E3 2017: Nintendo

The bar was set pretty low, but Nintendo definitely delivered.


The press conferences conclude with Nintendo's E3 Nintendo Direct, and it went about exactly as you would have expected. There was no gameplay, just a bunch of trailers, but we did get announcements for some solid games and a few interesting little points.

While we still don't have many third party games being touted for the Switch, which is a misstep in my opinion, the first party Nintendo games all looked compelling in their own right. The only third party game that was actively shown off was Rocket League, which is a fun little addition, especially since it'll have cross network play with other systems. Other than that, there was no appearance by Sega, Square Enix, and Ubisoft just appeared to show off Rabbids + Mario. Fine, but man did I want to see some non Nintendo games appear.

But other than that, nearly every single major Nintendo franchise appeared in some way, shape, or form. Kirby and Yoshi are getting two new Switch games next year, which is always a pleasant treat, but the games that I'm sure people are going to talk about are a mainline console Pokemon game and the reveal that Metroid Prime 4 is in development. We don't know who is developing it, but it's definitely going to be a thing.

They didn't spend much time talking about Arms and Splatoon 2, but three other games were shown off in an extended form. Fire Emblem Warriors made another appearance, but the two games that impressed me the most were Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which is confirmed to come out this year. I loved the original Xenoblade, but now I'm curious to see how it fits in to the franchise and just exactly what the gameplay will be like this time around. We didn't see much of the gameplay, but I trust Monolith Soft's track record. And then Super Mario Odyssey closed out the press conference with a ton of gameplay and showing off that Mario can possess enemies with his hat and take over them momentarily. I'm incredibly interested in seeing how that works out, and with a catchy and fun jazz song playing throughout the trailer, it made me all the more happy knowing that it was coming out at the end of October.

And... that was it. It was short, sweet, to the point, and showed a few games coming for the Switch next year and the games that were coming out this year. I still wish we had third party developers appear and talk about their games, some mention about Nintendo's online service, and even just a general acknowledgment of the 3DS. Seriously, there were no 3DS games even mentioned during the presentation, despite apparently two new updated Pokemon games appearing on it this year. Nothing too crazy, but it was solid, fun, and made me happy to be a Switch owner still.

B