Instead of giving a blow by blow description of the direct (which you can watch here), I thought I would give some of my thoughts about certain games that were (or weren’t) shown.
Zelda
There were tons of Zelda announcements. The one that stuck out for me was Twilight Princess HD amiibo bundle. The game itself has been rumored for a while now, so that wasn’t too surprising, but the wolf amiibo it comes with certainly was – very cool!
However, the fact that they only showed about 5 seconds of footage for Zelda Wii U further cements my notion that it’ll end up being an NX launch title. Disappointing that they didn’t talk about it more.
Pokemon
Pokemon had plenty of screen time as well. Pokken, a Tekken-like fighting game, looks promising as well as Pokemon Picross. The star of the show of course are the upcoming virtual console releases of Blue, Red, and Yellow. While there are roms readily available for these titles, the eshop versions allow you to trade Pokemon with friends just like in the original release. Some Pokemon can only be obtained by trading with friends, so unaltered roms will lock you out of obtaining them. I’m personally excited to play through Pokemon Blue again.
Dragon Quest
Western Dragon Quest fans have it quite rough to say the least. There have been over half a dozen Dragon Quest releases on the Nintendo 3ds that have not been localized. In fact, I strongly considered importing a Japanese 3ds just so I could play them. You can only imagine how excited I was when I saw that not one but two are getting localized next year: Dragon Quest VII and Dragon Quest VIII. Words cannot describe how excited I am for them.
Super Smash Bros
Many people were expecting Super Smash Bros news and boy did we get it. Cloud from Final Fantasy VII has been confirmed as an upcoming playable character. While Final Fantasy VII itself never made it to a Nintendo platform, Cloud has appeared in several Nintendo based games like Final Fantasy Theatrhythm and Kingdom Hearts Chain of Memories among others. VII is one of my favorites of the series, so he is a more than welcome addition in my book. There’s also a new stage based off of the city of Midgar – can’t wait to play it.
Metroid
I haven’t made this very apparent on here yet, but I am a huge Metroid fan. I would go as far to say that it’s my favorite video game franchise ever and Zero Mission is my favorite game ever made. The series has been placed on a back burner ever since Other M flopped both commercially and critically (I honestly enjoyed it more than most people). There has been the occasional virtual console release, Nintendoland minigame, and cameo appearance (Dead or Alive Dimensions, Smash Bros, etc.), but there hasn’t been a new standalone release since 2010. Last E3, Metroid Federation Force was announced and garnered an overwhelmingly negative reaction. In fact, 20,000 people signed a petition to cancel the project within three days of the announcement, and the Youtube trailer has over 80,000 dislikes.
So what I’m trying to get at is there was absolutely no mention of Metroid in the direct. Nintendo showed off material they’re planning to release next year, so why wasn’t Federation Force shown in more detail? It leads me to believe that its either been cancelled or will re-emerge in a heavily altered state later on.
ho7mes Tech & Tunes 