There’s the usual February Nintendo Direct. I am gonna react to it. Whoa! So yes I am writing this intro before actually watching the Direct. It could be the most hype Direct ever, it could… not be. I have no idea, and I have no real expectations.

The rumor mill was a bit dry, but got a bit better… 2 hours before the Direct. There’s the Advance Wars rumors which are kinda dumb (the SKU changed on the eshop so people think that means it’s coming out right away, the other is a random wal-mart employee saying he saw a standee with a February 10 release date for it but provided no proof)… possible, but not likely based on why Nintendo indefinitely delayed the game. There was a bit of an “oof” rumor from Exputer saying they saw video evidence of a remake of Baten Kaitos, though this rumor is weirdly contradicted by this image just popping out a bit before the Direct showing a remaster collection of Baten Kaitos 1 and 2 rather than a remake of the first (could be faked of course). So either way, that’s possible. And that’s about it as far as anything interesting and new. There’s a Syluxhunter thing from last year about some F-Zero related thing, though no timing or details were given for that so… eh. Oh and there’s the whole TotK 70$ price and Metroid Prime 4 appearing/disappearing from online stores kinda randomly, I don’t think that’s particularly useful info as far as content… but it WOULD be bullshit if Nintendo upped the price of their games.

As far as expectations, I’m expecting Tears of the Kingdom to be shown very briefly, I feel it will be a bit more of a tease, leading to a separate Direct just for that game closer to release. I’m expecting something about Pikmin. I’m expecting to not see Metroid Prime 4. And I’m expecting DLC stuff for Fire Emblem, Mario Kart and maybe Splatoon. So that’s a good 5-8 minutes of the 40 that was announced accounted for, which means there’s a lot of time which could just be anything. And also Samba de Amigo since that popped up just a bit before the Direct started, no excitement for that.

So as usual, I’ll be giving short comments about everything in the presentation, and finish it off with my overall thoughts.

Let’s go!

The Reaction

Starting with a trailer… That looks like a Pikmin thing. Yup. I think ice pikmin are new, that’s fun. And there’s a doggo! It’s worth 10 pikmin when moving things, and it can smash things and you can ride him to swim over places… that’s really fucking versatile. Yeah this game is looking fucking good. July 21st 2023, nice.

Xenoblade 3 DLC… who gives a fuck. Don’t buy DLC.

There’s Samba de Amigo, this just went out before the Direct so we knew it. It looks like a Samba de Amigo game. I’m not interested. Summer 2023.

Fashion Dreamer… Boy they’re going with the HARD HITTERS today. Yeah this looks lame. It’s out this year. Okay.

Dracula’s Castle? Oh it’s the Castlevania DLC for Dead Cells. Looks pretty cool. March 6th.

TRON: Identity… it’s a visual novel. Looks pretty bad.

GHOST TRICK? Well it’s a remaster, but if you haven’t played this, DO IT. It’s good. Buy this game. Right now. Summer release.

DecaPolice. Puzzle solving detective stuff in virtual worlds… with RPG combat that actually looks pretty interesting. That looks kinda fun. It’s out… some time in 2023.

There’s the Bayonetta prequel. Everything I’ve seen so far looked pretty meh. I’m not being convinced otherwise. I’m not gonna get this. That’s out next month.

Splatoon 3 DLC. Season Pass with 2 waves of stuff, it seems like it brings you back to Inkopolis… not sure what it actually adds considering they just showed a new hub. Wave 2 is called Side Order and seems like single-player content. Well I didn’t buy the main game, so… whatever man. Don’t buy DLC.

Disney Illusion Island… That’s another game we already know about. Looks very okay, kinda generic. It’s out July 28.

Fire Emblem DLC. Whatever man. Oh yeah, I’m still writing my review for the base game. New Emblems, which makes no sense plot-wise. Don’t buy DLC.

This is a thing… called Harmony: Fall of Reverie. Looks like a… visual novel? Okay. Looks meh. It’s out in June.

Octopath Traveller 2. There’s a demo out. Okay, that’s out later this month, this showed nothing interesting.

Next is a remaster of We Love Katamari. Out June 2. Ok.

Sea of Stars. That does look pretty cool, it’s what looks like a pretty classic-style RPG. There’s gonna be a demo, I’m not touching it, but cool. August 29, cool.

Omega Strikers. That’s a free-to-play phone game, not very interesting. April 27.

Wait is that a new Etrian? Oh shit! … Yeah okay it’s not, that’s unfortunate. This is a collection of the first 3 games, with updated graphics. Etrian Odyssey: Origins Collection. It’s a bit of a shame, we’ve been wondering where this series was since the 3DS, and now it’s just a collection. Well, coming June 1. These games ARE great, so do pick it up if you never played them. *EDIT: HOLY OVERPRICED GAMES BATMAN… 105 Canadian Dollars on the eshop… Okay maybe just get one of them, or wait for sales. Lol

Well there’s Advance Wars. I guess the Ukraine-Russia war only mattered for a year. It was a dumb reason to delay an unrelated game, and it’s weird that they’d just release it now when the situation hasn’t changed. Might as well just not have delayed it. Anyways, it’s out April 21 unless another war starts in the interim. So that’s nice. I do want this game to do well so we can finally get a new Advance Wars.

