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The Nintendo Direct News And Discussion Thread

Joined
Oct 14, 2013
Location
Australia
I'm honestly not sure what I expect to be announced then.
There's a lot of announced games we know little about. I would guess they would be talked about, as well as Nintendo's plans for 2018 and the upcoming indie releases. I honestly think 2018 will be a little lean game wise for the Switch, but that's totally ok. I'd rather have a console frontloaded. Better to have many great one year old games instead of nothing for the first two years like the WiiU suffered through.
 

Lozjam

A Cool, Cool Mountain
Joined
May 24, 2015
There's a lot of announced games we know little about. I would guess they would be talked about, as well as Nintendo's plans for 2018 and the upcoming indie releases. I honestly think 2018 will be a little lean game wise for the Switch, but that's totally ok. I'd rather have a console frontloaded. Better to have many great one year old games instead of nothing for the first two years like the WiiU suffered through.
I really don't think so. We already have Fire Emblem, Yoshi, Kirby, Octopath Traveller, and potentially Pokemon. There are a wealth of Nintendo studios that we have had not seen nor heard from in multiple years. And there are multiple big third party studios that have exclusives coming to switch, that we have not heard of.

Namely:
Retro Studios
Next Level Games
Animal Crossing Team(especially likely considering Pocket Camp)
Sakurai's studio(it is confirmed to not be smash brothers).
Genius Sorority(they are Pokemon developers that aren't the main Pokemon teams, develops Pokemon spin-offs).
From Software


Not only that. But I have been hearing many rumors that Metroid Prime 4 is way farther along in development than they led us to believe, and that it could be a 2018 title.

Plus, with the Switch having the success that it did. Third parties are jumping on board as well. Particularly on the Japanese side, we should be seeing a lot more exclusives, similar to the 3DS.
 
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  • The World Ends With You being ported to Switch with new story quest.
  • Two waves of Pokken Tournament DX DLC coming.
  • Kirby: Star Allies out on March 16th.
  • Dragon Quest Builders demo out today.
  • Hyrule Warriors ported to Switch with all features and characters from Wii U and 3DS, plus BotW Link and Zelda costumes.
  • Mario Tennis Aces releases for Switch this spring. Features the first story mode since the GBA Mario Tennis.
  • YS VII being ported to Switch.
  • Two new balloon modes and new outfits added to Odyssey in February.
  • Some SNK Fighting Game coming to Switch.
  • Donkey Kong coming to Mario + Rabbids as DLC this spring.
  • "Joy" added as unique Swich character to Payday 2, which comes to Switch February 27th.
  • Fe releases on Switch February 16.
  • Celeste releases on Switch January 25th.
  • Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze being ported to Switch with Funky Kong as new character. Releases May 4th.
  • Dark Souls Remastered coming to Switch on May 25th.
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Location
Louisiana, USA
The World Ends With You being ported to Switch is by far my favorite announcement out of this "mini direct".

HD visuals, new method of gameplay control, and a new story scenario is all I need to justify purchasing this on day one. I probably would've done the exact same if it was just a straight port with HD visuals because the game means so much to me. I can't say many games have touched my personal life and made me think about the way I approach the world and people in it, but TWEWY definitely did when I was 14 playing it for the first time, and I can't wait to experience it again.
 
The World Ends With You being ported to Switch is by far my favorite announcement out of this "mini direct".

HD visuals, new method of gameplay control, and a new story scenario is all I need to justify purchasing this on day one. I probably would've done the exact same if it was just a straight port with HD visuals because the game means so much to me. I can't say many games have touched my personal life and made me think about the way I approach the world and people in it, but TWEWY definitely did when I was 14 playing it for the first time, and I can't wait to experience it again.

I've not played this but was quite taken with it.
I can see you'd recommend it but could you tell me more about it, like the length of tbe original story?
Was it just an elaborate level based rhythm game or more of an RPG because it looked so unique i couldnt really permeate what i was seeing.
 

Azure Sage

March onward forever...
Staff member
ZD Legend
Comm. Coordinator
  • Hyrule Warriors DX is a definite buy. Just wish they could have also added the Champions as playable characters.
  • Ys VIII is worth looking into. An RPG on the Switch that's not turn based or automated??? ****ing finally.
  • Celeste has been on my list for a long time now. It's nice to finally have a date.
  • I may possibly get Dark Souls, since it's finally on a system I own. Games that are vaguely interesting to me become much more interesting when I have the capability of playing them.
 
