(North America Direct)
I came in with low expectations to the Direct. Only thing I can honestly say I cared about was the Sun/Moon segment and it’s content(Alolan Rattata and Snorlax’s Z-Move are nice). Everything else, I have no strong opinions on. Apparently people are complaining about the Pikmin game already, but whether it becomes another Federation Force(ya know, since people wanted Pikmin 4) is anyone’s guess. I’ve seen a few devout Pikmin fans with mixed feelings already.
But hey, the 3DS will remain relevant, so there’s that.
(Europe Direct)
This Nintendo Direct shows the 3DS will stay relevant for quite a while. First, the Pokémon Sun/Moon news reveal a new Alola form for Ratatta, turning it into a Dark/Normal type, as well as a special Munchlax which will come with a new Z-Move for when it evolves into Snorlax. Honestly speaking, I was expecting more out of what might be the 3DS’s biggest title of the year.
Next, we had news of Super Mario Maker coming to 3DS which, combined with the later announcement of Poochy & Yoshi’s Woolly World, pretty much cements the Wii U as dead. Both ports will, of course, include some new functionalities, which is to be expected. Shame that Mystery Mushrooms were removed, though. As for Mario Party: Star Rush and Mario Sports Super Stars didn’t really impress me, but the latter looks like a solid entry in the Mario sports spin-offs. Updates to Animal Crossing: New Leaf and StreetPass Plaza ought to keep those games enjoyable for long-time players as well.
As for the Zelda part, the new Hyrule Warriors Legends content looks fun and it’s great that the update is released today as well. The new amiibo look good and their functionality in the upcoming Breath of the Wild is something to look forward to. In addition, Skyward Sword on the Wii U eShop as well as promoting the Symphony of the Goddesses concerts cement Nintendo’s commitment to celebrate the series’ 30th anniversary, in spite of no new game being released this year.
Ever Oasis, Rhythm Paradise Megamix and the new Picross game show that Nintendo is still dedicated to the handheld as far as first-party games go. Same for several third-party titles like Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice, Ace Attorney: Spirit of Justice, Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse and two new upcoming Dragon Quest titles. Indie titles were showcased as well, continuing Nintendo’s relationship with smaller studios to bring back more unique titles. I’m looking forward to try out Azure Striker Gunvolt 2.
Finally, the new Pikmin game was announced to close the presentation, marking the first handheld title in the series. A spin-off that takes some of the series’ gameplay elements to a 2D platforming game. Not exactly the 4th game everyone was expecting, but it seems fun anyway. It’s likely that a main title might be coming for the NX as the 3DS’s hardware may not quite handle such a title.
All in all, it wasn’t a bad Direct, even though there wasn’t any mind-blowing announcement either. Plenty of new titles were shown, including a bunch from third-party companies and indie studios, so there’s still a variety of games coming for the handheld that will last for a while in terms of entertainment.
(North America Direct)
First off: That was a good Direct. It fully fulfilled my expectations and that’s a good thing. But on the other side…I didn’t expected much.
But what this Nintendo Direct clearly showed is that the Wii U is dead and how Nintendo tries really hard to take away some of the remaining exclusives and releases it on the 3DS. Is it bad? No, of course not. Why wasting your best titles on a dead console? Nintendo’s efforts were remarkable at that time but if nothing can save it, then better bring it over to the only living device Nintendo’s selling right now. So it makes sense and MANY guessed that Super Mario Maker will someday come to the 3DS. But it still gave me a good laugh. Now when’s The Wonderful 101 on n3DS?
Personally, my highlight is Picross 3D Round 2 and more Mii Plaza-Update. For my taste, the Update comes a bit late but it finally removes the 10 Miis-Limit. 100 Mii’s is more then fair enough. But man, I wished they would done that sooner. Picross 3D Round 2 is self-explaining. I mean, come on, it’s Picross 3D! Oh, and I almost forgot about the new Zelda-amiibo. Those look really good.
