Well I am actually writing this intro before a Direct was even announced (today is September 10). Because it’s pretty clear we’ll get a Direct this month at the same kind of time as every September in the last 8 years, and I assume 13 or 14 for the date of the Direct (*Edit: okay it was 14, let me update the title*).

There are rumors going for this one from Pyoro, one of the only “leakers” that has actually been somewhat trustworthy so far. Namely a DK game that SEEMS to be Mario vs DK-related… hopefully it’s not one of the Minis games and actually a return to the original MvD, which was a take on Donkey Kong 94. Then one for an F-Zero game, which he is heavily hinting at being F-Zero 99 (please no). And one that seems to be hinting at a remaster of the 2 Trace Memory games (the Wii one never came out in America), or at least a Wii game and a DS game that are linked somehow. And there’s no other leaker saying anything credible. Would be funny if this Direct was the one where Pyoro lost his credibility.

My true expectation is, of course, that even a bad Direct has one or two cool things, so in the end I’ll probably have some thing to be happy about here.

Well, let’s go and watch this Direct! These are live reactions as I’m watching the Direct.

Well, so far not-E3 2022 has been pretty terrible. Very few highlights, very boring, games kinda melting into each other because everything is so similar to other things that are also being shown. I hope Microsoft can finally break us out of this funk. I am writing this short intro before the show, so my current expectations? Basically nothing. Lots going around about Goldeneye, but that’s about it. I’m sure we’ll see another new Forza too because it’s Xbox and apparently we need one same-y car game every year from them.

I don’t know if I’ll post this, but either way, I will have an overall not-E3 post once all this shit is done. I am waiting a bit to post that until we see when/if Nintendo does something.

Well, the countdown is about to be done.

One of the first few posts in this blog, after terminating my old blog The Save Points and starting JOBOCAN Game Reviews, was a reaction to the February Direct last year… So I figure… why not do it again? I’ve actually reacted to most “main” Nintendo Directs even though I wasn’t planning to, so I might as well keep it going. I haven’t been doing this for much else outside of E3 since the competition isn’t announcing or releasing anything, or doing fun events like this (and, when they do, they’re awful… Hi Playstation), but hey, at least Nintendo tries to be somewhat interesting.

I am writing this intro the day before the Direct, as I always do. I have no real predictions here. There are some weird rumors like a 1-2 Switch sequel, and TWO different Metroid Prime rumors that have been going on for years without anything happening (Prime Trilogy rumors being around since 2017, and those have transitioned into Prime 1 Remaster rumors more recently… pick a side, shitty fake leakers), but I’d say there’s nothing really good to latch on to that’s even slightly believable except the Batman one… which is extremely minor so who cares.

I don’t know what to expect beyond probably a bit of Splatoon 3 stuff since that’s probably coming out around E3 season, but otherwise, it could be anything. I am 99% sure Metroid Prime 4 won’t be there because it’s only been 3 years since it started development, so it’s not like it’s in hell status or anything, and I don’t think the BotW sequel will be there either as that will likely get a big E3-season blowout. So… Yeah, could be fun, might not be, I have no idea. There’s plenty it could be, but Nintendo is largely unpredictable. Like, last February’s Direct had 4-6 new first-party game announcements depending on how you count that. So there’s reason to believe they might do that again… but it’s Nintendo, they don’t do patterns, so they might not.

No idea if I’m actually gonna post this, we’ll see if I click the publish button after writing it. If I do post it… let’s go and watch this Direct!

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!

Well before I watch the presentation by Microsoft, let’s quickly go over yesterday’s E3 things I didn’t post about.

Devolver Digital was right after Ubisoft… Devolver always makes something really entertaining. The games? Not particularly interesting, IMO. Some looked okay but nothing really caught my attention. The presentation? Awesome fun, extremely well made.

Then there was Gearbox. They did literally nothing. Seriously. Fuck Gearbox.

I skipped UploadVR… partly because VR is lame, partly because I think I can’t even actually use VR anymore because of the current state of my eyes… I’d need to try it, but I think the screens would be in a distance that would suck for both of my eyes.

Oh and I actually logged into the E3 app. What the fuck is even this crap? Seriously I have no idea how to use it, what a shitty app. I got out of it after 5 minutes of fiddling with menus and not understanding what anything was. Good job proving your pointlessness, E3.

