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Nintendo's first 2024 Direct has just arrived, and even though it's a Partner Showcase and not 1st party, it comes with it's own set of reveals and announcements.

Let's begin with the Direct:

• Grounded, a game where a bunch of characters are reduced to a minuscule size and must work together to survive in day-to-day stages, like backyards. Coming April 16th
• Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, players take control of a character named Lilac, in a world that has come to a demise when the world's magic became corrupted, battling creatures known as homunculus, which upon defeat can join the player. Coming 2024
• Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure, a puzzle game where the player moves in grids to traverse the world and dungeons.Coming this summer.
• Unicorn Overlord, a strategy game that sees a young prince fights alongside five nations to liberate the world from an Empire's dominion. Coming March 8th, with a demo available today.
• Monster Hunter Stories, originally released on the Nintendo 3DS returns in a fully fledged HD remaster, with full voice acting, to re-experience this 3DS turn-based RPG with brand new graphics. Coming this summer.
• Epic Mickey Rebrushed, a remake of the original Epic Mickey released back in the Wii days, which sees Mickey using a magic paintbrush to escape from a magical wasteland of rejected and forgotten characters. Coming 2024.
• Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance, a "definitive edition" for the 5th installment beloved RPG series, with a brand new storyline, new demons and locations. Coming June 21st, 2024.
• Star Wars Battlefront Classic Collection, a package that includes the original 2000s Battlefront and Battlefront II games from the Star Wars franchise, with the ability to play with up to 64 players online, with brand new playable characters like Kit Fisto and new maps. Coming March 14th, with preorders starting today. This collection will come to other platforms as well, like Steam and Xbox.
• South Park: Snow Day!, an action game from the South Park franchise, with options to customize your character to join the main cast, and play online co-op in the snow-filled streets of the town. Coming March 26th.
• Sword Art Online Fractured Daydream, a new entry in the Sword Art Online series, where the virtual world has gone haywire and past and present collided. Save the world in a single player story or battle online with up to 20 players. Coming 2024.
• Gundam Breaker 4, choose from over 250+ base kits to customize your own mobile suit known as Gunpla, to then use in a variety of combat missions against enemies and acquire new parts to create the ultimate Gunpla. Coming 2024.
• Super Monkey Ball Banana Rumble, a brand new entry in the Super Monkey Ball series after a decade, with over 200 stages and optional motion controls, being able to blast through obstacles or make your own shortcuts to get to the goal, with 4 player local coop or up 16 players online in either Race Mode, Banana Hunt, Robot Smash and more. Coming June 25th, 2024, exclusively on Switch at the moment.
• World of Goo 2, a sequel to the physics-based puzzle cult classic indie title released more than 15 years ago on the Wii. Coming May 23rd as console exclusive to the Switch.
• Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, a new entry in the Fantasy Life series, travel to the past to restore an isolated and wasteland island into its former glory, and choose between different "lives" to make certain tasks, and up to 4 players can play online. Coming October 10th, 2024.
• Another Crab's Treasure, travel the depths of a polluted sea in a "souls-like" adventure, taking control of a crab that can use a whole variety of things as protection, like cups and cans, to survive and use shells that grant special abilities. Coming April 25th, 2024.
• Penny's Big Breakaway, play as Penny and her yo-yo in this exciting 3D platformer, from the creators of Sonic Mania. Perform tricks and transformations to get through the different ordeals you stumble upon. Coming out today.
• Suika Game Multi-player mode Expansion Pack, a paid DLC for Suika, where players can choose between the original gameplay, Time Limit or Attack modes. The DLC is available today, as well as the original game with the DLC in a bundle.
• Pepper Grinder, an action platformer where you can dig and travel through terrain, pulverizing enemies in the way. Coming March 28th, with a demo available today.
• Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!, a remastered version of the Pocket Card Jockey, where you breed horses and use cards to power up the horses in races. Coming out today.
• A quick glimpse of other titles coming to the Switch is shown:
  • Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley (March 7th)
  • Tales of Kenzera: ZAU (April 23rd)
  • Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- Sweep the Board! (April 26th)
  • Kingdom Come Deliverance – Royal Edition (March 15th)
  • Contra: Operation Galuga, a remake of the original NES Contra coming March 12th
  • Pentiment (February 22nd).
• More titles are coming for Nintendo Switch Online based on Rare's IPs:
  • Battletoads in Battlemaniacs (SNES)
  • Killer Instinct (SNES)
  • Blast Corps (N64)
  • Snake Rattle N' Roll (NES)
  • R.C. Pro-Am
• Endless Ocean Luminous, explore incredible undersea regions with up to 30 players online to plunge into the depths together, with over 500 species of marine life to encounter, including near-extinct and mythical creatures. Coming May 2nd, pre-orders available now.

And that's a wrap! What did you think of this Partner Direct?
Share your thoughts in the comments, while we look forward to the next main Nintendo Direct and Metroid Prime 4's proper announcement.

PS: Additionally, it seems like Nintendo Switch Online for Japan will be getting Mother 3, but as always, only exclusive to Japan.

 

[AkiraKurusu]

Not one thing I'm interested in; it's all a bunch of crap.

 

[Ettino]

Why though?

Because Nintendo.

 

[Ryab]

Why though?

There is a great video explaining the problem. But a simplified explanation is due to parody laws. The soundtrack of the game would need to be overhauled to be legally released.

 

[Hayato213]

Only thing to draw some interest for me is Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance.

