Nintendo Recently had their E3 2019 Nintendo Direct honestly it was one of the better conferences at E3. We at Gaming Instincts will tell you what we thought about Nintendo Direct E3 2019.
To start off the Direct, a new character for Smash Bros Ultimate gets revealed and he’s definitely been with Nintendo for the longest time. The Hero of Dragon Quest XI enters the fray using a moveset almost similar to Link’s. Not only that, he can cast various forms of magic and abilities using a unique menu system and expending MP points. Their final smash is the ability to summon each of the party members from the previous games with a final hit. Of course you can change his skin to the other three protagonists from the past games and they all have unique Final Smashes.
The Hero comes from Dragon Quest but more specifically Dragon Quest XI: Tales of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition S which is coming to the Nintendo Switch. It’s said to feature all content from the original editions along with orchestral music, 16-bit visuals, Japanese and English voice-acting. They then announce that the game is coming on September 27, 2019.
Then Yoshiako Koizumi introduces Doug Bowser to talk about the next part of the direct. Together, they introduce the Luigi’s Mansion 3 trailer which shows off Luigi’s new abilities, new gamemodes, and Gooigi. The addition co-op and new co-op modes through Gooigi seem like a good time, and the story and cutscenes look fun. The date for this game is set for 2019.
Of course, Bowser announces that more hands-on gameplay of the games are available through the Nintendo Treehouse coverage which will be going on from June 11-13 but the trailer showed me quite a bit. Afterwards he introduces us to a game probably nobody asked for. Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics, based off the Netflix series. This strategy rpg is more bizarre than interesting but the next game is sure to get people’s attention.
The Legend of Zelda Link’s Awakening is then shown off in a gameplay trailer showing the game’s new artstyle in action. They also introduce a new Dungeon creator where you get to create dungeons that Link can adventure through to get new rewards. The game is set to release on September 20, 2019.
After that a remake of Secret of Mana 3 gets remade called Trials of Mana. The last time we’ve seen a Secret of Mana game was with the Secret of Mana Remake on the PS4 in 2018. Well now the Third game is getting remade entirely in 3D and is releasing Early 2020.
Well what if you’re a really huge fan and want to play the original third game or just want to play through the series from the start? Well Nintendo announced that the original three Secret of Mana games are getting ported to the Nintendo Switch right now from the Nintendo eShop. I’m sure that fans of the series are pretty happy about this announcement as the games are entirely localized.
Then a port of The Witcher III Wild Hunt Complete Edition is shown off and boy did they definitely optimize the game for the Switch as the game looks fairly downgraded. Well you can play it on the Switch in 2020.
Then a full story trailer for Fire Emblem Three houses gets released showing off the game’s cutscenes in action. While nothing is spectacular about the trailer itself the game will be coming soon on the 25th of July.
It would seem that quite a few Resident Evil games will be ported to the Nintendo switch including Resident Evil 0, Resident Evil, Resident Evil 4, 5, and 6. The addition of these games to the console make sense as the series has been known to be on the Gamecube for some time. Also Resident Evil 4 is fun and 5 and 6 can be fun especially in co-op.
A short teaser for No More Heroes 3 is shown off with Travis Touchdown fighting some, default character models I assume. Clearly the trailer leaves more questions than answers as the actual gameplay is yet to be seen. Either way I’m glad that Travis Touchdown will be coming back to the Nintendo Switch in 2020. Nothing about the previous games being ported yet so look for that in the future.
After that a new janky-looking Contra Rogue Corps is announced for September 24th. While the game itself looks like a ps2 title, the Contra Anniversary Collection gets released for the Nintendo Switch today. It features 10 whole contra games from the whole series with a 74-page eBook.
Daemon X Machina then gets a trailer showing off the game’s story and announces a September 13th release date. The game looks cool, but the framerate looks like it can take a hit due to all of the explosions.
Panzer Dragoon also gets a short trailer announcement due for this winter. It’s a cult series that dates back to 1995 with the original Panzer Dragoon so it interesting to see here for the Direct.
Afterwards Shinya Takahashi talks a little bit about the new Pokemon Sword and Shield games. He takes a short bit to talk about how the game works with Pokemon Plus accessories and how the playable version of the game is available to play at E3. He then promises to show gameplay after the Direct, during the Nintendo Treehouse Live.