Joined
Dec 14, 2008
Location
Louisiana, USA
I've not played this but was quite taken with it.
I can see you'd recommend it but could you tell me more about it, like the length of tbe original story?
Was it just an elaborate level based rhythm game or more of an RPG because it looked so unique i couldnt really permeate what i was seeing.

It's an incredibly unique Square JRPG. There's traditional elements like equipment, leveling up, and weapons ("pins"), but the battle system was completely touch based. If you equipped a "sword" pin, you'd slash the screen in whatever motion you wanted to have Neku do the same directional slash on an enemy. If you equipped a "magic" pin, you'd hold down on the enemy while it was engulfed in flames. That's incredibly simplistic though - there's so many pins, so many options, and so many combinations, it's difficult to summarize it.

Another major part of the gameplay is your partner character, which you would control on the top screen while Neku fights on the bottom. The partner is usually very simple to control, but you have to pay attention because you can pull off some wicked combos if you synchronize your partner correctly. There's three different partners throughout the main story and each has their own style of fighting. The iOS version really dumbed down the partner characters, making them far too easy to combo with.

I can't really say how long the story lasted, you're probably better off looking somewhere else for a solid number. I will say that the story takes up the entirety of the game though, with the "post-game" content not being much at all in the original (although it looks like this new version will have extra story taking place after the end of the original). Persona 5 reminded me a lot of TWEWY, at least to the point of the setting being very modern and the characters all being quite young. The themes are completely different though. I don't want to say much for fear of spoiling it, but TWEWY deals a lot with death and how people view society as a whole.

EDIT: Definitely a full-fledged JRPG. Nothing remotely resembling a rhythm game with it.
 
Joined
Oct 14, 2013
Location
Australia
I am a bit late to the party as I did have to work and I crashed when I got home yesterday. But here are my quick thoughts on the direct.
Note Well: I'm watching the PAL/EU version of the direct so there might be very slight differences to the NOA one.

**********

The World Ends With You
Not my cup of tea but I hope it's properly ported to Switch and not just a rush job. Azure Gunvolt Striker Pack is an example of a bad port to Switch of a 3DS game. Sure the Switch port looks great but it still feels liek a 3DS game. Small cropped gameplay area, simple controls, designed for shorter bursts of play, not longer sessions (I'd have preferred 30m to 1h insread of the 10m to 20m that AG is working towards). I am glad that touch controls are one option here still. Nintendo needs to make more use of the Switch touch screen as it's actually good, unlike the WiiU one that was average at best.

More Pokken characters
Fine by me. Glad to see the game getting more love. I'm not a fan but it's fans will be happy with this. I still don't think it's eSport worthy though as a game but who knows it might get enough fans to do that.

Dragon Quest Builders
Totally check this one out. I played the demo on the PS4. Everyone here knows I'm a huge Dragon Quest fan. This game however? I think it's 75% minecraft and 25% Dragon Quest. Not sure I'll get this one though because backlog. The demo existing is great though for all the obvious reasons.

Kirby Star Allies
I am not really a Kirby fan, however this game interests me a lot more than the previous Kirby games on TV consoles as there's no weird console specific gimmick. It's more like the Kirby of old (think Adventure and Super Star, not Land). I probably will not pre-order this unless there's a great pre-order bonus, but on the day I might jusat get it. I do like the friend ability combos though. Feels like a suped up version of the allies from Super Star. I do like that a lot. As long as it's equally as fun in silgle player mode that is.

Hyrule Warriors
Lets hope this fixes all the issues that the WiiU and 3DS versions had. Fire Emblem Warriors fixed up a few of the issues but not all of them. Fire Emblem Warriors is an alright game, it's just not a great musou game. Not even close to great. Hyrule Warriors was not either. I think most people give both games a pass because of nostalgia to the characters and IPs being used in both games. Having all the content from both the WiiU and 3DS versions is a plus though. I will probably get this game one day even though nothing in the Direct here says that any of the flaws in Hyrule Warriors will be fixed up for the Switch port.

