I’m not feeling too great right now.
A bit of an unconventional way to start a post that’s just going to be talking Nintendo news for a little while, but I figured I would put it out there since it’s probably going to effect the way I’m doing this.
See I could go into all about how today was a bit of a wash when I drove out to Fullerton only for my one class to get cut short, making me spend more time in the car than at school… But none of that really matters right now. All that really matters is the fact that I felt like I had to puke all the way home, and am now spending my time running back-and-forth to the bathroom.
Yet I promised I would talk about the Nintendo Direct today. So I’m still going to do it.
I’m just going to structure it a little bit differently, because… Well… It’s a 40-minute long video. I’m going to watch it, and as I do talk about my thoughts on some of the big things that are announced.
To be honest I’m a bit surprised they had so much to talk about considering the last Direct was… What, last month maybe? But those good old boys in Nintendo are really cranking it out for the Switch it seems.
So without further adieu, let’s get into some highlights.
Luigi’s Mansion 3
Right off the bat Nintendo started with a bit of a surprise entry. It seems almost serendipitous that Luigi blew up on Twitter during the last Direct for dying in the Castlevania Smash trailer only to show up now with a brand new game in the — apparently long-standing — series of Luigi’s Mansion games.
There isn’t too much to say about the game itself considering we only got a 30-second trailer with a working title, but for all intents and purposes it seems like this new entry will be much closer to Dark Moon than the original GameCube version.
I did enjoy that game, but not quite as much as the original. It sort of swapped out the hyper-creepy atmosphere for a more video game-y approach of hunting monsters en-masse and solving puzzles.
So I might buy this one or I might not. Depends on what we get shown later on.
But I’m glad to see our green hat friend is alive and well!
3DS Remakes
In the near future, we’re getting Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Mario and Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story and Luigi’s Mansion remade on the 3DS.
From what I’m aware we’ve heard various and sundry bits about the three in the past, but having them all together with little trailers was nice.
- Epic Yarn is a game I never played, and despite enjoying the Game Grump’s let’s play of it, I don’t necessarily have a huge desire to play it for myself. But adding new game modes is a nice touch.
- I was hyped as hell when Superstar Saga was given a remake, but Bowser’s Inside Story never clicked quite as well with me. It’s a fun game, but I’ve found I haven’t been able to play through it subsequent times. Honestly, I’m not sure a graphical rehash (which frankly doesn’t look super different than the original game imo) or a return to the… Army command side-story (which I’ve expressed distain for as the worst part of SS in the past) are going to sell me on it again.
- As I just mentioned, I like the OG Luigi’s Mansion better than the sequel, so I’m looking forward to seeing that one come back on the 3DS — with co-op and amiibo support to boot. Seriously, who can complain with download play features? Whether it’ll be worth the money with everything else coming out soon is a discussion I’ll have with myself later.
Couldn’t really bring myself to care about Yo-Kai Watch. Like it looks pretty and everything, but I haven’t gotten into that particular series just yet.
So that’s about all for the 3DS here. A bunch of good games that I’m just not particularly interested in right now.
Mega Man 11
I skipped over Splatoon 2 Ver. 4 because, in spite of the weird anime intro they did and the fact that I’m glad the game is still getting content, I’m just not that into it right now.
Which is a pattern so far I know, but shush.
Instead I’ll talk about the triumphant return of Mega Man. While the character model for Mega Man himself does remind me a bit too much of a certain… Failed successor to the throne… I can’t say the game doesn’t look gorgeous. Because it does.
While I’ve watched just about all of the original games get played through online, I’ve never personally played a Mega Man game. I think this might be a good opportunity to, because the game looks super fun.
I’ve seen Arin play that demo. It looks super fun. That’s all I’m saying.
If it’s a $60 I don’t know if I’ll bite, but the game seems like it might just be enough of a callback experience game that it could be cheaper.
In that case I’ll definitely get my hands on it.
New Super Mario Bros. U & Katamari Damacy
I was going to skip over NSMBU getting ported onto the Switch because that seems like such a minor thing.
But then they announced that you can play as Toadette.
And apparently.
When you get a mushroom as Toadette.
She turns into Princess Peach.
…
I’m really not sure what kind of drugs these guys were on when that decision was made, but god bless you all. Because that’s just about the damn weirdest thing I’ve ever seen.
Arguably more important on the rerelease train was Katamary Damacy, which is being remastered for the Switch.
That’s another game I’ve had a passing interest in for some time, but might not get it due to the glut of games coming in the near future. So it’s cool, but a bit out of my realm at the moment.
Pokémon Let’s Go
It’s no secret that I’m hyped as hell for this game. However, I’ve been a little behind in terms of talking about all the little updates that get put online around here.
The trailer that was put into this Direct kind go succinctly summed it all up though, so that was cool!
First and foremost, the new Erika design looks cute. Just saying.
More importantly are the ‘Secret Techniques,’ or HM supplements in layman speak.
See Game Freak must have learned a lot from Sun and Moon about how much we all hate needing to have HM slaves in-game. So they’ve relegated all of those pesky environmental moves into techniques that Pikachu or Eevee can use independently.
They cut the trees.
They get a surfboard so you can swim.
They… Attach balloons to your bike so you can fly?
