Talking Point: What Did You Think Of The September 2022 Nintendo Direct?

Speaking as someone who unfortunately, has never been a Zelda fan or an RPG fan that was probably one of the worst directs I've ever seen.

If I liked Zelda more then I'm sure I'd be a little more hyped but it's just not for me (and yes I have tried a few of them).

The highlight for me was probably when they showed the new N64 games being added. In particular Golden Eye

Other than that it was all a bit meh

Honestly, I am disappointed. Most of the announcements could be summed up as FARMS.

Don’t really have too much to say about the farm games beyond the fact that there is perhaps a lot more than required. The other announcements felt like maybe one or two additional details on things we already know, even with some of the bigger titles, for example, all we really got for Zelda was a name and date, and Pikmin 4 got confirmed, but nothing tangible beyond a screenshot of a big garden with assets that look like they were reused directly from Pikmin 3. With this said, Pikmin 4 was probably the best part of the Direct for me. I am interested in a new Fire Emblem, but not convinced enough yet to want it. Cool that a new Fatal Frame got announced but cannot really comment on it as never looked appealing for me.

NSO still infuriates me with being a subscription-service virtual console, rather than meaningfully improving online. I would love to play GoldenEye portably, but I am not subscribing to the expansion pass when I don’t even see the value in subscribing to the bare bones NSO. Also, quite a few announcements for updates to games where online multiplayer is the key factor makes those games uninteresting for me (personal problem I know).

The powers that be still insist on cloud games. It is almost like an Obligation of a Nintendo Direct to show at least one cloud game for the Switch. I am kind of curious if they are making enough back to justify the ports, because there must be an audience, but I don’t know. I feel like most people interested in Resident Evil for example probably already have another platform to play on.

Fist of the North Star boxing is an… interesting thought for a crossover. I honestly thought that RGG had finally started putting their games on Switch for a moment with a port of Lost Paradise, but apparently not. Then again, RGG Summit tomorrow, so Yakuza on Switch maybe? Nah, probably not, but getting off topic.

Also, surprise surprise, the rumoured Zelda ports and Metroid Prime Trilogy remaster never showed up. The fact that people still put stock in these rumours defies all logic.

Looks like that long wait for the next F-Zero/Wario Land/Wave Race continues…

I think it was pretty good. And not to brag but I was that person in chat who said “isnt this the game that got leaked? the hair color looks similar” for the FE. But seriously….
https://ibb.co/d72Yw3m

Edit again because i forget too much:
I feel like there were A LOT of farming sims, almost too many. But that Zelda footage looked pretty good. Then again, I was watching on 3G data…

No news on Advance Wars and Prime 4 make this a miss for me overall. Most of the other announcements we already knew about in some way or other.

The good announcements were REALLY good (TOTK, Pikmin 4, Mario Kart, Fire Emblem), but there was SO much filler. I seriously think half of the games shown were farming sims. So it was a 6/10 for me.

I found the presentation okay. Nothing spectacular for me personally, the news I liked were mainly on games I already know about, Kirby RtD Deluxe is awesome, and BoTW2 finally having a official name and release date was great, but otherwise nothing exciting. As expected, no tease of the Mario movie, just minor news.

I also got a little hyped for Master Detective Archives: Rain Code (I remember it being previously known as Enigma Archives or something like that), been waiting on more news on that one. I love me a good mystery, detective adventure game.

What did I think? Well, let's summarise ...Ahem.

"Don't care, don't care, too much anime stuff, too many farming sims for my taste, starting to get very annoyed now ...More Mario + Rabbids, not interested ...Oh! Here we go! Nintendo 64 games!

Wait ...Oh my god, please ...Please!

...YEEEEEEEEEEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MARIO PARTY ******* THREEEEEEEEEEE IS COMING TO N64 SWITCH ONLINE, PEOPLE! FIIIIIINALLYYYYYYYYYYYY! I'VE WAITED SO ******* LOOOONG! I'M SOOOOOOOOO ******* HAAAPPYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!🤩🤩🤩🤩🤩

...And GoldenEye too?! Wow! About time!

...Hey, Pikmin 4! Neat. Looks nice.

...WAIT, WHAT?! THAT'S ...KIRBY'S RETURN TO DREAM LAND! HOLY ****! MY FAVOURITE KIRBY GAME! It's not Kirby's Air Ride, but I'll TAKE IT!🤩

ZELDA IN MAY! HELL YES, I KNEW IT!

...Wait, that's it? Still no Wind Waker or Twilight Princess? No Metroid? Awww ...😑"

...And that about sums it up for me. 8/10 would watch again.

That is all. Thank you.

For me it was fantastic. I am going to cry when Nintendo releases the upcoming games graphic. It is funny; I only wanted a Zelda release date and turns out that the was the smallest highlight for me. You know its good when the Flagship game of the direct was a blip on your radar.

This was one of my favorite Directs in a while.
Wanted, but didn't expect, Fire Emblem and Zelda news.
Got that and so much more.
There are too many games that I'd like to play between now and May 2023 and that's a good problem to have.

@Member_the_game I agree with you. This direct was rather meh. Too many rpgs and too many farming simulators.

Also I was really expecting Smash 64 rather than that Goldeneye game in the N64 announcements.

I never really understood the complaints that Nintendo Directs have too many RPGs, but I definitely got it this time. There wasn't nearly enough genre diversity especially in the first half.

The second half won me back with Pikmin, Kirby, and Zelda, but I'd still call this one of the weaker Directs.

All I wanted was Metroid Prime. Super bummed. Everything else was ok, but that kinda ruined it for me

Wallet: Marked Safe from Nintendo

Something for everyone?! Something for everyone who likes JRPGs and/or farming sims. 🫠

If you’re a farmer than it’s an S+ Direct. In all seriousness it was alright. Nothing mind blowing save for a couple stuff like Theaterhythm, Rain Code, and Kirby Deluxe. That bit with Pikmin Bloom was an absolute pace breaker though.

I do think all of the rumor mongering didn’t help tampering expectations.

It's a good time to be a Farm-Sim fan! And I'm jazzed about Fire Emblem: Engage. And Octopath 2!

Oddly paced and presented. So many farming games near each other. Too much time spent on Pikmin Bloom. Not enough time spent on Pikmin 4 or Zelda. Just a bit odd

I should be over the moon because of Goldeneye and Pikman 4. However I feel gutted, due to all the hype with the Zelda and Metroid remakes. Also for advance games, but we got none of that. Please Nintendo, I don't emulate games and the temptation is killing me, as I have a steam deck, release Metroid trilogy, why oh why do you insist on another Kirby port, when everyone is screaming for Metroid. Sometimes it feels like you hate Metroid fans.

I rate it above mid. 6.5 There's some good stuff
Goldeneye
Merry mountain and Peach gardens (3rd fav.)
Radiant silver gun
Pikmin 4..finally
Front mission 1,2 and 3. (2nd favorite if it's good.) Please be good.
Tunic and Sifu
N64 announcements (my favorite of this direct)
Kirby
And tales

But
Advance wars is MIA
So is Prime 4
Third party sizzle reel is short
and so much farming. they want me to pick up a tractor and go farming. No thanks, I'm Captain toad not Farmer toad.

It was a solid one, but I wouldn't necessarily call it their best one. Especially considering all the filler on farming sims and the absence of games like Advance Wars, Silksong, the rumored DK game, and many more.

Don't get me wrong, it REALLY delivered on the good stuff, but...it could've been better.

Old MacDonald thought it was the best Direct ever.

It wasn't an amazing Direct, but pretty good overall. There seemed to be a TON of SquareEnix RPGs, and RPGs in general. Also a bunch of farm type games.

I'm excited for the Fatal Frame game, Zelda, Pikmin, and a few of the rpgs looked interesting. Honestly everything besides the farm games looked fun to me for the most part. I won't play even 1/4 of the games due to time and other games etc. Good direct overall.

They could have stopped after the Fire Emblem reveal. Everything else was a bonus.

Are we actually going to start acknowledging Jeff Grubb now as someone with minimal credibility?

It’s alright. being a RPG fan I did appreciate the different RPGs that appeared though the amount of farm sims were a bit much.
I did particularly loved the Kirby RTDL announcement.
Also why isn’t anyone talking about the ib announcement?
That’s a absolute classic!

Pretty good, I must say! Zelda will be cool, though The mastered ports would’ve been a real treat. Some nice surprises, like Tales and TheTheatrhythm.

A Mario sequel would’ve blown this out of the sky, but going on 6 years into the Switch’s life, I’d expect that is being made for Switch2.

Excellent output from Square though, I must say! I haven’t liked Square so much since the’90s!

Leakers got my hopes up with more Zelda ports but at least we have a date for BOTW2.

With Fatal Frame, Return to Dreamland Deluxe, Pikmin 4, Tales of Symphonia Remastered, & of course Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom there was just enough there to make me excited, even if not all the announcements were for me.

It was nice to get a sneak peek at the next MK8D wave too, and XC3 swimsuits!

7/10 direct for me.
Way too many RPG’s and farming games for me, but when there was a hit, it was a home run.
The Nintendo 64 games announced were probably the highlight of the direct; having a way to play the Mario Parties and Goldeneye on Switch is great.
I really dug the way Peach Gardens looked, and having half pipes return to the series is cool.
Pikmin 4 is a long time coming, and I think it’ll be worth the wait.
Much like Xenoblade 3, Octopath Traveler 2 is probably going to get me to buy the original and give it a shot.
Zelda looks good, but I’m surprisingly just not hyped for it. Open-world stuff just isn’t my thing, to be honest. I’m still going to get it, and am excited for everybody else that is excited!
It Takes Two is a surprise, hyped to see that game on Switch!
The game where you age when you die looked cool, I’m excited to see how that’s going to turn out.
Mario and Rabbids continues to look really fun.
I don’t really care about Nintendo Switch sports, but I might bite with a discount and one or two more games.
Kirby’s Return to Dreamland is great on Switch, and I’m so excited to play it!

No mention of Metroid, so I thought it was rubbish.

In all seriousness, it was average. Mostly it was confirming dates and announcing lower tier games. Goldeneye was the only big surprise announcement, while we got no Metroid, F-Zero or even Advance Wars. I waa thrilled about Excite Bike and 1080. That's really all.

The Fatal Frame Zero reveal was a delight, but honestly I'm missing the availability of Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, and Twilight Princess. I get the two Zelda ports not being announced with TotK being in such close proximity, but I am incredibly salty that Nintendo knows that folks have been waiting for some Prime re-release or 4 news and is most likely holding it hostage.

Some of the small-to-medium announcements were nice, but nothing to really get me excited. Everything left on my wishlist is pretty niche, though, so I wasn't expecting much.

First half was pretty lame, but warmed up in the second half despite the bloated Pikmin Bloom coverage. Octopath 2 and Pikmin 4 were definitely the highlights for me.

This direct is a classic case of Nintendo fans getting hyped over "rumours" and not enjoying the direct because it did not placate to those rumours.

Boys, girls and non-binaries we have ourselves a new Fire Emblem, Fatal Frame, Octobath Traveler, Pikmin and a release date for Zelda KoT, PLUS Bayonetta 3 footage! That and sprinkled in is stuff like A Wonderful Life remake (an underrated Gamecube classic), a Kirby remaster, AND more Front Mission remakes. I'd say this direct was a constant killer.

But, no Metroid Prime Remake (which Nintendo never said they were doing), Zelda HD Remaster Twins, and etc. etc. etc did not happen even though those were just rumours. Enjoy what they actually presented rather than what was rumoured to be there.

Those games may also still happen, as 2023 outside of January-March is a giant open slot.

New turn based fire emblem game 👍

No wind waker port or advance wars
release date 👎

But for fire emblem and the Master detective game i give it a 6

Some absolute gems in that Direct. I don't really pay much heed to rumours. If anyone did expect a Zelda blowout (tm) and Prime Remaster, they only have themselves to blame, albeit i can appreciate why they were probably disappointed. Still, Goldeneye was doing the rumour mill for ages and stuff just takes a little longer to make than folk give credit for. So I'm sure they will come at some point. Overall, I was very happy.

If Fatal Frame gets a physical release in North America, and I don't have to import it, I will be ecstatic. I love survival horror games, so with one included I was a happy camper. The resident evil cloud thing is cool for people who haven't played them, and don't like to own their games Lol.. Chances are people have a ps4 or pc they can already play them on. Playing the RE games portable would be a huge selling point to some, except they're cloud and that idea is killed instantly.

