E3 Thoughts

This year’s E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) is underway, and it brings lots of news and announcements about games that are coming in the near (and sometimes not-so-near) future. I’m not going to list off all of the announcements, but I am going to discuss a few of the games that most interest me.

Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

The new Zelda game for Wii U (also coming to NX) now has a title…and a new trailer.

Even though I’m generally not a fan of the cel-shaded look in Zelda games, I have to admit it really looks great in Breath of the Wild. The world is huge, detailed, and…alive. Link can climb cliffs, trees, and buildings, and it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun just to explore.

Link can interact with the environment in a variety of ways. He can push boulders down a hill onto enemies below, cut trees down to make a bridge, set things on fire, cook food, and so on. That should be fun to play around with and try all sorts of things.

Link rides a horse in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.From watching some of the Nintendo Treehouse coverage, it seemed that weapons break rather easily, and that sounds like it could be annoying. But I’m sure that will be remedied a bit further into the game, when you can obtain higher quality weapons and shields.

The game looks amazing though, and I can’t wait to play it in 2017. At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll be getting the Wii U or NX version of the game…mainly because I still don’t know what NX really is just yet. But either way, I plan on buying Breath of the Wild on day one.

Stardew Valley

It was announced that the PC farming simulation is coming to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Wii U. As a long-time Harvest Moon fan that hasn’t played a farming game since the GameCube days, I’ve been dying for some Wii U farming fun.

Stardew Valley screenshot.
(PC version shown)

Stardew Valley looks like an old-school (2D) Harvest Moon game, but with more depth, customization, and options. It has marriage and mining like the Harvest Moon games, but it also has some RPG elements to give the game more variety. And the developer seems quite excited about utilizing the gamepad screen in the Wii U version. It’s due out this winter, and I can’t wait!

No-Shows

First of all, I am aware that Nintendo wasn’t going to be doing a “full” E3 this year. They originally said Zelda Wii U would be their sole focus, and then they added a second day of their Nintendo Treehouse stream to show other upcoming games. So I was not expecting any huge new announcements.

But with that said, I was still hoping they would at least talk about already-announced things like the Animal Crossing app that’s due this fall. Or Disney Magical World 2, which has an American release date of October 14th. I was also hoping for some Virtual Console announcements. But they will likely have a Nintendo Direct video at some point this summer to discuss these things and more.

And as far as I can tell, Natsume made no mention of Harvest Moon: Seeds of Memories, which they’ve said is coming to Wii U (and PC) this year. They already seem to be shifting their focus to a new 3DS Harvest Moon game, subtitled Skytree Village. That makes you wonder if Seeds of Memories is still coming, and if so, when? Natsume isn’t saying a word.

I’m not into Pokémon, but that Pokémon Go app does look like a cool concept. It lets you capture Pokémon in real life! There’s also a wearable accessory coming that will light up to let you know when a Pokémon is available nearby. You can then push a button to try to catch it without pulling out your smartphone.

My Nintendo Picross

Nintendo’s current loyalty/rewards program, My Nintendo, launched on March 31st. And in many ways, it is inferior to their previous program, Club Nintendo. For example, points expire after only six months (vs. two years in Club Nintendo). Also, physical game purchases do not earn any rewards at all!

But it’s not all bad. You can earn coins on a regular basis just by doing things such as signing into Miiverse once a week or starting up the Wii U or 3DS eShop once a week. There are additional ways to earn coins if you use the Miitomo app as well.

I’ve earned enough to coins to redeem their first new reward, an exclusive, digital 3DS game called My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess. The title is certainly a mouthful, even if you abbreviate it as MNP:TLoZ:TP. But as you can probably figure out, it’s a Picross game with graphics, music, and sound effects based on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess (which has been released on GameCube, Wii, and recently, Wii U).

