I watched most of tonight's Nintendo Direct at the gym this evening. Unfortunately the gym's Wi-Fi is pretty shit so I had to reload the stream literally every two minutes, so I'm sure I missed a few little snippets here and there, but I caught most of it.
It was a pretty strong presentation all round, and if there's one thing I could take away from it, it is that Nintendo is serious about acknowledging not just its own past, but gaming's past in general.
This is obviously most apparent in the long-expected Super Nintendo app for Nintendo Switch Online, which I'm happy to finally see become a reality, but also in the fact that we're getting rereleases of Deadly Premonition, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE and Xenoblade Chronicles. I'm not sure I'll bite on these when they come out unless they have some sort of significant extra content as I already own them all on their original platforms, but it's great that a new generation will be able to enjoy these titles, as they're all fantastic.
Biggest surprise of the event for me had to be Deadly Premonition 2; as much of a cult hit as the original was, I didn't expect it to ever get a sequel. Mind you, the stuff SWERY has been working on since then has been well-received — particularly The Missing, which I still need to try at some point — and so it's probably given publishers a bit more confidence in him and made him seem like less of a risky prospect. He's also become quite well-known on social media in both Japanese- and English-speaking parts of the Internet, whereas when Deadly Premonition originally came out it was still early days for interacting with each other online in general, so he wasn't as much of a "household name", if that's the right term for him.
It was cool to see some more Pokémon, too; Pokémon Masters is getting me nicely in the mood for Sword and/or Shield, and the features shown off tonight looked cool. I love that there's a Currydex now — if you needed any further proof that the Galar region is heavily Britain-inspired, there it is!
Even Animal Crossing looked vaguely interesting this time around. The addition of a crafting component immediately adds more of a "game" element to it, whereas in past installments I've always struggled to see the point of anything. Being able to actually collect materials and craft things from them adds a feeling of "progression" to the game that previous installments have always felt like they were lacking to me personally; I know I'm in a minority on this, however! Still doubt I'll pick it up as I've been burned twice on buying into Animal Crossing hype at this point, but we'll see what people have to say when it eventually releases. My wife will almost certainly grab it, so I might grab a glimpse over her shoulder while she plays.
One thing that did strike me during the presentation is what a massive waste of time the chat function for any sort of large-scale livestream is. I don't know why YouTube has it turned on by default, because it's just a wall of constantly moving text that you never have time to read, and most of it is people spamming emotes or going "DON'T CARE" anyway. Hardly meaningful discussion!
Anyway, that aside, it was a strong showing from Nintendo, and it looks like the rest of the year is going to be good for them — and onward into 2020. The Switch really is going from strength to strength; it's like a repeat of the good old Wii days, with Nintendo having the least powerful hardware but some of the most interesting and exciting games out there!
Enough excitement for today. Time to sleep! Have a pleasant evening!
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