But in the end, nothing really surprised me except Yoshi’s Wooly World for 3DS and Pikmin for 3DS. Pikmin 3DS whoever reminded me A LOT of Kirby Mass Attack, which shares almost the same Gameplay-mechanic, but slower and more complex. Time will tell what this game holds for us.
I didn’t saw anything, I really want (except amiibo) right now. So I’ll just play my remaining 3DS-Backlog. But one question still remains: Where is my SNES n3DS XL, Nintendo?!
(European Direct)
I personally had no expectations heading into the direct, and I’m glad I felt that way, because coming out the other side I’m now extremely excited about the 3DS again.
First off: a new Pikmin game on the 3DS! Absolutely the highlight for me. I’ve recently been saying how a Pikmin game is one of the few ‘missing titles’ from the 3DS otherwise brilliant library, and now that’s another gap filled. I’m also completely fine with the 2D aspect of it, it’s cool when they try different things.
Another big highlights of this direct for me were the Zelda amiibo figures. Which means we finally get an Ocarina of Time Link amiibo figure.
The trifecta of direct highlights are rounded off in the form of Mario Sports Super Stars. Mario Sports games are often not that great, but I have high hopes for this one. With baseball being an included sport, I’m hoping for a sizeable roster with plenty of delicious Kongs!
The 3DS versions of Yoshi’s Woolly World and Super Mario Maker are certainly welcome, though I’m not sure I’m interested in them on a personal level, as I’ve got the Wii U versions already. I would like to think this gives a ray of light for Star Fox Zero and Tropical Freeze seeing similar treatment in the future. That side, I’m chuffed!
(Japanese Direct)
It’s been awhile, but the new direct is finally here.
In some ways, it feels Nintendo preparing for the inevitable NX announcement as they announced a lot of things for the 3DS (and reminded us of Color Splash). There’s more games, amiibo and remakes coming to our portable devices. A lot of downloadable stuff was made available right after the direct, which is nice. I enjoy it when they can pull that off and not have it leaked ahead of time. The Chinese Sun and Moon leak got another confirmation today as Dark Rattata was confirmed. Also, unsurprisingly the Hyrule Warriors: Legends data mining done by RandomTalkingBush is true too. I’m interested in seeing more about the Mario Sports game, and the new Pikmin. A very welcomed updated to the Mii Plaza was announced and released as well. I know for most of our readers Mii Plaza isn’t very widely used…but in Japan it’s amazing and one of my favorite things about the 3DS. Miitopia was announced, but no details were shared. As for other Japanese exclusives, Momotaro Densetsu was shown, as well as Megami Meguri.
Mario Maker and Woolly World coming to the 3DS were pretty surprising. I think the only thing I have to look forward to on the Wii U is the rest of the Hyrule Warriors DLC. Overall, it felt solid but nothing mindblowing.
- Smash Ultimate Development Timeline - May 16, 2020
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- Sakurai Discusses Isabelle, Echoes, and Newcomers - September 26, 2018
As a New Yorker and con attendee, I can attest to the value of these Mii Plaza updates. The 100 Mii backlog is a godsend.
JFI, I am a big Pikmin fan (finished all 3 games more than 3 times each) and I’m extremely interested in the new Pikmin for 3DS!
I love the Pikmin games but from what they showed of this new entry I’m finding it hard to muster up much interest. It essentially looks like a standard Pikmin game with a few notable changes. First and most notably, the switch from 3D to 2D is itself a noteworthy change that’ll probably simplify the controls at the expense of more intricate environments/puzzles/combat. Bill also mention that Pikmin will carry treasure “towards the goal” meaning this game is probably level based and focused on simply getting from the start of a level to the end, rather than just being dropped in an environment to explore. Finally, and this is mainly guess work on my part, it doesn’t seem like Pikmin will be acquired the same way as previous games. Since Olimar will probably be constantly moving from left to right, having to drag enemies/pellets to some fixed point in the level to spawn Pikmin probably wouldn’t work too well. The trailer shows Olimar finding Pikmin in a bush, I wouldn’t be surprised if finding Pikmin in a level is the only way of obtaining more.
