Nintendo Okie

Holy cow!  Nintendo sure went all out this year for their E3 show.  I am still overwhelmed by all the games they announced.  Anyone that has said Nintendo has abandoned the hardcore will have to change their tune now.  Not only did Nintendo deliver on the “Holy Trinity” of Mario, Metroid and Zelda, but they also pulled a few characters out of the bullpen.  Nintendo showed a plethora of awesome trailers but I wanted to take a minute to talk about what I think are the biggest from Nintendo themselves.  I have watched all of the trailers several times and some thoughts have crossed my mind that I figure I will share will all you Nintendo Okiers out there. 

The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

This trailer opens with the shadowy figures from the past four Zelda console games.  Then with a bright flash of light, we see Link standing alone in a field.  They are definitely trying to make you feel that all past Zelda games have lead up to this one.  By the way, watch Link draw his sword.  He doesn’t draw it completely out of the sheath before twisting his wrist which means he would have cut through the sheath.  I told you I have watched these trailers a lot.  I love the art style and color palette they chose for this game.  One thing that bothers me is all the on screen prompts and translucent controllers.  That stuff is taking up 25% of the screen.  Hopefully they give you the option to turn that off or it only lasts through a tutorial.  Those prompts distract from the actual art of the game.  Also, I have to wonder why they are using Motion Plus to control aiming and not the pointer.  The pointer is the strongest part of the Wiimote in my opinion.  I know pointer controls kind of conflict with first person shooters but we aren’t controlling the camera here so I don’t understand the choice. 

Mario Sports Mix

I want to know how many players does this game support?  If you watch the trailer you’ll notice that all the footage is single player gameplay because there is only ever a “P1” symbol under the characters.  Breaking each game down, volleyball has teams of two, hockey has teams of three but one character is a generic Shy Guy goalie, dodge ball has teams of four but one is a generic Yoshi behind the enemy side, and basketball has teams of three.  So I would say four player gameplay is a pretty safe bet, maybe six if we can get online support.  Everybody probably noticed the coin blocks on the ground during the games.  My first thought was they provided the power-ups.  Watching closer I noticed that sometimes they gave coins.  Then I noticed a coin counter for each game except for dodge ball.  These coins seem to be separate from the power-ups and from the special meter that is displayed during each game.  My guess is that the special meter will lead to the Striker-esque specials but I’m not sure what the coins are for.  I noticed that the coins don’t only come out of the question blocks but also for good plays.  Peach gets one for saving a spike from Mario in volleyball and she also drops some when she gets hit with a bomb in hockey.  Maybe these coins are for unlockables.  Does anybody have any ideas about these coins?  And why no coins in dodge ball?  My FBI profiling skills can only deduce so much.

Kirby’s Epic Yarn

First thing, holy cow this game is cute!  I feel like I am watching a child’s drawing come to life.  Secondly, orchestrated music for a Kirby game, that is different.  The music for the Kirby games has always been among the best for me, so I am interested to see where they go with it.  I didn’t hear any cues from past Kirby music anywhere in there so maybe they are going with all new music.  I also noticed the only classic Kirby enemies are Waddle Dee, Waddle Doo, Bronto Burt and Kaboomba.  With the exception of Waddle Doo and Kaboomba, none of the enemies ever grant Kirby a special ability and even in Kirby’s Dream Land Waddle Doo didn’t give you his ability.  I wonder why only those four enemies?  Perhaps because Kirby won’t absorb powers as he has before.  Anytime Kirby grabbed a normal enemy, he just threw them as if he had eaten them and spit them out as a star.  When he grabbed a Kaboomba, they exploded when thrown struck something.  That makes since to me, they are bombs after all.  The only time Kirby grabbed a Waddle Doo in the trailer he threw it off screen so I couldn’t see the effect.  The Waddle Doo looked different than the Waddle Dee when Kirby was holding it but we will have to speculate the rest.  Kirby transforms into different objects which make him act different but they don’t seem to be related to enemies.  By the way, what the heck is with the Waddle Dees holding spears?  It’s frightening.  We see a sidekick follow Kirby around so that tells me we are going to get some traditional Kirby two player action.  Just like Kirby Super Star or the Sub-Space Emissary from Brawl.  I wonder if this blue guy is a new side kick.  I wonder if Rick and the rest of Kirby’s friends will make a return.  One last thing about this trailer, everything seems to be a collectable.  Kirby doesn’t take three steps without picking up a coin or gem or flower petal.  They all go towards the same gem counter that is constantly changing color.  I’m not quite sure what that is all about yet.  I doubt it could it be linked to Kirby’s shifting ability somehow.

