E3 Nintendo Conference Thoughts

The pre-recorded presentation felt intimate, less of the bombast and showiness of the other presentations. Although Nintendo have always been a little different when it comes to E3, generally favouring Direct (sorrynotsorry) presentation. It feels nice, like it was made for me and not to show off to stakeholders and the like. Although the Splatoon segment was a little too long, it wasn’t the snoozefest that was a blow-by-blow playthrough of a mini game that isn’t actually that complicated. It helps as well that there was nothing that felt like filler, and no mention of dreaded media services.

Smash Bros. news was to be expected and the anime short which introduced Lady Palutena as a character was beautiful. I still want to whack everyone with a net as an Animal Crossing Villager, though. The Mii brawlers look like fun with the variety of fighting styles, much better than just popping them into the game as standard. Amiibo was also no surprise, only a surprise that it’s taken this long for Nintendo to properly enter the NFC game. The potential damage to wallets is huge given the loyal fan base and family-friendly characters. Also, they look kind of like Smash Bros trophies.

Seeing as knitting and Yoshi are two of my favourite things, SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY.

However, anything that remotely resembles Kirby Canvas Curse/Power Paintbrush in terms of mechanics can get stuffed. I hate that game… So frustrating and fiddly…

Of everything that I saw, I think ‘new Zelda’ was the most impressive-looking. I immediately thought Zelda x Skyrim and it seems that others on the team had the same level of thinking with Scott describing it as “Skyrim but with, you know, actual colour” and Fran describing it as “basically ‘Legend of Zelda Scrolls’”.

I can totally get behind that, though. Zelda has never felt open world, that’s true no matter how wide that field or that sea so if they’re recognising that and giving us a massive space to just explore, well sign me up. Plus showing Link facing off against an enemy was pretty eye-bogglingly spectacular.

The other stuff that was shown, well… If you’d listed them I would have just shrugged. Sure, sounds cool but not something I’m particularly interested in, not a series I’d ever really thought about. But seeing how fun everything looks and in the case of Xenoblade (ROBOTS!) and Hyrule Warriors (GO ZELDA AND IMPA!) how lovely and polished and rich, well maybe Nintendo have done what they came to do and piqued my interest a little higher, even in the case of Alpha/Omega which I was flip-flopping on anyway. That I can’t remember much of Ruby/Sapphire indicates the weakness of them in comparison to other games in the series but seeing it… Well, if I was on the fence before, I’m now wobbling over to ‘yes, but maybe not on day one’.

Can we take a minute to just appreciate the sass, and how Bayonetta looks good in pretty much everything?

Finally, a new IP. Splatoon looks like the only multiplayer shooter I might actually be interested in and enjoy because cute squid people! God, I am firmly in their demographic, aren’t I? But the ink-splattering territory-grabbing is manic enough to look great as is the idea of swimming in your own coloured ink but being hindered by other colours. Those shots and drops! Brilliant how we got to see some action that was hilarious, I can imagine dropping inky revenge on unsuspecting opponents. SPLAT!

Nintendo did what they do so well – reminding us all of the joy of gaming, building on memories and fan loyalty but also showing a bright, colourful world where games are fun. Idealistic perhaps, but the cute and quirky moments throughout Nintendo’s presentation were unabashedly charming. Nintendo’s bigwigs duking it out, game developers making hand-crocheted Yoshi dolls, the tongue-in-cheek Robot Chicken sketches and Reggie’s speech about how you always remember your first game… These are what made Nintendo’s presentation special.