Mario Tennis Aces
If this is like Mario Power Tennis on Gamecube I will pre-order this.
If this is like Mario Untra Smash for WiiU, I will avoid it like the plague.
The WiiU game here is the first pre-order in a long time I cancelled. It was just so terrible in every way.
Story mode in Aces is nice but without a proper tournament format (the same thing that is real tennis in the real world), the game will be a flop. I will totally be keeping my eye on this. I hope it's good and not a flop. Also this new approach crap (tennis puns aside) is potentially bad. Nintendo need to realise what made their old games good and build upon them not just change everything. Don't throw the baby out with the batth water.

Y's8
I think I played the demo for this on the PS4 and it didn't impress me. However it's not a bad idea to port this to the Switch. If it plays as well as the PS4 port and looks relatively ok, then it'll be fine. I just think the combat style and what modern Y's games are are polarising. Love or hate relationship. Those who have only played the old Ys games on NES and SNES will be in for a shock though. The modern Y's games are quite different in combat style and other things.

Mario Odyssey DLC
Pointless online modes that people will find ways to exploit. I won't ever be playing this. Should not have been made in my opinion.
The new outfits and filters for snapshot mode are very welcome though. I think snapshot mode is one of the best features of the game. I'd like to see other games have similar.

SNK Heroines
I won't be getting this for the obvious reasons. Sure XC2 is fan service of a similar nature but at least it has a great story surrounding it all. This game is just blatent fan service of the questionable type with seemingly no redeemable features.

Art of Fighting 2
The NEO GEO fans will appreciate this. Everyone else can just move on to more interesting things.

Mario + Rabbids DLC
I guess why not. It's as out there as the game is. Also Grant Kirkhope did help to make the game and eh knows what makes a good DK story better than almost anyone else (being part exRARE / Playtonic crew). It's separate to the main story so it's fine in my books.
The music for that sounds amazing (Thanks Grant Kirkhope) and it's a good take on the old DK captures Peach thing.

Pay Day 2
Not sure if this needs to be on Switch. However it is 1000x better than the first game and has a decent following. So if the port is done well it might get a decent number of sales.

Fe
Feels like a Yooka-Laylee clone. Might be good to scratch that 3D platformer itch. Nothing wrong with cloning something as amazing as Yooka-Laylee but if it's not a great game in it's own right, it'll be eaten alive by the critics who base their reviews on hype and opinion usually and not on fact. I think 3D platforming fans should take a look at this. I know I will. But I probably will not be getting it day 1. Will I ever get it? Not sure? It's not at the top of my list to get I can say that.

Celeste
If the content is there and the price is right It's worth a look. But I do think games too retro inspired get passed by. There needs to be at least some modern hooks to get us wanting to play it.
I think it'll be quite the challenging game. Maybe not Super Meat Boy hard but not easy either, unless you use assist mode.

DKC - Tropical Freeze
I'm glad this was ported to the Switch. A lot of people I know wanted this ported. Myself included. Polarising game is is but I'll certainly be pre-ordering it. Even though it's way less accessible than the SNES trilogy it's still a great game and fans of the genre should like it. A smart move by Nintendo to port this.
Funky Kong looks like the assist mode for this game. Which is not a bad thing in my eyes. Helps to make the game more accessible to a wider audience.

Dark Souls
This shouldn't be on Switch.
I know many people will disagree wth me, but my point is not every game needs to be on the Switch. Dark Souls as a thing found it's home on PC and PS. The PS fans mostly love it. It's what many PS fans want. Nintendo fans though? I don't think the average Nintendo fan wants a super hard (note well - I understand what kind of hard DS is) of this type. I don't know anyone who wanted this ported to the Switch. If I ever wanted this, I'd just get it on PS. I think most of the people I know are the same as they already have it on PS. I know someone who bought a PS4 specifically for DS3 and BB.
So yeah that's my opinion on Switch DS. However I will be interested to see how well the port is done from a technical point of view.
 

Dio

~ It's me, Dio!~
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Absolute unit
Didn't see this Direct but from the sound of things I am still glad I don't watch them any more. They are always crap now and none of these offerings sound appealing to me. It's just ports and other things I don't want.
 
The World Ends with You
Intrigued, looks rather unique so I'd like to give it a go.

Pokken DLC
Don't care.

Dragon Quest Builders
Didn't like the PS4 demo.

