Wait, didn't we just get a Direct? (Thoughts on September 14 direct!)

     Alright, folks! It's been about two weeks since the last Nintendo Direct that we had, so it seems about right for another one, wouldn't you think? Of course, it was a different thing entirely with the last one, being only about 15 minutes long and focused entirely around Super Mario Bros. Wonder. This time, however, is a 40 minute presentation focused on the games coming out this winter. Will they travel outside that timeframe for one or two as they've been known to do? We'll have to wait and see, but for right now, that's the plan that we've been given. If I'm allowed to give some predictions here from before the direct comes out tomorrow morning, let's come up with some. I think we're likely to see some information at least about the Booster Course Pack for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, which is the last one in this massive set of DLC. We may see some about Super Mario RPG, since we've not seen anything about it since the announcement trailer, but it's also a remake, so they don't really need to show us much more than they already have. I would like to see more of that Princess Peach game that we saw about 30 seconds of in July. That's supposedly coming out sometime next year, but it's hard to say if they'll be ready to show any more of that yet. As always, I would like to just be surprised by what they've shown. New and unexpected stuff is always fun to me, even if it's not something that necessarily appeals to me that much, so I would be happy to see any sort of wild or wacky announcement. Wind Waker HD finally coming to switch would make me extremely excited, a remake of Kid Icarus Uprising coming to the platform would also be amazing, but we'll see what all we get. I pass the baton over to my future self now to report on the event taking place tomorrow morning. Take it away, future me!

    Thanks, past me. As a whole, I don't think that this direct was quite as strong as the last one, but boy, the big announcements sure were big! The presentation began with a look at the Side Order DLC for Splatoon 3, which was teased earlier this year, and looks to be a pretty wild time. I just hope it lives up to what the Octo Expansion did for Splatoon 2 when it comes out in Spring of next year. They announced a remake of the original Mario Vs. Donkey Kong, which came out for the Game Boy Advance, and the graphics really do look pretty amazing, especially contrasted with how the original game looked. Just the fact that the cutscene that we were shown is actually animated instead of being like a slide show, which was how the original game kind of looked, this is a big step up. They're adding some local co-op, with player 2 controlling a toad, which is a nice little addition, but I'm not sure if I'll pick this one up right away. It comes out on February 16, 2024. We got another trailer for Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown, which we've seen before, but this is the first Ubisoft game that I've been somewhat interested in in a long time. It looks like a really nice 2d Platformer with a nice emphasis on parkour, which is what Prince of Persia has always been best at, so I hope it does well when it comes out on January 18. A random wild card pick for me came in the form of Super Crazy Rhythm Castle, which is a rhythm game from Konami featuring some of their music like "Bloody Tears" and "Vampire Killer" from Castlevania. Honestly I'm just a sucker for Rhythm games, so it makes sense that I would be excited for this one. While we're on the subject of Rhythm games, they announced a Switch version of Trombone Champ, a wacky game that came out last year for the PC where you play trombone along with songs. Think of it as a Guitar Hero type game, but with the trombone instead of a guitar. I'm super excited to try it out for myself, especially since they released it after the direct! The controls that were shown in the direct were especially interesting, since one involved moving your hand closer and farther away from the IR camera on the Joycon. Anime fans also have something to look forward to since they're making a very cute looking game based on "Spy X Family" called Spy X Anya: Operation Memory. I don't know enough about the show to make heads or tails of what is going on in this game, but it looks like the cute little girl does a bunch of fun activities, so I'm sure people are going to love it.

    The Super Mario RPG remake is just a few months away, so we didn't get a ton of information here, but it was revealed that when you time a hit perfectly, there's a chance to attack all of the enemies on the screen, and there's also a gauge in the bottom right corner that allows the three characters in the party at the time to use a special Triple Move, which is different based on what trio is out on the field. It's a really cool concept, and I cannot wait to see what all the different animations look like! We also heard a snippet of the reorchestrated "Forest Maze" theme, which I'm always down for. I'm extremely excited for that game, and I really can't believe that we're getting it with all these other games. We finally have a title as well as a release date for Princess Peach: Showtime! which is coming out March 22 of next year. In the last direct, we got about 30 seconds of footage for this game, but with this trailer, we finally see the selling point of Peach's moveset. She has all kinds of costumes that she's going to turn into! In the trailer, we saw Swordfighter Peach taking out some enemies while dressed as a Musketeer, Detective Peach donning some very Sherlock Holmes inspired threads, a Patissier (or pastry chef) armed with a tube of icing, and Kung-Fu Peach, capable of doing Kung Fu with the best of them! I'm super excited for this game, and I think it's hilarious that the villain is named Grape and her minions are called the Sour Bunch. I definitely get some Puppeteer vibes from this game, which is a fantastic thing, since that game was super fun. There's just something exciting about the action taking place up on a stage, and the fact that there's a spotlight on you for most of the game. Tomb Raider 1-3 Remastered was announced, bringing the first three games from Playstation 1 to the Switch (and other consoles I think as well), which is really exciting since I've never played any of those games other than just the reboot trilogy, which were completely different games from what I understand. The three games come along with all the expansions and secret levels from the games, and also allow you to toggle between the new graphics and the old PS1 graphics at will. The game comes out on February 14, and maybe I'll give it a try when it comes out, who knows?

