Looking at: Nintendo E3 2015

... I have no goddamn idea what I just watched. Seriously. People said the Ubisoft show felt like it was powered by cocaine, but that was fucking War and Peace compared to what Nintendo just put me through.

It was fun though, and once again the tightly controlled nature of a Nintendo Direct broadcast worked well in their favor as they face-blasted us with announcements throughout. Alright, let's see what just happened:


Star Fox Zero

Starting off with muppets of Iwata, Myiamoto and Reggie was... and odd choice, but the strangeness exploded when the muppets all turned into Star Fox characters.

Fine, whatever, that just sets the tone for the rest of the show. The game itself looks amazing, a lot like Star Fox 64, which is exactly what we've all been asking for since Star Fox 64 came out.

Space combat looks refined, as it should, and will make use of both of the WiiU's screens, allowing for a cockpit view on the gamepad.

The big new thing is the ability to transform. There's the classic Arwing and landmaster, but also a new hovercraft and walker robot as well. It's unknown how these will affect gameplay, but you'll be allowed to transform in real time.

Regardless, it's nice to see not only the new Star Fox in action, but that it's keeping the gameplay of the classic games rather then... whatever the hell was Starfox Adventures.

Skylanders Super Charged

Skylanders is Amiibos for non-Nintendo consoles essentially, so it makes sense that there would be a crossover. Bowser and Donkey Kong, along with vehicles will be coming to the new Skylanders game, and will also be usable as Amiibos. It's kid's stuff, so I don't really know.

Zelda: Triforce Heroes

Another 3DS Zelda game. Taking some cues from Four Swords this game is multiplayer focused. Unlike Four Swords this time around it's only three players, for reasons explained below.

The three players will be able to form a totem to solve puzzles and fight enemies. Apparently four players were to much, and calling it Triforce Heroes actually makes sense for only three people.

There is a single player mod as well, where you use dolls as the other Links. It's a bit weird if you ask me.

The other gimmick is the idea of using costumes to customize Link's abilities, like bigger bombs or negating damage.

Hyrule Warriors Legends 3D

A port of Hyrule Warriors, the Dynasty Warriors type game using Zelda characters, over to the 3DS. This version comes packed with every bit of WiiU DLC, as well as two new characters from Windwaker: Tetra and the Red King.

A whole bunch of crazy

Ok, here's where we delve into madness, as Nintendo just sort of spitfire a bunch of things without talking about any of them.

First up is Metroid. It think it's going to be two metroid games, but I don't know. One of them is four player co-op shooting, then there was some sort of 3V3 soccer thing.

Then, something Fire Emblem related. It was all very VERY confusing. I don't even know what console it's for. I think there's werewolves?

It's very emotional.

Then there was something from Atlus. I think it's the SMT/ Fire Emblem game they teased as sort of a joke, but now it's real. This was all in Japanese so I have no goddamn idea.

There was J-Pop and it was confusing and people were yelling a lot.

Even more confusion

Things sort of settled when they decided to take more then a few seconds for a single game. The issue was that game was Xeno Blade Chronicles and the trailer still made no sense. There's monsters and fighting and Earth is fucked.

I haven't played a Xeno Blades game, but I know there's a lot of hype surrounded this new one. It sounds like a big single-player MMO, and I usually dig that sort of thing.

It reminded me of Monster Hunter in a lot of ways, and that's a compliment because I really enjoy the Monster Hunter games. We'll see when it hits stateside Dec. 5.

Animal Crossing

Finally things calmed right the hell down, in fact they came to a screeching halt with Animal Crossing. Two new AC games were announced, one for each Nintendo system.

First was AC: Home Designer. I can't tell if it's an actual AC game or just a minigame, but it looks like it's much more creatively involved then the last AC game, allowing you to customize every aspect of your town.

The other game was a Mario Party style board game set in the Animal Crossing universe for WiiU. I'm not sure if the AC games will make the appropriate leap, and there weren't any Mario Party style mini games shown off, so this might be a pass.

Yoshi: Woolly World

While I don't understand the move to fabric based gaming, I do understand how much I enjoy Yoshi's Island for the SNES. Yoshi's Woolly World looks like a return to form, complete with egg throwing mechanics, and that sounds cool.

There was also the reveal of the co-op mechanic, allowing you to eat and throw your partner as an egg. By Nintendo's own admission this is a platformer meant for everyone, but I dig it.

YoKai Watch

Really looked like Pokemon, as interpreted by Atlus. There's monsters and battling, I think.

Mario

The Paper Mario series has been dormant for a while, but it's coming back and seems to have collided head on with the Mario and Luigi RPG series. It makes sense they would combine the two Mario RPG franchises into one, and the possibilities of two sets of Mario brothers sound cool as hell.

