Reaction: E3 2021

 

Maybe I should see it as a bit of a mercy that this year's E3 was fairly uneventful, at least in terms of all the big companies. Nintendo on the other hand managed to go all out in just about every way that surpassed expectation. The only thing that was outright missing was more news on Pokemon's Diamond and Pearl remakes and Legends: Arceus. Which, I'm ultimately fine with, but... ehhhh, could we not have gotten SOMETHING by now? They're oddly quiet about them, other than "You can buy them now." I'd like to know more about products before I spend money on them, thanks.

ANYWHO I'll run through the highlights of the entirety of E3, which isn't much for non-Nintendo and indie-related stuff, but hey. Hard to complain when I'll be eating good this year anyways. I just feel the need to say I will not be talking about anything Ubisoft-related simply because of all the allegations I'm sure you've heard about already and Ubisoft has been an utter boulder about doing anything about it. 

Alekon:

While I have most definitely gotten the Pokemon Snap game of my dreams pretty recently, it's funny that something of a spiritual successor came out not too long after New Snap did. The on-rails photography doesn't seem to be the ENTIRE point of the game, but it's definitely something I can see myself giving a try at some point. Especially when it has creatures like this beauty just hanging out in it. And yeah, this game's been public knowledge long before the Wholesome Direct, but this is the first time I've heard of it, so it's news to me!

Here Comes Niko!:

This is a game I DID already know about, but I'll point at it anyway 'cause I adore the style and its premise as a cosy, low-stakes 3D platformer is one I can get behind. I also love the way it combines 3D environments with 2D characters.

Tinykin:

Now here's a game that almost feels like it was catered toward me specifically. Tinykin is a 3D platformer that borrows a lot of Pikmin elements. Not just in the scale where you you play as a tiny character commanding an army of even tinier creatures, but in having a lot of environmental puzzles to solve, and of course the tiny critters come in a variety of colors that do different things. I also love the art style that looks a bit like an early-to-mid-2000s cartoon. That and there's cute bugs in it. Just look at that little ant guy!!

Age of Empires IV:

This one's a blast from the past. I'm no good at RTS games in all honesty, but I've always enjoyed playing them from my childhood. (Though admittedly, most of my time was spent playing Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds, which was pretty much a glorified mod of Age of Empires, but I digress.) This'll be a game on my radar simply because I've been itching for new RTS games, and it's just cool to see this series revived in general.

Mario Party Superstars:

Man, am I glad I never bought into Mario Party 100, haha. Mario Party Superstars isn't quite the remake collection of 1-3 of my dreams, but I'll still more than welcome this as-is. The first handful of Mario Party games are easily some of the most nostalgic for me, and it's nice to see this series return to its roots in a fairly major way. I'm mostly curious how the mechanics across all the games included will work out, since each Mario Party is fairly different from most others, but this is easily the most excited I've been for a new Mario Party game in aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaages.

One fear I of course have is in what ways will old Mario Party be homogenized with the rest of the Mario series, since that happens a lot with remakes these days. Will the Koopa Kids be in it at all, or will they just be replaced with Bowser Jr? It sadly looks like they're just gone entirely. But that much is inevitable I suppose, not much can be really done about it. I do also worry about the apparent limit to only 5 boards. Like, could you not have squeezed at least one more in there? Eh, either way, the boards they've revealed so far are really good picks, and are pretty much the ones I would've picked if I had to choose between them all between Mario Parties 1, 2, and 3. I like Beach's Birthday Cake, Space Land is ace, and Woody Woods isn't a half-bad pick either. (I would've gone for Waluigi's Island, but I guess since it's a final board it gets disqualified.) I do wonder if they'll expand into the rest of the series or if it'll just be the N64 games. Either way, excited to learn more about it!

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp:

Confession: Despite my passing interest in the series, I've actually never owned an Advance Wars game. I simply borrowed copies from my friend who loved the series back in the 2000s. Even then, kid-me mostly only messed with the level-editor and free-mode. That said, I'm really happy to see this series even getting acknowledged by Nintendo, let alone getting a remake of not one, but two of the classic games.

I've also pretty quickly come around onto the art style. Maybe it's just because the level editor is what I spent the most time on, but the cutesy art style where the tanks and planes look like plastic toys is nice, and the animated characters are a nice touch. It's obviously not gonna be for everybody because it isn't exactly like the original, though. As tends to be the case with these sorts of simplified styles. It's certainly a better look than the more dour, grungy style the series eventually developed into that I most definitely didn't care for, eugh.

