with a straight face "Donald Trump looks totally innocent." Like dude, WTF?

The bright side is that I am less tempted to buy even more Switch games because I want to finish the ones I'm playing already. But the stuff coming soon is really tempting...!

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With the recent and upcoming releases it is difficult and with what we know of 2019 it's only going to get harder to find time to play all the games I want. Great problem to have lol!

Dead cells was amazing. Didn't really play any exclusives. Picking up civ 6 as soon as I finish rdr2

I think the Switch's first year gets worse and worse if you also own any other system, since a lot of Switch games were multiplat. I also didn't care for Odyssey (though I recognize it's a good game) or BotW or Let's Go, and only bought a handful of games as a result - one of them a port.

It's an underwhelming dissapointing year first party wise other than a couple games including smash and pokemon lets go. They need to step it up in releases overall.

I was dazzled by Nintendo's momentum in 2017 with their biggest series getting ambitious mainline entries spread out throughout the year, along with experimental new IP like ARMS (new mascots on a 3D console scope from Nintendo hasn't been a given in a few gens imo, Splatoon being the breath of fresh air), and I finally got a Switch with the Super Mario Odyssey Switch bundle at launch. Even if I follow Nintendo's first party development and should've known what to expect, I still felt blindsided that the momentum came to a halt for my taste right around when I bought in. The January Direct Mini (and all 2018 communications) wasn't what I hoped and kinda spelled out for me that the Switch's lineup didn't have any day one purchases for me until, well, these last two months of the year.

Being simultaneously a person that enthusiastically bought almost all the first party games for Wii U (literally everything that's been ported to Switch) and a frugal consumer when I'm feeling less-than-enthusiastic has made a lot of the 'Deluxe" versions of Wii U games that I would've maybe been interested in at a lower price just something I distance myself from. I can totally see someone who didn't own a Wii U or is a die hard Kirby fan having a more satisfying year. Even some meaningful Odyssey DLC would've made a huge difference in how I perceived first party output for 2018.

Not much time to mope now with Smash about to unlock on my Switch and confirmed heavy hitters coming next year that acutely appeal to me~

Harald23 said:

The game was actually console exclusive on Switch for the entire summer.

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You know the year has been bad when "summer exclusive" for a game available in PC long before is brought up.

Egida said:

You know the year has been bad when "summer exclusive" for a game available in PC long before is brought up.

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Still, it was available first on Switch and you made it seem it was always available everywhere.

Necron said:

Is Okami on Switch as a present recommended?

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It depends how much you dislike the recipient..

I'll just say this.

Anyone who keeps saying this is the worst year line up for Nintendo in recent history has never been on Wii U and is basically either a lying crock of shit or just an ignorant consumer who wants something to outrage on.

Like legitimately you're either lying about wanting a switch but waiting because of how bad you think this year was (despite having last year's games to play??) or you're literally so engrossed with how much you're not getting the things you wanted this year that you've literally never heard of anything else that has ever happened ever.

And that is specifically to those people. There are a lot of people who legitimately have criticisms about Nintendo's line up this year that I can understand, but saying "it's the worst this century" or "I've never seen Nintendo fail this hard for a year" is not legitimate. Saying "their line up won't be too interesting to me until something like Metroid Prime 4" is a legitimate purchasing decision.

And for those bragging that they bought into the Wii U faster than they did the Switch and they think that's sad, I just think you're kinda terrible at making decisions.

Could've been much worse.

Now that it's mostly said and done, it was a really solid year to me. Nothing can top Zelda and Mario getting great entries in the same year, but we kind of knew that.

That third party lineup is incredibly strong, we got portable Dark Souls (!), a new Smash is coming, Torna was great, Octopath was solid and pretty interesting, Mario Tennis, more WiiU ports that not enough people got to play the first time around, more really great retro stuff like the Sega AGES games (that and the ACA line are above and beyond what used to pass for retro re-releases, remember)...

