Nintendo Direct 09/13/22 — Lots of Tears in Kingdoms

Expectations were very high for today’s Nintendo Direct — unreasonably so. Intrigue for what Nintendo would announce was understandable considering this was the first real Nintendo Direct presentation in over seven months (specifically since February 9th), outside game-centric presentations like the Xenoblade Chronicles 3 and Splatoon 3 variants, and a Mini presentation driven by third-party developer and publisher announcements. It was a good opportunity to learn about what Nintendo had planned for Switch over the winter, but rumors from the last few weeks sent expectations for a certain popular Nintendo franchise into overdrive.

It sure was a shame that the United Kingdom couldn’t watch their tailored presentation live, out of apparent respect for mourning Queen Elizabeth II’s death. The Queen would have loved the Breath of the Wild sequel, it seems, especially the title.

Some fans always expect the world from Direct presentations, which has only gotten worse since Nintendo started holding them less frequently. It didn’t offer one mind-blowing announcement after another, but plenty of good-looking games were shown.

The highlight, of course, was for the very, very brief new preview for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild sequel, the main purpose of which was clearly to highlight its chosen title of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. The teaser only showed a few blink-and-you’ll-miss-them snippets of gameplay, alongside highlighting the second main purpose of revealing the May 12th release date. These previews haven’t shown much, but I’m sure there are several more robust ones coming in the near future.

The other big Nintendo announcement was for Fire Emblem Engage, the new Fire Emblem game leaked heavily in June, complete with the Pepsi-haired protagonist design. The trailer largely highlighted the story and extremely anime art style, the latter of which is no surprise if Gust is seriously working on this. Not many details were provided by Nintendo themselves, but I hope the rumors are true that this game is incorporating gameplay elements from Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia and the cancelled Fire Emblem 64 game with more traditional RPG elements like exploration, towns, and dungeons. We’ll find out soon enough, considering it’s coming on January 24th.

Other announcements for Nintendo-published projects were lower key, like those for new content for Xenoblade Chronicles 3, Mario Kart 8, and Mario Strikers: Battle League, and Nintendo Switch Sports. This also included tinier announcements for Pikmin 4 and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land Deluxe (an updated port of the Wii game). A new trailer for Bayonetta 3 was also shown, the considerably longer preview for which was saved for the YouTube channel.

Most announcements came from third-party publishers, to no surprise considering Tokyo Game Show is happening this week. Square Enix brought most of the heat. The biggest announcement was for Octopath Traveler 2 (also on PS4/PS5 and Steam), which will release on February 24th. Theatrhythm Final Bar Line, the newest installment in the largely Final Fantasy rhythm-based title, was also confirmed. The previously-announced Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion will release on December 13th, just in time for the holiday season. There was also a new preview for Harvestella, with a demo released on the eShop. Square Enix clearly felt their holiday season wasn’t busy enough by also dating Romancing SaGa: Minstrel Song for December 1st. Something’s bound to get lost in the shuffle here. Hell, I almost forgot that Various Daylife was announced for Switch and PC, following the Apple Arcade release.

Though Square Enix isn’t involved with them directly, the Front Mission remakes from Forever Entertainment were featured again. The first one will release in November, while Front Mission 2 will come in 2023. There’s also a remake of Front Missions 3 due for release sometime in the future. After the first remake was delayed from its “summer” release, they know better than to give release timeframes.

There were almost too many other third-party announcements to document here. Koei Tecmo announced Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse, an updated version of the fourth Fatal Frame title previously only released on Wii in Japan way back in 2008. Atelier Ryza 3: Alchemist of the End and The Secret Key was also revealed for a release right alongside Octopath Traveler 2 on February 24th. Master Detective Archives: Rain Code was also fully revealed from Spike Chunsoft, which will release first on Switch next spring.

Harvestella could qualify for Rune Factory at Home, but the real Rune Factory did make an appearance in the form of a Rune Factory 3 remake. A new Rune Factory game, likely just Rune Factory 6, is also in the works. A remake of Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life (divorced of the Harvest Moon name, of course) is also coming. There’s also Treasure’s Radiant Silvergun, now available on the eShop.

I cannot end this post without highlighting the ridiculousness of Fitness Boxing 2 getting a collaboration with Fist of the North Star, of all franchises. This, it turns out, was the shocking stream announcement. The Resident Evil cloud version announcements were on the other side of the ridiculousness scale, given how unplayable they’ll be in portable mode. It’s still nice to have them, I guess.

There were rumors before the Direct that said a bunch of GameCube remasters would be part of this, including ports of The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD, and an announcement of a Metroid Prime remaster. Let this be a repeat of a previous lesson: Do not take so-called insider knowledge as gospel. It couldn’t be clearer that some of them are making educated guesses, knowing full-well that an audience is ready to gobble them up every time one of these Directs is rumored, let alone announced by Nintendo.

This was a solid Direct even if it wasn’t the most spectacular one in the last several years. It showed how there are plenty of good titles coming to Switch (and other platforms), far too many to play as they release. Really, this is the extent for what anyone should expect from one of these streams, but I’m sure any kind of advice that involves lowering expectations will fall on deaf ears among those who need to hear it most.