Amiibo & More: A Summary Of The Latest Nintendo Direct, Direct To You [01.04.2015]
You don’t have enough time to view a whole video of the latest Nintendo Direct, so you chose to read this. Welcome!
Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS / Wii U
The latest Nintendo Direct opened with a video showcasing the already announce Mewtwo DLC for Super Smash Bros. Iwata explained the concept of DLC, simplifying it so much you’d almost believe it recently was found on a space rock and was new to the people of earth. He recanted how Mewtwo could not be included on disc as work on the character started after the original game was done. It was announced Mewtwo would be made available for download on April 28th at a price of £3.59 on 3DS or Wii U. If players want to have access to the character on both 3DS and Wii U, it will cost £4.49 to unlock the character on both.
It was also re-announced that smart people who registered the 3DS/Wii U version of the game before the March 31st cut off date would get Mewtwo free on April 15th – 2 weeks ahead of the retail release . Furthermore it was revealed the whole game would be getting a patch to be more stable (yay!), add a few new features and slightly adjust the games balance
Iwata went on to announce the game would be getting even more add ons in the future, including costumes based on many old and new Nintendo and third-party properties- Xenoblade, Zelda, Megaman and more. These costumes will be sold at a price as DLC. Lucas from the Mother series will also come to the game at an as yet unannounced date in June. This is the characters return to the series after appearing in SSB:Brawl. No price was announced for the little guy, but presumably Lucas will follow the same pricing structure as Mewtwo.
Iwata also added that Nintendo will be launching a new page on the Smash Bros site called Smash Bros Fighters Ballot. This is for fans of the game to submit their ideas for characters to include as DLC – and if a character gets enough votes it may have a chance of coming to Smash. Capcom had a similar idea in the past for the Street Fighter series. You can check the ballot out here.
Finally. another wave of Smash Bros branded Amiibo were announced to take more money from your pockets. Dark Pit and Palutena are set for July, and Olimar, Pikmin, Zero Suit Samus, Bowser Jr, Ganondorf and Dr. Mario will come in September. Mewtwo and Lucas are coming too, but have not been dated as of yet.
Amiibo Touch & Play Nintendo Classics Highlights
Keeping the Amiibo kick going, Iwata went onto announce Amiibo Touch and play Nintendo Classics Highlights for Wii U. It offers limited demos of 8 and 16 bit games when players touch an Amiibo to the Wii U Gamepad. The title you unlock with the Amiibo will not be predetermined, so a Mario Amiibo can unlock a Metroid demo, or Yoshi could actually be useful and unlock a demo of Excitebike. It seems the demos will be limited to 3 minutes scenes from different sections of games. Iwata compared the whole thing to a box of assorted chocolates rather than buying one single candy bar. Eating a full box of chocolates is probably better for your health than trying to collect every Amiibo anyway.
This thing, app, software, service, whatever is coming in May as a free download – but of course you have to buy at least one Amiibo to make it kick into action.
Mario Maker
Mario Maker for the Wii U was next, with Iwata noting it has been 30 years since the launch of Super Mario Bros. Mario Maker will celebrate the game’s 30th Anniversary. Iwata said that he loves Mario, you love Mario. and everyone loves Mario apparently. Mario Maker will come this September. Iwata also announced that Nintendo will be looking to celebrate the 30th Anniversary in other ways – but did not announce anything. That secretive fecker!
Iwata then left for a while. Bye!!
Yoshi’s Woolly World
Satoru Shibata took over things for the Euro exclusive news on the Direct, and talked a bit about Yoshi’s Woolly World. A gameplay demo was shown, with Shibata commenting that although the game looks lovely, cuddly, and welcoming, it can in fact be very challenging too. He went on to say that the game will have two modes to accommodate different play styles – Normal Mode and Mellow Mode. Mellow Mode will equip Yoshi with wings to give players of lesser skill an easier time . The other mode is the more challenging version of the game.
With the short gameplay demo done – more Amiibo stuff happened. This time a set of Woolly Yoshi Amiibo that are all woolly were shown. Yes, actually made of wool. They will come in three different colours – green, pink and blue – and they look pretty great. The game and Amiibo will launch June 26th. You’ll probably want all of those.