Afterwards we get a new trailer that showcases some new details about Astral Chain while showing off some new bosses and fighting moves. It looks like that our characters have the technology to control these chimeras and use them to do different attacks and combo off of. Platinum games will no doubt have the game make use of some crazy combos for Astral Chain and it’s set to release August 30th 2019.
After announcing a strategic Mafia game called Empire of Sin, developed by Romero Games, Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order gets a new trailer revealing an expansion pass for new characters and possibly story content for Fall. The game is also going to be released July 19, 2019.
Then a new trailer for Cadence of Hyrule gets a new trailer showing the character fighting to the tunes of remixed Legend of Zelda music. It’s an amazing crossover between Nintendo and an Brace Yourself Games. Not only that the game is also coming out real soon on June 13th so you won’t miss out on it anytime soon.
Another Mario & Sonic at the Olympic games gets announced for November 2019 exclusively on the Switch and then we move on the finale. The next trailer shows off Animal Crossing: New Horizons in which your character decides to move away from the small city life, into a grand adventure on a “Deserted Island.” It looks like you’ll be camping, cooking, and crafting new things to make the deserted island, a little less deserted. It would seem that villagers will slowly populate the island as you make it a more liveable space.
At the end it seems like up to 8 players can play around the island, and that’s something entirely new. The game then is announced a new date from the original 2019 announcement. It’s going to be released on March, 2020. Koizumi then explains that game development needs to become the best it can be before release, so we’ll have to wait a bit.
Nintendo then shows off a whole slew of games including the Spyro: Reignited Trilogy, Hollow Knight: Silksong, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Doom: Eternal, Wolfenstein: Young Blood, and Alien Isolation.
Then a surprise trailer at the end shows that another longtime and possibly even more overdue favorite joins Smash Bros. Banjo Kazooie. That’s right Banjo Kazooie joins his friends, Donkey Kong, Diddy Kong, and King K. Rule in Smash Bros. with his own stage, items, and Final Smash. He’ll be available in the Fall and that’s a long ways away. There’s no word on Banjo Kazooie ports being made for the Switch, but hopefully that’ll be announced in the future.
And Finally for real, at the very end of the Direct is the teaser for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild’s sequel. Not a lot of information is known for this teaser, but all we know is that Ganon is definitely dead, elephants can be ridden, and Hyrule Castle is being risen to the sky, or something like that. There is no set date for the game, but we do know that it is definitely the first Direct sequel to a Zelda game in a while.
First off, the Direct had some amazing reveals. The Dragon Quest Hero getting announced which leads into Dragon Quest XI: Tales of an Elusive Age Definitive Edition S’s release date. Though unfortunately Banjo Kazooie didn’t get any announcements from his series, but maybe they’re saving that for when he’s actually released.
Astral Chain looks amazing, and so does Luigi’s Mansion 3, basically all of the big reveals were pretty good. Especially Animal Crossing, it looks very different but more of the same, except with a new Island mechanic.
We also got to see a bunch of collection and Anniversary Announcements from Contra and Secret of Mana series. Though Contra looks a bit rough to look at being able to play the past games is just amazing.
No More Heroes 3 is also a big surprise though probably not too much as Travis Strikes again released in January 2019. There is no gameplay but I believe in Suda 51. Also the Breath of the Wild Sequel is going to be very interesting no matter what so we’ll be on the lookout for that.
The only thing that I found to be especially strange to show off is the Dark Crystal Age of Resistance game and The Witcher III port for the switch. Dark Crystal is simply a strange game to show off and the Witcher 3 definitely seems to have taken a graphical hit.
Basically all of the trailers were pretty good nothing mindblowing was shown off except for the Breath of the Wild 2 leak, which is a bit further away. Luckily the Nintendo Direct was fairly short, sweet, and gave us all of the information we need for the games to come in 2019.
I give the Nintendo Direct for E3 2019, an A.
Nintendo did a great job showing off exactly what they needed to show. Two Smash Bros characters, Breath of the Wild 2, and Animal Crossing New Horizons. While not all games were winners, we were shown enough gameplay and footage to know what to expect from them. We should also get ready to play Cadence of Hyrule and the Secret of Mana series when we have the chance.
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