Nintendo Direct time! (From September 8 and 9)

     Hey friends! Long time no talk! It has been a little while, but I'm happy to come back for today's little news update on the Nintendo Directs that happened last week. On September 8, we got the Legend of Zelda 40th anniversary stream, and then the next day, we had a full direct which was pretty neat, especially for showing off a few new projects that I'm really excited about. Most of the news here was about the general Direct, but I'll do my best to cover the Zelda one as well, let's get into it!

This game looks amazing! (Picture from Nintendo's official website)

Two in two days? Amazing!

    The Zelda Direct started off with an orchestral arrangement of a medley celebrating the series, especially the three main players, Link, Zelda, and Ganondorf. Later in the stream, this was revealed to be the beginning of a new tour in 2027. You may remember that for the 30th anniversary of the series, the Symphony of the Goddess tour went on for two years I think traveling around from city to city. I would love to go see this new one, but we'll see if I'll be able to. Miyamoto came out and revealed that the title of the Legend of Zelda movie is going to be The Legend of Zelda, as if there was any doubt about that. I was really hoping we would see some sort of footage of the movie, or at least some sort of new casting announcement, but nothing else was shared. The Nintendo Museum was briefly talked about, and how it will get a nice exhibit for this upcoming year, in addition to Link being the centerpiece for the new restaurant that they're getting ready to open which is connected to the museum. Very cool things all around, but the big reveal of the direct was just how the Ocarina of Time remake is looking. This game looks beautiful, though I'm sure the style isn't for everyone. It looks to be a mostly faithful remake of the original game, which is good. I say "mostly" because there is a jump button as well as a run button this time around. No more rolling around in the field, but it may still be faster to do the sideways jump, that's up for the speed runners to test out I guess. All in all, the Zelda direct wasn't super wild or exciting, they did show what I expected them to, but nothing beyond that really. The Nintendo Direct was a little bit better in the surprise department though.

    I'm going to spare you the full rundown this time, but I would love to highlight just a few games here that caught my attention. We certainly have a reason to celebrate, beyond just the general excitement that comes with getting news about upcoming releases. The first one I'll talk about is Metroid: Ravenous, which comes just a few years after Metroid Dread! I don't think I'm alone when I say that Metroid Prime 4 wasn't quite the game that we were all hoping for after so many years of waiting, but Dread was crazy and very cool. I'm really excited that we're actually getting Metroid games two years in a row (of some degree) even though one of them is first person, and the other is in the lineage of the side scrolling games which the original started back in 1986. As I have reported in the past (link to my Metroid Dread review), At the end of Dread, Samus fully embraces her Metroid DNA to defeat Raven Beak, then destroys the base and flies away, with her "Metroid Suit" fading away for now. It seems like the Metroid DNA is playing a big role in this new game, hence the subtitle Ravenous, referring to the fact that she can "eat" whatever enemies are coming after her in this new game. It looks really flashy and cool, it's clear that MercurySteam are at the helm once again, but I would hope that this time, they'll actually include all of the developers in the credits. I know that was something that Dread had an issue with for some reason. The game is coming out in January, which I really can't believe, that's so soon and I'm really excited for that one and to continue on with Samus's adventures!

    The other big one, and the one that ended the show, was Kirby and the Land Beyond! People have been calling for a full 3D Kirby game for a long time, and what we were given with Kirby and the Forgotten Land was certainly a great first attempt at the 3D landscape. It was a direct translation of what the Kirby games are like, but with an extra axis to work with. With this new game, it looks like a direction that is completely new. All of the copy abilities seem to have added traversal to them, being demonstrated by Kirby flying around on the cutter blade that he throws, the sword maybe allows him to dash with his sword facing out, the bomb ability allows you to roll around on a bomb and then it'll blow up, leading to a high-jump effect. The trailer starts out with Kirby just showing off movement in a larger area, leading people to relate it to something on the scale of Breath of the Wild, but then the lore/larger story element shows up. Kirby is fighting King Dedede as he does, Dedede goes flying and then breaks through... the sky? A new character (who Kirby fans immediately distrust by principle) shows Kirby to an altar where he's able to summon what looks to be the Ultra Sword from Return to Dream Land. Kirby then uses this giant blade to cut open the hole that Dedede went out of, revealing a massive world beyond this sky dome that has surrounded Dream Land for however long it has been there. The first comments about this game have certainly been about how it bears a clear resemblance to The Truman Show, which is really funny, and I'm really interested to see how the story plays out this time. Kirby has been caught in a back and forth between the more mystical side (as we've seen in Star Allies) and the more technological side (as we've seen in Planet Robobot), and we seemingly have a mix of the two here. Technological with the sky dome presumably trapping the residents of dreamland, and then mystical with this new character who summons the ultra sword. Either way, it looks like it's going to be a great game, and I can't wait to try it out for myself next Spring.

    These were the two main games that I was excited about, but I'll briefly touch on a few that caught my interest before I go. Professor Layton is such a tough pill to swallow right now, just because of how Level 5 has been acting recently as a studio. On one hand, I am excited to see that a new Professor Layton game is coming out in December, but it's unclear exactly how much development involved generative AI to do the hard work that would usually be handled by the team involved in the game. I loved the first three Layton games, and the ones after that were kind of weird, but I do still love those as well, so maybe I'll give Professor Layton and the New World of Steam a try.

    Friends, obviously I didn't finish writing this in any sort of reasonable timeframe, but I hope you can still get some enjoyment out of reading my thoughts from several weeks ago now. Sadly these days are very full with different tasks both for my masters program as well as my internship, so things fall through the cracks sometimes. I would love to hear your thoughts on these releases about to come out somewhere online, especially as we're getting closer and closer to the holiday season. Thanks so much for reading this, and I hope you're all doing well. Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Games Reporter, and I hope to talk to you all again soon!