The lowdown on the Nintendo Direct from last week!

     Hey there, friends! Last Thursday, we had a pretty spectacular Nintendo Direct, so I'm more than happy to go over some of the most exciting news that we got last week. Not everything really interested me, but a lot of things that were very exciting came up, even with a few new announcements, which I really wasn't super expecting, but I'm really happy that we got them! I'll just jump right in and talk a bit about what was shown. Originally this wasn't going to be a super long post, but then I realized that I have a lot to cover here, so please bear with me as I try to recount everything that was announced the other day!

Starting off with a Lull (in my opinion)

The direct started off with what I thought may actually be the announcement for the final character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, but ended up being an expansion for Monster Hunter Rise, called Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak. I'm not a huge Monster Hunter fan, and I don't have Rise, so this announcement really didn't do much for me, though I'm excited for big fans of the game, I've definitely heard good things about it. Following this trailer, we launched into the first big "headlines" segment that Nintendo always does, starting with a new look at Mario Party Superstars. This game looks pretty great, with five game boards from the original three Mario Party games on the Nintendo 64, along with 100 minigames from all around the entire series from 1-10, and maybe some of them from Super Mario Party as well, I'm not positive. This trailer revealed three new boards, Horror Land (Mario Party 2), Yoshi's Tropical Island (Mario Party), and Woody Woods (Mario Party 3), which joined the two boards we already knew about, which were Peach's Birthday Cake (Mario Party), and Space Land (Mario Party 2). I'm definitely looking forward to playing this game with some friends when it finally comes out. After this, they announced Voice of Cards, which appears to be a card game mixed with an RPG. It seems like a cool concept, but I wasn't super interested in it to be honest. Next, they talked about the Switch version of Disco Elysium, which I've heard really good things about. It is an RPG that mostly focuses on dialogue instead of combat, though since I haven't played it, I can't say much about it, other than to say that I like the art style a lot. The second Expansion pack for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity got some new information on it, mostly just showing that Robbie and Purah are going to be playable characters finally. I loved this game when it first came out, basically getting 100% I think, though I don't think I completed it because it just takes an incredibly long time to get everything done. Chocobo GP was the next game shown off, and it looks like a Final Fantasy themed "Kart Racing" game, which honestly looks pretty good, and I'm excited to see how it turns out. It's supposed to come out next year, as are most of the announcements in this Direct presentation. Things were off to a pretty good start, but the heat was about to rise in this showcase.

Strong middle for sure!

    After the first headlines segment, the presenter announced that the final Smash Bros. Character will be revealed on October 5, as part of the final "Mr. Sakurai Presents" presentation, which Masahiro Sakurai, the director of Smash Bros. Ultimate has been hosting for the past three years since the game was released. It's amazing that the game is already almost three years old, but the DLC is finally about to end. I'm personally hoping to just be surprised at this point, I have some specific hopes in my head, but I won't say them here so I don't jinx it. Following this announcement, there was a trailer for a new Kirby game, which is actually going to be in 3D! Kirby and the Forgotten Land looks to be the long-awaited game that Kirby fans (such as myself) have been hoping for for years. The mainline Kirby games have always been side-scrollers, and there's certainly nothing wrong with that, but I've always wondered what the Kirby mechanics would be like in a 3D space. I'm really excited about that one, and it's coming out in Spring 2022. Animal Crossing: New Horizons is finally adding "The Roost," which was the coffee shop from Wild World up until New Leaf, and was suspiciously missing from the most recent game, along with a lot of other content. There will be an Animal Crossing direct in October, so hopefully they'll announce some other returning elements from previous AC titles. This news comes well over a year after the original game was released and everyone pretty much has fallen off of the wagon, this may be too little too late. We'll just have to see. Mario Golf Super Rush received a second free update to add Koopa Troopa (I didn't realize one wasn't already in there, since they were all over the story mode) and Ninji from Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as two new golf courses to play on (that look pretty much the same as some courses that are already in the game). The update was released following the presentation, so good for people who have that game, I hope you all enjoy it! Next up was Disney Magical World 2: Enchanted Edition, which is a port of a 3DS game which I was convinced that only I knew about, followed by a port of Knights of the Old Republic coming out in November. Dying Light 1 and 2 were both announced for cloud versions on Switch... but I don't know why anyone would play this on Switch unless you didn't have any other way and were dying to play a decent first person Zombie-parkour game.

