Nintendo Direct time yet again! Let's talk about it! (Nintendo Direct recap from February 8, 2023)

     Hey friends, do you feel that in the air? It's that time of the year again, Nintendo is going live with over 40 minutes of game (and maybe movie) news on February 8, which is tomorrow as of the time that I'm writing this. I'm always so happy when one of these gets announced, and even if nothing huge catches my eye, I'm just always glad to know more news about what's coming down the line. The last one back in September was a little weird and got a lot of flack for having at least four "fantasy farming RPGs" included in the lineup, but it also revealed Fire Emblem Engage, Pikmin 4, and an actual title drop for the new Zelda game coming out in May, Tears of the Kingdom. I fully expect there to be at least a teaser for Tears of the Kingdom here, but other than that, I would just be happy to be surprised, as I always love. There have been rumors of a new Mario Baseball game in development for Switch, and as the big fan of Mario Superstar Baseball that I was as a kid, I would love for those rumors to be true. I would hate to see the next game in that series follow recent trends, however, and strip out most of the content that made the games actually good like they did with Mario Strikers: Battle League last year. Honestly, even if they didn't do anything new and just wanted to port Mario Superstar Baseball from Gamecube or Mario Super Sluggers from Wii, I would be much more happy than anything like these recent "Mario Sports" games. Getting away from the negatives, I would love to see more about Pikmin 4, though I'm not expecting it too much, considering the announcement stated that they'll be focusing on games coming out in the first half of the year. We'll have to see, but I would love to see it here. Either way, I'm very excited for what they show off here, and I'll recount these announcements tomorrow. Over to you, future Jonathan!

The Coverage!

    Thanks, me from the past. Well, the direct just ended for me here on February 8th, and wow. There was a lot of good in here for fans new and old of many different genres of games. I'll rip one band-aid off right away though, no talk of a new Mario Baseball. That doesn't mean that it's not coming, but it wasn't shown off here anyways. I won't touch on everything that this Direct had to offer, but I'll give you some of my personal highlights here! We started off with Pikmin 4, which told me immediately that I was going to be wrong on almost all accounts. We seem to be playing as a female captain this time around, though there was a focus on rescuing castaways, so maybe you can change your character as you find more people? I assume the story this time around will involve a crash that your character has to rescue people from, but who knows at this point. The two big highlights of this first real trailer were Ice Pikmin, which freeze enemies when eaten and can freeze water, and the dog-like creature which you can ride around on, as well as command to break things. The game looks beautiful, and I'm so glad that it's coming out on July 21 of this year! Samba De Amigo is finally coming back for another game called Samba De Amigo: Party Central. If you don't know, Samba De Amigo was a rhythm game for the Sega Dreamcast which relied on a set of maraca peripherals to shake in different directions along with the music. They made another one for the Wii, but there hasn't been another since then, so I'm glad to see the monkey pick up the maracas once again! Tron Identity is coming out in April, and I've been looking forward to it since it was revealed late last year at a Disney showcase, definitely interested in this narrative adventure from Bithell Games. Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, a fan favorite puzzle game where you play as a spirit trying to uncover the mystery of his own demise while stopping other murders, was announced to be coming to Switch this summer, which is very exciting. DecaPolice is hard to tell exactly what it's going to play like, but based solely on the angle of playing as a group of detectives in a cyber world, this game looks pretty cool. It looks like an Action RPG, but I would like to see more footage before being certain. It's being developed by Level-5, which makes me happy though. Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon had a trailer basically just showing how the game is going to play, which makes sense given the game is only a few weeks away, launching on March 23. I have to say that I adore the visuals of this game, and I'm looking forward to seeing more from the Bayonetta franchise, even if it's very different from what came before, like this game looks to be.

    Alright, so far I've been dragging my feet a bit, so let's kick into high gear with what I was really excited about. Disney Illusion Island was a game that peaked my interest pretty immediately when it was revealed last year, since I'm a sucker for Disney stuff, and this game looks like Rayman Legends, which was a game that I loved. I'm happy to say that I'm still excited for this game, and it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun, especially with 4 Player Co-Op thrown in, and it's coming out on July 28! We finally got the announcement of the Advance Wars remasters, now coming on April 21 after being delayed for over a year. Kirby: Return to Dream Land Deluxe is just around the corner, coming out on February 24, but it was given a new trailer showing off the Post Game mode, Magolor Epilogue, in a "Meta Knightmare" esque mode. This time around, you actually have to build up Magolor's power by collecting different pick-ups, and you can choose what to upgrade when, which is a cool touch. Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games are finally being put on the NSO Online service, though GBA is only included with the Expansion Pak subscription. Game Boy, so far they've put out a few games such as Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, Tetris, and Wario Land 3 (my favorite Wario Land game). On Game Boy Advance, we have Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, Mario Kart: Super Circuit, and the first Warioware Inc. among many others. Metroid Prime Remastered was definitely up there as one of the biggest surprises of the day, as it not only was revealed with a trailer that looked gorgeous, but they also shadow dropped it (meaning they released it right after announcing it)! It's not often that Nintendo shadowdrops their big releases, but I'm certainly happy that they did! 

    I have to talk about this right now, because I literally cannot hold it in any longer. Professor Layton is finally getting a new game that's coming to the Switch! They showed a teaser of the Professor walking in a steam-punk area, he turns around, smiles at the camera, and that was pretty much it. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is the title for it, and though there wasn't a release date or anything, I will wait as long as it takes for them to make another incredible Professor Layton game. Thank you so much, Level 5. The show rounded out with a new trailer for Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, and what can I say that hasn't already been said? The game looks amazing, Breath of the Wild was an incredible game when it came out a few years ago, and this sequel is looking to live up to the hype for sure. We see Link driving a car and a hovercraft of some sort, and my only fear about this game is that we're going to have to use some sort of car building mechanic, such as the one used in Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts. I'm sure Nintendo will make whatever system they use be slightly more intuitive than that one, but it still makes me slightly nervous. It looks like Zelda is going to have a bigger role in the story this time around, and I really hope that's the case. Zelda was amazing in Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, and I would love to see her take on that level of role in a mainline Zelda game. I love that Nintendo is willing to take these wild swings sometimes, and I'm happy to say that this looks like they're going to knock it out of the park.

    Nintendo Directs always make me extremely happy, basically no matter what they release information about, I'm just always ecstatic to know what's going on. Even though there were a lot of games that I didn't care about that were talked about here, I am so happy for the people who care about them, and also happy that so many things that I'm interested in were also discussed here!

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends. I hope you enjoyed the Nintendo Direct as much as I did! Honestly even though it was the shortest reveal, the new Professor Layton game was the announcement that I had the biggest reaction to. Layton is always a fantastic time and I'm just happy that he's getting another adventure! Thanks again for reading, and I hope you all have a great week! I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Nintendo fan, and I'll talk to you again soon!