While we here at Operation Rainfall love covering the latest in gaming news and sharing our reviews of titles new and classic, we also just enjoy playing games in our downtime. So with that, sit back, relax, and check out what the oprainfall gaming crew have been up to this week!
Once again, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve added to Week in Gaming. A few weeks ago I wasn’t doing any major gaming and was making barely any progress playing Persona 3 Reload on and off. This past week I’ve been playing Natsu-Mon: 20th Century Summer Kid which I’ll be writing a review for in the future, so I won’t be discussing that yet obviously. And other than that, I’ve hardly done any other gaming this week. However, just yesterday my wireless earbuds I finally bought arrived. The sound balancing in Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance was so wonky and out of whack, I finally took the plunge and bought my first ever pair of wireless earbuds. I’m no audiophile but, wonky bad sound balancing is my main, potentially only, gaming pet peeve and I play my Switch a lot now days, mostly docked. After looking through the budget options available, I started watching a few different pairs of Anker Soundcore earbuds on Amazon. Most of them have great reviews, they’re relatively budget friendly depending on the pair and there’s a Soundcore app that works with each pair and includes various settings.
Originally I found very little if anything about people’s experience using wireless earbuds on their Switch without an adapter, since the feature’s been added to it by Nintendo. I got input from some people who said it worked great undocked with their wireless earbuds, even cheap pairs. But considering I mostly play docked, and for undocked gameplay the Switch has a headphone jack, that info wasn’t the most helpful. Although, getting confirmation they could work without lag and reading all the good reviews about the earbuds, I finally took the plunge and spent $30 on Anker’s Soundcore P30i model. Unfortunately, I did end up with a pair without a low-latency game mode option in the Soundcore app, I believe I thought all of the sets I was watching had it. Regardless, I’m now quite glad I bought them anyways.
I’ve never had wireless earbuds before and after testing them out a bit yesterday, I found out that there isn’t this horrible game ruining lag like people seemed to think, or have stated there would be in what little I was able to find on the subject online. People claim Switch has bare minimum bluetooth support which won’t pick-up settings and that without a game mode or adapter they’re terrible and lag horrendously. After testing it for myself, I think they’re quite good honestly. Feeling like they have to lag and expecting it, I think I’ve noticed or feel like there may potentially be a minuscule eighth or quarter second lag possibly, something around that at least. But I’m not having any major issues. The place where I believe I can tell for sure there is some slight delay, is just when going back to the menu, or back to a game from the menu, and then once the sound starts up after that quite minute delay, it seems to be fine. I’ve messed around switching between game thumbnails quickly in the main Switch menu, I’ve selected stuff quickly in menus and did some fishing in Animal Crossing: New Horizons when I got on last night for the fireworks event, and they seem pretty good still. I did start to wonder in ACNH if there was more lag than I thought. I thought I was starting to notice that very minor delay ever so slightly. But again, the fact that after researching it, it sounds like there has to be this horrible lag no matter what, I may simply be expecting it and that’s making me believe I’m truly noticing it. I should also probably mention, my Switch is connected to a small standard HDTV, not a smart TV. That may help lessen any potential lag as well.
I still need to do some additional testing, try them in Theatrhythm Final Bar Line perhaps, the only rhythm game I have on Switch, or in a shooter such as Splatoon 3 and/or Perfect Dark. I did try them with online multiplayer last night in ACNH, I joined a friend for that weekly August fireworks event. That might be my favorite seasonal event in the game. And yeah, like I already said, I’m not noticing any major lag. I do think and hope they’ll work for now, for the reason I bought them. In the future though, when I have more cash to spare for wireless earbuds, I’m hoping to maybe upgrade to the P3 model, or just any other well reviewed Soundcore wireless earbuds that actually have the low-latency game mode my current pair is missing. Oh that’s another thing, despite reading that my Switch wouldn’t pick-up any special modes set on my earbuds, the Soundcore app lets me connect them to both my phone and Switch at the same time. When I’ve messed with what settings they do have, the surround sound, various equalizer options, etc., my Switch picks it up and it works just fine.
Anyway, the reason I’ve decided to discuss my wireless earbuds experience this week, with a docked Switch, is because I had such a hard time finding any info about it myself, when attempting to research it beforehand. I figured I should put this out there for anyone else who wanted to know I suppose. Maybe one of you will find this info useful. And if not, well it’s the only gaming I can talk about this week. I’ll keep making Natsu-Mon progress and hopefully I’ll be able to write my review soon. – Jenae
What games have you been playing this week? Let us know in the comments!
You can read previous Week in Gaming entries here!
