Well, first off, I loved the humour in this year's E3 presentation. This year, they fully took advantage of the idea behind having a filmed digital event by putting in interviews and entertainment and really putting their own stamp on the message. With the way it began with the Robot Chicken E3 and then the Reggie/Iwata battle, it seemed Nintendo had gone full on crazy and was ready to become an instant meme generator. Just the way they seemed to be responding to complaints like the man in the crowd complaining that they were going to show another Mario game was awesome. It seemed like Nintendo knew what people were saying about them and were getting ready to fire back.
I laughed when the NFC, I mean, amiiba, was shown being used in Smash. Everyone's fears had come true. All in all, nothing really mindblowing came off it. There do seem to be a lot of different game modes shown in the 3DS clip and it is looking like a pretty deep experience.
I was wondering if the Toad Treasure Hunter was going to be an E-Shop release but maybe it designed to be in the same vein Luigi U.
Yarn Yoshi was definitely a highlight although it looks to be very close to a Yoshi Island game just in yarn. I could see flowers being discovered and wonder if it will follow the same path of collecting stars, red coins and flowers to 100% levels. The levels look pretty traditional of Yoshi design. Hopefully, there is still a lot more imaginitive stuff like in Kirby's Epic Yarn. I enjoyed just watching the videos play of it, it looks so nice.
Kirby! This was also a surprise. I made a comment in chat how it's funny that Canvas Curse was one of the first big DS games that was considered a must own for the system and really helped show the creative new ways games could be designed with it. And now they are using it to try and sell the Wii U. Still, I like the claymation look they've taken it and I look forward to playing it. It's not the 3D Kirby game I'd like to see most right now for the series but I look forward to seeing what comes from revisting the Canvas Curse world and what Rainbow Curse can do.
Pokemon was Pokemon. Nothing to report there.
Zelda is clearly still in a lot of development considering how little they showed. The look of it was pretty nice up until Link's reveal. Then is just seemed a bit too, I don't know, bright, flared, toonish? But it's early so I'm not going to get up in arms with it. Hyrule Warriors didn't show anything to really impress me more about the game after the recent news about it a month ago got my interest level in it piqued a bit. It was nice to see Zelda and Midna revealed as playable characters. Hopefully there are more reveals to come.
Nothing really new on the Bayonetta front although I did like the fact that the first game was also getting bundled with the sequel. For once, a Wii U game is getting the complete package unlike say releasing Mass Effect 3 only when no other Mass Effect games have appeared on a Nintendo system and the releasing the complete trilogy on other systems. The addition of Nintendo costumes is the same old ploy of hoping Nintendo fans will jump into purchasing the game. Does that work?
Xenoblade actually failed to impress me for once. I know, sacrilege. But at first, the blue computer screen made me think of Metroid Prime. Then I realized it was X but it was just about cutscense and random character dialogue that gave me no further idea as to what the game will be like or what the story is all about. I'd have prefered more ingame action. Plus, it didn't seem as visually impressive to me as other games being shown or by the impression it gave last year when it debuted.
Mario Maker I sort of missed out since I wasn't interested in it and used that time to type some chat responses.
Splatoon was interesting. At first, it seemed as if Nintendo might actually be doing a Mario Paintball game after all but then it was revealed to be a new IP. It's interesting and it's taking me some time to wrap my head around it. It definitely seems like I something I need to try to fully understand it but I applaud the originality.
All in all, I enjoyed how Nintendo handled the digital event this year and the evergrowing focus of showing the developers behind the games. I do think they still held back. For instance, with the last Robot Chicken sketch, the one guy in the crowd asks about Star Fox and they kill him but then they never do show Star Fox even though the game is in development. Kind of odd. Oh well, I think Nintendo wants to keep making announcements throughout E3 to keep them at the forefront of the E3 news cycle.
What did you think?