Ramblings | New Nintendo 3DS Direct Emotional Roller Coaster

It has been a while since I’ve respond­ed direct­ly here about a Nin­ten­do Direct. Then again, the mini-con­fer­ences haven’t had as many twists and turns as the one this morn­ing. It was tru­ly an emo­tion­al roller coast­er, so I’d like to respond to each piece of news indi­vid­u­al­ly with my thoughts. Feel free to respond with your thoughts as well!

Okay, they talked about a lot here, so this is going to be a long one. Bear with me!

New Fire Emblem Trailer:
When this trail­er first start­ed play­ing, I thought it sure­ly must have been Shin Mega­mi Ten­sei X Fire Emblem. As soon as it became obvi­ous that it was a 3DS game, I real­ized that it was just anoth­er reg­u­lar game in the Fire Emblem series. As down on it that makes me sound, I loved Fire Emblem: Awak­en­ing and this one looks like it could be even bet­ter. By recruit­ing a new writer, they just might breathe the new life into this series that it so des­per­ate­ly needs. That map-to-3D tran­si­tion also had me a bit giddy.

Two Ver­sions of Puz­zle & Drag­ons:
I tried to get into this series on iOS, but just could­n’t get past the always online func­tion­al­i­ty and con­stant free-to-play bad­ger­ing. Since it is a full release on the 3DS, I’m hope­ful that these ver­sions of the game might be just what I need to under­stand why every­one who’s played it loves it. Adding Super Mario char­ac­ters into the mix also makes it appeal­ing to me. There are few­er RPG-style games in the Mush­room King­dom than I would like, so I’ll take what I can get.

Poké­mon Shuffle:
No. Please no! No no no!!! A free to play game on the 3DS with ener­gy-deple­tion mechan­ics? I cer­tain­ly hope this is not an indi­ca­tion of things to come from Nintendo’s big­ger releas­es. In all seri­ous­ness, I may actu­al­ly try this one out to see if the qual­i­ty Nin­ten­do usu­al­ly tries to aim for can car­ry over to such a poi­so­nous game-type. Either way, I’m not hap­py about this.

Wii Games Down­load­able on Wii U:
I have mixed feel­ings about this announce­ment. I’m very glad that folks who missed out on some of the bet­ter games from the Wii library can catch up. Per­son­al­ly, I’m excit­ed to pick up Metroid Prime Tril­o­gy for half price when it goes up there. On the oth­er hand, I couldn’t help but won­der what the holdup is on Nin­ten­do releas­ing their old Game­cube library as well. I know I’m not alone when I’d love to play some Super Mario Sun­shine on my gamepad screen. Does this mean we may still have some HD re-releas­es of some of those games com­ing? We can only hope!

Kir­by & the Rain­bow Curse Details:
As I’m knee deep in Cap­tain Toad: Trea­sure Track­er with Bay­o­net­ta 2 as my next step after­wards, I’ve pret­ty much accept­ed I won’t be get­ting this one. Per­haps lat­er, but cer­tain­ly not right away. This is not a snub on Kir­by by any means, Kirby’s Epic Yarn was one of my favorite games the year it came out, but I just don’t have the time for it.

Ami­i­bo Update Extravaganza:
I actu­al­ly did pick up a cou­ple of Ami­i­bo when Super Smash Bros. For Wii U came out. They have some inter­est­ing func­tion­al­i­ty, but I’m hav­ing a hard time decid­ing how I feel about what they’ve imple­ment­ed thus far and what they have planned. Some things, like the new weapon in Hyrule War­riors, seem like a good and fair idea. I did feel a lit­tle uncom­fort­able about the con­tent they announced for Mario Par­ty 10, specif­i­cal­ly the fact that there was an entire mode locked out with­out Ami­i­bo. I am relieved, on the oth­er hand, that they appear to be try­ing to incor­po­rate the fig­ures where they can.

More Spla­toon Details:
I’ve had my eye on this game since it was announced. It looks like one of those games that will live or die with how many friends you have play­ing it. The new fea­tures, the cus­tomiza­tion of your char­ac­ter, looks pret­ty inter­est­ing and the hub world is very attrac­tive. What I real­ly need to sell me on this game how­ev­er, is to get my hands on it. Until then, I will keep an ear­mark on that promis­ing game.

Tin­gle in Hyrule War­riors:
Many would like­ly describe Tin­gle as the Jar Jar Binks of the Zel­da uni­verse. Per­son­al­ly, I think he’s a weird char­ac­ter, but it would be hilar­i­ous to play as him in Hyrule War­riors. His attacks look absolute­ly ridicu­lous and it only adds to the mas­sive fan ser­vice which serves to attract me back to this game time and again. Also, I’m pret­ty sure I say the sil­hou­ette of the Skull Kid when they were talk­ing about addi­tion­al char­ac­ters! Just saying!

