Nintendo Switch in 2020 - Still Worth Buying?

So much has happened since watch NES and SNES games Nintendo Switch Online, a new offshoot console, special editions, the dock controversy and a massive outpouring of third party support. The ecosystem has changed, but the core selling point is still largely the same. You get a Nintendo Switch to play all of the great first party titles, and for a versatile gaming experience, so you can play your games, however you want wherever you want. So three years in what has changed, for better or for worse, and is it still worth it for you late adopters out there, especially with some new consoles on the horizon. 

Now, according to Wikipedia, there are 2105 Nintendo Switch games, actually, that was as of three years ago, there are 2126 games see it keeps on going. That doesn't mean that they're all good games, the eShop is kind of a minefield of shovelware indie games.

We like the fact that Nintendo has opened the floodgates and it's pretty much letting anybody developed for the Switch, there's just no curation or hierarchy when browsing the eShop. Don't go to the eShop for game recommendations, there are plenty of resources on the internet that will point you in the right direction when you're looking for something new to play. We usually do a sort of what's on our Switch, in these types of videos so that you can see exactly what we’ve been playing throughout our Switch journey.

But there's just so much crap on there now and we hardly ever play any of them. We put them on screen anyway, the big players are Super Smash Brothers Ultimate and Super Mario Maker 2, that sums up most of our Switch usage. There's also Pokemon Sword which deserves to be up there, as one of the best Switch games, we just recently got past the end game. So it is yet to be determined how much we will keep doing raid battles or if we will do the battle tower some more or if we will go for the shiny charm, but we will for sure be opening the game back up when the DLC launches later this year.  We are not a huge fan of MarioKart, but it's most people's go to party game, It's familiar territory for most people. So it gets a lot of play time on our Switch, but I've had some luck turning people on to Duck Game instead, which is way more of a hectic kind of fun.

via Coolblue

Right now the Switch library is vast and deep, those were the games that we spent the most time on recently, but that doesn't mean we didn't have our fun with games like Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey. Those are still two of the best games on the Nintendo Switch, it's just that, we haven't really touched them that much in years. The same goes for the new big stuff that came out this year, like Luigi's Mansion 3, Astral chain and Link's Awakening all great games. We just kind of dipped in and dipped out of those, because they were getting in the way of our Smash Brothers, Mario Maker and Pokemon playtime. We are sure Fire Emblem is good too, there's also a lot of great third party support.

Now that the Switch has proven itself as a success, publishers are more willing to dump some resources into developing for it, despite what you might have heard when it launched, Overwatch runs great on the Switch. There was maybe one time while we were playing where characters took an extra few seconds to appear on screen but it was before a match started and it was the very first time we booted it up. Sure the frame rate isn't 144 hertz, like it is on your gaming PC, but that's not why you would ever wanna play a game on this thing, you're playing on your Switch for one of two reasons. One, you wanna be able to play portably either on a commute or over at a friend's house or hell even at work, if you can get away with it. Or two, you only have a Nintendo Switch, maybe you decided to purchase that over other consoles or even a gaming PC because, you can get the most versatile gaming experience that way, which is fine, personally, before the Switch came out, we were expecting it to be the perfect ancillary console, it would be a perfect complement to our PS4.

We get to play all the great Nintendo first party stuff and I'd be able to take some great third party stuff with me on the go. We were really hoping for that great indie support, just like PS Vita had, and the Switch has that in spades. However, the Switch very quickly became our primary console, we hardly ever play our PS4 or our Xbox One anymore. We can never tell that the resolution or frame rate is compromised when we are playing a third party stuff, the convenience of having the option, to take the games with is worth way more, than a few pixels. If a game is good, it's good, whether that be at 240p or 1080p. Now there was a pretty big development last year, there was the Switch light and offshoot console of the Switch that is more portable, but cannot be docked, It's also 100 bucks cheaper.

via commonsensemedia

This is the perfect device for anyone who's planning on playing entirely in portable mode, which is how about half our friends play their Switch anyway, it also has an actual D pad, which we are all for of course. In our opinion, it's more comfortable to play than a regular Switch, although a Satisfye grip will solve all those problems link in the description below. There was also a stealth upgrade to the original Switch, the base model now has almost doubled the battery life. It's also said that the screen is slightly different, it's not really an upgraded is just different. We never got this upgraded model, we like our launch Switch just fine.

Personally, we find that we almost exclusively play our Switch in docked mode, it seems like one of those things where we just like having the option of having all our games, but we rarely ever pull our Switch out of the bag and actually play it, it's kind of just nice knowing it's all there.

