gaming Nintendo Direct 2/17/2021

[Megas 27,062]

The Nintendo Direct Lives! First one since September 2019

[Floofie 799]

Yes!!! I'm so excited

I'm trying to keep my expectations as low as I can (as I would with any other direct) but I know that whatever they decide to show, it'll still be great c:

[Crunchypuff 152]

I'm usually hoping for something Pokemon related, but then if there was any pokemon stuff it would probably be similar in quality to sword and shield, so...maybe not hoping for Pokemon then.

[Steve Piranha 28,769]

Crap. I’ll be at work at the time 

[Moonlight 7,279]

honestly had to do a double take when i found out there hasn't been one since 2019 lmao.

that being said, i'm excited to see what they show!!

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,271]

My expectations are set to a comfortable and firm 0. 

[Steve Piranha 28,769]

Fuuuuck, about an hour left, and I’ll be at work during the direct 

[Cagey 4,205]

Expecting either Pokémon news, or a bunch of people let down by no Pokémon news. 

[Envy 5,998]

1 hour ago, Cagey said:

Expecting either Pokémon news, or a bunch of people let down by no Pokémon news. 

Pokemon will have its own Direct.

As for this Direct? It...um... was a Direct, I guess. Didn't add even a single title of interest for me. I literally have nothing to look forward to until BOTW2, whenever that comes out. There is a chance of the Pokemon Direct giving us a good Pokemon game like Diamond/Pearl remakes, but if instead we get a Lets Go game, I'm done.

[Cagey 4,205]

4 minutes ago, Envy said:

Pokemon will have its own Direct.

As for this Direct? It...um... was a Direct, I guess. Didn't add even a single title of interest for me. I literally have nothing to look forward to until BOTW2, whenever that comes out. There is a chance of the Pokemon Direct giving us a good Pokemon game like Diamond/Pearl remakes, but if instead we get a Lets Go game, I'm done.

Ah. I don’t keep up with Nintendo. This might be my first time catching a Direct firsthand. 

I also wasn’t particularly excited about anything, but I don’t have a Switch, so it doesn’t matter anyway.

[Crunchypuff 152]

A bunch of stuff I didn't recognize or wasn't interested in here lol

As for Pokemon, I'd honestly be okay with another Let's Go set in a different region. At least that had following Pokemon without paying for an expansion for it and mega evolutions, as opposed to sword and shield which cut a ton of things in exchange for some new pokemon and... making pokemon big I guess? For some reason when I picture a diamond and pearl remake, I'm seeing the same lack of effort they put into gen 8. I have liked the previous remakes they've done though, so hopefully I'm wrong there.

[Envy 5,998]

23 minutes ago, Crunchypuff said:

A bunch of stuff I didn't recognize or wasn't interested in here lol

As for Pokemon, I'd honestly be okay with another Let's Go set in a different region. At least that had following Pokemon without paying for an expansion for it and mega evolutions, as opposed to sword and shield which cut a ton of things in exchange for some new pokemon and... making pokemon big I guess? For some reason when I picture a diamond and pearl remake, I'm seeing the same lack of effort they put into gen 8. I have liked the previous remakes they've done though, so hopefully I'm wrong there.

Lets Go is the very definition of lack of effort. They didn't even try to reimagine Kanto... They just made it with the same exact tiny blocky locations from the original Gameboy games.

Sword/Shield style requires more effort, more imagination.

[Crunchypuff 152]

3 minutes ago, Envy said:

Lets Go is the very definition of lack of effort. They didn't even try to reimagine Kanto... They just made it with the same exact tiny blocky locations from the original Gameboy games.

Sword/Shield style requires more effort, more imagination.

I guess I liked Let's Go more since I knew what to expect and pretty much got it, I didn't even expect following Pokemon and got that, and that was fine for me.

Then I buy Shield, expecting a main Pokemon game's quality, have literally all my favorite Pokemon gone in a core Pokemon game, no mega evos, no z moves, no contests, removed moves, mandatory exp share, and even more I could go on about. And the part that I don't like is that unlike Let's Go, they covered all this up until the last moment when everyone already paid. They were transparent about Let's Go being just Kanto, just the first 151 Pokemon. But I expected more than that from the next big Pokemon title, and didn't get it. That's why I like it much less.

Want to see one of the (many) excuses they provided for all this missing content in Sword/Shield? They spent all their time improving the animations!

The...high quality...animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty5lUK-EM-A&t=1s

[Troblems 5,608]

I just want to play Monster Hunter Rise and Persona 5 Strikers. Everything else is too far away, or I'm not interested in it.

[Envy 5,998]

3 minutes ago, Crunchypuff said:

I guess I liked Let's Go more since I knew what to expect and pretty much got it, I didn't even expect following Pokemon and got that, and that was fine for me.

