We finally got a new proper, full length Nintendo Direct after a drought of over 500 days. If we weren’t pineing for a Zelda Anniversary Collection and Pokémon Diamond and Pearl remakes that have kept the rumour mill spinning in recent months, we wouldn’t be disappointed. I’ll get the disappointment out of the way first. Zelda wasn’t absent but the remake collection for it and Pokémon were.

These are the highlights for me from Thursday’s Nintendo Direct:

The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword HD

We’ve been hearing about this happening for awhile but truthfully I didn’t think it would happen until the Wii U remasters got the Switch port treatment. This was a wonderful instalment released late into the life cycle of the original Wii and follows Link and Zelda as many traditions that would define and haunt Hyrule are established. It was also a great implementation of the Wii Motion Plus motion controls. They worked really well and you really felt that you were Link as you used your weapons to defeat enemies.

Look forward to my dedicated post on this and the upcoming Zelda Anniversary later in the week.

Legend of Mana Remaster

I wasn’t expecting this but then again, maybe I should have. Secret of Mana and Trials of Mana were recently remade to huge success and now the treatment is being given to the PlayStation instalment. This was a game I had missed back when I was playing through PlayStation 1 RPGs, so I am looking forward to experiencing the forth console installment in the Mana series for the first time.

Saga Frontier

Announced awhile back along with Scarlet Graces which has since been released, this finally got a release date. I am really enjoying Square-Enix porting all their RPGs to modern platforms. It would be nice if the Dragon Quest 4-6 remakes would make their way to other platforms

  • currently they are locked to the original DS and mobiles.

The release date is April 15, 2021.

Mario Golf Super Rush

A golf game! I haven’t played a recent Mario Golf but the N64 Iteration and the original NES golf were amazing fun. I am not really into sports games but a Mario Golf game can only mean a good time. It looks like it supports either button controls of the classic console games or the motion controls like in Wii Sports. We don’t have long to wait either - its coming June 25th.

Pyra Smash DLC

When the Direct lead with this, I thought we were in for another game set in the world of Xenoblade 2. It turns out it was just Smash Brothers DLC.

Xenoblade represent! The protagonist’s sword from Xenoblade 2, Pyra, is coming to Smash Brothers Ultimate as a playable character along with her other form, Mythra. We have a lot of swords people already in Smash but it’s nice to have more Xenoblade in Smash.

No More Heroes 3 Release Date

Travis back and this time against aliens. I can’t really say more then that since I haven’t played the first three games. The series debuted on the Nintendo Wii and made heavy use of motion controls. It follow’s Travis Touchdown as he works his way up the ranks to the top assassin.

It’s coming out August 27.

Famicom Detective Club

This appears to be a remake of two visual novels that were originally released on the Nintendo Famicom Disk System. Everything appears to be moved up to the standard of what you would expect from a modern visual novel, and has you solving two separate mysteries. One in each visual novel

Project Triangle Strategy

The best non-Zelda surprise out of the Direct. Square-Enix is making a turn-based strategy tactics game for the Nintendo Switch. We haven’t had a Final Fantasy Tactics game in a long time, and this is probably as close as we are going to get. Given how their recent non-Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest RPGs have turned out, overall pretty good (Project Setsuna, Oniaki) to amazing (Octopath Traveller), I think we can expect great things.

There’s even a demo out on the Nintendo eShop.