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

Yeah that Smash announcement had the fragrance of a cruise ship stand up act, yeish.

If I'm being honest I'm a bit disappointed. I'm not that bothered about a Zelda port, Splatoon 3 and the triangles are miles away, and we didn't get that F-zero runner we've all been pining for.

There is still a good selection of stuff on the horizon for sure, but it's always a bit disappointing to see some shovelware like that DC superhero game get air time when Nintendo have such a rich library of games people would love to see more of.

DC Super Hero Girls is Nintendo's biggest exclusive, anyway

Last night I was a tad disappointed as we've waited like two years for a proper direct, then that had stuff like the SMASH reveal at the start along with stuff which will be cool like Outer Wilds but be about £26 on Switch where it's been on Game Pass for ages.

That is the biggest thing for me and the same goes for Sony with PS5 where Returnal is £70, seeing just an HD version of Skyward Sword for £50 is a damn lot of money, where I see the value of a Game Pass that makes these seem even worse.

Most will be physical and am I going to trade in SSHD, no and New Pokémon Snap I'll likely finish then that's something I would trade in, yet stuff like Famicom Detective Club which seems to be eShop only (listed as eShop only) I'm not paying £50 for that.

Still the year for me on Switch going to look like

23rd Feb Persona 5 Strikers
26th Feb Bravely Default 2
26th Mar Monster Hunter Rise + Pro Controller + SMASH amiibo and hopefully the rest of the Rise amiibo
30th Apr New Pokémon Snap
28th May World's End Club, heard good things
25th June Mario Golf: Super Rush, this was big
26th July The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD + those Joy-Cons as I'm a sucker
27th Aug No More Heroes III

Then stuff without dates such as Monster Hunter Stories 2, NEO: TWEWY, Neon White etc that it does still look like a decent year before we know more about the second half of 2021 going into 2022 with Project Triangle Strategy and Splatoon 3 which are huge or any f2p games such Star Wars Hunters which I might give a bash

Project Triangle Strategy is just the stupidest fucking working title. And as someone pointed out on Discord last night, if it's anything like Octopath Traveller then that's what it'll end up getting called. (Sorry I wasn't a chatty Cathy on Discord last night - as I said that one time I did speak I half listened to both the Direct and the chat and sort of understood what was going on in both.)

I am up for Skyward Sword but not for £50. Xenoblade Chronicles was a Wii remaster, but I waited until I could find that on sale for at least £30 - and that was a complete facelift with some extra quality of life improvements and new postgame content. And 3D All-Stars was a compilation of three games, one of them being a Wii title, and that got ripped for being so expensive. Maybe if I can find it for £25 or something...

I feel like Pyra is an example of a massive missed opportunity in Smash. Why can't we have Phoenix Wright or Crash Bandicoot? I've never even played a Crash game, but he's a much more significant character in the gaming world, which feels more fitting for a Smash game...

Mario Golf was a nice surprise though (speed golf looks pretty fun) and Splatoon 3 is nice to see, though it seems odd to tease it when it just adds to a list of loads of huge Nintendo games we know nothing about that aren't coming out for ages (BOTW2, Metroid Prime 4, Bayo 3). Nice to see a bit more on NMH3 though.

And I'll get Fall Guys. Never had the chance to play it before as I don't have a paid PS subscription or a decent computer. So that'll be fun.

Rum wrote:

Project Triangle Strategy is just the stupidest fucking working title. And as someone pointed out on Discord last night, if it's anything like Octopath Traveller then that's what it'll end up getting called.

And the problem is...?

Does sound tad more silly if the final name is Triangle Strategy compared to even Octopath Traveller.

Lets face it, all videogame names are dumb.

On the other hand if it's really, upsettingly bad they could do a deluxe re-release called PTSD

Crumpy Andy wrote:

Lets face it, all videogame names are dumb.

Lot of mediums like that but guess that time I got reincarnated as slime does what it says on the tin.