The one thing that I'm a little eh on is the little soldier models. It feels like they aught to have stayed little chibi dudes rather than become more proportioned because they look just a little bit uncanny. Not majorly so, but just enough to point it out.

I Guess We Have to Keep Calling it Breath of the Wild 2:

I knew if we got more news of BotW2, that it would've been a teaser reel of gameplay at best, and that's exactly what we got, but for real? Still no title drop? Okay then. But boy what we did get is still a lot to digest, and I'm still going to be very hungry when I'm done digesting it all. I am glad their method of expanding Hyrule as a space isn't to just throw in a Dark World mechanic, but rather actually make Hyrule itself bigger by making sky-islands a big part of exploration in this game now.

The game is already looking way nicer than BotW did, and that game aged pretty dang well in the visual department for being 4 years old. That is ultimately what's exciting about this. BotW was a game built to be a Wii U game first, and eventually got a Switch version since Wii U was very much a sinking ship. This new game is going to be a true and proper Switch game, and I'm hoping that means fixing my teeny tiny issues I had with BotW 1 proper. What I REALLY want this sequel to do is make dungeons a big deal again, and hopefully less samey looking overall. That and the enemy variety felt a little lacking, so it's nice to already see a handful of new faces and even remixes of old foes like the ADORABLE Bokoblin camp built atop the Stone Talus.

Just GOSH I'm already hungry to know more about it. I'm sure we'll get at least one more trailer before the year's over, but GOSH. It'll never be enough until it's in my hands. 2022 can't come fast enough. Maybe my snarky comments about BotW fans on Twitter might've given the impression I wasn't impressed by BotW but oh trust me. This sequel excites me to no end because BotW is fantastic. But a version of BotW with is flaws worked out is a serious contender for my favorite game of all time. GAH.

Oh but of course, I'm saying MY series for last...

Metroid Dread:

I audibly gasped, I screamed, I shouted "METROID DREAD?!?!?!" so loud with my window wide open that a neighbor or two probably heard me. THIS is something I've waited for, for over a friggin decade. And I'm SO, SO, SO glad it's not another remake. Cause I was fearing the next 2D Metroid would be a remake of either Super or Fusion, which would've been cool, but what I was wanting was Metroid 5. And boy. BOY.

Samus Returns, while not perfect, definitely set a good ground-work that a 2D Metroid can definitely still work in a modern sphere. Metroid Dread is clearly borrowing a lot from Samus Returns, with the melee counter move and Aeon Abilities still present. The worried me a little bit at first, since Samus Returns often had combat boil down to waiting on an enemy to do its predictable tell and countering before you get to do anything yourself, especially in the early game. But What they added on top of free-aiming while moving is a dashing counter move, which is honestly going to be everything. That simple addition is most definitely going to help this game fulfill the idea of Samus as an extremely fluid fighting bounty hunter, because such a move will encourage you to be a lot more proactive about approaching combat.

The major threat of this game is, as you'd imagine if you're familiar with the series, seems to be the Galactic Federation itself, having built robots specifically designed to hunt down and kill Samus called E.M.M.I. (Minding though, they were really hush-hush about plot details, so it could very well just be robots going haywire.) Even minding they're GFed creations, they look just a little aesthetically out of place in Metroid for me. Robots, even GFed ones, tend to not look this slick and streamlined. This looks a bit more like a robot from Half-Life or Portal to me. It's not a deal-breaker, mind you, the Emmi just stick out to me like that. They're also trying to sell these EMMI robots as horror monsters, and I don't think they're quite there either in terms of design alone. Their design nails the "cold killer robot" look for sure, but again it just looks a little too streamlined to really be horrifying.

...But then you see the way the thing MOVES and AUGH. It basically slithers around the environment in pursuit of Samus and in THAT aspect it definitely looks like a killer robot from a horror movie. This thing makes SA-X look like a friendly game of tag.

While my heart is very much with the Metroid Prime series (Prime 2 in particular literally being my favorite game of all time), this is still VERY monumentous to see for me. And especially given they're hyping this one up as the end of a major story arc in Metroid, I'm VERY tempted to try and marathon all the 2D Metroids before this one comes out.

Jesus. I'm still reeling in disbelief. How am I living in a timeline where Metroid DREAD is real?!?