I never thought I'd see the day! (Nintendo Direct thoughts 6/21/23)

     Hey friends! I know I ended my last post by saying that I was sad that Nintendo hadn't announced anything in terms of a direct, but on June 20, they announced a direct was coming the next day, and that time has since come and gone! I'm here to deliver all the news "directly" to you, though I may not talk about everything. There is a lot of good stuff here that I'm really happy about, so let's get into it, shall we?

I can't believe this is coming!

Announcement time!

    The Direct started off with giving a bit more information about the Pokemon Scarlet and Violet DLCs, Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. It's still a little ambiguous about some details, but I'm assuming we'll have a Pokemon Presents at some point to give more information about the two parts of this DLC, the Teal Mask and the Indigo Disk, which are the two parts to this DLC. We do know that one takes place in an old japanese looking festival, while the second one deals with more futuristic technology, including a whole terrarium of Pokemon, which leans into the theme of Scarlet and Violet to begin with! Sonic Superstars was shown off again, showing that apparently the co-op is only local, but the game is coming out this Fall, which is definitely exciting. Persona 5 Tactica was shown off a bit, and officially confirmed for Switch, though it had been heavily rumored before now. This game is looking like a lot of fun, though it's coming out the same day as something else, which I'll discuss in just a few minutes. A new Splatfest was revealed for Splatoon 3 based on which ice cream flavor the participants like best, Vanilla, Mint Chip, or Strawberry. Honestly, Chocolate seems like a pretty obvious third flavor instead of Mint Chip, but oh well. Surprisingly, there was no word about the Side Order DLC that was announced a while back, so fans will have to wait a bit longer to see what that is all about. Detective Pikachu Returns was finally announced after years of talking about a sequel to the 3DS game coming for Switch. It's coming on October 6, and it's weird to me that we still haven't gotten the first game on Switch, but that's probably still in the works. Next up, we had a huge announcement, a remake for Super Mario RPG!

Geno Lives!

    If you know me, you've probably heard me hoping for Geno in Super Smash Bros. Geno is a very niche character who has only ever shown up in one game (other than a brief cameo in the original Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga for GBA), Super Mario RPG. Originally a partnership between Nintendo and Square that took place on the Super Nintendo back in 1996, this was the first RPG that I really played and loved, so I have a huge personal attachment to this remake. Honestly the graphical style looks amazing and I love that all of the characters are a bit shorter than the model that we typically see Mario and co. in, to make them look more like the sprites on the original game. Also in the trailer, we hear some great versions of tracks from the original soundtrack, and that's because Yoko Shimomura is definitely coming back to re-orchestrate her original score. In addition to this announcement, they showed a little footage of a new game starring Princess Peach that seems to take place on a stage that I'm excited for, even though they only showed about 30 seconds of Peach running around. They also announced a rerelease of Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon for Switch, which I'm excited for people who didn't play it originally, even though I probably won't pick it up since I've already played. 

    After the wild Mario announcements, we went off to the second batch of headlines, led by the Arkham Collection, finally bringing Batman: Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, and Arkham Knight to the Switch. Honestly if you haven't played these games yet, please pick them up. I'm not sure how they'll run on Switch, but I certainly hope they'll be okay versions of these phenomenal games. Of course we had the obligatory announcement of Just Dance 2024, which I'm sure we're all awaiting with baited breath every year. We got a quick few games, Fae Farm, which we've seen before in another direct, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2, which should be a really fun racing game if it's anything like the first game in the series, and Maniac Motors looks to be Overcooked, but with cars this time, so it should be a fun time with friends! Dragon Quest Monsters looks to be a Pokemon style game but from the world of Dragon Quest, and they announced a new one here! Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince is coming out on December 1, and it looks really interesting, though not really my cup of tea. 

Time for little plant friends!

    Pikmin 4 is coming out next month on July 21, and Nintendo kindly gave us even more information on the title than we already had. Oatchi was confirmed as good boy material as there were several shots of the giant dog being adorable and also very helpful on the expedition. He can carry the Pikmin over water, he can carry things with the strength of 5 Pikmin, he can break pots and other breakable objects by charging into them, etc. it seems like he's going to be a big help, especially when they reveal that you're able to upgrade him as well as your gear once you've rescued enough castaways from the rescue crew. The nighttime excursions look very spooky, even by Pikmin standards, and accordingly, they've introduced a new type of Pikmin, Glow Pikmin, which move like ghosts, which is a morbidly fun little twist on the fact that Pikmin die when they stay on the planet's surface overnight. Caves from Pikmin 2 are returning, which is exciting, since they were most of the content of that game, as well as treasures. It seems as though the time limit won't matter as much as it has in the first three games, as again, there are night expeditions, and also you can go to a base camp where you can upgrade your equipment, which is a nice addition! On top of all this, Pikmin 1 and 2 were ported to Switch after the presentation with the promise of a demo for Pikmin 4 coming on June 28.  I'm personally really excited for Pikmin 4, though I'm not sure if I'm as excited for it as I am for some other announcements made here. 

    Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1 was announced for Switch, bundling together Metal Gear Solid 1, 2, and 3 as well as the original Metal Gear and Metal Gear 2, as well as the NES versions of those games. Konami may not be making many games anymore, but they have begun making pretty great collections of their old games at least! Vampire Survivors is a massively popular free phone game, but they're putting out a version for Switch which supports couch co-op, so that's pretty fun at least. Penny's Big Breakaway looks like a super fun 3D Platformer which is apparently being made by the team that worked on Sonic Mania, so I'm definitely keeping my eyes open for that when it comes out early next year. Some new information was announced about the fifth course pack for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe. The new track, Squeaky Clean Sprint, takes place in a giant bathroom that you'll be racing through, which is a very fun idea. Along with this track, we got confirmation of three new characters: Petey Piranha, Wiggler, and Kamek. It seems weird that this game marks Kamek's first appearance in a Mario Kart game outside of Tour, the mobile app. The new tracks along with the characters are coming sometime this summer. Next, a new HD-2D project was presented by Square Enix, a remake of Star Ocean the Second Story R. I have to be honest and say that I've never heard of this game before, but it looks beautiful, and it's a remake of a Playstation game from what I've read. It looks really good, not my cup of tea, but I'm sure someone out there was cheering. Speaking of cheering, WarioWare came back for a second showing on the Switch with WarioWare: Move it! This looks like a spiritual successor to WarioWare Smooth Moves on Wii, because the name of the game this time around is motion controls. It looks like a lot of fun, though I'm cautious because my Joy Cons are extremely drifty at this point, and I don't really want to buy a new pair this late in the console's life. This game is sure to be a great time when it comes out on November 3. What followed this announcement definitely filled me with all kinds of wonder!

The Wonderful World of Mario!

    For years now, people have been tired of the aesthetics of New Super Mario Bros. games. Even though the word, "New" is in the name, few things could be farther from the truth as each successive game felt mostly the same save for one or two little gimmicks or new power-ups. I'm happy to say that is no longer the case since they announced Super Mario Bros. Wonder. This is a new 2D Mario game with a completely new artstyle and a decidedly weirder feel to it. In the trailer, Mario picks up a new power-up called a Wonder Flower, which makes everything go trippy. The pipes begin moving up and down, one squirms around like an inchworm, while the background is also going crazy. It seems like these new items actually don't impact Mario's abilities, but instead transform the world around him! It also seems as though these flowers don't have any one thing that they do, but it may depend on what level you're playing that determines it. We see one level where Mario is able to stretch much taller, he turns into a ball, and one where it looks like he is riding a stampede of Reznors from Super Mario World. I'm not sure about that last one, but I would love if it was Reznor, since he's such an often forgotten Mario enemy. We also see in this trailer that local 4-player co-op is supported, and the character roster is huge. Mario, Luigi, Peach, Yellow Toad, Yoshi, and Daisy all are seen here, and the Yoshi can actually come in different colors so multiple people can play as everyone's favorite dinosaur friend. As one final teaser of how wild this game is going to be, Mario picks up a new power-up at the end and becomes an elephant! I actually have a theory that the Elephant power-up may just be for Mario, because it's red, and maybe all of the other characters have unique powe-ups that turn them into different things, the same way that Toadette became Peachette in New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe. Obviously that's based on nothing, but that would be such a fun idea to have everyone change into different things, especially since Yoshi has been transforming since Yoshi's Island on the SNES! I am so excited for this game and we only have to wait until October 20 for it to come out. That's also the day that Insomniac's Spider-Man 2 is coming out, so I have some tough decisions to make, but I'm extremely excited none the less. 

    What a perfect way to wrap up this fever dream of a Nintendo Direct. I know I'm completely stoked for a lot of the things announced here, and I hope you are too! All of them are coming fairly soon as well, so we won't have to wait too long before we get our hands on them for ourselves. 

    Thanks so much for reading this long summary of the Nintendo Direct from the other day, friends! As I've said many times, I love this time of the year even if there's nothing announced that exactly peaks my interest, but you can definitely consider my interest peaked after this one! The hardest part now is just waiting for the games to actually come out, I suppose! Let me know if there was anything that caught your eye during the direct, I would love to hear from you. For me, obviously, I think Super Mario RPG and Super Mario Bros. Wonder were the two titles that I'm the most excited about, though I'm also very interested in that Princess Peach game that they showed about 30 seconds of footage from. I hope you have a great week friends, and thanks again for all your support! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, your Self-Proclaimed Games Journalist, and I'll talk to you again soon!