Well yesterday we got the announcement of both a new Nintendo Direct (the first big one since early February) and, a bit later, a new State of Play. Because both are on the same day, I figure… let’s make them fight.

So here I’m going to do my usual for gaming presentations. I’ll give a bit of an intro, then for each I will post my LIVE reactions with my overall thoughts afterwards… and then we’ll make them fight, see which one was better.

I’m writing this intro and the next segment before the Nintendo Direct starts, that way I currently have no idea how well either of them did.

So let’s go!
Skip to Nintendo Direct
Skip to State of Play

Rumors/predictions/whatever

I am, again, writing this section before either presentation happened. Just getting that out of the way before watching.

On the Nintendo Direct side, there’s always a lot of random rumors and shit going on. There’s a recent rumor by literally-always-wrong “reliable” leaker Zippo about a 2D Mario game that sounds like it’s just poaching ideas from the upcoming movie. There’s the leftover rumor from last year (before E3) of a new 2D Donkey Kong that’s still making the round. There’s rumors of a Kid Icarus Uprising remaster/remake. There were “leaked” images of a potential new Fire Emblem game, I’ve seen no one “disproving” that so… maybe. And of course there’s 2 rumors have been around since 2017 (not counting Switch Pro, no one’s talking about this one for today). First of course is Wind Waker/Twilight Princess HD ports, this has been talked about for very long. Second is the weird double-rumor regarding Metroid Prime, this has 2 versions: first is the HD collection from Wii U getting ported, second is that Prime 1 is getting a full on remake. “Reliable” leakers seem to not be able to figure out which one it is. Oh and a leak just got on my radar like 7 minutes before the Direct so I’ll post this here just before the presentation starts, seems Kirby and the Rainbow Curse from the Wii U might be ported… weird if true (seems probably fake as it puts the release date on a sunday).

As to what I think we’ll see… I don’t really know. I’ll put a big old “maybe” on the guesses from “reliable leakers”, they’re all pretty obvious guesses so I wouldn’t be surprised. The way Nintendo writes their Direct announcements is always fairly specific. This one is “mostly focused on Nintendo Switch games launching this winter” means it’s gonna be games from December 21 to March 20 mostly, but there’s gonna be a bit of other stuff. I’m thinking a Bayonetta 3 trailer, and a reminder about a few things like Mario + Rabbids in a highlight real. Silksong probably will not be there as they’re a Game Pass thing at the moment. I think we’ll see a release period of Q1 for BOTW2 (with a title), I think a precise release date will be given later (unless it’s in January). It’s certainly been long enough since Three Houses that we should be getting some Fire Emblem thing soon-ish. It’s 40 minutes, so there’s time for a lot of shit. I do think there’s gonna be a shadowdrop or two, namely the Golf update for Switch Sports. Also wouldn’t be too surprised if we got a trailer for the Mario movie, which I have no interest in. Miyamoto said Pikmin 4 was almost done development 7 years ago… so maybe that exists.

On the Sony side… Playstation just seems less prone to fake leaks than Nintendo for some reason. So, TBH, there’s not much to talk about here. It’s 20 minutes, has 10 games (so a bit less than 2 minute per game since there’s some presentational shit), and seems to focus on PSVR2. VR games are ass 99% of the time, so excitement for this is very minimal. They also still mention PS4, so it seems like no exclusives are on the table here other than VR shit. I presume it’s all coming to PC at a later point too. I don’t know what we might see, and honestly I find it hard to get hyped considering all but one State of Play has been complete crap.

Anyways, the Nintendo Direct is about to start, let’s go!

Nintendo Direct live reactions

The land of Elios. Fell Dragon. That’s Fire Emblem for sure. They summon emblems to fight the dragon. So yeah that leak was just fully true, about the game summoning warriors from other worlds (calling them Emblems) and the 2 color hair protagonist. Fire Emblem Engage. Rare that leaks are this correct, but it did have screenshots and stuff. Looks good, looks like Fire Emblem. January 20, 2023. Pretty soon, cool!

It Takes Two. Pretty meh game overall that’s really just slightly interesting because it’s an okay co-op experience (not really because it’s particularly interesting on a gameplay design level). November 4.

Fatal Frame, it seems.  Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Looks like Fatal Frame. Early 2023. *Edit: I looked it up very quickly, this is a Wii Fatal Frame that never come out outside of Japan… so that’s pretty cool. I hear it was very glitchy so hopefully that’s fixed*

Xenoblade 3 DLC… Don’t care. Skiiiiiip.

This is a few quicker highlights. Spongebob Squarepants Cosmic Shake… That might be fun… It’s out next year. Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star… okay, lol. I’ll buy that, March 2023. Shitty arena fighter, it’s called Oddballers I guess. Tunic is getting its Switch port too, there you go. Still haven’t bought this game on PC.

