FA+
Shop
E3 Day 3 Reaction
7 years ago
General
Nintendo
Even though it was E3, Nintendo launched their presentation as an "E3 Direct." Everyone knew what direction they were taking it in: Smash Bros Ultimate! Nintendo holds the belief of quality over quantity, so coming into it I didn't expect to see too much. Best of all, it didn't leak!
The main event was Smash, so Nintendo rushed through their games to get there, which was fine by many. First we saw a weird mech game no one asked for, then Octopath and Starlink teased earlier. Mario Party Switch combines the good of the old and newer Mario Partys, although I hated how it was presented. Overcooked is a fun game, and a sequel will add to the fun!Will be picking up Starlink because Nintendo hasn't made a good Star Fox game since Assault. They mentioned Pokemon Let's Go again, not diving in any farther which was both a let down and pointless. Xenoblade 2 is getting some DLC, and that ended Nintendo's focused games, which was very disappointing.
After this they went through a plethora of game in a rapid fire fashion. Dragon Ball Z fighters should have been focused on more, but a port has been announced. Other noticeable games announced: Dark Souls port, Splatoon DLC, Mario Tennis, Fifa, Monster Hunter, and TWEWY.
Now onto the game everyone was waiting for: Smash Bros. Ultimate.
AAAHHH I LOVE IT!!!
Looking at it the game resembles Smash 4 quite a bit, as it has a lot of the stages back from Smash 4. The graphics are also of a similar nature, however there has been a lot of polish put into the stages and characters. The game mechanics have been improved on quite a bit, adding a more competitive nature. The new music sounds fitting for a Smash game, combining the hype of 4 with the intensity of Brawl.
All of the characters in previous game are returning, that alone makes Nintendo's direct a W. The echo character idea is genius, because having to play all star as 70 different characters, about 10 or 15 being clones, would be awful. Honestly amazing how many characters they were able to fit in. Thinking about it more critically, Sakurai is correct that there really isn't many more characters you can fit into the game between ~70 characters and 50 assist trophies. Rayman, Goku, Crash, Banjo+Kazooie, and Halo are about the only ones conceivable from other franchises. Maybe more, but I'd have to google it. They even managed to fit Ridley in there!
It looks like the final smashes are going to be much shorter, which is good for some characters (Fox and Falco) and bad for others (Pikachu, Pac Man, etc.)
Smash is a great series, probably the best in video game history to be honest, however, there are 2 major flaws I had with Smash 4 I am hoping get resolved in Smash Ultimate:
1: Stages: Many play Smash for it's competitive nature, but some of us enjoy the laid back style of fun Smash brings us. Almost all the stages in Smash 4 were flat stages whose only difference was the title, music, and background. It's boring playing on a flat stage with 2 mini-platforms in different locations each time. Honestly there being 2 Smashvilles on the Wii U version was a huge insult considering all the other former stages they had made in Brawl, Melee, etc. that were better, or using one of the different series of games they have made to base a stage off of! I liked the inclusion of more Melee, Brawl, and even 64 stages, but from the Treehouse recap the game looks very barren stage wise. Hoping they didn't blow all their data on characters.
**Update** Only 20 out of all the stages in 64, Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4 didn't make it. About 5 were 64 stages (replaced by upgraded Melee stages) and a lot of them that were taken out were smash 4 stages. Hype! Only 2 I cared about that didn't make it were Mute City (both 3DS and Melee) and Pirate Ship (Brawl).
2: Story mode: Between Adventure Mode + Subspace Emissary vs Smash tour, it's no contest. Those are two modes I feel added another level to the Smash series. Without it there isn't as much fun playing single player. The Switch itself can build strong games upon it (BotW and Odyssey) however, I'm not sure if it has enough data to run a story/adventure mode, and thats something I would love to see return to a Smash game.
In conclusion, there are two very different angles you can grade Nintendo's presentation from. If I was to grade this as a Smash direct, this would easily be an A. I thought the game looked amazing, and as a fan I am very content I will be getting the game sometime in 2018. However, this wasn't a direct, it was an E3 presentation. While I think Nintendo did an amazing job with Smash, I feel like they sunk all their capital into it. This is blasphemy, but IMO with KH3 looking just as good as Smash, I don't think Smash had as great an impact as it would have in another E3. Not just that, the other games announced were more just filler. Xbox had Halo and Fortza to go along with KH3, and Sony was the same showcasing Spiderman and a variety of other cinematic titles. Nintendo had some weird mech game and Mario Party presented like some corny 7th grade school presentation. It was rumored other games like F-Zero and Star Fox were in the works (AC had no reliable references to show Nintendo would have made a game for switch) and we didn't even get to see a clip from Metroid Prime 4! As an E3 presentation, I'm going to have to sadly grade Nintendo's as an underwhelming C+. I loved Smash, and I'm walking away from an hour long event just loving Smash.
Winner of E3: Sony
In my mind, if you took out all the presentations and such and just focused on the games that are coming out for that one company, I think Sony did the best game creation wise. Nintendo only had Smash, and after Halo Xbox didn't show anything new that stood out, just a bunch of shooters and zombie games that blended together. If you factored in the poop fest that was Sony's actual presentation, then I would have to give it to Xbox.
Even though it was E3, Nintendo launched their presentation as an "E3 Direct." Everyone knew what direction they were taking it in: Smash Bros Ultimate! Nintendo holds the belief of quality over quantity, so coming into it I didn't expect to see too much. Best of all, it didn't leak!
