Nintendo Direct 9/13/22

[DefyingFates]

11 hours ago, MagicCanonBalls said:

For FE8, Eirika also has brave outfit that wields lance. The Sacae girl also has more bow alts in Heroes than sword. If Sigurd, Ike, and Lucina can not wield their famous swords then why all these other sword lords have to.

Actually, Sigurd switches between Ridersbane (Lance) and Tyrfing in the trailer, so hopefully the others will have some variety in their weapon types too (Marth just uses three different swords though), even if their outfits are locked in...

or who knows, maybe Emblems will have custom outfits too? That'd be the only way to explain Ike and Lucina wearing Heroes outfits regardless.

P.S. There's an Engage subforum now, so any discussions about specifics should probably go to this thread from there:

 

Edited September 14, 2022 by DefyingFates

[Punished Dayni]

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

I did see this one comment when the remaster was announced.:

"Love the SaGa series! This one is a bit difficult though. Throws away the normal convention of grinding to increase power before taking on the final boss, and replaces it with rewarding you for making it through the game as quickly, and with as few detours as possible. Basically, places greater emphasis on exploration and discovery over the course of several playthroughs, rather than a single session. This may frustrate conventional JRPG players,"

I think other comments explained that time is limited, it's impossible to do everything on a single run.

Also, in my personal opinion, and that of some others people...

  Reveal hidden contents

...the chosen PS2-era pseudo-chibi style doesn't exactly look good.

Okay, so it expects replays and isn't for completionists in 1 run.

I can see that being an issue. Character models aren't the best either, true.

11 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Yes, very much so.

It's an easy action-platformer, as Kirby typically is, yet it is very fun IMO. It was mainline Kirby's return to consoles after skipping the GameCube (Air Ride doesn't count). It sorta started the contemporary era of Kirby, although the Forgotten Land looks like it might be the future now. A solid title overall.

If you have NSO, Kirby Super Star (Kirby's Fun Pak in Europe) would offer a bite-sized version of similar gameplay, if you wanted something to try beforehand.

And of course up to 4 player gives it that as well, I buy more than a few Switch games for multiplayer potential.I think they use Super Star's box art in SNES NSO from the bit I tried before.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Punished Dayni

[Zapp Branniglenn]

7 hours ago, joevar said:

lets be honest here, thats the horniest game in Nintendo, no way the're gonna show too much of it in Direct. just look at the cherry-picked scene they included in direct. it has none of it while the actual trailer told you to "keep an eye on her" while she.. you already know it XD

That may be the literal reason the trailer was excluded. Because the entire Direct would have to have its age rating adjusted to accommodate for it. With the Resident Evil games they got around the problem by just sticking to cutscenes and not having the player fire a shot. 

[joevar]

5 hours ago, DefyingFates said:

or who knows, maybe Emblems will have custom outfits too? That'd be the only way to explain Ike and Lucina wearing Heroes outfits regardless.

that would be cool, capitalizing on heroes even more. but i suspect that would be inevitable DLC stuff. since they already made an oopsie with marth, i want FE1 marth just like in the mural. uncontained big bicep muscle Marth without pants. not giving him that option is really a crime

 

[Etrurian emperor]

So what was up with all those farm games? Nintendo just showed about four farming sims in just one direct. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

7 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So what was up with all those farm games? Nintendo just showed about four farming sims in just one direct. 

And even more in the Japanese direct.

 

I guess Animal Crossing and Stardew are just causing a fad.

[Etrurian emperor]

20 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

And even more in the Japanese direct.

 

I guess Animal Crossing and Stardew are just causing a fad.

This Direct would have been a great time to introduce the Xenoblade 3 spin off

[Fabulously Olivier]

2 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

This Direct would have been a great time to introduce the Xenoblade 3 spin off

FireEmblemFan pitches a Brom's Farm spinoff to Fire Emblem. Becomes an instant multi-millionaire, and forever transforms the franchise.

[Interdimensional Observer]

17 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

So what was up with all those farm games? Nintendo just showed about four farming sims in just one direct. 

Video game genres go through trends. Roguelikes, metroidvanias, deck-builder, soulslikes, all other genres that have become quite popular nowadays; whereas it seems the FPS is a genre that has faded away from its peaks. 

Stardew Valley would be the game that started this surge in the genre. Animal Crossing... kinda, but not exactly since it doesn't have a real farming element, it's just a social sim with carefree trees and flowers.

I'm fine with the trend, since it offers an oft-lighthearted (not always, see Graveyard Keeper) and oft-peaceful (though action-RPG farming sim hybrids exist) kind of video game, in contrast to the realistic & grimdark and violent stuff video games are often associated with. Furthermore, I was both a Bokujo Monogatari/formerly-Harvest-Moon-now-Story-of-Seasons and Rune Factory fan growing up.

