So, I’m going to go well out of my comfort zone and do something considerably different because I got a fair bit to say about this. But to start off, in case you have been living under a rock, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or E3 for short is a who’s who of developers all coming under one convention to show off their biggest titles coming up in the future, all in order to stoke the flames of the hype trains and the meme machines for consumers like you and I to buy their games and/or accessories on or close to release day. Frankly though, in my case, usually the one that I keep a very careful eye on is when Nintendo comes up to bat. Granted, I may look in on other companies’ presentations and demonstrations and pray that certain games gets a port to a Nintendo console, or at the absolute least to the PC rather it be through Steam or some means, but really Nintendo is the one that I keep tabs on the most. Call it 30 years dedication to Nintendo and their Italian plumbers, legendary heroes of ages, and falling blocks or call it mindless fanboyism (you’re an idiot if you think it’s the latter case), Nintendo is the one that’s near and dear to my heart and it pains me whenever there’s some sort of stumble of some kind. E3 in particular I find is the near end-all-be all projector to the future of a company. Granted, that’s not TRULY the case, but it does give people some outlook as to where a company is going...and sometimes it’s not good.
Remember when this was thought to be just an accessory to a prior generation console?
Nintendo at E3 though tends to be unique in its own regard. For the past few years now, they’ve apparently been insistent on holding a pre-recorded video presentation instead of anything live on the showroom floor by means of their Nintendo Direct…….which is something they tend to do on roughly every one to three month basis anyhow, rather it be based on one franchise or a miscellaneous thing to just blanket everything. An odd move considering that one would think that it would leave next to nothing for Nintendo to show to wow the audiences at E3. The only difference is that usually Nintendo has the Nintendo Treehouse on floor, which usually consists of a panel of people to discuss (to the extent they are allowed) the games that have been shown off in the aforementioned Direct. Usually, in this regard, it’s the game they are most focused and hell bent on making sure it’s good to sell. A couple of years ago, for instance, was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, which may have perhaps upon release dethroned Ocarina of Time as the best Zelda title ever. In fact, at the time, they made it a point where it’s the only game to show on Nintendo’s floor and nothing else.
Though to be quite fair, they did go all out with it.
So, E3 2018 rolls around, and once again Nintendo is to close out E3 with their made for E3 Nintendo Direct and the Treehouse to show off what they got. Now, when it comes to any Nintendo direct, let alone E3’s, I’ve gotten to the point where I am a bit laid back and I go in watching with cautious optimism and try to leave the hype train alone. I find that it’s a bit better than going in with the mindset of “better to be a surprised pessimist than a disappointed optimist” because at least I get to actually enjoy what may come out and if there is that aforementioned stumble, it’s not too much of a gut punch during the direct, nor is it when the game comes out and I find out that it’s not that great after all. So how did this E3 fair to the Cold One? Well, let’s break it down…
First let’s get the disappointments out of the way…
Nintendo, by far, isn't without sin. No company is. Companies will promise things, tease things, and the like, then suddenly vanish from the radar or the item in question comes out rushed, and blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. There’s a couple of proverbial elephants in the room that I felt should have been addressed in the E3 Direct at the very least so let’s get through these really fast and take it like a doctor’s shot:
For anyone in Snagem that knows me for longer than a week, apart from The Legend of Zelda, the go-to franchise of Nintendo for me is Metroid. So this may come to no surprise when I ask where the hell was this? Anywhere? Anywhere at all? This little gem was brought up alongside Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3DS at E3 2017 and while we got the 3DS title soon enough, we’re still waiting on our FPS Samus romp. I had the feeling that I couldn’t have been the only one who was wondering about this so doing some digging as I type this little review out, I come to find out that I was right. IGN, while I do give them flack for being the most ignorant pricks out there in the game journalistic view, rivaling that of Gamespot, did in fact take the initiative and did manage to get in touch with Bill Trinen, Nintnedo’s Senior Product Marketing Manager, to inquire about Nintendo’s generally absent bounty hunter:
“There was other stuff that we probably could have included in E3, but is probably a bit further out, and so we decided to really kind of keep the focus a little bit more on between now and early 2019, which I think you saw some hints of there with a couple of games,” Trinen told IGN.
“We want to show stuff when we think it's ready to show. Obviously it's not like we've stopped working on any of the things we talked about last year, that stuff's all being worked on,” Trinen added. “We'll just show stuff when we're ready to show it and really, right now, the focus is on two big games in the form of Smash and Pokémon.”