New Fire Emblem
New Pikmin
New Theatrhythm
(sort of) New Fatal Frame
New Octopath
New info on the upcoming Zelda game

I still wish we'd heard about Advance Wars, but otherwise I got almost everything I was hoping for. 9/10 Direct.

New FF Theatrhytm with DLC is expensive as all hell, but it WAS one of my most played games on the 3DS, I'm super hyped to return to this with all the new tracks and whatnot.

Octopath 2 was fine, the first one was "good" I'm hoping they manage to overcome some of the shortcomings of the first one, it definitely looks a whole lot more nicer and colorful at least. The 2DHD looks has come a long way.

Fire Emblem is incredibly suspect, I'm still very uncertain about whether or not I should care after Three Houses brought the series to a direction that's so far removed from what I want from the series, but I'll see what it's like before I judge, for now all I can really say is that the premise is dumb, overtly anime super power fantasy thing isn't really my thing, yet the map design seemed decently indepth judging from the glimpse at the trailer. And there seems to be a Jeigan unit in the fray once again so at least it doesn't seem to fall into the pitfall where all the units are so samey at the early game like 3houses did.

Some other smaller things. Radiant Silvergun seems cool enough, not really into the farm sims which there were overabundance of.

Once again Squeenix hard carries these things, I really dunno how they've managed to do that for basically the entire Switch lifespan.

@GrailUK same with the rumors. I mainly come to this site, and I usually ignore their lame rumor stories. If someone gets all excited from Twitter rumors or wherever this info comes from, that's their own fault.

I came into this direct fresh and with zero demands for what Nintendo "must/needs" to show!!!! Or else!!!

@Greatluigi
Ib, what a blast from the past
I had totally forgotten about that game.

I didn't like the fact that Resident Evil games will be cloud versions at first. But then I tried the Village demo and to my surprise it played well and looked good too. So now I'm actually hyped for a cloud game lol.

Other than that the Wii Fatal Frame/Project Zero game seems interesting (it was better reviewed than Wii U one at least). But I'll probably wait till it's around 20€ before I get it.

I'm just not that big a fan of the series or horror for that matter (Resident Evil was never really that scary imo and doesn't really count as real horror imo).

Slightly disappointed (my own fault for believing rumours) but there was some decent looking stuff in there.

This Farming RPG Direct was meh. I wanted at least my windwaker HD or TLP. Maybe Metroid Prime Trilogy HD...maybe a GBA update for the online service...I might give Pikman a try and the new FE game finally looks like a FE game without all the other High School Drama of the 3 houses BS. Other than that, it was meh.

I liked it if only because it gave me lots of multiplats to look forward to on PS5 lmao. Now if Sony's state of play can deliver at least one more cool announcement, I'm a happy camper for today

In terms of ninty exclusives, I don't like Fire Emblems new art style but I love fire emblem so I feel obligated to play it anyway. Still not much to think about with Zelda when they showed absolutely nothing at all so yea...

Really good Direct.

Fire Emblem
Pikmin
Zelda
Tales of remaster
Fatal Frame
Goldeneye + Future NSO titles look good
Sifu
Tunic
Octopath II
Kirby RtD Deluxe
Front Mission 1 and 2

The games just keep coming for Switch, it's insane.

Loved this Direct! So many fun announcements, and you're eating well if you're a farm sim fan. So many various JRPG's are looking really great, like Atelier, Xenoblade DLC, Fire Emblem Engage, Octopath II, etc.

Tears of the Kingdom is the obvious highlight of the whole thing, and absolutely made my whole month just to see it revealed properly. I cannot be more hyped for the latest Legend of Zelda.

People really are underestimating how revolutionary Tears of the Kingdom will be once more for open world games, seamlessly transitioning from the heavens to the earth, and if that is any indication, seamless dungeon exploring, etc.

Most open world environments are framed in a horizontal sprawl, with loading screens between dungeons below or special stages above. Tears of the Kingdom will once again define an entirely new dimension to open world gaming, and bring an unprecedented verticality to the open world formula.

Was pretty decent but no news on Advance Wars is bad news, no Metroid no DK and nothing I want to play until next year. Switch may be going into storage with no big Winter games to look forward to before Christmas! Far too much Kirby this year.

So happy that Pikmin 4 was confirmed!!! Otherwise, everything else was pretty meh.

No bad. I got Fire Emblem so I'm happy. Though I will say that main character is ugly as sin. Dude looks like a complete clown!

There were way too many farm games too. I felt like I'd be passed out if I made a drinking game out of it!

As for Zelda, I need to know if actual dungeons are back before I get too excited.

I think 2023 is looking better than 2022 and that says a lot. In other words, great Direct.

Think I’m a little Farming-RPG’d out

I thought it was pretty good, a lot of games I will be getting day one (13), and I'm happy they didn't fill it with ports of wiiu games.

That Direct was disappointing for me. 4/10. At least, there was (Project) Zero IV port, Tales of game Remastered, Pikmin 4 announcement, and new Theatrhythm for me... Atelier Ryza 3 is a good announcement and I'm happy for Atelier Ryza fans/enjoyers, but I'm not an Atelier (Ryza) series fan/enjoyer. Even Japanese Nintendo Direct had a small number of exclusives, which is... Well... Not interesting for me. But, there was Everybody's Golf-like game... And that's all. Oh, and also... Voice of the main narrator of Japanese Direct sounded like a Yūichi Nakamura's voice. Especially, it's sounded like a mix of Hazama's(BLAZBLUE) and Yoshiki Kishinuma's(Corpse Party) voices... I like it.

I always fairly enjoyed general Nintendo Directs myself as a huge Nintendo fan, but this one I found to be a little "wah wah", in my opinion. Probably the first direct I've actually been disappointed with.

Outside of Goldeneye 64, Return to Dream Land Deluxe, and Tears of the Kingdom...nothing much else caught my eye, with a few of them disgusting me outright. I would say that I'm somewhat interested in Fire Emblem Engage, but that's pretty much it. Then there's also the Pikmin 4 announcement, but the lack of any gameplay is no good to me.

That Fist of the North Star game, especially, is a gut punch to me since it's basically a reskinned Fitness Boxer game. I was hoping for an actual action game on Switch, not this.

A great deal of the first-half of the direct just bored me. No disrespect to the Square Enix and farming fans, but neither of the games shown from them caught my eye. The closest that caught my eye was Octopath Traveler II, but given the "meh" feelings I had for the first game, I'm not getting my hopes up for this one unless if a lot of modern touch-ups and improvements are made.

I'm happy to see more N64 games coming to NSO (especially Mario Party 3 and Goldeneye! Hooray!), but the lack of anything else regarding classic systems on NSO is a downer. I mean, when is Game Boy (Color) getting added?

I feel like the long production time for TOTK is making me yearn for a completely new Zelda world more than anything.

We’ve all spent a LOT of time in this version of Hyrule by now (let’s not forget the DLC and Warriors).

The trailer was amazing but I’m not as excited as I was for BOTW. This long wait also means we’ll probably have to wait for another 10 years before seeing something entirely new. If they don’t decide to make this a trilogy with an online, neverending Zelda, that is 🤦‍♂️

Personal bias, we now have Radiant Silvergun, it was a 10/10.

I was mainly hoping for Wind Waker, Advance Wars and Metroid so disapointed mostly. A new Fire Emblem is always good news, though.

While there were some nice surprises (Fire Emblem: Engage, Pikmin 4, and Octopath Traveler 2), there were a couple of major disappointments as well (still no release date for Advance War: Reboot Camp, and the rumored Twilight Princess and Wind Waker remasters never materialized). Of course the big news was Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom's official title and release date. A good but not truly great Direct overall that was held back by WAY too many farm sim-type offerings, ports already handled far better on other platforms (one word: cloud), and Miyamoto's monologue about the Mario film and theme park and mobile game that wore out its welcome long before the Pikmin 4 reveal saved this appearance from infamy.

Zelda is always a win and great we got a release date, outside of that it was a complete miss for me. Not being a fan of anime art-style, farming sims, or JRPGS there was really nothing else for me in there. Mario + Rabbids SOH is a definite buy but was a known commodity, couple others have already played elsewhere. Can't say I was disappointed but didn't see a reason to dust off our switches any time soon unfortunatley

Man I am really surprised that some people seem to genuinely have enjoyed the direct, because I thought it was super disappointing and I'm usually more positive than the majority. I don't know it was just extremely bloated with some really bad looking games, like some of those ""remasters"" looked like ps1 graphics. They seem more like cashgrabs to me and I don't think belong in a direct. And then it was just RPG after RPG after RPG and I am usually used to that since directs are always filled with them but man this was just ridiculous, no variety at all really. Pikmin 4 and BOTW2 are of course very very exciting but a title card and a 10 second clip was not really doing it for me. The only thing I got excited about was Goldeneye and factorio, those are two games I have been eyeing for a long-time. But the rest..

ruined by speculation because you then start to have expectations. I expected Zelda windwaker and twilight princess ports, I expected Metroid. we had loads of articles about strong sources confirming these rumours. then no announcements.

there were a few good announcements and surprises though

Come on, Pikmin 4 is beyond beautiful. 9.5/10 Direct.

Pikmin 4 and Goldeneye were the only things to excite me, but those are a pretty massive deal. Pikmin is one of my top 3 favorite game series, so getting a new entry is a massive deal for me.

Decent to good, some great games for ME but lacked a bit of wide appeal top tier games but... then botw 2 happened.

Definetely not the best, but far far from the worst, will probably be the ones of you'll remember because of Pikmin 4 and BOTW2 and not because it blew your mind

It was good: with the exception of the abundance of farming/life simulators, this Direct was everything I expected it to be: Tears of the Kingdom's title and release date, obvious Nintendo 64 releases for Switch online, confirmation on the Radiant Silvergun port from prior rumours and knowing that sequels for Rune Factory, Pikmin and Atelier Ryza are under development (with a few surprises like a Fatal Frame IV port and Octopath Traveler 2 actually happening instead of that mobile spin-off garbage, since I'm not the only one who bemoaned thinking Squeenix was killing off Octopath by turning it mobile).

Really, if you were thinking that something monumental was going to be announced (like the next Mario platformer) or some kind of "extended gameplay" trailer for Tears of the Kingdom would be shown in an already stacked 40-minute Direct (minus that pointless Pikmin mobile segue by Miyamoto), you were just asking to be disappointed. Besides, the latter for Tears won't occur until next year before launch; why show more gameplay in a Direct when it can have its own dedicated 20-minute showcase?

Not the best but Zelda release date/name and Pikmin 4 were really high points. Could’ve really done with less farm sims taking up time though, it really started to feel like a joke by the time Rune Factory showed up.

No Wind Waker/Twilight Princess or Metroid Prime after all the rumours was disappointing though. They could still happen (how long did Goldeneye take to get announced after being rumoured) but I was really hoping to see them here

I think a new Mario game will be announced closer to the release of the movie to drum up mutual hype. I'm hoping for a 2D Mario game that's NOT in the "New" style that we're all sick of. Heck, I didn't like that style 16 years ago when it first came out on the DS, and at this point I'm SICK of it.

What we really need is a hand drawn (Rayman Origins style) 2D Mario game.

it was an excelent Direct. Fatal Frame, Fire Emblem, a remake of a Kirby game that looks awesome, more N64 games, GOLDENEYE, RE cloud games (better to have them like that, than not having them at all), and Tears of the Kingdom, with a release date. Best Direct of the year. The people that didn't like it, believed dumb rumors.

It was okay, there's still so much Nintendo has hiding in the development room, past and present.

Still not fully sold on NSO+, especially if they release the Mario Party's and Pokemon's each month in a row. Seem like safe releases, still no Geomon.

A few games I'm not interested in and Cloud versions of Resident Evil.

Bayonetta right around the corner, but looks like the Devil May Cry 4 of the series.

The positives:
Goldeneye is a great announcement and leaves speculation for Perfect Dark to get the same treatment.

Sifu has been on my watch list and great to see more Octopath.

There hasnt been a new Mario platformer in 5 YEARS (aside from BF).
Enough said.

It was really bad. 0/10. Waste of 40 minutes unless you’re a farmer.

