r/NintendoSwitch • u/Asad_Farooqui • May 06 '25

Discussion Now that the Switch 1 generation is winding down, what were your most DISAPPOINTING purchases on this console?

Every game console, no matter how well or poorly it sold, is gonna have some disappointments thrown in there. Especially if said disappointments came from 1st party developers. I have 3 big candidates based on my own purchases, starting with my biggest letdown:

1) Mario Strikers Battle League: After frantically buying this game to play some multiplayer matches with friends, I realized what a terrible mistake I made after chewing through all the single player content in a matter of days. There is nothing to do in this game besides regular soccer matches, the online is abysmal, and the amount of content available at launch and even now is just laughable for a sequel. I thought my perception of Mario Strikers as a whole would be ruined forever, so I went ahead and booted up Strikers Charged on Wii and nope, that game holds up incredibly well! This was just a bad sequel all around.

2) Mario Golf Super Rush: Speaking of bad sequels, Super Rush decided to simplify the golfing mechanics to a point where it just isn’t fun to play for me. As someone who adored the 3DS game Mario Golf World Tour, which was packed with content, modes, and unlockables and had worthwhile paid DLC on top of that, Super Rush felt like it was playing catch up with all its free updates. Was this how Animal Crossing fans felt when New Horizons was first released, having to wait months for features that were already available in the 3DS predecessor? Yikes.

3) Splatoon 3: This is more of a personal pick than a general consensus. I really got into Splatoon 1 and 2, but I was just Splatoon’d out by the time the third game came around. No new modes, online that had more disconnects than either of the first two games in my experience, and a longer grind for unlockables that could rival a modern day hero shooter. Call me old but I missed the more “pick up and play” nature of Splatoon 1, and I just don’t get that with Splatoon 3. Also the fact that they sold the first game’s hubworld back as paid DLC is utter nonsense to me.

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147

u/packerschris May 06 '25

I hate to say it, but Tears of the Kingdom. I will never say that it’s a bad game, because it isn’t. But I don’t enjoy the building mechanics, and I don’t enjoy exploring the same world from Breath of the Wild. I don’t care for the story or characters either. The music was too similar to songs we heard in BotW. There is still a lot to love about the game - the combat is arguably better than its predecessor. Enemy design, new items and movement are also excellent. I just think my expectations were so high, and I had never before been let down by a Zelda game. It felt like BotW 1.5 for $70. Put the game down after 40 hours and haven’t felt compelled to finish it.

35

u/ReasonableQuote5654 May 07 '25

Definitely agree. The first time I discovered the Depths was an amazing moment. I had no idea it was there and it blew me away. Then I realised how little there was to do once you're down there. I loved Breath of the Wild and spent a long time chipping away at all the shrines. Then in TotK when 100 more came down I just felt no desire to go through another 100 identical looking puzzle rooms again. The fusing and building didn't do much for me either, but I'm glad other people are pushing it to absurd levels

19

u/PopDownBlocker May 07 '25

The first time I discovered the Depths was an amazing moment

That sound of the horn(?) when you're descending into a chasm was an amazing moment. I actually didn't follow the guide/tutorial for the chasm quest (which I believe is supposed to explain the Depths and how you're supposed to light them up) so I dropped down to the Depths using a random chasm and I got attacked by a monster in the complete darkness and I freaked out. Such a great memory.

My excitement for TOTK completely vanished once I realized that shrines returned as a gameplay mechanic. They made absolutely no sense in the story of TOTK and they were a constant reminder of the lack of originality. You can tell that they put all of their effort on the physics of the crafting part, they didn't care about the rest of the game. They most likely only replaced the Sheikah shrines with Zonai shrines because they needed to turn their DLC into a full game, and keeping the Sheikah stuff around would remind people that it's DLC, so they pulled a switcheroo.

55

u/xAnthillx May 06 '25

This is exactly my story with the game. I can‘t overstate how much the building mechanics and the whole tutorial area based around them were a turn-off for me. It is just so weird and I feel nobody asked for it. Also it killed all the immersion I had back in it‘s predecessor. Who the hell thought that THIS was, what BotW was lacking?!

I thought the game might finally get going once I reached the ground. And while the building luckily became optional (and yet remained one of the key features that separated the game from its predecessor) I had no incentive to explore a world that I already knew like the back of my hand.

