Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase February 21, 2024: Information and Reactions

It’s February, and that means it’s time for a Nintendo Direct. While we didn’t get a “standard,” forty-five minute, Mario-filled presentation, this Partner Showcase for Nintendo’s various third party associates was quite meaty. Appropriately, it has shed the “Mini” part of the title enjoyed by early Partner presentations; perhaps it’s for the best.

Of course, the turbulent world of video game news meant that a lot was riding on this Direct. What it included, whether it is fully replacing a typical spring presentation, and most pressing, if a very particular associate showed up. The answers to at least two of those questions are below:

Grounded, Obsidian’s (and Microsoft’s) 2020 co-op sandbox game about surviving in a suburban backyard as a Lilliputian child, announced for Switch. Its co-op features crossplay with the Xbox and PC versions. Releases April 16.
ENDER AGNOLIA: Bloom in the mist, a sequel to 2021’s action RPG Ender Lilies: Quietus of the Knights, announced. Releases sometime in 2024.
Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, a puzzle / RPG mashup played on elaborate maps that move when you move, announced (several hours after being announced for PS5). Features art by the artist behind Braid. Releases “this summer.”
Unicorn Overlord, the tactics JRPG announced in September’s Nintendo Direct, releases March 8. A demo will be released today.
A remaster of Monster Hunter Stories, originally released on Nintendo 3DS, announced as what is presumably a remake, not a remaster. Features voice acting, HD graphics, and an art gallery. Releases “this summer.”
Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed, a remake of the Warren Spector Wii platformer, announced and retains the extensive painting element. Releases “this year.”
Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, a “complete edition” to SMT5 akin to Persona 5 Royal that features the original game sans new content, announced. Releases June 21.
Star Wars: Battlefront Classics Collections, a compilation pack of the first two Battlefront games from 2004 and 2005, adds new stages and characters like Kit Fisto, the young people’s favorite. Releases March 14.
South Park: Snow Day!, which was announced last year, releases March 26. Pre-orders available now.
SWORD ART ONLINE Fractured Daydream, announced (albeit with news of its title accidentally leaked last year when Bandai Namco trademarked its title). Features an online co-op mode that can hold up to twenty players at once. Releases “this year.”
GUNDAM BREAKER 4, an action game with an extensive Gundam creation mode, announced. Releases “this year.”
Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, the first new SMB game since 2016, announced. Featuring “over 200” new stages, motion controls, co-op, and a new spin dash move. Most notably, it features a battle royale mode for sixteen characters at once that features Fall Guys-esque races and co-op boss battles. Releases as a Switch exclusive June 25; pre-orders begin today.
World of Goo 2, the sequel to the classic 2009 physics game, announced for Switch after having been revealed last year. Launches as a console exclusive May 23, with four-player local co-op on Switch.
A recap of FANTASY LIFE i: The World Who Steals Time, which was announced last year, highlighted its time traveling, life simulator, and RPG mechanics. Features four player online co-op for both parts of the game. Releases October 10.
Another Crab’s Treasure, an underwater Soulslike (in that the narrator explicitly calls it “Soulslike”) action game in which your crab protagonist uses replacements for your lost shell, announced. Releases April 25.
Following a rumor from last week, Penny’s Big Breakaway, the yo-yo-based 3D platformer by the Sonic Mania team, finally has a release date: today!
Last year’s breakout hit Suika Game is getting paid DLC in the Multi-Player Mode Expansion Pack, which adds the Time Attack, Time Limit, and Attack Modes. Online multiplayer will also be added to the game later. The new modes, also available as a pack, releases today!
Pepper Grinder, a 2D sprite-based action game announced back in 2022, releases March 28. A demo is available today!
Game Freak’s beloved 3DS cult horse race / card genre mashup Pocket Card Jockey is getting a remaster. Releases today!
Sizzle Reel: Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (March 7; pre-orders begin today), Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (April 23, pre-orders available now), Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board! (April 26), Kingdom Come Deliverance – Royal Edition (March 15; pre-orders begin today), Contra: Operation Galuga (March 12; pre-orders and demo available today), Pentiment (available tomorrow!).
Rare is releasing five games on Nintendo Switch Online: Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll and RC PRO-AM (NES), Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and Killer Instinct (SNES), and Blast Corps (N64). Available today!
Endless Ocean: Luminous, a sequel to the Wii pair of underwater exploration games, announced amid comparatively vague leaks. Set in the Veiled Sea, a seemingly roguelike setting that changes with each dive, it’s a unique MMO in which players can interact with each other while freely exploring the ocean. Releases May 2.
Additionally, the Japanese Direct announced that MOTHER 3 will be coming to the Japanese version of Nintendo Switch Online in 2024.

The Direct:

The SG Team also had a live reaction you can see right here. Unfortunately, embedding it seems to be a problem.

Wolfman’s Soapbox: First off, y’all better goddamn buy Pentiment. You’re dead to me otherwise. I know all of you are Switch owners. That’s the best game of 2022, and it does suck just a bit that it was relegated to the sizzle reel. I assume Microsoft didn’t want to spring for a dedicated section, which is hilarious since they throw around money all the time.

On that note, this quite fun Direct was in a somewhat unenviable position. After all, we’re in a particularly intense time for game news. Microsoft is upending its form of exclusivity, presumably in response to the fact that spending more money in twenty years than most nations accrue in a hundred hasn’t helped it achieve anything close to market dominance. It’s going to be releasing at least four games on rival hardware—Pentiment, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush on PS5, and almost certainly Sea of Thieves and many more—placing Xbox hardware and Microsoft’s position as the biggest but not actually particularly “successful” gaming company in a weird(er) place. Getting this news in a format more engaging than an obviously thrown together podcast would be a plus, too. But we’re also antsy to see the successor to the Nintendo Switch that we’ve known about for literal years; the conventional wisdom was that this Partner Showcase was meant to have a Direct in February so Nintendo could save more of its games to announce with the console. Plus, there were plenty of games that needed release dates and news. So while I’ve always had the sense that Nintendo fans view Partner presentations with less respect, something of which Source Gaming has itself been guilty, eyes were on it today. People wanted confirmations: of the “Switch 2,” of all those exciting Microsoft games, of a gaming landscape that looks a bit sparse this year.

Image: Nintendo.

Well… we got some of that. I mean, shadow dropping Pentiment alone makes this a valuable presentation, whether or not it and Grounded end up being the vanguard of Microsoft going fully multiplatform. When it comes to sequels, we got the Monkey Ball in over a decade, a shockingly new Endless Ocean, a remaster of a Game Freak cult classic at a time where their new games are extremely rough, and concrete news on the just announced World of Goo 2. That’s all good; they all look good. Getting more NSO games, even if a few of them are not exactly Rare’s finest, is also nice when you don’t really see NSO announcements in these kinds of Direct. And many of these were new! That alone means a lot.

If this Direct did little to help define what this year is going to be—and, really, it didn’t, not that these often do—it was good at simply giving us a number of promising or well regarded games at a time where we can use that. I’m sure I’ll play several of these; World of Goo 2 is making me want to play the 2008 original, and an acquaintance has been championing Pocket Card Jockey for so long that I should finally take the plunge. Penny’s Big Breakaway looks fun. This may not be a huge boost to a year that’s a bit slow and depressing, it doesn’t make what’s going on with Microsoft seem any stabler, and it’s certainly not the “Super Switch” reveal that Nintendo has to release sooner when the current Switch is only getting older. But it doesn’t need to be any of those. It just had a bunch of games that looked really good, and that’s something this industry could really use right now. I know I could.