Thoughts On 19/06/24 Nintendo Direct
June 21, 2024
Written by Jamie Galea
With Nintendo finally confirming that there’s a Switch successor on the way, and a lot of uncertainity surrounding the latter half of the year, there was a lot of interest in this Nintendo Direct to see if there was anything worth getting hyped over. It turns out there’s so much that I really wanted to sit down and deliver thoughts on what I thought was a pretty cool Direct, something that I haven’t done in years. Yes it’s a couple of days late but I don’t care.
I don’t have much to say about Ace Attorney but I think this image of Edgeworth is cool.
I won’t bore you with thoughts on every single thing, but instead the highlights of what was a pretty awesome 40 minute video.
MARIO & LUIGI ARE BACK
When Nintendo mentioned that there hadn’t been a new Mario & Luigi game in nearly a decade as they kicked off the Direct, I nearly did a double take. I’d genuinely forgotten about the disappointments that were Dream Team and Paper Jam, and remembered that AlphaDream were too good for this world.
Anyway, the newest game, Brothership, looks great! It’s really encouraging to see Mario & Luigi in HD, with absolutely stunning and fluid animation befitting the absolutely incredible sprite art that series is known for. There’s also actual new characters and designs! We’re not just stuck with Toads and generic Mario characters anymore! And best of all, it’s coming out this year!
To give you an idea how hyped I am for this, I’ll be travelling through Japan when this game comes out. I was set on taking my Steam Deck as my portable gaming device of choice, but knowing that a new Mario & Luigi is coming out, I’m tempted to bring the Switch and pay the high Japanese retail price for one more adventure with the best bros. Also, how cool is it in the space of a year we’ve gotten re-releases of Super Mario RPG & Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, plus a new Mario & Luigi? This Mario RPG renaissance is incredible.
What a way to kick off the event.
YO YOU WANNA LEARN HOW TO DO AN INFINITE?
This is low key my actual highlight of the event. One of the best things about the Nintendo Directs is that it’s a great place for people to just announce games that are releasing on systems other than the Switch. The Ace Attorney Investigations Collection is a great example of this (finally, AAI2 officially in English!), but to me, my heart has to go with Marvel vs Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics. That’s not a great name!
There’s a lot about this collection that’s definitely worth celebrating. It’s not just these are modern ports of a bunch of killer fighting games, although that helps. It’s not just this collection features the first home port of The Punisher arcade game since the Mega Drive, though it would’ve been tops if it also X-Men Mutant Apocalypse or Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems for the SNES.
It’s the fact that for the first time in nearly 15 years, Marvel vs Capcom 2 has a new home on consoles! Yes there was a release by Arcade1UP, but that doesn’t count. It’s a game that’s almost legendary thanks to its gigantic roster, off kilter music and wild gameplay. While the Marvel 3 resurgence has been really encouraging to see, I’m hoping to see something similar now that Marvel 2 is playable with ease.
To go with this, it also looks like this is Capcom’s first time porting the game into a compilation like this, so if it means that they figured out Naomi emulation (the board that powered MvC2 in the arcades), there’s a few really great places they can go. I don’t know if it means a Powerstone or Capcom Vs SNK re-release, but here’s to good things I guess?
Long term, I am really hoping this is a good first sign of Capcom and Marvel having something of a relationship again and leading to further collaborations. Marvel vs Capcom Infinite should not be the last significant thing these two should work on…
1988 WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR
Dragon Quest III HD 2D looks great! I’m also super excited to know that the first two games in the series are also getting remakes in the same vein sometime next year. I still don’t know how I feel about the HD 2D style, but I think for remaking older games it’s a pretty neat look. I’d certainly prefer this over some of the other times Square Enix have released their back catalogue
Much like with Mario & Luigi, this is also out while I’m traveling Japan, so I cannot wait to see how Square Enix markets that game over there. To give you an idea, Dragon Quest XI S and Dragon Quest Walk were coming out the last time I was there, and every few minutes while wandering specific stores, the Dragon Quest XI overture would blare out to tell you the game is coming. I am fully expecting that with the DQ3 Overture, and it’s going to be great.