6/10 for me personally, but I have many happy friends so I feel like it was a good direct.

I'm pretty happy with what they showed, got Fire Emblem and Zelda so that will keep my Nintendo craving in check.

But still disappointed that we haven't heard anything about Metroid Prime 4, at this point it's safe to say the game isn't coming out anytime soon.

Overall though I liked the Nintendo direct.

@Member_the_game Yeah, there was nothing there for action game fans.

Farming sim, party game, rpg and pokemon fans will be happy I guess

Really I’m surprised it’s receiving such good feedback, for me it was quite empty and to have Mr Mario himself present Pilkimin 4??
Sorry but eh?? Do what?? Where’s Mario then don’t toy with our emotions just like a cat preying on a mouse
Zelda looks great it always does and I’m looking forward to getting that but not a whisper of any of the Zelda remakes The Metroid remakes,hopefully see yawl on some Splatoon 3 soon

It was pretty great.
New main-line Fire Emblem
New Octopath Traveler
Goldeneye 64
Great-looking Story of Seasons

I am pleasently surprised, although I did have very low expectations. GoldenEye, Zelda, Pikmin and maybe Factorial, Tunic and Raidant Silvergun. Still to many RPGs and too much anime for me personally. Also too many "kiddy" games (sorry).

Thought it was great! Whilst brief, Tears of the Kingdom looked absolutely amazing! (Nice to finally have a name and date too, even if the date doesn’t stick).
Pikmin 4 was an awesome surprise! I was worried they where just reminding us bloom existed.
Not sure how I feel about fire emblem. Big fan of awakening and three houses but I haven’t played the rest of them so the whole nostalgia grab is lost on me, same with the first Fire emblem warriors.
Raincore looks really cool. A new Splatfest is of course welcome. Mario strikers and Xeno got ok updates. Haven’t played Kirby but they look interesting.
So overall I thought it was good. (Maybe one or two too many farming games for my tastes 😅)

I honestly thought it was one of the best directs in years. Good surprises, Several new JRPG's, a few new first party announcements, several amazing farm sims, tons of great multiplayer N64 games coming to NSO, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe Booster Course Pass sneak peak, which tbh looks like the new wave is going to be MUCH closer visually to the base-game retro tracks! Theatrhythm sequel!!! Pog!!! Bayonetta 3!!!!! Crisis Core Remake, a Newly localized Fatal Frame game, and the new game from the Danganronpa team!!!! Even a low-key release of a new Hot Shots Golf on Switch, which I'm guessing was going to be a part of the direct, but had to be trimmed out due to the direct already being almost 42 minutes in length.

Edit: Oh and Atelier Ryza 3! How could I forget?! xD

Things I hated were the Cloud Versions of the Resident Evil games, Villages makes sense, but there's NO WAY Capcom couldn't get native versions of the Remakes to run on Switch, they are just being greedy and lazy...and Tales of Symphonia Remastered which is an absolute scam job. Just the original Tales of Symphonia game for $50 or $60 whereas the PS3 and Steam versions had a remaster of the sequel Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of The New World bundled in and the two game bundle cost $50...

Overall though it was an amazing Nintendo Direct!

It was fine. Zelda TotK, Octopath 2, Front Mission remakes, few nice bits. A bit heavy on farm simulators and JRPGs for my taste tho.

Why were there so many farming RPGs!?!?

Was really looking forward to the Zelda, batman, and Metroid prime ports... Glad to see tunic finally come to switch, and maybe finally a reason to get the switch online expansion pack... i mean theres no other way to get in on that online mario party and goldeneye fun

Sh*t sandwich

I wish there was more Pikmin and Zelda footage, other than that it was solid. I'm going to buy multiple games shown and already got a dangerously massive backlog. I'm hoping for Switch Pro in May to go with Zelda.

Personally, this is the most underwhelming Nintendo Direct I've seen in a long time. I always have low expectations to keep my disappointment in check and it still failed to live up to that.

Nothing against RPGs or Farming Simulators but there was honestly so many of them, they could have been their own presentation. While it's too early for me to definitively say, the new Fire Emblem doesn't interest me as much as Three Houses. The character designs look silly and the summoning ability feels like a gimmick.

Nearly all of the other highlights had a catch:
-Goldeneye on Switch Online was leaked.
-Pikmin 4 only showed a brief cinematic and a screenshot of gameplay.
-Return To Dreamland is another port.
-All the new Resident Evil games are cloud versions.
-Tears Of The Kingdom had just as much gameplay footage shown as the previous Directs.

I'm also baffled why they spent so much time to elaborate on Pikmin Bloom when it's already been out for a year now. Then there's the delay of the Golf update for Switch Sports which is still suffering from a huge lack of content.

Again, this is just my personal thoughts. I understand that plenty of people still liked this Direct and that's totally fine. Sorry if I'm being a downer.

Aside from Farming Direct 2022, I thought there was a ton of little surprises for everyone. And right out of the gate with a return to turn-based FE, with ‘stands’ of returning heroes. Also more Bayo3 info, OctopathII, Radiant Silvergun, Golden Eye, Pilotwings 64 with a better framerate, Kirby remake, Fatal Frame Wii remake, Tales remake, Sifu, Theatrythm sequel, and Raincode (raincoat?), lots of stuff to chew on. Not the best direct but a lot of “blink and you’ll miss it while you’re complaining about rumored things that weren’t guaranteed to be in the direct in the first place” news.

No GB(A) for NSO, Kirby fans got more for a 30th anniversary than Zelda and a handful of mediocre N64 games. GoldenEye is nice but I feel like Xbox owners are getting the better deal. So I rate this Direct with a "Mediocre but what did I expect" out of "Disappointment is my life's content"

Underwhelming for sure. Kirby and Pikmin is good, Tears of Kingdom name and date is welcome, Pkmn Stadium 2023 is cool, not much else for me.

It felt like every other game was a farm simulator. Why in the world they had to spend several minutes at a time on a bunch of games that look so similar is beyond me. There were a couple gems in there, but for the first Direct in a very long time, it definitely underwhelmed.

As one of the biggest Rune Factory fans (I made some very big Google Sheets for it that many people use to this day), this direct got me excited for RF3 and the mysterious Rune Factory project coming up. Just hoping it's not RF2 or 1, wasn't a huge fan of those.

Also, loved Theatrythm and Octopath 2. If this had anything from Etrian Odyssey it would probably be my top Direct.

@Mauzuri I know, its really furstrating to see a barebones Strikers game favoured over a 2D mario and more.

New stuff coming.

2023.

I got sick and tired durring the direct , by the huge amount of uninspired farming simulator RPGs.

0/10 for me.

Was that it for expansion pack. Mainly mario party and pokemon games. Where was the Game Boy Advance.

I guess I am happy with Golden Eye and 1080 but they could be a year away. Compared to PS5 and Xbox subscription services, this the expansion pack is a joke.

Out of everything else, I was happy with Radiant silvergun and obviously Zelda but I wanted

Diddy Kong Racing
Rhythm Heaven Megamix
F zero gx
Donkey Kong game
New 3d Mario
Silksong
Metroid Prime
Metroid 4
Wind Waker
New Wario Platformer
Rogue Legacy 2

Sony will get my gaming budget for the next six months or so.

I mean..there were some highs. There were some lows. And then everything in between. Does that sum it up?
@bimmy-lee said it best on his pődcaşt though. If you go in expecting new werewolf games, prepare for disappointment. Unless you're subscribed to the cloud ☁️

@AhabSpampurse and minimal hair if Prime HD doesn’t release this year.

More like Square Enix Direct.

Factorio on Switch might be fun. Nice to have a Zelda release date. But nothing that really got me excited.

The games I have interest about:

Fae Farm
Story of Seasons: a Wonderful Life
Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe
Mario + Rabbids Spark of Hope

Overall, it was really mediocre Direct for me since I have no interest with bigger games.
I stop watching the Direct immediately once I saw zelda game at the last. I don't care games like zelda, fire emblem, pikmin, Mario strikers, Splatoon, etc.
I rated the Direct was 4/10.

Ahhh, the Nintendo Direct. People grumpy because unconfirmed rumors made up by strangers on the internet didn't turn out to be real.

@Anti-Matter You spend so much time telling other people what you aren't interested in. That must be exhausting.

Decent overall but not earth shattering, but we do get Pilotwings 64 at last and Goldeneye.

Miyamoto is still flogging Pikmin I see, which is pretty good considering the franchises poor sales, hoping for a shake up with this new one, and hopefully the best selling game of the series so far.

3/10 and I love JRPGs.

@Elithal It was clear that it's Rune Factory 6 that they were teasing.

This reminds me of 2021.

@its_luke_c,

Those rumors as always were never going to be true, god help me if I hear another Metroid prime trilogy leak, I think my head will explode.

I guess the Zelda games re releases sounded the most plausible, but that's what leakers do, they predict the most likely titles, as they have more chance of being correct.

I thought it was great, bordering to amazing 8/10 for sure. We got a Switch version of tunic coming soon in an already packed month.

Sifu was a game i already had big interest in was an epic games exclusive and it is also coming so soon in November!

We got a new Mainline Fire Emblem title just like that and it wasn't even the highlight of the direct with a release date in January.

I know this one is small but i love rhythm games and thus really enjoyed the announcement of Theathrythm featuring so many great songs really.

We got a trailer to Octopath Traveller 2 which totally hyped me up! I greatly enjoyed the first one and if they really intertwine each story a bit more it could hold up a bit better in the story department.

There was also the completely surprising announcement of the Fatal Frame game which is a series i wanted to get more into after maiden of black water. It really deserves more recognition and i didn't expect to see another mainline game on the switch at all.

We got a pretty interesting looking trailer of Raincode. I never heard of the game before, but i played Danganronpa and if the mystery and wackiness part is only remotely similar this could be a very good game.

Even that small little announcement of Ib coming to the Switch looked interesting

I will probably even get It takes two and Kirbys return to dream land to play with friends.

And of course lets not forget about the Release Date for Tears of the Kingdom. Really now, i get that there was a lot of farming games and jrpgs but there were also some great gems in between. There are sooo many interesting looking games in the next few months in my opinion that i am a bit baffled that nobody finds at least some stuff they enjoy. But i never really got too much into the leaks so i really didn't know much about those supposed Zelda and Metroid remakes until after the direct

Easy Come Easy Golf is easily the most underrated highlight of the direct.

CONS:

• No Advance wars
• No more sports in Switch Sports
• No more GAME MODES, including a season, in Mario Strikers

PROS:

• New Fire Emblem
• Front Mission 1,2,3
• Radiant Silvergun day-1

I don't care about the other games showed

It was very good, like a small E3 presentation. Some titles were interesting and some other not but for different groups of people. Fire Emblem Engage, Zelda, Crisis Core FF7, Octopath2, Tunic were one of the best!

I thought it was alright for the most part. A new mainline Fire Emblem game is always good news for me. To be honest, I was a bit disappointed that Multiversus still isn’t announced for Switch yet. Back to the other consoles for that game then.

By the way: can somebody tell me what's the use of Pokémon Stadium on NSO if we can't import Pokémon? If the Stadium games would have connectivity with the GB games on NSO they could've sold a thousand more subscriptions.

There was not much stuff made by western companies or focused on western audiences. I really expected a call of duty, batman collection, metal gear solid collection, metroid prime announcement or anything else made in Europe or America.

You can see they’re focussing a ton on Japanese companies and that Nintendo maybe is missing E3 business talks.

I mainly liked the Sifu and Tunic announcements. Those were two platform exclusives coming to switch. And both very suitable for the platform. Next to that: octopath traveler II.

Pikmin 4
10/10
Also Zelda release date

@johnvboy It's the "my Uncle who works at Nintendo told me" which has been happening for decades haha. Just in digital form.

7/10...

Direct Top Highlights for Me Personally:

• Octopath Traveler 2
• Tunic
• Fire Emblem Engage
• Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion
• New NSO Games online potential (although still yearning for Game Boy, Game Cube & maybe Dreamcast as well as improvements to the emulators & service overall.)
• Fitness Boxing: Fist of the North Star (simply for the surprise & quirkiness lol)
• Zelda: TOTK + Release Date

Mid-lights:

• Final Fantasy Theatrhythm: Final Bar Line
• Kirby's Return to Dream Land Deluxe
• Pikmin 4
• Bayonetta 3

Top Misses:

• Miyamoto not mentioning anything Mario basically
• Farm game over-saturation
• RE: Cloud versions
• Advance Wars?