Xenoblade Chron­i­cles X Details:
This game looks absolute­ly gor­geous, but I real­ly feel like I should play the first game in the series before­hand so I can get the back­sto­ry. If only it were com­ing to some kind of portable con­sole. Wink wink.

So So Many Down­load­able Games:
Inter­est­ing that in the same Nin­ten­do Direct, they adopt­ed one of the worst portable game fea­tures (that was ener­gy-based micro trans­ac­tions) and then lat­er, one of the best. It looks like cross-buy might become a thing going for­ward with Nin­ten­do, which shows a lot of promise. The mas­sive amount of down­load­able that fol­lowed was a mix­ture of excit­ing and less so down­load­able games. Elliot Quest and Gun­man Clive 2 looked par­tic­u­lar­ly interesting.

Here Comes the New Nin­ten­do 3DS XL:
Let me make this clear from the get go: This is a ter­ri­ble name for this sys­tem. It’s going to cre­ate con­fu­sion that rivals that of the Wii U by mak­ing it dif­fi­cult to describe. Let’s take a very sim­ple exam­ple and say some­one walks into a store and says “I’d like to buy a New Nin­ten­do 3DS XL.” Now, are they talk­ing about the newest prod­uct, or do they sim­ply want a brand new Nin­ten­do 3DS XL? Okay, that aside, I’m excit­ed about some of the fea­tures of the updat­ed sys­tem. The added pro­cess­ing pow­er will def­i­nite­ly be nice to boot up the OS and load games faster. The C‑stick is some­thing that should’ve been added to the 3DS from the start, but I’m glad it has final­ly made it in. I’m also excit­ed to use my 3D more if the head-track­ing tech­nol­o­gy works as adver­tised. I’m pret­ty excit­ed for the close release date. I’ll have my hands on the sys­tem in about a month and that’s my favorite way to wait for new tech­nol­o­gy: to not.

Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. Makes Yet Anoth­er Appearance:
I get the feel­ing that Nin­ten­do real­ly wants me to be inter­est­ed in Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. The first time I saw the game, I was hon­est­ly ready to write it off. After con­tin­u­ing to see it, I’m start­ing to get more and more on board with it. Since the folks who make Advance Wars are mak­ing it, I’m sure it’ll be a pret­ty decent strat­e­gy game, and the ridicu­lous­ness of the con­cept attracts me a bit. The Fire Emblem Ami­i­bo sup­port is also a plus since I have a Marth Ami­i­bo that I haven’t done a whole lot with yet.

Ace Com­bat Assault Hori­zon Legacy+:
Not real­ly into this type of game unless it has the words “Star” and “Fox” in the title in that order. Next!

Xenoblade Chron­i­cles 3D:
I nev­er got a chance to play this game on the Wii and the used copies of it have explod­ed in price. As such, I’d be will­ing to check this out if it comes in at the right price. I was kind of hop­ing Xenoblade would be one of the afore­men­tioned down­load­able Wii games on the Wii U, but with this com­ing out it does­n’t seem likely.

Iron­Fall:
The visu­als in the game look pret­ty slick. Almost too slick, which makes me a lit­tle skep­ti­cal. I will give it the ben­e­fit of the doubt for now, but I def­i­nite­ly don’t want to play any kind of third-per­son shoot­er on the 3DS with­out the C‑Stick to assist me.

Mon­ster Hunter 4 Ultimate:
I got pret­ty into Mon­ster Hunter Tri on the Wii when it came out. Then, on the day Sky­ward Sword came out no less, my Wii hard dri­ve failed and I lost my save file. After all the time I had put into the game up to that point, I pret­ty much gave up. I haven’t played much Mon­ster Hunter since then, but it looks like this could be one to get me back in. I would need some friends promis­es that I could rely on their co-op to take the plunge, but I def­i­nite­ly think it looks good. As for the cus­tom Mon­ster Hunter 3DS, I’m not sure I’m a big enough fan to war­rant that spe­cial edi­tion. Oh well, I guess I’ll just get the reg­u­lar black one…

Majo­ra’s Mask Edi­tion New Nin­ten­do 3DS XL:
Oh mah god!!! Nev­er­mind! I want this one! In fact, just a few min­utes after see­ing the Nin­ten­do Direct, I went out on an ear­ly lunch break and man­aged to get a pre­order in for this gor­geous Spe­cial Edi­tion. Good thing too, because it has not last­ed in stock very long any­where. As I’m writ­ing this now, it has sold out in at least two retail­ers. Be care­ful though, because this sys­tem does not come with the game, which is fine by me because I would rather have the phys­i­cal copy.

Well, that’s all I have for this Nin­ten­do Direct. From the har­bin­ger of free-to-play awful­ness to a great new prod­uct with beau­ti­ful spe­cial edi­tion, this was def­i­nite­ly an emo­tion­al roller coast­er. Keep an eye out for more to come!