Topic: E3 2019 Thread

[Dasmos]

Zelda BotW sequel.  Not excited.  I got real TP vibes from it which made it very disappointing to see Blue Link and Zelda.  At the very least I hope they improve some of the pain points from the first game.

Jeez , what a sad reaction.  Luckily I'd wager you're in the extreme minority. I absolutely did not expect to see the next Zelda so soon and I am beyond excited.

[Adrock]

At the very least I hope they improve some of the pain points from the first game.

What didn’t you like?

I’m more disappointed Nintendo even mentioned it and with a cutscene (not gameplay) to boot. If it doesn’t launch next year at the latest (doubt it will), I don’t need to know. Nintendo’s history of delaying console Zelda games is well known. Wii U was dragging itself around when Nintendo dropped Breath of the Wild footage. Switch is doing extremely well. Does Nintendo need the boost? Ending with Banjo-Kazooie in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate would have been perfect.

I got the impression that maybe Zelda travels with Link, but I have a feeling she gets fridged or otherwise incapacitated/kidnapped right after that scene because Nintendo. Also, I wonder if the game takes places entirely or partially in Hyrule. One of my low-key favorite things about Breath of the Wild was seeing inaccessible lands in the distance. What’s that about? I was hoping a sequel would address that.

Edit: what if that monster/villain Zelda and Link presumably awaken is so powerful that it changes the entire landscape of Hyrule with magic or some other such macguffin? That would be an interesting way to make Hyrule feel new. I’d still like to see outside of Hyrule.

[broodwars]

Well, Nintendo certainly dropped the mic with this Direct. They even teased that they might make a Zelda game that doesn't suck this time. 

Looking forward to watching the Direct proper when I get home from work tonight. At least one company bothered to show up for E3 this year...

[ThePerm]

The Zelda trailer had an Eternal Darkness vibe. For a second I thought it might be an Eternal Darkness trailer, but eh it would be a dead franchise if Nintendo didn't keep renewing the trademarks.

[ShyGuy]

Nitnendo SAVED E3!

[Adrock]

I guess because Nintendo is in the middle of its own generation while Sony and Microsoft are gearing up for new hardware. I wonder how Nintendo approaches hardware from now on. Iwata mentioned iOS/Android way back when. Will  each new hardware be iterative like yearly phone updates? Or will there be a straight up successor (likely backwards compatible)? In a couple years, we may get the reverse with Sony and Microsoft having amazing showings and Nintendo with that one Kirby game marking the end of life for Switch while everything else is held back for new hardware.

[broodwars]

I guess because Nintendo is in the middle of its own generation while Sony and Microsoft are gearing up for new hardware. I wonder how Nintendo approaches hardware from now on. Iwata mentioned iOS/Android way back when. Will  each new hardware be iterative like yearly phone updates? Or will there be a straight up successor (likely backwards compatible)? In a couple years, we may get the reverse with Sony and Microsoft having amazing showings and Nintendo with that one Kirby game marking the end of life for Switch while everything else is held back for new hardware.

Honestly, that's pretty much what we got from Nintendo last year, where it was just 40 minutes of Smash because they had nothing else.

[Mop it up]

It's time to make a quick roundup of what looks good to me.

Definitely getting at some point:

Contra Rogue Corps.
This was definitely a pleasant surprise, and looks like a fun co-op game.

Dragon Quest XI S
DQ is like the comfort food of RPGs, I guess that's why I keep buying into these. This looks like it should be one of the best DQs.

Dragon Quest Builders 2
I tried the demo for the first one and liked what I saw, but I didn't get around to buying it since the game felt kind of lonely. This sequel fixes that with co-op, so I'm all there!

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remaster
I was always curious about this game on the GameCube but never played it due to the requirements. I'm always up for some co-op so this one's a go.

Luigi's Mansion 3
LM2 is my fave 3DS game, so you bet I'm here. The new forms of interactions look great and the Scarescraper / Thrill Tower seems even better.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy
I was really hoping this would release on Switch. There's a lack of 3D platformers and I've never played these before, so I'm looking forward to trying them.

Super Mario Maker 2
Obvs.

Am curious to learn more before deciding:

Animal Crossing New Horizons
I'm not very into these games myself, but they can be a nice place to hang out and relax with friends.

Cadance of Hyrule
I didn't know anything about the game this is based on, but the rhythm gameplay could be interesting. Something about the style turns me away, though...

Fire Emblem Three Houses
The productions values of this look impressive, but I still have several FE games I haven't played yet. I'll probably still grab this at some point, but long after launch.

Mario and Sonic at the Tokyo Olympics
I dare say the trailer made this look good, but looks can be deceiving, Mr. Bond.

Minecraft Dungeons
A Diablo game with no blood and gore? Defo interested in that! But first I'd like to know how much there is to the game.

Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
I remember being interested in this when it hit PS3 but I've since forgotten about it. If there's too much grinding involved though then I'll probably pass.

Pokémon Sword or Shield
I've played a lot of these games, not sure if I still want more, but the community aspects might draw me in.

Zelda Link's Awakening
I'm still not sold on this remake especially if it carries the $60 price tag. I don't have a problem with the original as it stands, though the new dungeon making things seems neat. I'll see if there's anything else new to the game.