Not bad, but not exceptional. Overall, I was ok with it!

... Wun can only hope.

Fire emblem was the only thing that was cool to see because I wasn't expecting that. Everything was like...Pikmin 4 announcement, Zelda release date with nothing exciting to see, too many farm sims, we already knew about Rabbids, and everything else were nice sprinkles on top of an average Direct that we've wait forever for..Nintendo really trying to milk this Switch run for as long as it can before it needs to switch over to a new console build.

I'll be honest. I didn't feel it. I didn't expect much and still I'm disappointed. :/ That said, I'm not a big FE-fan or Octopath Traveler-affinado. I was surprised with Pikmin 4 and Project Zero/Fatal Frame 4, though, but I'll likely be getting PZ on Xbox (smoother framerate and portable through console streaming).
But seriously.. 4(!) farming RPG? Those are quickly becoming the FPS's of the Switch. I wanted 2 things: a date for Advance Wars and the reveal of Wind Waker HD. oh well...

It was a solid direct. I think the one in February was better, but this was still a good time.

Zelda release date and title, new Fire Emblem, Pikmin 4 finally announced, Kirby remake, Octopath Traveler 2. Lots of great announcements.

I'm still bummed we don't have a release date for Advance Wars 1+2 Reboot Camp, though. Oh well.

Generally a solid C, but it comes down to taste.

I don't care about Pikmin, Kirby, or Splatoon. Nor the 20 or so farming sims that were shown. I am excited for Fire Emblem, Octopath 2, and FF Theaterrythm.

Super disappointed that Advance Wars is still MIA, there are still no GBA games, and there are still no Metroid Prime ports

Metroid Prime on Switch when?

Fire Emblem Engage,
Atelier Ryza 3,
Octopath Traveler 2,
The LoZ: Tears of the Kingdom

The above are all of interest to me (along with FFVII Crisi Core Reunion, but I'll be getting that on PS5).

@MS7000 how does the Zelda / Metroid rumor acceptance defy logic? Nintendo notoriously holds on to finished games for the sake of keeping the schedule with at least some content. Look at the Fire Emblem leak, it even states the game had been complete for nearly a year. This direct had a lot going on and that doesn’t take into consideration the already listed games such as Persona 5 and Pokémon.
I’m willing to bet Metroid Prime and WW / TP exist and will find their way onto either the switch or it’s successor when the times is right.

There were some great announcements like Fire Emblem Engage, Pikmin 4, and a name/date for Tears of the Kingdom, but other than that, this Direct was kinda underwhelming.

It feels like a ton of Japanese developers and publishers saw the wild success of Animal Crossing in 2020 and all collectively decided to make farming-related games to somewhat capitalize on its success, to the point where all of those games will launch within the same 6-9 month window. Take out some or most of those farming games, and the quality of the Direct as a whole would have been much improved.

@Mando44646 have you tried the Front Mission series? They will definitely scratch that advance wars itch and then some. Also Tiny Metal which is currently available does an admirable job filling that genre brother.

10/10. It had Pikmin 4

I would be more surprised about Fire Emblem if it wasn't fatally leaked at clear and concise detail.

Now the Zelda side, on the other hand, was a minor surprise. I now know not to follow rumours, period.

@wuntyme8 Miyamoto was probably one of the most disappointing segments if you ask me man. Hey check out this app that’s been out for over a year, oh Pikmin 4 is a thing, oooh and this nice shirt what do you guys think? Oh yeah and mentioning the movie and the theme parks but with no actual news involved just rehashing existing info.

@its_luke_c,

To be fair my Auntie does work at Nintendo, but she is a right lying bugger.

@JJtheTexan I agree it was certainly a solid direct, plenty of titles for everyone honestly. Front Mission has me jazzed. Kirby, Pikmin, Fire Emblem, Zelda, DLC support of existing titles, and square Enid for days, it was genuinely a good outing.

@MythTgr,

Geoff is notorious for this.

@SpiritGun7 Front Mission is on my plate to buy when it releases. I love tactics RPGs and I never played them. Nothing really fills the void of Advance Wars though. And since Nintendo flatly refuses to sell or legally distribute GBA games, I'm just continually frustrated that I can't play that or Golden Sun or the numerous wonderful games in the GBA library

Too many farming simulations. Happy to see Fire Embelm and Legend of Zelda. Shocked that Octopath Traveller got a sequel. Wasn’t expecting that. I am so excited for Octopath Traveller. Mario Kart DLC wave 3 I am looking forward to as well. No mainline Mario game was a disappointment. Not as good as the February direct but not absolutely terrible. 6/10.

Despite cloud gaming choices, the RE reveals was a nice surprise. The more M rated games on the switch the better

Boy, I hope you like Farm sims... because that's mostly what you're getting.

@Jimmy_G_Buckets You make it sound like there's a shortage of those types of games. Well, since this is a NIntendo console and a bit underpowered, that's a bit expected.

i give it a b-. i have no love for farming sims.. no wind waker tp ports no metroid prime games no news of a dragon quest 3 remake... while we did get a zelda name the trailer was way to short and the game is releasing later then march...

@Mando44646 I understand entirely man, I kinda wish they would give battalion wars another go as well.
Front mission has a more serious tone, Wanzer modification is a blast though and the tactics element is pretty solid. How about the Tactics Ogre remake it might scratch the itch for the moment.

I'am super pumped for Front Mission 1, 2, and 3 remakes!!!

Sad for absence of new Donkey Kong game. I was excited to see Diddy!

@Friendly I was expecting an Arkham collection with the Unreal 4 engine graphics... Sadly we might not know if it's happening.

No Zelda ports is also disappointing. and the lack of anything outside of typical jrpgs is underwhelming to say the least.

@ChadThundercock69 Huh? Must have missed that. I hope it's a reimagining then rather than a silly minigame of sorts.

@Switch_Pro Completely incorrect. Especially if it's teasing a new SERIES.

@SpiritGun7 I actually forgot about the Tactics Ogre remake. That's at the top of my list too. I played FF Tactics back in the day, but never Tactics Ogre, so it'll be a new one for me. Square is really feeding my RPG and tactics needs well (though still waiting on ports of those FF Pixel Remasters...)

Not bad, but not the best direct ever. There’s a lot of good stuff, don’t get me wrong, but very RPG focused. Every other announcement felt like a new Square Enix game lol.

It was amazing but I'm puzzled whether to vote for this because both Pikmin and Zelda (which, like I said, I will now only get excited for once I'm done with the rest of its arc) are actually in the "okay, neat" pile together with Spongebob for me.😅 But the rest... queen's wings, it was am avalanche. I feel downright stuffed and my wallet feels downright mortified in advance - A Wonderful Life and the Wii Kirby, Fae Farm and Various Daylife, Factorio and Octopath Traveler 2, Raincode and a new Theatrythm game, then the friggin' RUNE FACTORY 3 AND SYMPHONIA... 😵😍 While there's no telling when I get down to it given the overall binge, the new Fire Emblem looks damn promising, too. The Direct was truly JRPGlicious which may be a miss for those not interested in the genre but from my nerdy perspective...

Switch's seventh year in the market (or technically the tail end of its sixth one for the most part but you know what I mean) is already shaping to be pretty damn grandiose as well. The only truly shrug-off moment is the cloud versions which remain literally unplayable for me, but it's not like I don't have a sizeable RE wishlist/backlog on Switch as it is. Practically all the rest will be joining the stadium-sized lobby of games queued up for my VG spendings on the platform. At this rate, I might someday be a vocal demander of a system patch to remove the library screen's 2000 icon cap myself.😆

Nothing much here for me aside from Zelda:ToK. Nevertheless, it looks like it was a great Direct.

@SpiritGun7 The Zelda ports is pure speculation based on TOTK being delayed and the fact that Nintendo have practically ported every Wii U game, and the Metroid Prime Trilogy rumours have been floating around since at least Dec 2018. Yet every time a Nintendo Direct comes around, you always havd someone like Jeff Grubb go "yeah, it gonna be announced today guys, don't worry" and people just magically believe them. Sure, these games may exist, but it is irksome that people believe they truly have the inside scoop and are not at all sceptical. These "insiders" are broken clocks, they may tell the time right once or twice, but it is better to assume they are wrong, especially with so many examples of them being wrong.

Mario Kart, Kirby, and Tunic were the highlights for me. That arcade space shooter game looked fun as well!

Nothing for me. I am interested in zelda of course and radiant silvergun a bit but the whole show looked great in general and good for those who are interested in those games. I hope they do well.

I wasn’t able to watch the Direct live so I learned about the reveals first then viewed it later - in terms of announcements this Direct was very good (Pikmin!!! Zelda! Fire Emblem! Octopath II! Kirby!) but it was not structured well at all, especially at the end. I was really surprised that no game (not even Zelda) had an in-depth segment. Overall Nintendo doesn’t need a massive presentation with the games they have coming this holiday, but I will be expecting more from the first Direct next year

2022 is still looking like a bust for me. Oh well, 2023 is looking to be fantastic!

@Ironcore This is the kind of view to have. Even though the Direct did not directly appeal to you, you can see there are quality games there. I'm generally a-okay with this as just saying "too many RPGs and farm sim = bad direct" is kinda a load of BS.

Unfortunately I felt it was

• too long
• many of the games showcased looked too similar (lots of emphasis on turnbased games, farming/sim games, anime style games)
• left me wondering what Nintendo's heavy hitter will be for the Holidays

I enjoyed the Direct. I'm never going to play any of those farming games, but Fire Emblem, Octopath, Kirby, Zelda, as well as a little bit more on stuff coming this year rounded out things perfectly for me.

I generally go into these looking for 3 things I can be excited about afterwards, and if those requirements are met then A+ from me.

One has to forget his/hers preferences. It was undoubtly one of the best directs ever

Personally I was crying happy tears for Pikmin 4 (and the new Zelda) but overall there was something for everyone. Period

I'm so so happy for everyone. Pikmin 4 and BOTW2? Yeah. Plenty of hype. However, for me it just seemed to duck and dodge anything that would've gotten major hype from me. I was so excited for Mario Party 1 2 and 3, until I was reminded that we'll just have to wait MONTHS for games that released upwards of 20 years ago. My hype for BOTW2 kind of ebbs and flows. I thoroughly enjoyed the first, but I never put too much time into it. Again, so happy for everyone that got so much that they wanted. Also worth mentioning, I'm not really into anime or RPGs. That being said, y'all enjoy your hype. Congrats Pikmin fans!

Honestly, for me it was a winner. Fire Emblem Engage, Kirby Return to Dreamland, Octopath 2, SoS A Wonderful Life and the Zelda title reveal were all awesome to see for me. There still were things I was not keen on, but the sheer amount of reveals was astounding. Best Direct we have had in a long, long while IMO.

@MarioLinkSamus I mean do they need a big game for December? Splatoon 3 and Pokemon Scarlet and Violet will suck all the air out of the room this holiday. And the Christmas season will be full of evergreen titles selling out as usual (Mario Kart 8, Smash Ultimate, Animal Crossing NH and Zelda Breath of the Wild) and the big hitters 2022 has already had like Xenoblade 3, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, Pokémon Legends: Arceus and Kirby and the Forgotten Land will get the natural holiday boost for those who missed out on them. That is before we add in releases like Bayonetta 3 and Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope coming out in October.

With all those does Nintendo really need a big Christmas release for you? I mean I'm not sure what kind of backlog you have, but between this and the games I missed out on in 2021 I think I don't need a bigger hole burned in my wallet. ESPECIALLY with next year's lineup so far. And based on what I've outlined above I think Nintendo Switch hardware and software sales will be more than fine without a big "holiday" release.

Wait, wait, wait. I gotta bump this Direct up to pretty good because of Fitness Boxing Fist of the North Star! The truest left field announcement of today’s Direct!

https://twitter.com/fitboxinghokuto/status/1569692962376011780?s=46&t=1gc_Gab56t4jyHZvhcrFDQ

Nothing special stood out. I honestly skimmed through 90% of the direct.

