Current Events > I really enjoyed this Nintendo Direct

(+) Yeah! (+)

...to the surprise of no-one. I'm easily whelmed, and besides a brief post-Pikmin lull to talk about games they'd already announced, this Direct was all killer no filler.

People seem to be memeing about all of the farm sims, but I saw three of them that I would genuinely consider playing. Rune Factory 3, which looks like a 3DS port, is way more up my alley than 4 or 5. I really like the low-poly look. Literally the only way to fuck it up is if it's not 60fps.

The 4 player farming sim looked really good too, like a goofy party game. And fuckin Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life? That might be my first Story of Seasons game, if I don't pick up Mineral Town first. The idea of an aging population, including your main character, was super ambitious back in the day. I feel like they never really touched on this in the future Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons games, and I really want to try it out.

They finally gave a release date for the Life is Strange remasters, which is one of the things I wanted. The Zelda tease was fantastic, you can see how Sheikah Slate powers have been integrated into the new setting and the new sky setting looks stunning. You can transition between the sky environment and Hyrule below, and it looks relatively seamless. I'm really looking forward to Tears of the Kingdom.

Besides that, I was generally along for the ride. New Theatrythm, I hope they upload a demo so I can give it a go. New Octopath, though I'm not a big fan of HD-2D. I hope that surprise launch they did for that other Square RPG is an okay play, and the Tales of Symphonia remaster is great. Here's hoping it remasters the Gamecube version, because the Chronicles release used the Japan-only PS2 one that was way worse.

New Kirby port, new Pikmin - someone in the official thread complained about the Pikmin Bloom coverage, saying it was like having your child kidnapped and then having the kidnappers contact you 20 years later showing your child working as a prostitute, seconds before they announced Pikmin 4 - and that Fire Emblem game looks cute. Doofy protag design for sure, and frankly I would have preferred a goofy musou, but a dumb fanservicey All-Stars game with Marth, Lyn and other Fire Emblem mainstays looks like a fun throwback title. If you play Fire Emblem and/or aren't a cantankerous weasel who's still ass-blasted about Awakening being too easy and the other one removing the touching minigame, how did you like the Engage announcement?

Like at the end of the day, I genuinely feel like that Direct had a lot of good stuff in it. I'm sure there's some stuff I don't remember off the top of my head, and yet look at how much I've written about this Direct already. It was fun to watch, a bunch of new stuff got announced that I was happy with, I got some of what I wanted from the Direct from the start, and they dropped Tears of the Kingdom's title and gameplay. I'm happy.

Totk gave me goosebumps

It felt a little unbalanced (averaging one farming gamer per ten minutes, haha), but overall it was okay.

The highlights for me were Pikmin 4, Symphonia and Front Mission 3.

So I checked out my predictions in the "what are your Direct wishes" thread, and I realised I got everything I fucking asked for.

"BotW2 news, hopefully an update on the Life is Strange/Before the Storm remasters, and - total pie in the sky prediction - a Dark Cloud remaster. Or any PS2-era JRPG, to be totally honest."

Tears of the Kingdom. LiS/BtS are getting released at the end of September. Both Tales of Synphona and Romancing SaGa (and Front Mission 3 I guess?) are getting remastered. No Dark Cloud, but PS2 JRPG remasters? For days, son.

I'm one lucky son of a bitch.

Where the damn is Punch-Out

MrMallard posted...

Doofy protag design for sure, and frankly I would have preferred a goofy musou, but a dumb fanservicey All-Stars game with Marth, Lyn and other Fire Emblem mainstays looks like a fun throwback title. If you play Fire Emblem and/or aren't a cantankerous weasel who's still ass-blasted about Awakening being too easy and the other one removing the touching minigame, how did you like the Engage announcement?

I'm happy about new FE but I'm extremely cautious about this new concept. I loved 3H because it wasn't all up in the past FE games junk. It was it's own thing. Not all of it worked, Byleth is an absolute shit protagonist (and frankly I'm over self-insert protagonists in the series as a whole) and the Monastery became an absolute slog once you hit Part 2, but it definitely had it's own identity without dredging up the series past.

This series seems to be giving us another explorable hub world (ugh) and is building old FEs into a core of its gameplay (ugh) and the main character design is just stupid, but at least they seem to be an actual character. Seriously fuck Byleth and their mute ass.

Basically, I just want a FE game that is substantially focused on actual FE gameplay. I don't want to spend a bunch a time between missions running around some hub area doing non-FE gameplay.

It was a bunch of forgettable turn-based JRPGs and old ports running at 15FPS but at least we got a glimpse at Pikmin 4.

CRON posted...

It was a bunch of forgettable turn-based JRPGs and old ports running at 15FPS but at least we got a glimpse at Pikmin 4.

Nah, you're just salty.

Nothing crazy hype for me here, but a decent showing. Announcement wise, Octopath 2 and Kirby are probably my top games. It makes me wonder if Kirby might split into the 2D and 3D series like Mario in the future.

Edit: Oh, Pikmin 4 and the new FF rhythm game are cool. Kind of wish Pikmin 1 and 2 would get a Switch port, but I liked 3 on Switch.

My big wish list items iirc were the FF pixel remasters, DK, and the Zelda HD games. Maybe next time on those. SE clearly has a stacked release schedule, so those remasters might not come for a while.

One more bump, now that it's had time to settle in for everyone.

Farm sims/RPGs aren't for me, but I'm glad to see BotW2 again (with an actual title and firm release date, assuming it doesn't get delayed again) and the Xenoblade 3 DLC was actually exciting to see for me. Loved that game and always will welcome more.

As an aside, the Bayonetta 3 gameplay trailer that wasn't a part of the Direct looked SOO DAMN GOOD. Can't wait to get that game.