I mean, just look at that OP. That's a real-ass console lineup, not just a Nintendo fan kind of thing. You could have an incredibly well-rounded experience just playing games from that list. You can play some Civ 6 and jump into a match of Mario Tennis and settle in for a long JRPG. It's not mind-blowing like year one, but it solidified Switch as a solid console with a diverse lineup rather than just another Nintendo exclusive secondary type machine.

It's fine. I do know that most of the games on my Christmas list are from last year.

Good, but bad.

octopath is dope as hell

pretty cool year otherwise too. pokemon was surprisingly fun, hollow knight was great, celeste pretty good, had a great time with kirby, and i liked torna a lot.

It's taken the place of my Vita as my portable indie machine, but even then, I hardly used it. Certainly a disappointing year, but it's a Nintendo system, and I went in expecting it to gather dust for long stretches between the awesome games that eventually come.

While focusing the lion share of development on 1 console, this year definitely seemed a little weak for 1P.

3rd party improved, but I'm still disappointed by the selection overall. A lot of games that I feel would be better suited to the platform are still skipping it. The f2p wave is the real differentiation for this year. Definitely wish there was better release parity. Seems like there will be a lot of great stuff out of Japan next year though.

I liked some old full price ports with worse performance. 2018 was not that great for me. 2019 is going to be great!

I liked it a lot, though thats mostly because I like the portability and I play almost any big game even if a better version exists (as long as it's not a shit port like WWE, Rime or Ark). First party wise it was not the most exciting but I can forgive that for once.

FUNKNOWN iXi said:

Yup, people hype up PS4's exclusives like crazy, but the first couple of years were a drought, and it seems the same might be happening again lol. 2019 isn't looking too hot for PS4 while Nintendo and Xbox have some heavy hitters coming. Well, that's assuming TLOU2 et al. aren't dropping next year.

That being said, AAA third parties did carry the PS4 in those early years, unlike Switch which relies on indie games and exclusives.

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With Days Gone, Dreams, Concrete Genie, MediEvil, Monkey King, The Show 20, and several VR games confirmed along with rumors and credible info leading credence towards two out of Death Stranding/TLOU2/Ghost of Tsushima, I'm not sure how that's remotely a drought. Even without the latter three that aren't confirmed, that's not a drought at all.

Not the best, but no the worst either.

Terrible. Just as last year was too. People like to pretend Nintendo learned their lessons with the switch but they absolutely have not. Take the Wii U ports away from the Switch and you have an awful line up of games. Possibly worse than the first two years of the Wii U.

Cow said:

Terrible. Just as last year was too. People like to pretend Nintendo learned their lessons with the switch but they absolutely have not. Take the Wii U ports away from the Switch and you have an awful line up of games. Possibly worse than the first two years of the Wii U.

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Lmao no. The first 2 years of the WiiU were dreadful and it had very little multiplatform 3rd party support and what little it had dried up super quick.

Gotdatmoney said:

Lmao no. The first 2 years of the WiiU were dreadful and it had very little multiplatform 3rd party support and what little it had dried up super quick.

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I had the Wii U from launch and liked the first 2 years alot:

NSMBU
Pikmin 3
W101
Bayonetta 2
DKCTF
Smash
MK8
3d World

Do you think the Switch is much better than this? Again, I am talking about Switch games, not Wii U ports. I will say that the wait for Pikmin 3 was insane, but it picked up alot straight after that released.

Cow said:

I had the Wii U from launch and liked the first 2 years alot:

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Half of your list is in 2014, dingus.

Cow said:

I had the Wii U from launch and liked the first 2 years alot:

NSMBU
Pikmin 3
W101
Bayonetta 2
DKCTF
Smash
MK8
3d World

Do you think the Switch is much better than this? Again, I am talking about Switch games, not Wii U ports. I will say that the wait for Pikmin 3 was insane, but it picked up alot straight after that released.

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The Switch has only been on the market for 20 months (minus 2 days at this point). Smash and Bayonetta were both released after this point in the system's life and would be compared to titles releasing in February and April of next year.

Cow said:

I had the Wii U from launch and liked the first 2 years alot:

NSMBU
Pikmin 3
W101
Bayonetta 2
DKCTF
Smash
MK8
3d World

Do you think the Switch is much better than this? Again, I am talking about Switch games, not Wii U ports. I will say that the wait for Pikmin 3 was insane, but it picked up alot straight after that released.

