Mini? Booooo! Oh wait... (Thoughts on the Nintendo Direct Mini Partners Showcase)

     Mini. The word that sent everyone reeling yesterday. There had been a rumor for the entire month that there would be a Nintendo Direct this Wednesday, June 29, but instead, the call went out on Monday that there was going to be a Nintendo Direct Mini Partner Showcase (say that 5 times fast) on the following day. The backlash was pretty immediate, and honestly somewhat understandable (though it's never really acceptable to be upset about what is/isn't shown at press events), based on the last Partner Showcase which I think was 8 minutes long and didn't talk about many games that people were interested in. The show that just took place today, Tuesday the 28th, was 25 minutes long, and actually ended up being pretty phenomenal, despite the jokes and fun-poking towards it yesterday. Join me today as I run you through some of my favorite announcements from today, some of which may surprise you!

Remakes, Remasters, and Collections!

    So many announcements came out of this that I really didn't think would ever happen, but I'm very happy that they did. First of all, we got Bomberman R 2, a sequel to Bomberman R which came out right around the time of the Switch's release. This isn't a remake or a remaster, but it does have a definite retro flair that the past games have had in this series. Next up we had Megaman: Battle Network Legacy Collection, collecting the ten games in that sub-series between two different collections which are both coming next year. The Mega Man: Battle Network series was always really cool, though I only ever played the first game, so I'm excited to play more of them soon! Pac-Man World Re-Pac is a remake of the original Pac-Man World that came out for the original Playstation in 1999. That was a game that I rented when I was a kid, but never played it much, so I'm looking forward to play through it. It's still so strange to not see Ms. Pac-Man, due to a lawsuit a few years ago. She's been replaced with Pac-Mom again, just as she was in the Pac-Man Museum+ game that was released a few months ago in some of those games. Return to Monkey Island was another revival, a sequel to the old school point-and-click Monkey Island games made by LucasArts for PC. I've never played much of these, but I know fans of adventure games are really excited, and the art-style looks really nice! Nier Automata: End of Yorha edition was announced for the Switch, and I'm really excited for more people to play that game, as it's just fantastic. Portal: The Companion Collection was released right after the Direct Mini, which includes both Portal games, both of which are fantastic, for only $20, which is a great deal, to say the least! The remake of Live A Live is coming out soon, and as part of the presentation, they announced that a demo was playable following the presentation. The biggest remake/remaster that was shown off here (in my opinion) has to be Persona 3 Portable, Persona 4 Golden, and Persona 5 Royal, all coming out for the Switch! Of course, these rereleases were announced at the Xbox/Bethesda presentation, but since then, we've gotten word that the games are all coming to all modern consoles, which is a fantastic announcement, especially since fans have been clamoring for Persona 5 on Switch since Joker was announced as the first DLC character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! 

The previously known titles!

    We got a full trailer for Monster Hunter Rise's new DLC, Sunbreak, to start the whole direct here, and it looks really impressive, even though Monster Hunter has never really been my cup of tea. I'm sure lots of people are excited for it and have probably already picked it up by the time you're reading this, as the expansion came out on June 30. We got a sizable segment for Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope, the sequel to the original game which I picked up when I bought my switch, Mario+Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. This sequel brings some significant changes to the strategy gameplay from the first one. Unlike it's predecessor, this game doesn't rely on a tile system, instead opting for a real-time strategy game feel, though it is still turn-based. It looks like you can move for a limited amount of time first, and then the unit's turn ends whenever they fire their weapon. A lot of the gameplay still looks based on the original game, which is great in my opinion, since the first one was fantastic. There was a Ubisoft broadcast on the following day about Sparks of Hope, where they revealed the full cast of playable characters, as well as the musical talent working on orchestrations for this game. The playable characters this time around are: Mario, Luigi, Peach, Rabbid versions of those three characters, Bowser, Rabbid Rosalina, and a newcomer Rabbid named Edge. We know very little about Edge, but he has spiky green hair and a sword, so I'm kind of a fan. Interesting to note are the removals of Yoshi and Rabbid Yoshi, who were in the original game, as well as all of the Donkey Kong characters that were added in the DLC. Even more curious, though, is that while Rabbid Rosalina is here and a part of the team, we still haven't seen Rosalina herself... very curious, don't you think? I'm sure there's a reason that they're keeping her under wraps, and I hope it's going to be a pretty exciting reason. The music this time is being written by Grant Kirkhope, who returns from the original game, but he is also being joined by Yoko Shimomura and Gareth Coker. Shimomura wrote the music for Kingdom Hearts and many other games, and Coker wrote the music for Ori and the Blind Forest and Halo Infinite. I'm certainly looking forward to this new game, and I don't have to wait long since it's coming out on October 20. 