Kirby Star Allies
Highlight of the Direct. Will be getting day one. Kirby is probably the most consistant IP Nintendo has in terms of quality. He won't disappoint. This game looks great.

Hyrule Warriors Definitive Edition
What stings here is that I've already bought this game twice with both season passes...

Mario Tennis Aces
Not interested but it doesn't look horrible.

Ys VIII
Didn't like it when I played it on PS4.

Mario Odyssey DLC
May play it once... nice that its free.

SNK Heroines
Hmm...

Art of Fighting 2
...nah.

Mario + Rabbids DLC
Not interested.

Payday 2
Not interested.

Fe
Nice artstyle but not interested.

Celeste
Not interested.

DKC Tropical Freeze
If the load times are greatly improved then yeah, sure.

Dark Souls
Can't even begin to tell you how much I don't care.
 

CynicalSquid

Swag Master General
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Only things I care about are Hyrule Warriors, Donkey Kong, and Dark Souls. It sucks that we are getting so many ports but hopefully this is just a phase where Nintendo is trying to prove themselves by releasing a bunch of 3rd party ports of old games to show companies they can support a decent third party library on their consoles. Then we can hopefully get third party releases on the switch at launch. The Wii U ports make sense to me because most people didn't buy the console and most people who bought it might be like me and ditched it to help buy a switch. It is irritating that I did buy Hyrule Warriors and some of the DLC but I guess I can't really complain since I'm probably the queen of buying multiple copies of the same game lol

I'll probably get Dark Souls on Xbone though. I don't feel like that game would translate well to a portable styled console.
 

Lozjam

A Cool, Cool Mountain
Joined
May 24, 2015
I am a bit late to the party as I did have to work and I crashed when I got home yesterday. But here are my quick thoughts on the direct.
Note Well: I'm watching the PAL/EU version of the direct so there might be very slight differences to the NOA one.

**********

The World Ends With You
Not my cup of tea but I hope it's properly ported to Switch and not just a rush job. Azure Gunvolt Striker Pack is an example of a bad port to Switch of a 3DS game. Sure the Switch port looks great but it still feels liek a 3DS game. Small cropped gameplay area, simple controls, designed for shorter bursts of play, not longer sessions (I'd have preferred 30m to 1h insread of the 10m to 20m that AG is working towards). I am glad that touch controls are one option here still. Nintendo needs to make more use of the Switch touch screen as it's actually good, unlike the WiiU one that was average at best.

More Pokken characters
Fine by me. Glad to see the game getting more love. I'm not a fan but it's fans will be happy with this. I still don't think it's eSport worthy though as a game but who knows it might get enough fans to do that.

Dragon Quest Builders
Totally check this one out. I played the demo on the PS4. Everyone here knows I'm a huge Dragon Quest fan. This game however? I think it's 75% minecraft and 25% Dragon Quest. Not sure I'll get this one though because backlog. The demo existing is great though for all the obvious reasons.

Kirby Star Allies
I am not really a Kirby fan, however this game interests me a lot more than the previous Kirby games on TV consoles as there's no weird console specific gimmick. It's more like the Kirby of old (think Adventure and Super Star, not Land). I probably will not pre-order this unless there's a great pre-order bonus, but on the day I might jusat get it. I do like the friend ability combos though. Feels like a suped up version of the allies from Super Star. I do like that a lot. As long as it's equally as fun in silgle player mode that is.

Hyrule Warriors
Lets hope this fixes all the issues that the WiiU and 3DS versions had. Fire Emblem Warriors fixed up a few of the issues but not all of them. Fire Emblem Warriors is an alright game, it's just not a great musou game. Not even close to great. Hyrule Warriors was not either. I think most people give both games a pass because of nostalgia to the characters and IPs being used in both games. Having all the content from both the WiiU and 3DS versions is a plus though. I will probably get this game one day even though nothing in the Direct here says that any of the flaws in Hyrule Warriors will be fixed up for the Switch port.

Mario Tennis Aces
If this is like Mario Power Tennis on Gamecube I will pre-order this.
If this is like Mario Untra Smash for WiiU, I will avoid it like the plague.
The WiiU game here is the first pre-order in a long time I cancelled. It was just so terrible in every way.
Story mode in Aces is nice but without a proper tournament format (the same thing that is real tennis in the real world), the game will be a flop. I will totally be keeping my eye on this. I hope it's good and not a flop. Also this new approach crap (tennis puns aside) is potentially bad. Nintendo need to realise what made their old games good and build upon them not just change everything. Don't throw the baby out with the batth water.

