SmashLegendStar: Disclaimer before we start I need to be
clear that Nintendo is not and will never be doomed and I will never think
that- and that truly is the problem that we face with Nintendo, because once
they create a new cashcow from toys and one-time peripherals they'll never face
any marketing failure and will have too much money stuck in their ears to care
about fan feedback. First off on the list of disappointments (oh believe me,
there's a LIST), I doubt this Direct had anything to do about games- heck,
let's just rename it the "Amiibo Direct" because think about it: name
one game they showcased for the Wii U that did not have amiibo support. And
don't say Star Fox: Zero, because Miyamoto pretty much confirmed they're
working on an Arwing prototype amiibo, which I admit sounds a lot cooler than
anything they showed at this year's E3, but I digress. It gets worse once the
Direct starts picking up steam when Reggie announces a new partnership- ooooh,
what could it be?? Super Mario RPG revival or some new surprise crossover
game?? Nope, f***ing Skylander amiibo toys. Wtf? Selling out to the competition
is one thing, but giving a middle finger to the amiibo collectors by
introducing $70 starter sets is truly a dick move of enormous proportions.
Probably the worst excuse of amiibo fondling is Animal Crossing: Amiibo
Festival- a game that works ONLY if you have the amiibos, which means after the
scalpers get their hands on all the amiibos the game will be worthless. And
this will be around the time when they'll be releasing at least 13 other
amiibos in a span of one damn month, so hope you enjoy amiibo black Friday shopping
every time you want to fully enjoy literally anything released on a Nintendo
console from now on.
I’ll be slightly nice now in this sentence by saying that
Nintendo did show off some cool stuff on the 3DS, namely Mario & Luigi:
Paper Jam and the surprise Tri-force Heroes announcement, which were probably
the only worthwhile mentions besides Star Fox. But now I’ll be mean in this
sentence by saying that their Wii U line-up was abysmal at best, and you could
tell Nintendo knew this because that would only explain the high amounts of
boring filler they crammed in an hour including an over five minute segment for
Yoshi’s Wooly World about we already know about months ago (The Muppets were
okay in my book, however). What does Nintendo have in store for the Wii U in
2016 besides Zelda U though? Absolutely nothing apparently, which means they’re
getting ready to trash the Wii U in favor for the NX...and before you say it
might not be a new console, Reggie and the producer for Metroid Prime have
pretty much 100% confirmed it will be a new gen console, so expect a more
expensive Amiibo NX console to replace your 3 year-old Amiibo U console,
because f*** it if it makes any marketing sense to build a userbase only to
start over from scratch for no damn reason. They might as well make it a hybrid
console and cheat NN3DS owners out of everything too, because we wouldn’t want
them to feel left out.
To make up for all the games we already knew about, Nintendo
decided to end the show…with a game we already knew about. What, you were
expecting Metroid for the Wii U? Sorry, you’ll wait until the NX releases-
please enjoy our on-line only games and buy plenty of amiibos from now on,
kids! To be fair though, the part where Miyamoto shared his stories of what
went into creating Mario for the first time were really interesting. Though
after the way Reggie was hyping over Mario’s 30th anniversary for
four minutes, you’d think they were going to end the show with a new 3-D Mario
bros. But no, the show closed with Youtube clips of fans singing the Mario
theme…um, what? Speaking as a Nintendo fan myself I felt absolutely jaded from
this year’s E3 Direct. With nothing but amiibos to show for and nothing but
Zelda U planned for 2016, Nintendo sunk the Wii U to new extreme lows despite years
of attempts to revive it. And all just to announce a new console next E3?
Ridiculous. To say the least, I’m not only disappointed in the Direct, but also
disappointed with Nintendo- not a game making company, but a toy making company.
CRAZ1ah: The problem with Nintendo's E3 game this year is
because most of their announcements have been spread out into several
days between the Smash Direct and the Treehouse streams. The streams
from the Smash Direct and the Nintendo World Championships only made
fans build up their hype and expectations from Nintendo's main event
during the Digital Event only to be disappointed by a less than mediocre
event by which most of the games are either spin-offs or have already
been announced during last year's Digital Event. Moreover, the Digital
Event was short on explaining certain new games in favor of development
stories which could have very well been placed during their Treehouse
event. This has led to many viewers misinterpreting and enraged for some
of the decisions made such as Animal Crossing Amiibo Party and Metroid
Prime Federation Force.
Overall, Nintendo's E3 presentations was so-so as it lacks major announcements. Some announcements from last year's E3 shouldn't have been announced then but instead could have been made this year such as Zelda Wii U and Star Fox as last year was all about Smash Bros.
Overall, Nintendo's E3 presentations was so-so as it lacks major announcements. Some announcements from last year's E3 shouldn't have been announced then but instead could have been made this year such as Zelda Wii U and Star Fox as last year was all about Smash Bros.