I was dissapointed. Square Enix feels like too much of the same, especially atmosphere and look wise. Doraemon is the only farming sim I might be buying in the foreseeable future. A wonderful life seemed off to me. And to be honest, sometimes I feel like one farming game per year is too much. They really have to tone down the grind in modern farming games and games in general I guess. I mean the Mineral Town remake seriously asked me to keep playing for over 30 years to get a collectible. No way.

Zelda is just not Zelda since BOTW. I do not like this too serious and sad, kinda end of the world vibe the game has going.

The only thing I liked was the Pikmin 4 announcement. This should be good. Both games I played were pretty good.

Generally this direct made me feel like I am not the target audience anymore and like I should just play retro games for the rest of my life. I will not pay developers to make me feel sad.

But oh well it is just a direct and I am sure there is great stuff ahead.

@Member_the_game I'll be honest, if it wasn't for RPGs and Zelda, I doubt I'd even own a Switch.

Nothing really got me cheering, but Peach Gardens was close

@masterLEON
I really hate that character from rated M franchise in Fitness Boxing.
It should never added in the game.

@Mando44646 square has been on a roll lately, Crisis Core has my interest piqued as well. It’s a good time to be a strategy/rpg fan

Oh yeah triangle strategy is a solid option as well.

Well that was pretty damn bad, hopefully sony can do better tonight....

I absolutely loved it! Square is really backing the Switch: Harvestella, Various Daylife, Front Mission remakes, Octopath Traveler 2, and Final Fantasy: Reunion. Zelda release date, Tales of Symphonia remastered, Atelier Ryza 3 and Fatal Frame we’re all amazing announcements for me and made it one of the best gaming events in a while!

Probably one of the worst directs in years to be honest. Nine farming sims none of which will touch Stardew Valley in terms of depth or fun a crap ton of filler garbage and a less than 30 seconds look at the next Zelda.

Zero HD Metroid or MP4, no update for Mario Party All Stars....just a bad direct as per usual.

@MS7000 gotcha, you have a bone to pick with the leakers more so than the games being leaked. I can see that, they seem to be all over the place with their “sources and validity”

I mean as far as speculation goes cmon, if they ported Captain toad and Tokyo mirage sessions #FE there is little reason to think WW and TP aren’t already complete. Leakers / YouTubers manipulate this for clicks and views.

Metroid prime seems plausible and makes a lot of sense Skyward Sword was a Wii title that hadnt seen much attention and sold pretty well. MP Trilogy can follow that trend, I’m guessing a year prior to MP4 or so to ramp up into it nintendo releases it.

i can sum this up as "not for me"
not a big pikmin guy. zelda's alright, but i dont really care about it that much. honestly im just starving for metroid prime news and whatever theyve got cooking for 3d mario (its been nearly five years since odyssey guys, cmon)
also dont really care about jrpgs or farm sims. i was originally thinking "welp, i guess it just wasnt for me" but a lot of other people seem to be disapointed too. huh. between this and a disapointing D23, i just really want Spider-Man 2 news and ill be happy. thats literally all i want.

@Coolmusic same. trailer looked good then I saw spike chunsoft and I was iN!!!!!!!

This Direct really does bring up a serious question: when (or ARE) we ever going to see a final release date for Advance Wars; Reboot Camp? The way that game (which was literally DAYS AWAY from release before Nintendo gave it and its fans the shaft over ill-advised "sensitivity" regarding the Ukraine conflict) has been treated is a travesty, and I for one was really looking forward to revisiting it and its all-new multiplayer modes.

Rumors aside, there was a good handful of things I had been hoping to see, and none of them were there. So it was pretty disappointing to me.

Also, most of the things they were talking about that I'm mildly interested in aren't coming out this year, they're coming out in mid-2023. I was hoping for more "coming out in 2022" announcements, like what the initial direct announcement implied. Announcements like "coming out May 2023" is really pushing the limits of what qualifies as "winter 2022" in my mind. When I think of winter releases, I tend to think of gift ideas and holiday stocking stuffers.

lots of cool stuff, I will need to finish breath of the wild soonish.

Are there anymore directs after the September ones usually? Or is the next in Jan?

@MarioLinkSamus pokemon will be the heavy hitter.

Along with bayonetta 3 and mario+rabbids and a ton of 3d party stuff. Bit like 2019.

I went underwhelmed.
Don’t get me wrong we knew about the amazing BOTW2, Pikmin 4 for 2023 was cool.

But come on Nintendo, we have had one Switch new in house AAA platform game Mario Odyssey
and I think that will be it. The rest have been remakes a little bit of Bowsers Fury.
Nothing on Metroid 4.

On a sort of positive me thinks.
Switch two will release with Mario Odyssey 2 or some big AAA platform in house game.
And Metroid 4.
That’s what their studios are tied up making now, as there will definitely be no new Zelda game ready for Switch 2 release date.

@JnFnRu i expect a few trailers during the game awards. Maybe a metroid prime 4 reveal or zelda trailer? Those games are very suited for the western audience.

One can hope.

But that’s usually it during a year.

Didn’t need more Kirby or fire emblem personally…. N64 is good but always just a fun half hour with each title before you realise games have moved on for a reason. Not enough Zelda footage and the May release date is disappointingly further away than I’d thought. I was expecting GameCube remakes (ie wind waker and Metroid prime) or Metroid Prime 4 news but more fool me. I’m enjoying splatoon 3 and will enjoy Pokémon and Mario rabbids when it releases so maybe I’m spoilt at this point.

Pikmin 4!!!!!!!!!!!
I told you it wasn’t Hey Pikmin!

@Anti-Matter Well, so far it looks like it’s a separate game (and charging 7,600 yen for it, yikes) so it’s not a DLC. Over the years they’ve been making the franchise less serious, at least. (It still gets bad from time to time) Too much seriousness can make a series depressing and unapproachable by all. I found this announcement as hilarious as the bartending “mix, mix, mix…” minigame from FotNS Lost Paradise 🤣

For me - If it wasn’t for Goldeneye 007, the other N64 games coming and Zelda dated then this would have been terrible, overall 5/10 and the N64 really elevated it!

That being said, Goldeneye OMG can’t wait, I’m going to have to get my pants pulled down now for one of those N64 switch controllers lol

Needed more lumberjacks

3/10 too much farming/RPG games, Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom was barely show, lack of dormant Nintendo franchises(where is the rumored 2D Donkey Kong game?)few intereting third party games

While I love Zelda, Goldeneye, and Fire Emblem (and am excited for all of them), I choose to view this Direct more as a curiosity than as a full schedule of future Nintendo projects.

Specifically, I find it very interesting that Nintendo mostly stuck to their description and showed games for the fall and winter months, with Zelda being the only game dated past March (at least, if memory serves). The May date is also interesting. When was the last time Zelda released in May?

I'm starting to wonder if we will hear in January, after the holiday season, about an upgraded Switch model that will go on sale in early May. The games I think a lot of us hoped we could see - Metroid (Prime Remake, Prime 4, ... something new), Mario, Donkey Kong - are all going to be released around or shortly after the time of the updated hardware.

Maybe I'm crazy, but it just feels like a very managed schedule to me.

It was an amazing Direct tbh. Usually I only have 1-2 games pique my interest in a Direct, which turns into 0-1 purchases at release. This time there was a lot of stuff which was unusual and appreciated.
Fire Emblem Engage really got me hyped up as Fire Emblem is my favorite franchise of all time.
Octopath Traveler 2 was a welcome announcement, especially seeing as they made sure to emphasize INTERTWINED STORIES which the first title sorely lacked.
Tunic seems like an interesting 2d zelda-like game so if performance is ok ill probs get it.
Ryza 3 is more of Atelier Ryza, and im here for it.
Master Detective Archies: RAIN CODE... Made by creators of danganronpa, instant purchase. Can't wait.
Botw2 aka Tears of the Kingdom... GIMME. So happy we got a date.

easy come easy golf is a purchase for me this weekend... and it didn't even make the EU/UK direct, just the japanese....
some great N64 titles being added, I think i'll take the plunge once goldeneye and 1080 are on there...

forget about the sure to be awful switch sports golf... easy come easy golf for the win

I grew up playing Mario Party and it was a big part of my childhood, so hearing that all 3 are coming soon to NSO almost has me in tears.

Just gonna copy and paste a comment I posted in a thread:

Just finished watching the direct, it was pretty good.
While I wasn't interested in most of the announcements shown I can still acknowledge that the direct had a variety of good ones for everyone else.

Ignoring all those farming games besides maybe Harvestella we still had some good new announcements like Front Mission Remakes 1-3 with release dates, Fire Emblem Engage, Pikmin 4, Botw 2, Octopath 2, Atelier Ryza 3 and more.
It's also nice that they gave us more info on upcoming games like Bayonetta 3 Mario + Rabbids, etc. and updates for ones that are already out like Mario Kart 8dx's booster pass, XC3's expansion pass, Splatoon 3 and more.

Overall I'd rather this direct a 7/10

It was alright for me. I’m beyond excited for Tears of the Kingdom, but that was the only major thing that really grabbed me. Fire Emblem isn’t my thing and I’ve never played Pikmin (I’d be willing to try it though). The 3rd party stuff definitely didn’t land for me this time around, as I’m just not that interested in RPGs. Kirby’s Return to Dreamland Deluxe looks pretty great and I’ve always wanted to play it, and of course there was the Mario Kart DLC. So basically one major game for me, one smaller one, and some DLC. The good was really good, but I simply wasn’t too interested in a lot of the stuff shown.

This cements the fact that the Big N is readying a new console and that METROID, MARIO, and probably several other franchises are being saved for its launch. They will want to replicate the 2017 blowout we had for the original Switch. Switch2 on May 12th next year?

The most exciting thing is Pikmin 4. Pikmin 3 is a bit casual and easy compared to 1 and 2 but Pikmin 4 was announced ages ago and still little to show. I thought I'd never see it on Switch but happy to see something, if little.

Lmao based on what? There is no indication of a new console being developed.
This just sounds like you made up this headcanon because you didn't personally like the direct.

Once again duped by the leakers into thinking it was going to be a bonanza of big awaited announcements. Not me, I well and truly took them with a pinch of salt. It was a pretty good one overall. Nice to finally see Pikmin 4, and Tales of Symphonia being ported is absolute dream.

If it weren't for E3 2015 this would take the cake (for me) for worst Nintendo Direct.

The pacing was sluggish, the amount of filler announcements was staggering, and we got only three new in-house announcements. One of these is a game we already knew about (Fire Emblem), one of them is a game that we technically knew existed but weren't sure hadn't been canned (Pikmin 4), and one is a remaster of a Wii game (Kirby).

It is so obvious that Nintendo just has relatively nothing right now. They couldn't even scrape together enough footage for a June "E3 Time" Direct, and it's shocking that they felt they had enough for this one.

Even their big huge Zelda announcement was a minute-long segment consisting mostly of non-gameplay footage, a title reveal that means next to nothing, and a release date. Their big, long-awaited Pikmin 4 announcement consisted essentially of lacklustre footage and a single screenshot.

To say I was disappointed is, clearly, an understatement.

It was good. But after all they hype of leaks about Wind Waker and Twilight Princess, I was disappointed they didn't show up. Wind Waker is my equal fave Zelda game, so was really hoping for a Switch port.

Well, nothing for me this time, but eh, win some lose some. The one bit that confused me was I swear I saw the Metroid/Samus logo when goldeneye was announced! Must have been a mirage of some sort…

Not complaining, easy enough to fast-forward boring bits. But this Direct felt like Zelda, “hangers-on”, and faming sims.
Everyone must be dumbfounded by abundance of farming sims.

Winner is... OCTOPATH TRAVELLER II

@Gerudo_Guy no, they teased us with Metroid sound design a little before it was revealed as GoldenEye too (along with the Samus “P1” symbol).
Were there any Metroid games on N64?

To be brutally honest, this Direct was underwhelming. The new Fatal Frame game was a nice surprise, but nothing blew me away. No Advance Wars Reboot Camp release date and still no info on Metroid Prime 4. Might pick up Kirby's Return to Dreamland Deluxe since I missed out during the Wii era.

Also STOP listening to "leakers" and "insiders". You're just setting yourselves up for disappointment.

The standard felt very poor, and mailed in overall.

The gluttony of farming sims, Theatrhythm packed with expensive digital exclusive DLC, and RE cloud who even wants that after the Kingdom Hearts cloud fiasco?

I didn't think Nintendo would end their streak on Switch of releasing a Zelda game every year, so whilst I was waiting for the WW/TP ports, I expected something at least.