Overall it kinda just seems like the standard Pikmin formula has been taken and watered down without adding much of anything (the most “new” thing I saw in the trailer was Olimar having the ability to swim freely, which isn’t anything to get excited about as far as I’m concerned). Its entirely possible the game is still early in development and will have more too it at launch but right now it doesn’t look terribly appealing.
I kinda get the feeling the purpose of this game is more to try and pull in new players rather than appease existing fans. It seems like a more beginner friendly Pikmin, maintaining the general feel of the game while simplifying the objectives and certain mechanics. I certainly don’t see it as a sign of things to come for Pikmin nor do I believe that this games performance will have any negative effect on the “core” titles. If Nintendo wants to make an entry point to try and get more players into Pikmin that’s fine by me, even if I’m not personally interested in the game itself.
Mario Sports Super Stars makes me wonder about the future of the Mario Tennis, Golf, Sluggers, and Strikers franchises. Is the future of Mario sports titles to pack several sports into compilations as opposed to having more fleshed out single sport entries? Because that would would be a bit of shame. While recent Mario Tennis titles have been pretty lackluster there have been some really solid titles in the past, and the two Mario Strikers games were both incredibly solid in addition to showcasing a refreshingly bizarre take on the Mario universe. The sports in this compilation don’t look bad per say, but they lack the whimsy and zaniness of the better Mario Sports games. They just seem so… normal, while Mario Sports game are typically at their best when they really turn up the crazy factor and utilize the Mario IP to its fullest. Or that’s how I see it anyway.
I’m mostly angry that Camelot has made 4 Mario Sports games after Dark Dawn and we have no news on a new Golden Sun. But on the otherhand Ever Oasis, Pokémon Sun and Moon and Pikmin were interesting
Just for the record, Camelot also released 4 Mario sports games (and 1 Mario sports remake) in the 7 years between The Lost Age and Dark Dawn. Back in 2012 Camelot’s head stated that they’d make a forth game if there was enough demand for it, but also that it would probably take them some time. It might be we just have to expect long waits between these games.
Alternatively, due to declining sales of the franchise (every new game has sold less than its predecessor) and negative fan reception of Dark Dawn its possible they just decided to drop the series entirely, though I hope that’s not the case.
Pushdustin and Liquid12A
i beg of you to please do a series analysis for Metroid
the sales are all over the place, NPD data and such. and there’s zero concrete data on Other M if it sold a million outside VGchartz outside Reggie saying it’s not going to get to a million soon.
and talk to NeoGAF about this too, i don’t normally browse there neither signed up for that place, but they found a ton of NPD data of Metroid’s japanese sales from Super to Zero Mission’s releases.
https://u.pomf.is/tqfwwn.jpg
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1271584
please also ask the guy who’s handling the Nintendo sales in this thread for some valid sources of the Metroid sales data
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=963700
and check out this thread too:
https://m2k2.taigaforum.com/post/the_overall_metroid_sales_data_thread..html
I wasn’t able to watch it in real time because of work (stupid evil convention crap!), but able to watch the Japanese Direct after I got back at home. As I written in the previous guest article, I was well surprised with few things since I didn’t have any expectations to this direct. Everything was already knew from leaks, but some were really unexpected.
Hyrule Warrior’s new DLC was something we’ve already knew, but few surprises. We knew Toon Zelda would join, but in a Phantom form was definitely unexpected since we’ve thought she’d be fighting in her true form and probably using the rods as her main weapon. We knew Toon Link would use a train which I laughed, but didn’t expect he’d be using the sand rod as his new weapon. But obviously it all made sense. Since this was gonna be the Phantom Hourglass + Spirit Tracks pack, DLC characters were focused mainly on Spirit Tracks, while the adventure mode would focus more on Phantom Hourglass. I haven’t got the DLC yet, but would plan to get it IF I had enough money.