You see, this past year we planned on using our Switch light as our go to portable Switch, we have all our games digitally. So having our games on both consoles is nice, however, not every game supports cloud saves and the ones that do still can have save file conflicts. So before we leave the house if we know there's a game that we wanna play, we always have to make sure we have the save file downloaded. In some cases, if we arein a hurry, it would be more convenient for me to just take our regular Switch with me, however, it's set up as our secondary Switch, which means it requires internet in order to play any of the digital purchases, which is all of our games. This means that we can't play any of our games on our original Switch, without internet. This whole thing is become increasingly frustrating, the more we encounter it, in some cases, it makes me just abstain, from pulling our Switch out of our bag because we areafraid of the potential of a cloud save conflict. This is something that Nintendo said, that they would have a solution for, but it's been a while since they've said that, and it doesn't look like they're gonna be holding up that promise anytime soon.

Nintendo Switch Online is still kind of a hot mess, honestly, it's not too bad in Smash Brothers, lag does happen and it happens more often in private matches than it does in quick play, leading me to believe the matchmaking actually takes geography and ping into consideration or just matches you against other players who have good internet. However, Mario Makers multiplayer is just straight up broken, when we were making that video on the lag in Nintendo Switch online it actually took me a while, to find the lag and Smash Bros Ultimate quick play and we only found it in a four player match but we found it in Mario Maker on the very first game that we joined and it was like a PowerPoint presentation.

Very few games actually use the Nintendo Switch Online app for voice chat, most just use the headset but Nintendo still has yet to conform. Animal Crossing will be using the app for voice chat unfortunately. Another source subject with Nintendo Switch Online are the NES and SNES games, for some reason. People are mad that this took the place of the Virtual Console, they'd rather buy a lot of these games individually, instead of getting the whole lot included with the service, they both launched with great games on them already. And there have been some pretty neat drops, but lately, the drops have been less and less frequent, and when we do get a drop of New Retro Games, it's very unsatisfying, like we are sorry, but who the hell cares about Smash Tennis, when we already have two tennis games, three if you also have the Super Famicom games. How much different can 2D Tennis be, part of the problem is that, we already have a lot of great retro stuff from third party companies on the Switch like the Mega Man Legacy Collection, Collection of Mana, Capcom Beat 'Em Up Bundle, the Konami Collections. And we will toss the Second Genesis Collection in there just because it's a great collection.

via imore

So it makes sense why these third party companies wouldn't wanna include their games and then Nintendo Switch Online collection because they already have their own collections. We are just hoping we get some Game boy games included later this year. We think that will be way more likely than getting in N64 games. So that's about where we stand with the Nintendo Switch, we’ve been very much enjoying our experience. It's not perfect, but we’ve been spending a lot of time with it, it very quickly became our favorite console. And we are definitely getting a lot of bang for our buck, but is it still worth it, in 2023 years after it came out. The only new first party game that we know for sure is coming out this year is Animal Crossing, and that's coming out in March. The Sequel to Breath of the Wild, could come out later this year. But it's not confirmed in Zelda games, always get delayed anyway, so the end of the year has a big fat question mark on it. But just because there's a drought and first party titles does not mean that there's a drought in third party titles. There's plenty of great third party and indie games that are coming out this year. And there's definitely more Nintendo games, coming out this year, we just don't know what they are yet, Nintendo has being very coy about it. There is also two brand new next generation console is coming out later this year, which might make the decision to harder for some.

Let's just do a little thought experiment, let's just assume for a second, that Nintendo doesn't come out with any more games this year after Animal Cross, and that's not gonna happen, but let's just assume that it does, the back catalogue on the Nintendo Switch more than makes up for it. If you buy a Switch right now, you need to play Breath of the Wild and Mario Odyssey and Pokemon Sword. Hell, we throw Celeste and Katana zero in there, and you'd probably end up getting Mario Kart because everybody does. That's so much to play already, if you wanna take a dive into the back catalogue, then yes, it's 100% worth it. If the choice is between, let's say the Nintendo Switch or the PS5 and the Xbox series x, we think that's a pretty unfair fight. That's apples to oranges, again, you get an Nintendo Switch for the great Nintendo first party titles and for the versatility and portability, you get a PS5 or an Xbox series x for their exclusive first party games or for their 4k 60 frames per second power, they serve completely different use cases. If you're worried about getting a Nintendo Switch because there's a Switch pro looming on the horizon, you can freaking forget it, we don't think that's happening anytime soon. Honestly, because of that huge back catalogue you've been missing out on, anytime is a great time to buy a Switch. We are still having a ton of fun spending hundreds of hours in Smash Brothers and Mario Maker and we are still taking it everywhere we go. Despite the fact we will probably just sit on our phone when we are on the train, I've used our Switch probably more than any device we own, besides our computer, and that shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, despite the game drought.

So that’s our insight about Nintendo Switch after three years of released, the choice is fully yours. Happy gaming!!!...