Wow! This one really fell through the cracks. From last September the 13th's Nintendo Direct, the coldest takes on Luigi's Mansion and Nintendo Switch Online; the hottest Katamari, Switch Pro Controller, and Splatoon trailer burns. Oh yeah, it's a spicy one!
00:01 - Pegi 18? Okay! Maybe finally some Bayonetta 3 here. (It's going to a Devil's Third Definitive Edition, isn't it? I just know it!)
00:25 - Aah! Full disclosure: I did see the title of this pop up beforehand. I'm just wondering which platform. Surely not 3DS. Just let it go, Nintendo.
00:33 - I hate to be down on this, but man, I'd be so much more excited for another Luigi's Mansion if I hadn't just put a bunch of time into Luigi's Mansion 2. I'm on to the third mansion at the moment, and it's just.. not really doing it for me. I feel like they took the relatively light puzzle-solving component of the first game and ratcheted it up to breaking point, cramming the game to the brim with irritating puzzles that always seemed to based on some obtuse action that never seems even remotely apparent. Maybe I'm just dumb. :D
00:37 - Well, this certainly looks like a Switch game anyway. Liking the Art Deco look here.
00:43 - Gah! That ghost looks unnervingly like Luigi, and it's freaking me out!
00:48 - Okay, next year and on the Switch. Hoping this one at least makes the puzzles more fun. Possibly reading too much into production art here, but I'm guessing from the size of that mansion that there won't be other mansions this time around. Could we we a see a return of a more open, Luigi's Mansion 1 style mansion, instead of LM2's missions too? Hope so!
00:55 - Hmm, Takahashi returning from E3's Direct? It really looked like they'd kind of settled on Koizumi for helming these, but I guess they're still kind of in experimentation mode.
01:23 - Boooooo! No, let's not.
01:33 - Wow, Kirby's Epic Yarn: there's a blast from the past. A really fun little game - don't get me wrong - but come on, why not a HD remaster on a platform it might actually sell on, Nintendo? I swear, it's getting harder and harder to understand their continued support for the 3DS with each passing Direct.
02:35 - Bowser Jr.!? Guessing this must be another Mario & Luigi port. Maybe Mario Sunshine? Nah, no way!
02:39 - Oh right, Bowser's Inside Story! I guess this isn't out yet. Ask me anything about the 3DS's 2019 release schedule.
02:55 - Go on Bowser Jr.'s journey? Finally!
03:50 - Yikes, that's even more unsettling than the Luigi ghost from earlier. (Edit: And this was before I even knew he was called Gooigi. *shudder*) Yeah, won't be picking up Luigi's Mansion again on the 3DS, though I expect I'd be having more fun replaying that than I'm having with 2 right now.
04:23 - Oh right! Wow, I forgot the New 3DS even had amiibo support. Speaking of which, I really need to grab the last of the Mario collection ones. That Luigi one: pretty sharp. Still no Luigi's Mansion amiibos though, even with TWO compatible games on the horizon! Hmm, yeah, after the new Smash Bros. ones, I have a feeling that Nintendo are getting out of amiibo business. *sigh* So many cool Zelda side characters that we'll never get.
04:46 - Wow, that bootleg Ecto-1 is blatant.
05:22 - No, I really don't know why, Voice-over Guy.
05:25 - Yeah, Voice-over Guy, I think I'm going to go and continue to ignore every aspect of the Yo-Kai Watch franchise. I's been working out pretty well for me so far.
05:31 - Oh, who could have possibly forgotten about the Moon Crew update? I mean, really.
It's 2018, I'm browsing the bargain section of a big UK candy importer's web site, just feeling the life leave my body. I decide that the time has come to take a break, not least because I still have a mountain of the freakin' stuff still left over from the last couple of years that I'm still trying to get through, like an idiot! So while I focus my energies this Halloween converting slightly softer and staler fare than usual into yet more body fat (:D), what better time to catch up on the last couple of years of Halloween candy consignments?
Well, providing that my impeccable and through notes, usually scrawled down in the middle of the night while watching some random horror movie, make even a lick of sense at this point at least. There seem to be a lot of them at the very least, so let's give it a crack!
Mr. Kipling Toffee Terror Whirls
Starting off with some of the more seasonally-appropriate fare, or hmm, well, maybe not. What is it with UK companies and Halloween variations on their products? Toffee apple, say, would have been a great Halloween-themed flavour here. Toffee on it's own though, I really don't associate with this time of year at all. I don't get why you'd go to the effort of producing a limited edition flavour of your regular Viennese Whirls for Halloween and make it toffee.
