Saturday, April 20, 2013

Last Wednesday's Nintendo Direct Impressions.

Iwata and pals showed up once more to deliver juicy reveals about the incoming stuff for the Nintendo 3DS, and... my GOD. Somehow I think this one might have found the receipe to keep the attention of both old Nintendo attenders and new gamers. For me, this surely helps out planning how to properly stab my wallet waiting until the next E3's venture, with loads of stuff that people waited for a pretty long time. The whole Direct presentation can be seen here:



But enough texting! Here's how I sorted the stuff revealed yesterday:

THE AWESOME


All in all you're just / another Link in the wall...

Sequel Fever: A new Yoshi's Island for Nintendo 3DS is in the works. The next portable Legend of Zelda adventure has been revealed for 3DS and it's scened in Link to the Past's world. WHERE'S THAT GODDAMMIT PIGGY BANK WHEN I NEED IT

More Year of the Luigi: Aside from the hilarity ensued by the Mario and Luigi costumes, all the stuff previously announced on the Valentine Direct for Mario's green twin brother has been featured again with new video footage, release dates (we'll discuss of this later) and the introduction of a new Mario Party game.  I think this will be enough to let people finally forget Mario is Missing. Am I right? *runs*

Nintendo 3DS/Wii Direct: From the beginning, Nintendo has labeled this Direct as a 3DS edition about the handheld's gaming panorama, but the Wii U stuff also had its fair share of spotlight, with more details about the next system update (which will be live next week), the New Super Luigi Bros. U DLC adventure, Virtual Console's return and the introduction of a new type of Pikmin for the namesake franchise's third game, coming up this summer. Nice to see some Wii U manna after some relatively-deserted months for the console.

THE GOOD

...WHY only Japan can have this?!?

Release Dates: Another jolly parade of release dates for the next 4-5 months! It doesn't matter if you live in Japan or you are waiting the localization of your 1st-party 3DS game; lots of games now have their launch dates (and boxart, most of the cases) as bright as the sun's light. Plus, it will be possible to buy those titles as bundled in a customized 3DS XL as well!

Fan Service (Not the One with Lots of Perviness): It's nice to see that the pleas of many Nintendo players have been listened by Nintendo, as Earthbound and the two twin Legend of Zelda GB Color games (Oracle of Seasons and Oracle of Ages) will be part of European/American Wii U's eShop service somewhere in 2013, as well as the localization of the Square Enix RPG Bravely Default: Flying Fairy. What an upbeat streak for RPG fans!

DKC Returns + : Another nice thing to see is that the 3DS reharsh of Retro Studios's Donkey Kong Country Returns for Nintendo Wii will feature more than a simple "3D" sticker on the cover. An easier game mode for more casual playing -the New Mode- and a whole new world after the main adventure is over can be worth of a shot even for who already has played the game on Wii.

THE BAD

:
C'mon, spot the differences! It's a fun game for the family.

Retrospective... a bit Retro: Sadly, what I told to you in the Good section is only the abridged version of the reveal's build-up, which consisted in... speaking again about the core of the game. For a good 1-2 minutes. Since this is a remake of a videogame we already know from about 3 years, why to waste time by telling us things we already know from the past game? The new stuff they wanted to say today is still here, but we had to wait for a good chunk of filler moments before it.

No mention of (some) major titles: Directs have been a good vehicle so far for advertising other companies's games as well, like for Level-5's future 3DS eShop games and the final Professor Layton game's release outside Japan. However, some other games are still silent in the NA/EU fronts, like the Professor Layton x Phoenix Wright crossover videogame, always from Level-5. We users don't threat the companies for more details in merit at any cost, but at least state if these games will have a chance to reach other countries as well! It's better than the 'gaming limbo' we experience in similar situations...

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FINAL DIRECT: 4/5 STARS

Nitpicking aside, this has been a great Nintendo Direct for me, as it not only continued the job of the past "episodes" but also proved that they tend to listen to the people's requests for the consoles in order to have fun even more than now. Only two months are between us and the next E3 event, but I'm already sky high towards the future with this additional lineup refresh.

Lokamp out.

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