Then we got a reveal for a new Mario Tennis.Tennis is one of the older Mario games, so it's nice to see it returning in HD.

It also looks like, as with the other Mario sports games, power-ups now play a part, as the players on the field used mushrooms to grow bigger during the match. Insert your own steroids joke here.

Finally Nintedo finished with an indepth look at Mario Make, a game I'm really excited for. Mario Maker isn't just a simple map maker for Mario, it really does look like a fully customizable Mario game engine.

They briefly showed off graphics from all types of Mario games, and showed how you could mix and match assets from every era of game. There's also some interesting stuff, like the ability to attach assets together to create enemy towers, or swimming Goombas.

We also got to see a behind the scenes look at the creative process for Mario games. Overall, Mario Maker looks amazing and I can't wait.

That's it for Nintendo. I should have the Square Write up soon, then finishing off with the PC Gaming show tonight.

Looking at: Legend of Zelda: A link Between Worlds

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Link to the Past

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The shop, where you can rent equipment at any time.

It was 1992, and the SNES had just come out. The Legend of Zelda for the NES was a huge hit, evoking thoughts of an epic quest to save the princess. It's gameplay was easy to learn, it's combat simple yet satisfying, and its dungeon design (While just a bit questionable) was fantastic. It was a great game, and one that has since paved the way for open-world action games. But that was in 1986, and this was 1992 (the greatest year in history). The stakes had been raised, we were now in the 16bit era, and the new Zelda game needed to impress.

Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past has been referred to as the best Zelda in the franchise, high praise considering the caliber of most Zelda titles. It's world was wide, yet required progress to move through. It's enemies were challenging and yet simple. It's dungeons were filled with brain teasing puzzles and dangerous traps. Link to the Past became the new gold standard for action adventure games, and it's ideas have become the foundation for innumerable games even today. It was a simple, yet grand epic adventure about defeating evil and rescuing the princess. It was the stuff of legends. 

Link to the past wasn't the last top-down Zelda, thanks to a few gameboy titles. It is a style that's fallen by the wayside, with all of the most recent Zeldas being 3D adventures. Not only is Link between Worlds a call-back to this old style of Zelda, it's a call-back to the very feeling these games, particularly Link to the Past gave us. 

Fat or Flat

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Link's house, instantly familiar.

The setup is... well it's a Zelda game, so the setup is you need to fucking save the titular princess. Everything in LbW is based on LttP, down to the overworld map and quest structure. You find three THINGS, then shit goes tits up, then you need to find 8 EVEN BETTER THINGS and face the final boss. It's a regular pattern that should be familiar to any Zelda fan. 

The gimmick this time is how the game is structured. There are two things that set LbW apart from other Zelda games. The first thing you'll notice is that you don't gain new items in dungeons anymore, at least not most of the time. Occasionally you'll get an armor upgrade or something like that, but never any weapons or equipment. This time around you'll need to rent items from a store, conveniently located in your own house, and you can rent any item at any time. This means that, with enough ruppies, you can have all of the items pretty much from the start of the game. The catch is, unless you fork out a tonne of ruppies to buy the item, everything is taken away on death. The base game is easy enough, but on the New Game+ mode this becomes a real challenge.

The other new gimmick, and the main draw of the game, is the ability to become a 2D image by merging with flat surfaces. This becomes how LbW approaches a lot of it's puzzles, and seemingly every dungeon invents new ways to play around with this idea. It's interesting and well implemented, with just enough balancing to not make it tiresome.

From the Top Down

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You'll need to wall-merge to overcome various challenges.

Despite playing from a top-down perspective, LbW has a great art style to it. This is a 3D game, and the 3D features of it are one of the best available on the 3Ds. As a rule I don't use the 3D on my 3Ds, but when I did try it out I found it looked really good and made certain areas of the world pop.

Even without 3D turned on LbW is a good looking game, even if it does skew cartooney. It's no Wind Waker, that's for sure, but it does nearly stray into Minish Cap territory. Most of all, it looks like a newer, cleaner version of A Link to the Past, which is clearly what they were going for. The lighting is good, graphics are clean and crisp, and character models and animations all look good.

Trying to call a Legend of Zelda game the "best in the franchise" is as fruitless as trying to pick between different types of Vodka, whichever one you like the most is guaranteed to give you a good time. I won't call LbW the best Zelda game, in many ways it's not, but what I will call it is a lovingly handcraft homage to one of the best adventure games of my childhood, and another knockout entry into one of my favorite series. Link between Worlds is easily one of the best 3Ds games available, and a must have for fans of Zelda.