Then I buy Shield, expecting a main Pokemon game's quality, have literally all my favorite Pokemon gone in a core Pokemon game, no mega evos, no z moves, no contests, removed moves, mandatory exp share, and even more I could go on about. And the part that I don't like is that unlike Let's Go, they covered all this up until the last moment when everyone already paid. They were transparent about Let's Go being just Kanto, just the first 151 Pokemon. But I expected more than that from the next big Pokemon title, and didn't get it. That's why I like it much less.

Want to see one of the (many) excuses they provided for all this missing content in Sword/Shield? They spent all their time improving the animations!

The...high quality...animations.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ty5lUK-EM-A&t=1s

Sword/Shield had a lot of flaws, no doubt about that. For me the worst aspects are the removal of Pokemon and the mandatory Exp Share (which is just inexcusable, and it made playing the Wild Area worse). For the record, the removal of Pokemon was revealed in E3 2019's TreeHouse, so we had a long time to let that disappointment set in. It was horribly disappointing, but it was not a last minute reveal.

BUT Sword/Shield, however much flawed, provided a bit of an evolution for the series with the Wild Area, which gave us a nice open area and controllable camera for the first time in the series. Plus, the overall game benefited from more advanced 3D world design than even Sun/Moon (which was a massive improvement over X/Y).

I believe Sword/Shield even got followable Pokemon in the DLC, but I'm not sure of that because I haven't got it yet. Either way, that's far from my biggest concern, in fact I've never cared for that feature because it never just lets you pick your favorite Pokemon to have by your side, it's always the first in your party, which is often something strong and...not so cute, like Feraligatr (HG/SS).

Pokemon Lets Go Pikachu/Eevee? That was the SECOND remake of the first generation games, and this time it was on the Switch, a system which is advanced and can run games like Breath of the Wild and Skyrim. There really is no excuse for such a poor showing. They could have at least tried to reimagine Kanto, but no... you just get the same blocky locations from the Gameboy originals. I can not even begin to express how disappointing that was to me as someone who has played since Red. It's horrible rip-off for $60 and an insult to my nostalgia.

Speaking of which, GF/TPC really needs to cut out this Gen I pandering. It's gotten on my last nerve. They have practically ruined any nostalgia I had at this point. =( But that's a tangent.

[Crunchypuff 152]

To me, the only thing Sword/Shield did was show Game Freak that people are willing to buy whatever they put out just because it has the Pokémon logo on it, even if it goes against the whole "gotta catch em all" slogan from the beginning and is extremely lacking compared to any other switch game. If you look at the other big games on the switch and compare their big areas to the bland wild area, they don't even match up slightly in quality. I've been pulled out of the game by pop-ins, terrible graphics, and awful animations too many times to count. This generation was the only time in Pokemon so far that I've considered giving the series up for good. Say what you will about Let's Go, but even if it is better than that, Sword/Shield is still an awful game by Pokemon standards.

I could keep ranting, I've seen videos going on about Sword and Shields failings for literally hours, but I feel like we've gotten a bit off track of the thread topic.

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,271]

Considering just how long ago the last full Direct was, I am kinda stunned by how uninteresting this one was. The only announcement that piqued my interest was a new Mario Golf, everything else was a yawner for me. The new Smash character, while thankfully not another stupid FE character, is still almost as boring in my opinion. Splatoon 3, I did not like Splatoon 2 because of its terrible progression system and I have no doubt that this new one will be identical in that regard so that being the "big" announcement fell flat. Unless I missed it, Metroid wasn't even slightly whispered about. Nothing new for Nintendo Switch Barely Online. BOTW2 not being shown doesn't bother me at least, because I haaaaaaaated the first one, though them saying "development is going smoothly" while saying they have nothing to show right now seems kinda dumb. Skyward Sword HD is kinda cool, but uhhh....That art style is ugly as sin. Aesthetically that game looks dreadful but maybe underneath that it is good, never played it. 

So yeah. It was mostly lame. Nintendo simply isn't impressing me lately, they haven't for a while. 

[Moonlight 7,279]

only real highlights for me were splatoon 3, mario golf, skyward sword hd and maybe famicon detective club. was kinda hoping for some more info on shin megami tensei v and no more heroes 3 looked kinda interesting. the ninja gaiden collection is also cool, i remember playing one when i was younger and enjoying it

switching to the zelda dude and then saying "no news for botw2 lol" was such a tease though lmao

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,271]

4 hours ago, Zero said:

switching to the zelda dude and then saying "no news for botw2 lol" was such a tease though lmao

What I found weird about that was him basically saying "Development is going along smoothly!" and right before that saying "We have nothing to show right now." Just seemed...odd.

Speaking of nothing to show: Metroid. Nothing on that, as per usual. Still hoping a Prime collection could happen since MP4 hardly seems to exist these days.

[Envy 5,998]

9 hours ago, Kyoshi said:

Skyward Sword HD is kinda cool, but uhhh....That art style is ugly as sin. Aesthetically that game looks dreadful but maybe underneath that it is good, never played it. 

I played it on the Wii back when it came out and it is, to be honest, a mixed bag. It's been a long time since I played it, but I remember being a bit disappointed with the lack of a connected world, the lack of diversity in areas, some really annoying tasks, inaccurate motion control (I have nightmares about facing beamos' in that game) and the retreading through some areas/bosses (there is at least one dungeon you play through twice and there is more than one boss that you face more than once =/). But there was one area that I thought did some really neat stuff with its time travel and the characters in this game were really fun.

Most certainly, in terms of gameplay, Skyward Sword felt super stale and that made Breath of the Wild all of the more necessary to revive this series to being something special to play again.

It is neat that for SSHD they at least have given a non-motion control control option. I respect that a lot. But I likely won't be picking this one up myself. I think playing SS once was enough for me. It would especially feel really limited going back after playing BOTW.

[Here No Longer 5,270]

And the new Smash character is... a nearly Byleth tier disappointment with a very uncreative kit design that is literally ZELDA/SHEIK FROM MELEE EXCEPT A SWORD CHARACTER! To add to that the fact this is a pretty obvious waifu bait inclusion and here I am disliking the reveal trailer for the second time ever. First being Byleth.

 

And what's worse is that they literally discarded the character EVERYONE asked for, for a character NOBODY asked for FROM THE SAME GAME!

Edited February 18, 2021 by Stolas

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,271]

14 minutes ago, Stolas said:

And the new Smash character is... a nearly Byleth tier disappointment with a very uncreative kit design that is literally ZELDA/SHEIK FROM MELEE EXCEPT A SWORD CHARACTER! To add to that the fact this is a pretty obvious waifu bait inclusion and here I am disliking the reveal trailer for the second time ever. First being Byleth.

 

And what's worse is that they literally discarded the character EVERYONE asked for, for a character NOBODY asked for FROM THE SAME GAME!

Spot on mate. The more I've thought about it, the more I hate the character they chose and already I heavily disliked her simply because she is generic. It isn't quite as much of a slap to the face as Byleth, but man, Nintendo goes so far for some characters and nearly nowhere at all for others. This is why I am glad I did not buy either Fighters Pass.

[Here No Longer 5,270]

Moments ago, Kyoshi said:

Spot on mate. The more I've thought about it, the more I hate the character they chose and already I heavily disliked her simply because she is generic. It isn't quite as much of a slap to the face as Byleth, but man, Nintendo goes so far for some characters and nearly nowhere at all for others. This is why I am glad I did not buy either Fighters Pass.

Can't have Lloyd from Tales, can't have Rex from the same f***ing game, instead take our uncreatively designed waifu bait.

 

And they literally go out of their way to make sure that you know that they won't include a character people asked for instead of this trainwreck.

[Megas 27,062]

I think we’re all forgetting about the real winner of the Direct, DC Super Hero Girls 

Spoiler

Still looks better than that Avengers game that came out last year

This was probably one of the stranger directs to put it best since there was a lot of weird game’s they wanted to show off(, Famicom Detective Club, Neon White and World’s End Club being the biggest examples), my favorite announcement(besides NMH and the Zelda stuff) was Project Triangle Strategy, especially as a big as a big Final Fantasy Tactics fan, that game reminds me a lot of it.

41 minutes ago, Stolas said:

And the new Smash character is... a nearly Byleth tier disappointment with a very uncreative kit design that is literally ZELDA/SHEIK FROM MELEE EXCEPT A SWORD CHARACTER! To add to that the fact this is a pretty obvious waifu bait inclusion and here I am disliking the reveal trailer for the second time ever. First being Byleth.

 

And what's worse is that they literally discarded the character EVERYONE asked for, for a character NOBODY asked for FROM THE SAME GAME!

Speak for yourself, I loved Xenoblade 2 and I never found the found the idea Rex being a fighter very interesting and preferred Pyra herself, and given that they killed the Zelda/Sheik thing I think this was a good excuse to bring it back, not to mention the roster could use more females in general. Besides, the reason people are sick of Fire Emblem is because we always know what to expect and it’s always the same shit. Xenoblade has been getting bigger and I’m more than open for that series to bring more to the table, now if you really want to impress me, how about Elma from Xenoblade X?

[Kyoshi Frost Wolf 40,271]

15 minutes ago, Megas said:

I think we’re all forgetting about the real winner of the Direct, DC Super Hero Girls 

That game looks sooooooooooooooooo good, if the word "good" actually meant horrible that is. Forgot about the show it is based off of. If the show is anything like what the game described, then that is several oofs rolled into one. If I can say one thing positive though, it honestly still doesn't seem anywhere near as soullesly corporate as the Avengers game.