As for the Terror Whirls themselves, they're pretty much just regular old Viennese Whirls - a lovely, buttery shortcrust pastry with a a nice, creamy buttercream filling, but this time with a barley noticeable toffee syrup under that buttercream. As good as these still are, for a limited edition Halloween product, they're a real let down. 3/5
Cadbury Screme Egg Biscuits
Speaking of disappointing seasonal variations, we covered standard Screme Eggs all the way back in 2010. Now here they are, finally in biscuit form! So, these are basically shortbread chocolate biscuits - nice texture, good chocolate flavour. You don't really notice the Screme Egg filling too much though, which is a good thing. I pealed off the top of one of these and licked that filling, purely for scientific purposes, and ick! It's sickly and unpleasantly sweet. It has a slightly different texture to the filling in the actual Screem Eggs though - it's thinner and more gelatinous, which somehow makes it even less palatable. Still, the biscuit itself is pretty good, so partial credit. 3/5
Cadbury Pumpkin Patch Cakes
"Orange coloured creme" - I'd love if Cadbury would just once make something with a unique flavor for Halloween. Much like the Screme Egg biscuits above, these are just a recolored and reconfigured version of an existing Cadbury cake product. Well, at least they're upfront about it. :D, These are still pretty good though: you get a decent amount of that creme - which is a nice, rich buttercream; a chocolate coating that's almost, but not quite Dairy Milk chocolate; and a good-quality, soft sponge cake holding it all together. 4/5
Mysterious Halloween Chocolate Coins
Strangely there's no brand on these - they're made in Italy and that's about all the info you're given: somewhat worrying. The designs an the wrappers I think are really cute here though - I especially like the witch. The chocolate is of a pretty decent quality too, so, you know what, I'll take the risk that these are probably some kind cursed Halloween candy that someone left on a store shelf, designed to inflict endless pain and suffering on anyone who consumes it. Having already forced myself to sit through most of the Leprechaun movies though, I'm pretty sure I can handle it. (Oof!) :D 3/5
So, back to just Nintendo this year - as much as I had fun going over the last couple of Microfoft conferences (No, really!), man, what do you say about Halo, Forza, Gears, Crackdown, We Happy Few etc. for the third year running, especially having not played a single second of any of them in the meantime? Maybe some of the acquisitions they announced this year will throw up some excitement in the future. For now though we've got Gears Pops! and a Battletoads logo. "Exceptional creativity in gaming" indeed, Phil. :)
But hey, Nintendo! So, obviously, Smash is going to be the big game of their E3 this year. Metroid Prime 4 probably going to feature pretty prominently here too; possibly a Bayonetta 3 teaser in there somewhere. But, there's no need for speculation. I'm here to lay down exactly what's about to go down. Oh you know it, it's time for..
Predictions!!
1.) Ridley in Smash - *sigh* As lame as Ridley will undoubtedly be in Smash. - Fight me, fanboys! - I suspect this is inevitable this time. The demand has been deafening since freakin' Melee, and with Metroid Prime 4 on the horizon, it'd make for a nice tie-in - possibly even an amiibo with cross-game functionality. Yeah, it's happening. 2.) Simon Belmont in Smash - With Konami making a couple of moves Castlevania-wise lately, and long-standing fan demand here too, I think he has a pretty good shot at getting in this time. 3.) Metroid Prime 4 is a giant monkey's paw! - I really don't want this to come true, but man, when I think of Star Fox Zero and the unnecessary touch screen stuff, I can't help but fear that Nintendo will, in the interests of innovation, and not wanting to repeat themselves, make some bizarre decision with MP4, probably control-wise, swearing up and down until release date that 'no, when you play it like this, it's actually so much better'. And it wont be! It'll be the absolute biggest bummer imaginable. 4.) Final Fantasy...something - Sure, Square has been doing it's old school RPG thing on the Switch, but with it's current level of success I think they'll feel confident to anoint it with some kind of Final Fantasy announcement - maybe even a new Switch exclusive. I'm envisioning a very brief CG trailer, precious few details and absolutely no further updates for at least two years. So, you know, every S-E announcement. 