E3 2014: Nintendo Digital Event Impressions

Aside from Sony's offerings this year, E3 2014 can be summed up in one word-- safe.  For the second year in a row, Nintendo looks to usurp convention with their Nintendo Digital Event.  Details surrounding this event have been clouded in mystery since the Big N announced it.  A lot of people especially Nintendo fans were hoping to see Nintendo move out of the financial woes of the Wii U with this event.  Did Nintendo's Digital Event deliver?

As a whole, the Nintendo Digital Event delivered as a perfectly paced entertaining forty-five minute show.  It provided a great amount of new information on Nintendo properties people were most concerned about and wove it into a fun captivating presentation including smooth transitions, funny Robot Chicken skits and a steady pace.  With all that said, the presentation felt pretty safe and underwhelming in this writer's humble opinion.  Not to mean Nintendo's performance was bad, in fact it was better than last year's showing, however nothing truly surprised or caught this writer off-guard.  Also this writer would of ended the event with The Legend of Zelda reveal instead of the Palutena character reveal for Super Smash Bros.  Speaking of The Legend of Zelda reveal, the new game looks incredible with a cel-shaded anime art style and the futuristic technology mixed with medieval fantasy.  A more substantial Zelda trailer or gameplay would have been nice yet what we got was great nonetheless.

Super Smash Bros. saw Palutena and Mii Fighters revealed as new additions to the character roster.  Masahiro Sakurai took a bit of time to focus on the Mii Fighters as they look to be Smash's answer to create-a-fighters in other fighting games as you get to choose the Mii's style (brawler, sword-fighter and gunner), special moves and most likely appearance.  That news was coupled with an excellent one-on-one fight between Reggie and Iwata and the introduction of amiibos.  Despite the weird name, amiibos are Nintendo's answer to the collectable toy genre popularized by Disney Infinity and Skylanders and they allow you to store, transfer and unlock different data across multiple Nintendo games.  Currently confirmed to work with Super Smash Bros., Mario Kart 8 and Mario Party 10 among others, the amiibos showed off at the event looked really well crafted.  There were a lot more games covered in this event including Mario Maker, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker,  Kirby and the Rainbow Curse, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Hyrule Warriors, Bayonetta 2 with the first Bayonetta included on disc, Xenoblade Chronicles X and Yoshi's Woolly World.  Sadly, most of them are coming out in 2015.  Not much incentive to buy a Wii U this coming Fall, which is a mistake on Nintendo's part, but in 2015 the Wii U will be releasing games at a considerable pace.

Before the Palutena reveal, Nintendo ended off with a brand new property for Wii U called Splatoon.  Splatoon is a third-person shooter where you play as a squid-human hybrid and the goal of each match is to cover the arena with the most ink.  Ink plays a greater role than being your ammo as you can use it travel far distances quickly in squid form and slow down opposing players that get caught in it.  While Splatoon looks more like a downloadable game rather than a system seller, it was nice to see Nintendo introduce a brand new property for the first time in what seems like years.  Splatoon is hopefully a sign of more good things to come from Nintendo.

Although this writer did find Nintendo's Digital Event thoroughly entertaining, it was not the home run the company needed.  Nintendo did a great job in developing a definitive lineup for the rest of 2014 with set release dates for all their titles except Super Smash Bros. for Wii U, giving fans confidence in the games further down the pipeline and wrapping it all in an entertaining package.  Despite all that great stuff, this writer wanted Nintendo to make a much bigger statement this year and they fell short.  The Wii U will definitely gain some much needed ground in 2014, just not enough to compete on the same level as Sony and Microsoft.

Grade:  B+

Launch Station: Mario Party 9

While the storm of releases is over, there are quite a few noteworthy releases coming in the next few weeks.  It is not as crazy as what we have seen for the past month, but at least the game release schedule is starting to be more spaced out rather than dropping all at once like last week.  To start of this week, we will be taking a look at the newest entry in Nintendo's long-running party game series, Mario Party 9, which released yesterday.

It has been close to five years since we have seen a new entry in the Mario Party series.  This time around Nintendo has handed the series over to the team at Nd Cube.  With the new developer, there have been some changes to the regular Mario Party formula in the ninth entry in the series.  Now players move around the game boards at the same time as they travel on a vehicle.  Coins and stars are no longer the key to winning a game of Mario Party anymore as Mini Stars have replaced them.  As players collect Mini Stars, they also have to avoid Mini Ztars, that will take away some of your Mini Stars if touched.  In Mario Party 9, mini-games no longer appear at the end of each turn.  You can only trigger one of Mario Party 9's 80 mini-games once a player ends up on the corresponding space.  Each board culminates in a boss battle followed by a final tally of Mini Stars to determine who won the game.

For the first time in a long time and with the help of Nd Cube, Nintendo has injected some new life in this rather stagnant series.  For Mario Party purists, the changes in Mario Party 9 might turn them off, but it will definitely bring in a new audience that may have never played a Mario Party game before.  Mario Party is an excellent game with four people sitting on the same couch.  Personally, I believe you only need one Mario Party game in your gaming collection be it on the N64 or Gamecube or Wii.  My brothers and I already own Mario Party 6 for the Gamecube and that is all the Mario Party that I honestly need.  So as big of Nintendo fan as I am, honestly I am not going to pick up Mario Party 9.  For those who have never played a Mario Party in their life or casual gamers look for a great party game, they should definitely consider picking up Mario Party 9.