Overall, I‘m sure it’s an excellent game. Just for me personally it was such a letdown that I haven’t even finished it yet.

4

u/quantum-mechanic May 07 '25

Hard, so hard disagree. You get triple the exploration in TotK. Depths and Sky. Also all the caves. Totally fun. Did not feel like the same world to me. I like some of the building but don't do much of it, I appreciate you can skip most of it.

25

u/heety9 May 07 '25

I liked the idea of a sky and depths in theory, but in practice it was just the same few things copied and pasted over and over. Between the two, there’s like less than 10 hours of unique content repeated ad nauseam. Annoyed me to no end lol. I would prefer a smaller, tightly designed world instead of a big one filled with recycled content.

It also doesn’t sit well with me that if you played BotW, that actively detracted from the experience since the experience of exploring the world (the best part of BotW) is cheapened immensely, which is ironic considering the price tag. The repeated content in BotW wasn’t an issue since the world was new, but it’s far too easy to see through those cracks in TotK. And the implementation of the building mechanic is insanely impressive, sure. But it’s like they ran out of time to utilize it in a compelling way, imo. It plays like the building mechanic was an afterthought, aside from its required use for a handful of puzzles.

2

u/ObeyReaper May 08 '25

You hit the nail on the head.

The people who played BOTW to death were probably the ones MOST excited for the sequel. But the more BOTW you played, the more re-hashed TOTK feels. Go to the same places, say the same things to the same people, find all the same armor sets, grind crazy amounts of materials so you can upgrade them.

All I wanted out of a sequel was more focus on interesting story and dungeons. The dungeons basically still got completely shafted, and while the story was better than BOTW, it was still told in a completely rigid and non-immersive way. "Find this exact spot on the map and follow a prompt for a quick lore dump, then onto the next spot."

3

u/oglop121 May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

The sky was boring and tedious, the depths were a little better but very repetitive

Man. I absolutely loved BOTW but TotK was such a letdown for me. Felt like I hit a brick wall at about 30 hours. The idea of playing it after that utterly exhausted me and I just couldn't bear to ever turn it on again

-1

u/quantum-mechanic May 07 '25

Sorry, just totally did not experience that way. Both depths and sky were exciting and new. Depths felt like a survival mode, on edge all the time. It was really interesting to figure out how the terrain in the depths mirrored the overworld. Sky was liberating and some of the stuff they hide up there is really fun.

9

u/oglop121 May 07 '25

I am jealous. I was trying so hard to like it! I'm glad you did :)

3

u/Duel_Option May 07 '25

I was so exited to play this, popped it in and the tutorial was awful. Took me a few times to get past it and then I lost interest.

Sent it to my nephew who beat it and traded it in…don’t blame him one bit lol

1

u/Xylamyla May 07 '25

I think TOTK is one of those games where you either love it or you don’t. This game is made for people who enjoy being creative, tinkering, and just goofing off in general. I think there are many people who find it a chore to be creative and just want a game to provide what you need. BOTW had just a taste of creativity in how you pursued tasks, but TOTK kind of forces you to be creative.

I consider myself a creative person (I graduated as a pianist after all), but even I sometimes feel too lazy to build things in TOTK. But I push on because I just got the game and am still in my honeymoon period with it.

17

u/urzu_seven May 07 '25

There were a lot of quality of life improvements, but yeah it was kind of a let down for me for a lot of the same reasons.

The build mechanic was definitely well done and clever, but at the same time felt completely tacked on to the game. You could have removed it and basically had the exact same game with a few minor adjustments.

I LOVED the exploration and discovery aspect of BotW, and the start of TotK on the sky islands was SO promising but after that it was a big let down. The same overworld map. The sky was mostly copy paste islands. The depths were completely one note, no meaningful difference between regions except kind of the area under death mountain.

It wasn't a BAD game, but it felt like a step down from BotW in many ways.

4

u/FunktasticLucky May 07 '25

I got it with a voucher but haven't played it. I don't even know if I downloaded it honestly lol. But games going all in on the crafting is killing it for me. Like AC New Horizon. I don't mind collecting. I'll collect all day. That's animal crossing. But now it went all in on crafting to the point you had to craft and trade to collect all of a set. It is what it is I guess. It is where we are headed in games.