Splatoon
Splatoon was next. We’ve already learned a lot about the game since it was first shown at E3 2014, but Nintendo revealed a bit more today, a Battle Dojo 1v1 mode that lets players test out maps with another player in tow. This mode has somewhat different gameplay than the main mode – the popping of balloons! Unsurprisingly more Amiibo nonsense will come with Splatoon. The game, and three different Amiibo will launch May 29th. One Amiibo is an exclusive pack-in with the game itself, with the others sold separately. AMIIBO!!!
Random Quickfire Announcements!!
A short indie game briefing was next. Affordable Space Adventures, developed by the Copenhagen based Knapnok Games will launch April 9th. Swords & Soldiers II, will launch May 21. No Amiibo stuff here…. phew!
Nintendo DS and Nintendo 64 games are coming to Wii U Virtual Console – actually they are already here, with Super Mario 64, Donkey Kong 64, Wario Ware Touched! and Mario Kart DS all available right now. There is a “Buy Three Get One Free” deal going on at launch if you are interested – that lasts until 16th April. Pandora’s Tower and Sin and Punishment Successor of the Skies were also announced as the latest Wii games getting a re-release as a download on Wii U
From here on, things picked up speed, and a bunch of Nintendo 3DS related items were shown. Attack on Titan: Humanity in Chains will be coming in May. Azure Striker Gunvolt is finally available in Europe now. A new title from HAL called Box Boy was shown. It is a cute minimalist looking puzzle game, and it is also out now. Pokemon Rumble World is a thing, and apparently the game has more than 700 Pokemon! There are 700 Pokemon?!? It will release April 8th.The Mii Plaza will be getting an update to include Streetpass Fishing and Streetpass Zombie games if that is your thing. A Wii Plaza Premium update will come April 16th as well. This all comes at a price… your soul.
Puzzle & Dragons Z + Puzzle & Dragons Super Mario Bros – the 3DS version of the mobile gaming behemoth – was showcased too, and it is coming May 8th. Codename S.T.E.A.M – a game that is released everywhere but Europe is next – it is still on the way on May 15th. There is good news for all though, the game is getting patched worldwide to speed up enemy turns. Everyone was apparently annoyed by that when both critics and consumers spoke out after the game’s US release. Fatal Frame Wii U – once a Japan exclusive – is coming to both the US and Europe. This reveal made great use of greenscreen technology to showcase nonsense going on behind Satoru Shibata
Fire Emblem Stuff
CHEERY J-POP HAPPENED NEXT. This was accompanied by a first look at Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem – which was first announced almost 2 years ago. Very brief snippets of gameplay were included in the trailer. It is best you take the time to look at this trailer – as it is hard to explain what happens. You can also listen to that music!
Info on the new Fire Emblem was announced next – and a new trailer was presented. Very little of the game was shown on the US and Euro Directs, but as you can see by the above Japanese trailer, the Japan Direct went into more detail on the game… or should I say ‘games.’ According to the Japanese Nintendo Direct, the game will be doing a Pokemon, and two versions will be released. One version is called White Kingdom, and the other is Black Kingdom, and both versions of the game share separate storylines, with a 3rd DLC storyline offered too. The game is said to launch in 2015 in Japan, but a US and Euro release will likely be in 2016. It is unknown if dual versions of the game will happen worldwide.
Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer
Animal Crossing Happy Home Designer was showcased next – its an interior designing title. Amiibo is once again a thing, with the game using newfangled Amiibo cards that can be scanned in to unlock characters. It is coming in autumn, and if you do not have a New 3DS, Nintendo will release a NFC Scanner (above) to let you put Amiibo stuff – that this version of the game utilizes heavily – into the game
Back to Iwata we go…
Mario Kart 8
Mario Kart 8 DLC gets talked about in the last section o the Direct – and the brand new Animal Crossing course was shown. We already knew this was coming from the DLC pack sold last year – but this is the first chance to see it in action. It looks good, and is actually 4 different courses in one, with the track changing season as you play it. The release date for the DLC (which includes this track and 7 more) was brought forward to April 23rd. It was previously set for a May release
Iwata then decided to defy the laws of physics by announcing a 200cc mode for Mario Kart 8. It will be a free update and will be made available the same day as the paid-DLC launches. Iwata calls this mode “Mario Kart like you’ve never experienced it before,” as it increases the speed from the 150cc series maximum. 200cc will be available for all courses and modes in the game – that includes courses that shipped on disc, the old DLC courses, and the upcoming DLC courses. The Direct then came to a end at this point as the laws of thermodynamics were compromised by the announcement
If for some reason you read all this, but still want to watch the Direct – you can do that. Bye bye all!!