Tag: nintendodirect

Dissecting the Second Kirby Air Riders Direct

NOTE: In another world, Roguelike Celebration is going on today! A lot of people worked hard to organize it, and more worked hard to present at it, including some of the coolest people in indie gamedev, IMO, just to apply a little timely peer pressure. As I write this it hasn’t happened yet, so not a lot to say that I haven’t already, but I’ll say more about this once the talks have actually occurred. In the meantime….

Here is the Direct itself (1 hour 2 minues):

I overall really like the direction the news of Kirby Air Riders is going, even if I have a few mixed feelings about it. There’s a lot of cool and funny new elements, but it also feels like Sakurai might be leaning a bit too hard into the Smash Bros. style. So many of the new features are note-for-note similar to Super Smash Bros, which I can’t just abbreviate to “SSB,” because that’s the same initials as this blog.

Like the fully-voiced opening theme song. The feature of Smash Ultimate that I hated more than perhaps any other part was that stupid theme song. It’s not that it’s a bad song itself, but every time I started the game up I was greeted by a song about the most overused tropes, not just in gaming, but in current-day media altogether: light and darkness. Oh, if my griping might start a movement to take pop culture back from terrible good-slash-evil narratives I would be a pleased whatever-it-is-that-I-am. I got the Adventure Mode out of the way very early in my time with Ultimate, I didn’t need to be reminded it existed at every startup. Air Riders has one of these songs too. I’m sure it’s nicely sung and produced, but it’s the opposite of what makes Kirby music great: bright, cheery, impressively scored tunes with an incredibly quick tempo.

Other features in both games:

  • For starters, the interface, especially the menus, are extremely Smash-like.
  • Amiibo support, in the sense that both games store machine learning parameters onto the figure’s 2K of flash memory to support trainable characters. Yes, figure players are back, the feature only interesting to me and a handful of others. I wonder how the game will utilize the approximately ½K of flash storage available to game applications this time?
  • Uses a currency for unlocks, and a weird kind of fake economy. Smash Ultimate has gold and “SP.” Air Riders has “Miles,” which are essentially gold coins again. Is anyone annoyed that gold, a metal without a lot of industrial use, is still absurdly valuable mostly because of jewelry use and tradition?
  • A very similar visual style. When unlocks happen, words splash across the screen in your face in exactly the same way familiar to anyone who followed the Smash Ultimate updates eight years ago.
  • Sakurai says it’s different, but “Global Win Power” still looks a whole lot like “Global Smash Power.”
  • On top of it all it uses the Smash Announcer, who unless my ear is mistaken (it frequently is) has been with the series since Melee, at least in English.

Not that the requisite griping is over, there’s lots of really fun things unveiled too. Like the inclusion of loads more Kirby characters, some of them pretty deep cuts. My favorites have to be Lololo and Lalala, who are direct references to HAL Laboratory’s early MSX hit Eggerland, known in the US as The Adventures of Lolo. Other than an obscure Windows release many years ago now, Lolo and Lala basically live on Planet Popstar these days, with no forwarding address left to the King of Eggerland.

Do you have any blocks that need pushing? No? Well we’re just going to hang out in case you get some.

Í’m struck by the fact that, by having so many varied villains who all have become Kirby’s friends over the years, Kirby’s adorable little universe has become one of the largest and deepest in all of gaming. Among Kirby’s friends are a mischievous penguin, a mysterious knight with a battleship, a lady robot entrepreneur, a mouse thief, a spacefairing alien, a spider person, a tricky clown, and more. Most of these characters were created after Sakurai left HAL and Nintendo, but yet are fully embraced by Air Riders, and I love that.

And there are so many weird little unnecessary touches. There’s a full lobby-like “paddock” where characters can congregate between matches, and they gave everyone full walking and jumping animations just for interacting within it. Sakurai says it took a lot of effort to make them, and I believe him. Also, it seems to be fully catered. Chef Kawasaki’s been busy, I see.

The best reveal was the new game mode, Road Trip. I’ve always liked Smash Bros’ weird side game modes, like Smash Run and Smash Board. There’s no one working in big gamedev who is as free with his thinking and design atoms as Masahiro Sakurai. He takes all these design elements and combines them in a way to create these little narrative engines. Road Trip fills the biggest gap of the original Kirby Air Ride, a game that, despite the greatness of City Trial, had absolutely no Story or Grand Prix mode, and so seemed a bit light. And indeed, there’s still no Grand Prix, or other structured racing-only mode.

Back to Road Trip, I especially like that it uses the patches from City Trial, so as you play you also create customized vehicles.

Kirby games don’t usually give you much of an indication of what day-to-day life in Dream Land is like, this is more than we’ve ever gotten.

All of the tracks from Air Ride are returning in Air Riders, although it seems the original City Trial City isn’t. Also returning is Top Ride, Sakurai’s weird homage to, of all things, Atari’s incredibly ancient Sprint series. He’s never mentioned Sprint in a Direct, but it’s so obviously a riff on Sprint. Even if he’s never heard of Sprint (given the breadth of his knowledge of the history of video games that seems really unlikely), it had to have been inspired by other games that were inspired by Sprint.

Another of Air Ride’s signature features, the Checklist, is back. To explain: each game mode has a grid of boxes, each with some feat or objective to perform. While you can unlock them in any order, you aren’t told what any of them are at first. But after you stumble upon your first unlock, the conditions of the squares surrounding that one are revealed to you, so it results in a kind of progression. Some of the squares unlock features when opened, and as you clear the board you’re eventually granted a handful of free checkmarks, to help clear out the hardest challenges.

In Air Ride, the Checklist was the only thing providing continuity between play sessions. That’s less the case with all the things there are to unlock in Air Riders, but what with Nintendo’s stubborn resistance to implementing Achievement features, as about the nearest thing to that Nintendo’s ever published, they’re welcome.

There’s a whole menu dedicated to making visual effects less jarring!

Here’s a flurry of little things I noticed:

  • A bespoke boss, a mecha version of our favorite emperor penguin*, called Robo Dedede. Say it quickly, it’s fun!
  • A special kind of collectable called gummis. They seem to have no purpose except to pile up onscreen in a physics engine and letting the player sift through them like a greedy candy miser.
  • A transforming vehicle, that transforms like a Transformer, metal bits shifting around into an alternate shape.
  • For the first time in any Kirby game, you can be nice to Whispy Woods, instead of making the old tree cry.
  • Some fun cameo characters revealed: Tortilding (from Forgotten Land), King Golem (from Amazing Mirror) and Computer Virus (Super Star), the funniest Kirby boss of all, where you fought it in a mocked-up JRPG-style battle.
  • A track only named “?” in the Direct, which uses music from the Nightmare fight from Kirby’s Adventure (the first “serious” opponent the pink blob creature ever fought), and features the Heart of Nova in the background.
  • For the first time really in a Nintendo game, it looks like they paid serious attention to accessibility! You can turn off screen-shake and move the camera so that motion isn’t so extreme. As time has passed I find myself more and more bothered by screen-shaking effects, though I’m not sure if that’s me, or just that they’re much more common nowadays than they were in the days of the NES.
  • Once of the license designs shown off uses iconography from the Japan-only Kirby Cafés.
I’d love to go to a Kirby Café some day!