The BOTW 2 trailer highly concerned me. The last trailer was 15 months ago, and It arguably shown even less than last time which is incredible. It's now meant to release in a matter of months, and we still haven't seen any of the game properly yet.

Fire Emblem was underwhelming. It's supposed to be a mainline entry but looks like another hollow Warriors spinoff. The gimmick that 'allows them to wear accessories that can summon Fire Emblem characters from previous games' makes me cringe.

I didn't expect any Advance Wars even though we probably should have it by now, but Front Mission was happily received as I've never played them. The Detective game by the makers of Danganronpa looks cool, and Goldeneye on N64 online was exciting even though I don't have a subscription yet. They were probably the only highlights.

Outside of the Farm Games and Square Enix stuff (minus Octopath Traveler II) i came pretty happy with Pikmin 4, The Legends of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, Kirby Return to Dreamland Deluxe, Goldeneye 64, Octopath Traveler 2, Master Detective Archives: RAIN CODE, Bayonetta 3, Fatal Frame 4, and Fire Emblem Engage.

I wonder why they bothered having a Direct right now. Why not hold out until you have anything at all to announce? Pretty much anything noteworthy is coming at some ill-defined point in the future, things that were coming soon are now coming at some other undefined later date, and to cap it off, they showed so insanely little of anything. Sure, TotK has an actual release date, but with how things have been going for Nintendo, I won't believe that date is real until we actually reach May. Beyond that, I guess we're getting more farming simulators than anyone could ever want or play... But again, why did they bother wasting everyone's time with this pile of absolutely nothing? Put a still screenshot on Twitter and say "Pikmin 4, coming in 2023, maybe, if you're lucky, but probably not" and call it a day.

nintendo directs have mostly for me, been underwhelming because I gave in to the pre hype one too many times.
Goldeneye was a surprise, but at least xbox gives you the option to buy/own.
Still to this day, don't like nso, why cant I buy any of the games?

Dreadful direct. Goldeneye and pikmin only good announcements but no footage of either and an underwhelming Zelda segment. It feels like the Switch is just living out its last years with little effort and no big risks or reboots of old franchises (like cough F-Zero)

I don't have enough money for this stuff anymore lol

It was awesome, maybe one of my favorites. We all knew Tunic was coming, but I didn't realize so soon. A brand-new mainline Fire Emblem, Octopath II, and that Fae Farm game actually looked kinda cool.

That's on top of more info from stuff like Harvastella (demo with carryover is always sweet), Zelda, Bayonetta, Rabbids, etc.

Not really a Pikmin fan, but wow was this Direct awesome. (Also wonder if the player icon during the Goldeneye showing was a hint...?)

Well, I was ready to say it was going to be a great Direct by how it started off. A new Fire Emblem game was on my list. I knew how they were going to close the Direct, so that's all well and good too. Way too much filler at times though, but the killer for me was no Metroid Prime 1 or 4 news. So, I was forced to say it was rubbish since that was priority number 1 for me. I don't think it was rubbish, but I was definitely disappointed. Some decent announcements, but not enough.

I always check my expectations before going into every direct. It's so easy to listen to the hype and buy into games that don't actually appear or even exist. Having said that, this one really disappointed me. Octopath Traveller 2 surprised me but that was it. Really wanted the rumoured Zelda and Metroid but I don't think they will ever show up now. Sure it's cool to see the title of the BOTW sequel but we knew that was coming. The rest was just a bit Meh! Even Fire Emblem couldn't save it.

Terrible set of options in the poll - it could have been underwhelming even with a mediocre Mario game there; why tie the options with specific series or games?

For me, Switch has been a very underwhelming platform for pretty long and this Direct didn't change that. I don't know but none of the games look appealing to me except Factorio, and then again I own it on PC so definitely won't double-dip. I have even lost interest in the BOTW sequel, I guess such a long wait has made me indifferent to it.

Unfortunately no, but for a second I thought they were dropping GameCube games onto switch online, with Metroid prime as the opener! A man must dream…😭

People expect too much everytime there's a Direct. I went in with low expectations but was pleasantly surprised by a good few announcements. Well done Nintendo.

The only thing shown that I actually plan on playing is TOTK, which makes this direct a 10/10. its my most anticipated game ever

Extremely disappointing. No Zelda remasters, no Metroid remaster, nothing on Metroid Prime 4, no Hollow Knight Silksong, we already knew about Bayonetta 3, Fire Emblem I’ve never bothered with, same with Mario Strikers, GoldenEye & Resident Evil, Squeenix are in the bin with EA for drinking the NFT Kool-aid, Pikmin I can take or leave, but… Kirby? Again? And how many farming games do we need?

And if that’s really the reason the UK didn’t get it live, Nintendo needs to stop people making reaction streams or using VPNs. I’m no royalist, but would have been fine with them at least acknowledging the Queen’s death. Coinciding with the title drop of the new Zelda like this is stupidly rotten luck, but it’s obvious that no slight was intended. This name would have been settled weeks, if not months ago - hell, maybe even during her platinum jubilee celebrations.

Back to the Direct though: all I got out of it was Radiant Silvergun (and even that’s just a maybe), the MK8DX DLC wave 3 time window (and even that was only a peek at two tracks), and a squint at the Tales remake (with no sign of Sheena). That’s it.

Not the best direct, again there was barely anything for me in here but it wasn't a terrible showing.

I thought it was great.
I was really happy to see fire emblem and OP2.
Not to mention a new other JRPGs
I was also SUPER WRONG about goldeneye never coming to NSO. However I'm sure that most people have forgotten how stiff it is control wise and will be super disappointed.

I'm happy we got a title and release date for the new Zelda, but I am a little disappointed that we didn't get the rumored Wind Waker HD or Twilight Princess HD ports for the Switch; ditto with the Metroid Prime Trilogy port, or more info on Metroid Prime 4. And of course, the perennial requests for a new Star Fox and the Switch port of Genshin Impact.

However, I AM looking forward to Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life. I have the original game for the GameCube, plus the Special Edition for the PlayStation 2, but I wouldn't mind a Switch version.

I just hope they include some new features, like an automatic irrigation system to water the crops. My current playthrough has me spending nearly all day watering my crops, leaving me nearly no time to do anything else, such as interacting with the townsfolk. As it is, I barely had enough time to court one of the potential suitors in the game (I went for Nami this time).

An automatic irrigation system would really help with me being able to do more stuff in the game. That, or slowing down the in-game clock (while not slowing down the gameplay), which would give me more daytime hours to work with, so I can do the other things I want to do.

That was easily the worst formal Direct in the Switch era and I'm not afraid to admit it. Pacing was horrible, announcements were almost all filler, and there was a severe lack of heavy hitters. The tentpole announcements just felt off, and lacked shock value. Maybe expectations were too high and rumors were pretty wild for this Direct, but event still that can't defend from the litany of JRPG and farming sim madness that was this disaster. Usually there's one or two games that everybody can walk away from the Direct and feel good about but I can't say that about today's presentation. Even Zelda couldn't save this show, while it was great we got a title/release date, it's later than anticipated and we barely got 1 min of new footage. I know each person is entitled to their opinion, so please respect mine when I say this sucked because I genuinely feel that it did.

I just need those Zelda ports.... otherwise, pretty good direct and also some cool games that were only on the Japanese direct.

@Axecon Yeah, the Zelda teaser was rather underwhelming. Looking at that mural, it felt more like the teaser for Skyrim, when we saw Alduin's Wall, and heard Esbern talking about the prophecy of the Dragonborn.

No joke, I actually found myself quoting that teaser as I watched this one.

Very happy to see Pikmin 4, Zelda, Bayo 3, and of course Goldeneye. And FINALLY, Pilotwings...Now I have enough good reasons to get the online expansion pass.
Saw 4-5 other things that made me smile too.
My only gripe, and everyone noticed it, was the insane amount of farm sims, but it's nothing to get angry about.
Overall it's great to see the Switch has got a LOT of support over the next 6 months, things are clearly not slowing down much yet.

I thought it was terrible. Most games were JRPG-like games, and I have no interest in them, nor farming.

@MS7000 I enjoyed the direct but good lord yeah the farm games, can we stop with them?

I thought it was a good direct. Pikmin 4 is the high mark for me. It’s one of my favorite series, I just can’t believe it finally became real. Fire Emblem and Octopath Traveler 2 were also welcome surprises.

Nothing for me but wasn't expecting anything anyway so didn't watch it

I was hoping for Windwaker and Metroid, the only thing that interested me was Tunic and it appears it may have performance issues.

If you love RPGs, this was the perfect Direct.

Luckily for me, I LOVE RPGs! It's about 99,9% of the games I play.

But I'm not that much in doing chores (farming). But I tried the Harvestella demo, it's actually a good RPG with a farming subplot.

To me this was a solid Direct, seeing as we're more than 5,5 years into the Switch's life. I think it was better than I could expect. And seeing this Direct, I think we'll see a new Nintendo system either late 2023 or early 2024 (not a Switch pro, but a successor)

Thoughts: No Nintendo, I will not become a farmer.

Thanks for confirming Pikmin 4 for next year tho.

Zelda, Octopath 2 and Radiant Silvergun, that’s it

Without reading the entire comment section, I would describe this as the Squenix+Farming sim direct.

They had me at Tunic! I was also glad to see a lot of other surprises.

I like being surprised. Glad the leakers were mostly wrong. 😝

Interesting to see the 2D Kirby love. I wish Super Mario Maker 2 got more updates. I was hoping they would add in a mode that let you design 2D levels that wrap around 3D objects like they had in Super Mario Odyssey.

There was nothing on the Metroid Prime front for this Direct, when the bar was so low. The rumors had gone from a remaster of the Metroid Prime Trilogy to only the first game coming to the Switch. The worst part is though that that kind of announcement would come with a Metroid Prime 4 update, I didn't actually want anything from the Trilogy besides the Trilogy itself. That didn't happen, so it all hits twice.

It caused the Breath of the Wild 2 trailer to have less impact on me because I was watching the time and knew it was either Zelda or Metroid. All leakers involving anything other than what's already confirmed, Metroid Prime 4, have no credibility after today with regard to the Metroid Prime series. I want to get this out ahead of next year, someone predicting that there'll be news on Prime 4 in 2023 deserves no attention to the extent of making rounds on Nintendo sites and other related channels.

I would give today's Direct the highest grade I can give without any Metroid Prime related announcements/updates, that would be a C+. Pikmin 4 is the best of today, followed by Booster Course Pass Wave 3 (which slowly confirms the music datamine) and BotW: TotK.

I was mainly looking for the Metroid Prime remake, so I was a little disappointed. I am actually kind of excited to play Pilotwings 64 again on switch though. Even though I am no longer a fan of FPS I may need to try Goldeneye again anyway.

The good thing about there being nothing big coming up that I am really looking forward to is that I can just enjoy the games in my backlog. I recently started Skyward Sword so maybe I will have time to get through to before I get distracted by something else.

-Fire Emblem Engage looks good.
-Octopath Traveler II definitely has my interest.
-Atelier Ryza 3? YES PLEASE.
-The Kirby's Return to Dreamland remake looks very promising.
-Confirmed Bayonetta 3 release date AND they had a gameplay trailer afterwards. Very nice stuff.
-I think Rain Code could be a great little niche game.
-Pikmin 4 surprised me in a good way.
-I was hoping for the original Smash Bros in the N64 lineup, but Pokemon Stadium 1+2, 1080 snowboarding, and Goldeneye are all nice additions.
-Ib looks like a curios little indie with potential.

For me, it was a pretty good Direct. I don't try to hinge these on just one or two titles.

I mean Pikmin 4 was enough to make it a legendary direct. Not even hyped for zelda at this point

I am pretty stoked for Fist of the North Star Fitness Boxing.

And since the options for voting are kind of specific, it was alright, any news on MP4 would have been nice and I dont expect new Mario/DK but that would be pretty sweet if something came like Mario 64 on the Odyssey engine, let alone SMO2. A quality DKC game would please me greatly but I would think we would have at least heard some rumors preceding such games.

I feel like this comment section is a thesis on why Nintendo should abandon directs altogether and just shadow release trailers and short presentations on YouTube when they have new stuff to show. No matter what is shown at these directs, the overall community reactions on hobby sites and Reddit are always overwhelmingly negative. There wasn’t much announced today that interests me, but I sure didn’t let it ruin my day.

