[For impressions from Japan, check out Cory's hands-on with the Switch.]
I first played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild back at E3 2016. You don't need me (the "there are only 5 good Zelda games" guy) to tell you that Breath of the Wild looks fantastic. I was sold from the moment the world opened up, so it was only a matter of choosing which version to purchase. The Wii U demo I played got a little frame-y every so often, so I decided the then-unannounced Nintendo Switch would have to be more powerful, and thus would be endowed with the superior port.
Turns out I was only slightly correct. The Nintendo Switch version does look better and runs a little more smoothly, but that may be the extra six-odd months of work talking -- it still has its share of choppy moments. That was fine, I had long since come to terms with the Switch's comparatively weak guts and Breath of the Wild still felt like a killer survival & exploration game with the added benefit of that now-trademark Nintendo polish and wonder. But when my demo guy instructed me to pop the Switch off its dock and try out the handheld mode, I was surprised to find the game actually ran better. That sounds wrong, right? Isn't part of the Switch's hook that games will have stronger performance when the system is plugged into the dock? I know Nintendo has been cagey on that front, but unless they print that in plain text right on the box, I guarantee you people will just assume that's the case. And even then it's not a guarantee; I met someone last year who swore up and down the Xbox One didn't let you play used games.
That anecdote sums up my time with the Nintendo Switch fairly well: really exciting games tied to a system with a lot of curious and often counter-intuitive design choices, all seemingly made in service of turning a profit with each unit sold.
via destructoid http://ift.tt/2kSJ51U