Fae Farm is merely an indie choosing to jump in on the trend. Harvestella looks to be merely yet another b-tier project by Square in their great big portfolio, and probably one thats at least a decent 7/10.

As for Marvelous, I can more feasibly speculate on their mindset.:

• Marvelous owns both Story of Seasons and Rune Factory, which are worked on by separate teams.
• Pioneers of Olive Town and Rune Factory 5 both released last year (in Japan for the latter), the latest games of their respective series.
• Both PoOT and RF5 were highly criticized by critics and fans longtime and casual alike. These sister franchises are hurting, they need to salvage their reputations.
• Since it takes time to make a good video game, neither franchise can possibly put out a brand-new title this year.
• Thankfully, there are a number of beloved classic Story of Seasons games out there. A Wonderful Life is one of them.
  • The remake does require remaking the game from the ground up, and adding s/s marriage and a nonbinary player gender choice (nice additions!). Yet it is presumably than faster than having to figure what went wrong with PoOT and coming up with a brand new game that addresses those problems.
  • Harvest Moon 64 is another classic entry in the franchise, but it shares almost all its cast with Friends of Mineral Town, which was already recently remade. -Japan is getting it on NSO anyhow, though North America and Europe can't because Natsume owns the Harvest Moon name and the old script to this game.
  • The FoMT remake, while simple and it received some art style criticisms, was positively received overall, so has given Marvelous encouragement to continue with remaking their old entries.
• For Rune Factory, 4 Special sold well enough and was reviewed well enough. Why not try making a Special port of another RF?
  • Rune Factory 3 was easily the best choice for this. It might not have a female protagonist or dateable guys, but that glaring flaw is less than the other games' issues.
    • Rune Factory 1 and 2 don't have a heroine and bachelors either, and what they do have is far clunkier combat and overall they have aged pretty badly. They need drastic remakes, more than Marvelous would want to invest in right now.
    • Rune Factory Frontier and Tides of Destiny are 3D games, updating their visuals barring the laziest of work would require more effort than RF3 with its pre-rendered world and DS-era 3D models demands. No
  • Rune Factory 3 could be a little laggy when too many enemies were on the screen at once, but having played it and 1, 2, Frontier, and ToD, it is significantly faster and smoother than all of those except ToD.
• As for why Marvelous would then announce with no images provided that another Rune Factory title is in the works beyond 3 Special. Presumably it's them addressing the critical of RF5, which sold well enough to keep the franchise alive, but people have some wariness of it now. Making a premature announcement I would speculate was done to assuage fears, that something new -and presumably better than 5- is on the way, "please don't lose faith in us!".

Now, why would Nintendo bundle of all these into a single direct? Well, what's the harm of it? Being shown too much farming sim isn't going to make a giant turnip burst out of your brain.

 

20 minutes ago, Etrurian emperor said:

This Direct would have been a great time to introduce the Xenoblade 3 spin off

I actually would take a Xenoblade farming sim spinoff. I'm dead serious.

Why?

1. Farming games are usually chill. Chill could be a pleasant contrast from regular Xenoblade.
2. Xenoblade has a sci-fi element to it. I'd like to see some sci-fi in my farming sim, we don't have enough of that right now.
3. Do you have a problem with me marrying a parallel dimension Lanz who happened to born and raised in the small rural village (where the game takes place) as parallel dimension Dunban and Morag and Elma?
4. As my third point suggests, I see a XenoFarm game as a chance for crossover. Crossover that, in line with point 1, would be more homey, more peaceful, more intimate. I like big explosion crossovers don't get me wrong, but why not try cozy crossovering? It could be a wholly different experience that provides delightful interactions that beating up a Mechon-Amalthus-Ganglion alliance couldn't. I want to see these conversations.

Oh, and I REALLY WOULD LOVE Farm Emblem too!😃

Except I'd want it to keep being an SRPG. Hybridizing the ARPG and farming sim has been done before, nobody has made an SRPG farming sim yet! I don't need the ability to get plowed by Hector for this, I'd be totally fine with all original cast, provided the game managed to tell a good story and had quality map design. Medieval knights IRL were landlords, sure it was the peasants who did all the farming, but agriculture was intrinsically linked to aristocracy. Farm Emblem could beautifully dramatize this connection of land and warrior. 

[Fabulously Olivier]

54 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

nobody has made an SRPG farming sim yet! I don't need the ability to get plowed by Hector for this

I have no comments. That pun game was strong.

[Ziegenpeter]

It kinda feels like 70% of Switch' output are made up of RPGs. No complains from me since I like them, but other people are getting pissed.

Also, I'm not a fan of Zelda TotK's marketing. It's been 3 years since the reveal and we still know nothing. Either showcase the game properly or don't show it at all. These small and extremely vague trailers are not very exciting.