Maybe sometime I will decide to play some of Metroid prime trilogy on Wii U, even though I would prefer to play it with button only controls in handheld mode.

@I-U I'd say Prime 4 news in 2023 seems fair. Let's not forget Retro had to reboot development on Prime 4 back in 2019 I think? Considering a new Xenoblade takes roughly 4-5 years to make and the latest Zelda took 5 years and Bayonetta 3 took roughly 5 years. It is fair to expect some rumblings of Prime 4 in 2023. Anything earlier than that was wishful thinking by fans and "leakers."

I am so glad that I did not miss sleep and watch this live. The lack of Metroid was a killer, both Prime 4 and Prime remasters.

The screw attack icon profile image on the N64 reveal had me hyped as fukc. Sadly, Nintendo have given Metroid fans no love.

Having bought a switch in 2017 on launch as they announced a new prime 4 game. Granted development was restarted, but there has been sweet FA since.

There is little wonder why people take things in to their own hands for neglected series.

It was pure trash except for the Zelda trailer

Not a lot of me in this Direct. I prefer the Indie directs as they usually have what I'm looking for. But I am hyped for Octopath 2.

My biggest takeaway from this is how so many anime RPGs look and (seemingly) play the same. It's interesting to see industry trends.

@MegaMilk69420 Dude Metroid is far from a "neglected series." We legit just got Dread last year and Samus Returns in 2017. Prime 4 has only been in Retro's hands for 3 years. Expecting Prime 4 after only three years of development is beyond wishful thinking when almost every other major Nintendo franchise development cycle is 4-5 years.

Here is a list of major Nintendo franchises and their last release
3D Mario: Mario Odyssey (2017)
2D Mario: New Super Mario Wii U (2012) rerelease in 2019
Mario Maker: Super Mario Maker 2 (2019)
3D Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)
2D Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019) (a remake)
Mario Kart: Mario Kart 8 (2014) (re-release in 2017 and DLC only just arrived in 2022)
Bayonetta: Bayonetta 2 (2014) and Bayonetta 3 is just coming out this year.
2D Metroid: Metroid Dread (2021)
Animal Crossing: New Horizons (2020) (last primary entry was New Leaf in 2012)
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (2019) (just announced Engage 2023)
Splatoon: Spatoon 3 (2022) (Splatoon 2 2017)
Star Fox: Zero (2016)
Super Smash Bros: Ultimate (2018) (the last DLC was in 2021)
Pikmin: Pikmin 3 (2014)
Donkey King: Topical Freeze (2014) (rerelease in 2018)

And these are Nintendo's MAJOR franchises. Metroid is FAR from neglected compared to 1080, Pilot Wings, Cruis'n, Custom Robo, F-Zero, Golden Sun, Kid Icarus and Punch-Out.

i hate it when Metroid fans pretend Metroid is some neglected franchise. It is FAR from it! If it was Nintendo would had scraped Prime 4 when the original developers dropped the ball. Not hand it to their premier Western studio. Metroid gets special treatment based on sales and how much attention each new entry gets.

@Wexter Never said that I wanted Prime 4, just an update. You said it yourself in a previous comment that after restarting in 2019, 3 years later they should have something to show.

Honestly it was underwhelming. Too many old ports and remake.

@MegaMilk69420 Dude, where did I say they'd have something to show? I said expecting them to have anything to show before 2023 is wishful thinking. Retro is notoriously secretive. They don't show anything until it is ready. That and Nintendo tend to not show footage of a major franchise till it is around a year out from release (Zelda seems like the exception). Xenoblade 3 had no footage shown till 2022 despite starting development in 2018. Bayonetta 3 same deal no footage till 2021 despite starting development in 2017.

This is the norm for Nintendo to not show anything till at least 4-12 months out from release. So despite it being 3 years, Nintendo probably won't show footage of Prime 4 till 2023 if the release date is 2023/2024. And that is still VERY wishful thinking as the average dev cycle of a major Nintendo franchise is 4-5 years. If this was the same dev team working on the game since 2017 I'd be with you, it's getting a bit silly to have no footage. But, Retro has only had the game since 2019 and scrapped the 2017-2018 build. So you have to treat this like a brand new game just announced development in 2019.

This direct is a huge blow to the confidence that we will put into sites like this and the rumor garbage that is put out there.

@citronaut

I don't disagree with you but it also shows a hunger for fans to connect with Nintendo in some way and I think Nintendo would be wise to harness the energy of that fanbase that wants to engage.

@Wexter Can't fault you, I'm just disappointed.

The only thing for me there was tears of the kingdom and Pikmin 4. Which thankfully Carrie’s the entire direct on Pikmin 4 alone but I wish there was more. Usually in Nintendo directs there’s an indie or something that I see and think that I might get, but here it was all farming games or RPGs. I would’ve loved a smaller title made by Nintendo to help fill out the direct too.

No mention of Clap Hanz's Easy Come Easy Golf, but I downloaded this since I'm a huge fan of Everybody's Golf and Hot Shots Golf, and this golf game is great. I never played the Apple version. If you're a golf game fan, you will enjoy this. I'm liking it more than Mario Golf Super Rush. I think Nintendo should have hired Clap Hanz to develop their Mario Golf game.

@Realness im pretty sure prime games will come most likely wen prime 4 gets a release date.

loved the direct the only thing i didnt like was crapcom being greedy again with cloud versions of resident evil games i understand on 7 and village but the originals thats just dumb......So many good rpgs coming cant wait.

I'm over the moon about the A Wonderful Life remake and of course Pikmin 4.

But I'm rather salty at the response I've seen all day. A lot of people were disappointed the leaks didn't come true and have been hating on farming sims because of it.

What an interesting Direct to reflect.

The first-party spectrum was top-notch, especially with Pikmin 4 (!) and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. Even without more Zelda and Metroid. They could still appear later anytime. What this proved to me, is that Itruly want Nintendo to deliver more teasers like they did Pikmin 4. Not too early, but also not too late enough to finally show it exists. There's definitely some late-gen essence here with these games, I can't wait to see what else Nintendo's studios are developing!

But the third-party spectrum here was.... unambitious to say the least. Remasters and AA games are pretty much guaranted for Switch at this point, as exciting as they are. I'm always more satisfied when they're accompanied with a bigger, more recent release or announcement, just like with Rune Factory.
Not that I'm expecting all big games to come to the console at this point, but there are some "final" releases that certainly need an appearance and I don't know, what's holding them back? Will the acclaimed Metal Gear Solid V ever come to Switch.

But it's not at all frustrating, I know we will get the bigger projects soon. When they announce the next generation console that is. Square-Enix is currently working on large-scale games, and it would be cool to see at least one of them on Switch, even if miraculously.

@tylerryan79 Steam Deck my friend. No chance of your digital game being delisted because the Valve store is probably the most trusted digital storefront ever. And it has all these RE games running natively and not via cloud.

If I had to grade the Direct, I'd say 2/10. The 2 is for Goldeneye, though that will likely play like garbage on Switch Online. A majority of the games look the same with anime figures. Every game is available for preorder on eShop. If I heard that one more time, I was going to vomit. I'm pro physical and anti digital (unless it's Valve). Capcom with cloud games. Great. Switch Sports and Mario Strikers with free updates killing the physical version. That's the new Nintendo. Release half a game on cart and we'll keep updating to fight piracy so everyone can go digital.

Nintendo has been on lunch break for about 2 years. They no longer take risks. No variety. Wouldn't be surprised if the next console is all digital.

I am aiming for Fire Emblem Engage! It's Fire Emblem Persona. Yeah! I'm Roy! Your Boy!

Go Go Fire Emblem!
You mighty morphin Fire Emblem!

Too much farming sim rpg but the rest is good.

@Cyberbotv2 Are you high right now? Steam delists games all the time! The most notable (barely a month ago. Surprising how gamers bring up stuff Nintendo did 10 years ago, but forget this happened a month ago) is Assassins' Creed Liberation HD. Here is a list of a few games delisted on Steam.

Ace Combat: Assault Horizon
Alpha Protocol
Call of Juarez: The Cartel
Deadpool
Fable III
Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver
Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 1+2
Onimusha 3: Demon Siege
Prey (2006)
Street Fighter X Tekken
The Last Remnant

That is a handful of notable games still not available to purchase on Steam. Some of these are big AAA games, others are PC classics like Soul Reaver. To say Steam games don't get delisted is kinda BS and you know it.

Here is a list of all delisted Steam games https://delistedgames.com/all-delisted-steam-games/

@Wexter I should have clarified what I meant, but if you purchased a particular game prior to delisting on Valve, you're free to download whenever you like, unless I'm missing something, because Deadpool is in my library waiting to download.

I was disappointed with this direct but I have myself to blame for that, buying into the rumors about the zelda ports and I honestly think the Tears of the Kingdom showing was way too short, that's on Nintendo that one.

@Cyberbotv2 That's not always the case. Street Fighter X Tekken cannot be installed even if you purchased it. And, you can download games on all Nintendo systems (provided they were purchased before adding funds to your wallet got removed). I don't think any company has restricted your online purchases after the fact on purpose... unless you're Ubisoft, in that case, hope you activated your Assassins' Creed DLC on Steam through Uplay before October or else... shrug.

@Wexter

You beat me to the punch. This direct was really packed end to end but so many people complaining about the rumored stuff that wasn’t there. The Prime rumors are about as bad as Switch Pro rumors at this point. Fire Emblem is my second fav N franchise (Zelda) so they had me right out of the gate. I am a big SRPG fan so this direct was a score. I was pumped for Sparks but now we get FE in Jan and Front Mission series as well. 2022 has had a lot of good releases and will finish the year strong. Tired of the Zelda twins port begging. Geez if you need them so bad get a used WiiU. What people don’t seem to get is why trample on their own releases. They just released Splat3, Oct is absolutely packed with Sparks, Persona5, NoMan and Bayo3 I won’t even be sleeping much with that lineup. Then Pokemon which as much as I don’t care about it I must say its looking sweet. I suspect we will see the Zelda HD twins in early spring to pave the way for Tears. As for Prime…if it exists they are likely holding it to release when they get closer to prime 4 date. I don’t mind people being critical but most just nitpick because game XYZ wan’t revealed or dated. This was a little all over the map in offerings and farm sims had their day but overall lots of content and a few good surprises.

Very disappointed by the lack of Wind Waker and Twilight Princess but Fire Emblem, A Wonderful Life, the Mario Party games, Rain Code, and the Xenoblade DLC are certainly enough to make me happy.

@mom1fan Y'all Xenoblade fans don't get to talk smack at us Legacy Nintendo enjoyers.

@russell-marlow What did Mom1fan actually say that put down "Legacy Nintendo Enjoyers?" And that's a term? I've been a Nintendo fan since the SNES and I love me some Xenoblade. Is that a problem?

@Wexter Nah, that's just me coming up with something describing some of Nintendo older IPs that deserve some love and attention compared to the plethora of generic JRPS that constantly see release. Same old, same old, story of a group of friends that happen to meet along a journey to fight an almighty god in the end and learn the value of friendship.

@russell-marlow Have you ever played a Xenoblade game and engage with the substance of the game's themes? They play around a lot with Jungian psychology with a dash of Nietzche. This is especially true with Xenoblade 3 which toys around ideas of self, memories, the Jungian idea of the shadow and the collective unconscious and desire. Very interesting stuff actually.

Maybe you've been burned by JRPGs in the past. But, I'm not sure if calling out Xenoblade as a generic JRPG is a good take.

Honestly, I was highly disappointed. It was kinda lame. As you get older, you start getting tired of old dreams not coming true. The only highlight for me was Zelda’s release date. I’m happy for anyone else who did see other good news however.

This direct was possibly the worst ever. We already knew Zelda was coming out in the spring and all we got was a name, so I'm not even counting that. Goldeneye literally got 5 seconds and we already knew that was coming. We don't even know if it's getting an actual release or if its locked behind the subscription service? The same game was shown at least 6 times during the direct(generic anime character farming simulator). Unless your a Fire Emblem or Pikmon fan, two niche franchises at that I can't see how anyone can say that was even an average direct. the third party one from June absolutely took a dump all over this.

That was a Square Enix direct.
I still expect a Nintendo direct.