* I think the official line is that King Dedede is some kind of eagle, but he’s never shown any hint of flying like a real bird, and the idea of Kirby’s first major antagonist being a penguin with royal pretensions is too much fun to reject.

Nintendo Direct on Kirby Air Riders

I’ve heard it said that there are several different varieties of Nintendo Directs. There the Major Announcement type (Switch 2!), the Bunch of Games type (Indie World!), the Franchise Update type (what’s Pikachu up to next?) and then there’s the type that introduces an individual game. (Breath of the Wild!) This video is of that last kind, but the game it announces is not the usual kind of thing.

Masahiro Sakurai is an odd duck. Famously the creator of both Kirby and Super Smash Bros., the last game he made as an employee of HAL Laboratory and/or Nintendo was Kirby Air Ride, or KAR. We’ve posted about KAR four times before: in general, the effects of its vehicle stat patches, the online competitive KAR scene and Sakurai’s own commentary about it. This time makes five, and it’s safe to say it won’t be the last.

Why did he leave? I can’t say with any accuracy, I have no sources at Nintendo, but I do sometimes remember little things I’ve read, which may or may not be true. One of those things was that he had left under a cloud due to the perceived failure of Kirby Air Ride, which had a long and troubled development process, starting on N64 then moving to Gamecube, and not having a lot of traditional content compared to its sibling Mario Kart. But this could be false: I believe he’s said publicly it had to do with not wanting to make the same kind of game over and over. So now, let’s set this thread down, and come back to it in a few paragraphs.

Sakurai worked as an independent game designer for a while, enviable work if you can get it, and are as good at it as he is. The first game he made out of the gate was early Nintendo DS hit Meteos, a fine game that everyone should play, if they can find it now.

Meteos was an action-puzzle game that did genuinely new things in that genre, and was really good, a tricky combination. He then founded his own company Sora Ltd., which has maintained close ties with Nintendo: every game they’ve made since has been published by Nintendo. One of those was Kid Icarus: Uprising, another fondly-remembered title. And then….

Yeah, I’m getting to it. Sakurai has continued to direct every Super Smash Bros. title. It’s been said that Nintendo believes no one else can effectively make a Smash Bros. game. Super Smash Bros. Melee came out before Sakurai left HAL and was a gigantic hit; the Gamecube wasn’t exactly a stellar success, but imagine how it’d have fared if Melee hadn’t been made? People still play Melee in large numbers today; ask AsumSaus about it.

While some subsequent entries have not met with perfect acclaim (Brawl), every installment has still sold an awful lot of copies. Nintendo keeps asking Sakurai to make the next Smash Bros., and although he’s mention feeling tired and worn out (he heads gigantic teams to make them, and it’s an immense amount of work), even threatening to retire at one point, Nintendo seems to keep finding bigger dump trucks of money to leave at his houses. So as an independent agent he’s made the huge Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and the colossal Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and Super Smash Bros. for 3DS, and the utterly gigantic Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the fighting game that contains Mario, Link, Samus, Fox, Ness, Ryu, Simon Belmont, fighting Mii characters, Cloud, Sora and freaking Steve from Minecraft, among with dozens and dozens of others, even more if you count the Mii costumes you can buy, including Shantae, Cuphead and extra-freaking Sans Undertale himself.

And now, to pick back up that thread I left back there on the ground.

A few months ago at the Major Announcement Nintendo Direct about the release of the Switch 2, there was a short section announcing a sequel what may have been the game that caused Sakurai to leave Nintendo: Kirby Air Ride.

Sakurai has been vindicated many times over since then. Does it not have much content? He’s make the Smash Bros. games, each a greater tribute to the concept of excess than the last.. He said he didn’t want to make the same game repeatedly, but there’s been six Smash Bros. titles now. And after all this time, KAR’s City Trial still has a surprisingly large and involved fanbase, and even a tournament scene.

Early in the new announcement video (below), Sakurai mentions that it was bosses at Nintendo and HAL that asked him to make a new Kirby Air Ride game, not the other way around. It had to have been quite the vindication for him. Here is that video (47 minutes); for discussion of its contents, see below.

It has the slightly confusing name, when mentioned alongside the original, of Kirby Air Riders. I’ll abbreviate it KARrs.

Where KAR basically only had Kirby as a character, with King Dedede and Meta Knight more as gimmick characters, KARrs is full of characters, including former villains (Dedede and Meta Knight of course, and newbies Magalor and Susie), allies (Gooey and Bandana Waddle Dee), enemies (Chef Kawasaki, Knuckle Joe, Cappy, Starman and Waddle Doo), and various Kirby colors too. It has most (if not all) of the vehicles, called “machines,” from the first game and a few more. And it supports up to 8 players, 16 when played online.

And it still has City Trial, which Sakurai accurately refers to as the main event. Air Ride mode is a good basis, but City Trial is why people still obsessively play KAR today. It has a new City, on a floating island in the sky, and named “Skyah” He said there’s only one map, which seems a shame. KAR only had one City Trial map too. Skyah looks more varied, but not much more varied.

The core of City Trial is the same: the search for vehicles, the collection of vehicle-upgrading patches, the player-vs-player combat, and the sometimes-faulty information on which Stadium you’re trying to optimize for. KAR is a game where you can be told prepare for a race, and 10% of the time it won’t be a race. “Mind games,” as Sakurai calls it.

There’s still random events, but now there can be random contests that take place in the time-limited City portion of the match. All the players who choose to participate join in a special minigame that can award extra powerups, but players can also choose to ignore all that noise entirely, and just keep exploring and collecting patches on their own.

What’s missing? Sakurai says at the end that there’s lots of things he didn’t have time to mention, but they might just be gone completely. One of them, Top Ride, isn’t likely to be missed; it was a single-screen racing mode kind of like Atari’s Sprint games. KAR’s Air Ride’s tracks often made appearances as City Trial’s match-determining Stadiums, but Top Ride played no part in it. It’s probably been binned.

Another thing missing is KAR’s Checklist feature, a grid of squares for each of the three game modes, and each space representing a single challenge. Clearing the grid offered meta-progression in a game that made absolutely no attempt at storytelling. The Checklist was one of KAR’s big unique ideas, and it migrated over to a couple of titles in the Smash Bros. series. It’d be a shame if it was entirely gone from the game that birthed it. But Sakurai is known to discard even prominent features if he’s bored with them; remember the “Special Bonuses” in the first two Smash Bros. games, and how they vanished starting with Brawl? Remember how its Trophies didn’t make it into Smash Ultimate?

