9th March 2018, 9:07 PM
SO, in the Nintendo Direct yesterday, Nintendo mostly focused on a lot of Switch stuff, most notably a Splatoon 2 single player DLC campaign addon (looks good) and the announcement of Smash for Switch, but before that they talked some about the 3DS, and announced five 3DS games.
WarioWare - Therre's a new WarioWare game coming, and it's 3DS exclusive! It sounds like it's partially new and partially old, as the game brings back 300 minigames from past WarioWare games and combines them into this new title. There's new content around the old minigames, though, and the idea of combining a lot of minigames from both touch and button-based WarioWare titles (though maybe not stuff from Twisted, unless the 3DS has a gyro sensor I don't know about or the convert them to touch control or something) into one game is a cool idea. I like the WarioWare series and will definitely be picking this one up.
Detective Pikachu - This one is a Western release of a game Japan got last year. It's apparently an adventure game, and looks really weird -- I mean, a Pikachu in a detective outfit who talks, with full words, like an adult man? How strange... but it could be interesting? I'm mildly interested at least. This is the one major 3DS exclusive on the list, and it's a port of an older Japanese title.
Dillon 3 - I forget the subtitle offhand, but this one is another later port of a game Japan got previously. The Dillon series of downloadable 3DS games are decently entertaining stuff and it's nice that we're getting the third one. I assume it'll again be a download title? (However, those animal-ized Miis are kind of weird...)
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - This port of the Wii U game is also coming to Switch. The Wii U game is pretty good, its short length and moderate challenge aside, so if there's much new here I'm interested. If it's mostly the same game though I might pass (until it's cheap), since I do own it for Wii U. I'm sure it'll be really good though.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr. sidestory - Okay... so to follow up last year's 3DS remake of the GBA M&L game, Nintendo... is making a remake of the third game, and not the second? And it'll be a 2019 release? That's kind of weird. I've never thought much of the M&L series, but Bowser's Inside Story is the only game in this series that I actually own and it's okay. I don't know that I'd buy a remake though, unless the addon content is good and it's cheap.
Luigi's Mansion - And last, there's a remake of Luigi's Mansion for the Gamecube. I've never exactly loved this game so I'm not too excited for this, but for fans of the game it's nice that it's coming back. The 3d effects in this one could be nice, I will say that.
On that last note though, the absence of stereoscopic 3D support in a lot of major first-party 3DS games from the past year or two has been disappointing -- think of how Mario Maker, Fire Emblem Warriors, Kirby Battle Royale, most of the latest Pokemon title, the latest Style Savvy game, and more all don't have any 3D support, while previous games in those franchises / styles on the same platform did. I know that a lot of people don't care, and 2DSes are surely selling well, but I at least really like the 3d and want to see more games that use it; it is the system's main unique feature after all, if they're going to keep supporting the 3DS tehy should support the one thing that really makes it stand out!
Anyway, regardless of that, I'm happy that the 3DS lives. Given its very good sales recently continued support for the system was likely, and Nintendo is providing that. It's clear that the scale of budget these games are getting is not like the 3DS games of years past, but this late in a system's life that is understandable, so it's mostly just good that it's getting stuff, and that some of it looks interesting...
WarioWare - Therre's a new WarioWare game coming, and it's 3DS exclusive! It sounds like it's partially new and partially old, as the game brings back 300 minigames from past WarioWare games and combines them into this new title. There's new content around the old minigames, though, and the idea of combining a lot of minigames from both touch and button-based WarioWare titles (though maybe not stuff from Twisted, unless the 3DS has a gyro sensor I don't know about or the convert them to touch control or something) into one game is a cool idea. I like the WarioWare series and will definitely be picking this one up.
Detective Pikachu - This one is a Western release of a game Japan got last year. It's apparently an adventure game, and looks really weird -- I mean, a Pikachu in a detective outfit who talks, with full words, like an adult man? How strange... but it could be interesting? I'm mildly interested at least. This is the one major 3DS exclusive on the list, and it's a port of an older Japanese title.
Dillon 3 - I forget the subtitle offhand, but this one is another later port of a game Japan got previously. The Dillon series of downloadable 3DS games are decently entertaining stuff and it's nice that we're getting the third one. I assume it'll again be a download title? (However, those animal-ized Miis are kind of weird...)
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker - This port of the Wii U game is also coming to Switch. The Wii U game is pretty good, its short length and moderate challenge aside, so if there's much new here I'm interested. If it's mostly the same game though I might pass (until it's cheap), since I do own it for Wii U. I'm sure it'll be really good though.
Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Bowser Jr. sidestory - Okay... so to follow up last year's 3DS remake of the GBA M&L game, Nintendo... is making a remake of the third game, and not the second? And it'll be a 2019 release? That's kind of weird. I've never thought much of the M&L series, but Bowser's Inside Story is the only game in this series that I actually own and it's okay. I don't know that I'd buy a remake though, unless the addon content is good and it's cheap.
Luigi's Mansion - And last, there's a remake of Luigi's Mansion for the Gamecube. I've never exactly loved this game so I'm not too excited for this, but for fans of the game it's nice that it's coming back. The 3d effects in this one could be nice, I will say that.
On that last note though, the absence of stereoscopic 3D support in a lot of major first-party 3DS games from the past year or two has been disappointing -- think of how Mario Maker, Fire Emblem Warriors, Kirby Battle Royale, most of the latest Pokemon title, the latest Style Savvy game, and more all don't have any 3D support, while previous games in those franchises / styles on the same platform did. I know that a lot of people don't care, and 2DSes are surely selling well, but I at least really like the 3d and want to see more games that use it; it is the system's main unique feature after all, if they're going to keep supporting the 3DS tehy should support the one thing that really makes it stand out!
Anyway, regardless of that, I'm happy that the 3DS lives. Given its very good sales recently continued support for the system was likely, and Nintendo is providing that. It's clear that the scale of budget these games are getting is not like the 3DS games of years past, but this late in a system's life that is understandable, so it's mostly just good that it's getting stuff, and that some of it looks interesting...