Nintendo Direct/Indie World/Treehouse/Showcase Discussion Thread - Directly 2 You

I thought it was a solid showing considering we might not be seeing much past the first half of next year with the new console on the horizon.

I was pretty content with that. That’s fine by me if they’re working on some Big’ns for the Switch 2. What’s been announced last time and elsewhere and what was announced yesterday will keep me going for a long while, that’s no hassle.

The Another Code collection and Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door are the only remakes I can see myself definitely getting. A remastered Tomb Raider trilogy that’s playable in the twenty-first century is appealing as well – there’s always been good games in there somewhere, hidden beneath utterly rubbish controls and movement that always played especially naff next to the N64’s best. I’ve never really connected with Mario Vs. Donkey Kong if I’m honest. Even if it were a straightforward ROM dump on the GBA Switch Online app I don’t think I’d have bothered trying to playing it.

Horizon Chase 2 and F-Zero 99 were my highlights, and that they both launched right after the presentation was magic. I’d have got Trombone Champ straight away as well but in Samba de Amigo Party Central I’m just done with another rhythm-centric game. I’ll get it in due course

I'm always disappointed that MvDK isn't as much like DK94 as it feels like it should be. I have the GBA cartridge right here but I'm not super into it.

I can kick my Paper Mario N64 online attempt into touch now with that Thousand Year Door mention! It was excellent, but I can't play two of the buggers in a 5 year period.

I think I'd agree for the most part with that Mario vs Donkey Kong opinon - it's not quite as puzzle-y, and I think there's room for a new HD single-screen level series for Mario in the future (as opposed to the sub-Lemmings stuff that has happened since).

BUT F-ZERO 99! All y'all better be on F-Zero 99. It's exactly what needed to happen with the SNES F-Zero, and it's more compelling than Mario Kart 8 online. I can't stop playing it. My only gripe is that (as with MK8) having 2 large teams in Team Mode isn't comprehensible, and really should be more smaller teams. But it's blimmin' great.

Hopefully the other tracks will open up soon, at the moment only offering the first 4 tracks at random, the last 1 in the easy GP in GP mode, and then the two random later ones the original game lets you practice.

(Does anyone know why the original F-Zero was like that? In practice mode, you could only choose the 5 tracks from the first GP, and then 1 from each of the others, but not all.)

Jimbob wrote:

BUT F-ZERO 99! All y'all better be on F-Zero 99. It's exactly what needed to happen with the SNES F-Zero, and it's more compelling than Mario Kart 8 online. I can't stop playing it. My only gripe is that (as with MK8) having 2 large teams in Team Mode isn't comprehensible, and really should be more smaller teams. But it's blimmin' great.

Aye it is superb! I got my first win on Friday & I've not had rush of adrenaline like that in an online game for a wee while, although I do wish the standard 99 mode was double the amount of laps so you could see more folk crash out and get a bit more of that elimination feel you see in other BR/99 games.

I enjoyed a lot of that Direct, there's not many huge hitters but plenty of stuff I know I'll have a good time with. I've only played a little F-Zero 99 so far and despite how bad I am at the game I think I'll get some time out of it, there's a lot more to it than the needed to include. I'll pick up Trombone Champ within the next few days as I've been itching to play that ever since it was first released on PC.

Super Princess Peach looks a lot more interesting than I was expecting so I think that will be really fun and Wario Ware is giving us proper simultaneous multiplayer like the series has been begging for ever since the Gamecube. Thousand Year Door is huge of course, I've wanted to replay that for a while and anything that hurts the Pre-owned Nintendo game market is great.

There's plenty more I'll play as well even if they won't be day one purchases, the likes of Mario Vs. DK, Dave the Diver and Horizon Chase 2 are all things I know I'll enjoy when I fancy something new.

The_Jaster wrote:

Jimbob wrote:

BUT F-ZERO 99! All y'all better be on F-Zero 99. It's exactly what needed to happen with the SNES F-Zero, and it's more compelling than Mario Kart 8 online. I can't stop playing it. My only gripe is that (as with MK8) having 2 large teams in Team Mode isn't comprehensible, and really should be more smaller teams. But it's blimmin' great.

Aye it is superb! I got my first win on Friday & I've not had rush of adrenaline like that in an online game for a wee while, although I do wish the standard 99 mode was double the amount of laps so you could see more folk crash out and get a bit more of that elimination feel you see in other BR/99 games.

It's absolutely first class right enough. I’ve had no wins yet but with the Fire Stingray I’m regularly competing in the top 10. There’ll be more Grand Prix, modes and options added in short order I’m sure, but from the get-go I’m massively impressed with how it’s turned out. It’s not just a gentle reminder of how brilliant the original F-Zero is, but a very loud and extremely compelling reason to bring the series back for an all-new game.

I had a sleepy evening on F-Zero 99 followed by an okay morning but I haven't had a chance to really sink my teeth in yet - hoping to rectify that this week.

I've got one single race win, and did also win a GP series which I might put my CV. BUT I NEED ANOTHER GO NOW

Ahhhh I'm never going to have a great time with a showcase where the game youse are all talking about afterwards is an online battle royale adaptation of an SNES title.