Metroid: Other M

I think this will go down as the best looking Wii game in history.  Everything looks so dang good, especially Samus.  We get to see a lot of her since we can clearly see her face through her classic, green visor.  Seeing Samus before the end of a game is a new thing for us Metroid fans.  This whole trailer is underlined with Super Metroid music.  The dark and gloomy corridors also invoke the Super Metroid vibe for me.  As well as the lava covered landscape.  The whole thing reminds me of Ceres space station and Norfair.  The holographic jungle Samus wanders into reminds me more of Metroid: Fusion.  I get the feeling we will crawl through another space station and uncover even more darks secrets of the Galactic Federation.  This trailer definitely emphasizes the exploration aspect of Other M.  Most of the trailer is Samus making her way through rooms in one way or another.  She only ever shoots at enemies once in the middle of the trailer.  The trailer ends with Sam about to clock some lava beast upside the head so I am guessing that Team Ninja is trying to show how they have combined traditional Metroid exploration with the combat the developer is famous for.  I did notice an arrow on the map telling you where to go at times.  I’m not too happy about that.  I don’t want to know which way to go, I want to be lost.  That is the whole point of a Metroid game.  A couple of times Samus scans objects in the trailer.  During the scan, several item icons cross her HUD.  Naturally I went frame by frame to see what the items are.  The first scan is of a missile pack.  Five different icons cross her HUD.  One is the missile pack that the scan lands on, but what are the others?  None of them match any past item symbols.  I am guessing that these are different kinds of missile pickups.  Maybe different quantities of missile, maybe different types, I can’t be sure.  Her second scan is of a grate and the icons that cross her HUD here I recognize.  Super Missile, Grapple Beam, Power Bombs, two other icons that I am guessing are Bombs and Missiles (a different missile icon than the other scan) and one last icon that looks like a jet pack.  I don’t know what it is truthfully.  It somewhat resembles the back of Samus’ suit.  So for those of you counting at home we also have some sort or ice weapon (Ice beam or Ice Missiles).  I also saw a screen cap where Sammy was shooting a green beam.  I want to call it Spazer Beam but it didn’t widen as it progressed.  More mysteries await us, I’m sure.

Donkey Kong Country Returns

Oh, Retro.  You’ve done it again.  What can I say except for, it looks like Donkey Kong?  Seriously, Retro is my favorite developer for a reason, folks.  Think of everything you liked in DK Country on the SNES.  Now Imagine that on the Wii.  Collecting bananas, the letters to KONG, shooting out of barrels, it’s all in there.  Just like before you can play single or two players.  You can notice when the footage is single or two player because DK and Diddy’s health bars will be separated.  I hope we can get some coop play where one character is in the foreground and the other in the background.  That could lead to some awesome game play.  While watching this trailer, I know I am going to be so mad at this game.  The platforming looks like it is going to be the most demanding in years.  Come to think of it, I don’t know how I ever got through the first Donkey Kong Country without breaking the Super Nintendo.  It wasn’t my system so I suppose that had something to do with it.  One other cool effect I noticed was in the shot where the sun was setting.  Everything was a black silhouette except Diddy’s red hat and shirt and DK’s red tie.  Nice touch, Retro. 

Kid Icarus: Uprising

Of all the trailers, I have watched this one the most.  I cry every time I see it.  I honestly think this is the best game trailer ever.  Maybe that is because I have been waiting 19 years for it!  “Sorry to keep you waiting!”  It’s okay, Pit.  We missed you but you’re here now and that’s all that matters.  This isn’t going to be the climbing/side scrolling gameplay we fell in love with all those years ago but it looks to be awesome in a totally different way.  The flying parts look incredible.  Can you imagine flying through obstacles in 3D?  The part of the trailer where Pit is dodging all those lasers beams still blows my mind.  It makes me wonder how the flight controls will work.  It kind of looks like pit is attached to a set plane (maybe even the center of the screen) but you can stray off center to allow for movement.  The flying combat looks to control roughly the same.  I guess you control your location on one side of the screen as enemies fly in from the other.  Did anyone else notice that Pit has acquired quite an arsenal during his time off?  I guess that’s what happens when you become the general of the angel army.  I counted eight different weapons in the trailer.  Of course the light bow (which he never separates into two blades as in Brawl), a gun sword, two different types of claw hands, a fire ball cannon, a rainbow hand fire ball thingy, an orbed staff and what looks like a spear (it’s hard to get a good look at this one).  That is a lot of weapons.  Pit never even pulled out the Mirror Shield.  Something that kind of surprised me was that there was no HUD on the screen at all, just an aiming reticle.  Then I realized it is a 3DS game and the HUD will be on the bottom screen.  Perhaps there will be a touch to select weapon system.  Although, I don’t ever notice Pit changing weapons in the trailer.  I wonder if the game will have a scoring system as in the previous two games.  That is my biggest problem with Kid Icarus.  You character progression is never made clear because of the points system it is based on.  I guess we will have to wait just a little bit longer.  All I know is I am buying a 3DS day one now, just for this game. 

So those are my thoughts on the big six, first party trailers that Nintendo showed.  Who knows how much will change from now to the final version of the games?  No doubt the games will be awesome anyway.  It’s is a good time to be a Nintendo fan, people.  Enjoy it.  Also, let me know what you think of my conclusions.  Be sure to leave some comments about what you noticed/liked from Nintendo’s trailers.