Are there 3rd party Joy Con replacements? I know there's 3rd party controllers but I'm mostly interested in if there are options for controls that can slot into the Joy Con retention on the system. I wouldn't even care about it losing the wireless/motion tracking, and some other joy con features. I'd want something that would have different layouts and/or ergonomics. So say better analog sticks, I'd personally want a symmetrical layout (heck even the placement of them now where they kinda scrunched them together to facilitate being able to use each joy con side as its own controller I think harms things). I'd also love more Xbox style triggers, with the "front" shoulder buttons moved to the underside of the controller).
Just finished Link's Awakening. Such a fantastic game with such charm. I would rather a new top down Zelda game for Switch than a BOTW sequel.
For this being a 20 year old game that came out on Game Boy, man was it way ahead of it's time.
Its actually 26 year old game. (Yes "well ackshually!") I remember playing it as a kid. I don't remember it all that well though. Honestly I have more vivid memories of playing some much worse Game Boy games for some reason. Honestly, I was a bit surprised to find out it came out in 93, as it almost seems like it was like late 80s, coming out before SMB3 let alone SMW or LttP. I don't think it was ahead of its time (LttP was almost 2 years old already, let that sink in, and Mario World was a year older than it), but I do think it highlights that for enjoyable gameplay you don't need that crazy of hardware. That really shouldn't surprise people that much. Frankly most modern games put the majority of gameplay stuff towards stuff that doesn't make them better, it just makes them more addictive and time wasting (by that I mean stuff like RPG like leveling up progression systems, tied with loot box type of stuff). And most of the hardware is going towards graphics (and much of it for things that really don't wow people now as its more the norm).
I think you can see this type of behavior in other content too. Think a relatively tightly, and coherently thought and planned out plot vs "oh this show did well so I guess we'll keep it on air" or movies being similar. Which that's not even new behavior but it is really egregious again.
And, even for the time LA was a standout game, so its not that its bad or anything, but I think it shows that we have almost entirely artificial limitations with regards to smartly designed gameplay.
I'm surprised we haven't seen more games try for a Zelda-esque top down graphics mode (kinda like GTA had where you could put it back into old top down mode even though it was still using the new engine/models). Which sure there'd be issues if you tried to mod say Skyrim or something for that, but a game designed with it in mind would be interesting. Which Nintendo could probably do something interesting with that, kinda like Link Between Worlds, but where you switch between a full on traditional Zelda layout and a modern 3D one, and they work that into the puzzles (where sometimes you'd need to be able to look around from a different angle, and then other times you'd need an overview, maybe with a co-op aspect added).