Nintendo Direct: E3 2019 - Not-so-live Impressions

Wow, remember when these things being two weeks late was the norm? 'Cause I barley do. :D So anyway, sometime - aeons ago, I think - E3 2019 happened. By all accounts a bit of a lackluster show this year. Sure we had Keanu and a few interesting reveals here and there, but also a ton of updates to previously released Games as a Service games, a real resurgence of (terrible-looking) mobile games and a near total lack information on Microsoft's streaming service and next console. Well aside from 'it'll have Halo on it'. Man, who could have seen that coming?

So, I was really looking to Nintendo's showing to, well, save E3, I guess. (Oh wow, am I one of those people now? Yikes!) But, with Luigi's Mansion 3, Link's Awakening, Mario Maker 2, Pokémon Sword & Shield, Animal Crossing, Astral Chain, and more already announced, coming soon, and sure to pop up here, what else could they possibly pull out here in service of E3's salvation?

Predictions!!!

- A New Zelda - The case against this is obviously the the presence of both the LA remake and Cadence of Hyrule on the horizon right now, but don't forget that BoTW was announced unexpectedly early too, and they should probably have something to show of the next game at this stage. I think we'll at least get a glimpse of it here.

- No Metroid Prime 4 - I'm sure they really regret announcing MP4 when they did, given what happened. I'll bet we don't see it again until it's a year out from release at most, and they're very confident they can actually hit that date.

- Some Square-Enix Western Announcements - S-E seem pretty on board with the Switch right now; haven't seen too much from the western side of the company yet though. I could definitely see the likes of Life is Strange, Sleeping Dogs, the 360/PS3 era Tomb Raider, Deus Ex and Just Cause games, and the S-E Collective stuff hitting the Switch in the not-too-distant future.

- No Bayonetta 3 Either - I saw, I think on Nintendo-Life, a recent statement from Platnium that development was 'proceeding well' or something along those lines. I get the sense from that that we're not due to see anything at least for a while yet.

- The Smash Character is from Dark Souls - So I'm sticking with my prediction that the DLC characters are all going to be third party characters that I'm not going to care about in the slightest. There was a rumor going around that the Dragon Quest character has been delayed, so I'm going with Dark Souls. We've already had the first game remastered on Switch, and an amiibo, and you could easily see this being tied into an announcement of Dark Souls II and III being Switch bound too.

- Fatal Frame - Still no sign of a Fatal Frame announcement for Switch, and I doubt Nintendo are done with it yet, especially given how much RE has bounced back with the last couple of installments. If there's going to be a Switch release, I'd imagine it'll be revealed soon.

- No Project X-Cloud Stuff - Yeah, judging by Microsoft's conference, their streaming stuff isn't quite ready for prime time yet. People have been expecting Xbox streaming to come to the Switch for months now. I think there's a pretty good chance it will, but I don't think it'll be announced here.

- A Ninja Gaiden Remaster/Remake - The 2004 one has never been on a Nintendo console, and I can see a portable version generating some interest, especially with there being a bit of an opening in the Switch library for character action games given Bayo 3's continued absence.

- Hitman 2 - If it's technically possible, I think there's a pretty good chance of this. Doesn't feel like Hitman 2 quite did the same business as the previous game. I can see it going portability as quite an attractive prospect for a lot of people though. It could be a big hit on Switch.

Huh. So yeah, in conclusion I guess E3 this year is pretty much doomed. :D

• 00:02 - Hmm. Always interesting to see the rating on these things. What could possibly be 18 rated coming up?.... Oh! Could just be the two id games. Both do look awesome, but man, I had my hopes up for a second for Bayonetta.

• 00:06 - Focusing prominently on Breath of the Wild here. Liking my chances of getting that first prediction right.

• 00:29 - Oh, come on!! I got very excited until I saw freakin' Marth here. :D Guess this is the new Smash character. Well, certainly looks grimdark enough for a Souls character.

• 00:47 - Hm, someone on horseback? Are there horses in the Souls games? Big expert here. Maybe this is the Dragon Quest guy.

• 01:18 - And there it is. Bleah! Or, idk, maybe he's a really cool character. Looking at him though, I don't really see any way that could possibly be true. :p

• 02:19 - Guessing these guys are probably the main characters from other Dragon Quest games. My Souls knowledge is only matched by my Dragon Quest knowledge.

• 03:01 - Oh, come on, Toriyama. That guy on the left is just Piccolo.
• 03:09 - So, from this, it looks like "The Hero" move set might be largely menu-based. That'd be weird. Also, you can maybe tag in other versions of the character, Pokemon Trainer style. Kind of different, but I just have no knowledge of Dragon Quest, so yeah, this is another pass for me. Feeling pretty good about not buying the Fighter's Pass right about now.

• 03:35 - I thought I was "The Hero". Jeez, make up your minds, Square-Enix.