YOU CAN FINALLY PLAY AS ZELDA NOW
I was not expecting a new Zelda game at all. I wasn’t expecting a new Zelda game in the style of the Link’s Awakening remake. I definitely wasn’t expecting a new Zelda game where you actually play as Zelda.
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is the first new top down Zelda game since the DS, and the first to actually let you play as Zelda (we don’t talk about Wand of Gamelon). The premise of Zelda using a magic wand instead of a sword and being able to summon monsters and objects to solve puzzles and combat is really neat, and I’m keen to see what weird stuff you can get away with.
It is also very funny to me that Nintendo have made it clear a Switch successor is finally coming, but still want to sell you one more bit of Switch hardware. Classic. I don’t know who needs or wants a Switch Lite at this rate, but it looks pretty cool nonetheless!
SUBSCRIPTION NO LONGER REQUIRED
For as much as I love Apple Arcade as an idea, having games available outside of it to own permanently is also a more appealing prospect to me. While I can’t wait to get stuck into What The Car later this year, this Direct highlighted two games making their off-Arcade debuts: Fantasian (later this year) and Hello Kitty: Island Adventure (sometime in 2025!)
While there’s not much to say about Hello Kitty (it looks cool, Retsuko making an appearance makes us happy), the Fantasian news is particularly exciting. Aside from being rumoured for what feels like a good long while, it looks like developer Mistwalker are adding onto to the game in a lot of great ways. For instance, there’s now voice acting in both English & Japanese. There’s also additional difficulty options if you found the second half of the game to be a little unpalatable. I cannot wait to get stuck into this. I don’t know if I’m sold on the Neo Dimension subtitle, but that’s something I can learn to live with, I guess.
It’s also really great to see this being published by Square Enix, which given the history of both companies is pretty cool to see.
THE COOL OLD GAMES BLOCK
We got two GBA games and two N64 games coming to Nintendo Switch Online subscibers. While it’s great to be able to play Four Swords Adventure online with pals (alongside another way to play A Link to the Past), adding in Metroid Zero Mission feels like a no brainer. It’s easily one of the Game Boy Advance’s best games, and one of the better remakes of any game.
Then there’s the N64 games, which was used to highlight the newest NSO app: Nintendo 64 Mature. While I get why it exists, it’s still very bizarre to have a seperate app for the few “Mature” games on the system. Fun fact, there’s apparently around 28 games to have gotten this label! Even stranger is one of games added to the new app, Turok: Dinosaur Hunter. There’s already a pretty great Switch port available for that game, but if you absolutely must have a way to play the original version of Turok, this is certainly a way to do this? I’m looking forward to another way to play Shadowman on the Switch at this rate…
However, it’s worth it to have Perfect Dark on the service. Rare’s follow up to Goldeneye surpasses it in pretty much every way, and in my mind the definitive N64 shooter. If you’re gonna kick off with either of Rare’s “mature” games, I get not having both right away, but this is probably the better choice to have right now.
AND THE REST I THOUGHT WAS COOL
– Damn Hiro Mashima, how does the video game industry let you be involved in two video games in the same direct?
– Metroid Prime 4 being an actual video game coming out next year is great. I’m astounded that re-releases of Primes 2&3 weren’t announced here! Maybe before then next time we see Prime 4.
– I genuinely thought Donkey Kong Country Returns had already been ported to the Switch. Cool announcement though!
– I am very glad to know I’m not the only one that got faked out by The Hundred Line: Last Defence Academy in thinking it was the next Danganronpa game. When you’ve got Rui Komatsuzaki’s character design and Masafumi Takada’s music, there’s a handful of ways it can go…
– I am very happy to see Switch games with the ROUGHEST performance, and just not giving a damn. Looking at you, Phantom Brave & Funko Fusion!
If this is how the Switch is going out, it’s a hell of a way to go out. Cannot wait to see what else Nintendo have cooking…
