Jun 182024
WE WON!
And I’m not just talking about the obvious way that we “won” in this obsessed Ace Attorney fan’s eyes. Today’s Nintendo Direct was amazing from start to finish, and I’m still reeling over all the new games that were announced.
The Nintendo Direct started with, no joke, a new Mario & Luigi game. I’m stunned. After AlphaDream went bankrupt, I assumed the Mario & Luigi series was dead and gone. But Mario & Luigi: Brothership is due out on November 7.
First Super Mario RPG got a remake, then Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door got a remake, and now we’re getting a brand-new Mario & Luigi game?! Is this real life??
While I wasn’t crazy about the last game in the series, Paper Jam, this new one looks fantastic so far.
The next game shown was Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition, and then a new Fairy Tail game. I wasn’t too interested in that until I saw it was Fairy Tail 2 from Koei Tecmo, which means it’s another game developed by Gust. I picked up the first Fairy Tail solely because I enjoy Gust’s turn-based JRPGs, so I’m interested in this one now.
And then they announced… Fantasian! Yes! Ever since Fantasian appeared on SteamDB, I’ve been (im)patiently waiting for news of a port, and now it’s finally coming to PC and consoles this winter as Fantasian Neo Dimension!
I started it on Apple Arcade and enjoyed what I played, but I didn’t get very far since I don’t like playing games on a tablet as much. Its release is set for this winter, so I’m looking forward to that for sure!
(Mistwalker also filed a trademark for “Fantasian Dark Edge,” which has me wondering if that’s related to this or if it’s something new.)
Basketball was added to Nintendo Switch Sports, they revealed a beautiful metroidvania called MIO: Memories in Orbit, and announced new content for Disney Illusion Island. Next up was Hello Kitty Island Adventure (which actually looks cute enough to be tempting), Looney Tunes: Wacky World of Sports, and an update for Among Us.
The next game shown was Farmagia, so my criticism from the Marvelous Game Showcase that I still had no idea what sort of game it is has now been settled. It’s a farming game… where you farm monsters and lead them as an army?? I’m not sure if I’d enjoy it, but it’s unique enough that I’m intrigued.
Donkey Kong Country Returns is getting a new release on Switch as Donkey Kong Country Returns HD, and then we finally, finally got to see the HD-2D remake of Dragon Quest III again!
It looks absolutely beautiful, it’s due out on November 14, and they revealed at the end that Dragon Quest I & II are also being remade in HD-2D next year!
By this point, it was already an amazing Direct, but it could still get even better. Because after the announcement of a Funko Pop game called Funko Fusion and a new trailer for Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, they moved on to… Denpa Men???
I never thought I’d see the name Denpa Men again. Years ago, I tried a demo for a weird little game called The Denpa Men on the 3DS, in which you scanned QR codes or picked up wi-fi signals to recruit new characters. I enjoyed it enough that I intended to play the games, but I never got around to them. Nevertheless, I picked up The Denpa Men 3 before the eShop shut down. Now The New Denpa Men has been announced for July 22.
I’m a little nervous since it’s free-to-play, but I’m still so excited that of all things, The Denpa Men is back!
I was still buzzing about that when they showed Metal Slug Attack Reloaded and a new trailer for Darkest Dungeon II (which looks great, by the way), as well as new games coming to Nintendo Switch Online.
Then they announced Phantom Brave… no, not another re-release, but an all-new sequel called Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero planned for 2025! I have the first game as part of a collection, so I should really give it a try.
Classic games are being released in Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection: Arcade Classics, we’ve got a brand-new Mario Party on the way called Super Mario Party Jamboree set for October 17, and the next Legend of Zelda game isn’t anything I would have predicted!
The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom is coming out on September 26. It features chibi graphics, and the main character is actually Zelda. And instead of traditional gameplay, you learn how to copy different objects (or monsters!) and spawn them in the environment to solve puzzles and fight enemies. I was mildly interested at first, but the more they showed of the gameplay, the more interested I got. This looks really cool!
I was afraid the Breath of the Wild style would be the only style of Zelda game we’d get from now on, so I’m really excited to see this.
The next few games didn’t interest me as much: Just Dance 2025 Edition, Lego Horizon Adventures, Stray (though I do love cats, so I might play it one of these days), and Tales of the Shire, but then…
It was time.