5.) Star Fox Racing isn't a thing - The appearance of Star Fox in Starlink at the Ubi conference has made me slightly iffy about this. After Star Fox Zero, I kind of expected the Star Fox crew to be put into hiding for a while for a while, but, hey, maybe Nintendo isn't done with them quite yet. I don't know though, like Pokemon Stars before it - also confirmed by 'insider' sources I'm pretty sure (certainly not Googling it) - this kind of reeks of BS. And if not, I'm going to be super, super bummed because this just sounds like the worst thing in the world. Basically "eff you F-Zero, Star Fox and Retro fans. Check out this trash fire!" 6.) Fire Emblem - Quite a big franchise now for Nintendo, and it fees like about the time to announce the first Switch installment. 7.) A Project Zero/Fatal Frame collection - Kind of reaching with this one, and this may not be the venue, and it might not be a collection, but I think there's a decent chance we'll see the PJ games made under Nintendo's tenure at least given a second shake on the Switch. 8.) Soul Calibur 6 - It won't be as pretty, but with the Switch doing well, I think they'll find a way. Maybe even Tekken 6 too. 9.) At least one new Ubisoft announcement - I'm tempted to say a Switch-tailored Assassin's Creed, but that series has become such a monster in terms of dev talent needed, I can't really see it happening. Nintendo and Ubi have had a pretty good relationship for the last few generations. We've had Mario + Rabbids, which, with the Mario brand to help it along, I think was a tentative step onto the Switch for Ubi after the Wii U failed to deliver. With the Switch doing pretty well now, I suspect they'll be confident enough to announce a project or two outside of Just Dance and Rabbids. 10.) N64 Classic - It mightn't be shown during this, but with Nintendo renewing the N64 trademarks recently just like they did with the SNES ones last year, there's a very good chance this is on the way. Expecting a mostly first-party dominated line-up though. I'm sure Microsoft would take a slice of the profits in exchange for Rare's catalog, if Nintendo was interested, but you know they won't be.
So, let's get to it!
00:22 - Okay? Looks like some kind of mech fighting game, maybe.
00:24 - Guessing this is based on some, at least, semi-famous license give how this guy's being framed here. There are probably like, anime fans screaming in delight at what they're witnessing here. I've got nothing.
00:37 - Ooh, I like the look of this. There's a slight flat-shaded Suda-y vibe to it. 00:55 - Wow, this music! :D It's like I've been whisked back to that magical pop culture high point that was the early 00's.
01:33 - Yeah, this looks quite promising - kind of Zone of the Enders-ish combat; cool look. Hopefully you're not listing to this for the duration though, 'cause holy crap!
01:48 - Daemon X Machina. Sure.
02:10 - Looks we're setting up for another Tokyo RPG Factory joint now. 02:26 - Or not. I may still not have played any of them but 'Aegis' is definitely a Xenoblade thing. (In my defense, I am working my way through Tokyo Mirage Sessions at the moment though. - Eh, what can I say, j-pop teens > dead-god-based land masses.)
02:46 - Yep, definitely Xenoblade. DLC maybe? They're hardly cranking out another sequel already.
02:56 - Gorgeous-looking landscapes as ever. Maybe someday, I'll stop find excuses not to pay these.
03:51 - Ah, okay. It is DLC.
04:07 - Reggie time. Drink! Hey, no, wait, we're not doing that this year. Put it down!
04:18 - Whoa, I'd legitimately forgotten that you can use the joycons turned on their sides as controllers. :D Maybe I'm just not attending enough rooftop parties. Also: what's going on with that Game Boy shrine at the side of the TV? There's like, an original Game Boy box, a giant, fake Game Boy Color, and an actual Game Boy Color, on a pedestal??
It's uncharted territory, friends. 1.) I finally picked up a Switch - more on that later during one of the really boring (i.e. 3DS parts) of this :p and 2.) Holy shit, everything is on fire here at the moment: my internet's been off and on, and even worse than usual for the last week; meanwhile my PC is on its last legs. I'm running off an Ubuntu partition that's still working, for now, with a copy of the Direct I downloaded earlier, while I could. This whole thing's being held together with sticky tape and could break, irreversibly, at any second. Well, what are we waiting for?
00:38 - Oof. 3DS first. So about the Switch... :D
00:49 - Ah, A WarioWare collection. Great to see that they haven't completely given up on the series. But come on, put this out on the Switch too at least. 01:04 - There are new micro games? *sigh* Fine, I guess I'll pick this up. But I won't be happy about playing on the 3DS. Not even slightly!
01:08 - "Press buttons" Finally!
01:12 - Oh, right! I guess if they're collecting micro games from Touched, those might not work as well on the Switch maybe, making a 3DS-only release a bit more justifiable. I guess. 01:24 - I always dig crazy action, Voice-over Guy. I'll be the one to decide whether it's hot or not. 01:38 - July 27th. Well you certainly can't argue that the 3DS hasn't had some longevity.
