Breath of the Wild sequel confirmed!! Nintendo’s E3 presentation Tuesday started and ended with a bang, and there were several great nuggets (and a few sorrowful moments) that added up to a great show packed full of great games.
Nintendo’s short, but packed, clip that teased the sequel to Breath of the Wild was more than enough to spike my hype level. No extra details needed yet; I’m sure we’ll get something next year. Hopefully next year, as they show a bunch of footage for the sequel, they tease a Mario Odyssey 2 in the same way. One other note: If the sequel turns out to be a Link to the Past homage, this could turn out to be one of the greatest video game endeavors of all-time.
As if the Breath of the Wild sequel wasn't enough Zelda news, Link’s Awakening comes out in September. The dungeon mode looks cool, and I wonder if that’ll be a precursor to a Zelda dungeon maker game. Either way, I'm sold on this game.
Nintendo’s E3 conference started by finally revealing the next Smash Bros. DLC character. The Hero is scheduled to release later this summer. Then they trolled the audience with Duck Hunt silhouette trickery. They took us into Donkey Kong’s tree home as he and Diddy (and King K. Rool, for some reason) are chilling with some bananas. A shadow emerges, and they quickly race to the window. A figure stands there, covered in shadow, a figure with a smaller figure sitting on top of him, and wouldn't you know it, it's the duck hunt dog, the perfect character to use for trolling. Moments later, a big character and his companion fly out from the sky and pounce onto the dog and his duck. This time, it's Banjo-Kazooie! Hooray. Considering he's a Microsoft property as of now, it's really cool that he's in Smash Bros.
Switching gears (no pun intended), I’m really glad they played off the last name of Nintendo of America’s replacement for Reggie Fils-aime, Doug Bowser. Mario’s longtime nemesis Bowser thinks he’s been called to help with the presentation. He even shows up looking dapper with a tie on. It’s easy comedy, but it needed to be done regardless.
We got a great look at Luigi’s Mansion, a game I’m incredibly excited for. This time around, Luigi’s vacuum has multiple functions, and there are new ways to explore every nook and cranny, including “Gooigi,” a hybrid of Luigi that is gooey and can slip through tough obstacles. I sure hope they make a Gooigi Amiibo for this game. They also introduced multiplayer co-op, both local and online, as you try to get through waves of ghosts and other mysterious challenges that get thrown at you. Nintendo is always the company that makes me sad I’m not physically at E3, and this year is no different. Their booth was spooky and decked out in Luigi’s Mansion 3 content. So cool.
Part of the reason their booth was set up with Luigi stuff is because of the delay to Animal Crossing, which now comes out in Spring 2020. I’m not a fan of the series, so I’m not too upset about that, but I know the Internet was pretty disappointed by that. The game looked pretty meh to me. It looked like it had the same kind of style and appeal that most others, including the boring mobile game, have offered in the past. Hopefully I'm wrong and this game turns out to be the best in the franchise.
Marvel’s Ultimate Alliance 3, a Switch exclusive, is a game I’m afraid won’t be good, but it visually looked better than what I had seen previously. Hopefully it turns out better than what they’ve shown so far. Between that and Square Enix’s Marvel game, which I also had lukewarm feelings towards, it’s disappointing that no one can truly nail a great Marvel game. I will say that getting X-Men and Fantastic Four DLC might help sway me.
Other games worth noting to me:
That 3-D action Contra: Rogue Corps game looked awesome! Departing from the series’ 2-D roots will be interesting to follow.
No More Heroes 3 looked great, but I probably won’t play it. I loved the first one on Wii, but I didn’t get around to trying the sequel. I doubt that’ll change between now and next spring.
The Panzer Dragoon remake looked beautiful, but a little dull. I didn’t play the original, but I know it’s basically a Starfox game with dragons, so hopefully it’s good.
Astral Chain looks so good with its hyper-stylized Japanese action combat, but it’ll be a game I probably skip, or come back to way after release when it’s cheaper.
They showed some weird Netflix collaboration game that presumably will get a show tie-in, though they didn’t give many details on that. Regardless, it is cool to see video game companies venture out further into the TV/movie space; hopefully, Nintendo and others (like Ubisoft) set a standard that video game movies can be good quality (I've heard nothing but good things about the Pokemon movie, so that's a good start).