Alright some of them are a little weirder than others, but I appreciate the vague references to surfing and flying Pikachu.
Either way I’m still very much looking forward to consuming all of this game. All of it.
Diablo 3
I have no particular interest in Diablo 3 being ported to the Switch.
I just wanted to say I was shook when the narrator guy essentially told everyone they could go to hell. In a Nintendo promotional video.
Enough said.
Also I’m super excited for Super Mario Party because it looks great, but there wasn’t really enough to justify a full separate segment on it. So just know… I’m down to party, Nintendo.
Town
A non-Pokémon Game Freak-developed RPG?
On my Nintendo Switch?
Obviously Town appears to be relatively early into development due to it’s working title and unclear release date… But considering Pokémon is my favorite game series ever, I’m willing to give this a shot right off the bat.
The idea of an RPG all taking place in one village is interesting, and I’m curious to see how they’ll go about it.
So congrats Town, you just hit my radar.
Yoshi’s Crafted World
I didn’t play Yoshi’s Epic Yarn on the Wii U, but by god am I enticed by how cute this Yoshi game looks.
It’s just incredibly adorable with the painterly arts & crafts style, and features co-op. Perfect for me and Aly to play together.
Plus it has this flip-the-world mechanic that lets you explore all over the place which feels very reminiscent of Super Paper Mario and I am all about it.
Civilization VI
Civ is, again, a series I’ve always had a fleeting curiosity for… But never got around to playing.
However, the fact that it’s coming to Switch with a four player local co-op mode that seems to use that interconnected Switches idea is actually bananas and if all my friends get this, I probably will too.
You can never have enough Gandhi nuking the world, after all.
The World Ends With You
There wasn’t exactly a lot to the TWEWY segment of this Direct, I just wanted to put it up here as a reminder that I really want to play this game when it comes out in October.
In fact, just throw Warframe into this category too. It’s my friend Juan’s favorite game so I’m probably willing to try it as well now that I “have no excuse not to” as he says.
But we’ll see about that one.
All the Final Fantasies
I’m not a huge Final Fantasy fan myself. Sure I appreciate the games and everything they’ve done for the industry, but I haven’t exactly played a lot of them.
However, I might be willing to get into Crystal Chronicles – again, if all my friends do. I appreciate that Nintendo is putting so much stake into letting on a bunch of games that can be played with friends, because that’s a huge selling point for me personally.
Also, this portion introduced me to the fact that a Chocobo’s Mystery Dungeon exists.
Which is essentially Pokémon Mystery Dungeon.
But all of the main characters are Chocobo. Really not sure how to feel about that honestly.
Oh yeah, and FF7 is getting put on the Switch. Which is kind of hilarious to me considering how long the remake has been in production.
At this point, I’m pretty convinced there just is no FF7 remake and it was all a scam to get Cloud into Smash Bros.
Speaking of:
Super Smash Brothers Ultimate
Can’t have a Nintendo Direct without talking about this sucker.
The main part of this announcement was just the special Switch and Joy Con designs that are Smash-specific, like how the Let’s Go Pokémon games are getting some repainted toys to play with.
That’s cool and all. But I’m not the kind of person that buys multiple copies of a console when I don’t need it.
But then, after the Direct supposedly ends.
We get the next big reveal:
Isabelle in Smash.
It’s actually, genuinely hard to watch the little reveal trailer for her and not smile. She’s such a pure, wholesome character and I love her.
It’s great to see her get some more representation for the Animal Crossing series in Smash. I look forward to trying her out!
Oh, but that’s not all Nintendo had up their sleeves here, folks.
Animal Crossing 2019
Great. Now everyone can finally stop complaining about this on every Nintendo-related video ever.
That’s something I can say too, because I was of the crowd complaining about how long it took Hoenn remakes to get confirmed.
Anyway, there’s a brilliant little set-up right in the lingering few seconds of the video where Tom Nook remarks that he needs to make everything tidy for everyone’s return.
Then. Cut to white.
Animal Crossing 2019 flashes onto the screen. Then the Nintendo Switch logo.
No voice lines, no nothing. Just that.
Video ends.
Good on you Nintendo, you did a great job with this teaser.
That’s a game I’ll be looking out for, especially if Isabelle is coming back as a recurring character like Tom Nook himself.
Well, that’s about all I have to say about the big Direct today.
Like I mentioned at the beginning, there were a huge amount of announcements considering how recently we got our last bout of news, and it proves the Switch is still going strong.
Hell, I didn’t even mention their little discussion on the Nintendo Switch Online system, which happened in a cute Mario-centric animation.
You should watch that too if you haven’t, because it does a way better job explaining things than I ever could.
To be honest this entire post has been a rollercoaster ride, and not just because of all the cool news.
While I’ve started to feel better over the course of this writing, my computer decided to shit out on me and stop doing WordPress well.
So you probably noticed a significant drop in length/quality as I had to move my operation onto mobile.
That said, I’m going to cut things off here due to my lack of further things to ramble about and kind of awkward working situation. So hopefully my long-winded discussion covered everything!
What games are you looking forward to out of Nintendo’s upcoming line-up?
Let me know! I’m excited to talk some games.
Jason's Blog - Work in Progress 
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