 

[shaunj66]

Instantly bought Penny's Big Breakaway on PS5 without hesitation knowing Evening Star are behind it. Played a few levels and it's really quite interesting, not as fast paced as I imagined but the controls are really unique. I feel a steep learning curve on this one. Music is amazing so far too but a bit repetitive. Runs buttery smooth on PS5 too at VRR 120fps.

 

[The Catboy]

There is a great video explaining the problem. But a simplified explanation is due to parody laws. The soundtrack of the game would need to be overhauled to be legally released.

I hate everything

 

[DJPlace]

shit that contra game is coming out faster then i thought. i hope it's online and comes out on the PS5 the same day.

 

[jesus96]

Man that direct sucked for me the only interesting stuff was SMT V glad other platforms are getting this game already and glad the switch doesn't skip the extra content

 

[cvskid]

Epic mickey and Star wars battlefront collection for me. For epic mickey i would have just made a collection of all 3 epic mickey games and put it on every system and pc.

 

[esqnice]

Please take my money...

 

[Ampersound]

Lmfao this direct had nothing interesting to me... Not even the new Monkey Ball was interesting considering what they've done to Banana Blitz HD and Banana Mania.

oh yeah and the mother 3 being Japan esclusive

Banana Mania was alright though.
Just the camera controls were too sluggish for me.

 

[Marc_LFD]

Not bad, not great. :/

 

[dragonblood9999]

I really enjoyed Fantasy Life 1 so I'm interested in 2. Also interested in Gundam Breaker 4, hopefully it's better than New Gundam Breaker. That game was extremely grindy and I mean extremely grindy

 

[DTApple]

I've been waiting, and I mean waiting, for news about Fantasy Life i! And now we've finally got a release date? Along with Battlefront Collection?? This was great!

 

[Ryab]

I hate everything

Understandable.

 

[spotanjo3]

oh my GOD

View attachment 421457

YOU ARE STICK

Very funny.

 

[VashTS]

So the dolphin comment was about endless ocean. Lame

 

[Spectremint]

The Japanese lineup was also pretty good, which included a few games of its own, aside from the elephant in the room (Mother 3):

• The New Denpa Men FREE, the fifth entry in the flagship franchise of Genius Sonority, developers of Pokémon XD/Colosseum; the most recent entry was released over 5 years ago as a mobile game, and before that, the third game on the 3DS eShop
• Hori is making a game (!?) about learning the guitar using the weirdest looking controller imaginable, which docks the right Joy-Con into it and uses the IR camera to strum fake strings with a fake guitar pick
• a remaster of the DS game Retro Game Challenge (based off popular Japanese show GameCenter CX), as well as its Japanese sequel
• Hokkaido Rensa Satsujin: Okhotsk ni Kiyu, a remake of a visual novel by Yuji Horii of Dragon Quest fame
• ALL of the 3DS Picross games by Jupiter that disappeared with the closure of the eShop are being re-released on Switch in one package called Picross S+ for about $5-10 (with DLC), over 1,350 puzzles in all (!!)
• Reynatis, an action RPG by Natsume with music done by Yoko Shimomura and story/script by Kazushige Nojima
• Winning Post 10 2024, a new entry in Koei's horse racing series
• A brand new expansion for the still Japanese exclusive Dragon Quest X
• Powerful Pro Baseball 2024-2025, the next entry in Konami's awesome baseball franchise
• Another Fitness Boxing entry, but now with vocaloids instead of licensed anime characters

I personally think Japan got a really good line up of games. I may be biased because I'm super excited about the fact we're getting a new Denpa Men game after what feels like forever, but Japan got some pretty good stuff here.
Side note, it seems that Epic Mickey is pretty popular over there too; last I recall, the trailer was the fourth most watched of the bunch, with everything above it being Japanese exclusive titles

Post automatically merged: Feb 21, 2024

So the dolphin comment was about endless ocean. Lame

Endless Ocean is actually a pretty good series from what I've heard. It's developed by Arika, the guys who are most famous for making puzzle games (especially Tetris games, such as Tetris 99 and Tetris: The Grand Master), and the first two games on Wii got pretty respectable reviews (especially the second one). It makes sense why Nintendo would focus on it as the big game of the Direct, especially since they're also publishing it. It's as close to a first party title as the presentation got.

 

[TheDerpyDolphin]

Nothing too exciting here for me, but that’s exactly what I expect with these Partner Showcases. Everything that did interest me I already have on other systems, or I’ll acquire later when I eventually hack my Switch but isn’t worth getting now.

 

[Spectremint]

Oh, and! (sorry for the multiple posts)
I completely forgot that Shin Megami Tensei V: Vengeance was announced for other platforms! I always felt from game play I saw that the game was pushing the limits of the Switch's processing capabilities, so seeing it come to other platforms is great news! Also, kudos to Atlus for still releasing games for PlayStation 4 and ESPECIALLY Xbox One, that console's AAA releases are basically living off Sega/Atlus at this point, lol. PS4 definitely still deserves to have new games being made for it.

Two things I don't like, however:
1. No save data transfer, only transfer of certain demons. I'm pretty sure this is similar to what Persona 5 did when the Royal version came out, and while I have no first hand experience with Atlus' "better versions" of games coming from the previous versions, it must suck for those who played through or even 100%'d the original SMTV.
2. Minor nitpick, but why is this not called Shin Megami Tensei Vengeance?! That name absolutely rocks and still keeps the meaning of the initial name.