Front Mission Remakes info! Front Mission 1st is out in November. 2 is next year. And 3 is getting a remaster too. Okay cool. These are good games, definitely check them out if you haven’t before.

It’s a wonderful life you say? Seems like a Harvest Moon/Story of Seasons thing… Yeah. I think this is a remake of a previous game, or it’s based on how that one worked. A Wonderful Life was on Gamecube, right? Anyways, Summer 2023.

Splatoon 3 stuff. Don’t care.

Squeenix. HD2D thing. Octopath Traveller… 2? Yeah, Octopath Traveler 2. Huh! Okay cool. First one was quite good. Nice. Looks great. February 24, 2023.

A Magical Home is waiting for you? That just sounds like another farm game. Yup, it’s a farm simulator RPG that looks like every other farm simulator RPG… Okay… Faefarm, Spring 2023, don’t care.

Theathrythm is getting a new game. Looks like a Theatrhythm game, fairly standard stuff. Features lots of music from lots of games. Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line. February 16, 2023. Neat!

Highlight for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope. It looks great but I’m avoiding watching as much as I can since I’m buying the game. Can’t wait!

Rune Factory 3 is getting a remaster. Okay, that’s 3 farming games so far, fuck off with this shit Nintendo. Actually, fuck off with this shit, game industry. 2023.

And they’re announcing a new “Rune Factory series”, whatever that means.

More N64 stuff for NSO, whatever. NSO is a scam, the drip feed content is fucking stupid. And there’s the big one, Goldeneye. Shame it’s locked behind a scam service.

Various Daylife, another squeenix RPG. Looks interesting, seems like a fairly standard thing. Wait it’s out today… Okay cool. *EDIT: This is apparently a mobile non-gacha game getting a switch port. Huh… still interested*

Factorio. It’s Factorio. October 28, fun. No mods though, I hear people like those on PC.

Ib is a classic RPG Maker horror game. It’s kinda cool.

Mario Strikers free update. I assume not much interesting, that game’s been not getting very favorable impressions so far.

Atelier Ryza 3. The final summer, he says. I guess they’re finally ending this series. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and the Secret Key. Atelier Ryza is pretty good stuff. Out February 24, 2023.

Mario Kart DLC Wave 3. Yawn.

Nintendo Switch Sports golf. Yay. Holiday, lol.

Mr Miyamoto, you say. Mario Movie mentioned, Super Nintendo World coming to Hollywood… Pikmin? Pikmin Bloom… Stop teasing us, please say Pikmin 4 is coming. No one cares about Pikmin Bloom. You can’t seriously tell me this is a Pikmin Bloom highlight. Hell naw.

Main event… Okay this is Pikmin 4. Finally! It was announced 7 years ago to be almost done development. It’s coming in 2023. They’re not giving a lot of info about it, we just saw a bit of environment. But a confirmation is okay.

Just Dance? Okay…

MOAR FARMING GAME. This is Harvestella which was announced at the last partner direct. Seems okay.

Bayonetta 3 trailer. It looks like a Bayonetta game. Not much was shown here, which I’m totally fine with. There’s gonna be a new trailer on the youtube channel that I won’t be watching.

That’s the Danganronpa art style. New game from the creators of Danganronpa.  Looks like a mystery adventure game where you play as a detective to solve cases, with some wacky surreal shit to deduct the truth. Master Detective Archives Raincode. Looks cool! 2023.

Resident Evil Village… cloud version. Fuck that! And other cloud versions  of other RE games too! Who cares! This is so fucking dumb.

Highlights! Sifu, fun. Crisis Core Reunion, I always forget this is coming out. December 13, I think that’s the first time we hear this date. Radiant Silvergun. It’s Radiant Silvergun, a classic shooter. Later today, fun. Endless Dungeon. I didn’t pay attention to that one. Oops.

Tales of Symphonia. They’re remastering it (or re-releasing a previous remaster? I’m not sure actually). Graphics look blurry AF. Kinda cool. Early 2023.

More highlights. Life is Strange. Romancing SaGa Minstrel Song Remastered. LEGO Bricktales. Disney Speedstorm. Fall Guys season 2. Only interesting one here was Romancing SaGa.

Kirby? What? Oh okay. Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe. A bit random. The game was fun though. February 24, 2023.

One last thing! Probably BotW2. Well the music is BotW-ish, and it looks like a mural you’d see in a Zelda game. It sure is Link climbing on shit. He seems to have a flying machine, very cool. It’s called Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. May 12, 2023. There you go. It has a release date! A bit later than I thought, but it’s not tooooooooooooooooooo far off now.

Nintendo Direct Overall

My immediate reaction to this one is… Eh, cool. It wasn’t mindblowing, but it was still pretty solid. Not one of the best directs unless you’re really into same-y farming games, but there’s a lot of cool stuff to look at here.

