2013 has been the year where the Nintendo Direct format has come into true form. While there are still a few areas where Nintendo needs to work on to improve the Directs as a whole, each Nintendo Direct this year has been like a mini-E3 full of surprises and exciting game news. With this current success, many gamers hoped Nintendo would bring some big announcements for E3 since they opted out of having an actual press conference this year. What Nintendo actually delivered was very interesting.
It has taken a couple days to fully process what Nintendo did Tuesday morning with their Nintendo Direct. All the games showed off at this Direct looked phenomenal, but we all were expecting more. Yes, Nintendo delivered on Super Mario 3D World, Mario Kart 8 and Super Smash Bros. along with the reveal of Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze. It just felt too safe. They kept to their regular line-up of popular Nintendo franchises like Mario, Zelda , Pokemon, Smash Bros. and Donkey Kong. Gamers wanted to see franchises that have laid dormant for awhile now such as Metroid, Star Fox and F-Zero or new intellectual properties. Personally, I believe mentioning a new 3D Mario, Mario Kart and Smash Bros. would all be at E3 severely hurt this Direct. If Nintendo just kept their mouth shut, these three announcements could have easily made this Direct an instant classic. By revealing their hand back in January, it caused speculation to spin out of control to the point where expectations were too high. The fault of those unrealistic expectations is solely on Nintendo. Another situation that is entirely Nintendo's fault was the unbearable buffering issues the Nintendo Direct livestream suffered from. The livestream kept buffering every 20 seconds or so until at least halfway through the Direct. Maybe Nintendo did not anticipate the volume of people that would tune into the stream, but that does not excuse them from not preparing for these technical problems. While Nintendo wants to control the message, they need to open up the Directs for other media outlets such as IGN or Gametrailers to broadcast in order to avoid these buffering problems in the future.
Like I metioned before, all the games showed off at this Nintendo Direct were phenomenal. Super Mario 3D World looks to be an excellent follow-up to Super Mario 3D Land. While many were hoping for a 3D Mario game more in the vein of Super Mario Galaxy, I believe the more Nintendo shows off of 3D World the more people will be impressed as it looks to blend the best aspects of the New Super Mario series with the features and gamplay of Mario Galaxy and 3D Land series. Much like 3D Land before it, you will most likely have to actually play 3D World to get the full affect of its greatness.
Mario Kart 8 could be the Wii U's killer app in my opinion. The new anti-gravity feature applied to all of the tracks in Mario Kart 8 looks to add new ways to approach your tradition game of Mario Kart. This grand new feature along with superb online multiplayer could move a lot of Wii U's to the casual Nintendo audience.
While it was a little bit of a bummer to hear about Retro working on another Donkey Kong game, Tropical Freeze looks just as good or even better than Donkey Kong Country Returns. The new full 3D camera adds a lot of interesting visuals to a game that was formerly restricted to just a two dimensional side view of the action. Also the inclusion of new characters (Dixie Kong and a still unnamed third companion) and over five islands to explore (how many levels per island is still unknown) will provide lots of bang for your buck this November.
Nintendo only showed Monlith Soft's X in trailer form. Still the more Nintendo shows of this game, the more psyched I get. After playing Xenoblade, everybody wanted to see these worlds brought to life in high definition. X looks to answer those prayers and I personally cannot wait until Nintendo starts giving people hand-ons with this possible console defining open world RPG.
There were a few other games I would love to get to from this Nintendo Direct like Pokemon X and Y, Wind Waker HD, The Wonderful 101 and Bayonetta 2, but that could take far too long to read and there is one more thing I want to talk about. That one more thing is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS. While everybody knew it was coming, that trailer lived up to our expectations and then some. The introduction of the Villager from Animal Crossing was classic especially the sinister twinkle in his eye. I personally love the addition of such a quirky character to roster of Nintendo fighters. The greatest part of the trailer was the reveal that Mega Man will be in Super Smash Bros. Let me repeat, MEGA MAN IS IN SMASH BROS.!!! I have dreamed of the Blue Bomber being in the next Smash Bros., but never thought it would actually become reality. It was such an excellent reveal that I cannot wait to see any sort of information about the 3DS and Wii U entires of the Super Smash Bros. series.
This Nintendo Direct from E3 failed to convince gamers that the hard times this system is currently in will end anytime soon. The third party support just is not there to really convince people to go out of their way to buy a Wii U over the PS4 or Xbox One. A lot of games shown off at E3 like Watch Dogs and Battlefield 4 had those second screen experiences that would be at home on the Wii U Gamepad. Nintendo needs to find a way to court the publishers that are making these games to port them to the Wii U. There is a solid line-up of first party support from August on and 2014 looks to be a killer year for Wii U, but there are still some problems Nintendo needs to work out before they get out of their current predicament. I believe a price cut will definitely help, but it cannot be the only solution. Overall, this Nintendo Direct may have been lacking in surprises, but it was still a solid show. While the unacceptable technical difficulties did lower the grade significantly, this Nintendo Direct was one of the better showings at this year's E3.
Grade: C+
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