Just a bit about the new Kirby remaster that’s coming out this month. As completely new contentm, there’s an epilogue where you play as Magolor and level up his abilities. Alright. And there’s gonna be a demo of the game. Okay.

A Game Boy! So basically they’re adding Game Boy games to NSO, and Game Boy Advance games to the NSO Expansion Pass. This means, like all the other NSO shit, you can’t buy this separately so it’s locked behind a shitty only play scam. Unfortunate. Just bring back virtual console.

The original Metroid Prime Games, remastered. Well that sure is Metroid Prime 1 with slightly nicer graphics. Amazing game if you haven’t played it, definitely do. This is out… Oh wow, today, cool.

Wait a second, rewind, dude definitely said “The original Metroid Prime Games“. With an S. That’s just one. Where’s the other two?

Oh this is that Master Raincode thing? It’s a new game from the creator of Danganronpa. An investigation game with some action-y elements and maybe RPG elements? Ah I had the title wrong. Master Detective Archives Raincode. Out June 30. This does look quite interesting, I might get it.

Oh hey it’s Baten Kaitos. One of the rumors was right! I actually never played these, they look cool though. This is a collection with both games remastered to HD. Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster. It’s out Summer 2023. Cool for a more niche thing to get a bit of life, even if a new sequel would be cooler. I might grab this.

A new fantasy life awaits. So it’s a Fantasy Life sequel. Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time. I played the first one of thse, I don’t remember particularly enjoying it. Well if you liked that original game, this one’s out in 2023 some time.

Lots of steam. Hey that’s Professor Layton. Okay I guess it’s a new one, that’s a bit out of nowhere since he’s been inactive for a while. 6 years ago was the last one and that one featured Layton’s daughter. Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. No release date or anything, okay. That was random. Cool, but random.

Mario Kart wave 4 DLC… Okay. There’s a new court, it looks cool. Don’t buy DLC.

Highlight real featuring: Minecraft Legends, Blanc, Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection, Have a Nice Death, WBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros, Disney Dreamlight Valley update, Tales of Symphonia Remastered… And that’s it.

The highlight of the reel, a game I had no idea what even coming, let alone in english, is definitely WBSC eBASEBALL: Power Pros, from the Kikyou Powerful Pro Yakyuu series, a series that had pretty limited releases outside of japan (the first I think was on PS2, the 15th game in the series). It’s basically as good as video game baseball gets.

One last thing! Not sure what this is… Oh wait it’s Zelda, lol. Yeah I kinda forgot this wasn’t shown yet. Well this sure is a trailer. It showed… things. A bunch of different vehicles being the funnest part. And the release date is unchanged. Alright. That’s it!

I also watched the japanese Direct. Other than a different order of trailers and a few different things in the highlight reel (nothing of note), there were  a few games not featured in MURICA. A kinda boring-looking game called Natsu-Mon where you… have summer vacation. A remake of Atelier Marie (I assume the PS1 game). Something called Paranormasight which showed no gameplay. And of course the HUGE announcement of a new Momotaro Densetsu game, which is massive in Japan (the previous one on Switch selling almost 3 million copies so far).

Overall

I feel I’m gonna have to be the contrarian here since people seem REALLY excited about this Direct. I’m actually usually pretty hyped after most Directs, even some that other people dismiss as bad. However… This was only a kinda-okay-ish Direct.

There were some highlights  for sure. Namely Baten Kaitos, Advance Wars being out of “we’re not releasing it because there’s a real war” purgatory, Etrian Odyssey existing again… and there were a few actually interesting new announcements like Atelier Marie (which was announced for America, just not in the american Direct), DecaPolice looking kinda cool, the Metroid Prime remaster, Ghost Trick finally making a comeback, a new Layton is really cool… But man…

There is nothing here to really latch on to. There was so much “here’s a pretty generic trailer of something you already knew about”, with a bunch of ports being the “big” announcements. It’s… a bit eh overall. Even some of the good announcements are a bit disappointing, like the Etrian Odyssey collection being overpriced as fuck, Metroid Prime remaster being a bit pricier than I’d like, Tears of the Kingdom being 89.99$ here in Canadia (69.99 in the US)…

Like, yeah, I’m super fucking excited for Pikmin 4. Also we already knew Pikmin 4 was coming so… whatever (though having a release date IS nice). I’m excited for Tears of the Kingdom. We didn’t really need to see this trailer, it had nothing interesting. Some of the other repeats like Raincode and Kirby and Advance Wars… they could’ve had a tweet with the trailer/release date.

Not a terrible Direct, but it needed something with a lot of oomph, and there was nothing with oomph there. Old games aren’t oomph, trailers for games we already know about isn’t oomph. It needed something huge. There was nothing huge.

This might be the least good Direct in a good long while.

Buy Ghost Trick.