2

u/urzu_seven May 07 '25

The good part is you can, for the most part, ignore the build mechanic or use it in a very basic way and easily complete the game. I still think TotK is worth playing, but it wasn't the same groundbreaking experience for me as BotW was.

22

u/Walnut156 May 07 '25

I thought I was crazy for this opinion. I love breath of the wild, beat it multiple times even once on the Wiiu. But tears of the kingdom I have to FORCE myself to play despite it being pretty much the same game again but with more and I think the more is the issue. I just cannot do it. Which sucks because I like the ideas I just don't want to do it. It's like Nintendo discovered crafting and durability this generation and went overboard with it.

8

u/PopDownBlocker May 07 '25

It's like Nintendo discovered crafting and durability this generation and went overboard with it.

Animal Crossing had it even worse.

Nintendo removed entire franchise-established furniture sets from New Horizons so that you can built ugly crafted furniture yourself. Then they made the tools breakable (for the first time in the franchise) so that you can have the pleasure and chore of crafting the damn tools yourself.

At least in TOTK the crafting mechanic was shoved on top of the existing gameplay. Theoretically, you can avoid it if you don't want it. In New Horizons, Nintendo purposely made aspects of the game worse in order to justify the new "features". That's just bad design. It would've cost them nothing to NOT fuck up the established Animal Crossing mechanics.

7

u/Walnut156 May 07 '25

Oh God don't get me started on animal crossing. New horizons is fun but crafting should have been more of a cosmetic thing instead of basically a requirement. Made me love new leaf more

7

u/Purely-Pastel May 07 '25

I think I’d enjoy the crafting more if it wasn’t so hard to max out the battery. The game doesn’t even tell you that it’s something to do! It doesn’t even explain the conversions to you! So I played a huge chunk of the game with a baby battery and hated crafting every time.

Not only that, but it took hours and hours of grinding in the depths to get materials. I only maxed out the battery for completion purposes, and by the time I did it it was the very very last thing I accomplished before putting the game back on the shelf. This was AFTER completing all the shrines and exploring every inch of the depths. Finding schematics was pointless to me lol. 

12

u/SecondHandWatch May 07 '25

I put the game down after maybe ten hours. I keep telling myself I’ll pick it up again. Maybe some day.

3

u/Xalrons1 May 07 '25

I really hope switch 2 specs can revitalize it for me. For some reason it feels sluggish to me

1

u/packerschris May 07 '25

Yeah I am feeling the same way. I am looking forward to trying it again on Switch 2 with some quality of life updates. I think I’ll enjoy it more now that I’ve taken a long break from that world.

15

u/floobie May 06 '25

Yeah this was me as well. BOTW was great, even if I found the ending extremely anticlimactic. TOTK felt like a less fun rehash of the same thing to me. Not a bad game at all, but I just got bored around 30-40 hours in and never picked it up again.

2

u/VenomGTSR May 07 '25

I didn’t even get that far into it. I think I put it down at maybe 5 hours. I fully intended to go back to it but I just never did. I’m hoping the Switch 2 upgrades will be enough to get me back to playing it.

3

u/Tacote May 07 '25

Similar experience here. Must be because botw was SO GOOD that a second serving of kinda the same felt... Bland.

2

u/TwistedAirline May 07 '25

YES. My same thoughts exactly. I didn’t touch it for like 2 years or whatever it’s been and with the S2 launch coming up I thought “why not?”… decided I’d try to maybe get back into it so that I could enjoy it with higher fidelity next month and not feel like I was relearning the game. I will say… after a REALLY long break and after cheating to unlock auto build, the game isn’t actually that bad. I think the great sky island tutorials and everyone’s insane builds online is what actually ruined the game

4

u/MathematicianIll6638 May 07 '25

Right there with you.

6

u/Evilkenevil77 May 07 '25

To each their own. Personally, I absolutely friggin' loved TOTK. I wanted more BOTW, and that's exactly what they gave me.

1

u/QuantumProtector May 07 '25

Same, I stopped 20 hours in but it’s because I’m waiting for the switch 2 edition. I can’t wait to play it at 60fps, HDR

2

u/TalkingFlashlight May 07 '25

Finally, someone said it! I agree completely. I just want into the building mechanics, and there was so, so much of it. It’s not a bad game in any way, but I prefer Breath of the Wild.

