An alright Direct, a little disappointing since the rumoured Zelda HD re-releases and Metroid Prime trilogy re-releases didnāt happen, but then it is probably a mistake going into any of these things with any expectations.
Really did seem to be the Direct of farming RPGs, that genre seems to have just exploded lately. New Fire Emblem looks alright, Iām guessing it will be more of a crowd pleaser to those who have more familiarity with that series. Iāve only played Three Houses and Encore seems like a completely different beast from that game. Pikmin 4 should be fun. New Zelda looks promising. the hype train for that is going to start up I imagine now that theyāve put in a proper release date and title.
The only thing that really caught my interest is Master Detective Archives: Raincode, since that is from the company behind Danganronpa, and having played those games, there is quite a lot of that franchiseās DNA in this new game. Octopath Traveller 2 makes me think I really need to give the first game a shot at some point.
Well, if youāre a fan of JRPGs or Farming Sim games, do I have a Direct for you.
(One of the games was even a JRPG AND a Farming Sim!)
If youāre not so much a fan (like me) youāll find much of this Direct kind of repetitive and boring.
The only worthwhile interesting announcements to me were
- Pikmin 4 if youāre a fan of that
- Tunic coming to Switch
- Nintendo Switch Sports Golf Update delayed to Holiday 2022
- a new mystery game by Spike Chunsoft (Danganronpa devs)
- Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe is happening next year. Interesting, with a slightly new art style tooā¦
- and finally, the title and release date for Zelda BOTW 2 was revealed; Itās Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, coming May 12th next year!
Title is kinda ehhhh, wordy, but itās finally happening!
Very surprised there was no Mario Movie announcement, nor was there a Twilight Princess/Wind Waker announcement, or even a Game Boy Collection announcement too. God I hate alleged leak, rumour culture.
Sadly, with Tears of the Kingdom, it almost certainly means those games will be at least another year away. Everything Zelda will be on the hype train for Tears, it makes more sense to re-release Twilight Princess and Wind Waker after Tears is out when its a quiet time for the Zelda franchise. Iām sure itāll happen eventually, just not right now.
Still holding out on that Metroid Prime trilogy remaster though to happen at some point.
Yeah thatās most likely true. Donāt want one eating into the sales of the other oneā¦ 
Today I learned thereās an official website you can go to, to check up on all the announcements from the latest direct
Itās hard to believe itāll be over six years from BOTW when TOTK releases. Glad itās finally coming out. Hope it has fewer repetitive shrines and more traditional Zelda dungeons than BOTW had. The verticality of the overworld seems very intriguing. Other than that nothing really got me hyped up with this direct. Props to everyone who likes farming games though
Few bits of news. If youāre in the UK, may be worth checking your local Tesco. For whatever reason, the supermarket has decided to have a clearance sale on Switch games and consoles, halving the prices of everything, even the old, Lite, and OLED consoles. Checked my branch, unsurprisingly almost all of it is gone. The only stuff they have left I hope to pick up tomorrow morning is Luigiās Mansion 3 at Ā£20, and PokĆ©mon Shining Pearl at Ā£17.50.
Advance Wars may finally be coming out after being put on hiatus due to the Ukraine war. Several store fronts are listing it for sale and there is a rumour that Nintendo may just stealth launch it, possibly with a Nintendo Direct this month.
Rumour is also that Nintendo will not attend E3 this year, due to simply not having much to release in the second half of 2023. Indeed, it seems the rumours are that Zelda Tears of the Kingdom may be one of the last major first party Switch titles, and with the Switch nearly 6 years old now, the companyās focus is going to be on the next console.
Take this with a grain of salt, of course. I would think a Direct happening soon is likely though, even half of it is just dedicated to creating hype for Zelda.
Nice! My Tesco might actually sell me something other than clothes and some milk.
Thanks in advance mate
The gift of prophecy!
And I finally have a day off tomorrow after 6 days straight, so I can watch it! Wooo
Letās a go
Starting off with Pikmin 4! Coming in July 21
WTF GHOST TRICK PORT YEAHHHH
202020completesentence
AND A NEW 3D LAYTON GAME WHAT
Level 5 coming back to america woooooooo
They just drop a random 30 second tease in between announcements that was wild
Another Zelda Wild 2 teaser to cap it off! Coming on May 12. Looks neat.
Wooo! Alright! They had a lot of major things to show off this time around
Pikmin 4 footage, Metroid Prime Remastered dropping TODAY digitally wow, Game Boy and Advance games coming to Online and Expansion Pack services today (i do hate how theyāve tied these legacy titles to subscription services), Zelda Kingdom Tears, and a bunch of major third party devs and publishers stuff (fuckin ghost trick and layton coming back woooooo)
Really cool stuff, doesnāt seem like the Switch is slowing down at all!
A trial for Katamari Damacy Reroll is cool, coming later this month.
That Splatoon 3 Expansion DLC was weird. A whole content drop, for just an alternate online lobby? Really? I hope it isnāt too expensive.