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BOTW
Splatoon 2
Odyssey
Mario & Rabbids
Xenoblade 2
Octopath Traveler
Torna Expansion
Super Mario Party
Pokemon Let's Go

And Smash is out next week. The comparison first party wise is literally a wash. But when you add in the significantly better third party support I dont know how anyome could say Switch's first 2 years (which arent even over) are worse than WiiU's. This ignores Smash 4 was just outside of the first 2 years on WiiU

And this is ignoring that there is no reason not to include ports.

SinCItyAssassin said:

Half of your list is in 2014, dingus.

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The WiiU launed Nov 2012. Obviously his list is going to have 2014 games in it.

Don't be obnoxious

Dyle said:

The Switch has only been on the market for 20 months (minus 2 days at this point). Smash and Bayonetta were both released after this point in the system's life and would be compared to titles releasing in February and April of next year.

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Smash 4 just misses 2 years. Bayonetta 2 is inside that frame

Gotdatmoney said:

And this is ignoring that there is no reason not to include ports.

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Nah, can't add BOTW, it's automatically disqualified by these arbitrary rules because it also came out on Wii U at the same time.

Played Hollow Knight which was amazing so all in all pretty good. Haven't turned it on since then though.

Even though I never like those types of games, I'm so tempted to buy Hollow Knight. I just feel like I have to know.

SinCItyAssassin said:

Nah, can't add BOTW, it's automatically disqualified by these arbitrary rules because it also came out on Wii U at the same time.

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Even though it's dumb not to include ports and remasters in a library BOTW was a cross gen release. It literally launched the same day on both platforms and was a day one Switch title. Zero reason it shouldn't count.

Indies and Octopath Traveler carried my playtime on the Switch this year. I've played a lot of amazing indies and am happy I got to play them on the Switch. Celeste and Into the Breach are two of the best Indies I've played, and there's also Wandersong, Yoku's Island Express, Dead Cells, Shapeshifting Detective, Hollow Knight and Bloodstained Curse of the Moon have been some fun indies that I've put some time into. I put 60 hours into Octopath and it's definitely my favorite Switch Exclusive and other third party games games like Mega Man 11 and DBFZ have been amusing.

Nintendo's first party lineup has been a real disappointment though. Only 2018 first party game I bought was Mario Tennis Aces and it's fine, but not as addicting as I'd hope it would be. Smash Ultimate is looking rather special though.

For me things massively improved from Torna's release onwards. I expect next year to be packed with games I like.

I would call it serviceable. It was not barren like some people like to say, but most of the first party stuff released did not appeal to me.

Here's to a better 2019.

Pretty disappointing. Based on what I bought:

1. Octopath Traveller was the best game on my switch and up there as my own personal game of the year.

2. Mario Tennis was fun then it wasn't. Online is pretty much dead in the times ive played it after its launch period.

3. Pokemon Let's Go is just an average game.

4. Bayo 1 + 2 were great as I never played them before.

5. Super Mario Party was just ok.

6. Labo was trash. I blame my friends for hyping this.

I did enjoy, surprisingly, NBA 2k19 with portability. Fighterz was my fighting game of choice over Smash Bro's (which I wont be getting) and I am enjoying it as much as I did on my PS version. Looking to get into D3.

Basically looking forward to next year as a predominant Pokemon fan. Oh and Fire Emblem too.

Only one game to buy - smash - and that's it. Most likely my last game on the system unless metroid is good (which i doubt).

I didn't touch my Switch this year. I'll be getting Smash bros, so that will change but its pretty much 2019 at this point. Waiting for some AAA Nintendo first party games that interest me. But by the looks of it, it seems like the year was fine for a lot of people.

Dr.Osiris said:

Only one game to buy - smash - and that's it. Most likely my last game on the system unless metroid is good (which i doubt).

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U wot m8




Why do you doubt Metroid?
Bayo 3 and SMTV are sure things, dawg.