Nin­tendo Di­rect

MISHAWAKA – This past Wednes­day, Feb. 9, there was a Nin­tendo Di­rect.

De­spite not hav­ing a big Nin­tendo Di­rect for quite a while, this re­cent one sur­passed all ex­pec­ta­tions for me. The biggest news, in my opin­ion, was the last an­nounce­ment they made, but I will get to that in due time.

The Di­rect opened with a trailer for Fire Em­blem: Three He­roes. Though it will take place in the same game uni­verse as Fire Em­blem: Three Houses, it changes the genre from a quasi-real-time-strat­egy game into a hack-and-slash Dy­nasty War­riors game. There were a few shots of cutscenes and game­play seg­ments from the game, as well as a re­lease date. As far as the story is con­cerned, there was very lit­tle to piece to­gether from this sin­gle an­nounce­ment trailer, but given that it is re­leas­ing quite soon – June 24, to be ex­act – fans can ex­pect to see a bunch more de­tails in the up­com­ing months.

The next big an­nounce­ment was the re­veal for a new en­try in the much-loved Mario Strik­ers se­ries: Mario Strik­ers Bat­tle League. These games see Mario and pals head to the pitch for a chaotic 5v5 match of what was, at one point, soc­cer. Filled with flashy spe­cial moves, ag­gres­sive tack­les, and elec­tri­fy­ing bound­ary walls, the game brings much of the fre­netic en­ergy from the pre­vi­ous en­try. How­ever, some fans crit­i­cize it for its lack of style, call­ing the an­i­ma­tion “soul­less.” Whether this is rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the game in its cur­rent state or if the graphic de­sign is set in stone, plenty of peo­ple are just ex­cited to have an­other Mario Strik­ers game, es­pe­cially one on the Switch. Mario Strik­ers Bat­tle League will re­lease on June 10 of 2022.

Fol­low­ing Bat­tle League, there was some footage of Spla­toon 3’s Next Wave of its co-op PVE mode, called Salmon Run. The se­quence show­cased the new bosses, weapons, maps, and even some new moves for the Inklings and Oc­tol­ings to pull off while fight­ing wave af­ter wave of Salmonids. Spla­toon 3 is set to re­lease some­time in sum­mer of 2022.

Anx­ious fans of the up­com­ing Kirby: The For­got­ten Land were treated to a trailer of Kir­by’s new abil­i­ties, as well as footage of more new lo­cales and lo­cals. The abil­ity that seems to have taken the In­ter­net by storm is Kir­by’s new “mouth­ful mode;” a name that re­ally should have gone through at least three fo­cus groups be­fore re­lease. As un­set­tling as it ap­pears, the abil­ity seems to al­low Kirby to al­most-swal­low sev­eral ob­jects around the is­land – cars, traf­fic cones, and vend­ing ma­chines were shown – and morph his body around them, mim­ic­k­ing their shape. In the case of a traf­fic cone, Kirby can aim the pointy end to­wards cracked walls, pipes, and floors; by in­hal­ing a vend­ing ma­chine, Kirby can spit out cans to dam­age en­e­mies; and by al­most-swal­low­ing a car, Kirby can zoom around fast enough to bash foes out of his way. Kirby: The For­got­ten Landre­leases on Mar. 25, 2022.

In ad­di­tion to new game an­nounce­ments, Nin­tendo also showed some of the new ports and col­lec­tion edi­tions that are com­ing to Switch. No Man’s Sky, Por­tal Com­pan­ion Col­lec­tion, King­dom Hearts In­te­grum Mas­ter­piece, and MLB: The Show 22. Sev­eral games will also be re­ceiv­ing free up­dates or paid DLC re­leases shortly, ei­ther stand­alone or part of Nin­ten­do’s pre­mium on­line sub­scrip­tion: Metroid: Dread, Tri­an­gle Strat­egy, Earth­bound, and Cup­head. Mario Kart 8 Deluxe will also be re­ceiv­ing a paid DLC, the Booster Course Pass, fea­tur­ing 48 clas­sic courses with up­dated de­signs and mu­sic. Those who are al­ready part of the pre­mium on­line sub­scrip­tion will re­ceive the Booster Course Pass at no ad­di­tional cost when the first wave re­leases on Mar. 18, 2022.

For those that re­mem­ber the stone-cold clas­sics Wii Sports and Wii Sports Re­sort, the Switch will be get­ting its own sports ti­tle: Nin­tendo Switch Sports. The game fea­tures three sports from the pre­vi­ous ti­tles – bowl­ing, ten­nis, and sword-fight­ing (now re­named “cham­bara”) – and three new ones: soc­cer, bad­minton, and vol­ley­ball. Later down the line, there will be a free up­date in­clud­ing the golf game as well. Nin­tendo Switch Sports al­lows for lo­cal mul­ti­player with friends and fam­ily on the same sys­tem as well as on­line mul­ti­player. Speak­ing of, from Feb. 18 to Feb. 20, Nin­tendo will be host­ing an on­line play test that will fea­ture the three old games: ten­nis, bowl­ing, and cham­bara; an on­line mem­ber­ship is re­quired for par­tic­i­pa­tion. Fol­low­ing the play test, Nin­tendo Switch Sports will re­lease on April 29, 2022.

Fi­nally, the last ma­jor an­nounce­ment for the Di­rect was one very close to my heart: Xenoblade Chron­i­cles 3. I have been a fan of the Xenoblade Chron­i­cles se­ries ever since 2015, af­ter I was in­tro­duced to the pro­tag­o­nist of the first game in Smash 4. Then, in 2017, I was in­cred­i­bly ex­cited to learn that there would be a new game in the se­ries that was not con­tin­u­ing the, at the time, re­cently made Xenoblade Chron­i­cles X’s story. Xenoblade Chron­i­cles 2 is eas­ily my fa­vorite game of the se­ries, closely fol­lowed by Xenoblade Chron­i­cles 1 with X not-so-close be­hind it. That said, the fact that this new game is in­cor­po­rat­ing game­play, story, and de­sign el­e­ments from both 1 and 2, fea­tures a con­joined world from the two games, and has some fa­mil­iar char­ac­ters, Xenoblade Chron­i­cles 3 is set­ting it­self up to be a slam-dunk for me. The best part for me, though, is that this slam-dunk of a game re­leases in seven months: Sep. 2022. Though that is not a proper re­lease date, given how ex­ten­sive these games are to de­velop, and con­sid­er­ing that there has been no more than a five-year gap be­tween en­tries, I feel fairly con­fi­dent in say­ing that this game is un­likely to suf­fer from de­lay.

In all, this was a fan­tas­tic Nin­tendo Di­rect for gamers to sink their teeth into, leav­ing them hun­gry for more in­for­ma­tion on up­com­ing games or their re­lease dates. I, per­son­ally, will be count­ing down the days to au­tumn, at which point I will dis­ap­pear from the face of the planet for a good few hun­dred hours; it is a JRPG, af­ter all.