One last hoorah for Switch! (Thoughts on the 3/27 Nintendo Direct)

     Hey friends! Very rarely will we get tons of information out of Nintendo at once, so this two week span is pretty out of the ordinary! Last week, we got what will probably be the final Nintendo Direct presentation solely focusing on the Nintendo Switch before the release of the Switch 2, and this Wednesday, we're getting the first presentation specifically for the new console. Today I'll do my best to succinctly talk about at least one of these two directs, since the one on Wednesday was just announced to also have two Nintendo Treehouse Live presentations at the end of the week. I hope you're as excited as I am, and let's get into the meat of the announcements.

Switch's Last Direct Had Some Fun Surprises!

    The direct that took place on March 27 had a lot of stuff in it, as essentially the last for this now 8 year old console. With that in mind, I'm not going to cover all of the information, but I'll do my best to cover what I'm most interested in, or the things that stood out as a big deal to a large group of people. It started off with a trailer for the Dragon Quest 1+2 HD-2D remakes, which we heard about when they announced the remake of III last year. I don't know anything about this series really, but it looks pretty at least! The remakes are both coming out some time this year. Since I'm a fan of the Persona series, I will at least discuss RAIDOU Remastered: The Secret of the Soulless Army, which was an Action RPG for PS2 that's part of a spin-off series off of Shin Megami Tensei. That is a complicated explanation for it, but also I didn't realize that it was related until one of my friends who is way more into Atlus's games explained it to me. The real time strategy looks cool, I have to admit, so maybe I'll try this one out when it comes out on June 19. Shadow Labyrinth looks genuinely really cool, as a dark and stylish Metroidvania, loosely based on Pac-Man, or at least with heavily Pac-Man inspired elements. I really don't know how to describe this, but I am definitely interested in it, and want to see what it's all about when it comes out on July 18. Patapon 1+2 are being rereleased on Switch, which is weird, since they originally were created by Japan Studio and published by Sony for release on Playstation consoles, it seems that Bandai Namco is now publishing for the switch release, called Patapon 1+2 Replay. Oddly, this isn't the only weird situation like this that transpired in this direct, but I'll get to that in a moment. 

    We got a nice new look at Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, where they revealed a bit more of the setting and backdrop to this game. Samus will be exploring the unknown planet of Viewros, definitely a bit reminiscent of the forest setting of Tallon from the original Metroid Prime, and it looks gorgeous. Samus somehow inherits psychic powers this time around, and one of the uses is the ability to fire guided blasts, that you actually get to control after they leave her arm cannon, it looks so cool. There's heavy speculation that this game will be a bridge game between the Switch and the Switch 2, but we'll have to see what the future holds for this title. Disney Villains Cursed Cafe looks like a Disney take on Coffee Talk, and I'm all for that idea. I hope it's good, I haven't played it yet, but it did shadow drop right after the presentation. Speaking of shadow drops, Rift of the Necrodancer was released finally! I've been looking forward to this game for a long time, being a more traditional rhythm game instead of the Crypt of the Necrodancer dungeon-crawler formula, so I've already put some time into it. It's really hard so far, but I look forward to getting better at it in the near future! We got a new look at Pokemon Legends: Z-A, and it's looking really neat, this trailer pretty much just showed off the day/night cycle, which does operate in a cool way. During the day, these wild zones are used to catch wild Pokemon, but at night, trainers come out and have battles in a makeshift league. The whole game's title is a reference to advancing from Rank Z to Rank A, so this seems to be a pretty major part of the game! We got an announcement for a new Rhythm Heaven game, Rhythm Heaven Groove, which is the first one since MegaMix on the 3DS. I'm definitely excited for it, even though it's not being released until 2026! It's definitely more of a niche game, but that makes me even happier that it's here!

    Along with all of the game announcements, we got word of a new program that Nintendo is implementing, called Virtual Game Cards. This is a confusing concept, but I think essentially it'll be helpful when the Switch 2 comes around. With this system, you can copy virtual games onto a second system using local wireless communication, and be able to play that game on either one. It's essentially the app that they added to Wii U that allowed users to move their virtual titles from the Wii to the newer console. Of course, that was all moved over at once, and was accompanied by a cute video of Pikmin taking all of the files and moving them over to the newer console, but it was the same basic idea. I'm really hoping that there will be some easier way than to move these games over one at a time, because it could definitely take a while if we have to copy it over one game at a time as was shown here. The cooler feature to me is the lending feature, even though it's restricted to people in your family Nintendo Switch Online Subscription. You're able to transfer games over to another person's Switch as long as they're in the same family plan, the game will be downloaded to the other person's console for 12 days, during which time you won't be able to play it, but after those 12 days, the game will reactivate on your switch again. It seems like a cool system, though I hope they expand it sometime in the near future, and I certainly hope they'll talk about it a bit more during the Switch 2 reveal.

    There was a sizzle reel of a bunch of games coming to switch soon, and the main one that continues to draw my interest is Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, which is now coming out in May. I missed the original Fantasy Life on 3DS, but I heard it was pretty good, and I hope to try this new one out. Noticeably, Professor Layton didn't show up here, so maybe that's just going to be a Switch 2 game, especially with the mouse controls being a perfect replacement for the touch screen. Monument Valley 1 and 2 are being released for Switch on April 15, while the third one is releasing sometime over this summer. Going back to what I said about Patapon, a new Everybody's Golf game, called "Everybody's Golf: Hot Shots!" is being published by Bandai Namco, despite all other games in that series being Playstation exclusive. It's weird, but I think it's a byproduct of Japan Studio shutting down a few years back, so maybe we'll see some of those games that used to be exclusive coming to multiple consoles moving forward. Marvel Cosmic Invasion looks like a Marvel version of TMNT: Shredder's Revenge which came out a few years ago, and honestly that's the best case of a new Marvel game that I can imagine. Finishing out this direct, we got Tamogachi Life: Living the Dream, coming in 2026. This is following in Rhythm Heaven: Groove's footsteps, as the first new game in this series since the one on 3DS. I've never played the original game, but I'm definitely looking forward to this new one. It just looks so weird, I have to check it out at some point. I'm really excited for all the cool stuff coming, and I'm also looking forward to all the stuff that was announced for Switch 2 (which I'll get to next week, since this post is already long enough, I think!).

    Thanks so much for reading this post, friends! I'm looking forward to a lot of new experiences just around the corner. If you'll excuse me, the Switch 2 direct just happened this morning, so I'll get to writing that one up... there was a lot! Thanks again for all of your support and I hope there was something from this presentation that you were interested in. I would love to hear from you if you have the chance! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Nintendo fan, and I'll talk to you again soon!