• 04:45 - Oh snap! Guessing we're about to meet Doug Bowser.

• 05:15 - Okay, this is pretty cute.

• 05:32 - Oh, 'related'. Wow, I thought that said something very different for a second there.

• 06:12 - Okay, Luigi's Mansion 3. Really hoping this is a bit more like 1 than 2, or at least that it has freakin' checkpoints before it's very annoying bosses. (Literally just back playing some Luigi's Mansion 2 today. Thought 'man, why haven't I finished this?'. Got to the boss in Stage C-2. Annihilated by bombs and ghosts. Twenty minutes playing through the stage completely wasted. 'Oh right, that's why.')
• 06:42 - Ah, just like I deduced from that first trailer, this is set in a single location. I just hope the mission structure from 2 is gone and we're back to more open exploration in this.

• 07:31 - I was starting to get worried that all this swinging around meant motion controls, but with the button prompts showing up on screen, could it be QTE-based? Wow, that'd be way worse! :D
• 07:35 - Okay, it looks like the swing is on A every time. Luigi's Mansion not about to go full Shenmue just yet.

• 08:07 - Gooigi is an abomination, and must be stopped.

• 08:33 - Return to the abyss from which you came, Gooigi!

Archive Raiding: Art Scans Batch #5

Oh, we're not done yet; not by a long shot. This time we're starting off with another unused design for the graphic design part of the project: one that I actually already covered here back in 2009, so let's see if I had anything insightful to say:

An earlier design of the book cover I did for graphic design part of the project. It's a flower with each petal depicting a summer scene. I like the flower idea, but the mostly solid blue background is a bit overpowering. While the final design wasn't very original, I think the front cover looks a lot better than this one.

Yeah, so not really. :D I think I was a bit harsh on this though. This is a solid concept; I think it could have made for a more creative piece of work than what I ended up with if I just developed it a bit more. That choice of lettering here though is WILD for the cover of presumably some kind of nature book.

(Plus, and I kind of hate to be gardensplaining here again, but daffodils: famously not associated with summer. And they're all over my final project stuff! I guess though, to be fair, the theme of the project was Summer Memories, not Accurate Summer Memories, so eh.)




And yet more reposts! Fans of my DeviantArt (i.e. literally nobody) will recognize these from a collage I made in 2006 featuring these, the butterfly below, and a random mushroom. Very much appreciate the fave, tinyqueen007.

It's kind of a shame I didn't go on to use any of these designs in the final project work. I think they would have looked great on the batik I made. Well, maybe not the one on the left: it's a bit wonky, though I do appreciate the detail of it being perched on top of a flower here.

This one I think would have looked especially cool. Look at that rad-ass butterfly; it can't even be contained by pencil lines!

Nintendo Direct 13/02/19: Not-so-live Impressions

Woof! Another super, super late one. Adult responsibilities, you guys, I really don't recommend them. I was actually on the verge of blowing this one off entirely, but hearing some whispers about what showed up here, there was no way I could. Let's take a look!

• 0:14 - Here it is! Mario Maker! So, Mario World confirmed anyway. (Damn it, Nintendo, there better be slopes this time round!)

• 0:23 - Looks like a redesigned interface for the stylus-less touchscreen. Still though, not sure how smoothly moving things around a level will go on that Switch screen.

• 0:25 - Oh hell yeah!! We have slopes, people! Hmm, I see the ON/OFF switch from SMW is there too. Interesting.

• 0:50 - Got to say, with them calling this Mario Maker 2 rather than Deluxe or something, I'm hoping for some pretty meaningful additions here. Maybe they'll finally do a Mario 2 tileset!

• 0:54 - Oh no. Damn it, Nintendo, why'd you have to go and add the Mario 3 sun in? I'm already envisioning so many terrible Course World levels, each with no less than twenty of these.

• 1:13 - Cat Mario. Sure, but the NSMB tile set was never really my thing in Mario Maker. Probably didn't help that it seemed to be the go to tile set for kids - which more often than not resulted in levels that were like, tile salad with three Bowsers at the end.

• 1:18 - Ooh, huge blocks! A much needed addition for that authentic Mario 3 giant level feel.

• 1:29 - Oh hell yeah, Boom Boom! Man, I'm really itching to make some more Mario 3 levels right about now.
• 1:34 - June 2019. Cool! Will definitely be picking this up.
• 2:14 - Well, looks like they're not delving into it too deeply here. Still hope for some Mario 2 action then. Ooh man, or Mario Land. That'd be wild.

DeviantArt Catch-up 12/03/19

Check out more on deviantart.com/jilik.

Nintendo Direct 13/09/18: Extremely Not-so-live Impressions

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.

Halloween Candy 2016 X 2017 Part 1: Cross Generation of High-fructose Corn Syrup

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