Here comes Nintendo to once again save the gaming industry from a tremendously shitty Not-E3 here in 2023. It’s actually crazy how subpar Not-E3 2023 has been, but here comes Nintendo flying in with what should be a great show because… I dunno, no one else was good, someone has to be.
I did actually watch this before writing any of this, because of reasons, and I even missed it live because of the same reasons, but let’s actually go through the show now. I do like going by Highlights and such, so I’m doing this here again. Highlights at different levels talking about my favorite parts of the show, down to the ones I liked least.
THE Highlights
There’s 2 games that light higher than the others, and it’s these guys.
Dragon Quest Monsters: The Dark Prince. This was recently announced in a japanese video as being “in development” with no footage shown, and I assumed that it would never come out here, like every DQM project after Joker 2… but lo and behold, here it is. With gameplay, and with it coming this year on December 1st. Fuck yeah! DQM is a fantastic spin-off series that doesn’t get the love it deserves, I’m happy this is coming. Definitely the big surprise of the show.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder sure is interesting. After literally 17 years (wtf) of 2D Mario being “New” Super Mario Bros, we finally have an actual NEW Super Mario Bros. It mostly ditches the “New” feel (almost giving me a Rayman Legends-ish vibe in some of its animations and level designs somehow), has way more personality and has some interesting gameplay ideas. They go absolutely crazy with the visuals here. Coming October 20, let’s fucking go!
The other highlights
Detective Pikachu Returns. They didn’t show gameplay, not too sure how it is since I didn’t play the first one… But it looks pretty cool and it’s been a long time since they announced it so I almost consider this a new announcement even if it isn’t. Coming October 6.
Super Mario RPG … Remake. I was actually gonna be a complete dick and put this into lowlights, because HOLY SHIT why is it a remake instead of a new game? Take these absolutely fucking badass graphics and make a new Mario RPG sequel! Come on Nintendo/Squeenix! … But yeah despite the unexcitingness of it being a remake, it still looks fucking amazing and it’s still Mario RPG and it’s awesome and I will buy it. And it’s coming November 17.
Untitled Peach Game… Please name it that by the way. Anyways, unfortunately they showed very little of it, but it’s been a LONG time since the last Peach game. Hopefully this is cool. Coming in 2024 though so there’s a bit of a wait.
Pikmin 4 doesn’t get put as a top highlight because it’s not a new announcement but man this trailer was fucking amazing. This game looks insanely good, way more than I expected.
I can’t read the title for this game that was shown only in the japanese Direct because there’s too much kanji in the title, but it seems the title is “Otogi Katsugeki Mameda no Bakeru: Oracle Saitarou no Sainan!!“. There was some stuff teased about this game years ago. This is somewhat reminiscent of the Goemon games, and is made by people who worked on the old Goemon games (Ebisu-san is working on it, he’s been on the series since the Famicom). Looks cool. Here’s the trailer!
The Maybelights
Sonic Superstars is a game that was in another of the not-E3 presentations and that trailer gave me weird vibes… But this trailer had a better feel, putting more focus on it being a single-player game. Might be good, I dunno, but I’ll give it a chance because I’m a desperate Sonic fan that will never learn to not buy shitty Sonic games. I really hope it’s good.
Persona 5 Tactica was shown at the Xbox thing, so it being here is a bit random. It does look cool though. It’s coming on the same day as the Super Mario RPG so that’s a bit unfortunate for it.
Penny’s Big Breakaway is a surprise here. It’s a 3D platformer made by the devs of Sonic Mania. It looks pretty cool. It certainly got my attention.
I mean, Star Ocean 2 is great and this remake coming out on November 2nd will probably be great if they didn’t fuck it up, but… eh. It’s a remake that doesn’t seem to change much of anything.
That pixel Uma Musume game looks pretty cool… This was in the Japanese Direct only, looks fun, probably won’t come out here. It gives me big River City vibes, and, based on the title, might actually have some relation to the Kunio-kun series (with the word “熱血” (Nekketsu) being in the title). Specifically the game known here as “Crash ‘n’ the Boys: Street Challenge”… Anyways, the trailer’s fun. *EDIT: It is getting a worldwide release*
The whatevers
Mythforce. First-person co-op… thing? Looks kinda cool but also it did nothing to grab my attention.
Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon remaster. It’s a remaster of the 3DS game. It was a good game. Yay? Also out in 2024.
Batman Arkham collection on Switch… I’ll be honest, I thought that was already a thing. How was it not? Asylum is the best of the bunch BTW, the sequels were fine but diluted the experience by putting it in a big empty open world for no reason at all, while Asylum kept the experience focused the whole time.
Gloomhaven. I dunno, I think this is a video game version of a board game? But more fancy? It’s probably fine.
Silent Hope looks like a roguelite action RPG that seems pretty generic. Doesn’t look bad but also wasn’t very impressive. I’m wavering between putting it in this category or the maybe category.
Faith Farm, Hot Wheels Unleashed 2 and Manic Mechanics were shown in a highlight reel, only Hot Wheels is interesting at all from those.
Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 1 is the same collection that was announced for other platforms. Okay.
Vampire Survivors is coming to Switch for some reason. Okay?
Headbangers is a battle royale rhythm game where you play as pigeons and it looks kinda eh.
The lowlights
Pokemon DLC… It’s DLC, who cares.
Palia… It looked boring as fuck. And it’s free-to-play so it’s probably garbage!
Announcing Splatfests in Directs is so random and weird, moreso when it’s for something as boring as ice cream flavours.
Just Dance 2024… is Just Dance. Who’s still buying this trash?
Mario Kart 8 DX wave 5 DLC… Is DLC, so who cares.
WarioWare Move It is Nintendo forgetting this isn’t the Wii anymore.
Where is Switch 2?
This is me being REALLY curious about the Switch 2, based on how this Direct went. Not because I’m one of those idiots freaking out about the Switch’s shit hardware even though they don’t even have a Switch (there’s a weird amount of those people on the internet, who don’t have anything better to do because the PS5 has no games). See, when Nintendo goes to a new gen, they tend to completely abandon their current platform for, like, 8 to 12 months before releasing their next platform. The Wii, as successful as it was, got its last first-party game (that wasn’t a 3-years-late limited-release localization, or a Kirby collection) in March 2012… The Wii U came out in November 2012. That’s 8 whole months of nothing first-party on the Wii before the Wii U.
The question here is… when’s this happening to the Switch? It seems they have no intention on abandoning the Switch… at all. They’re announcing 2024 games like it’s nothing, they announced plenty of stuff for this year… So I don’t think they’re gonna announce the Switch 2 this year at this point, even though I was previously pretty sure we’d see something soon… Maybe some time late next year, with a release in 2025?
Here’s the thing. Console development at Nintendo is a CONSTANT thing. They’re always doing SOMETHING for the next platform or two. Sometimes they’ll develop features intended for one console and shelve it until a later platform (for example, the 3D of the 3DS was originally developed for the Gamecube). So yes, the Switch 2 (or whatever they’ll call it) is in development and has been since at least around the time the Switch came out, if not earlier. A new console is clearly coming at some point soon. It’s only a question of when, but it seems we’re not getting that answer for a bit more time.
Clearly the Switch already had a bit EH hardware from the start (not bad for a handheld but not amazing either), but at this point it’s a bit too potato. It still does extremely well on some of the games that are thrown at it, considering how weak it is… but yeah, we’re getting to the point where new hardware would be pretty nice. There’s still games to play though, which is the important part.
Overall
2023 is jam packed for Nintendo, which is in large contrast of the competition. There was nothing post-Pikmin before this presentation, now it’s fucking full and there may be more that’s unannounced at the September Direct.
So yeah this presentation… It was pretty damn good. It could’ve just been Mario and Dragon Quest Monsters 3 and I would’ve been absolutely happy with the whole presentation and put it as the best of Not-E3 2023, but there was a bunch of other stuff too. Not that Nintendo is any good at pacing, a lot of the presentation was boredom waiting for actually-exciting stuff, but the exciting stuff sure was so good that it was clearly worth it.
I really don’t have much to complain about. Even the release dates were fine, because most of the games here are out this year. With so many of the other presentations being almost entirely 2024-focused for whatever reason, this was a nice change of pace.
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