So anyways, now it’s Microsoft’s turn. I’m pretty excited for this, largely because Microsoft tends to be a good place for third-parties to do announcements. And also all games here will be multiplat, which is great. Their presentations in the past few E3s have been pretty solid, even when they didn’t announce things that interested me that much. I think this should be a pretty good presentation.

So let’s go with the live reaction! I’ll be writing my thoughts live, followed at the end of the show with my overall thoughts. I’ll post the entire reaction after I’ve edited everything. And as usual this intro is written before watching.

Timer is going down. LET’S FUCKING GOOOOOOOOO!

Well, before we get to Ubisoft’s E3 thing, let’s talk about the other stuff I watched that I didn’t make posts about. Koch Media… Not only did it include the lizard man himself Geoff Keighley, but it was possibly the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Instead of, you know, showing games, they just pretended to talk about games (because half the shit they said didn’t mean shit), and none of it was meaningful or interesting. It was so pointless and long, it was basically unwatchable. I stopped watching to go to the IGN stream…

The IGN stream was… lots of advertising we didn’t want to see in-between the advertising we DID want to see. Compared to the Koch Media bullshit, this actually had games. Some of them were even a little bit interesting. They had nothing major to show, and they could’ve done without the “personalities” being boring in-between the trailers… This wasn’t great but it was kinda okay-ish after the pure boredom that was the Koch Media thing.

The Guerrilla Collective Showcase actually had several really cool games. My highlights were Akatori and Severed Steel, but there were actually several games that I’m sure many people will find interesting in there. You can check out most the games here.

The Wholesome Direct was meh. 75 games shown, none of them were particularly interesting to me. Some of them might be more your taste than mine, there were some that I’m sure will be a little bit popular. The link I put for Guerrilla Collective also has a list of things from the Wholesome Direct.

So anyways, it’s Ubisoft’s turn. We’ll more than likely only see one cool thing, that being the Mario+Rabbids sequel which Nintendo themselves leaked by mistake (they published the page for it on their website too early). This is hilarious that they’d do that, as it’s really the only thing Ubisoft probably had to show that wasn’t gonna be shit. The only other things they could show that could be interesting would be a new Rayman or a new Blood Dragon, pretty much, and I doubt that’s happening. Everything else Ubisoft makes is shitballs. So we’ll see I guess.

So anyways… this is gonna be my live reactions to the Ubisoft presentation. I will write these as I’m watching, then I’ll write my overall thoughts on what is sure to be a shitshow, then I’ll edit my live thoughts just to make sure they’re readable, and that’s that! Also I’m writing this intro before watching.

Well the countdown is about to end so time to watch this crap. Let’s go I guess.

Well it happened. After recently predicting that Directs were a thing of the past because Nintendo replaced them with something I figured was better, Directs are making a comeback after not having any full-length ones since September 2019. I really liked the style Nintendo went with in 2020, with them doing shadow drops of game announcements 2 months before releasing the game, and having mini Directs for third-parties and indies. There’s many advantages to that, like keeping expectations in check (unlike, say, Cyberpunk, which had a fake “gameplay” trailer YEARS before release with a ton of features that weren’t even in the final game) and compressing the entire hype cycle to almost no time at all. It was just great seeing a game and knowing it would be in my Switch in just 2 months… even if Origami King sucked. I’d argue it’s objectively superior to announce games that way than having Directs and similar types of events. I mean, E3 is always just a pile of “here’s all these games you won’t be able to play for another 3 years and they’ll suck anyways”.

But I can’t deny the appeal of a Direct-style presentation. A bunch of announcements and such in one spot is fun. So even though I don’t usually post reactions to Directs… why not this time? The last proper non-mini Direct was literally in 2019, and this is a long boy with 50 minutes of content. Not gonna even attempt predictions, we just know about a Smash character (I mean, what else would they announce for Smash that’s worth even having the game in a direct for?) and… games for the next 4 months. Not much to go by and there’s not any rumors of note. My expectations are not very high, but it’s mostly because the Switch already has a lot of stuff announced for 2020, so who knows how much more it might get.

Note that I am writing this intro before seeing the Direct, and that I’m writing my reactions as I’m watching. I’ll include a more thought-out overall thoughts section at the end once the Direct is over (and I’ll edit my reactions to make sure this is readable).

Well it’s starting in a minute now, so let’s go!