As with all rumours, take this with a grain (okay, maybe ton) of salt. But apparently, a Dutch Nintendo news site called N1ntendo (who have apparently been good with leaks in the past) have been sent information about what games are going to be included in tomorrow’s Nintendo Direct. Here’s a picture they provided, showing what appears to be the content folders for the video (labelled with various game titles):
Can’t see the picture? Here’s the list:
Nintendie Trailer (Nintendo eShop indie games)
Fire Emblem Fates Special Hardware
Fire Emblem Fates Special Pack
Lost Reavers
Main Presentation
Mario & Sonic at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games
Metroid Prime Federation Force
Metroid Prime Federation Force (something development related)
Monster Hunter Generations
Monster Hunter Generations x Fire Emblem
Star Fox Zero Developer Interview
Star Fox Zero First Print Edition
Super Nintendo games on New Nintendo 3DS
Yo-Kai Watch
So, fairly average to be honest, with the exception of a few developer interviews and special editions. Well, aside from the ‘main presentation’, which could be literally anything.
But is is true? Well, good question. On the one hand, it sounds a lot more reasonable than your average fan concept, since the games listed are all low key titles rather than say, stuff that’s got a 1 in 2 million chance of happening. No explicit mentions of Paper Mario or Zelda U keep it somewhat grounded in reality, as does the lack of any major announcement of the kind you’d expect to see at E3.
And the site itself has a good track record too, so that’s something.
So we’re gonna give them the benefit of the doubt for the moment. It seems reasonable, nothing too outlandish is included and hey, the source of the rumours is apparently a fairly decent one.
But what do you think? Would you want to see these games at the Nintendo Direct tomorrow? Or is the selection just too bland and uninteresting?
Which for those who aren’t paying attention to the calendar, means tomorrow. Said Nintendo will start at 2pm PT (or 10pm GMT, for those in the UK), and will cover Wii U and 3DS games being released in Summer 2016.
Here are Nintendo’s official announcements about it on Twitter:
So what do we think is likely to be announced in this Direct? Well, Zelda seems to a sure fire inclusion. After all, it’s been ages since new footage of Zelda U was released, and even that was about 15 seconds worth. So it feels like we’ll be getting a proper trailer this time around, giving us some indication of how the game will actually work on a story level.
Star Fox Zero seems plausible too, though it could easily be an announcement that the game’s just been delayed again. Pokemon Sun and Moon could make an appearance here, given that we’ve only seen concept art and the logos rather than any of the actual gameplay or included Pokemon.
And there’s likely to be something new as well. Maybe Paper Mario for Wii U will finally be announced? It’s pretty much a sure fire bet at this point…
But what do you want to see in tomorrow’s Nintendo Direct?
Well, it was already discovered yesterday thanks to an early trademark application, but now it’s official. The Pokemon Direct has come and past, and Pokemon Sun and Pokemon Moon really are the next generation of Pokemon titles. What’s more, they’ll be out later this year and will be released exclusively for the 3DS in late 2016.
Here’s the presentation, if you somehow missed it the first time around:
US Pokemon Direct
UK Pokemon Direct
Japanese Pokemon Direct
As you can see, Pokemon Sun and Moon have been announced for 2016, they’ll be available in 9 languages (with Chinese traditional and simplified being the new ones) and Pokemon can be transferred from the Virtual Console games to the new ones via Pokemon Bank.
Well, there have been a few false starts so far, but it seems like we finally know when the Smash Bros character ballot results are read out. That day? December 15th, which Nintendo of America has announced will host the final Super Smash Bros focused Nintendo Direct, with Masahiro Sakurai providing more information on Cloud and other upcoming characters. Here’s the message about it on Twitter:
So what can we say? Well, just one thing; King K Rool better be announced or else. He’s been absent from Brawl, he’s been absent from Smash Bros 4… and if he’s absent here too, then it’ll be even more clear that Smash Bros has become all about hyping up flavour of the month nobodies over characters that actually deserve to be in the game.
