E3 2017 Was When Nintendo Heard The Fans
- Dav!
- Jun 27, 2017
- 5 min read
Aaaaand that's a wrap! E3 is done, Christmas is over. Twitch streams are winding down, Time to wank to the thought that Metroid Prime 4 is really really really real.
First, a round-up of all the other shows. E3 as a whole this year was a little on the slim side on all fronts. EA had a grand total of 1 interesting games we didn't expect, A Way Out, though that is statistically above the average compared to last year. Microsoft brought a ton of games which is good, but there were caveats - Of course, the Xbox One X is a dud considering you can play the same games on a similarly-priced PC. But I want to point out that some of the games they showed have been at their past E3s for YEARS - Sea of Thieves was shown in 2015, it's been three years since Cuphead's first E3 showing - same with Crackdown 3.
Similarly slim was Sony's conference, with the most exciting reveal for me being what I thought was Shadow of The Colossus - only to find it was a remake of the game that has already been remastered, and is actually already playable on PS4 via the PS Now streaming service. As for Ubisoft? Though the sequels to The Crew and Beyond Good & Evil look awesome, I won't play most of what they showed. Mario + Rabbids actually looks better than feared, though the thought of Mario flanking for cover in an XCOM clone is sacrilegious. Oh yeah, there's also Bethesda. Their E3 was actually pretty good. Paid Mod scares aside, the Evil Within, the new Dishonored and Wolfenstein II seem good, and they made me think that bigging up six-year-old Skyrim on Nintendo Switch was exciting as opposed to ludicrous.
As a Nintendo fan, I watched those reveals from afar. They interested me, but I hardly wanted any of the games shown badly enough that I'd change formats (though the PS4 is increasingly tempting). What I was really hoping was that I would see the Nintendo Switch go from Awkwardly Launched System, to Killer Gaming Machine, the portable to end all portables. Since E3 2014 - Nintendo's greatest E3 of recent memory - they had been on a downward slope right up until the end of 2016 - the worst year to be a Nintendo fan. With Switch, everything changed. Despite the weird and wacky wonders of the Joy-Con, it showed that Nintendo is no longer interested in reinventing the wheel ten times over. It wants to evolve gaming. It's making its games for the gamers, for the fans.
I know which game you're waiting for me to talk about but I'm saving the best for last.
Nintendo's E3 rocked. I won't say they "won" it, but they provided new updates on hotly anticipated games and revealed new ones to get WOOOOOing over; there wasn't a game that I outright hated. What's important is that they had a game for every type of gamer - Xenoblade 2 will yoink another hundred-odd hours from our lives, Pokkén Tournament will give us the opportunity to practice our fighting skills at a buddy's house, and Fire Emblem Warriors will surely be another piece of top-notch fan service in a series that thrives on it. Oh, and Rocket League! And cross-platform online play! And A new Pokémon switch game! And Yoshi and kirby, for whoever wants them...While these games won't appeal to everybody, there is at least one game to cause the heart of every Nintendo fan in the land to start racing.
Even though some of those games may have been seen from a mile off, they're still games that show that Nintendo is making games for its fans, not for their grandparents. Cast your mind back to 2013, when the Wii U had just launched. How many Wii U games can you say were squarely aimed at the 'Core' (bleurgh) gamers that year? I don't bloody know - all I remember was Nintendo Land, Sing Party, Wii Party U, and the strange insistence that every game had to have tilt controls and asymmetrical multiplayer. Those days are gone. Now we're getting the Warriors game we wanted, the fighter we wanted to take on the go, and the gigantic Monolithsoft game we thought we'd be waiting ages to play. It feels like Nintendo doesn't have anything to prove anymore. We can expect Nintendo Directs to have something to please us, rather than hope and pray we spent our hard-earned cash on the right console.
Nintendo also has the unfortunate habit of listening to the fans with only one ear. It seemingly wants to reinvent the wheel at every turn; they'd make you play games with a dildo so long as it hadn't been done before. That doesn't always work out. Star Fox Zero was a bad compromise between Nintendo answering fan expectations and its own obsession with courting innovation, regardless of whether their direction is necessarily better than the norm. Remember Shin Megami Tensei X Fire Emblem? Well I sure don't, I only remember this weird bubblegum J-Pop RPG that bastardised the initial concept, then proceeded to get bastardised further with obscenely prudish censorship! Remember that co-op chibi Metroid Prime we got a while back? Unfortunately, we all do. Nintendo's insistence on doing the unexpected has led us to disappointment as many times as it has has us WOOOOOing out of our seats at every E3. But just because it does the unexpected doesn't mean it doesn't give fans what they want.
So we've established that Nintendo is making games for the gamers. But that isn't the same as making games for the fans.
You know where I'm going with this, right?
Even with the Switch's various bells and whistles, they all serve the sole purpose of allowing users to play Traditional home console games. with the Switch, Nintendo listened to the gamers and the fans. And it seems to be a trend that could very well continue, if you-know-what is any indication.
It was a pitch black expanse, illuminated by a blue glow that meant nothing at first. Ideas were spinning in my head of what this game could be. Then the glow took shape. As though the video knew what I was thinking, it formed an S-like shape, often associated with a certain female bounty hunter. It still couldn't be true. it was probably going to be another disappointment, another Federation Force, or even a dating simulator. Darkness filled the screen again - a solid black that signified the next great revelation - '4'. I could no longer deny the truth. And that made me feel so happy.
Metroid Prime 4 is coming to Nintendo Switch.
The idea that Nintendo would listen to its fans' most heartfelt plea was as shocking as it was exciting. It's a sign that Nintendo is serious about its comeback. The logical step was the unexpected one, and that shows through both in Prime 4 and its 2D companion, Samus Returns, being developed by MercurySteam, who developed a brilliant Castlevania: Lords of Shadow game for 3DS. Both will surely be kickass games, brimming with exploration, isolation and intrigue that the series at its height was best known for.
Now is the time to be a Nintendo fan.
FINAL NOTE: You might have noticed I managed to go type out this entire thing without saying the words "Super", "Mario", and "Odyssey". And yes, Super Mario Odyssey, looks amazing, but we were guaranteed to get a cool new 3D Mario, weren't we? Something like Metroid isn't a top franchise. While Mario has that mass-market appeal, it's the presence of smaller franchises, such as Xenoblade and Fire Emblem, and the emphasis on competitive games like Pokkén and Rocket League, that show that Nintendo is making games for you - not your kid brother, not your granny, you, the gamer.
Comments