Overwatch on Switch is kind of a big deal for me. I'll cut right to the bottom line and say that I'd consider Overwatch to be my favorite game of the DECADE. It was such a big deal for me that I literally sold my Xbox One the week that the Switch port was announced. In fact, I was relieved that I didn't have to pay for another year of Xbox Live. Or Gold. Or whatever it was called.
Back when Overwatch launched in 2016, I actually preordered it based solely on how much I had enjoyed Hearthstone and Heroes Of The Storm. Two totally different games from a competitive 'hero shooter,' but I figured why not? And initially Overwatch felt like a Team Fortress kind of deal and I bounced off it. But a few months later I gave it another try, and started reading about it more and it just clicked with me.
In the years since, it's remained in my rotation. And I've actually kept up with it like no other game. Like I mentioned, I bought it again on Xbox One when I got out of PC gaming and had some friends willing to play it with me on console. Even weirder, I even got into Overwatch League, and have been watching it for the first two seasons.
I should maybe NOT admit how into the game I can be. But whatever. There's literally Luci-O's cereal in my kitchen right now. I still wear my Boston Uprising 'inaugural season' t-shirt probably weekly. I've received all kinds of Overwatch merch as gifts. Heck, there's even a Pachimari plush toy in my daughter's nursery. I'm just not like this about other games.
But please don't think I'm saying I'm good or anything. I'm not. I'm fine. I'm competent. I try hard. I care about not dragging my team down. But I'm perfectly happy staying in a casual lane. And when I'm practicing a new character, I'm also fine with playing against bots. I have no delusions of being great. But that's not what OW is about for me. It's just a great way to relax.
Anyway, I'm approaching this Switch port as someone who has played hundreds of hours over the past several years - both on PC and on Xbox One. Is the framerate lower? Yup. Are textures going to be simplified? Sure. Is it the absolute best version of OW available? Of course not. But here's the thing - and this is true of many Switch ports nowadays for me - it doesn't matter. What matters is that the EXPERIENCE is here. The past few nights I've played OW in a way I was never able to before: sitting on the couch, next to my wife while she read a book; or while listening to the TV in the background. It's an absolute game changer for me to have the ability to play OW without shutting myself away in the game room. And that is worth whatever sacrifices the port makes.
Me personally, I don't find the handheld great for FPS games. I think my hands are too big, and I don't like position of the analog sticks. But I've been standing the Switch up and playing with a Pro Controller and it's perfect for me. People are going to hate that progression isn't cross platform. And that's a legit downer. But I can deal. I had to start over on console once before. It is what it is.
All I can tell you is this: since the Switch came out, my number one dream port was Overwatch. That's the one game I wanted, and now it's here. I'm beyond happy that this exists. And that it's playable! And for now, I'm having fun grabbing Halloween loot boxes as I slowly level up once again.
I had taken a break from Overwatch for the past few months because I felt like the rumors of it coming to Switch HAD to be true and I didn't want to re-up my Xbox subscription. Coming back to the game now is soooo comforting. Who says you can't go home again, folks?
Quick Play now has a queuing system where you choose the roles you're willing to play: Tank, Healer, or Damage. It's a nice touch. And now there are mandatory slots for two of each of those roles on a team. I can see the pros and cons of this, though I think the pros win ultimately.
The downside is that this may prevent some truly insane and interesting team compositions. I mean, if a team was really badass using six healers, I'd want to see that. Y'know? But really what this does is cut down on some tension on picks. There's no more situations where you go into a match annoyed that nobody wanted to play healer.
Of course a mandatory composition does mean that things could get sort of stale (such as with the so called GOATS meta that invaded Overwatch League for a while there... I remember the most exciting matches were ones where teams got creative with their picks and bucked the trend). But then on the flip, each class does have some picks that could still think outside the box. It's been shown that Zenyatta can be a legit pick for damage. And D.Va is a tank, sure, but she feels more like a damage-tank combo. Even Soldier 76 can be seen as a quasi-healer if played right.
