Re­view: Nin­tendo Di­rect Mini

MISHAWAKA – Mar. 26 saw Nin­tendo re­lease one of its minia­ture game pre­sen­ta­tions ad­ver­tis­ing all the news sur­round­ing the com­pany. 

Though it has­n’t been a long time since the last Nin­tendo Di­rect, fans have been clam­or­ing for one for quite some time; this is un­der­stand­able. If every­one is stuck in­side for a while, they might as well play a few games. Nin­tendo, at the be­gin­ning of the pre­sen­ta­tion, an­nounced that sev­eral of the fol­low­ing games’ re­lease dates and de­vel­op­ment times had to be ex­tended for ob­vi­ous rea­sons, but many of the ma­jor ti­tles are nearly upon us. 

The opener for the Di­rect Mini was Xenoblade Chron­i­cles De­fin­i­tive Edi­tion. It’s just as well Nin­tendo did this; Xenoblade fans are among the most starved for game news among the Nin­tendo com­mu­nity, go­ing 204 days with­out any in­for­ma­tion for the up­com­ing game. I know this num­ber pre­cisely be­cause there are sev­eral Twit­ter ac­counts ded­i­cated to count­ing the days since the last an­nounce­ment for the game, and I re­ceive alerts from those ac­counts. 

Every­thing is peachy be­cause view­ers were treated to four min­utes of in­for­ma­tion on the new game; al­most all of it hereto­fore was un­seen. The new menus and user-in­ter­face of the game were put on full dis­play, new ar­eas of the game were re­vealed, and ex­tra story con­tent was an­nounced. Fi­nally, Xenoblade fans can have some­thing to look for­ward to be­cause the re­lease date was re­vealed: May 29 of this year. 

Fol­low­ing Xenoblade Chron­i­cles, Nin­tendo pre­sented sev­eral games that were com­ing to the Switch, namely: Bioshock In­fi­nite, Bor­der­lands, and XCOM 2. These games are what Nin­tendo calls, “2K’s fa­vorite games,” and I’d be hard-pressed to dis­agree, as those are some of the most widely lauded video games in the com­mu­nity with size­able fan­bases be­hind each. Though none of these games are be­ing re­mas­tered, their pres­ence and that of sim­i­lar games proves the ver­sa­til­ity and suc­cess of the Switch. 

An ex­cit­ing an­nounce­ment for An­i­mal Cross­ing fans was the re­veal for the first sea­sonal event. The first event, Bunny Day, the An­i­mal Cross­ing world’s equiv­a­lent of Easter, will be­gin on Apr. 1 and con­tinue un­til Apr. 12. This event was patched into the game in the launch date up­date and in­tro­duces a Zip­per T. Bunny to play­ers’ is­lands. The event even con­sists of an Easter egg hunt for all the eggs Zip­per hid, which can be used to craft egg-themed items. One more event is sched­uled for April, Earth Day, and it will be in­cluded in a free up­date, ac­com­pa­nied by some new fea­tures. 

Later on, sev­eral other, un­re­leased games were demon­strated, like Shin­sekai: Into the Depths, Good Job!, and Club­house Games. Shin­sekai is a 2.5D, un­der­wa­ter plat­former, star­ring the player as the last mem­ber of the hu­man race, who ex­plores the depths of the Earth af­ter the planet has been rav­aged by dis­as­ter.  

Good Job! is a slap­stick of­fice sim­u­la­tor where the player must com­plete a se­ries of tasks, de­liv­er­ing items, main­te­nance, and jan­i­to­r­ial ser­vices, us­ing what­ever meth­ods they see fit, with cau­tion thrown to the wind, much like their pay­check af­ter the less-than-stel­lar per­for­mance.  

Club­house Games is a col­lec­tion of fifty-one in­cred­i­bly pop­u­lar table­top games rang­ing from Speed to Mahjong, Chess to Chi­nese Check­ers, and from Air Hockey to Dots and Boxes, even fea­tur­ing a, and I can­not stress this enough, LEGALLY DIS­TINCT ver­sion of Con­nect 4, called Four In A Row. 

There were plenty more games re­vealed in the Di­rect mini, but this lit­tle overview is enough to get fans started. With sev­eral new re­leases an­nounced, as well as a plethora of con­tent for the al­ready re­leased ti­tles, Nin­tendo is tak­ing full ad­van­tage of its al­most-lit­er­ally cap­tive au­di­ence.