Pikmin 4 FINALLY being announced after 7 years of Miyamoto telling us it’s almost done is nice. Fire Emblem Engage looks good and is coming soon. Tears of the Kingdom looks cool still and we have a release date which is awesome. Atelier Ryza 3 should be good as usual. Theatrhythm is a fun one to bring back. Octopath Traveler 2 was a great unexpected announcement. Master Detective Archives Raincode looks interesting. Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star is fucking funny and I will buy it.

There were plenty of new announcements including one shadowdrop that looks kinda cool maybe *Edit: yeah apparently it sucks, oh well*. There’s a few reminders for previously announced things including a release date for Crisis Core (which wasn’t announced before this, I checked). Front Mission getting a release date is good.

So here I count: ~13 entirely new announcements (I’m counting Fatal Frame since it never came out outside of Japan), ~9 ports from other consoles depending on how you count it, a lot of release dates, and a few updates to existing/known games… and a few I’m not entirely sure about (like Faefarm, never heard of it).

Sony will have trouble measuring up to this with just 10 games, some of which they said will be VR crap.

State of Play live reactions

Tekken. Visually it looks absolutely great. I know Tekken fans have been waiting for a long time for info. Tekken 8, coming… eventually. This is pretty exciting.

Star Wars Tales from the Galaxy’s Edge Enhanced Edition… I’m not expecting anything even close to decent from Disney Star Wars. It’s a shitty VR game for the Oculus Quest, coming to PS5. This is very not exciting. 2023.

This is some… grid-based strategy game? In VR? With dice? I have no idea what this is meant to be, but I certaintly don’t expect this to be worth playing. Demeo. Okay. No release date or year or anything.

Sega, a game coming to the west for the first time, remade from the ground up.  This is definitely Yakuza in the Edo period. That’s literally just Kiryu with a sword. Like a Dragon: Ishin. Cool beans! February 2023. *Edit: This is a remake of a PS3/PS4 Yakuza game I just never heard about*

Is this just a trailer for the Hogwarts game? Okay then. I don’t care! Not sure why this was shown?

I don’t know what this is. Car driving in a pretty desolate road. The car does give me some vague Ghostbusters vibes actually. There’s lots of stuff smashing the car into weird things. It’s called Pacific Drive… No idea what this is really meant to be. 2023. Excitement: 0.

Playstation Stars? Did I miss some stupid Playstation thing again. Are those NFTs? I’m confused. Anyways…

Robots. Cute flying animu girl. The mech is mining crystals and fighting animals and other robots. It’s called… SynDuality. I’d love to have a better idea what this actually is. 2023.

Oh they’re promising PS5 console exclusives… That means PC games. Oh, it’s that cool action game with the girl wearing tight clothes. That looks fun to paly.  Those boobs physics are out of control, very nice. Project Eve… Oh, they’ve renamed it to… Stettar Blade? Stellar Blade? How am I supposed to read this atrocious font? Anyways, looks really cool. 2023. *Edit: it’s meant to be Stellar Blade, but that font is no good*

Next is a Koei Tecmo game. Another old era japanese game. Team Ninja! Lots of cool sword fighting shit going on. Rise of the Ronin. 202-FUCKING-4. The fuck are you doing Sony, announcing games for 2024? Fucking morons.

And this is just an unneeded God of War Ragnarok trailer. It sure looks like the last game with nothing different gameplay-wise. That’s fine I guess, it was a very okay game.

State of Play Overall

Well, this was a better State of Play than most. I can actually point to 5 interesting games, which is more than all State of Plays before this, combined.

Stellar Blade is the highlight for me, Like a Dragon: Ishin is definitely the actual highlight, Tekken 8 is something the fanbase has been waiting for for a good while, and there’s a few maybes like SynDuality and Rise of the Ronin.

The VR shit was shit. God of War didn’t need anymore trailers until launch and the trailer wasn’t particularly impressive. No idea why Hogwarts was there. Pacific Drive wasn’t convincing at all. But the good stuff did look pretty good. But these are all 2023 games other than God of War, and announcing a 2024 game now is extremely stupid… but hey, I can’t be too mad when a State of Play is actually decent.

But I can’t place the praise on Sony for this since none of the interesting games were games they’re making.

Oh, and all the interesting games are coming to PC, so whatever man. PS5 still not worth buying for another year or two, still.

Who wins?

Nintendo. Yeah, pretty straightforward. But, unlike my expectations, Sony actually did better than I thought. Nintendo just had way more stuff, more exciting announcements, and stuff that might actually come out soon. Sony… had Yakuza and jiggle physics: the game. Which are pretty exciting. But when you have ~13 completely new announcements and plenty of interesting other pieces of info and release dates in one presentation, and the other presentation has 3 exciting games and 2 maybes and nothing else, it doesn’t quite compare.

Yeah, this was a pretty okay set of presentations. Decent stuff all around. I was expecting an all-out rant but I’m pretty positive about both this time. Just more positive about the Direct.