I'm just a broken record at this point! (Nintendo Direct 9.13.2022 thoughts!)

     Hey friends! It's that magical time of the year once again... no, not Christmas or summertime, I'm talking about Nintendo Direct time, of course! We didn't have one of these over the summer, though we did have a really nice Nintendo Partners Showcase, which was definitely nice. There's something special about getting these presentations from Nintendo themselves though, and so today, I'm going to talk about the things that I was the most excited for, but we'll talk about as much as I think you care to hear about. Buckle your seatbelts, because there were some weird announcements in this presentation, but I was on board for a lot of them!

We finally got a title!

Gotta love Nintendo Directs!

    The whole stream started off with the reveal of Fire Emblem: Engage, which has been rumored for a while. You play as a "divine dragon" with red and blue hair (that many have noticed the similarities between Joycon controllers) that has been asleep for 1000 years apparently. The big gimmick that they showed in this direct is that you can equip different rings to summon the spirits of old Fire Emblem characters, and even fuse with them at certain parts? In the trailer, we saw Marth, Sigurd, Celica, Lyn, and a few others, and honestly, even as someone who doesn't claim to be any kind of Fire Emblem fan, I got excited. I have played a lot of Fire Emblem Warriors, so I recognize a lot of those older characters to be honest. It Takes Two, a Co-Op platformer, was announced for the Switch, and that's a great game, I will say, though the elephant part is probably the worst thing I've ever played in any game that almost made me quit the game right there. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse is being ported to the Switch after being released in Japan some time ago. I've never played any of the Fatal Frame games, but it looks like a good little horror game, I've heard good things about it, anyways. They announced some more DLC for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, then talked a bit about Spongebob: Cosmic Shake. I'm excited for that game, as I am for basically any 3D platformer, so hopefully it'll be fun when it comes out next year. Tunic, the Legend Of Zelda inspired game where you play as a fox, is coming to Switch on September 27, so I'm very excited to play that one, based on what I've heard about it! The first post-launch Splatfest for Splatoon 3 was announced for September 23-25, along with a few teases for upcoming free added content, which is exciting for folks who have that game, I'm sure! Octopath Traveler 2 was then announced from Square Enix, which I don't care about, but I'm sure that a lot of people were going crazy at that announcement, and good for them. As you already probably know, I'm not a big RPG fan, which is also why I won't discuss most of the RPGs. Speaking of RPGs that I do like though, Theatrhythm Final Fantasy Final Bar Line was announced, finally a sequel to the amazing two rhythm games on 3DS. In addition to just having Final Fantasy music this time, there will also be some DLC tracks from Nier, Octopath Traveller, Chrono Trigger, and more! A little more news for Mario+Rabbids: Sparks of Hope was shown off, and wow does this game look stylish. I'm really excited to see what this game has in store, especially after the announcement from the other day that announced that Rayman is going to be in a DLC for the game. Several new Nintendo 64 games, including Mario Party 1-3, Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, as well as Goldeneye 007, are all coming to Nintendo 64 Online in the near future, which is pretty awesome. 

    Mario Strikers Battle League is getting a second free update where they're adding new characters Pauline and Diddy Kong, as well as new gear and a new stadium. It's still amazing to me that the game was released in such an incomplete state that Daisy and Diddy Kong weren't even in the starting lineup, but that's just how it was. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe got a teaser for Booster Course Pass Wave 3, featuring Merry Mountain from Mario Kart Tour and Peach Gardens from Mario Kart DS, this wave will be coming out this holiday season. Nintendo Switch Sports is finally getting Golf this winter, which is a big deal to some people I'm sure. Next, Shigeru Miyamoto came out and said nothing that we didn't already know about the Super Mario Movie, Super Nintendo World coming to Universal Studios Hollywood, and then talked about Pikmin Bloom for a long time. Pikmin Bloom is a mobile game that came out almost a year ago, last October, and in the tradition of Pokemon Go, Bloom relies on you to walk around in the real world, and doing so in this case will make flowers grow. The more you walk, the more flowers grow, and the more Pikmin that you're able to spawn. I'm giving this long explanation because it's akin to what Miyamoto did here. After discussing and demonstrating Pikmin Bloom for a moment, he announced that Pikmin 4 is indeed in the works, and it's coming next year. I, for one, am very excited, even though they didn't have any more to show than just a few screenshots. Bayonetta 3 was the next big thing that I was excited for, and we got a new 7 minute gameplay trailer, showing off that for the first time in the series, you can actually summon the demons and control them directly while Bayonetta dances in the corner of the screen, which looks so cool and I legitimately can't wait for that game. Fortunately, we don't have to wait long for the release, as it's coming out October 28. Resident Evil 7,8, and remakes of 2 and 3 are all coming to Switch as cloud versions, which is pretty awesome for sure, but I already have them on my PS5, so I'm not planning on picking them up again, especially as cloud versions. Speaking of Cloud (Cloud Strife, that is), Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion is coming to Switch and other consoles on December 13, which makes me happy since that's right before my birthday! Following in the footsteps of FFVII Remake, this game is a remake of a PSP game that tells the story of Zack, a character shrouded in shadow for the most part in the original FFVII game. 

    The last two announcements of the show had to be some of my favorites. Kirby: Return to Dream Land Deluxe was announced, a rerelease of the Wii game of almost the same name with some slight graphical differences, probably best known for the ability to play 4 player co-op as Kirby, Meta Knight, Dedede, and Bandana Waddle Dee, or just 4 Kirbies. The final announcement was the long awaited reveal of the actual title for the sequel to Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which is called Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. We still don't know a lot about the game or the title that supposedly gives a lot about the game away, but based on the carvings we see on the wall, I think this is a literal concept, as in, you're collecting tears (like Tears of Light back from Twilight Princess or the tears that you collected in Skyward Sword's Trials) in order to repair the kingdom of Hyrule back to its former state. The game looks incredible, and though we didn't get a good look at a lot of the mechanics or anything, we did get a title and a release date, May 13, 2023. That is still a long way away, but at least we can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it's less than a year away by a good margin. I cannot wait to see what this series does next, and I am just ecstatic to see what this game is.

    That was the gist of the games that were shown off at the Nintendo Direct on Tuesday, but there were a lot of RPGs and farming simulation games that just aren't really my thing, so I didn't cover those much. There had to be 6 or 7 of them that all looked pretty similar, though I have to give a shout out to Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life and Tales of Symphonia Remastered. Both of those are remasters of old Gamecube games that one of my best friends had as a kid, and they both look like a lot of fun. Story of Seasons used to be Harvest Moon, but they've recently changed the name of the series because of legal reasons, it really looks like it's the same game as it was back then! It's my opinion that whenever we get news about any sort of upcoming release, it's always a good time, and I throughly enjoyed this presentation. A lot of people were upset, however, because rumors always go crazy around the time a Nintendo Direct is announced, and when folks don't get what they imagine, they don't like it. I guess that's fair, but it's hardly the fault of the company presenting. I'm just happy for all that we got, and kudos to all the developers who got their games in the presentation! I can't wait to see how all these games turn out.

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I hope you enjoyed the presentation if you saw it the other day. Did you have any favorites that stuck out to you? I'd love to hear about them! My favorites were definitely Pikmin, Kirby, Zelda, and Fire Emblem, but Theatrhythm Final Fantasy is also just a lot of fun. Overall, I thought it was a really solid presentation. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you all have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed video game news guy, and I'll talk to you again soon!