Even without the Checklists, there’s so much in the video to be excited about. This is unquestionably the Switch 2 game I’m most excited about. It’s true, it’s a sequel to a game that Masahiro Sakurai has made before, but it’s also an opportunity to iterate on ideas that deserve to be given another chance. Kirby Air Ride was something unique, and how often do we see that these days? Kirby Air Riders may be that utter rarity here in the 53rd year of video gaming: the birth of a new genre. It’s a personal pleasure to witness.

Mario Kart World Oddities & Corporate Sponsors

I originally wrote this as part of Wednesday’s Switch 2 Nintendo Direct, but it’s really a weird bit of esoterica, and ended up being fairly long too, so I split it off into this post.

MKW’s apparently an open world Mario game, and open world games need more world building than otherwise. What I am hoping is this means we’ll finally find out more about all these weird MK-universe advertisers than
in the past. Does Mario actually own and run Mario Motors? Is Luigi the boss of a tire company? Will we get an explanation for Bowser competing in a (mostly) friendly manner against his eternal rivals? And…

Oh my stars and garters, how does this Toad DRIVE this vehicle? His eyes are right over the dashboard! Can his feet reach the pedals? It doesn’t seem like it was built for them, is this a common issue for Mushroom Kingdom cars and trucks? And do they ever suffer collision damage from hitting big floating, rotating coins? Along those lines:

He’s just a workaday Koopa, driving for his job with Hammer Bros. Co., and woah it’s KING BOWSER himself driving right past, and in the same lane! And he appears to have gotten fashion tips from Hellboy with that Right Hand of Doom glove thing happening. Also gotta note that Bowser’s license plate is just his logo. “Yeah that’s me, any questions?”

Here’s more traffic, I assume the open world theme means there’ll be a lot more in the way of street vehicle obstacles. Mario Kart World certainly has some weird, and weirdly useable, cars. Vehicular ramps, blast barrels, and I assume that Bob-Omb car is a live explosive. Road safety in the Mushroom Kingdom is a joke.

Sexy! I give them points for working the Girders board (sorry, “25m”) into a track. But it looks like we’re again getting the same style of tricks as in prior MK games: the vehicle gets a burst of speed, the driver turns around and mugs for the camera, and vroom vroom. Doesn’t seem too safe to me. Also, it looks like DK’s redesign for the movie has stuck.

My favorite element of the Mario Kart series, which I believe I’ve mentioned here before, are all the Mario-themed corporate sponsors, which suggest that not only are the characters race drivers, but also own their own auto supply and repair companies, and other companies besides. They’re all businesspeople! It’s a capitalist hellscape of their own devising!

Besides Mario Motors and Luigi Tires, among the MK businesses spotted are Koopa Construction (slogan, “High Quality You Can Trust,” how boring), Peach Resort (also a track name), a company called Dash (“Accelerate the Fun”), Waluigi Vintage Clothing (that’s more backstory than we’ve ever gotten for him), Wario Games (nice tie-in!), Fuzzy Batteres, Royal Motors (don’t know if that’s Peach, Daisy, Rosalina, or some combination; it’s tagline is “Supersonic Primeness”), Dolphin Marine Sports, Nabbit Courier Service(?), Garlic Power, Red Shell Speed Tires, what I think is Yoshi’s Cookies, Premium Scrap, 1UP Fuel, and there’s Bowser, Buzzy Beetle, Lava Bubble, Shy Guy, Chain Chomp, Fire Flower and just “Banana” (“Let one slip!”) companies I couldn’t make out the full names of, and the return of MKTV, which uses what looks like the eyes of Cappy, from Mario Odyssey, in their logo, but they’re probably Lakitu’s goggles—although Lakitu is a driver now.

There’s also THIS:

It’s the counterpart to The Mother Of All POW Blocks from the end of Super Mario 3D World! It is written in the Book of Mysteries, of the GREAT QUESTION BLOCK OF DOOM, the hitting of which will trigger the end of all things. Drive carefully, competitors.

This is probably my favorite track, a spooky horror movie track with big pictures of Peach throughout. You can’t see it in this shot but there’s a big black castle in the background and bats flying around.

Moo Moo Meadows not only returns as a track, but it seems like it’s been set within the Mario Kart World map! Are there differences? Are other retro tracks returning?

Also, a cow is a driver now. And it rides a boom box. Why not just make everything a kart, and put anything on top of it? Maybe I shouldn’t give them any ideas.

Nintendo Direct 4/2/2025: The Switch 2

Nintendo’s last direct was just a few days ago, and now they have another one, one devoted to their next console, the Switch 2, and /wow/, the internet consensus on it seems pretty harsh. It’s coming out June 8th, and it’ll cost $449 dollars in the US. I mean sure, the awful tariffs of a certain Orange Person may play a role in that, but it’ll also sell for about that amount in the much-less-stupid European Union. It’s an unexpected move, considering that the Switch line is widely seen as underpowered compared to its competition. I personally am scheming and trying to figure out how to fit it into my finances when it arrives in just two months, on June 5th.

But I’m putting the commentary up front, instead of where it belongs, as part of an in-sequence point-by-point reaction to the video. But about those….

Set Side B updates every day at 10 AM US Eastern Time. I like that the site updates in the morning, but not too early, to give people a chance to come to it throughout the day. But this poses a problem with responding to Nintendo Directs, which tend to appear at nearly the least opportune time, right when the blog updates.

We could change our posting time when Directs hit, and may end up doing that. But honestly, up-to-the-minute commentary that tries to get in ahead of other sites isn’t our forte. That’s the kind of thing tryhard sites, who can afford a whole team of writers, SEO, and flashy sports cars for their upper management, would do. We’re a tiny three-person operation, and I rather think that’s some of our charm.

Because of this, instead of responding to everything in the video, or even trying to, here’s just my comments on certain highlights.

So, here is that video (1 hour):

There’s also an Ask The Developer article on Nintendo’s website with more information.

The first game up is

Mario Kart World

Right off the bat, it’s never been more obvious than in Mario’s initial “Lets-a go!” that Charles Martinet’s time as Mario’s voice is over.

I have quite a lot, the most of the whole show, to say about this game, but it’s of an aspect of it that few remark upon or even care about. I’m going to save all of that for tomorrow, in fact, since it’s way off the subject. Please look forward to it. (bows)

In the meantime, features include free roaming, “knockout races,” cross country races and up to 24 karts in a race. More details… argh… in yet another Nintendo Direct, on the 17th.

Presenters this time out: Kouichi Kawamoto (Producer), Takuhiro Dohta (Director) and Tetsuya Sasaki, Hardware Design Lead. Nice to see people who actually worked on the system!

Hardware Features

  • GameChat, activated by the new C Button, for voice communication between players, and with optional game screen sharing
  • Camera accessory for facetime-style chatting (didn’t we have that back on the Wii-U? but this works during games)
  • GameChat requires a Switch Online membership, but will be free unti March 31 2026.
  • Local Multiplayer with only one copy of a game. Clubhouse Games is used as an example; it’s really a feature that it should have shipped with, IMO, but better late than never.
  • Larger screen, 1080p support on built-in screen
  • 4K resolution when docked, up to 120fps
  • HDR support
  • magnetic Joy Cons (we knew that)
  • Joy Cons can be used as mice (that too)
  • built-in adjustable stand (and that)
  • an extra USB C port
  • 256GB built-in storage
  • fan built in to the dock

Interestingly, Switch backward compatibility is only supported with “compatible” games, implying some games aren’t compatible.

Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour

A game made specifically to show off the system features. The internet has been complaining greatly about the fact they’re charging for it, when it serves little purpose other than to show off the hardware.

Other Notes

Switch 2 uses the same shape of cards as Switch 1 games, but support faster data transfer.

Of special note, Switch 2 only works with Micro SD Express cards. This means current cards will very likely not work with the system, regardless of their capacity! This is going to bite lots of people, count on it. You may not even be able to get non-Nintendo branded SD Express cards for a while, and you can bet they’ll be charged at a premium. Pretty damn crappy, Nintendo.

There’s a new Pro Controller with extra buttons. No info on if Switch 1 Pro Controllers will work. My guess is they will (Nintendo has gotten better about controller compatibility in recent years), but of course they won’t have the new features like C button, and new programmable GL and GR buttons.

Paid Upgrades

A paid upgrade to Super Mario Party Jamboree that offers new features. The business with paid upgrades will become a theme throughout the show.

Zelda Notes is a Switch 2 specific feature in upgraded versions of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. It works in conjunction with the smartphone Switch App to mark locations of interest in the game, and lets you share your TotK constructions via QR code. Interesting, but it doesn’t seem like a feature that needs Switch 2 hardware to support it?

Kirby in the Forgotten Land gets an upgrade that adds a second story, which seems like a more suitable use for a paid feature.

Metroid Prime 4 and Pokemon Legends Z-A are both getting Switch and Switch 2 editions. This would seem to imply that Nintendo suspects the Switch 2 won’t see tremendous uptake immediately, and are hedging their bets.

Upgraded Switch 2 versions of prior-owned Switch games are being sold as “Upgrade Packs.” The end of an era: at long last, Nintendo has abandoned the “Pak” spelling.

Other Games

DRAGxDRIVE: A mouse-controlled wheelchair-based basketball game with stunts. A cool idea honestly! May end up being the ARMS of the Switch 2, which isn’t a bad thing, I think.

I’m going to skip commenting on some of these, I’ll just list them out: Elden Ring Tarnished Edition, Hades 2, Street Fighter 6, with Switch 2 exclusive modes, Daemon X Machina: Titanic Scion, Split Fiction, Hogwarts Legacy.

EA Sports, the company I most love to hate, is also releasing games on Switch 2

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4 is a remake of two classic skateboarding games. I observe that skateboarding video games have, over the years, evolved into something that’s not really a lot like real-world skateboarding? They’re more like exploratory games with tricks added in and a coat of “hellow fellow kids” paint? Boarders don’t seem to be affected by realistic gravity, and regularly grind on services that no physical being could rightly grind upon. Anyway, near the end there’s a “A Few Moments Later” card stolen directly from Spongebob Squarepants, and the copyright notices for the game mention Spongebob, so I guess he’s making a Shrek-like appearance.

Hitman: World of Assassination: Signature Edition, now with added James Bond, Bravely Default, Yakuza 0: Director’s Cut.

Hyrule Warriors: Age Of Imprisonment again asks us to imagine an alternate universe where you can make the events of a game we’ve already played not happen, or at least I presume it will. It looks like Zelda may be the main character this time; it takes place in the past she time traveled to in TotK, so Link might not even be in it.

Nintendo Switch Online + Expansion Pack on Switch 2 to get Gamecube games: The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, Soulcalubur II (the one with Link in it) and F-Zero GX (the really really hard one Amusement Vision made, during the fifteen seconds during which they bubbled up from the surface of Sega). Others promised for future: Super Mario Sunshine, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance, Pokémon XD: Gale of Darkness, Super Mario Strikers, Chibi-Robo, Luigi’s Mansion, Pokémon Colosseum. They also promise a Gamecube-styled wireless controller. Isn’t that properly called a Wavebird? We don’t know if the Smash Bros GC adapter will work with it yet.

Deltarune Chapters 1-4: A predictably silly trailer, but that’s why we love Toby Fox. To be available on launch day! To some, this will be the biggest announcement in the show, and I’ll admit I’m looking forward to it.

Borderlands 4, Civilization VII (Offers a paid upgrade from the Switch version, but it’s to get mouse controls, argh!), WWE 2K & NBA 2K, Survival Kids, Enter The Gungeon 2, Starseeker: Astroneer Expeditions, Cyberpunk 2077 Ultimate Edition, Final Fantasy VII Remake Intergrade (keep milkin’ that cash cow, Squeenix), Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, Goodnight Universe, Two Point Museum, Wild Hearts S, Witchbrook, Puyo Puyo Tetris 2S, (inhale).

Rune Factory: Guardians of Azuma, Marvel Comic Invasion, Star Wars Outlaws, Nobunaga’s Ambition: Awakening Complete Edition, Fast Fusion, Shadow Labyrinth (yep, the grimdark Pac-Man reboot), RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, No Sleep For Kaname Date — From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES, REANIMAL, Fortnite (were you expecting it not?), Arcade Archives 2 Ridge Racer, Professor Layton and The New World of Steam, Tamagotchi Plaza, Human Fall Flat 2, The Duskbloods (From Software)

And my favorite part of the whole show even though we learned very very little about it besides that it releases this year:

KIRBY AIR RIDERS, directed by Masahiro Sakurai

Kirby Air Ride might be the most underrated game on the Gamecube, for while it doesn’t offer a Grand Prix or other campaign mode like nearly every other racing game, it does have City Trial, one of the best multiplayer experiences on the Gamecube. If you attended DragonCon in 2023 and went to one of their Gamecube nights, you might well have seen me playing Air Ride there! If all Air Riders offers is a greatly upgraded City Trial, perhaps with more than one city to explore, then it’ll be well worth the purchase price, and Sakurai is smart enough to recognize its greatness so I think we’re in good hands.

The last game was Donkey Kong Bananza. A new 3D DK title with destructable terrain. It also uses the updated Donkey Kong design, but it really works here, Donks shows a lot more personality and expressiveness here than he has since before DKC.

Nintendo Direct 3/27/25 Review

Well, there’s been another Nintendo Direct, yesterday it was. And while there wasn’t much news on the Switch 2, one of the announcements was that there will be another Nintendo Direct on April 2, in just five days, about it.

The presenter this time was (check Wikipedia) Senior Managing Executive and Corporate Director Shinya Takahashi. He has some charisma, but we’re still a long way from the days where Shigeru Miyamoto, Reggis Fils-Amie and Satoru Iwata would co-host, one time as puppets.