Edited September 14, 2022 by Ziegenpeter

[AnonymousSpeed]

So, you guys think they announced enough farming simulators?

[Jotari]

4 hours ago, Ziegenpeter said:

It kinda feels like 70% of Switch' output are made up of RPGs. No complains from me since I like them, but other people are getting pissed.

Also, I'm not a fan of Zelda TotK's marketing. It's been 3 years since the reveal and we still know nothing. Either showcase the game properly or don't show it at all. These small and extremely vague trailers are not very exciting.

Just following the model of what Breath of the Wild did, which turned out pretty well for them.

[Alastor15243]

Finally watched the Octopath 2 trailer and holy shit can I not remember an instance of my hype suffering such a sudden and violent death as when I realized they weren't advertising a single new class in a sequel to a game that already has just around half the classes of it's great-grandfather Final Fantasy Five.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Alastor15243

[Florete]

9 hours ago, Alastor15243 said:

Finally watched the Octopath 2 trailer and holy shit can I not remember an instance of my hype suffering such a sudden and violent death as when I realized they weren't advertising a single new class in a sequel to a game that already has just around half the classes of it's great-grandfather Final Fantasy Five.

My disappointment was that they didn't gender-flip all 8 classes. I wanted a female warrior and male dancer.

[vanguard333]

5 hours ago, Florete said:

My disappointment was that they didn't gender-flip all 8 classes. I wanted a female warrior and male dancer.

My disappointment was that they continued the unimaginitive-naming convention by calling it Octopath Traveler 2, which I am willing to bet was its project name during development just like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy were.

Edited September 16, 2022 by vanguard333

[Interdimensional Observer]

35 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

My disappointment was that they continued the unimaginitive-naming convention by calling it Octopath Traveler 2, which I am willing to bet was its project name during development just like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy were.

Super Mario is a lame name.😛

No name is intrinsically great. Names are made great. Fire Emblem is a load of nonsense, flames and badges, how creative😜, and yet here we are on a forum dedicated to such a silly silly title. Some titles might have a harder time achieving greatness -Kitty Kitty Poo Poo's ReLaxing Dumpster Dive would be a hypothetical uphill struggle- but any name ultimately can become venerable.

Proof of this- James Bond. Ian Fleming wanted, in his own words: "an extremely dull, uninteresting man ...[James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard". Now tell me is "James Bond" still "dull" if the titular franchise rakes in some cinematic cash every few years?

Edited September 16, 2022 by Interdimensional Observer

[Jotari]

44 minutes ago, vanguard333 said:

My disappointment was that they continued the unimaginitive-naming convention by calling it Octopath Traveler 2, which I am willing to bet was its project name during development just like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy were.

Clearly should have been Nonapath Traveler.

[AnonymousSpeed]

26 minutes ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Proof of this- James Bond. Ian Fleming wanted, in his own words: "an extremely dull, uninteresting man ...[James Bond] is the dullest name I ever heard". Now tell me is "James Bond" still "dull" if the titular franchise rakes in some cinematic cash every few years?

Yes. Because if a secret agent where named "Rockhard Thunderdick" he'd be extremely conspicuous.

"Names are made great" but Octopath Traveler II is such a bad name I don't think that can ever happen to it. Square is on a mission to make the dumbest possible names and they are doing remarkably well.

[Florete]

5 hours ago, vanguard333 said:

My disappointment was that they continued the unimaginitive-naming convention by calling it Octopath Traveler 2, which I am willing to bet was its project name during development just like Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy were.

Well, they were already making a sequel to a game that was definitely called "Octopath Traveler," so having "Octopath Traveler" in the title for the sequel was likely a lock from the beginning. Adding '2' to the end isn't exactly an uncommon naming convention.

4 hours ago, AnonymousSpeed said:

Yes. Because if a secret agent where named "Rockhard Thunderdick" he'd be extremely conspicuous.

"Names are made great" but Octopath Traveler II is such a bad name I don't think that can ever happen to it. Square is on a mission to make the dumbest possible names and they are doing remarkably well.

But if it's so dumb it gets people talking about how dumb it is, doesn't that actually make it kind of great?

[Lord_Brand]

Pretty cool to see Pikmin 4 is coming next year. I wonder which kinds they'll introduce this time? I've noticed both 2 and 3 introduced a "heavy" species (Purple in 2, Rock in 3) and a "light" species (White in 2, Wing in 3), so I expect 4 will do the same. Also notably, White Pikmin have red eyes while Wing Pikmin have blue eyes, so I imagine the light species this time will also have differently-colored eyes, green or yellow both seeming quite likely. Got a few ideas:

Heavy
Snow - A cyan-colored variety with a fluffy white coat that's immune to freezing temperatures.
Thorn - Pikmin with round, spike-covered bodies that allow them to stick into objects, including enemies. Enemies who eat them take heavy damage. Fittingly, they themselves are immune to piercing attacks.