MasterofMonster: This year's Nintendo Digital Event was... decent.
It is clear from the reactions of the media/fans that Nintendo lacked the Oompf that most other companies had that year, and that Nintendo had last year. Nintendo started out Strong with the funniest moment of this year's E3, having Nintendo President Satoru Iwata, NOA presodent Reggie Fils-Aime, and even Shigeru Miyamoto appearing in Muppet form (official name: Nuppets).
The Nuppets soon transformed into Fox, Falco and Peppy, presenting the hyped game StarFox Zero, a remake-not remake of StarFox 64, developed by Platinum Games, looking quite impressive.
Unfortunately, that's when most viewers were at the peak of hypeness, as it seems the general mass agrees that it got less and less exciting after that.
Aside from the hilarity of more Nuppet snippets, large parts of the Event were spent on games we've already seen a LOT from (Yoshi's Woolly World, Super Mario Maker, Xenoblade Chronicles X, etc), or on Developer Stories (which are all good and well, but did we really need a 4-hour long one for Woolly World after getting one at last year's E3?). Woolly World and Mario Maker are sure to be grand titles, but they cannot make a E3 Event feel hype, when we've known about them for over a year now.
Then there were some newly announced games that all had something in common. They all seemed to cause rage in the fans for being what we wanted, yet not what we wanted.
We got a New Metroid gane (developed by Next Level Games) for the first time in 5 years. But it is a Spinoff game done in Chibi-Style, focusing on 4-player Co-Op missions. Metroid Prime: Federation Force caused such rage that a petition was made to cancell the game.
We got a new Zelda game in The Legend of Zelda: Triforce Heroes, which blends Four Swords with A Link Between Worlds. This game was not very well-recieved (especially after the news that it will not have Online Voice Chat). We also got to see the neat 3DS Port of Hyrule Warriors (titled Legends), but as it was leaked beforehand, the surprise was ruined, and the lack of Nintendo's next Home Console Zelda (confirmed to still come to the Wii-U) hurt even more.
We got a new Paper Mario! Sorta. Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam is a Mario & Luigi game that features Paper Mario, and it caused rage by dashing the expectations for a new, true Paper Mario Sequel after the very controvercial game that is Sticker Star.
Then we got a new Animal Crossing game: Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival. Animal Crossing was a game many expected, but no one did see this Spinoff coming, being a game that used Amiibo-only, as a Mario Party without the... Party.
We also got more info on the 3DS title: Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer, and it's hundreds of Amiibo Cards. Yes. Hundreds. Good luck, Pikaby!
While all three of these titles are sure to be fun, they ruined the hopes of many, and are already getting a lot of hate, deservingly or not.
Speaking of Amiibo, a lot of new ones were revealed as well. 8 Animal Crossing ones, and two 8-Bit Mario ones (for use in Super Mario Maker). And while Amiibo sells really well (gotta buy 'em all! I know I will), they, too, caused a lot of rage, as Nintendo has yet to fulfil the demand of most of the already released Amiibo.
We also got a surprise reveal of Amiibo/Skylander Hybrids in Hammer Slam Bowser and Turbo Charged Donkey Kong.
Overall, Nintendo certanly have a lot of good titles to be released this year and the next. Fire Emblem: Fates is sure to become big, Youkai Watch is set to release outside of Japan, and a new Wii-U title Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash was a surprise (made by Camelot)... but even this game was not well-recieved for looking pale at this state, with only new feature shown being Giant Mushrooms.
While the 3DS got a lot of love, well-recieved or not, the Wii-U still stumbles a little with the lack of Third Party Games. I think saving the Smash reveals (Ryu, Roy, Stages) as well as some games in the recent Mini-Direct (Mario & Sonic at The Rio Olympics, Chibi-Robo Zipp Lass), as well as cutting down a little on the developer stories, could have helped the Digital Event a little, but even so, very few Nintendo fans felt satesfied when it was over (and ended with a Mario Anniversary montage). Especially after the great Event of 2014.
Personally, I liked a lot of what was shown. And I think many does as well. But too much went against Nintendo this time, and a lot of it is their own fault. Nintendo has a lot of work in front of them, and while I will buy many of the titles shown, it is clear that the general fanbase is not happy with their Event this time. As we get closer to 2016, and Nintendo's next Home Console, Codename NX, is set to be revealed (or at least, talked about), and Nintendo's first iOS titles set to be released this year, we'll see how the fanbase will react on the changed Nintendo has made recently. For better or worse, Nintendo is about to change. And I am excited for the future.
Nintendo have a lot of amazing developers, and as long as they leave Luck to Heaven, they are bound to make a grand return to glory.
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Thanks to the N5S members for their critiques and thank you for reading! -ed
