Ah Nintendo, it wasn’t too long ago that everyone made fun of you for making the most backwards decisions possible. While you still make some absolutely bonkers choices, you’ve earned a ton of goodwill since the Switch launched. Personally, I want to know more about Animal Crossing, Super Mario Maker 2, and hopefully some information on the future of Nintendo’s online service, whether that’s new NES games or even SNES or N64 stuff to their offering.
Well, let’s see how wrong I was about all of this, and shine the light on Nintendo, for this, the last of our conference coverage for the week.
SUPER SMASH BROS. ULTIMATE
What better way to kick off E3 than by announcing a new character for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. Or maybe 6 characters? They weren’t incredibly clear about how many characters are joining the fight, but my guess is it’s just one character with a couple of different costumes.
Oh, it’s a Dragon Quest character, probably should’ve mentioned that. For those of you still playing Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, I hope this is what you wanted. Another anime character in Smash. I hear the Smash community loves those.
LUIGI’S MANSION 3
I never had the chance to play the second Luigi’s Mansion on the 3DS, and in the face of this announcement, I now realize how upset I am by that fact. Luigi’s Mansion 3 looks so charming and pleasant, adding in a bunch of new features in terms of ghost hunting and multiplayer modes.
I always appreciated how Nintendo was able to make a lighthearted game in a spooky setting while also constantly just giving Luigi the short end of the stick. I look forward to it releasing later this year.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: LINK’S AWAKENING
Here’s another one I never got to play, back when it made it’s initial debut. The top down, 2D Zelda games never did the trick for me like the 3D ones, but this one looks so darn cute and adorable, that I’m willing to give this game a shot.
Also, they’re putting in a dungeon maker mode? I hope this is the backdoor pilot to Nintendo actually releasing a full Zelda maker in the vein of Mario Maker. It’ll be out on September 20th, 2019, and I will certainly be getting it.
THE WITCHER 3
It’s impressive as hell that they managed to put The Witcher 3 on the Switch and I don’t want to detract from that. But I’ve spoken about The Witcher 3 before, and while I do genuinely like the game, I don’t know that the Switch version is going to be the best way to experience it. That game had trouble playing on modern consoles as is, and I can’t imagine what it will be like on the Switch. Otherwise it’s a fantastic game that I ended up turning on god mode for most of.
Hopefully it works great and people can enjoy that game on the go. It’s due out later this year.
NO MORE HEROES 3
I have a confession, I’ve never played a No More Heroes game, but I’ve always heard good things about the series, but never got a chance to play it. I have no idea what to expect from the third title, but from my understanding, they’re traditionally fun third person action games. I think it also is a game that has attitude, for whatever that’s worth. With a nebulous 2020 release date, we’ll see how it shapes up.
ASTRAL CHAIN
From what I can gather, in this cool looking action game, you capture the enemies you’re fighting to use their abilities in combat. It looks cooler than I’m describing. You’re basically fighting these big monsters, throwing a chain at them, and then taking control of them at utilizing their abilities in combat while you’re chained to them.
It sounds interesting enough. It comes out on August 30th of this year.
MARVEL ULTIMATE ALLIANCE 3
I always had a hard time getting into the Ultimate Alliance games for various reasons, and lower on that list was the camera angle. I know that the point of the game is to see your allies and cooperate with them, but it always left me feeling a little disconnected from the action on screen. This one seems to have a more traditional 3rd person camera angle while continuing to trade in the same basic action loop the past games did.
Otherwise, I’ve always enjoyed the pitch of the Ultimate Alliance games. All of these superheroes team up to fight an even bigger baddie. It’s a simple concept, but one that manages to hook me every time.
It comes out on July 19th, and I will certainly be checking it out.
ANIMAL CROSSING NEW HORIZONS
Welcome to my deserted island that’s overrun by enterprising raccoons. Animal Crossing New Horizons looks incredible, not only visually, but mechanically. It seems like it’s going for a slightly more survival focused gameplay loop. The player crafted a “flimsy axe” which leads me to believe there’s gonna be some sort of item degradation in it. Also there seemed to be an emphasis on changing weather, which I’m into.
This is all just me speculating, but it seems like they’re trying to add more emphasis on moment to moment gameplay, making you think about your items and needs in the short term, as opposed to just thinking about long term goals.
It’s a shame that it isn’t coming this year, but it won’t be too much longer of a wait, considering it releases in March of 2020.
BANJO KAZOOIE!
They’re putting Banjo-Kazooie in Smash. Everyone can finally shut up and be cool for once… right? This is great, everyone has been clamoring for this for a long time, and it was this inevitable thing that just needed to happen already. They’ll be added to the game this fall.
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: BREATH OF THE WILD SEQUEL
In what could be the spookiest announcement of the conference, a sequel to 2017’s monumental Breath of the Wild, was announced to be in development. It’s safe to assume that it’s going to play just like Breath of The Wild, so if you didn’t like that, too bad. That’s really it for info, but it’s exciting nonetheless.
More exciting is the prospect of how Nintendo hopes to recapture what made Breath of The Wild so engaging in the first place. The sense of discovery and exploration was incredible, but if we’re traipsing around the same map, I wonder how that sentiment holds up. I’d like to see maybe a new map, or a map so remixed it’s barely recognizable. Also, I think it’s time to let us play as Zelda.
Without a trace of Bayonetta, Metroid, new hardware or any info on their online service, some could look at this presentation as a whiff. I thought this presentation was great though. Still upset about Animal Crossing and it being delayed, but whatever. Nintendo’s lineup for this year looks great.
And that’s it folks. Thanks for riding with us for these conference overviews. There should be some more E3 coverage this week, but not a ton more. After all, I am in New York and can only do so much, but thank you again for sticking with us. See you around.
The Bonus World 