My late thoughts on the Nintendo Direct (08-02-2023)

A direct of DLC and expected surprises.

Here we are once again. A brand-new, 40-minute-long Nintendo Direct aired earlier this week. Just as Dr Mario ordered. As is tradition for a Nintendo gamer on the internet, be they YouTuber, Blogger or Twitter user, I've got to give my thoughts and opinions on it. What were, if any, the big surprises for me? What did I predict correctly? What disappointed me and, most importantly, what do I think of the Direct overall?

Well, let's honour this tradition and dive right into it all!

The expected check-ins

Before this Direct aired, I said that I thought that it would be more about the games we knew about than the games we didn't. 1st party wise; I was right. We got a new trailer for Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, Pikmin 4 and Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp as well as dates for the latter two. Pretty standard stuff. Bayonetta Origins still looks interesting with its old-school creepy fairytale atmosphere and storybook-inspired look. Pikmin 4 looks beautiful but I don't have enough experience with the series to really have something to say about it or be invested in it. Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp I'm just glad finally got a date, April after all those delays and Nintendo didn't decide to just kick it out the door as a shadow drop as was speculated.

DLC here, DLC there, DLC everywhere

What I was also expecting was a lot of DLC to be shown and Lo and behold: that happened. The 3rd wave the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Expansion Pass comes with a new Hero alongside new challenges. More hype-worthy was the brief glimpses we got of the 4th wave, the one that's story-focused. We saw an adult Shulk and Rex face off against a seemingly evil Alvin. Crossing my fingers it gets the Torna treatment with a stand-alone, physical release! Fire Emblem Enage got a similar treatment; its 2nd wave with returning characters got released the same day and it too got a glimpse of its story-focused DLC. Since I haven't played the game (yet) I can't say much about it other than it looks neat.

New, though not unexpected, was the Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass. That the game would be getting DLC was expected but it got split into 2 parts. The first is a rather bland looking revisit to Inkopolis while the 2nd looks like a mysterious, spooky bit of story content. Expected but also surprising was the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass Wave 4 announcement. That we would see the first glimpses of it was no surprise but what was unexpected was the reveal that a brand-new character will join the roster: Birdo! Not only that but Nintendo confirmed after the Direct that there will come additional charactersin future waves. The dream of Pauline and a New Donk City track just sparked back to life folks!

Remasters and ports

Another rumour/speculation that was doing the rounds, one I believe, is that 2023 is going to be a 'light' year for Nintendo. That Tears of the Kingdom is the only 'big' release. In such a scenario filling out your release schedule with ports, remakes and remaster isn't a bad idea and that's what seemingly happening.

The already revealed Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe got both a demo today as well as some new content in an epilogue story. Always nice when Nintendo gives these ports/remasters some extra content. Makes the package more enticing. Baten Kaitos I & II, two card-based JRPGS from the GameCube era are getting an HD remaster in, you guessed it, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster. Neat I guess.

We got a lot more ports but the one I wanted to end this segment on is Metroid Prime Remastered. I've talked about this rumoured title for a while now. First, as the Metroid Prime Trilogy port people thought it but I didn't think we would actually see it at this Direct. Not only was I wrong, but the game got shadow-dropped on the Eshop! For 40,-! With a physical release to follow in a few weeks! Those 1st two things alone could lead to great things for this title. The excitement of the shadow drop (especially after the very successful shadow drop of Hi-Fi Rush on Game Pass) plus the lower price means the bar of entry is lower; this game could get some serious sales. At the very least, I got a physical copy on pre-order.

Since Metroid Prime: Remastered is, well, a remaster I figured a comparison shot wouldn't be a baid idea to include. Image credit: Nintendo Everything.

The GameBoys are here!

One of my most popular posts is an article from last year about the possibility ofGameBoy and GameBoy Avance coming to NSO. In-house emulators for the two had been leaked and I speculated that Nintendo would drop GameBoy in the base tier and GameBoy Advance in the Expansion Pack before long. It took longer than I expected, but I was right in the end.