Y's8
I think I played the demo for this on the PS4 and it didn't impress me. However it's not a bad idea to port this to the Switch. If it plays as well as the PS4 port and looks relatively ok, then it'll be fine. I just think the combat style and what modern Y's games are are polarising. Love or hate relationship. Those who have only played the old Ys games on NES and SNES will be in for a shock though. The modern Y's games are quite different in combat style and other things.

Mario Odyssey DLC
Pointless online modes that people will find ways to exploit. I won't ever be playing this. Should not have been made in my opinion.
The new outfits and filters for snapshot mode are very welcome though. I think snapshot mode is one of the best features of the game. I'd like to see other games have similar.

SNK Heroines
I won't be getting this for the obvious reasons. Sure XC2 is fan service of a similar nature but at least it has a great story surrounding it all. This game is just blatent fan service of the questionable type with seemingly no redeemable features.

Art of Fighting 2
The NEO GEO fans will appreciate this. Everyone else can just move on to more interesting things.

Mario + Rabbids DLC
I guess why not. It's as out there as the game is. Also Grant Kirkhope did help to make the game and eh knows what makes a good DK story better than almost anyone else (being part exRARE / Playtonic crew). It's separate to the main story so it's fine in my books.
The music for that sounds amazing (Thanks Grant Kirkhope) and it's a good take on the old DK captures Peach thing.

Pay Day 2
Not sure if this needs to be on Switch. However it is 1000x better than the first game and has a decent following. So if the port is done well it might get a decent number of sales.

Fe
Feels like a Yooka-Laylee clone. Might be good to scratch that 3D platformer itch. Nothing wrong with cloning something as amazing as Yooka-Laylee but if it's not a great game in it's own right, it'll be eaten alive by the critics who base their reviews on hype and opinion usually and not on fact. I think 3D platforming fans should take a look at this. I know I will. But I probably will not be getting it day 1. Will I ever get it? Not sure? It's not at the top of my list to get I can say that.

Celeste
If the content is there and the price is right It's worth a look. But I do think games too retro inspired get passed by. There needs to be at least some modern hooks to get us wanting to play it.
I think it'll be quite the challenging game. Maybe not Super Meat Boy hard but not easy either, unless you use assist mode.

DKC - Tropical Freeze
I'm glad this was ported to the Switch. A lot of people I know wanted this ported. Myself included. Polarising game is is but I'll certainly be pre-ordering it. Even though it's way less accessible than the SNES trilogy it's still a great game and fans of the genre should like it. A smart move by Nintendo to port this.
Funky Kong looks like the assist mode for this game. Which is not a bad thing in my eyes. Helps to make the game more accessible to a wider audience.

Dark Souls
This shouldn't be on Switch.
I know many people will disagree wth me, but my point is not every game needs to be on the Switch. Dark Souls as a thing found it's home on PC and PS. The PS fans mostly love it. It's what many PS fans want. Nintendo fans though? I don't think the average Nintendo fan wants a super hard (note well - I understand what kind of hard DS is) of this type. I don't know anyone who wanted this ported to the Switch. If I ever wanted this, I'd just get it on PS. I think most of the people I know are the same as they already have it on PS. I know someone who bought a PS4 specifically for DS3 and BB.
So yeah that's my opinion on Switch DS. However I will be interested to see how well the port is done from a technical point of view.
Regarding Dark Souls, this is something that a lot of fans are clamoring for this, and it is going to sell really well.

And this is the very first time you can play Dark Souls on a portable console, which gives it even more extra incentive.

As for the direct itself. It was okay! Nintendo has just come out of having a megabusting year, so it makes sense for them to take a step back, and breath just a little bit. I probably will not be picking up most of the titles shown, or at least picking them up when they get on sale(I probably will get Bayonetta 1+ 2 because I did miss those guys). But I'm glad more people will get to experience fantastic Wii U games, Kirby looks solid and it seems that fans will love it, and Mario Tennis actually looks pretty good.

There's going to be a Nintendo direct in the future, sometime between now and the end of February I can tell you that.
 

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