Sometimes I take one of these videos and I riff on the games revealed, and the specifics of their revelation. To remind: the narrator’s delivery style gives me a rash, so I’ll try not to bring that up for literally every trailer. Operation 2025 Snark Go (37 minutes)!

Cold Open: Dragon Quest I & II HD-2D Remake

After DQIII, these couldn’t be far behind, but it looks like substantial new content has been added, including a new character? The mainline series has been dropping references to the old Erdrick (a.k.a. Loto) games, maybe this connects to that?

Nintendo Direct for Switch 2 coming April 2

We already explained about this. I don’t know why they didn’t just pile it all into a single video, but it isn’t like people are going to miss out on the news.

No Sleep For Kaname Date – From AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES, from Spike Chunsoft

It’s a visual novel style mystery adventure from the people who brought us the Mystery Dungeon series. Of course, they’ve made lots of visual novels, but in my view that distracts from them making more Mystery Dungeon games. I’m a bit upset by the news that Shiren 6 sold like one-tenth what it has in Japan. What gives, y’all? Show them some love!

RAIDOU Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, from Atlus, out June 19

Atlus’s turn to make a Very Japanese Game. This one is a remake of a Playstation 2 entry in the Megami Tensei series. It stars a mystery-solving apprentice detective who can also summon devils to help him in turn-based battles. If he can summon devils, one is given to wonder, what does he need the trainee detective gig for? I guess consorting with the Underworld doesn’t put food on the table.

Shadow Labyrinth, from Bandai Namco

Those two games are fine, not my usual thing but I recognize their merits. But this one, I don’t know….

I feel like, for the most part, Bandai Namco doesn’t really know what to do with Pac-Man. Well, I can tell them what to do: make more Pac-Man Championship Edition! It’s that easy, oh and also police their high score tables much better for hacked plays, Pac-Man CE 2’s scoreboards are overloaded with impossible scores. Or else, maybe more Pac-Man World games? Getting their ducks in a row with GCC and getting back the rights to Ms. Pac-Man? Instead we have one of the least necessary games we’ve seen in many a generation: the dark and gritty reboot to Pac-Man.

“With your memories gone, you have been summoned to a strange, unfamiliar world… where you’re greeted by a yellow orb known as PUCK.” Oh brudder, ignoring that we’re talking about Pac-Fucking-Man, that’s three hoary game trailer clichés in one sentence!

“But who is this spherical stranger?” ITS PAC-MAN. ITS OBVIOUSLY PAC-MAN. EVEN IF IT ISN’T PAC-MAN FOR LORE REASONS, IT’S PAC-MAN.

“Moored in a mysterious, maze-like world…” AUGH “…your battle for survival begins.” The narrator is giving me a rash again.

“Experience a dark twist on the iconic Pac-Man…” JUST GIVE US PAC-MAN CE 3. THAT’S ALL YOU HAVE TO DO NAMCO. Sincerely, someone who’s gotten in dozens of hours of every previous Pac-Man CE game.

Patapon 1+2 Replay, from Bandai Namco

Ah, this actually looks interesting! But wasn’t Patapon a Sony thing?

You guide a tribe of primitive shapes with big eyes through a rhythm-based battle game. You give orders to your troops by tapping different buttons in the right rhythm, and their attack power comes from your timing. The original Patas-pon were PSP games, and the Switch is kind of like a PSP in its way. I’m still surprised this isn’t on a Sony platform though.

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar, from Marvelous

Another Harvest Moon, this one for the Nintendo DS, given a trademark-unencumbered remake on the Switch. Predictably, you play as a young farmer trying to make a place for themself in a new town, growing their suspiciously large vegetables and milking their hippo-like cows. Eventually they can hook up with one of several eligible spouses, giving it the veneer of a dating sim.

It’s a formula that Stardew Valley more-or-less perfected, and Harvest Moon went to the well so many times that I wonder if the features are just permuted in different ways now, but the series has a lot of fans and they’re pretty amiable.

Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, from Retro Studios and Nintendo, some time in 2025

A lot of people are looking forward to this one, and we finally have some substantive information on it. In this one Samus gains yet another new suit, what is it five by now (how does she pee in those things?), and psychic abilities. Samus is already a super-powerful cyborg wearing a power suit with a half-dozen kinds of deadly beams, can inexplicably roll up into a ball, and can basically fly in some games. Now she can move things WITH HER MIND too? When she inevitably loses her power suit at some point during this game, will she get to keep her mind powers?

The problem with the Metroid series is, the most intersting thing about them is Samus, but the title is “Metroid,” so Metroids have to be in every game. Samus could carry a game that doesn’t have anything to do with Metroids! I mean, the main antagonists are called, just, “space pirates.” They don’t even have a name as a race! There’s been hints that the main series will stop featuring them, although what it’ll be called in the future isn’t clear. Anyway, there’s a creature like a Metroid in this one, so I guess they’ll have at least one last hurrah.

Disney Villains Cursed Café, from Disney Games, out now

My eyes are nearly rolling out of my head. It’s another attempt by Disney to take some trend and wring lucre out of it using their IP. This time it’s a small business sim, where you serve Disney villains “potions.” You’re a “potionista.” Since it’s an excuse to throw together characters from vastly different properties it has some crossover comedy potential. Ursula and Maleficent hang out around with the likes of Captain Hook and Cruella DeVille. You get many different kinds of evil all thrown together as if they were the same thing.

You buy your ingredients from Yzma, from The Emperor’s New Groove, which I think is kind of unfair. While later elaborations upon its milieu make her more of a villain, in the original movie she’s more of an anti-hero? Kuzco, as an uncaring emperor trying to tear down Pasha’s village, was the real villain, and Yzma’s plotting against him was arguably in service of the Inca kingdom.

Gaston is your assistant in the game, which raises the question… how evil are you? Are you planning on taking over the Disney world? Or maybe, Disneyworld?

Witchbrook, from Chucklefish, available Holiday 2025

Chucklefish, a publisher that consciously adopts pixel art as a theme, has a number of successful games, including Starbound and Wargroove, but their best-known game is one they no longer publish: Stardew Valley. Witchbrook looks like it has similarities, although it applies its grid-based aesthetic to a pseudo-Harry Potter setting. But it’s got the romancin’, and the four-player co-op’n. And given how J.K. Rowling has succumbed to Internet Poisoning lately, a game in that kind of universe that isn’t so tainted with anti-trans rhetoric will probably be welcome, if the very idea hasn’t been ruined by its association with her.

The Eternal Life of Goldman, THQ Nordic

The always-breathless narrator explains: “Action, adventure and arcade games await!” Arcades figure not at all in this title though, which is mostly a platformer with a hand-drawn look. “Set off on a fantastical mission to eliminate a mysterious deity in this hand-drawn platforming adventure you’re explore an expansive archipelago where nightmares and wonder collide!” You’re describing a video game, that’s like half of them! Other than the admittedly charming artwork, we just don’t know much about this one.