Now that we have these two on the Switch I´m not that excited honestly. I do like that they´re here and I´m interested in the GBA titles especially but history tells me that I won´t play any of them. I´ve been subscribed to NSO for years and I´ve never finished a single one of its games. That Nintendo doesn´t allow us to buy these games individually like its competitors still annoy the heck out of me.

What is keeping my mind busy is what this means for Pokémon. The possibility of the Gen I to III games coming to Switch is now on the table and with Pokémon Day 2023 only a few weeks away... Well, I think you understand what I´m getting at. 

The 3rd parties

Can't forget to mention the 3rd parties; those were here too. More than the 1st party offerings actually but I didn't find them all that interesting. Save for a few. Octopath Traveller II got a brief new trailer and a demo. The same rules as with the demo of the original; you can play the first chapter of each traveller and your progress will carry over. Happy it's gotten a demo, I'm all in for those but I won't be playing it myself. The game is a lock so I don't really need it.

The Octopath Traveller II demo is neat but what I really want to talk about is Level-5. The Japanese 3rd party studio was at the top of the world a few years ago. With Professor Layton, Ni no Kuni, Inazum Eleven and especially Yo-Kai Watch it had some popular and profitable franchises in its library. One by one though, each of these series went down. Either because they simply reached its conclusion (for the foreseeable future) or because its massive popularity turned out to be just a fad.

With how much the studio invested in that fad, in Yo-Kai Watch (whose games are good and fun, don't get me wrong) when that bubble burst, and subsequently newer titles underwhelming and others like the newest Inazuma Eleven finding itself in development hell, they found themselves in serious trouble. They, to my own disappointment, had to close their American branch and communicated tojournalists that they had no plans for future titles outside of Japan.

It was because of all of these reasons that I was so pleasantly surprised when I saw their logo pop up not once, not twice but three times during this Direct. A Fantasy Life sequel, the crime-noir/virtual world hybrid Deca Police and *drum roll* a brand new Professor Layton game: Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. I guess they decided that the Professor's and Luke's story isn't over after all. Or they realized that it's their most valuable brand and are hoping for a sure-fire success. Either way; I'm happy. Welcome back Level-5, I hope this comeback works out for you!

Tears of the Kingdom

Last and certainly not least is Nintendo's big game of the year. The sequel to Breath of the Wild; The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Once again, Nintendo showed very little. A new minute-long trailer that showed new gameplay elements like homing arrows, new enemy types and a mysterious voice *cough, Ganondorf, cough* saying some very nefarious things. Not much, which is starting to not be fine anymore. The game is 3 months out and we still haven't gotten a proper look. Still haven't gotten a good look at the new mechanics or what the setup of this game is.

Not telling a lot so gamers get to experience the game fresh, that its sequel means people already have a solid idea of what they're getting isn't bad but I think the need to have one big trailer/presentation. To incentivize the more casual audience to buy. Says a guy who just pre-ordered the game, but still. We also got some expected extra goodies. A Zelda-themed OLED model but we did get a new Link Amiibo and a very expensive collector's edition.

Speaking of which: the price. The game is 70 dollars; Nintendo's entry is the price point. I'm not going to say I like it; who likes to pay more money for something?, but I'm not going to dive deep into it. It is what it is and I don't think it'll make a lot of people not buy it. Here in the Netherlands, Breath of the Wild was always 65 euros so I'm used to it. Also: Tears of the Kingdom at least looks like a game that's 'worthy' of the extra 10 dollars.

There's a car in this game. Did not expect that! All though: we do have high-tech in Breath of the Wild like the Sheikah slate and the bike. Plus: lots of gamers have used the physics engine to 'build' stuff for years. Could the developers have been inspired by that? That would be cool!

..........

With all of the individual titles I wanted to talk about, what are my overall thoughts? It was a fine Direct. A lot of the stuff here I expected to be here or had heard rumours about beforehand. The biggest surprises were the GameBoy and GameBoy Avance coming to NSO, in that I hadn't expected it to be at this Direct, and that the Metroid Prime remaster was a shadow drop. A good but not mind-blowing, Direct. On to the games and on the next Direct after that, whenever that might be.