Nintendo Direct 9/13/17 Thoughts

The Direct kicked off with Pokémon Ultra Sun and Pokémon Ultra Moon, neither of which I cared for. 3DS needs to die already. The Poké Ball Edition New Nintendo 2DS XL, however, was really cool. That will sell like hotcakes.

I never liked the Mario & Luigi series, and Mario & Luigi Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions is no different. I prefer the first Super Mario RPG on SNES.

Watching Kirby: Battle Royale, I felt bad for the people at HAL, having to work on Kirby-game after Kirby-game. Other than BoxBoy, what have they been allowed to do outside of Kirby? Let them be more creative. The Kirby 25th Anniversary Copy Ability Poll did not interest me either. Polls in general are reflective of the bad opinions of majority-sheep.

It was amusing how they capped off the description of Yo-Kai Watch 2: Psychic Specters and Oni Evolution with the fact that the series was a Japanese phenomenon, because other than that, I would not try that game-series. The point is that I would only try the game to try to figure out why it was so popular in Japan, and not because I found the game intriguing.

Layton's Mystery Journey, AKA Lady Layton, is something I am very interested in and will purchase. Katrielle is more aesthetically-pleasing than Professor Layton himself.

When they announced Minecraft for Nintendo 3DS, I thought to myself, "What's the point?" We already have it on NS, a portable console.

After Mario Party: The Top 100 was announced, I thought to myself, "What a waste." What a waste it is to have a Mario Party on a handheld once again. The whole point of Mario Party is to look at a single screen with multiple people in the same room and have fun. Instead, once again, we'll have to look down at our own screens in the same room. They said it will have Download Play, but how long will it take, and how cumbersome will it be to download a minigame?

Metroid: Samus Returns comes out this Friday, so it was natural to have it in the Direct, but they showed too much footage and gave too much information about it.

The segment on Atlus RPGs went by too quickly. The Alliance Alive, from the creators of the hardcore grinder, The Legend of Legacy, is something I'm interested in, but I haven't beaten The Legend of Legacy yet. It's too grindy with a barebones story. Etrian Odyssey V is the last numbered entry in the series for 3DS. It's another dungeon-crawler with the hook being that you have to draw your own maps. I tried a demo of another installment once, and it was too grindy as well. Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey Redux is a remake of a DS-game. I've never liked Shin Megami Tensei; the color-palette and demonic theme never resonated with me, and they're very grindy as well. Although Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology still has unappealing-looking sprites, I am very interested in it because I have always been on the fence about it. I will likely purchase this when it comes out in 2018.

I have never been interested in the Ace Attorney series, and so I feel the same way about Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.

Fire Emblem Warriors for Nintendo 3DS looked surprisingly good and seemed to run well. We'll see if it holds up in the final version.

New Nintendo 2DS XL Orange & White Edition looked nice, but I have no use for it. I wish Nintendo would have made changeable faceplates the norm for all 3DSes, and not just the smaller new 3DS. If someone wants this color, he or she has to buy a whole new system. What a waste.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 kicked off coverage of NS with an overly long video. I appreciated it somewhat, but it was unnecessary. They showed off new areas and NPCs, which count as spoilers to me. The battle-system seemed similar to the previous games. I still don't like the look of Rex with his oversized MC Hammer pants. He looks like a clown, and not a badass-protagonist that is going to save the world, or a cute boy that will grow into a man. At least Pyra looks good. A new Special Edition and Professional Controller were also announced. They look cool, but I have decided to go digital from here on so I won't be purchasing these tempting delights.

The Splatoon 2 video was nice because it showed us Kelp Dome, a map from Splatoon 1, which looks fun, but the other map looked like another boring map cut from the same cloth as all the other maps designed exclusively for Splatoon 2. The new Brella weapon was nice, but when the maps are such garbage, I can't find motivation to play this awfully disappointing game.

