The September 2019 Nintendo Direct just finished up and we got a bunch of new announcements, several of which I am really excited for. I was so excited that I decided to make a video covering my top 5 reveals from the Direct. They’re in no particular order, so let’s not waste any more time and get right into things with the first reveal.

Two New JRPG Remasters

Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE is coming to the Switch, this time as Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE Encore. Given that it was originally released on the Wii U, this was a game I expected to make its way over to the Switch eventually, it was just a question of when. Well, it appears today was that day and now we only have to wait until January to get our hands on it. For those that don’t know, it’s basically a crossover JRPG between the Shin Megami Tensei series and the Fire Emblem series. However, it shakes things up by giving everything a pop idol twist. There’s plenty of J-pop, dancing, singing, and the usual JRPG stuff on top of that. It’s got a bunch of additional content being added to the Switch version as well, so looks like it definitely be one to keep an eye out for.

So Tokyo Mirage Sessions is cool and all, but the bigger news here is that we are getting a definitive edition of Xenoblade Chronicles. This is a game I never got the chance to play, in part due to it’s insane pricing when it came out seven years ago for the Wii. I remember walking into GameStop and seeing a USED copy available for $80, far higher than the price brand new Wii games were set at on release. And that was not even as high as it went. In mid-2013, loose copies of the game (with just the disc and no case) were being sold for around $100 each.

The price has gone down with time, and you can now pick it up for about $30, but seeing as how there’s a remaster on the horizon, I’ll definitely be waiting for that. I also saw a comparison between the original and this remaster on Twitter that even further sold me on it (the jump between 480 and 1080 is quite the upgrade after all). As someone that has been listening to the soundtracks from the series for years, it’s about time I jump into it.

More Animal Crossing: New Horizons Information

So this is another one I’m excited for, as I’ve been an Animal Crossing fan since the very first game back on the GameCube. This time around we’re on a deserted island, which is something we’ve known for a while now, but in this direct they showed a few more of the game’s features. One feature in particular that I thought was pretty funny was the inclusion of a NookPhone, which if you haven’t guessed by the title, is pretty much Tom Nook’s own smartphone brand. It’s loaded with a bunch of apps that will add stuff to the game, which I thought was a pretty cool modern take on the series.

However, one of those apps highlighted a feature that I am not so sure about: the crafting system. The app just lists a bunch of crafting recipes, but I’m more so worried about the crafting system itself, as it could easily end up being just a bunch of tedious chores. I’m even more worried about equipment durability. I know it was in previous games, but with the crafting focus here, I’m a bit concerned that we may have shorter lifespans to encourage constant crafting. Hopefully it doesn’t end up like that, we’ll have to wait and see.

Outside of that, they did show off the Nook Miles feature, which is basically a simple quest system. Given the relatively free-form gameplay that the series is known for, this is a cool addition for those that want some sort of objective to work towards. And it’s definitely a feature that completionists are going to be spending a lot of time with. Aside from that they also showed off a groundbreaking new feature, one that I wouldn’t have expected in a hundred years. Of course, that feature is the ability to move trees around. No longer will I have to cut down and replant trees the way I want them, I can now simply pick it up and put it somewhere else, just as easy as it is in real life. Oh, and the eight player multiplayer looked cool too.

New Smash Bros. Content

And of course, the most exciting thing from this Direct was the Smash Bros. news. This time they revealed a bunch of new stuff, starting off by dropping the release date for Banjo-Kazooie. That release date is today, so there’s that.

They then moved on to announce the next fighter. This was something that had actually been partially leaked a few days ago. An SNK copyright footer showed up on the page for Challenger Pack 4, igniting a bunch of rumors as to who the character might be. SNK has a lot of characters to choose from, so people were suggesting characters from The King of Fighters, Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown, and even Metal Slug. The reveal trailer even teased us a bit here, going through several notable SNK characters until we got to our actual challenger, Terry Bogard.

Now given how young many Smash players are and the fact that King of Fighters and Fatal Fury aren’t all that popular in North America, I can definitely see some not knowing who Terry is. I personally have only played a little bit of King of Fighters, but it’s definitely a popular character within the fighting game community and one that I’m excited to try out. Sakurai’s main game back in the day was King of Fighters, so it’s not completely out there that we’d see some sort of representation here in Smash.

And on top of that we got an announcement for more additional characters after the fifth one. We don’t know how many, but it looks like Nintendo is going the seasonal approach, as the current fighter pass will not cover these new characters. So I’m going to guess that we’ll get another fighter pass and five more characters for it. This just further increases the chance that we’ll get Steve in Smash, but we’ll probably get Sora from Kingdom Hearts and one of the new Fire Emblem characters before that. Whatever the case may be, I’m excited to see what Sakurai has in store. It looks like it will take even more time before he finally gets that break he wanted.

SNES for Nintendo Switch Online

I have seen countless complaints about the value of the Nintendo Switch Online membership. Basically, all you get is online capabilities in Switch games, save data in the cloud, a bunch of NES games that have gotten noticeably worse over time, and a phone app that I honestly don’t even think people use (if you are one of those individuals, please do tell me what you use it for). All of this is included for $4 a month, which is pretty cheap compared to similar services like PlayStation Plus (which is $10 a month), but comes with noticeably less content, especially given that services like PlayStation Plus are giving out full games that didn’t come out thirty years ago. Well now Nintendo is offering us games that came out 20 years ago, which is definitely a start if anything. SNES games are something that people have been asking for since the service’s launch and the twenty games they picked to start out with aren’t even that bad.

We got classics like Star Fox, Super Mario Kart, Super Mario World, Super Metroid, Link to the Past, F-Zero, and even Breath of Fire and Super Earth Defense Force. There’s a little bit for everyone and the fact that they’re coming out tomorrow is definitely cool too. If they follow the same pattern with the NES games, then we’ll be getting a few of these every month, so maybe we’ll see Donkey Kong Country and Super Mario RPG sometime soon as well. I just hope it doesn’t go the path of the current NES offerings, where we barely get two games a month and those two are of questionable quality.

And as they did with the launch of the NES games, they’re also releasing an SNES controller for those that want a more authentic experience, or for those that collect such peripherals like myself.

Overwatch for Nintendo Switch

This one was also leaked some time ago, but it’s now been confirmed: we are getting Overwatch for the Switch. As a big fan of the game, it’s exciting to see it made even more accessible for those that haven’t already tried it out. I imagine that the playerbase on the Switch will be much younger than say on PC or other consoles, but Overwatch has always struck me as a game that would be popular with that crowd anyways. I mean, the last time I went to Walmart, I saw a bunch of Overwatch toys in the toys aisle, so I’m sure Blizzard is just trying to capitalize on that.

However, it’s not just a straight port, the game also appears to take advantage of the Switch’s gyroscope for aiming and other abilities like Hammond’s roll. This makes me wonder how the competitive scene will be for the platform, as there is no crossplay with PC or the other consoles. I imagine that aiming using the gyroscope will be a bit more difficult, but if it makes the game more accessible to newcomers, then I’m all for it.

And that pretty much covers the five reveals I was most excited about. There were a bunch of other honorable mentions, including Return of the Obra Dinn for Switch, DOOM 64’s re-release, the retro events for Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, the release date for Trials of Mana, and of course, the additional news regarding Pokémon Sword and Shield. There was simply too much to cover in a single video, so I decided to limit it to just five. Hopefully you guys enjoyed and if you want to see more videos like this, do leave a like and subscribe — it does help out a lot. Anyways, see you guys in the next one!