Gradius Origins, from Konami, August 7

ARGH the narrator pronounces it “gray-dius!” It’s “grah-dius,” I continue to insist! GRAH-DIUS!! I can accept a short A, but never a long one! The included games are the arcade versions of Gradius, Salamander, Life Force, Gradius II, Gradius III (oh frog) and Salamander 2. Shown off is the fact that Gradius III has multiple versions, which is welcome news since the original arcade release is infamous for its length and difficulty. The whole series also has terrific music; hopefully there will be a jukebox mode for players who can’t take G3’s infuriating gameplay.

The collection also includes a new game, Salamander 3! Okay, I have to get this now.

Rift of the NecroDancer, from Brace Yourself Games, out now

A more traditional kind of rhythm game than its roguelike predecessor. They appear to be approaching other indie games with great music for paid DLC packs. A Celeste music pack DLC is available immediately, and notably, Peppino from Pizza Tower was shown off in the trailer as an upcoming expansion. Pizza Tower had some of the best music in all of video gaming, so it’s worth looking forward to.

Tamagotchi Plaza, from Bandai Namco, June 27

Tamagotchi’s logo still has the egg virtual pet device in it. Do they even still make those things? I haven’t seen one in a store in the States in decades. Tamagotchi games are sometimes better than you’d expect, especially from a property that’s now two decades past its best-by date. As always, it looks like a meltdown of the Sanrio characters, and has that kind of feel to it.

Pokemon Legends Z-A, from Nintendo/Creatures/GAME FREAK, late 2025

I guess the various companies involved decided they weren’t getting enough billions of dollars lately. “You’ll begin your adventure by choosing one of three partner Pokémon!” Literally everyone who’s watching this already knows that! (By the way, all the many accent-Es in this piece are brought to you courtesy of the Compose Key.)

“To make it easier for humans and Pokémon to co-exist, a company called Quazartico Inc. is carrying out an urban redevelopment plan!” I wonder who the villains will be, hmm.

“If you’re spotted, they’ll challenge you to battle!” Has anyone in any Pokémon been able to resist accepting a Pokémon fight, even if their last ‘mon is down to Struggling? JUST SAY NO TO TURN-BASED SANITIZED COCKFIGHTING. And it’s still nearly the same battle system as shown way back in Pokémon Red and Blue! Haven’t they exhausted its strategic possibilities three times over by now?

Mega-Evolutions are returning. I guess it shows dedication to something to bring back a previously-used gimmick rather than coining another one.

One of the trainers challenging the protagonist in this one is Zach. Zach opens up saying: “Well, I won’t make it easy for you, because this taxi driver has a taxi dream! I’m going to reach Rank A and abolish all forms of transit in Lumiose—except taxis!” That’s like picking your mayor by whoever has the meanest dog!

Rhythm Heaven Groove, from Nintendo, 2026

This is one I can get excited over. Finally, Rhythm Heaven comes to Switch, and it seems to have a lot of new minigames. Don’t sleep on this one, its many minigames are hilarious.

News: Virtual Game Cards, coming late April

A way to play Switch games on more than one system. Basically, you can de-authorize a card on one system to play it on another system you own. An internet connection is required, but only when authorizing (“loading”) or deauthorizing (“ejecting”).

BUT. It only works on up to two systems without a family Switch Online account, which potentially expands the count by 8 more systems. Local wireless seems to be required, so far-flung families may have problems. And only one game can be lent to a given person at a time, and only for up to two weeks at a time. Seems like a whole lot of catches and exceptions. The system is confirmed to support the Switch 2

Quick previews:

  • High on Life, from Squanch Games, May 6
  • Star Overdrive, from Dear Villagers, April 10
  • The Wandering Village, from Stray Fawn Studio, July 17
  • King of Meat, from Glowmade, sometime in 2025
  • Lou’s Lagoon, from Megabit Publishing
  • Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, from Level5, May 21
  • Saga Frontier 2 Remastered, from Square-Enix, out now
  • Monument Valley 1 & 2, ustwo games, April 15
  • Monument Valley 3 coming Summer
  • Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, Bandai
  • Marvel Cosmic Invasion, from Dotemu and Tribute, Holiday 2025

And:

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, Nintendo, 2026

Oooh, the prestigous last announcement this time goes to a series that hasn’t had a great amount of luck lately? It’s felt like Miis have been on the outs for a while. Tomodachi Life was last seen back on the 3DS, Miitomo on mobile lasted mere months, and Miitopia, while cool, didn’t build a lot of buzz. I’m glad Nintendo is giving both Miis and Tomodachi Life another chance, though it’s disappointing that it’s being announced so far in advance.

Nintendo Today app

Introduced by Shigeru Miyamoto himself, this is a smart device app that functions as a calendar, and presents daily Nintendo news and content. Huh, that sounds a bit familiar… ahem! It’s available for download now, and news on the Switch 2 will be presented through it as well as in the next Nintendo Direct, in five days.

Nintendo Direct 2/21/24 Quick Takes

Here is the whole video in case you missed it:

Here is the list, with personal hype level expressed in stars, none to five:

00:30 – Grounded. Your characters are “shruken at the hands of an evil corporation.” First, corporations don’t have hands, their employees do. Second, it’s interesting to see how corporations have joined mad scientists, sorcerers and alien emperors as “the evil.” Anyway, this looks mostly like Generic Action-Adventure Game. “Work your way through the campaign to uncover the mysteries of the back yard.” Like, where they buried the water pipe? Good luck with that. Two stars.

01:37 – ENDER MAGNOLIA: Bloom in the mist. Big contrast to the previous trailer. It’s a “return to the Ender Lily’s world,” just assuming you know what that is. From the trailer I assume the “Ender Lily” must be a really bad flower, because everything is dark and grim, but especially dark. “This once flourishing country sits atop a wealth of buried magic,” yet somehow it looks like Blade Runner. Points for using the word homunculi (16 points if you have the tiles for it) and not inventing another bullshit video game word like “the Aeinsward,” or “the Valarath” or some crap like that. Your character is told early on that “your eyes says[sic] that you long for death.” Sometimes the winning move is not to play. I feel bad about talking down the work of so many hard-working developers, but I don’t think it’s possible to make a game less appealing to me, personally. One star.

03:04 – Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure. “Role-puzzling” is not a thing. Looks like it might be okay, but I’m rating my enthusiasm as generated by the trailers, and they give me flashbacks to the PULL word in Baba Is You, so: Two stars.

03:45 – Unicorn Overlord. Oh, I want to play the fantasy title game too! Gargoyle Emperor! Chimera General! Minotaur President! Looks to me like a Vanillaware joint. Checking: I was right. Reading the transcript, I’m struck by the word unleash, one of those overused videogame words. It literally means to let go, but because it sounds good it gets used for all kinds of things. But really, if it ain’t a dog, it doesn’t fit. Vanillaware’s cool though, so I’ve talked myself into looking forward to it. Three stars.