    Detective Pikachu Returns had a new trailer, specifically demonstrating how Pikachu can interact with the different Pokemon to help him uncover new clues. He can ride on Growlithe who can sniff out information related to the case, Darmanitan can smash rocks, and Luxray can see through walls. It looks like a good time, and I have to say that I'm more interested in it than most Pokemon games! It's coming out on October 6, and I hope that it will do well, I never played the original, but I'm definitely interested in this one. They're remastering Luigi's Mansion Dark Moon (originally on 3DS) for the Switch as Luigi's Mansion 2 HD. This is a good sign for 3DS remasters on Switch, even though it's hard to be too excited about the weakest of the 3 Luigi's Mansion games being ported over. It comes out next summer, which seems weird, since it doesn't seem like they're doing much to the game, other than maybe just make it run a bit more smoothly. Wario Ware: Move It! Is coming out on November 3, and definitely looks like a spiritual successor to Wario Ware: Smooth Moves on the Wii, which is not a bad thing! I really liked that game, and I'm glad that the pose system is back, since it worked really well for the different Microgames. The "Hand Model" pose is the most interesting one to me, since it actually utilizes the IR camera on the Joycon to film your hand movements! So few games use this feature that it always makes me kinda excited to see it incorporated. Dave the Diver was announced for Switch, which I know nothing about, but I know that people have said good things about it, so I'm excited to try it out sometime soon. The final several characters were announced for the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pack, being Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline, and Peachette to round out the roster! They only showed one course so far, which was Daisy Circuit from Mario Kart Wii, but we'll certainly hear more about it before this winter when the final courses are set to launch.

    Just a few more things before I wrap up here. First I have to give a shout out to the game that I'm most excited for: Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door... is getting a remake. I can't believe it, I am honestly stunned, but I am so happy that we're getting yet another of my favorite RPGs of all time in 2024 after we're getting Super Mario RPG remade in this year! I am so unbelievably excited to play it again, and I'm also super excited for everyone getting to play through this game for the first time! The graphics really have improved significantly, and I can't wait to hear the remastered soundtrack, since this is a game that I played a ton of back when I was in Elementary school. F-Zero 99 was announced as the Online service's new old school "Battle Royale" game, and to be honest, I'm not super into F-Zero, but I hope it will be a fun time none the less! The original F-Zero was already hard enough for me, but with 99 players I will be almost hopeless I'm sure! I also have to give a quick shout out to Another Code: Recollection, which brings Trace Memory (which was an early DS Release game) and the Wii sequel which was never released in the United States, up to modern standards. It looks gorgeous, and genuinely looks like a great mystery/puzzle game that you should keep your eye on if you're into that sort of thing.

    That's most of what we saw in the direct, there were a few RPGs that looked pretty good, though not quite up my alley, since I'm really not much of an RPG guy, other than the few that I've already mentioned in this post and a few others. There was a lot to like about this Direct, and I'm very happy with what we got, especially since I never thought they would remake Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door! I think people in general were kind of disappointed with this direct as a whole, but I don't know how you could be upset with a showstopper like we got, as well as Princess Peach Showtime! Both of those were definitely my highlights of the show, but I'd love to hear what yours were somewhere on the internet! I love Nintendo Direct weeks, and I love the whole atmosphere around learning about new things that are just on the horizon. As if I didn't already have enough to look forward to, now I have all of this on top of it!

    Thanks so much for reading my post, friends! How did you feel about the Nintendo Direct yesterday? Are you looking forward to picking up any of these games when they come out? Let me know somehow! I hope you're all having a great week, and again, thank you so much for all the support! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Games Reporter, and I'll talk to you again soon!