Starting off the presentation Nintendo showed the trailer for Xenoblade Chronicals 2. Again, another Nintendo series I never really got into at this point. But again, I know how highly regarded this game is. For me, I consider this to be a series I never heard of until Super Smash Bros. popularized it in the Western Regions, and as a result, I’m just not too familiar with it.

Next up was the trailer for Kirby. And what we have here appears to be a four-player version of the game. I’m reminded a bit of New Super Mario Bros. with this one. Where it basically tries to capture the essence of the original game(s) but adds a multiplayer twist to it. I’d say that’s very much worth a shot for you Kirby fans out there.

I do want to point out that at this point in the event that there was a small speech from Shinya Takashashi where he pointed out the success of the Nintendo Switch at this point. The reason I want to bring this up is that he mentioned that Nintendo and their third-party partners were going to be releasing new multiplayer games this summer. I do certainly hope this is true, given that third-party support for the Switch is what Nintendo is in desperate need of at this point.

Pokken Tournament Deluxe. Now, I’ve played the original game on the Wii U and thought it was OK. I’ve heard that some regular Tekken fans were a bit “less than impressed” with it being a part of the Tekken franchise, but not to say it was a bad game by any means. It’s really quite obvious though that this game is being re-released on the Nintendo Switch in order to reach a larger audience after the failure of the Wii U.

Also announced is that GameFreak is working on the next iteration of the Pokemon franchise to be released on the Nintendo Switch. If so, this would mark their first ever core Pokemon game that’s not just a handheld exclusive game, which I feel is something to get excited about.

Nintendo announced the development of Metroid Prime 4, although do to a lack of a trailer, it’s apparent they did not have any gameplay footage to show off for the time being.

Yoshi. I’ve gotta say, I really like the arts and crafts look of this game. As if Nintendo is saying “Look, we can do Little Big Plant too, and we can make it look better by making it look a bit more nitty-gritty. Kinda like what they did for Yoshi’s Island.

Fire Emblem Warriors. Eh, I’ve never been a huge fan of these RPG games. There really wasn’t much gameplay shown for me to comment on this one. So honestly, I can’t say I have much of an opinion on it at this point.

Next up were announcements about DLC packs for The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild. Now, honestly, as most of us would tend to agree, BoTW has been regarded one of the best Zelda games so far. And given just how much of an open world and the endless possibilities that exist in the game, it’s really obvious that Nintendo’s creating these DLC packs to cash in on the game’s success. And that’s fine because it shows just how great of a game that BoTW has been so far. However, I’m not the kind of player that tends to just go out and waste their money on expansion stuff in video games that I might never use.

And of course, what would DLC be without new Amiibos being announced. Anyone that knows my opinion on the Amiibo so far knows that I mostly find them to be just a quick cash grab for Nintendo. That’s not to say I haven’t collected a few myself.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. Oy, Ubisoft, just let this series die already. I mean, come on, it was fun at first, but it gets a little old after a while. Now, we’ve all known about this game for a while now. But I can’t say I’ve heard the greatest things about it so far. Sure, we’ve only had a few videos of gameplay to work off of. But, I’ve heard mostly negative things regarding the fact that Ubisoft is mixing the Rabbids franchise with Mario.

Rocket League. OK, I’ll admit, I find soccer to be a very boring sport. But again, this is one of those games I know has a huge following, so it only makes sense that Nintendo would want to have this game ported over to the Switch for their fans.

Finally, Nintendo ended the presentation with the trailer for Super Mario Odyssey. Why Nintendo felt the best way to start the trailer with a t-rex, we’ll probably never know. I’m not sure what to think about this whole “magic hat” mechanic of the game. On the one hand, it looks to be an interesting gameplay mechanic, and on the other… it just seems kinda odd. Then again, at least Nintendo’s trying to think outside of the box, which is more than what I can say about Sony and Microsoft this year.

Now, as we all know, this isn’t everything on Nintendo’s announcement list. They usually save a new title or two for their Treehouse event, which I’m sure has already come and gone by the time I’m posting this. That said though, I’m a bit more impressed with this presentation than I was with Sony and Microsoft this year. Nintendo seems to have more of a philosophy of thinking outside the box. Now, sometikmes this can prove to be good, sometimes this can prove to be bad. But the fact that they’re willing to experiment to see what will work shows that they really are focused on making better games. Now, I’ve said that I’m not all that impressed with the hardware specs of the Nintendo Switch in the past. But, if they can find a way to make it work, to the point that players will be interested in buying their hardware simply based on the range of exclusive games they’ll have, it will end up working out much better for them in their favor than just a “4K upgrade”.

-Nextsoft Games
The Next Level In Gaming