Balladeer wrote:

2021 is going to be another bumper year for the Switch.  You heard it here ('here' = 'in the predictions thread') first.

Oh.  Hmm.  That Direct was... concerning.

The concern wasn't so much what was or wasn't shown on Wednesday.  The concern (and OR has read this before) is that a 2022 game took the ‘megaton’ slot at the end.  Splatoon is big, yes; but there are a host of franchises that, you’d think, would take precedence if we were getting them sooner. To me, that suggests:
- No new 3D or revamped 2D Mario this year
- No new 2D Zelda this year
- No new Mario Kart this year (as if there was any doubt, we had Live last year, but seeing Tour continue to get updates in the meanwhile is still galling)
- No other big new impressive-looking 3D adventure this year, which could have been Donkey Kong, Star Fox, Kid Icarus, or a completely new IP (Nintendo do that occasionally)

With BotW2 increasingly looking like it won’t be ready this side of 2022, that means you’re potentially looking at Pokémon remakes and maaaaaaybe something like a 2D Metroid (probably also a remake, let’s be honest) or Donkey Kong to take us through 2021, not including ports and remasters.  That’s not promising.  Please, gents, tell me I'm wrong.  Tell me that Splatoon is so big now that all the above would have been blown out of the water.  I want to hear that!

On a personal level, what was shown wasn't much more promising.  Splatoon 3 and Octopath: Choose Your Own Adventure Edition were the two big games and neither was for me.  Mario Golf might have been the highlight ten years ago, but Mario sports haven't been too good since the GameCube days.  Famicom Detective Club looked interesting and probably my standout, with World's End Club being the other thing that's got my attention there.  For a long Direct that was the first proper one such in 500+ days, it was a bit of a washout.  I envy Buska and his laser focus: I'm not sure Nintendo have focussed a game on me since 2019, and I don't think that's entirely me being picky!  Still, at least I got more out of the opening that the rest of you.

Incidentally I still don't think the first half of this year will be bad for games, especially for a JRPG fan.  I'm more concerned about H2 now.  


Also, I could barely hear half the people on the call (Muss, Mas, and Smurf all spring to mind), and the lag in my YouTube meant that I either heard Andy telling me what everything was before I saw it, or switched to Twitch and saw it way before the rest of youse (and, er, did the same thing a couple of times ).  Text chat next time please!

Splatoon is huge but a new Zelda or Kart would have been bigger.

I don't know what else to say Balla, I think it might be because you get all your gaming from the Switch (doesn't the lady now life with you and have something that could be used to play games?) that it seems like a disappointment.

Where even though I've been critical of Nintendo with the Switch, I can now write up a nice list of games and between New Pokémon Snap & World's End Club, I'll just play NieR Replicant on my Xbox for instance.

How would a text chat avoid those issues aside from hearing

Maybe he can give us three reasons why he loves text chat?

As I tweeted shortly after the direct the discord voice chat made it way more entertaining than if I was sat there either on my own watching it or replying to the odd text message.

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Also I know only me and Smurf showed interest in that Knockout City game at the time but since then I've watched a couple of closed beta videos on youtube and EA (well, Velan Studios are the devs) might have a simple but fun online game on their hands here.

Surprisingly it is fully cross-play for all formats from the off.  

In the past, Jas, we've got a bunch of us together on Skype and typed through the whole thing, so it's not like it's responding to the odd message.  As for how it would help beyond being able to hear people (the main reason, and I can understand why Andrew 'Loudest Man On GNamer' Rice laughed at it), my YouTube was only lagging by a few seconds or so: I'd imagine most people's were on slightly different times.  Long enough for someone to comment on the next game, but not long enough for them to type out the message. Text chat is a bit of a leveller like that.