Fire Emblem Warriors looks nice from a graphical standpoint, but it's still just another Musou-game. I will pass.

I would be more excited about Snipperclips Plus: Cut it Out, Together! if the game's focal point was single-player. I know you can play some levels by yourself, but imagine a whole game built around single-player. It doesn't have online, and I have no friends, so I can't play this game to its fullest extent, even though I want to; and that means I will have to pass, which is a shame, because this game looks fun.

I don't know why they showed Morphies Law again. It was already in the Nindies Summer Showcase. It's a timed console-exclusive? Hooray?

The video on Rocket League didn't give us any information we didn't have already.

Arena of Valor from Tencent was very interesting. It's a MOBA. I have never played a MOBA before, so I might check this out, but only if it's free to play.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was suspiciously missing the Special Edition moniker. I guess they think it's useless to differentiate Skyrim from itself because Skyrim has never appeared on a Nintendo-system before, but I think it's a mistake to leave that part out. It will deter some people from buying it because they think it's not the Special Edition. Usually they just show a disembodied sword swinging, and that is not interesting at all, but this time they showed some different characters you can create, which actually got me interested in the game.

Doom and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus were big surprises, although I read comments on YouTube or Reddit about Doom being something they would want, so it didn't really surprise me too much. This is great news. Bethesda the publisher will be the bellwether for future Western AAA third-party support. Thank you.

Flip Wars is getting an update. Hooray? I would try this game if it was free.

It seemed like Virtual Console was finally happening with Mario Bros., but nope; it was just Hamster furthering their Arcade Archives with ports of Nintendo's arcade-games.

I thought they were going to talk about the next DLC for Zelda Breath, but nope; it was just what stupid DLC the amiibos were going to unlock

They lumped the sports-games into one video: NBA 2K18, WWE 2K18, and FIFA 18. Suspiciously, no gameplay was shown of WWE 2K18. Oddly, Pokkén Tournament DX was also shown in the same segment, as if to say Pokkén is a sport - an eSport.

The best part of the Direct was their segment on Project Octopath Traveler, and the best part about it was that the demo was releasing after the Direct. I tried the demo, and it is awesome. It is the best new RPG I have played since Final Fantasy IX. This is discounting old RPGs I have gone back to after playing Final Fantasy IX.

They had to shove information about ARMS in there somewhere. They gave no new information on it that we didn't know already.

I was surprised that they are porting Dragon Quest Builders 1 to NS. I know that Dragon Quest Builders 2 was announced, so I thought they were going to start from there, but nope - they will be porting the first one as well. I think it's a good move because Dragon Quest Builders didn't reach its full sales-potential.

Kirby Star Allies is the title for the Kirby-game we were shown at E3. It looks marginally more interesting than it did before, but it's still another Kirby-game, which means it will be slow and easy and probably a collect-a-thon. Yuck.

Surprisingly, they rehashed some Nindies in this next segment by mentioning SteamWorld Dig 2, Golf Story, Nine Parchments, Battle Chef Brigade, Tiny Metal, and Super Meat Boy Forever. These games, to me, serve nothing more than filler between big releases; they are boredom-busters.

They lumped some bigger third-party games in together. Lost Sphear is in the middle between indie and AAA, and it looks just as boring as I am Setsuna; I canceled my preorder a long time ago. Sonic Forces might be good, but at 30 frames per second, it is not worth it. I am not a framerate-snob, but with a fast game like Sonic, 60 frames per second is necessary. My stance on Resident Evil Revelations Collection has not changed; the games are simply not good enough to warrant double-dipping. I was disappointed that no footage of LA Noire was shown; I theorized that it was because it is a violent game, but so is Doom and Resident Evil Revelations so that theory held no water.

I have become marginally more interested in Super Mario Odyssey, but I'm still not convinced. A new bundle was wisely announced, with actual red Joy-Cons, and a carrying-case. I don't see the point in releasing a bundle when they can't stock the NS to begin with.