The bigger thing for me is that it's helping me branch out a bit more outside of my chosen favorites. If I get called in to tank and someone else picks D.Va (my absolute favorite in the game) then I need to get better with someone else. And though it seems like I get picked to damage less than the other roles (not surprising), it's fun to see what the team looks like and pick accordingly, bouncing around between whoever - Solider 76 or Widowmaker or anyone really.
Anyway, I'm still having a blast YEARS into playing this game. The Halloween event is always fun, and starting from scratch (YET AGAIN) means unlocking new skins and stuff feels sort of more exciting than it had for me in a while.
Some years back, I was pretty into collecting for the Neo Geo Pocket Color, and my favorite game, hands-down, was Card Fighters Clash. That's right - a system pretty much known for its arcade translations and insane fighting game library - and my favorite game was a card game that seemed to draw heavily from Pokemon TCG. Weird, right?
I didn't even know I was into card games at the time. I stumbled upon this one by accident and got HOOKED. And then over the years I got drawn into stuff like Hearthstone and most recently Lightseekers. I'm the type of dude who downloads any and every free-to-play card game on Switch now to give it a try and see if it gets its hooks into me. (So far, Lightseekers is the clear winner by the way).
With this in mind, Card Fighters DS has been on my want-list for YEARS. I mean, damn... an update of that NGPC that got me into the genre to begin with. But on DS! Oh baby.
I finally found a cheap copy and was super excited to start it up. Over the years I'd heard that it wasn't as good as the original game. And that there was a game breaking bug on early copies. But still. I was excited. And when I booted it up on my New 2DS XL I was thrilled at how pretty it looked. (There's not enough nice things I can say about the 2DS XL by the way. That is one of the absolute finest handheld gaming devices ever created. It's just perfect).
But as for the game itself... Card Fighters DS is... not great.
One of the things that made Card Fighters Clash so compelling to me was its ease of entry. There was a beautiful simplicity to that game that made it really easy to get into; really easy to learn. It was tough to master! But it was easy to learn.
Gone is the simplicity, friends. Instead there's layers upon layers of talking anime heads and overly complicated systems. I fumbled may way through a few rounds never really understanding the systems in place. There are gems of different colors that you accumulate... somehow... and you use those to play cards or whatever. And there's "Force." And there's different kinds of Attacks. And I don't even know.
It's just all too much. Maybe this was the Card Fighters game that someone wanted. Maybe someone who REALLY mastered the original game and wanted something deeper. Maybe. For me it seems like they tried TOO HARD to make it deep and something got lost in translation. The fun! The fun got lost. Bah!
I'm bummed to say I'm not enjoying this one. I want to. I want it to be good. But I mean... I'd rather just go back to Lightseekers at this point.
Oh man... so back in February I declared Lightseekers to be "the first great game of 2019," and not long after Tetris 99 came out which would be "the second great game of 2019." Unfortunately, T99 pulled away my attention and became my go-to game for when I had twenty minutes to unwind before bed. As the year starts winding down, I thought about revisiting Lightseekers. And so much has changed.
There was a huge recent update to Lightseekers. Not just a gigantic card-dump. I mean the whole meta is different. There were a bunch of cards retired, which means that all my built decks from before my hiatus are no longer legit. This is both cool and not cool.
I remember getting to a point of frustration with Hearthstone. It got to a point where too many decks were the same. The big winners were using a lot of the same over-powered cards. And I didn't have the motivation to get those cards, nor did I want to feel like there was a "right" deck to be using. Retiring cards definitely kills that whole thing. It means that you need to stay current and continue to tweak your decks. In means that things will remain new and interesting.
On the flip, here I am - I can't even use ANY of my decks. It's like starting all over again. Which I probably will do. I truly do love Lightseekers. But my tenacity has been diminished. I'm not in the same rush to get back to the game now because of the work it will be to do so.
On the upside, I was given a free deck to start with that includes nothing but allowed cards. So that's fun.
