Tuesday 16 June 2015

E3 2015: Nintendo's Digital Event [Events]

Nintendo's conference can be summed up by what they were using as the event gimmick. Muppets. Oh, I know the Star Fox reveal was great. It showed all that it needed to. How the game will look and play, as well as it's new name - Star Fox Zero. Zero because it is not a reboot or a sequel. It's just there. A part of the series. The Arwing Walker mode has been brought into the new game from the unreleased SNES game Star Fox 2.
But then, while there was some good stuff they showed, it sort of goes downhill. Talks about transforming as a company didn't inspire much confidence after what was shown, though I can give them the benefit of doubt that the Treehouse streams will go more in depth with some stuff shown off, and hopefully give us another game announcement or two.
As it is, Bowser and Donkey Kong will be in the new Skylanders game, and can be used as both a Skylander figure and an amiibo.
A surprise was a Legend of Zelda announcement - TriForce Heroes. Inspired by Four Sword Adventures, it features three Links in the same world. It's a multiplayer experience again, but this time available local and online. Following this was information on Hyrule Warriors 3DS, or as it is known, Legends. Featuring the same gameplay with new levels and characters from Wind Waker, it will feature all DLC characters from the WiiU version.
Metroid Prime was a surprise as well, but from what was shown, it doesn't look as good as previous games. Subtitled Federation Force, it also features Blast Ball - the game shown from the Nintendo World Championships.

The triplet known as Fire Emblem [now subtitled Fates], Fire Emblem x Shin Megami Tensei, and Xenoblade Chronicles X all had trailers shown for them, the Fire Emblem one featuring gameplay, and Xenoblade getting a launch date of 4th December this year.
Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer had a gameplay trailer shown, and it looks as though we can design full towns from what was shown. It certainly showed that we could place a villagers house and decorate a garden for them. This one is for 3DS, and has a release of 23rd September. The WiiU game was then showed off. A party game. And not just a party game. A board game party game. While it looks like it could be fun, Nintendo, this wasn't the game the audience was expecting.
Yoshi's Woolly World had some gameplay shown off, but it wasn't anything that we hadn't seen before. It did get a release date of 16th October, so it's not all bad.
Yo-Kai Watch got shown off. It releases sometime during the holiday this year [winter time].
Out of the blue, a crossover between the two Mario RPG series got shown off. Mario and Luigi: Paper Jam features both versions of characters interacting with each other and facing enemies from both series. It was certainly a highlight of the conference. Almost as an aside, it seems, a new Mario Tennis was shown off with some gameplay. It's called Mario Tennis Ultra Smash, and it seems as though characters can turn into giants during gameplay.
The last thing on the list for this conference was Super Mario Maker, which is good, but the only thing of interest was insights into the development of the original Super Mario Bros. The gameplay could have been saved for the Treehouse streams, as in fact, more gameplay did happen after the showing of Star Fox. Amiibo will turn Mario into the character of the amiibo scanned. A special 8-bit amiibo will make Mario a super sized Mario.
To end off, the show had a montage of fans doing Mario things, and it was announced a website would allow you to send off videos of you doing Mario things.

All in all, like I said - there was some good stuff here. What it needed though was more surprises, or at least even focus on all games. I expect we will be getting things shown in more detail with the Treehouse streams though. And I will be watching to see what is going down.