Animal Crossing’s amiibo update is already mentioned, but bringing more new contents was more surprising to me. They brought new amiibo cards with more returning villagers from the classic GC Animal Crossing including the Hello Kitty crossover version, and can work with other amiibos too like the Squid Sisters. I think it won’t work on third party characters like Sonic, Monster Hunters, and even Shovel Knight, and maybe it won’t work with the Pokemon amiibo too, but I can handle that. I’ve wanted to play this game again if I had time, but I think it’ll be a good timing to return to that peaceful town for furries again, and this time I can bring my waifus along with me since I have cards. (lol)
Nothing much new things were introduced on the Pokemon Sun/Moon side, but Alola Rattata and Snorlax was surprising. Now for 20 years, who would ever though Snorlax would finally get its potential back!? What’s Game Freak’s plans!? Are they trying to get revenge against Yo-kai Watch by using OP Snorlax? (lol) But anyways, there weren’t much new things yet, but still looking forward for more.
I wasn’t really impressed with Pikmin though. It almost like they’ve done a same thing with Chibi-Robo and Metroid. I don’t know if this’ll become another success for the series or a big failure for the first time, but maybe we can do something new to the series if that’s what Nintendo’s trying to focus on. But still, I think this game is simply a spinoff, so we can still expect for 4 sometime I guess…
I really got bored with Street Pass since I’ve completed all the games (except for the castle one), and left the game for over a year, but never knew they’d bring more new games for it! Now I can enjoy more new games on my free time, but only problem is I might have lost all the data of the Street Pass since I’ve moved my data to the new 3DS since my previous one was broken (and since it was a Japanese brand, maintenance was impossible). So, I haven’t checked it yet, but maybe I’ll have to do everything all over again…
Mario Maker and Wooly World for 3DS…not really that impressive to me. But Puyo Puyo Quest was interesting to me. Before Puyo Puyo, the series were originally the dungeon RPG “Madou Monogatari”, so its good that they’ve got back to their RPG style game, but keeping the Puyo Puyo system of course. The game looks like another character training RPG game, and since I’ve played Dragon Ball Fusion, I think I’m interested playing this game and making my own team.
I’m actually looking forward for Ever Oasis. Since I loved Secret of Mana, I think this game would be something like it. I would love to play those games again, as I’m looking forward for this game to be released. It’s also good that Momotaro Dentetsu finally got back in the game due to fan calls. I haven’t played the game before since I’m not interested with rail games, but at least its good to get their glory back.
This Direct wasn’t bad. Everything was surprising. But not everything was impressive. That’s how I felt since I wasn’t expecting anything, and that really helped me to stay calm and get surprised on few things. Some fans may be upset on MOTHER 3 not included in the West, but I’d recommend to give it up as I think it’ll never get localized for many reasons. Another thing I’m concerned is the NX; what would the NX be like and when on 2017 would it be released? There’s so many questions on this console. But anyways, this Direct was fun to watch.
Of the games we hadn’t heard of before, the new Pikmin is the most interesting to me, as I am a longtime fan of the series. I’m interested to see how it’ll translate to a 2D environment, since it doesn’t look anything like a standard Pikmin game. Of course, it’s a spinoff, so it doesn’t have to. I don’t think people should have deflated expectations over this, since it’s clearly not Pikmin 4. If it was, they’d have just called it Pikmin 4 instead of saying it’s a working title. As Frostwraith said, Pikmin 4 is likely in works for the NX, so I see this as a little fun side-project in the meantime. It sorta reminds me a bit of Chibi-Robo Whiplash, since it’s taking a game that’s traditionally a 3D adventure game and turning it into a 2D action game. I never played Whiplash, but I’m interested in seeing how this turns out.
It just occurred to me that it’s Zip Lash, not Whiplash.
Derp.