Iām pretty happy with the Direct. Kind Of interesting how some rumours seemingly got mixed up, Advance Wars being rumoured for shadow drop but instead Prime Remastered happens. Out of the blue too, the Prime trilogy being remastered was rumoured but never confirmed by Nintendo I think. Canāt imagine them not remastering 2 and 3 surely in the future.
Yes, the online pass stuff sucks, but Game Boy stuff getting added is pretty big. Outside of that stupid 3DS Ambassador thing, Zelda Minish Cap has never been ported. Also great that it looks like soon Metroid Fusion will be added, and surely down the road Zero Mission too? Couple years you can play most mainline Metroid titles on the Switch hopefully.
The Etrian Odyssey Trilogy Remaster is exciting because Persona Q and Q2 are basically Etrian Odyssey games with a Persona paint job thrown on them, so the odds of those games getting ported are now a lot higher. Atlus loved the DS and 3DS so hopefully this is just the start of them porting stuff from those handhelds, like Shin Megami Tensei IV and the Devil Survivor games.
Raincode looks fun, think Iāll pick that up at launch. Advance Wars should be fun, funny how the Direct skimmed through that section. āFFS just get this thing out the door and be done with it.ā Sega has brought back Samba De Amigo from the dead, thatās exciting.
Zelda looks great, but as someone who often got annoyed at Breath of the Wild despite enjoying it, Iām not sure how I should feel about Tears of the Kingdom. It looks like it will take place in the same map as the first but heavily altered? Iāll probably get it on launch, hope I enjoy it more than Breath.
Very little coming out after Pikmin 4ās July release, outside of the obligatory PokĆ©mon game I imagine. All rumours are about when the next console will materialize, 2024 does seem like a possibility.
This was more focused on releases for the first half of 2023, so its understandable there isnt much for āafter pikmin 4āā¦ for now at least?
I think the Switch still has another good year and a half left in it for something major from Nintendo (non Zelda related).
Theyāre about to finish off the Booster Course Pass content by the end of 2023, I donāt think weāll see them transition to a new console for people to buy until late 2024 at the earliest.
Makes sense. Not sure why Iām so keen to speculate, itās not like Iād buy the next console at launch anyway, unless the launch line up was truly spectacular. Iām just hoping that the next console is backwards compatible and works with the Switchās shop, like the PS5.
3DS eshop shuts next month, going to need to see what to buy of it before it happens.
Since the Switch has been a console goliath even now, 5 years after launch, Iām still expecting them not to release a new console till at leat early 2025, or, like you say, make it backwards compatible with the Switch library, since its so massive already.
Itās very interesting because Nintendo hasnāt really done Backwards Compatible stuff for their consoles, mostly just for the handhelds (GB->GBA/Sp // ->DS->3DS)
Only thing I can think of is the Wii had gamecube capability kind of as a side-feature, and the WiiU had it, but that was a sequel console and it flopped.
Very interested to see how this is handled
I love the Switch and all the retro content.
The Gameboy announcement really made my day.
I wouldnāt even call NSO BC, since itās emulation and you canāt jam a GBA Cartridge into a Switch obviously. And even then the emulation is very hit or miss depending on the title. Yea it can be argued that Xboxās BC is emulation as well, but they atleast let you put your disks in.
Nintendo also had peripherals readily available for their older systems like SNES and GameCube to play Gameboy games aswell.
It was the first models of the Wii, this feature was removed in later models to reduce production cost and to of course have a cheaper console to purchase to maximize unit sales. So not all Wii consoles had GC Compatibility.
Wii U had Wii BC and it worked really well, unfortunately it was more of a hassle since a Wii Disk would take you to the normal Wii Menu on a Wii U. It was a very weird system for Backwards Compatibility.
Seeing how all of these titles released are or were part of Wii Uās/3DSās Virtual Console Line Up this was just a way to soften the EShop closure happening in March for those systems. A lot of the GBA Games are quite literally what they gave for 3DS Ambassadors who bought the systems early in its life which were also the only way to get GBA titles on the handheld without custom firmware.
Right, Iām not talking about the NSO throwback games as Backwards Compatibility, Iām speculating about whatever Nintendoās next console might be, whether it will feature BC for Switch games!
With how big the Switch is, its library, its third-party support, playerbase, etc. it might be a hard sell to get people to jump ship to an entirely new console with a seperate library, especially with how long the Switch has stayed a success, and how weāre still seeing major Nintendo releases this year (along with major DLC throughout.)
I think thereās a good chance whatever comes next might be Switch BC, but Nintendo gotta Nintendo so you never knowā¦
Itāll be really interesting to see what the next Nintendo console will be like. Iām curious to see if theyāll ever make a dedicated home or handheld console again, or if theyāll just stick to the successful hybrid format of the Switch. If it is another hybrid I think itās very likely itāll be backwards compatible with the Switch games. Maybe in the next console theyāll really go all out and include 128 GB of built-in storage!