Okay, fair enough…I guess. The hang-up I have here is that you introduced Metroid at E3 a year ago without even so much as an update other than “we’re working on it.” We couldn’t get even so much as a two-minute teaser trailer or something on this in good faith? Honestly? Oh, glad he brought up Pokémon because…
I’ll be up front. I can pretty much say that I am NOT getting Pokémon: Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee. Given what I have seen between trailers and what they demonstrated in the Treehouse, unless there’s an option to turn the Pokémon Go! mechanics off, I’d feel that it’d ultimately ruin Pokémon Generation 1 and the Fire Red/Leaf Green part of Generation 3 for me and I’d rather not go through it. I’d be better apt just to take my 3DS and download the virtual console titles. Not even the promise of Mew could get me to take the dive. Granted, I know that this isn’t the game for the dedicated player that’s been around perhaps since Gen 1 (like me) and instead it could perhaps bridge the gap from Pokemon Go! to the actual main titles to bring in a whole new line of players, which fine, all well and dandy. That being said, that isn’t my main gripe at all.
The problem here was like Metroid Prime 4, we knew of the main series Pokémon game since as far back as the Direct that introduced Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon. Granted, that Direct came in roughly three months after E3 2017, but one would imagine there’d be something to go on, but again. There wasn’t. At all. And it’s a letdown.
You kinda got my attention…
Okay, we weathered the crap storm, now let’s pick apart some of the seemingly promising stuff:
Leading off the entire Nintendo Direct was Daemon x Machina which if I am being honest, compared to the handful of mech games that are out there in the market…this one actually has my interests peaked. Granted, you don’t necessarily see finished gameplay footage, but it’s actually intriguing. I don’t know the route the game is going with it, if it’s going to be a third-person shoot-em-up, or since that the most you see in the trailer are tiny mech suits taking down colossal suits at least 20 to 30 times its size makes me think Monster Hunter? I honestly don’t know. I’m going to have to keep my eye out on this one a bit and see where that goes.
At this point, I probably have no right to even talk about Fire Emblem, let alone Fire Emblem: Three Houses coming out for the Nintendo Switch. Fire Emblem has been a really nasty case of “only look from afar” with me because I for one completely suck at strategy games, rather they be turned based or real time, and every time I even consider Fire Emblem I never commit to it sans the one time I did and I did so with one of the hardest games in the franchise, that being Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. While I beat Radiant Dawn, it went about as swimmingly as you think it did, and that is to say, it didn’t. And for the record, no, Fire Emblem Warriors doesn’t count. The presentation looks stunning and the fights look like an outright war is going on instead of two people slapping each other with swords or dropping a fireball on each other. I may have to give Fire Emblem another shot and this might be the one that gets me off my rear to do so. Maybe…
I’ve given Mario a lot of flak when it came to Mario Party. I mean…a lot of flak. The series to me started to stagnate after perhaps…the third one? And it really started to take a nose dive when it started introducing that all characters were going to ride around the game board in a car and…ugh. Now, why the change of heart suddenly? Well…there isn’t too much of one, honestly. As far as having my attention goes, right at this second, it pretty much rates just above anything EA has to put out, the only reason being that they apparently turned it back to everyone to themselves on the game board, for one. The only thing that I can ask is PLEASE. OH, FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, PLEASE. DO. NOT. MAKE. THIS. LOCAL. COUCH. ONLY. I may actually consider getting it if there is online play to Super Mario Party.
Along on that same “you have my attention” wavelength, Nintendo made brief mentions of various titles, both major and indie alike that caught my attention. Rumors were confirmed for Dragonball Fighter Z coming out for the switch which is a nice plus as well as Hollow Knight, which now…leave me in a position do I get those for PC? Or the Switch? I honestly don’t know. Hell, even The World Ends With You is getting a Switch port! And it might be easier to deal with than its original DS version! Oh wait, excuse me. “Definitive Edition”. Because it seems to be the trendy thing to do to add on some sort of ending to your title to really make it stand out, like Monster Hunter Generations ULTIMATE, or Hyrule Warriors DEFINITIVE EDITION! Or, as I am about to talk about…
Nintendo’s Big Gun of E3
Remember when I talked about at the beginning where Nintendo’s Direct at E3 tends more often than not focus more on one particular game than anything else it might have to show off? Yea…this is that game this year:
Sakurai…Sakurai…Oh, for the love of God, Sakurai. This franchise will be the literal death of you, but dear God do I love the commitment you put into it; you are a virtual god amongst players. Seriously, after the Wii U and 3DS Smash titles, it was almost for certain that Smash was going to be taken over by other people in Nintendo’s house because of the various reports of health issues that Masahiro Sakurai was having, ones that even date back to his development of Smash Bros. Brawl. But no! Here he is again like the masochistic juggernaut that he is! And what does he have to show!?
