Nintendo Direct: 3-18-18 Thoughts and Feelings

Nintendo always knows how to answer questions, but always leave us asking more. I’m not saying that’s a good or bad thing, but this Direct really emphasized that feeling for me. As I personally expected, there wasn’t much 3DS news aside from a few games, and the Switch looks like it’s going to get some great new titles. I’ll give a basic rundown of a few things that stuck out to me, and a few of my own thoughts and feelings. This isn’t meant to be a substitute for the Direct itself, as I’m not a real video game journalist, so watch I’d suggest still watching it, especially if you want all the release dates.

First up was the 3DS announcements. I’ll be honest, my 3DS has been collecting dust and I wasn’t too excited for anything on this list. Not surprising, but there wasn’t a whole lot here. There is going to be a new WarioWare Inc. game, — WarioWare Gold. I haven’t been tuning into a whole lot of Nintendo news other than the Directs, so I wasn’t sure if this was previously announced or explained. It looks like a collection of a lot of WarioWare minigames, along with some new additions, which is really cool because I’ve always had fun with those, and I feel they’re a little underrated.

Dillon’s Dead-Heat Breakers looks pretty good, but probably not something I’d play much of. You can use your Miis and your friends’ Miis to help you in this tower defense/action game. It looks like you’re the one doing the shooting and hitting, rather than having it completely automated like in regular tower defense games. It looks like fun, I’m just not personally into that kind of stuff.

Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story will be re-released alongside Bowser Jr.’s Journey in 2019, which is something I’m looking forward to. I never finished the original myself for no particular reason, so I’m looking forward to this version of Bowser Jr.’s Journey.

Detective Pikachu gave me the creeps. Pikachu’s voice actor made me want to smoke a cigar and crash the set of the next Sherlock Holmes movie. The Pokémon normally live alongside humans peacefully, but they start behaving violently and I guess you have to work with detective Pikachu to find out why. Pikachu is certainly not his cute, energetic, and lovable self, which I understand that’s not something you’d want in a game like this, but they didn’t have to change his character entirely.

Luigi’s Mansion for 3DS is a thing that’s happening, I guess. I don’t personally care much about this port because I still have a Nintendo Gamecube, along with a copy of the game. It didn’t look like there was much added to the game, aside from the dual screen functionalities and a boss rush mode. Unless they add something a little more interesting, I probably won’t be picking this one up. However, If you don’t have a way to play the original Luigi’s Mansion, I’d certainly recommend this one when it’s released.

We all had our hopes and expectations for Switch games, myself included. There were some things I feel should have been addressed, but the Direct isn’t E3, so it’s fine. I would have appreciated something about the Yoshi game, as well as a release date for The World Ends With You: Final Remix, but I suppose those are things that will be tackled later or at E3.

The first game was Kirby Star Allies, which is awesome. I’ve played the demo on the Switch, and loved it. However, I feel like this game and some others should’ve been skipped. We already know about it, and most have already played it, all we have to do it wait for the release. It’s classic Kirby gameplay with a couple new twists. This one is definitely something to pick up when it’s released.

The next one was Japanese styled Okami HD. I’m really excited for this one. Not only does the game look beautiful, but the controls look like they’ll flow nicely, with the option to use touch screen controls or the joy-cons themselves with motion controls.

Sushi Striker: Way of the Sushido looks like a lot of fun. Who doesn’t want to eat a crap-ton of sushi and then throw your plates at the enemy? That’s basically how the game works, just eat sushi and stack up plates of the same color, then throw them at your opponent. You can play with friends online too, because why the hell not?

We got some new information on Octopath Traveler. I haven’t heard much of this game, so I did a little bit of research. The game looks great and it will be a lot of fun. It’ll have a class system like the older Final Fantasy games. Characters will start with a base class, but be able to use a secondary class and combine skills with the two. The Direct announced two new characters; Tressa, who is a merchant, and Alfyn, an apothecary. Tressa is able to purchase things while walking around and talking to people, while Alfyn is able to learn new information by inquiring when speaking with NPCs. Oh, and there is a release date, which is July 13th.

When it originated on the Wii, I loved No More Heroes. The new one announced for the Switch made me feel...weird inside. Travis Touchdown enters a…game world? There are a bunch of different games he plays, and there is a boss at the end of each one. The game itself looks like it has some decent mechanics, and you can even pass a joy-con to a friend for some multiplayer. I haven’t played the first or second game in a long time and don’t quite remember how they play, but it looks like gameplay of the new one is pretty similar to its predecessors.

We all knew that Dark Souls was coming to the Switch, so they HAD to say something about it. The game looks beautiful, and looks like it’ll play the same or better than the original. I can’t say I’ll personally pick this one up, simply because I’ve already played the game before on consoles that already look really good. I will say that Dark Souls is a great example of Nintendo getting its third party support back. There will even be an amiibo, which is cool if you’re into them. Both the amiibo and the game will be available May 25. After showing off Dark Souls, Nintendo talked about its coin system, which I won’t really talk about because I don’t know much about it myself, but it looks some redeemable reward for buying stuff on eShop.

