The Switch and Motion Controls

[Rick Dangerous]

What are your thoughts on the state of motion controls on the Switch. I can tell you my own history and thoughts on them:

 

Wii: Great, love them, so cool! Played most of my games with them when and if possible.

 

Wii U: Lost interest, annoyed with gamepad, wanted to play when possible with pro-controller

 

Switch: Very much so just want to play with the pro controller, unless the game is designed around, and fundamentally powered by motion control. Even then i'd rather just play a normal game with normal controls.

 

I realized this the other day when Mario Odyssey was trying to shove the motion control setup down my throat for the mandatory ten seconds when you turn the game on (wish you could shut it off in options.) I have no interest in using split controllers, no matter how zany and "innovative" it is or feels. I'm fully burned out on the motion control thing...

 

What about you? Are you still stoked to be swinging around some joycons in the years ahead?

 

If the integration is subtle....such as shake the controller to climb faster, I am less opposed.

[NE146]

They're all "waggle controls" to me and I've never liked it after Wii Sports.

 

I guess I'm ok for things like aiming an arrow in Zelda in Wii U, or on the 3DS to a certain extent, but after that it gets tiring.

[spacecadet]

I haven't played Mario Odyssey yet, but generally I've never been a huge fan of motion controls *except* for light gun games. They are a great way to do light gun games on flat panel displays that don't support real light guns.

[Tanooki]

With the Wii I never hated them but I grew as the months into years went on learned to really go anywhere from like to strongly hate them.

 

When you had a game built around them with the added loving care that it worked to the best the hardware could handle like Wii Sports, then WMPlus with Sports Resort it felt great. Then you had some games where it mostly worked but sometimes it would get janky and you'd have to try another attempt but as it was a slower paced game it wasn't a problem like Zack and Wiki. Other games like FPS games that was downright awesome as you really had this hybrid of feeling like you really were aiming to shoot vs messing with twin sticks, a nice happy ground between there and a mousey and keyboard. But the problem is a lot of games didn't get it right, including Nintendo. Sometimes it would get shoehorned into a game as the only choice, like bow/arrow in Zelda TP and at first it was nice to do it, but after the 10th time having to stop, aim, point around and hope you can line it up imprecisely but precisely enough to hit it got old. In some cases you had enough action going on you'd fail a lot and take much longer than with buttons. The worst again with Zelda was Skyward Sword as those crappy not really 1:1 controls with the shield and poke checking the big bad boss early on -- it got infuriating as it never would work for me and I'd end up bottling up and bum rushing the jerk taking heavy damage just to get around it as it was forced crap design with no alternative option. That was the big fail, no secondary choice forcing stuff where sometimes it just wasn't the best.

 

WiiU I never used it, felt no reason but it more was into forcing touch panel stuff drawing eyes off the screen which was fairly awful or at least annoying so I would avoid that at all costs while I had it.

 

Switch I've had no such use for it in a game, I hate that Odyssey pop up too as I either play it docked with the controllers on that bracket or on the system itself in mobile mode. I doubt strongly I ever will use it unless some odd game pops up that really needs the feature. Maybe since it has the camera and all that tech if they resurrected Duck Hunt and friends I'd take a swing at it, but otherwise meh.

 

I used to get mad at waggle control being thrown around by the immature media taking digs intentionally at the underpowered non-HD system, but in time I got to appreciate that insult because despite them doing it just to be douchebags, it was foretelling the future of crappy waggling controls to try and get the game to do what you want, which it would have done faster and better on a normal control or had they sold a mouse accessory instead.

[Mephitblue]

So far I haven''t had a good experience with the motion controls on the Switch. They were okay in Zelda, but I hated the apparatus puzzles where you had to use them. I can't stand them in Super Mario Odyssey as I find them a hassle to use. I still haven't figured out how are you suppose to use motion controls when using the Switch in hand held mode. It doesn't help that the two big games I've played on the Switch seem to have motion controls because it's a feature they were required to use, not because it would make the game better.

 

Wii Sports wouldn't be fun without motion controls. Zelda and Mario would be more fun without motion controls.

[Loxx O)))]

I'm not a huge fan of motion controls. I will pretty much use an alternate setup whenever I have the option. The U's gamepad I'm actually a fan of, though. It was very lightweight and it felt good in my hands. And having that as a way to look around in a world didn't bother me too much... the only time where it really annoyed me was in Star Fox. That control setup was incredibly difficult to get used to.

 

As for Switch, I've really only used motion controls a couple times with Splatoon and ARMS just to try them out. And then I go back to regular joycon setup or Pro. I do like have the joycons split up working as one controller, though. It lets me stretch out and play however I want. Earlier, I was lounging on a bench at work in the lunch room playing some VVVVVVs.

[glazball]

Yea, imo motion controls can diaf. It worked for Wii Sports and got very tiring very quickly after that. I just can't stand the imprecision that we got used to with analog thumb sticks (starting with the revolutionary N64 controller). When the PS Move came out and my friends were happily buying them up, internally I'm screaming "NOOOOOO! WHY???" Reading that Kinect was (still is?) the fasting selling gadget EVER really dampened my spirits too. And, as expected, everyone dumped them when they realized they couldn't actually, you know, play a real game on them.

 

However, as others said above, they are great for light gun games and in that respect, they are incredible. Some of my favorite Wii games are light gun shooters. Also, a game like Child of Eden on PS3 would probably be much easier (and fun) with the Move, because I struggled and struggled to finish the game using the regular controller and just couldn't do it. (Come to think of it, had the same problem with House of the Dead 2 on Dreamcast. The cursor just isn't quick enough for games like that.)

 

As to the Switch specifically: I bought a pro controller and have never looked back. Nintendo knows that most people really don't want motion control, and suckers like me are willing to pay $70 for the privilege of having a "normal" controller.

Edited November 20, 2017 by glazball

[Tanooki]

Got the suckers part right. I snapped up a second hand gently little used Nintendo wireless pro controller the other day trading stuff into a store and I used it on Skyrim two nights ago and wow that was nice. I think the joycons on the rack are still comfortable but this really is a nice option too and I don't have to go with unhitching those things at this rate as I don't care about split hand controlling anything or motion junk unless they do some light gun stuff again or a RTS that may benefit from some mouse like control.