Nintendo Direct 08/03/18: Extremely Not-so-live Impressions

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!

Not-so-live-impressions: Emergency NX Reveal Edition

IT'S HAPPENING!!!!!!

Well, maybe. With this being billed as a preview trailer, and a three minute one at that, I'm not really expecting a whole lot out of it. They'll show the console, or at least the main component of it. I think we'll get the final name here, at least a definitive release month, and a bunch of design philosophy / marketing spiel from Reggie. Ultimately, I think this is going to leave a lot of aspects of the machine up in the air until a later date. Not because there's any good reason for that. Because Nintendo. :D

Probably no new games popping up here either. If they need to show something in action, they already have Breath of the Wild. With such a short running time, I don't even think they'll be squeezing any kind sizzle reel in here.

Well, let's get into it:

• 0:03 - Boy, YouTube, you really know how take the excitement out of these kind of things. :D So it's the Nintendo Switch, releasing in March 2017. It's a better name than Wii I think, even if it is kind of generic and probably has an very silly concept behind it - one I'm sure Reggie will relay to us in the not too distant future.

  

• 0:08 - Boom! Breath of the Wild. Man, I'm good! :D Also, TV connectivity. Hooray! I'm guessing we're about to see this dude take the game on the go, thus blowing everyone's minds.

  

• 0:13 - Controller confirmed. Looks kind of Gamecube-ish. Or am I crazy?

  

• 0:18 - Yes! Do want.

  

• 0:20 - "My god, it's full of moblins!"

  

• 0:22 - "Dog problems? Try Nintendo Switch." Yeah, decent logo I think. Is it just me, or does the "Nintendo" here use a similar font to the "Nintendo" on the Gamecube logo. Man, I really have Gamecube on the brain tonight.

  

• 0:26 - So, this is it: the dock. Well, it certainly won't be mistaken for a Wii peripheral. :D Eh, it's not the most elegant-looking thing, but it could certainty be worse. *cough*PS4 Pro*cough* Two USB ports on the front there, if I'm not mistaken.

  

• 0:28 - A better look at the controller. Uh oh, that looks like a split d-pad on left. People aren't going to be happy.

  

• 0:31 - So you slide the sides of the controller into the sides of the handheld to remove it? That's kind of wild, but kind of neat. That's definitely a split d-pad though, plus two analog sticks and four face buttons. Eh, I think we'll be okay. I see a button on the side as well, across from the left analog stick. Is that ZL or are there three bottons in the shoulder area of this?
• 0:35 - Breath of the Wild! On a handheld! My mind is blooooooooown! If only there hadn't been so may leaks befooooooooorehaaaaaaaaand.

  

• 0:45 - Sitting on the seat of a bench? Not for this guy. He's able to play big boy games on the go. He's an individual. He operates outside the restrictive conventions of society. Also, has this been filtered through the Wii U's NES emulator? Because it's really fuckin' dark? :D

  

• 0:46 - If the footage here is to be believed, this looks like a real improvement over the quality of the Wii U pad's screen. Oh, just noticed the plus and minus buttons at the edges of the screen. Cute!

  

• 0:55 - Cartridges confirmed. And is that a headphone jack? Uh! In your face, Apple! :D

  

• 0:59 - Well here's a scenario that's never going to play out in real life. Side note: freakin' ripped jeans again? Why?! What's wrong with you people? :D

  

• 1:16 - Man, that window seat guy is just staring into the abyss. :D So again, the leaks were true: you can detach the controller bits and play on the screen Wiimote and Nunchuck style. Why ever you'd want to, who knows - this guy's got to look like the biggest doufus on the plane right now.

  

• 1:25 - Oh snap! A wild classic controller appears, d-pad in tact and looking very PS4-ish.

  

• 1:26 - Huh? Is this still Zelda? Looks like Skyrim.