04:23 – Monster Hunter Stories. “Monster Hunter” brings to mind fighting dragons and behemoths. “Stories” suggests Scenes From A Marriage. Combined, I’m imaging getting hitched to Smaug. (This is probably the backstory to the classic anime Dragon Half, come to think of it.) Anyway, it’s Monster Hunter. You hunt monsters. It’s a remake of a 3DS game, discarding the (mostly) realistic look of other Monster Hunter games for cartoony human characters. I have a previous Monster Hunter on my shelf but I’ve never played it, so I can only rate this One star.

05:00 – Disney Epic Mickey: Rebrushed. I remember when Epic Mickey games filled the discount bins at Walmart, but I always liked the idea, and the internet-viral concept art that inspired them, and they were “directed” by Warren Spector. One thing that always confused me about Epic Mickey, of which the trailer reminds me, is the opening positions Mickey as an innocent interloper, but the content of the Epic Mickey games clearly indicate that these worlds are about him, as a character. He’s not a plucky underdog, he’s the center of the Disney-pocalypse. And yet, that’s interesting. Three stars.

06:07 – Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance. The title logo makes it look like it’s called Shin Megami Tensei V: Engeance. This being a remake, I’m just glad they didn’t call it something like Revengance, hah wouldn’t that be stupid. I don’t remember at this point whether a mainline Shin Megami Tensei game has ever appeared in English before. Maybe on the Playstation or Playstation 2? Sounds about right. (Checking: it was recent! 2021! Huh.) I think it defies belief that this isn’t yet another Persona game. Two stars.

07:41 – STAR WARS: Battlefront Classic Collection. Okay I was wrong, it’s not possible for me to be less interested in this. It’s exciting to some people or else they wouldn’t have made this, but I’m writing this, and I say, One star.

08:24 – SOUTH PARK: SNOW DAY! When your franchise stars a character who was once grounded by his mother for “trying to exterminate the Jews,” I submit that there is something deeply wrong with it. No stars.

There’s so many games here that I’m going to skip around a bit from here on.

10:23 – Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble. It’s an article of faith now that there have been no good Monkey Ball games since Super Monkey Ball Deluxe, and the recent Banana Mania, which was primarily content recycled from the old games. I just picked up Banana Mania a couple of days ago and was reminded why I like the Gamecube-era titles so much, so what the hell, Three stars.

11:40 – World of Goo 2. World of Goo was beloved of many people, myself included, and I’ve also liked everything Tomorrow Corporation has done, so I’m really looking forward to this, even if World of Goo is a very hard act to follow. Five stars.

14:03 – Another Crab’s Treasure.That’s a great title. The trailer, itself, actually calls this game a soulslike, which I guess is just the word we use now when a game is meant to be hard. The game does fix my main issue with Souls games, their relentless dourness. It’s whimsical and charming! Three stars.

15:32 – Penny’s Big Breakaway. From some of the people who made Sonic Mania, which itself makes it worthy of examination. A 3D platformer in 2024 that isn’t Mario, who’d have thought it possible. Three stars.

16:13 – Suika Game Multi-Player Mode Expansion Pack. I’ve been a bit outspoken that I don’t really like this version of the concept, prefering Cosmic Collapse on itch.io. Paid DLC that lets you play against others does nothing to improve the concept for me. One star.

16:57 – Pepper Grinder. It looks a bit interesting, but it feels a bit like a cheat that the tunnels you dig close up behind you. Two stars.

17:26 – Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! Originally a F2P mobile game by Game Freak as one of their occasional non-Pokemon titles, like Drill Dozer and Part-Time UFO, which always seem to be terrific. They released a 3DS port that was one of those games that critics (including myself) couldn’t stop gushing over. I’m so hyped for this that I’ve already bought it, as of this writing it’s on my Switch back at home waiting for me to get back and play it. Five stars.

18:16 – Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. A Moomintroll game! One where you play as his enigmatic, vaguely Link-like friend Snufkin! I’m in! Sadly its trailer is really brief. Four stars.

19:26 – Rare Games Added to Nintendo Switch Online. Five games are added: RC Pro-Am (NES), a classic; Snake Rattle & Roll (NES), challenging and a bit underrated; Killer Instinct (N64), which I never cared for but some people will like; Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (SNES), likewise; and Blast Corps (N64), which is very underrated, a launch game that helped define its system. All of these games except Battletoads in Battlemaniacs were previously collected in Rare Replay for Xbox One, but there is a feeling of coming home here. Overall: Four stars.

These releases are notable all because of Hiroshi Yamauchi’s decision not to buy Rare from the Stamper brothers at the dawning of the Gamecube era, which lost Nintendo Rare’s then-formidable reputation and coding prowess. Nintendo sold its 49% stake to Rare, and Microsoft bought controlling interest. The Gamecube took a substantial hit to its library, and Rare has never been the same. Despite a few distinctive hits (Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts, Viva Pinata and Sea of Thieves) I think Microsoft has never really used them well. For a time they were basically devoted to making Kinect games! (Checking: in fact, Rare’s Kinect Sports was at that time their best-selling game since Microsoft acquired them! Shame that its being tied to an abandoned peripheral means it has had practically no lasting legacy.) I would suppose the return of these titles to a Nintendo system is part of the deal that enabled Goldeneye 007 to come to both Xbox and Switch, but that is only speculation.

RC Pro-Am and Snake Rattle & Roll, are extra notable for their copyright notice by Rare Coin-It, a Miami-based subsidiary of Rare, that seemed to be devoted to games that had arcade pretensions. I don’t know that, but a lot of their games released with that copyright have strange arcade affectations: attract modes, high score lists, and arcade structure. In particular: Slalom (which did get an arcade release, as Vs. Slalom for Nintendo’s Unisystem arcade platform), Wizards & Warriors, RC Pro-Am and Cobra Triangle. But these weren’t the only games that bore the Rare Coin-It copyright. I really don’t know why; maybe they were assign games that Rare thought might have potential as arcade games.

Back to the Switch Online collection, this move gives me hope that the Wizards & Warriors games, especially the first, and its sequel Ironsword, will make it there someday.

Nintendo Direct 2/8/23

Thursdays here at the moment are the domain of Edit the Frog, so we put off our overview of the Nintendo Direct until today.

While most sites have already regurgitated the news into your waiting beaks, this time we’re recounting the release dates chronologically, so you’ll know what order to expect everything. Specific games of possible interest to a hazy mirage that I imagine to be our readers are in bold:

FEBRUARY
8th: Nintendo Switch Online Gameboy & GBA Support, Fire Emblem Engage Expansion Pass, Metroid Prime Remastered
15th: Xenoblade Chronicles 3 Expansion Pass DLC volume 3
22nd: Metroid Prime Remastered on cartridge
24th: Octopath Traveler II, Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe

MARCH
6th: Dead Cells Return to Castlevania DLC
17th: Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon
20th: Spring begins. Releases for Spring: Splatoon 3 Expansion Pass, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC Wave 4,

APRIL
11th: Tron: Identity
21st: Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot Camp
27th: Omega Strike

MAY
12th: The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom

JUNE
Some time in June: Harmony: Fall of Reverie
1st: Etrian Odyssey Origins Collection
2nd: We Love Katamari REROLL + Royal Reverie (what is it with the word “reverie” this month?)
21st: Summer begins. Releases for Summer: New Samba de Amigo, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, Baten Kaitos I & II HD Remaster

JULY
21st: Pikmin 4
28th: Disney Illusion Island

AUGUST
29th: Sea of Stars

Some time in 2023: Fashion Dreamer, Decapolice, Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam




Nintendo Direct, September 2022

Nintendo released a new Nintendo Direct yesterday, and everyone in the gamesphere is posting about it as they always do. I suppose we should say something too. While it’s not directly related to our subject matter, Nintendo is as niche as a major game publisher gets, so I believe I can find room for it.

