Surprising June Direct

I did not expect any of the games shown in the direct. 

Starting with Mario&Luigi: Brothership was a great reminder that Nintendo is always working on Mario games. This game looks great and I really like the cell-shading graphics. Can’t wait to play it in November.

I never played Donkey Kong Country Returns and Tropical Freeze was amazing. I’m surprised it’s coming in January. This would’ve been a great shadow drop. Some people who were watching the direct and interested in the game might have purchased it instantly to play the game. Now, when it releases in January it might not have the same hype.

My favorite announcement was obviously the The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom game, which was super surprising. As I noted in my previous blog posts I expected a remake, but not a new entry into the series. Additionally, we play as Zelda! How cool is that. I like the art style, which was used in the Link‘s Awakening remake, however, I’m not sure it fits well here. It worked great for Awakening, because it was a game boy remake and link actually looked toy-like. It would’ve worked for the oracle games as well. But for a new entry I would’ve liked a different art style, something not toy-like or plastic looking. Top down Zelda can look amazing and Nintendo could have tried it, however, I understand that it is much cheaper to use the new art style of Awakening for Echoes.

Lastly, we finally got a real trailer of Metroid Prime 4. It looks marvelous. Even kind of unreal, that it runs on the current Switch.

Checkout this uncompressed trailer that someone somehow found:

Metroid Prime 4 – Beyond Trailer uncompressed

Can’t wait to play it. The release date is 2025 and I have a feeling it will release around the time of the launch of the Switch 2, making it a similar release to the current Switch with Breath of the wild, which also released on WiiU simultaneously in 2017.

If Nintendo also releases a new a Mario Kart or 3D Mario few months later, I strongly believe they will sell every the Switch 2 they produce throughout the year.