What a show! (Thoughts on Nintendo Partner Showcase 2/21)

 Hey friends! So the Nintendo Partner Showcase just finished a little while ago, and I just want to jump into some of the awesome stuff that we saw here today. Leading into the show, I saw many people groaning about it only being a partner showcase, and not a full first party Nintendo Direct, but as I recall, I wrote not too long ago about another partner showcase where they revealed some exciting stuff too! I was hoping for some exciting news, but I certainly didn't expect as much as we got! Let's get started right away, while I talk about some of the things that I was the most excited about from this week's show!

Announcements Left, Right and Center!

    To start out this 25 minute presentation, we got news of one of the Xbox games coming to other consoles. If you didn't hear, a few weeks ago, Phil Spencer went on a podcast and announced that 4 unspecified Microsoft games are going to be ported to other consoles that aren't Xbox, and after this presentation, we know two of them, being Grounded and Pentiment (we've now learned that the other two are planned to be Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush, but they weren't in this direct). Grounded got a lot of time to show off, being the first announcement of the whole presentation, while Pentiment was put into the sizzle reel towards the end of the show. It's kind of interesting, since the latter is actually coming out tomorrow (at time of writing this, anyways, by the time you read this, it will already be out on Switch), but I guess it isn't as hyped as other titles. I don't know anything about it, but the art style is really cool, making it look like a piece of parchment that the drawings have been sketched on. Grounded looks to be like a video game version of Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, where you're trying to survive in the back yard after being shrunk down to bug size. It seems like a good time if you're a fan of survival games, and it's a cool concept, though it doesn't really seem like my cup of tea. The game is coming out on April 16th. A new Ender Lillies game, called Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist is coming out, I don't know anything about this, but it definitely has some Castlevania vibes, so hopefully it'll be good. Atlus and Vanillaware teamed up with a new turn-based tactics game called Unicorn Overlord, which I imagine will be really exciting for my friends who love Final Fantasy Tactics and Triangle Strategy. If nothing else, it looks really pretty and it's coming out on March 8, with a demo out now. Monster Hunter Stories is being ported to Switch from the 3DS, which is cool, though I've heard that the second one is just much better in every way, and is already on Switch. Up next was one of the titles that I was most excited for, Epic Mickey: Rebrushed! The original game came out in 2008 for the Wii and featured Walt Disney's original character, Oswald the Lucky Rabbit for the first time since he lost the rights to the character back in the 20's. I could talk about this game all day, but I will just say that on top of this game appealing to me just because I'm a huge Disney fan, the Paint and Thinner mechanics in this game are really cool, working almost like a morality system. I would definitely recommend this game to basically anyone, especially fans of old school Disney stuff (including movies and parks)! No definite release date was announced, but I'm going to be picking that one up as soon as I can.

    Shin Megami Tensei V is getting a new DLC, called Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengance and it's coming out June 21st. Another huge announcement for me came up next, Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection! This takes a little bit of explaining I think, because DICE has made their own games called Star Wars: Battlefront 1 and 2, but these are the original Battlefront games that came out for PS2, and Xbox, and I have to say that I like the older games much better. I'm so looking forward to being able to play these classic games again on modern hardware, I'm pretty sure my brother and I are going to be playing a whole lot of both games included in this bundle when it comes out on March 14! A new Super Monkey Ball game was announced, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Rumble. It looks pretty fun, offering 4 player co-op in the main game makes me nervous, but I hope it will be a good time, after the first two games were so good. World of Goo 2 got another trailer, and it's coming to Switch on May 23, with a 4-player co-op mode as well, which is exclusive to this version. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time looks so cool, it's basically Level-5's take on Stardew Valley or Rune Factory, and I heard great things about the original game on 3DS, but never played it. I'm looking to right that wrong with this title, which is coming on October 10. Another Crab's Treasure is the Crab-based Souls-like game that set the internet on fire last year, and while this doesn't look like my type of thing, I'm sure a lot of people will dive in when it comes out on Switch on April 25.

    Penny's Big Breakaway is a new 3D Platformer game from the developers of Sonic Mania that I've been excited for for a while, and amazingly it was shadowdropped during the presentation, so I will definitely be checking that out very soon! I can't say much about it yet, since I haven't played it, but it looks like a really ambitious and momentum-based game, with an art style that I think would be right at home on the Nintendo 64 or Playstation. Pepper Grinder is an Indie game that has been in development for a long time, and it's looking really good. If you remember Drill Dozer for the Game Boy Advance, it looks like that's exactly what this game is going for with drill mechanics. I'm really excited to play it when it comes out on March 28, and they even put a demo out today, which I will definitely be checking out soon. Up next, they announced Pocket Card Jockey; Ride On, which is a remastered version of a game that Game Freak made for 3DS. I've heard that it's pretty awesome, and that it really shouldn't be as fun as it is, since it is basically Solitaire, but it's a great combination of that and horse racing, and I'm looking forward to trying it, since they put it out today. They wrapped this presentation up by announcing 5 new Rare games for NSO services, being Snake, Rattle, and Roll; Killer Instinct, Battletoads In Battlemaniacs, Blast Corps, and R.C. Pro-Am. The final announcement was that they're making a new Endless Ocean game, Endless Ocean: Luminous. I never played either of the other Endless Ocean games on the Wii, but apparently, they have a big enough following to make a third one, and I hope people are excited for it!

    There was a lot of information to go over in this 25 minute timespan, and I didn't talk about all of the games, but there are so many good games coming to Switch right now, as well as just in the industry across the board, it's hard to play all of them. It's a good problem to have, I suppose, I'm always happy to have more things coming down the pipe, and there's also a lesson to be taught here, you can't judge based on the title of a show, there's always a chance that something is going to really surprise you!

    Thanks so much for reading my recap of the presentation that happened earlier this week, friends! Is there anything that you're really excited about from this show? Like I said, for me, the highlights are probably Penny's Big Breakaway, Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection, and Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. I hope there was something shown in the presentation that really caught your interest at least! Thanks again for all of your support, and have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed video game journalist, and I'll talk to you again soon!