Bonus Content: My thoughts on the Nintendo Switch event

          

          After months and months of speculation and rumours, Nintendo has finally pulled back the curtain on the Nintendo Switch, as well as some of its lineup for the year. Held at a press conference in Tokyo, the event featured familiar faces such as Kimishima, Miyamoto, Aonuma and Reggie.

          So, the Switch. Did it hold up to the lofty standards set by the initial trailer? For the most part, yes! But there were a few rough patches, mostly in the first half of the conference.

          First things first, the Switch is launched March 3rd, with a suggested retail price of $299 American. This is frankly what I was expecting, but it’s coming out much earlier than I thought it would. To me that says I have literally 3 days to finish Horizon Zero Dawn before this shows up at my door.

          It was then announced that Nintendo is finally putting an end to their notorious region-locking, which is frankly a long time coming. But then they announced something else: their online connectivity will be a paid service from now on. They didn’t specify whether it would be a onetime thing or a subscription service (but for Nintendo’s sake I hope it’s not the latter), but considering Nintendo’s less than stellar online performance in most games, I hope this means a turn for the better.

          Next, Nintendo began showing off the Joycon controllers, and wow have they ever packed in a lot to these tiny little things. At their core they are basically small Wiimotes, complete with motion controls, but they also feature interesting new Rumble Packs that change depending on what the controller is currently doing in-game, Kinect-style motion sensors, an amiibo scanner inside one of the control sticks, and more, in addition to the already neat feature of clicking in and out of the standard controller.

          But console specs and controllers don’t matter if you have no games, so Nintendo began to show off what the system will have to offer. We started with 1, 2, Switch, a WarioWare style party game that seemed to involve mostly waggling Wiimotes. It seemed more like this system’s equivalent to Wii Sports or Nintendo Land, just being more or less a tech demo.

          We then segued into our next game, ARMS. Already the winner of the award for least creative title of the year, ARMS sees you and a friend playing as superhero dudes with extendable arms, and your objective is to punch the other one out by using the Joycon motion controls. It looked interesting, albeit pretty gimmicky. I can see it being fun at a family party in the same vein as Wii Sports Boxing.

          We then moved onto new installments in old series, including Splatoon 2 and Super Mario Odyssey. Splatoon looks to be extremely similar to the original game from 2015, but with all new weapons and stages, as well as a new story set 2 years after the original game. I love me some more squid kids, so I’m looking forward to this game come summer.

          Super Mario Odyssey on the other hand looks to be extremely different from past Mario games, being more open world based. In this game, Mario is jumping back and forth from the Mushroom Kingdom to what looks like the real world, trying to stop Bowser and Peach’s wedding. I’m really excited to see what the developers will do with Mario’s platforming in a realistic city setting, and the small tidbits we’ve already seen look very interesting. Plus, Mario’s hat is alive now. We don’t know why, it just is.

          Some other games teased were Xenoblade 2, a Fire Emblem-themed take on the Warriors franchise, and even No More Heroes 3. Also, while it wasn’t presented at the show, we are also seeing the release of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe in April, but as of right now it just seems like Mario Kart 8 again with some Splatoon DLC added on. Hopefully it’ll have more features later on, but for now I’m not too interested.

          The conference ended with a visit to the Nintendo World store, where Reggie, Miyamoto and Aonuma were all gathered to tease us about the release date for Zelda: Breath of the Wild. None of them claimed to know the date, so they sent it back to Kimishima in Tokyo, who launched a story based trailer for the game. Looking at this it seems like all the major cutscenes will feature voice acting, and the in-game dialogue will be the standard Zelda text boxes. It’s an interesting marriage of the two styles, reminding me somewhat of Kingdom Hearts.

          Breath of the Wild will launch alongside the Switch on March 3, which is a good thing, because as of right now it’s the only confirmed launch game alongside 1, 2, Switch. I’m sure there’ll be something else (like an EA Sports title or something), but it’s clear that Nintendo knew they had to have it right away. Here’s hoping it’s good.

          While I am disappointed that the Switch is relying on motion controls and gimmicks more than the initial trailer conveyed, the games we saw were enough to keep me interested in the console, ARMS seems like it might be fun, and of course Splatoon, Mario and Zelda all look to be evolutions of the series. I’ve got my pre-order down (knowing Nintendo’s past misadventures in supply and demand I’d recommend you get one too if you’re interested in the Switch), and I’m hotly looking forward to March 3.