Nintendo Direct... week? (Thoughts about this week's Nintendo news)

     Hey friends, it's a weird time right now for Nintendo fans, as the end of June did not bring the Nintendo-centered direct that we all expected and instead brought a Nintendo Direct Mini Partner Showcase, but now it seems we are getting something like a direct, just spread out over several days. Of course we got the separate Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope showcase on the following day after the Mini, but this week, we've now gotten several more announcements of really interesting games and I'm excited to share them with you today (if you haven't already seen them). This may not be a very long post, it's Wednesday of this week and we've gotten two announcements, but I'm hoping for a third tomorrow morning. I know that's probably greedy, but I just always love getting more news of game announcements! I'm happy with what we've gotten so far, and let's get right to the news!

An Unexpected Sweet Treat!

    As you may recall, we just got Kirby and the Forgotten Land back in March, so I, along with many others, assumed that it would be quite a while until we got our next adventure starring everyone's favorite Pink Puff, but thankfully, HAL Laboratory had something special cooking for his 30th anniversary in addition to his first full 3D platforming title. Kirby's Dream Buffet was announced on Tuesday to the sound of thunderous applause and cheers of how cute it looks. The plot of this game looks pretty simple, to the point where it really may be nonexistent here. We see Kirby about to eat a giant cake, but the fork that he's holding shrinks him. Kirby isn't too concerned, because he sees the already large cake which is now positively gigantic to his smaller form. Three other Kirbys of different colors (Yellow, Green, and Blue) fall from the sky and begin racing the pink Kirby. This game looks completely adorable and a lot of fun. A lot of people are relating this game to Fall Guys on social media, though in this case, you can only race against three other Kirbys whereas Fall Guys has the player structure of a battle royale. I don't really think of it in that way, though I'm reminded of the concept of "Gourmet Race" from Kirby Superstar, just because you have to battle the other players for the strawberries, and whoever eats the most strawberries in the end wins. In the trailer, we see some of Kirby's new copy abilities for this game, all food themed this time around, yet another very cute twist. Instead of Wheel Kirby, we get Donut, instead of Stone, Kirby turns into a candy bar that smashes onto the ground, creating an AOE attack around him that can hurt others, and he turns into an ice cream or something that spins around to mimic the Tornado attack, which helps him draw in more strawberries! There's no release date for this game yet, but the trailer says that it's going to come out "Summer 2022," so really the game could be released any time now. I can't wait to play it with some friends, and I really hope they drop it on the Eshop soon!

Let's Dance, Boys!

    Finally, after 5 years of speculation and wondering when we would learn more information about Bayonetta 3, we finally have a release date! October 28, 2022 is going to be a great day, because Bayonetta, the over-the-top Umbra Witch is back to save the world once again from the forces of good and evil. We now know that instead of fighting the angels of Paradiso and the demons of Inferno, she's fighting manmade creatures called the Homunculi. There have been some rumors floating around about the identity of this version of Bayonetta, especially since her hair looks identical to Cereza, Bayonetta's childhood appearance in the first two games, who is introduced when she goes back in time. We'll have to wait and see if anything comes of that, or if there's any meat to that theory and maybe the Bayonetta from the first two games will show up later, but even the idea of it is interesting to me. I love Bayonetta's ability to fuse with her demons this time around, and we saw more of that in the trailer we got on Wednesday. There's a brief clip of her riding on a spider demon, and fusing with Madame Butterfly for more damage, which looks really exciting. In addition, we saw a new playable character, Viola, who looks to have a grappling hook attached to a sword? I'm really interested to see how she controls, especially since the first two games pretty much had you controlling Bayonetta exclusively, save for a few smaller portions that were mostly tied to Quick-Time-Events (Or QTEs). Seriously, these games are so insane, I have to recommend them to anyone who is at least a little interested in Devil May Cry. If you love those games and are looking for something similar, Bayonetta legitimately may be even more over the top than Dante is, and I would love to see a crossover game someday between the two properties, even though it's probably never going to happen! I cannot wait for this new game to come out, and I especially like that the original game is finally getting a physical release on the Switch, seemingly in celebration of the third game! It has been available digitally since Bayonetta 2 was put on Switch, but it's nice that it's finally getting a game cartridge on the console.

    There wasn't any more news to really talk about other than just those two things, but the release date of Bayonetta 3 is a wild announcement, since it was first teased at the Game Awards so many years ago, and more Kirby is always a welcome surprise. While this wasn't the Nintendo Direct that many people expected, it was more news about some exciting new developments!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I hope you're interested in some of this news, and I hope you're as hopeful as I am that more great news and great games will be following soon! I hope you're all having a great week! I've been Jonathan, a self-proclaimed news enthusiast, and I'll talk to you again soon!