  

• 1:43 - Mario Kart! Looks like MK8. So the side controller bits will work as horizontal controllers too? I could see that being neat at the likes of PAX, or for kids on long car journeys. Not so much for freakin' One Direction here.

  

• 2:01 - And I guess you can link up two Switches for four player stuff. I'm sure that'll get a bit of use in Japan for Monster Hunter. (And nowhere else.)

Nintendo Direct 01/09/2016 (EU): Not-so-live Impressions

A Direct I was going to skip, but having glanced at some spoilers a few hours ago, hoo boy did it look like they had some surprises to drop in this one. :D Let's watch!

• 00:31 - That's where you're wrong, Mr. Shibata. My interest in Pokémon Go remains precisely zero. To be honest, my interest in seeing more Sun and Moon is about the same. :D
• 00:45 - Rowlet is still pretty dope though.
• 00:52 - Ohhhh! Litten - a fire kitten. Man, they're killing it with the Pokémon names in this one.

• 03:24 - Still just looks like another Pokemon game though. :P Oh okay, I guess the regional pokémon are kind of a neat idea. And I do like the look of this 3DS. Wait, "software not included"? Come on, Nintendo, don't Battlefield 1 out on us.

• 03:49 - Okay, I know what this is from earlier. You think it's going to be yet another New Super Mario Bros., but...

• 03:55 - ...whaaaaat!? It's Mario Maker for the 3DS.

• 04:01 - Super Mario Maker for Nintendo 3DS eh? I didn't think they could top Super Smash Bros for Wii U/3DS as a clunky name, but with the addition of "Nintendo" here, I think they've done it.

• 04:12 - Ugh, spring blocks on top of spring blocks. I'm having horrible Course World flashbacks. 
• 04:26 - You know, I've barley touched the Nintendo-made courses in the Wii U version. The ones I've played were decent, but they just seem so plain compared to the user-created levels. Granted, there are lots of bad user-created levels, but even those can often be interesting. I always think they're kind of like stepping inside someone else's brain. :D
• 04:54 - Hold up. You can't search for a level with its Course ID in this version? Whoa! I presume the Mario Maker Bookmark site won't work either then. Damn. That's a huge part of the game to leave out. That'll stop anyone from loading up any specific level they want to check out - from forum threads, videos, Reddit, Twitch, whatever. They'll be left with only the randomness of the 100 Mario Challenge and the ever mysterious whims of the Recommended Courses. That's a genuine bummer.
• 05:05 - Good to hear that every existing course will be available in this version at least (even if no one will ever find them).

• 05:10 - I guess this version will feature the full-fledged level creation mode though. I'm looking to see if there any new tools in the menu here. Hm, don't think so, but they have broken out some of the things that you need to shake other items to get and given them their own slots, like the key and the skewer, and that weird skinny mushroom. Wouldn't be a bad update for the Wii U version, Nintendo. The Wii U set-up has gotten kind of weird and hard to keep track of at this stage.
• 05:24 - No mystery mushroom? You know what, forget what I said earlier, this is clearly best version of Super Mario Maker. :D

• 05:33 - Was this weird pigeon in the Wii U version? I wouldn't know, having no need to play through the tutorial. La-de-dah.

• 06:00 - Oh, for fuck's sake, Nintendo. You can't even upload courses from this version!? :D No one's building close-knit Mario Maker communities via wireless; certainly not outside Japan. So this version of Mario Maker is basically a glorified 100 Mario Challenge app then? Boy, they better not be charging full price for this.

• 06:51 - A new mode in Mario Party where everyone can play as a toad? Finally. I can't complain too much about this Mario Party though, not when they're using it as an excuse to release those awesome Mario series amiibos in a couple of months. Pre-orders down already? You bet.
• 07:07 - Action-packed mini-games. That'll be a change for the series. :D

• 08:19 - Fuck yes, look at that Diddy Kong amiibo! So, I have him, Daisy and Waluigi pre-ordered. DK and Wario, I don't think'll be  that hard to find. Boo, I'm still not sold on; maybe if there's a good deal on that one later on.