My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess title screen.If you’re unfamiliar with Picross, the name comes from the combination of “picture” and “crossword.” It’s a logic/puzzle game in which you are given numbers for each row and column of a grid. Each number set indicates how many blocks on that row/column need to be filled in. So if a row has the numbers “3 2,” that means it will have three consecutive blocks filled in somewhere, followed by at least one empty space, and then two more consecutive blocks filled in. When you’ve filled in all appropriate boxes, you’ve completed the puzzle (and a picture).

My Nintendo Picross gameplay screenshot.I’ve been a fan of Picross games for years; I loved the original Mario’s Picross on Game Boy, and the Picross e games on 3DS are good too. So it’s no surprise that I’m really enjoying My Nintendo Picross so far. My biggest complaint with the Picross e games was the boring music. This is not a problem here, as My Nintendo Picross has some great, quality Zelda tunes.

On the downside, My Nintendo Picross has just 91 puzzles: 45 regular Picross puzzles, 45 “Mega Picross” puzzles, and apparently just one large “Micross” puzzle. This compares to 150+ puzzles found in the Picross e titles. It will still take a number of hours to complete them all, but it is less content than you would get in the $6 Picross e games. One other minor complaint is that you can’t skip the tutorial if you already know how to play.

With that said, this is a quality game that I’m having a lot of fun with. This is miles better than Nintendo’s Club Nintendo exclusive Wii game from 2010, Grill-Off With Ultra-Hand! If you’re a fan of Picross or puzzle games in general, I recommend picking this up with your My Nintendo coins.

Nintendo’s Big Announcements

Nintendo made a lot of big announcements early this morning, as they released their financial reports in Japan. The first bombshell stated that their new NX system would be released in March 2017.

Of course, they still haven’t even said what NX really is yet. No confirmation if it’s a home console, a portable, or a combination of the two (as some rumors suggest). And are they really going to launch a system in March? Nintendo consoles have traditionally launched in autumn (generally September through November), so it remains to be seen if they really stick to this.

Then they announced that Zelda Wii U will be delayed again, until 2017! It will be released simultaneously with a NX version–much like how Twilight Princess was a dual GameCube/Wii release.

That is a big disappointment. Not only because I’ve been really looking forward to the game, but also, this means the Wii U will be in its 5th year before it finally gets a Zelda game (that isn’t a port of an older game). That’s just so typical of how poorly Nintendo has supported Wii U throughout most of its lifetime. Once Wii U was released, Nintendo never seemed to shift their focus from 3DS to Wii U, often treating Wii U (and Wii U owners) like an afterthought, while they continued to pump out 3DS games constantly.

And with no Zelda in 2016, what exactly do Wii U users have to look forward to for the rest of the year? It’s looking pretty bleak. For Nintendo’s sake, I hope they support NX better than they’ve supported Wii U.

And then there was this:

Fire Emblem and Animal Crossing apps are coming to smart devices. “Apps” is the key word here, and we don’t really know what that means. Will they be full games, spin-offs, or something else entirely? We don’t know.

A press release from Nintendo UK states that the Animal Crossing app will “be connected with the world of Animal Crossing for dedicated gaming systems.” That seems to indicate the app may not be a full Animal Crossing game on its own, although it also states it will “have more prominent game elements” than Miitomo.

Saying that it will connect with the world of Animal Crossing for dedicated gaming systems seems to imply that a full AC game is on the way as well (presumably for NX). The app is scheduled to be released later this year.

The app could potentially be the third consecutive Animal Crossing spin-off (after Happy Home Designer and Amiibo Festival) since we’ve last seen a full game in the series. And I’m not particularly excited about the app, but it’s hard to have much of an opinion on it until we know what it is.

This is pure speculation, but I could see it including the ability to create and customize your character (including hair and skin color), shop for clothes and accessories each day, and so on. Or maybe it will allow you to design your house, yard, or even the layout of your town! That would be cool. And then when the full game comes out, you could import that data. At this point, only Nintendo knows.

But if a new, full Animal Crossing game is on the way, that is what I’m really looking forward to. What about you? Are you excited about the apps? Mad about the Zelda delay? Curious about NX?