Another one I dunno if I’ll post, we’ll see after the thing ends, see if I have any particularly big reactions or not. Or something to rant about like with the Playstation thingy where Sony had nothing to show. I will note I am writing this intro hours before the Direct starts.

There are rumors, but they’re very solid, because they literally come from Nintendo’s japanese website. Bayonetta 3 finally getting SOME real info would be solid, and I’m really curious about that Kirby game (Kirby Discovery of the Stars, I think that title is probably wrong). Outside of that leak, there’s lots of rumors for a new Xenoblade, I’m not putting a lot of stock into that one. And there’s some stuff like new systems added to NSO which… who cares, paying for online on a console is a scam.

I do have fairly low expectations overall for this Direct, but September directs always have some kind of big announcement. There’s definitely gonna be a bunch of stuff we already know about for some of the games coming out this year as well as some of the early-next-year stuff, the possibility of a Smash character reveal (though I could see that being later). We definitely won’t see Metroid Prime 4.

So it’s starting in a minute, let’s see if there’s something here, and after we’ll see if I’m even posting this. Let’s go!

Capcom presents… That looked like a Rathalos. That’s another dragon thingy. Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak. Okay, MHR DLC, fun. Summer 2022. Cool. Seems like there’s gonna be a pile of new stuff like new hunting actions, maps and monsters. Should be nice, the MH DLC expansions seem to be pretty sizeable.

Mario Party Superstars. Not likely to get it, but it looks like it should be fun. I still feel it should have more boards, there’s no reason it should have less than literally the first game in the series. This didn’t show much of interest.

A new RPG. Card-based I guess. Voice of Cards. Yeah, it’s a weird card-based RPG by Square Enix, it’s basically a turn-based RPG where the world is a big old grid of cards. It’s by Yoko Taro. Very Interesting. It’s out on October 28, okay. This is something I’ll probably get.

Disco Elysium. Whatever.

More stuff about Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity DLC. Not interested.

Chocobo Racing? The last time I saw that was on Playstation 1, right? Wow okay. It’s called Chocobo GP. Alright that’s a cool one, this looks legitimately pretty fun. 2022.

Smash! Well, there’s gonna be a Sakurai Presents on October 5th, cool I guess… but that was kinda nothing.

Kirby! I know that because of the leaked art. There he is, stranded on some beach. Oh man is this actually 3D? It is! Kirby and the Forgotten Land, the leaks had the wrong title (and I know why, it’s because incompetent game journalists don’t know the series is called Hoshi no Kirby in japanese). This looks really fucking interesting holy shit. Spring 2022. Very cool. This might actually redeem Kirby after the awful Star Allies.

Animal Crossing. I guess people are probably getting the update they wanted after so long. There’s a Direct for it in October for a free update in November, okay then. I don’t care.

Mario Golf Super Rush update. That games seems not very interesting unfortunately. This adds some extra characters and courses or whatever. Today. Not sure people care all that much.

Mickey Mouse… Disney Magical World 2… never heard about the first. This doesn’t seem… like a game… huh.

Knights of the Old Republic, the original non-ruined version, coming to Switch. Fun. November 11. Worth checking out if you’ve never played it, it’s gud.

Dying Light 2… cloud version. I’m not particularly hyped for the game itself (it looks fine), I’m much less interested in a shitty cloud version. And the first one is coming out (non-cloud) on October 19.

This is Triangle Strategy, which we had a demo for before. They seem to have improved some things since that demo. It’s coming March 4, 2022, cool.

Metroid Dread, I’m muting and hiding the stream until that part is over. Avoiding all spoilers for this, I’ve only ever watched the announcement trailer at E3. Nintendo seem to have been showing way too much of this game, happy I’ve been avoiding any info (other than one screenshot, which makes me kinda mad).

Nintendo Switch Online. Care level=0. Oh wow they’re trying to rip people off even more. For even more money, you can do exactly the same as before, but also play some N64 games… Okay. Who cares. And Genesis. Who cares. Look forward to getting ripped off more in October.

Anyways, collections or something.

Shadowrun Trilogy. Okay. Not super familiar with these, they look fine.

Castlevania Advance Collection which features the 3 GBA games and Castlevania Dracula X for some reason. Cool. Circle of the Moon is my favorite of that bunch, though Aria of Sorrow is definitely the best one there. Later today, very nice.

Actraiser? HD remaster of the original Actraiser, whoa. Actually crazy, definitely check this game out if you haven’t before, it’s awesome. Actraiser Renaissance… TODAY? WAT.

Deltarune Chapter 2, that’s out on PC already, assuming it’s just straight coming out to Switch today. Yup. Okay. No idea if it’s good.

Montage time! Hot Wheels (this game actually looks good). Surviving the Aftermath. SMTV. Wreckfest. Some Pac-man… Xevious… thing? Rune Factory 5 with a March 2022 release date (just hiding that release date in a montage for some reason, good one Nintendo…).

Miyamoto! Oh… Illumination. Bleh. The Mario movie is gonna be out in holiday 2022, in December. We’re seeing the cast, this feels like a random joke tweet on Twitter. Chris Pratt as Mario? Jack Black as Bowser? Seth Rogan as DK? Weird. And no trailer, okay. Well that was weird, show a game now please.

Ah, Splatoon 3. There was a mech in there. And some weird tentacle grappling superpower mode or something. This looks interesting, as per kinda usual Splatoon gameplay stuff. And a bit on the story mode. Mammals are making a comeback in the Splatoon world. I’m fine with this, would be more fine if online wasn’t paid on the Switch. As it is I’m not sure if I’m buying it.

Last trailer… Oh there it is, it’s Bayonetta! I think. Wait that’s the dog from Astral Chain… Oh okay it is Bayonetta 3, damn trolls… she looks fancy as fuck holy shit. I really like her new design. This looks way too fucking good. This seems to have some large focus on kaiju battles. And we have a vague 2022 date, so it is actually coming out in the near-ish future. Very nice.

Overall

So for a presentation to be good, it needs new announcements that are good, and release dates for interesting things. And there was a good amount of that here.

Objectively it was probably just okay, but the good parts are so good I do think for a lot of people this was probably a really good Direct.

Would’ve been nice to see the Smash character, for the Animal Crossing fans it would’ve been nice to just have even a preview, the Mario Party part seemed kinda not needed, Metroid Dread getting another trailer just feels weird because they’ve been putting out so much about that game, some of the things were just not interesting at all (Disney Magical World, Disco Elysium, Mario Golf update), the “this costs more for online” thing was dumb, the part about the Mario movie was just… random.

But the good parts were very good. Splatoon 3 still looks good, Voice of Cards looks really cool, Triangle Strategy has a release date so that’s nice, Chocobo GP looks good, Castlevania Advance Collection was cool and is out now, Actraiser Renaissance is literally out today and that’s one of the few times where I’d say a remaster is somewhat worth existing, Bayonetta 3 is actually coming out, that new 3D Kirby game looks fucking awesome, Rune Factory 5 kinda randomly getting a release date (blink and you miss it), the Monster Hunter Rise DLC announcement was kinda cool… Yeah, there was some good stuff there. Lots of things “out today”, some things out soon, and some things actually getting a real reveal.

I think this was good direct. The confirmation of Bayonetta 3 existing and that Kirby game alone make it really solid, but there’s a couple other small things in there that definitely help. I’ll call this an okay Direct that had some pretty awesome stuff in-between the meh. Good stuff overall.