Ace Attorney Investigations… and Ace Attorney Investigations 2, with a translation for the first time… are coming to modern platforms in the Ace Attorney Investigations Collection!
This is a momentous occasion. The third blog post I ever wrote, all the way back in 2012, was a my long and rambling attempt to muster up support for an Investigations 2 localization. I’ve had it on my list of E3 pipe dreams for years. After waiting over a decade, I finally gave up last year and played the fan translation, and now it’s finally, finally seeing an official release.
Now, they aren’t using the names from the fan translation, so this might take a bit getting used to. Eddie Fender and Eustace Winner are difficult for me to accept, although I actually like Verity Gavelle quite a bit.
Oh, and it’s coming out on September 6. September 6. That’s… really close, considering the Apollo Justice Trilogy just came out earlier this year. I expected them to space them out more than that. Maybe they do have Ace Attorney 7 ready to announce soon after all…?
Anyway, the next game shown was The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy, a game from the creators of Danganronpa and Zero Escape that looks very Danganronpa-esque aside from being a strategy RPG. In short, it looks pretty cool.
A full remake of Romancing SaGa 2 was announced, and then they closed out the Nintendo Direct with a new trailer for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond. It just has a 2025 release window, but maybe by then I’ll have played the other Metroid Prime games.
So, this was an amazing Nintendo Direct. There were several “I can’t believe this is happening” announcements for me, along with a bunch of other great-looking games. Which announcements from the Nintendo Direct stood out to you the most?
There were so many hype announcements in this direct that I already forgot some of them!
My top 5:
5: Fantasian. It was tough choosing between this and Mario & Luigi, but I’ve never actually played a Mario & Luigi game…. I did play this on iOS for a little bit and enjoyed it, but didn’t keep up my subscription and didn’t really like playing a long-form mobile game in that way. I hope the port does it justice! And that it doesn’t just feel like a mobile game port…
4: Phantom Brave: The Lost Hero. I have a soft spot for this game… even though I never actually finished the original, despite multiple attempts over the years. I should try again sometime, get a remastered edition… so I’m keeping an eye on this one, but may use it to springboard myself into finally getting through the original first, hopefully?
3: The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom. I actually, shamefully don’t play many Zelda games… but I am loving the puzzle mechanics shown here, and it reminds me of a kind of cross between Super Mario Odyssey and an older DS game called Avalon Code that I remember fondly.
2: The Hundred Line – Last Defense. As a Danganronpa fan, I’ve been playing most of TooKyo’s games and this one seems especially reminiscent of Danganronpa… very interested in seeing what they do! I’ll keep an eye out for this, especially if they have a deluxe edition.
1. Ace Attorney Investigations!!!!!!!!! Need I say any more?
Since Fantasian was an Apple Arcade title, I wouldn’t worry about it feeling like a mobile game port. The whole idea behind Apple Arcade is that they’re “regular” games on a mobile platform. And while they’re completely different genres, I didn’t notice anything mobile-y about Shantae and the Seven Sirens, another Apple Arcade exclusive that got a console release.
Avalon Code is a game I was always interested in but never had a chance to try.
I’m so happy you’ll finally get to play Investigations 2 (and without being spoiled on it like I was).
Sooooo did Nintendo win the ex-E3 period for you? :p
Obviously, Ace Attorney is by far the most important thing here, but I’m also excited about the Dragon Quest remakes among several other things.
I do think it’s slightly suspicious that they avoided showing much if any turn-based RPG combat in the new Mario & Luigi.
Nintendo won Not-E3 for me, and it’s not even a contest. The only thing that comes close is the indie expo I didn’t cover since it was before my “not-E3” period, and even then Nintendo still wins.
Everything looks great!
Hmm, I’m not too concerned about the combat in Mario & Luigi. While they did focus on the Bros. moves, you also got to see them defend/dodge in M&L style, and news outlets also have been sharing this screenshot that looks like standard M&L combat.
Usually if you start a sentence with “news outlets…” I’m distrustful of it. But that’s a good-looking screenshot.
You understand my reservation with what they chose to emphasise in the trailer; I don’t want a situation where it’ll superficially look like a standard M&L RPG but in practice it’s like the Sticker Star of the series. And since this obviously is a new developer working on it, who knows!
Multiple places posted it, so it was probably sent out in a press release.
I’ve got my fingers crossed that it’s a true RPG! I’m curious about who’s developing it…
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