• 08:23 - Who am I kidding? I'm definitely getting the Boo amiibo :D. I might still wait for a deal though. Amiibos don't seem to be hot ticket item they used to be. I was surprised to see a bunch of them being sold by Amazon for under £5 back in July.

And seeing quickly led to buying.

• 09:14 - They're doing a free multiplayer client/single player demo for this? Goodness knows why, but I kind of want to give this a download.

• 09:34 - Zelda? They're probably not going to announce the new orchestra CD or art book on this Direct, I'd imagine. Amiibos maybe?
• 09:40 - No, wait. It's totally just going to be freakin' Hyrule Warriors Legends DLC, isn't it? :D

• 09:37 - Oh. I guess this is the art book. Looking good. Meanwhile at the Metroid 30th anniversary: *tumbleweeds*

• 10:06 - Fucking wait, WHAT?! Holy shit! YES! Finally!!! Zelda amiibos! Let's see what we have here. Pixel Link looks a bit derpy, but I'll have to pick him up, if only to put next to pixel Mario. OoT Link looks great. Wind Waker Link looks good; I kind of prefer the Smash Bros. one I already have though. Toon Zelda, I'm excited to finally have on the way, but - and this may be the saddest thing I've ever uttered - I'm a bit disappointed with her pose; I would have preferred her firing a light arrow, maybe. Still, there's no way I'm not putting down a pre-order for her as soon as possible. Love the gold bases too.
• 10:16 - They'll work with Breath of the Wild? I wonder if any of them will unlock companion characters, like the Wolf Link amiibo. Running around with pixel Link as a companion would be... weird. :D Speaking of Breath of the Wild, finally saw Princess Mononoke last week - awesome movie, and damn, is there a bunch of stuff Nintendo cribbed from it in Breath of the Wild. Most surprisingly, the BotW trailer music that I liked so much back at E3. It's very close to some parts of the Mononoke score, like cease and desist close. Hopefully no one important notices. :D

• 10:33 - Speaking of scores... I'd love to go see Symphony of the Goddesses, but I'd be stunned if it ever makes it here. Like I mentioned before though, at least we have another compilation to look forward to. The one that came bundled with Skyward Sword was great. (Edit 23/10/16: Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up here. I just got the CD in question a few days ago and it's most definitely NOT a Symphony of the Goddesses compilation, more a companion piece to the Mario 30th anniversary compilation, with 2 CDs of tracks ripped from the games. Kind of neat, cool packaging, but not at all what I was expecting. I should have probably waited for a track listing or some further news to go up, but after seeing it announced, erroneously, on some random web site, I immediately jumped in and pre-ordered it. That's what you get for listening to some random idiot on the internet, I guess. :D)

• 10:44 - Wow, speak of the devil. :D Still have my copy from 2011 though. Not one of my favourites to be honest. Not because of the motion controls though, which I think work pretty well for the most part. It was the amount of filler and the lack of a propper overworld that didn't do it for me.

• 10:55 - Huh? Are they going to put out the Famicom Disk System version of Zelda on the Virtual Console? That'd be kind of neat. Hey, they could even pull off the microphone stuff with the Wii U gamepad now.

• 11:14 - No, it was just a lead-in to the NES Classic Mini. Pre-order down already? Oh, you bet. :D I probably need this even less than the amiibos though. It's mostly the size, the rad box design and the NES classic controller that are selling me on it so far. I think I have most of the games on it in some form already. I didn't even wait for a confirmation that they're not crappy PAL versions that look as bad as NES games on the Wii U. Hopefully not.

• 12:05 - Pretty sure this is the trailer that's already been released for the NES Classic. "Do you remember the good old days?" Sure - playing all these games in Nesticle in the year 2000 while listening to trance and freakin' nu-metal. Your 80's, CRT-fuelled nostalgia holds no power over me, Nintendo.