Yeah, it’s took a while to put together due to time zone related issues, but we’ve now got all the media from yesterday’s Nintendo Direct and can share our thoughts on all of it. So what game should we start with?
Well, how about the one everyone’s excited for and the one Nintendo themselves decided should open the video? Yes, it’s the Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess HD! Here’s the first footage of the game, direct from Nintendo of America’s version of the presentation:
So what can we see here? Well, for one thing, it does seem to be a whole different from the original in terms of graphics. Oh sure, the textures are quite a bit better (which can be seen in some of the following pictures), but compared to the somewhat huge upgrade Wind Waker HD got, it’s still a tad underwhelming.
It’s also compatible with a special Wolf Link Amiibo, as well as Amiibos for the other Zelda characters from the Smash Bros line. This is a pretty cool touch, although Nintendo is somewhat vague about how they’re actually going to factor into the gameplay (and whether they have more of a purpose than unlocking a few random extras in the game world).
Also of note is that the game is partly developed by Tantalus as well as Nintendo. Who are Tantalus? Well apparently, they previously worked on a bunch of licensed games, Funky Barn and the Legend of Spyro. It’s an interesting choice of developer for a Zelda remake, that’s all we’ll say.
Finally (for this game), here are the different box arts. One is the normal edition, one is the special one with the included Amiibo. Both look pretty good:
Moving on now, Splatoon had some DLC announced in the Direct. Admittedly, we don’t really play much of this game ourselves, but we’ll leave you with Nintendo’s videos of the upcoming new levels and costumes instead, since they can probably explain the changes much better than we can:
Either way, it looks pretty good. Now, onto Super Mario Maker. Unlike the last update, this one isn’t getting any new level features like slopes or extra enemies or items. But what it is getting (and what is arguably long overdue by now), is a decent search system.
You see, previously, Mario Maker had no real easy way to find levels in game. You could see popular levels, you could find levels by a certain creator (if you had the code to at least one of their stages) and you could manually try and type in the codes. None were particularly easy, all opened up a market for online databases and forum topics where levels were posted and curated.
This is changing. The game is getting a decent database system where you can find levels by a whole variety of factors such as the theme, the art style, the ratings, when it was posted, the difficulty, the region of the person who made it and what it was tagged (like say, ‘automatic level’). You can also view the portal on a phone, and tag levels in a list that you can play later. Here’s a video explaining the system by Nintendo:
They also posted some of their favourite levels:
Enough with Mario Maker, now onto Tri Force Heroes. As pretty much everyone predicted (thanks to the DLC functionality being leaked by hackers long before yesterday’s Nintendo Direct), the game is getting DLC in some form. However, this time it’s a free update that gives you an extra gauntlet/Savage Labyrinth/Cave of Ordeals like side dungeon where you have to kill all the enemies to progress.
There were also costumes based on Linebeck from Phantom Hourglass and Fierce Deity Link from Majora’s Mask. Both looked pretty cool, and both were described as overpowered:
It’s fairly forgettable as an announcement, but given that the update is free, why bother to complain?
Pokken Tournament also featured in the Direct, with a short trailer and presentation featuring the new Mewtwo form. Here it is to see again:
There was also the announcement of a special Amiibo that let you unlock said character right from the start.
Xenoblade Chronicles X was also featured in the Nintendo Direct, and looked just about as good as ever. Here’s the video for it:
And here’s another trailer posted by Nintendo straight afterwards:
Yeah, it looks fantastic. That said, it’s a tad more difficult to get hyped for this game than it could have been, since the title already came out in Japan back in April of this year. As a result, it’s a bit less mysterious than it could have otherwise been, and the hype is less as a result.
Various lesser known games followed it. Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival, Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, Pokemon Picross… these were so uninspiring that even Nintendo had no enthusiasm for them in the Direct. In Europe (at least) they didn’t even bother giving them a decent explanation, it was all ‘here you go, who gives a damn’. So uninspired in fact that no one bothered to upload the videos to Youtube, at least not on their own. So no embed here.
Their edited Mario Tennis Ultra Smash trailer is even shorter, but they at least tried to add a bit of enthusiasm in with this one:
