Nintendo Direct @ E3 2013 - Conference Rundown

Tuesday last week marked the Nintendo E3 conference, actually it was their Direct program, which marked the E3 selection of melodrama and announcements for new games.

Following the squabbling of Sony and Microsoft we expected a fairly standard affair with a mixture of new announcements.

So the show kicked off with Pokémon X and Y which, for those of you hidden under a rock lately, is the first instalment for the 3DS system. We got confirmation of a few new monsters to catch as well as a brand new type call ‘Fairy’. Among the Pokémon included are Marill, Jigglypuff and the new Eevee evolution. We also got shown a new Dragon Pokémon to confirm the Fairy type’s super-effective alignment to these monsters.

Next up was the highly expect Mario 3D for Wii U which, on top of looking pretty polished had four person multiplayer with players taking on Luigi, Toad and Princess Peach alongside Mario. It can be played cooperatively or competitively too which should be great fun. There was also a new powerup confirmed as ‘Cat Mario’ which allows our favourite Italian Plumber to climb walls and scratch enemies. It’s also due out before the end of the year.

Another Mario announcement came next in the form of Mario Kart 8 for the Wii U. It looked a lot like the original Wii counterpart with new versions of your favourite tracks like Princess Peach Castle and presumably (as it was not confirmed) Rainbow Raceway. It’s looking towards a Q1 2014 release as well which give you chance to finish Mario 3D first.

Far less exciting news came in the form of a new Mario Party title which has the usual mix of party games and harnesses the power of the Wii U GamePad.

We then got an announcement about a delay to Wii Fit U which will now include added features – but nothing was confirmed about what these were. We also got information on a new instalment in the Art Academy franchise, which will work on the Miiverse, no news about release – which appeared to be a trend starting. I’m quite excited about what Nintendo plan with the Miiverse as some of the features are distinctly original and has the capacity to go much, much further.

We then got into a section about third-part offerings including confirmation of Batman: Arkham Origins on both the Wii U and 3DS, Deus Ex: Human Revolution Directors Cut, Just Dance and Disney Infinity (the Skylanders beater?). Blacklist is also coming out, which did get a release date of 21^st August, as well as Sonic Galaxy which has been renamed ‘Sonic Lost World’ later in 2013.

Ok so this is all stuff we already knew about but the software catalogue is slowly getting bigger.

Nintendo were also keen to outline their support of indie titles but all those mentioned – DuckTales, Dungeon and Dragons, Scram Kitty and Shovel Knight – are actually digital downloads produced by the usual developers. Still, it’s nice that they put the word ‘Indie’ in there at all.

Probably the biggest cheer of the ‘Direct Conference’ was Zelda: Wind Waker HD. The release, due in October this year, runs in 1080p and has had a bit of a colour downgrade since our first viewing earlier this year. The cell shading has also been stripped back which is a bit of a shame but we did get confirmation that additional features have been added to the game so it won’t be an exact representation of the original title.

We also got a new announcement; at least I think it’s new, in the form of Wonderful 101. It’s as bizarre as it sounds too with the player taking control of hundreds of allies at once that can utilise superpowers to morph together into different machines to complete each objective. It has a great comic character and plays from a 45 degree top-down angle. It also looked pretty open world with a giant metropolis style city as the backdrop. Check it out on YouTube as it’s a bit difficult to explain.

The new game to come out the traps was Donkey Kong Country Tropical Freeze, which is due for release later this year. It’s being touted as the first HD Donkey Kong but offers the same platformer action as before – which I’m sure will please fans.

Next up though was a hugely predicted confirmation of Bayonetta 2. As a nice anecdote our favourite protagonist now don’s short hair – which had so many hits that it crashed Polygon when they upload a photo during the conference. It looks like the same badass action we’d expect from the second instalment in the series but the camera is still a pervert.

The second to last game shown was the magnificent looking open world RPG from Monolith call ‘X’. It boasts a selection of Dinosaurs and Robots and has been a creation based on their experiences with Xenoblade. It looked very interesting from the trailer but no gameplay was shown so we’ll have to wait and see. The game is expected in 2014 but, as for a release period, we still know when in the year.

Last but no least we got confirmation of the Wii U and 3DS versions of Smash Bros. The Internet went made for the inclusion of Animal Crossing villagers which was strange – please spoke about that more than the actual announcement. It’s set for a 2014 release and also features Mega Man alongside the standard crew of Mario, Pikachu, Link and Bowser.

It was an interesting conference but nothing really came up that we didn’t already know about or weren’t expecting. Everything also seems to be delayed which is a shame as the Wii U software sections of our local game shops are looking a bit thin. Mario looked great but I think a lot of die-hard fans were hoping for a Galaxy follow-up. I suppose there is always Eurogamer or PAXs.