First, here’s the video if you care to watch it yourself (the relevent part is about 45 minutes long, I’ve cued it up to the content):

In summary:

Not to bury the lede like Nintendo usually does, the last trailer was about the sequel to The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, subtitled Tears of the Kingdom. I think they should just call every game Magical Thingumy, but no one ever listens to good sense. The given release date is May 20, 2023, so, not much longer to wait. Despite the closeness of its release, even less was presented about the game than the last time it showed up in a Nintendo Direct!

Fire Emblem Engage seems to offer crossovers between characters from prior games, including Marth himself, Mr. Fire Emblem, the hero of the first game. I mean all the big game companies seem to be falling over themselves to cross their games and even series together into a thick homogeneous paste, why should Nintendo be any different? Arguably they started the whole trend with Smash Bros. anyway. Fire Emblem has been to this well once before with the mobile app Fire Emblem Heroes. Release date: January 20.

A crossover between Fitness Boxing and Fist of the North Star, the anime property no one’s been clamoring for. “Box with familiar characters.” Sure, like, um, that guy. Hatatatatatatata! I’d explain more, but you’re already dead.

OddBallers, a party game for up to six players. Tunic makes it to Switch, where it should probably have debuted. Remakes of Front Missions 1 and 2 (first time out of Japan for the second), with 3 coming in the future.

New release Splatoon 3 (what, it’s out already?) is getting its first Splatfest. Mario Strikers Battle League is getting new characters Pauline and Diddy Kong.

Octopath Traveler 2 is coming and it looks the same, and a new Final Fantasy Theatrhythm (with a ton of DLC of course).

The original Mario + Rabbids took a lot of people by surprised with its deep gameplay, and it even somehow made the Rabbids more fun than annoying. Other than a couple of minor gameplay features (exploring, Sparks), and maybe playable Bowser, the only really new information was its release date of October 20. I mean, there’s pre-order bonuses and a season pass, but it’d almost be more news if those weren’t going to be offered.

Let’s keep rolling with that farming theme. Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life is getting remade as Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. Why change the brand? Are there rights issues around the original? Turns out, yes. Jessica Thomas lays it all out for us at thegamer.com.

More farming! New games called Fae Farm and Harvestella. I guess if you’ve completely exhausted all of Stardew Valley’s many many features and updates and are still not farmed out, there you go. You could also go out and get some seeds and plant your own garden, unless you live in the city, you poor soul. Still, this way has far less back-breaking labor, and you don’t have to smell manure.

Even more farming! Your feed trough runneth over! Rune Factory 3 is being remade, and another Rune Factory series is coming.

Playing these things since the Atari VCS days has inoculated me against a lot of hype, but the me that played Goldeneye back in college would have been thrilled by this.

A bevy of new N64 games is coming to the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, including, Pilotwings 64, Mario Parties 1-3, Pokemon Stadium 1 and 2, 1080 Snowboarding, Excitebike 64, and, amazingly, Goldeneye 007 with online multiplayer. I am practically certain that rights issues will have required that it be modified in some way, but that it has managed to come out at all is amazing considering the James Bond property’s owners, and that Nintendo and game creator Rare are nowhere near as close as they were back then. I’d like to know the story behind its rerelease. Honestly, the original came out twenty-five years ago. If this had made it out on Gamecube or even Wii it would have been a sensation, but FPSes have advanced so much since then. Well, nostalgia is a powerful drug. (Yeah, I said it.)

Along those lines. In addition to Octopath Traveler 2, the fandom dairy farm department of Square Enix is rereleasing Final Fantasy VII Crisis Core on Switch. I am apparently the only person in the gaming world without an abiding affection for Final Fantasy VII (the load times put me entirely the hell off the original game when it was new), so I can only watch from the sidelines. S-E also released (yesterday) the oddly-titled Various Daylife. I’m Somewhat Minuteinterested!

Speaking of fandom milking, prepare to low mournfully at the news that Mario Kart 8 is getting still more DLC tracks! And Capcom is releasing cloud versions of various Resident Evil games. Moooooo.

Wii Switch Sports is finally getting its Golf mode, released in a free update, before the end of the year, with 21 holes. I don’t know why they just didn’t wait to release it when it was finished, especially since Golf was the standout mode in Wii Sports, but I guess it’s common practice to delay a major feature or two on release now so a game can get a sales boost by announcing that feature later. There’s a spreadsheet deep in Nintendo’s marketing department that lays out the financial advantages of doing so. They keep it in a folder next to all their demonic contracts.

Shigeru Miyamoto appeared for a moment to hype the animated Mario movie releasing in the Spring, and the Nintendo World amusement park in Japan, and a new one opening soon in Hollywood, California. It’s kind of amazing to think that this is the very same Miyamoto who designed Donkey Kong in the early 80s, at a very different Nintendo. He devoted a lot of time to explaining the smartphone ARG Pikmin Bloom, even though it’s not particularly new. He mentioned that Pikmin 4 is coming out, but very very little about it.

Radiant Silvergun is being remade. Actually, has been remade, and should be out by the time you read this. It’s being released by “Live Wire Inc.” The word Treasure wasn’t mentioned at any time during the game’s brief appearance in the video.

Finishing up. Intrinisically co-op 3D platformer It Takes Two comes to Switch two, er, too. Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse. Another Xenoblade Chronicles 3 DLC update. A new Spongebob Squarepants game, sure why not. Factorio is coming to Switch. Ib. (Ib? Yeah, Ib) Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End & the Secret Key (what the hell is an atelier anyway and why do so many JRPGs have them?), Just Dance 2023 (sadly not for the Wii), Bayonetta 3, Master Detective Archives: RAIN COODE, Sifu, Endless Dungeon, a remake of Tales of Symphonia, Life is Strange: Arcadia Bay Collection, Romancing Saga: Minstrel Song Remastered, Lego Bricktales, Disney Speedstorm, and Fall Guys: Season 2. Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe returns to the classic 2D-style Kirby gameplay.

This Direct’s hype score: 3/10. The only substantive announcements were Fire Emblem Engage and N64 Goldeneye 007! We knew Zelda was coming already, and all the other Nintendo things were either brief teasers or we already knew they were coming.

Wake me when it’s May.