Light
Balloon - Pikmin that can inflate their bodies like balloons, allowing them to float upward and carry other Pikmin or Captains with them. They can also stop certain monsters from eating them by inflating. They're highly susceptible to wind currents.
Lasso - Pikmin with stretchy bodies that can be used to lasso or tether distant targets.

It would be interesting to see more emphasis put on different Pikmin types working in tandem, like using Lasso Pikmin to tether Balloon Pikmin, or using a Lasso Pikmin to swing a Thorn Pikmin around like a ball-and-chain.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Lord_Brand

[vanguard333]

9 hours ago, Interdimensional Observer said:

Super Mario is a lame name.😛

 

I didn't say it was lame; I said it was unimaginative because, in the case of Octopath Traveler and Triangle Strategy, those were literally their project names during development. I wasn't even being completely serious; that criticism of Octopath Traveler 2 was largely intended for humour. I've said before that I think Octopath Traveler is fine since it at least has a nice ring to it; it's Triangle Strategy that's the terrible name.

 

9 hours ago, Jotari said:

Clearly should have been Nonapath Traveler.

That actually would've been rather funny, especially if it actually had nine characters this time instead of eight.

 

4 hours ago, Florete said:

Well, they were already making a sequel to a game that was definitely called "Octopath Traveler," so having "Octopath Traveler" in the title for the sequel was likely a lock from the beginning. Adding '2' to the end isn't exactly an uncommon naming convention.

True; I was just saying that it's not very imaginative. It's certainly a fitting title for the sequel.

 

In any case, I think we can all agree that, in terms of bad names revealed in the direct, nothing beats the name of the Breath of the Wild sequel; not because it is a bad name (I actually think it's a pretty cool name), but because this is without a doubt the worst possible time Nintendo could've revealed that its name is "Tears of the Kingdom."

[Alastor15243]

1 hour ago, vanguard333 said:

That actually would've been rather funny, especially if it actually had nine characters this time instead of eight.

Heavens forbid, they might have to announce a new class!

[Etrurian emperor]

On 9/16/2022 at 4:02 PM, Alastor15243 said:

Heavens forbid, they might have to announce a new class!

Nah. if there's nine characters instead of eight then we'd just have two Warriors 😄

[Hawkwing]

A few days late, but I personally found the Direct to be... underwhelming. Not bad, as there were a few interesting announcements, but I'm glad I watched it during lunch because I skipped through so many rpgs and farming sims.

Anyway, quick thoughts on individual games that caught my interest:

Fire Emblem Engage: I' already talked about this in a different thread. For now, I think it looks fun and I'm interested in learning more, but I'm not super hyped for it (yet).

It Takes Two: The only contentious things I've heard about this game is the story and the amount of swearing. Aside from that, I have not heard a single complaint about the gameplay, and the focus on multiplayer synergizes well with the Nintendo Switch.

Tunic: Another game that seems right at home on a Nintendo console. It will probably fall into the "amazing game I will play eventually" category personally.

Factorio: I laughed the hardest at this announcement because putting Factorio on a handheld/console hybrid is both one of the best decisions the developers could have made, and one of the most dangerous. I haven't personally played the game, I just know it's infamous for being incredibly addictive.

Sifu: Glad to see this game for something more than the Playstation, though the iffy framerate in the trailer is concerning. This is an action game that will punish your mistakes when things are running well, so I hope that's not indicative of performance issues.

 

I don't know whether to be happy or sad that we didn't get a trailer for the Mario movie. Miyamoto talked about a mobile game for three minutes before dropping Pikmin 4 on us, which reminds me I need to pick up Pikmin 3 at some point.

 

Breath of the Wild 2 gets an official name and release date, and lucky for me, it can be an early birthday present. That said... why did Nintendo go for another tease that only showed small snippets of new gameplay? At this point, Monster Mazes amazing videos on three patents leaked have me more excited for the game than any of the trailers. People are still finding creative uses for the tools you're giving in Breath of the Wild, so it baffles me that Nintendo isn't flaunting any of the new features. The time reversal mechanic seems tailor-made for amazing puzzles and unique combat, phasing through walls will allow for far more traversal options, and even skydiving, though the least interesting of the three, sounds like it lead to some engaging aerial battles. I genuinely don't get why Nintendo isn't showing off features that could easily get people excited and speculating about what they can do in Tears of the Kingdom.

 

Overall, I'm more concerned than curious about what Nintendo has in store for 2023. A big reason for my disappointment is that the February direct claimed that it would only reveal games that would release this year, and they kept their word on that. I got the impression that Nintendo was keeping their cards close to their chest and they would have even more big reveals later on. I suppose I just expected more, especially considering what they showed off earlier this year.