Nintendo Switch Physical Collecting Thread

[poptart]

Not retro, but something I have to imagine fellow RGBers would appreciate.

Over the past few years my Switch physical collection has grown and as of now stands at 159 games, the most of any platform I own. And I’ve bought them all while the system is current, the vast majority brand new.

There’s just something about them, with the cute red cases and actual cartridges, paired with a really healthy ecosystem and hardware I want to play on that’s been making me pick up anything that looks interesting.

This year I’ve gone all in on Switch visual novels and a huge percentage of the ~50 or so games I’ve bought since the spring have been VNs, to the point where I have nearly every physical VN that I’m aware of existing. Just yesterday I finished WorldEnd Syndrome, a VN I wouldn’t have likely dived into if I hadn’t felt like an idiot paying above retail price for a copy 2 years late:

And you know what I’m really glad I did, it has a fantastic story. While I sometimes find myself scratching my head at why I’m paying $40 CAD for games that are on sale on steam for $4, it does make me feel more invested in them, and it’s getting me to try stuff I otherwise wouldn’t.

Today I ordered a game I hadn’t even heard of until I noticed a physical Japanese copy of it that includes English, Dungeon and Gravestone / ダンジョンに捧ぐ墓標:

It’s a cute roguelike and I’m really excited to see how it is.

Part of the reason I got so into just buying anything that seems good is because aftermarket prices for older switch games are sometimes crazy. Even forgetting about intentionally limited releases from the likes of Limited Run or Super Rare, there are a lot of very low print run games on the system, especially things like Asia exclusive English releases. And it can happen with an unexpected speed, for example just a year after the release of Langrisser 1 and 2 sold prices on ebay look more like a uncommon vintage game:

Early releases have in some cases shot up as well, or more commonly just not gone down in price at all. I’m not buying this stuff as a speculative investment but it makes me feel less dumb about spending as much as I am for new releases.

Anyone else have similar stories to tell? Want to share some photos of your Switch shelf, or share a recently discovered physical game that looks interesting, or just post recent pickups?

[D.Lo]

159 holy crap!

I think I have 50ish? Which is absolutely my record for a platform within its lifetime. My set is like 80% limited run type releases now though. And they can be pretty cheap too, mostly the US$30 range.

@poptart

Part of the reason I got so into just buying anything that seems good is because aftermarket prices for older switch games are sometimes crazy. Even forgetting about intentionally limited releases from the likes of Limited Run or Super Rare, there are a lot of very low print run games on the system, especially things like Asia exclusive English releases. And it can happen with an unexpected speed, for example just a year after the release of Langrisser 1 and 2 sold prices on ebay look more like a uncommon vintage game:

Yep, now I buy if I’m even half interested and then later decide if I’ll sell. Missed out on a few I was on the fence on (eg Yooka Laylee) and now they’re out of reach.

I sold a few Super Rare and Strictly Limited Games which I wanted to keep but the aftermarket price was so high it was a no brainer, and I hadn’t even opened them yet.

[akumagorath]

I’ve amassed a sizeable digital library from buying games when they’re 50%+ off and only have the heavy hitters in physical. But man, I’ve been seriously contemplating expanding my collection. Like you say, the cases are lovely, they look great on my shelf (still don’t like that manuals aren’t a thing anymore though) so I think I’m going to start getting more physical games, probably limited edition stuff like the Dread Special Edition whenever that eventually pops back up and import Deathsmiles 1+2 to start.

[harborline_765]

Agreed on the aftermarket prices, particularly stuff published by NIS America. I bought the Yomawari Collection back in 2018 because I genuinely wanted the game, was shocked to find how much it goes for now.

That said, there are some physical Japanese Switch games which I had at the same time as owning a digital copy due to my own impatience which I ended up shifting - like Densha de Go and the Grisaia Trilogy. I regret getting rid of those. They’ve gone up further in value!

[poptart]

Copy of Doki Doki Literature Club Plus arrived today.

Spending $40 on a slightly updated free PC game.

[Seik]

Here’s my stuff. The Bayonetta 1-2 Climax Edition and Xenoblade Chronicle DE Collectors are missing from the picture becaude they too thicc for that shelf.

[poptart]

[poptart]

Here’s my shelf:

Apologies for the harsh lighting. Missing from that is a dozen games my son has been into lately:

Plus 3 games I’ve been playing:

[poptart]

So lately I’ve been into buying up interesting Asia region physical Switch games that have English. One of my first Switch games was of this sort, the Wonder Boy 3 remake, but the past few months I’ve sorta been going nutty buying up these variants.

One interesting thing is that Romancing Saga 2 recently got a late physical release in Asia. I thought this was such a great thing that I bought it, along with a new variant of Romancing Saga 3, despite already having them digital.

Take a moment to savour that beautiful cover art cause the story gets worse from here.

I don’t play every game I get immediately but I like to put them into my Switch, get any update data, maybe collect MyNintendo coins because why not, start them to get save data initialized, and see an intro screen or two.

And with Romancing Saga 2 I’m confronted with this:

Look at the gnarly JPEG compression artifacts… everywhere but most notably around the barrels.

Compared to the digital version:

The digital version is 1.5GB, I thought they must have compressed the game’s backgrounds to fit on a cheaper cartridge. But I’ve never heard of a physical version differing in this way from a digital version. I have even seen speculation that they aren’t allowed to do this sort of thing for physical versions.

Well, guess what! Even on the Hong Kong eshop the game is compressed down to 576MB. That’s down to 1/3 of where it started. Turns out its stable-mate, the 2nd rev (new cover art) Romancing Saga 3 has the same issue, and is reduced from 1.8 GB down to 805 MB:

Asia region physical (rev 2, new cover art):

US region digital:

I have heard the first physical release of RM3 is not affected but have no way to confirm that.

This is certainly something to watch out for in the future, especially as Arc System Works has plans to release a Switch physical of SaGa: Scarlet Grace in Asia with English on the supported language list.

[heavyliquid]

Wow, wtf! That is really surprising and disappointing. I’ve never seen examples or even heard of this happening before. It makes me wonder if there are any other games out there that do this, and how many?
This is especially concerning for me and I assume most people on the board, as I go out of my way to get the physical version if possible. But what’s even the point if it’s an inferior version?

[Peltz]

Bleh. Awful.

Clearly a cost cutting measure for getting a lower capacity card.

[poptart]

I’ve only seen this on these two games. They are likely to be extremely low volume print runs, it’s amazing Romancing Saga 2 has a physical at all so late, but yeah watch out for any Asia region Arc System Works published games going forward.

[akumagorath]

I was really planning to buy a bunch of those Asian carts too, that sucks. I think I’ll still buy Deathsmiles though

[harborline_765]

Thanks for flagging this, didn’t realise they were changing the SKU specifically for the Asian version for these games. But considering they changed publishers it makes a lot of sense now…

I mean, it’s pretty depressing that a sprite-based Super Famicom upgrade has to be 2GB to begin with but that’s the reality of Unity engine remasters I guess.

[raskulous]

I’m not sure about that, as the full game is only 1.5gb. of you head to the store to buy a microSD, you won’t find one that small, maybe 2gb at the smallest.

It would probably be more expensive to put in only 1gb, as opposed to 2gb or 4gb, due to them not being produced any more.

Granted, they might be using up old stock for super cheap.