How about to kick things off, every last fighter to ever show up in Smash, rather they be the one-shots like Pokémon’s Pichu from Melee or Metal Gear Solid’s Snake in Brawl, or the recent entry’s DLC, like Bayonetta and Ryu are all confirmed to be in this game. Furthermore, Sakurai may have gotten the hint and cut down on the “clone” characters. Because characters such as Lucina, who right down to her core was just a Marth copy, is actually an alternate character for Marth, which in this case they are being referred to as “Echo Fighters”. Incidentally, Marth wasn’t alone in getting an Echo fighter. Dark Pit has been relegated to Pit’s echo fighter, and of all people, Peach found one in her Sarasaland counterpart, Daisy, making this Daisy’s first smash outing beyond a collectable in-game trophy or a color pallet swap for Peach. Barring that, the characters all have been retooled either slightly or extremely in this game in some regard, rather it be cosmetic or actual mechanic overhauls. Zelda for instance resembles her Link Between Worlds incarnation and Ganondorf resembles his Ocarina of Time get up, where they both for the prior two games in the series resembled their Twilight Princess incarnations. Furthermore, Ganondorf FINALLY brought his sword to the fight and uses it more than an alternate B special.
If one paid attention, it seemed to imply that all the stages will be returning as well. It showed stages being overhauled cosmetically and mechanically to bring it up to Nintendo Switch standards, even stages that hasn’t even been seen since the Nintendo 64.
I’ll see you bastards in Saffron City.
Of course, it wouldn’t be a new Smash game unless there was anything new thrown into the works, and between the trailer and the Treehouse, they showed off stages such as the Great Plateau Tower from Breath of the Wild and the Inkling, both the orange girl and blue boy variants to join the fray. That’s not the only thing…though...
By the way, Samus, his brother is next.
Freakin’…Ridley. They finally done it. After all the demand, after all the memes, after everything. We got Ridley. And dear God. It’s glorious. Not going to lie, Metroid in general has been getting the shaft in representation in Smash Bros. and there was no one better to do it. I may have found another character to main.
With optimism aside, there are a couple of concerns I have. For starters, while having all these characters is great, and it was stated that there will be a feeling of progression in unlocking all of these characters, which hey, I’m all for, honestly. I’m just wondering what exactly they are going to do beyond just your typical classic mode and vs. modes. Are we going to see another story mode like or Subspace Emissary? Or at least something like that like Melee’s Adventure mode? What of the challenges, if any? What about any side items, like target tests or the multi-man smash modes? It’s not going to be that grand of a spectacle if there’s nothing to do with the 64 (so-far) characters. Furthermore, while “Ultimate” is in the title, as great as everything seems to be, there doesn’t seem to be anything here so far that would deem this “ultimate”. Sure, it brings everyone and all the places together in one place but if I am being honest, this looks like a more polished up port or re-hashing of the Wii U Smash game. Hopefully, Sakurai will continue to not disappoint here.
If I am being quite honest, amongst all else, let’s avoid doing this again.
So, yay? Nay? What?
Well, right down to its core, the E3 Nintendo Direct does what it came to do. Though honestly, if it weren’t for the 20 minutes that was taken up by Smash Bros: Ultimate, this honestly would have been just another Direct. It’s got the items to look forward to, such as those I mentioned and I hope they go in the right direction. Smash Bros.: Ultimate though I can see is going to leave people with severely high expectations, especially if they decided to throw every last character under the sun they’ve had on the roster on this and top that all off with Ridley, which Sakurai originally said would have been otherwise impossible to do. I’m still trying to hold off on riding the hype train as it were because I’ve kind of learned my lesson on that a while back. See: Star Fox Zero for example. We’ll see what the rest of this year brings. In the meantime, feel free to put your two cents on the matter. Anything you are looking forward to? Something piss you the hell off? I can imagine Sub raging to the heavens for the lack of Animal Crossing. What is something that you would have liked to see and thought it’s been too long? In the meantime, I guess I’ll close it with this: If I had to rate this, I’d give it a 8 out of 10.