Did we get a single new game announcement though?  Not a game on other platforms, not a game we'd seen bits of already, not a remaster or remake or DLC but something actually new?  F-Zero 99 at a stretch I guess? Oh wait: we got Unicorn Overlord. Otherwise there really were a lot of remakes and remasters featured weren't there?  Did we need another trailer for Luigi's Mansion 2 or Super Mario RPG HD?  And I echo what y'all are saying about Mario vs. Donkey Kong, as somebody who's never play DK94 I'd love something done with that instead.

Oh and they successfully ruined Another Code in one fell swoop with that voice acting, which I guess is grimly appropriate given recent Nintendo Directs.

It was the Nintendo Direct equivalent of hold music really.  A clear sign that Nintendo's bigwigs are working on something else, as Jas and Cappa have said.  At the same time, given that we know nothing concrete about this 'something else', I feel like that's letting them off the hook a bit.

Partner Showcase at 11PM Japanese time: https://www.nintendo.com/us/nintendo-direct/02-21-2024/

Shadow of the Erdtree at Midnight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLZenOn7WUo

Gonna be an interesting evening!

Pokémon next week and there's a Nacon Showcase soon as well.

I think this Pokémon Day is gonna be light, though.

See I feel Pokémon could be good especially with them liking B&W, G&S things plus we're due a Pokémon game as historically get one like every 18 months.

From Partner Showcase basically the Xbox games all I can think off.

It's been a while since we missed a year, but Pokémon have said they're going to take some more time on the next main game - plus its probably going to be on Switch 2 and / or aim to hit the 30th anniversary. Also, counting the DLC, we wouldn't be so overdue.

If we're getting anything, I think a Snap/ Pokken-esque spinoff is most likely. Slightly less likely would be a Lets Go-like.

We wouldn't be due a new main series until next year, but I think it'll be the year after.
BD/SP came out in 2021, so maybe we could have a new remake this year but those games were pretty controversial and I don't think Black and White would suit such a direct port.

See I think they'll sort do like with was it Black & White still on DS not 3DS due to the huge installbase, and of course still working on 3DS.

I'm feeling Black & White remakes out of anything.

So, what did we make of the Direct?

I thought it was nicely balanced in terms the genres shown, it also gave us a handful of demos to play (just finished up on the Pocket card jockey one & quite enjoyed it) and as you may have seen on twitter the overall vibe of the direct felt like the wii era to me.

Couple of wee treats in there - I'm most interested in the Star Wars Battlefront collection as that's a real nostalgic throwback and I reckon they'll hold up well.

JayMoyles wrote:

Couple of wee treats in there - I'm most interested in the Star Wars Battlefront collection as that's a real nostalgic throwback and I reckon they'll hold up well.

Oh Aye? I've no nostalgia for them myself but I reckon I'll give it a go as over the last few years I've really enjoyed playing a bunch of older games that have either been remastered or put into collections like this.

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EDIT: Oh forgot to even mention those Rare games for Switch online in my previous post, I'm well up for those especially a wee revisit of Killer Instinct.

Penny's Big Breakaway, Pocket Card Jockey and the five Rare games launching at the same time is a welcome pain in the arse. A few demos to add to that, future release dates for games that might yet grab my attention, and announcements for a new Endless Ocean and Super Monkey Ball…aye, that was very good stuff in my book.

I downloaded Penny's Big Breakaway on blind faith. I'm three levels and 4% completion in, but as it stands I'm confident in heralding it as the greatest game there's ever been.

I messaged Mercy an all-caps message about multiplayer Suika game.

Pentiment, Pepper Grinder and Penny's were the most intriguing announcements for me.

Another Crab's Treasure is something I've been excited about since we first saw it a year or two ago, I'm dead keen.

And the other big one for me was Monster Hunter Stories. I'm probably in a minority but I've been really hoping for this; it originally released on 3DS when all eyes were on Switch, and I put off playing the sequel because I was hoping I would get this way to play the original. That'll tide me over if this does indeed turn out to be a fallow year for Pokémon.

Get a couple of Monster Mashes out of it, too.

As it was a partner showcase expectations not as high as an actual Nintendo Direct but I came away going meh.

Penny's Big Breakaway I'm keen on and give a download later today.

Unicorn Overlord was shown again and is one I've got my eye on being Vanillaware after the great 13 Sentinels.

Endless Ocean was weirdly a game I did play on Wii, and this one looks good and the whole bunch of people online swimming around could be a grand time.

Then rest was just ports and unlike Endless Ocean, don't have any memories of Epic Mickey to be excited about it. Though as its new to me, maybe I should be.

Depending on price of MonHan Stories as looks to be digtal only, may get that on PlayStation and be down for a Mash about it. Did you do anything on the second game? Feel I'm the only one that played it on here.

I think multiple GNamerans played it but no Mashers!

And for that reason we didn't cover 2. If I play 1 and 2, we can mash about both.

I also watched the Japanese Direct, which I feel was better as it had a Guitar game with an actual Guitar controller, a new Shin-chan game and ohh Mother 3

Plus this RPG

Buskalilly wrote:

And the other big one for me was Monster Hunter Stories. I'm probably in a minority but I've been really hoping for this; it originally released on 3DS when all eyes were on Switch, and I put off playing the sequel because I was hoping I would get this way to play the original. That'll tide me over if this does indeed turn out to be a fallow year for Pokémon.

Get a couple of Monster Mashes out of it, too.

Yeah, I'm weirdly interested in Stories as well. I own it on 3DS of course, but I'm less than enthused about firing up the 3DS these days .