    Project Triangle Strategy was the next announcement, but it has now dropped the "Project" and is now just Triangle Strategy, which looks like a well made game, but I'm not really interested in that style of gameplay. Metroid Dread got yet another trailer even though the game comes out on October 8, literally just two weeks and a day after this presentation. The game looks good and I have to say I'm really excited, but I do wish they wouldn't show so much of the game prior to release. Finally, after weeks of rumors, turns out the speculation was justified. Nintendo 64 games are coming to Switch Online along with Sega Genesis games, for a price increase. We didn't get any idea of how much more this new plan will be, but they'll give more details towards the end of October before the plan is unveiled for purchase. Personally I'm really excited for the idea of it, though it really depends on the pricing if I get this added plan. We got the announcements of several collections of rereleased games, Shadowrun Trilogy and Castlevania Advance Collection (Castlevania Advance Collection looks pretty cool, including several games released for Game Boy Advance, I don't really know what Shadowrun is). A game called Actraiser for SNES is remastered as Actraiser Renaissance, which again, I don't know what it is exactly, though it looks to be a side scrolling RPG with elements of town building somehow? Looks weird but interesting. Deltarune, the sequel to Undertale received a Chapter 2 release following Chapter one which was released several years ago. We got a sizzle reel of quite a few games coming up in the near future, most interesting of them being Shin Megami Tensei 5, which I know people are really excited for. Really exciting news so far, and still more ahead... though of a very strange sort.

And now for something completely different...

    Shigeru Miyamoto, the legendary creator of Mario among many other characters and franchises came out, and I think a lot of people were expecting news on the next Mario game... we didn't get that. Mr. Miyamoto was instead there to give news about the Super Mario Movie which is planned for release on December 21, 2022. Illuminations (the minds behind Despicable Me and the Lorax movie) is hard at work, and Miyamoto was ready to share the cast list. Chris Pratt is Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy is Peach, Charlie Day is Luigi, Jack Black is Bowser, Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong, and Keegan Michael-Key will be the voice of Toad. This made so many people laugh uncontrollably (myself kind of included) that I'm actually kind of excited for the absurdity of what this movie is going to be. Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario along with many other characters from the games, is going to still be in the movie, but in various cameo roles, so I'm interested to see where he'll be if not the voice of the platforming plumber.

    Following this announcement, a trailer was shown for Splatoon 3, which never looks very interesting to me, but I'm sure hardcore fans of the series are excited for more squid-kid action. Along with the trailer came more summary from the "Squid Research Center" as the dev team refers to themselves as. One last trailer was on the horizon... and it finally showed a new look at Bayonetta 3! For the first time since the Game Awards back in 2017, we got a look at the gameplay for this highly anticipated action game, which I have to say I'm really excited for. Bayonetta 2 has to be up there as one of the craziest games that I've ever played, and the third entry looks to be just as bananas as that title, if not even more! Hopefully we don't have much longer to wait, since the game is slated for 2022.

    This presentation was pretty great all around and I think everyone had something that they were happy with. The things that I was most excited about were definitely the announcements of Kirby and the Forgotten Land and Bayonetta 3, though I was also happy to hear that the rumors surrounding Nintendo Switch Online were finally confirmed! All of the Mario movie news is weird, but I'm cautiously excited about what that movie is going to be like. It's always a fun time when we get more information on things that are coming out soon, so I was going to be happy with whatever we got in this showcase. I'll most likely post a little something about the Smash Bros. Direct next week, but we'll see what I cover next.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, folks! As always, I really appreciate your support as always and I hope you have a good week. Did any games stick out to you if you watched the presentation? Let me know! I do like talking about games, and other people's opinions about it are always interesting I think. I've been your Self-Proclaimed Nintendo fan, and I'll talk to you all next week!