I concede that I'm a very visual person, and what worked for me may not work for other people; and if y'all decide you prefer this then you do you.  I personally didn't see any benefits to voice over text apart from it almost drowning out the absolute tosspot who yabbers over the trailers.  

masofdas wrote:

I don't know what else to say Balla, I think it might be because you get all your gaming from the Switch (doesn't the lady now life with you and have something that could be used to play games?) that it seems like a disappointment.

She's a PC gamer.  We are currently playing through Curse of Monkey Island on her laptop, which is pretty fun, and I did start The Witness on it before getting bored; but it's not like it could run the latest and greatest games, or like I could push her off her desktop on which she does basically everything for a quick bit of Doki Doki Majo Shinpan Reloaded.  I should use it to play Pony Island though...

To be fair I found listening to the Discord and the Direct at the same time a bit tricky, but that's also because I haven't heard you guys much so I couldn't really decipher who was who a lot of the time...

I'm the posh English boy

Balla wrote:

In the past, Jas, we've got a bunch of us together on Skype and typed through the whole thing, so it's not like it's responding to the odd message.

Yep, I remember doing some of those and while they were fun I found it harder to keep up with typing and watching at the same time which is why I said it felt like just replying to the odd message. Anyhow, I'm not sure how folk have their discord set up but it's possible to have the voice chat and text up at the same time so if anyone isn't willing to use voice for whatever reason then we could easily do both going forward.

Rum wrote:

To be fair I found listening to the Discord and the Direct at the same time a bit tricky, but that's also because I haven't heard you guys much so I couldn't really decipher who was who a lot of the time...

If we get a few more Among us games back on the go then that would be much easier to figure out.

The_Jaster wrote:

Rum wrote:

To be fair I found listening to the Discord and the Direct at the same time a bit tricky, but that's also because I haven't heard you guys much so I couldn't really decipher who was who a lot of the time...

If we get a few more Among us games back on the go then that would be much easier to figure out.

But then everyone will know that I'm the poshest sounding Scot

I think we already knew that.

I should point out I joined half way through and didn't actually attempt to talk till about 10 minutes after that so that would explain not hearing much from me.

The_Jaster wrote:

Also I know only me and Smurf showed interest in that Knockout City game at the time but since then I've watched a couple of closed beta videos on YouTube and EA (well, Velan Studios are the devs) might have a simple but fun online game on their hands here.

Surprisingly it is fully cross-play for all formats from the off.  

I'm hoping it's f2p as this could be another Rocket Arena if not

Well I'm glad I didn't think about joining in the verbal #bantz; I wouldn't have had a lot to say - not to complain about either. There were a lot of things that weren't for me, but were for other people. Like, that DC Girls thing: I assume this is a thing "the kids" like? If so, that's fine by me - I do have a concern as games have gotten bigger and more technically impressive, they've all drifted into PEGI 18 territory, so it's nice to see that. But I think Skyward Sword might be the first Zelda game I don't re-purchase "with a new hat"; I am no fan of swishy-swooshy controls but that wasn't its only problem.

I know DC Superhero Girls isn't for me but surely young girls (guessing the demographic) should get good games.

masofdas wrote:

The_Jaster wrote:

Also I know only me and Smurf showed interest in that Knockout City game at the time but since then I've watched a couple of closed beta videos on YouTube and EA (well, Velan Studios are the devs) might have a simple but fun online game on their hands here.

Surprisingly it is fully cross-play for all formats from the off.  

I'm hoping it's f2p as this could be another Rocket Arena if not

I think so as it says "try it for free May 21st" on the site.

masofdas wrote:

I know DC Superhero Girls isn't for me but surely young girls (guessing the demographic) should get good games.

Young girls play Pokémon, Mario, Splatoon, Fortnite, PUBG . . .

That DC game is a cartoon cash-in. It's nothing new, it's nothing surprising, Warner Bros probably paid Nintendo some cash money for it to have a little slot on a Direct. I can't believe it stayed in anyone's brain longer than it was literally on the screen.