01:46 - Dillon's Dead-Heat Breakers. Hmm, I'm pretty sure I bought Dillon's Rolling Western during a sale, sight unseen. Still haven't touched it - big surprise - so for all I know, it could well be a racing game and this is just a sequel. Or maybe this is the DK: Barrel Blast of the series. (Actually, I just thinking about that game the other night. I'm oddly curious about it. I feel like I'm coming dangerously close to picking up a copy.)
01:54 - Wait, it's not a racing at all then. Action-meets-tower-defense? Yeah, probably not for me.
02:05 - Miis, really? In 2018? Look at the Switch UI: even Nintendo doesn't care about Miis anymore! 02:15 - Speaking of the Switch, let's get into it a bit because this is boring as all get out.
So picked one up a couple of weeks ago, used, but in good shape for €215 and a bunch of traded-in junk - not bad. Only played an hour or so of Mario Odyssey so far, and it's awesome - looks great, controls beautifully, and the soundtrack is excellent - which makes me feel much better about blind buying the Japanese 4-disc version as soon as the pre-orders went up a few months ago. :D Controller-wise I've only used the joycons in the grip so far. The HD rumble feels pretty good, but I'm not really liking how small the joycon grip feels, so I've got a Pro Controller on the way. Outside of Mario, the only other thing I've had a look at so far is the UI, which sadly, is just as joyless and spartan as it always seemed anytime I've seen glimpses of it online, looking almost like a placeholder set-up until they patch in the real one. Well, it's been a year; I wouldn't hold out hope. It's a far cry from the days of jaunty shop channel tunes and wandering Miis. On the other hand, the insidious chirping of the Wii U Mii Plaza is also gone, so maybe not all bad. :D
02:47 - Hm, a Bowser's Inside Story remake. Much as I'm apathetic towards the Mario & Luigi series, this is the one I've always wanted to check out. Bowser in a featured RPG role is usually a pretty good time. That Bowser Jr. side story you can keep though.
03:39 - 2019! For real?! The 3DS just will not die. 03:50 - Detective Pikachu. You know, I not sure if I know what this game even is.
03:58 - ...but I'd be 100% more down with it if they'd actually gone and gotten Danny DeVito to voice Pikachu. This is gruffer than I would have expected, but no substitute for the real deal.
04:41 - Urgh, not into that Detective Pikachu amiibo at all. There's something about it pulling a human pose that really weirds me out.
04:50 - Uh, what? They're remaking the first Luigi's Mansion for the 3DS?..... But why?
04:57 - Yep, there it is! Looks about on par with the GameCube version. I guess with the Dark Moon tech already available, and the release calender of a system that you staunchly refuse to kill off to fill out, this makes some sense. Can't see myself picking this up, but hey, maybe they'll finally do a Luigi's Mansion amiibo to put out alongside it. (Have to say, this coming out on the 3DS probably doesn't bode well for that rumored Gamecube Virtual Console coming to Switch.)
05:42 - Yikes, that baby ghost's screams were ear shattering! I remember my Mom super not being into them at the time. :D
05:51 - Any amiibo though? 05:55 - Nope! Throw this remake in the trash.
06:18 - On to the Switch stuff. I should try out that Kirby demo, well if the internet ever gets freakin' fixed that is. :D
06:23 - King Dedede is in a Kirby game? You're right Voice-over Guy, that is a surprise.
06:40 - Damn! This game looks really nice.
07:27 - Oh, Okami. Another Switch port, but I can't get too mad about this one. More people need to play this game. I wonder how they're going to handle the celestial brush in docked mode. I might be wrong, but I don't think we've see the joycons being used to control a pointer in-game yet. This could be a first.
08:03 - And there it is! Plus, a touch screen brush in handheld mode. So, Mario Maker could totally work on the Switch then. Now where is is, Nintendo?!
08:21 - (Boy, I bet any newcomers are going to be disappointed when they find that what "awaits at your journey's end" is a giant ball. That you fight. (In space, maybe? It's been ten years.)
08:37 - Sushi Striker? I want to say this came out on 3DS already. 09:10 - I don't know, this might be fun. Looks kind of like a competitive puzzle game.
09:24 - Oh, maybe it was just shown on one of these for the 3DS before. No cross play for a simple game like this? Get excited for that upcoming Nintendo online service, everyone!