I honestly constantly asked myself: who could need so many farm sims?? The other games were pretty nice, just lots of announcements for the next year, but woah, an overabundance of farm sims, which I don’t play because they all feel the same with a gameplay loop that just doesn’t ever grab me without some story-centered drive.

The only great thing about this direct for me is: Now I'm even more sure that my steamdeck purchase was a great idea. This direct was boring and bad imo.

@Pak-Man yessss! Fellow Farm Sim fan.

I'm starting to believe Metroid Prime 4 will never come out, or it will simply be an epic masterpiece (I seriously doubt it, considering how they haven't shown ANYTHING). Aside from Harvestella, I was super done with the farming games, they all look exactly the same!

I'm in for Bayonetta 3 (finally an action game that doesn't want to be another "souls" (games I personally find boring af)) and Mario+Rabbids.

If you haven't played Tales of Symphonia, you need to do so, best Tales of, only rivaled by Abyss and Arise IMHO.

I loved this Direct, and it’s really sad to see other people not. I hope in the next one there is more stuff for others, but I absolutely love A Wonderful Life, Rune Factory, Harvestella, and most everything else that was announced. So excited for FE and Zelda. I wasn’t really expecting WW and TP remakes because of how long they’ve been rumored and still haven’t appeared. I completely forgot about Silksong, and it kind of makes me sad looking back.

@Jhena isn’t that a lot of Zelda games? Majora’s Mask, OoT, etc.

@Mrkittyhead

You are right, there are a lot of serious Zelda games, but at least those are Zelda games. I would even argue that Twillight Princess is the best Zelda game, but I do prefer a lighter tone. And the Zeldas you mentioned have great atmosphere. The atmosphere in BOTW is just not really to my taste. I really love A Link To The Past, Links Awakening and Wind Waker in general and when it comes to the tone of a Zelda game. Majoras Mask is a great example how a game can be really dark, yet feel warm and really childfriendly. I do not think many developers are able to pull that off.

A serious and dark tone of course is not necessarily a bad thing. But somehow many newer games make me feel sad when they go that way. It reminds me of the Cloud Strife image comparison, between the old one, where he looks all ready and serious and the new one, where he looks destroyed and depressive.

They should have called it a Square Enix/Farming Sim Direct, why I get my hopes up I dont know, Pikmin and the name of BotW 2 was nice, online Golden Eye will be a bit of fun (if I ever get my N64 controller) but otherwise very underwhelmed

Too many farming and JRPG games on show. Great for people who love these types of games, but it's certainly not for everyone.

For me, I'm happy to see Kirby Adventure Wii come to Switch. And nice to get confirmation that Pikmin 4 is coming next year same as Zelda.

NSO. Again, a lot of Mario Party. However, GoldenEye was a highlight. Glad to see the licencing situation is sorted. And from what I can tell, online play looks exclusive to Switch.

@Takoda
"who could need so many farm sims?"

Me.
I like farming sim games.

Nintendo have clearly hit a virtual agricultural age.

What was with the metroid prime 1 logo in the top left corner of the screen during the goldeneye announcement?

Mistake? Teaser? Conspiracy?

Is no one talking about this?

I thought it was a pretty good direct. FE, OT2, Pikmin 4 main highlights for me.

Lots of games announced for the console though and a lot of love from Square.

I think the lack of 3rd party support from the past has created a culture of only caring about exclusives among Nintendo fans. Making directs like this one feel lackluster even though they showed a lot of good games.

@Wexter Both MonolithSoft and PlatinumGames have been involved with more than one project since January 2019. MonolithSoft has the entire remaster of Xenoblade Chronicles with Future Connected, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 with its DLC and has assisted on Splatoon 3. PlatinumGames has released Astral Chain and The Wonderful 101: Remastered, and will be releasing Bayonetta 3 in a little over a month. Retro Studios has had nothing to even show, let alone release, aside from a Twitter banner update in that same time. Breath of the Wild 2 had a trailer shown at E3 2019, so while Tears of the Kingdom has been in development for some time, the Zelda team still had something to show that soon. I don't think it's wrong at all to expect to see Prime 4 after more than 3.5 years since the announced restart in 2019, especially as that seems to be all that Retro Studios is working on.

@I-U I'm just pointing out from Retro's history of being highly secretive, Nintendo's own policy of not showing games till they are at least a year out (excluding Zelda as that seems excused from this rule) expecting Prime 4 footage before the four-year mark is wishful thinking. Which it is based on the examples I've pointed out.

Name me one game (outside of Zelda) which had gameplay footage shown and the release date was over a year out. If you can do that then I might give you a point.

@Wexter It would have been great if they were even more secretive. If they didn't update their Twitter banner, I wouldn't have expected to see any footage of Prime 4 for this Direct or anything Metroid for that matter. It almost comes across as a lack of awareness on the attention that working on Prime 4 brings.

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (Jun. 15th, 2021), Mario + Rabbids: Sparks of Hope (Jun. 12th, 2021) and Bayonetta 3 (Sept. 23rd, 2021)

@I-U That might be your own fault for hyping yourself up rather than Retro's. They didn't post anything on Twitter hyping the direct or anything (which implies they didn't have anything to show). They only really use their Twitter to announce major new hires or holiday tweets. I understand the disappointment, but I have a hard time faulting Nintendo or Retro's on this one. Sorry mate.

Advanced Wars is kinda a unique case. It would have been released right now if we did not have the Russo-Ukrainian War. As for Mario + Rabbids, that is fairly close to a year out and Bayonetta 3 was 13 months rather than twelve. Still really close to the year rule.

@Scotteth_Void it is to signify which player is signed in. As there is multiplayer. It was Bowser on the Japanese Direct.

@Anti-Matter Yes, but aren’t these titles you put a lot of hours into? I love RPGs so I’m not one to talk but those usually have a differing story and gameplay elements that make the experience unique, most of the farming simulators look like a lot of the same thing and then some… ah well, I’m not going to be playing them, so maybe they’re more different than they let on. Have fun with ‘em.

@NintendoByNature - Where dem gaems though? Are they on the eShoop??? I looked, but couldn’t tell if they were gaems, demos or DLC???

@Wexter Oh wow, anime characters with goofy plush-looking sidekick characters exploring themes of existentialism and religion in a hokey manner.

Sounds too me like tonal inconsistency or just plain clashing of aesthetics.

If I want my RPGs too be taken seriously, then I'll just go ahead and play the Witcher games since they do a better job at conveying a serious narrative while dealing with heavy themes.

@russell-marlow Oh look a gruff old man who likes sex and has white hair who has an adopted daughter and an estranged partner due to his infidelity, talking about how he tries to be a good dad and save the world from a pseudo-pagen apocalypse that is prophesied.

Sounds like a killjoy and roleplaying as a perv and just plain clashing aesthetics.

If I want my RPGs to be taken seriously, then I'll just go ahead and play Fallout. At least then I have the option to roleplay as a character who I have control over their personality.

Notice how pompous that sounds and completely downplays the actual storytelling going on in the game? Just sounds like you hate all JRPGs not on merit, but rather because you perceive the anime aesthetic as childish. Which is fine if that is your taste, but don't go around making sweeping statements when you have never tried the game in question. If you actually went into Xenoblade with an open mind I think you'd enjoy it a lot. But, oh well your loss not mine as I have no idea why you feel like calling out Xenoblade in particular. And people can make the same sweeping criticisms of a lot of Western RPGs cribbing from Tolkien (or in Witcher's case Elric of Melnibone). It is a sweeping critique that does not apply to an entire genre and is a weaksauce criticism.

I really loved it but I guess I am in a minority here. I do have to agree there were just a few too many farming rpgs though.

@Elithal Fair dos. Color me intrigued.

@Jhena ohhhh, I see what you’re saying. I completely agree and I hope they’re able to pull it off to where it still feels light enough to feel like Zelda. I haven’t actually played Twilight Princess yet, and I hope it comes to switch eventually.😅 I will say that I feel like BotW did well with keeping a positive tone while adding some extra “flare”. It’s very interesting to hear your point of view.

@Mrkittyhead

Yes especially compared to other open worlds, BOTW really has a positive tone most of the time. I guess it is the extra flare that is bothering me sometimes. I am dissapointed with BOTW, but I really think it is a good game for what it tries to accomplish. I hope the sequel will succed and convince me. I am just worried it goes the wrong direction.

@Wexter Too be fair, the anime aesthetic with some of the plush toy looking monsters does in fact look a bit childish, might I add.

Unless, you're denying this too be true?

Not all JRPGs are that way, but some are very obvious. I don't dislike all of them, but the one's that I do, it's almost impossible for me not too cringe at.

And on the subject of Western RPGs, the Witcher games stand out a bit because they don't delve into fantasy tropes like Tolkien fantasy, too much. But also because I'm not that big a fan of that type of fantasy nor World of Warcraft-looking games that might as well be the generic JRPG equivalent to typical western RPGS.

I like the Witcher games because they do have a bit of "realism" to a certain extent too them that I can't imagine most other Tolkien-inspired fantasy games do not have that makes feel more empathetic, you know, minus some of the legit fantasy elements.

But yeah, seeing how oversaturated most media nowadays is with anime and similar stuff like video games, I can't imagine people having an issue with these types of games themselves since it's overly popular and any criticism falls on deaf ears.

@russell-marlow Honestly for me fantasy has a lot of qualities to it that seems childish so Nopon don't bother me. I mean if I can accept moogles, elves, riding elk and other creatures, and fighting dragons, I think I can handle little fuzz balls that talk funny. I find people who think in the dynamic of "childish v. mature" are more uncomfortable with themselves enjoying something because of how they'd perceive others reacting to them enjoying it. Not saying that is your case, but it is the norm I've noticed (same with people who blindly defend something that is admittedly childish like scantily dressed anime girls or boob armour for Western games).

I think Xenoblade stands out from other JRPGs because it allows itself to discuss more serious themes beyond "Big mean wizard trying to rule the world or evil empire hellbent on dominating a peaceful kingdom" and actually discuss what war does to someone's mind. That and it does not go the Judeo-Christian route outside of vague references (it goes more classical Greek and Shinto ideas of godhood). So, if we are using the Witcher comparison Xenoblade is more the outlier of the genre like Witcher is from the Tolkien-inspired Western fantasy. Which is why I did the admittedly snarky satire reply.

I think you can critique the genre while having an open mind about the games themselves. People who just bash on a JRPG just because it looks "anime" I find are people missing out on game that really challenges the genre. Not saying there are not genric JRPG games... there are a LOT of them. But, I think you can say that about almost any genre.

@Wexter You have to admit the JRPG market is oversaturated just like how FPS games are over here. I think the best way to describe how I feel about certain JRPGs, that being having a culture shock reaction, is something similar to how Dunkey made a video on Xenoblade Chronicles 2. If you watch that video then you would understand some of my attitudes, as someone who doesn't regularly consume Japanese media, how it appears to me at least.

@russell-marlow: Dunkey is a very poor representation of your attitude as he is clearly hyperbolic and sarcastic. That and I would not use Xenoblade 2 as representative of the entire franchise as it was made to be lighthearted and more "anime" on purpose (the series director had been writing dower stories for over 20 years at that point and wanted to do something different). It is like using Final Fantasy X-2 to represent Final Fantasy in general (especially considering how varied the franchise is visually and tonally). Xenoblade 2 is very divisive within the fanbase because of that lighter tone and more anime style. I adore it because the story is FANTASTIC, but even I have limits on how accepting I am of that specific game's tendencies to go a bit too anime.

So you're admitting to me that "culture shock" arguments you have is that you are dismissive of the entire genre through preconceived ideas about them rather than genuine engagement and criticisms. That is like me tossing the entire stealth genre in a bin because of Assassin's Creed and Metal Gear Solid (games that rarely require stealth, especially recent entires) when games like Theif and Hitman exist (which require you to be completely stealthy the entire game).

The JRPG genre is no more oversaturated than Western RPGs, FPS games and Open World Adventure games. On a side note I'm not defending JRPGs in general (I know I have my own personal grievances with the genre), but Xenoblade (and the Xeno series in general), is far from what I'd call a conventional JRPG... which was why I replied to you in the first place which was you using Xenoblade as the representation of all the sins of the genre. Now I'm actually curious what the last JRPG you actually played because you're coming off as highly ignorant of the genre and irrationally dismissive of it.