We all knew this was happening, it’s time for Mario Tennis: Aces. What I didn’t expect was for them to spend the amount of time they did on it. They showed off some really cool mechanics like zone shots and a stamina meter, but the coverage was waaaaaay overboard. Don’t get me wrong, I am excited for this title, but the time could have been used for other things. We know the game is going to be awesome, just give us a release date (which is 6-22-18) with some additional footage showing new mechanics, and we’re good.

Ya know what else the Switch needs? More Wii U ports, of course! I can understand that the Wii U was a commercial failure, so Nintendo is basically covering it up by porting the good stuff to Switch, but give it a rest. You’re basically making me feel like I wasted my money buying a Wii U. They announced Captain Toad’s Treasure Tracker for the Switch, which I suppose wasn’t a surprise. It’s a cute little game reminiscent of the Captain Toad levels of Super Mario Bros. 3D World, and it’s fun. I have the original, so I won’t be getting this one, but I recommend picking it up if you don’t have a Wii U. The release date for this is July 13th.

Undertale for the Switch...Yep, it’s happening. You can put your pitchforks down. It didn’t really have much footage or information about the game, not even a release date. However, I feel that if you don’t know anything about the game, you should come out of your cave and join the rest of us. I was disappointed to not see a release date, but I can be patient, as I have the original and don’t personally need it for the Switch. I enjoyed the little skit between Sans and Papyrus to introduce it, though.

A few hours before the Direct, I read that Crash Bandicoot: N.Sane Trilogy was coming to Xbox, so I wasn’t too surprised it’s coming to the Switch as well. I don’t have much to say about the game that hasn’t already been said. I, along with a lot of fans, am a little confused about the sudden decision to make the game multi-platform, but I don’t personally care. There are a lot of fans that are kind of peeved about what was thought of as a solid Playstation mascot and original being ported to other consoles, but I just think of it as an effort to bring down the walls between the consoles, even if that’s far from what’s going on. Also, as a comment I saw on Facebook says, “It’s about time Xbox got a good game”. This game is going to be released on July 10th.

Little Nightmares: Complete Edition is, as the Direct says, a “charmingly horrific” game. It’s a puzzle platformer that looks like it shows a lot of promise. I never played the original, so I’m excited for it to come to the Switch. You can use the Pacman amiibo to get a special mask in the game too, which is really cool.

South Park: The Fractured But Whole iscoming to the Switch as well. The original was a lot of fun, and I’m excited for Nintendo exclusive fans to experience it. The original DLC will also be available for purchase, along with new DLC coming this year. Not much else to say about this one, it’s just a really good game. This one is set for April 24th.

Another one we knew was coming, Hyrule Warriors. Please don’t kill me, but I don’t personally care much about it. I’m probably the only Nintendo fan that didn’t care for Hyrule Warriors. I’m not a fan of hack n’ slash games. I realize there is more to it than that, but I’ve played the game and didn’t enjoy it. They gave a release date (May 18th), and that was about it.

Next was a big announcement about ARMS. There’s an ARMS league that will be holding ranked matches March 8-18, and finals will be March 31st. The event will be streamed live from Nintendo of America, so if you play ARMS, you better get to practicing. They also announced that you can basically test the game on March 31st by downloading it, if you’ve never played before. On March 21st, the developers will also talk about the game, which will be cool.

Version 3.0 is coming to Splatoon 2 in April. There will be over 100 pieces of new gear, along with new stages. They also announced rank X, which will be the highest rank you can get. They showed a video showcasing the Octo expansion, which I kind of felt took way too long. Don’t get me wrong, I’m personally new to the Splatoon series, so I didn't get as hyped as the rest of you probably are.

Just when you thought the Direct was over, Nintendo decided to throw a curveball. We all were curious about it, and they finally announced it. They didn’t go into detail, leaving it as a huge cliffhanger, but Super Smash Bros. is finally coming to the Switch. They didn’t elaborate if it was a new Super Smash Bros., or just a port of the Wii U version with the squids from Splatoon in it. All we saw was inklings running around shooting, the Super Smash Bros. symbol appeared, and in front of it were some fighters. The camera specifically showed Mario and Link. However, Link seemed to be himself from Breath of The Wild. There is a lot of speculation this could be a brand new Smash title, seeming as how there are the new characters and another outfit for Link. Little is known at this point, and I guess we’ll have to wait for E3 to find out the rest.

The Direct was as informative as it needed to be. I’d have loved some more release dates for some minor games like The World Ends With You: Final Remix, but Nintendo answered a lot of people’s questions. There were some games I am excited about, and some not so much. Nintendo has stated that the 3DS isn’t dead yet, but the lack of attention the 3DS has gotten shows that it may be on its last legs. I probably won’t be excited about everything Nintendo shows, but I hope you enjoyed the Direct, as well as my own thoughts and feelings about it.