The main event was Smash, so Nintendo rushed through their games to get there, which was fine by many. First we saw a weird mech game no one asked for, then Octopath and Starlink teased earlier. Mario Party Switch combines the good of the old and newer Mario Partys, although I hated how it was presented. Overcooked is a fun game, and a sequel will add to the fun!Will be picking up Starlink because Nintendo hasn't made a good Star Fox game since Assault. They mentioned Pokemon Let's Go again, not diving in any farther which was both a let down and pointless. Xenoblade 2 is getting some DLC, and that ended Nintendo's focused games, which was very disappointing.
After this they went through a plethora of game in a rapid fire fashion. Dragon Ball Z fighters should have been focused on more, but a port has been announced. Other noticeable games announced: Dark Souls port, Splatoon DLC, Mario Tennis, Fifa, Monster Hunter, and TWEWY.
Now onto the game everyone was waiting for: Smash Bros. Ultimate.
AAAHHH I LOVE IT!!!
Looking at it the game resembles Smash 4 quite a bit, as it has a lot of the stages back from Smash 4. The graphics are also of a similar nature, however there has been a lot of polish put into the stages and characters. The game mechanics have been improved on quite a bit, adding a more competitive nature. The new music sounds fitting for a Smash game, combining the hype of 4 with the intensity of Brawl.
All of the characters in previous game are returning, that alone makes Nintendo's direct a W. The echo character idea is genius, because having to play all star as 70 different characters, about 10 or 15 being clones, would be awful. Honestly amazing how many characters they were able to fit in. Thinking about it more critically, Sakurai is correct that there really isn't many more characters you can fit into the game between ~70 characters and 50 assist trophies. Rayman, Goku, Crash, Banjo+Kazooie, and Halo are about the only ones conceivable from other franchises. Maybe more, but I'd have to google it. They even managed to fit Ridley in there!
It looks like the final smashes are going to be much shorter, which is good for some characters (Fox and Falco) and bad for others (Pikachu, Pac Man, etc.)
Smash is a great series, probably the best in video game history to be honest, however, there are 2 major flaws I had with Smash 4 I am hoping get resolved in Smash Ultimate:
1: Stages: Many play Smash for it's competitive nature, but some of us enjoy the laid back style of fun Smash brings us. Almost all the stages in Smash 4 were flat stages whose only difference was the title, music, and background. It's boring playing on a flat stage with 2 mini-platforms in different locations each time. Honestly there being 2 Smashvilles on the Wii U version was a huge insult considering all the other former stages they had made in Brawl, Melee, etc. that were better, or using one of the different series of games they have made to base a stage off of! I liked the inclusion of more Melee, Brawl, and even 64 stages, but from the Treehouse recap the game looks very barren stage wise. Hoping they didn't blow all their data on characters.
**Update** Only 20 out of all the stages in 64, Melee, Brawl, and Smash 4 didn't make it. About 5 were 64 stages (replaced by upgraded Melee stages) and a lot of them that were taken out were smash 4 stages. Hype! Only 2 I cared about that didn't make it were Mute City (both 3DS and Melee) and Pirate Ship (Brawl).
2: Story mode: Between Adventure Mode + Subspace Emissary vs Smash tour, it's no contest. Those are two modes I feel added another level to the Smash series. Without it there isn't as much fun playing single player. The Switch itself can build strong games upon it (BotW and Odyssey) however, I'm not sure if it has enough data to run a story/adventure mode, and thats something I would love to see return to a Smash game.
In conclusion, there are two very different angles you can grade Nintendo's presentation from. If I was to grade this as a Smash direct, this would easily be an A. I thought the game looked amazing, and as a fan I am very content I will be getting the game sometime in 2018. However, this wasn't a direct, it was an E3 presentation. While I think Nintendo did an amazing job with Smash, I feel like they sunk all their capital into it. This is blasphemy, but IMO with KH3 looking just as good as Smash, I don't think Smash had as great an impact as it would have in another E3. Not just that, the other games announced were more just filler. Xbox had Halo and Fortza to go along with KH3, and Sony was the same showcasing Spiderman and a variety of other cinematic titles. Nintendo had some weird mech game and Mario Party presented like some corny 7th grade school presentation. It was rumored other games like F-Zero and Star Fox were in the works (AC had no reliable references to show Nintendo would have made a game for switch) and we didn't even get to see a clip from Metroid Prime 4! As an E3 presentation, I'm going to have to sadly grade Nintendo's as an underwhelming C+. I loved Smash, and I'm walking away from an hour long event just loving Smash.
Winner of E3: Sony
In my mind, if you took out all the presentations and such and just focused on the games that are coming out for that one company, I think Sony did the best game creation wise. Nintendo only had Smash, and after Halo Xbox didn't show anything new that stood out, just a bunch of shooters and zombie games that blended together. If you factored in the poop fest that was Sony's actual presentation, then I would have to give it to Xbox.
My main issue with the direct was that they really didn't have anything else planned except Smash. Heck, most of the games were briefly glanced over except for Mario Party and some weird mech game. With KH3 debuting Smash isn't going to have as big of an impact as it once would. So... it seems like a barren E3 from Nintendo. I get that we probably weren't going to get an Animal Crossing, F-Zero, or Starfox... but one supporting big title game to go along with smash would have been epic! My guess would have been Metroid 4 but that didn't happen.