    You already know how excited I am for Disney Dreamlight Valley, as I wrote a whole post about it after it was first announced, though we didn't know anything about when the game was going to be opening up to early access. Now we know that the game is opening for paid early access on September 6, and I'm extremely excited for it! Sonic Frontiers had another showing at this direct, and honestly I have to say that this is the best look that we've gotten so far. I finally understand what the game is going to be like in some way at least, and it does actually look like it's going to be fun, even though the Switch footage had some pretty significant frame rate drops. Either way, the Cyberspace levels look pretty cool, and look to be a return to the Sonic Unleashed or Generations style of stages, especially as one of them looked like Green Hill Zone! I'm still not 100% sold on the game, but I am a lot more excited than I have been before now. Minecraft Legends is coming to the Switch, after it was revealed a few weeks ago at the Xbox showcase. This game looks really cool, being a Warriors-esque game in the style of Minecraft, though there hasn't been much shown yet. Either way, it's definitely on my radar and I'll happily check it out when it is released next year.

The New Stuff!

    There weren't a ton of completely original titles here, though there were certainly a few. Blanc looks to be a game that will probably make you cry, following a white deer and a black fox through what looks to be a pretty unique hand-drawn world. It's being put out by Annapurna, which makes sense given the emotional nature of how it looks so far. Little Noah: Scion of Paradise was released the same day as the Partner Showcase, looking like a side-scrolling action RPG that could be pretty neat. They announced Rail Grade, which looks like a "train tycoon" simulator, where you decide where the railroads have to go and what trains go where. Not my cup of tea, but I'm sure someone was interested in it! Square Enix also announced a new game called Harvestella, which looks to be a farming simulation that becomes more of an action game at a certain time of the year when all of the crops die. It looks like it could be interesting, and honestly looks like it is going to be beautiful. Dragon Quest Treasures was another announcement from Square Enix, and looks to be an interesting open-world game where you track down... well, treasure. I don't know really what to make of it, though it is cool that it looks like you can fight alongside monsters, not just against them. Either way, I'm sure Dragon Quest fans are going to love it!

    This showcase was really so full of announcements, that I'm sure I've missed at least something, but I've given a pretty in depth look at some of the stuff that I thought was most interesting. I think if there's one thing that you can take away from this presentation, it's that you never know when a company is going to pleasantly surprise you, and that it's really unfair to turn on announcements just because they didn't show what you wanted them to. This is more relevant than ever this week, with many toxic fans of God of War heckling Sony Santa Monica's employees to find out a release date this week. Let me be clear, I would like to know the release date as well, as I am incredibly excited for God of War: Ragnarok, but this is never okay to do. It is important to let the talented folks do their thing, and not pressure them in this way, especially as there have been reports of someone sending an inappropriate picture of anatomy to a developer to try to convince them to tell him. That's ridiculous and please always remember to be kind. Messages of that sort are never appreciated. Back to this presentation though,  of course, there was no Breath of the Wild 2 or new Donkey Kong game here, but what was announced was pretty fantastic! I always love presentations the most when they're able to surprise me, and boy was I surprised by a good number of these announcements. I hope you were too!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! It has been a few weeks since I did a news post like this, but I felt like what was revealed this week was enough to fill a whole post, and clearly I was right! Did any of these games catch your eye? Let me know in the comments, and I hope you all have a great week, in spite of the craziness happening in the world. I've been Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed gaming news reporter, and I'll talk to you again really soon.