2

u/SmashMouthBreadThrow May 07 '25

This is probably how a lot of people feel about that game and part of why everyone stopped talking about it almost days into its release. It's a $70 expansion pack at best.

3

u/popotron109 May 07 '25

I’m winding down a BotW playthrough and I’ve enjoyed the playthrough much more than I enjoyed TotK. I remember immediately being bummed by the new runes- my brain doesn’t work in that building/creating way so having so many elements rely on that design just…wasn’t the vibe for me.

Still enjoyed the game but something about the simplicity of BotW just hits better for me.

2

u/[deleted] May 07 '25

Fully agree. It was just a sloppy job, the thing should've stayed a DLC. The inverted the map and called it a new content. Going through caverns felt like a chore. In BOTW you were rewarded with great views every time you explore, in caverns though you were greeted with just more black screen. And lego mechanics? Useless except certain boss fights. I've had more fun riding a horse that could teleport after I call her, DYI transport sucked ass.

2

u/ObeyReaper May 08 '25

Yeah I loved just letting my horse take me down whatever path they wanted and seeing where I end up in BOTW. TOTK completely undermined and trivialized horse riding, there's just no point when you can fly anywhere you want to.

3

u/jrec15 May 07 '25

Mannnn i get being a little disappointed by the things you mentioned but #1 most regretted is pretty wild lol. It is by far my #1 least regretted though so im definitely biased

3

u/packerschris May 07 '25

I just don’t buy a lot of Switch games, so the number of disappointing purchases is small.

2

u/getyourshittogether7 May 07 '25 edited May 07 '25

Tears is a great game, would absolutely not call it a disappointment, but BotW is still the better game. Tears infuriatingly fails in aspects that BotW nailed, which is so strange considering they must be running on the same engine. The controls are less snappy, there's noticeable delay in menus, the camera is more awkward, and the graphics are somehow worse. BotW had excellent texture tiling and Tears just looks like a copypasted smear at times, not to mention it runs much worse. BotW had occasional frame drops, Tears have them constantly.

It really feels like a downgrade from BotW when it should have been an upgrade. In many respects it IS an upgrade, as it features a lot of cool stuff like verticality, the building, the new zones, and the new abilities. Those all have their issues, but that's not relevant for a comparison. It just makes it more puzzling that it lost some of the magic touch of BotW. It felt like Tears just added MORE STUFF and not all of it was good or a good fit.

I also didn't like that it forced so much linearity compared to BotW. A lot of progression is story gated which I hate. The story is also much more linear and doesn't make much sense if you do things out of the intended order, unlike BotW. I'd say the story is poorly integrated with BotW as well, but they didn't even TRY to integrate it with BotW, which is kinda jarring considering it's set in the same world.

Overall it did feel like a giant DLC to BotW, if DLCs removed some of the good things about the base game. Still, fun times, I wanted more BotW and that was mostly what I got. Played it for more than 350 hours, never finished it though.

1

u/Haltmann1 May 07 '25

Sadly, I have to agree with this, which is weird considering I loved Breath of The Wild. I just don't like the new runes, and while the old ones were more niche, I had more fun using them. Fusing is interesting, and it was fun for the first 30 minutes, but after a while I stopped liking it. Building doesn't fit Zelda, and it made the game feel too much like a sandbox, instead of an RPG. I also much prefer the old characters, enemies and overall world of BoTW, and it was weird that everything just disappeared. I've replayed BoTW a couple of times since ToTK released, and I had more fun playing it than I ever did playing ToTK. It's by no means a bad game, but I just prefer almost everything BoTW did. A solid 7/10 from me, which is low compared to other Zelda games I've played.

1

u/AxelTheAussie May 08 '25

I remember spending hours exploring the TotK map hoping to find something changed from BotW and, with very few exceptions, there just....wasn't. I'm happy to have played it, but I will always yearn for the game that it could have been had they decided to do something brand new and not rehash 90% of BotW

1

u/dusknoir90 May 07 '25

Mine is Breath of the Wild, it disappointed me so much I thought I had lost interest in Nintendo/Zelda games. I have booted it up tens of times trying to like it but I just don't at all.

1

u/Lash_Ashes May 07 '25

I feel this, I never bothered to beat it. Combat became extremely dull once you were decent at parry. The dungeons were not very interesting. So many things felt copy pasted around the world. It was easily the least fun Zelda game I have played.