A sequel to Zelda BotW
If the first one was a good learning experience for Nintendo then this could be something spectacular. I'd really like to see some co-op added but that's probably just wishful thinking.

There may be a few other things I could move to the curiosity pile if I researched some more.

[Stratos]

I'm excited to try Witcher 3 and the Aliens game.

[ShyGuy]

I just realized I don't have enough time or budget to play all the Switch games I want to play this year... You should have delayed more Nintendo!

[Order.RSS]

Nintendo had a good show, not great though maybe? I think a few more surprises would have been nice, but there were a couple of things I certainly wouldn't have expected.

Surprises:
-If you told me someone was making a Dark Crystal strategy RPG, I wouldn't have believed you. Feels like something from another timeline. Will keep an eye on this.
-Switcher III Wild Hunt, I didn't believe that was possible on Switch. This game has gotten a lot of praise, I'll look into it now. Same goes for Alien Isolation.
-Nobody told me someone was remaking the original Panzer Dragoon!!! I hope Zwei, and especially Saga get remakes too.
-Seeing Settlers of Catan announced made me think eJamer would be happy.
-Minecraft Dungeons sounds like it'll make boatloads of cash. For some reason I thought this would've only been on Xbox.
-Zelda BOTW sequel, just pump it into my veins. Can't wait to see what they do here, adding caves is a good start.
-That topdown 1920's mafia game had a good tune playing.
-I don't know anything about The Sinking City but it piqued my interest.

Other observations:
-The Smash trailer at the end was hilarious. It's amazing how they mine King K Rool out of all characters for so much comedy in these short trailers.
-Astral Chain looks, well, off the chain. This might have sold me on getting a Switch.
-Still not a lot of gameplay footage for Daemon X Machina on show. Ditto for Fire Emblem, bit worrying imo.
-I like the direction of Luigi's Mansion 3 with the haunted hotel, Shining style. There was a ghost you could find in the hotel of Hitman: Contracts back in the day which I always thought was neat and creepy. That said, I'm not really sold on this one. It looked a bit Toad's Treasure Tracker to me with small, detailed puzzle rooms.

Overall: Definitely still interested in Astral Chain, and Daemon X Machina too. Witcher 3 and Panzer Dragoon are ports I'd probably get. Also curious what they do with Dark Crystal, I like the movie.

I think Nintendo had one of the stronger presentations of this year's E3, but to be honest the competition wasn't super fierce. Maybe knowing so much about their output already kinda made it seem a bit subdued for me.
Had a great time with everyone on the Discord chatting though, really fun time to be a Nintendo fan.

[Shorty McNostril]

Jeez , what a sad reaction.  Luckily I'd wager you're in the extreme minority. I absolutely did not expect to see the next Zelda so soon and I am beyond excited.

What can I say? BotW turned out to just be not for me.  Let me preface this with saying that Twilight Princess is my favourite game of all time.  I have a love and respect for the Zelda series.  I even bought the Collector's Edition of BotW.  I was all in to love it, but it just didn't happen. 

I actually think what made the reveal disappointing to me was because it had a really strong TP feel to it at the start of the trailer.  I was actually thinking are we going to see a TP sequel.  Then I saw blue Link and Zelda which just deflated me.  Then the specific confirmation it was a BotW sequel.

What didn’t you like?

I felt there was some excellent stuff in the game that was unfortunately drowned in annoyances.
- I didn't like the story (what there was of it), but that could have been negated if they nailed the ending.  To me the ending just fell completely flat.  The ending of TP is my favourite ending of any game I've played.
- Cooking got old in a screaming hurry
- Weapon degradation was too severe.
- There needed to be heaps of QOL improvements in the UI. 

All those things just annoyed me and I have no desire to play it ever again.  Now don't take this as an instant condemnation of BotW2.  I'll certainly be keeping an eye on it and will quite likely be buying it on day one.  I just hope they change some of those points I mentioned.  I really hope it's good. 

[Adrock]

I felt there was some excellent stuff in the game that was unfortunately drowned in annoyances.
- I didn't like the story (what there was of it), but that could have been negated if they nailed the ending.  To me the ending just fell completely flat.  The ending of TP is my favourite ending of any game I've played.
- Cooking got old in a screaming hurry
- Weapon degradation was too severe.
- There needed to be heaps of QOL improvements in the UI. 

That’s fair. The story was generally pretty terrible and Zelda’s annoying voice didn’t help the delivery (Zelda’s French voice actress is so good though). I don’t think there was any way to land the ending especially with the villain being a mindless Ganon with no personality. Still, I find the plots of most Zelda games to be largely forgettable if not completely horrible.

I didn’t cook much so I didn’t mind. Weapon degradation is too severe though I understand that it’s supposed to force players to try all of them and to keep exploring to find new ones. Would you mind going a little more in depth regarding the quality of life improvements in the user interface? I didn’t mind the UI.

[Louieturkey]

That Collection of Mana has me excited. First time the third game is getting and official English release is pretty epic I think.

[Stratos]

-Nobody told me someone was remaking the original Panzer Dragoon!!! I hope Zwei, and especially Saga get remakes too.

They confirmed Zwei previously. I think this is the "resurected franchise" Nintendo leakers were claiming Nintendo picked up, because I found an article fro Dec 2018 where the devs of the game confirmed this game and Zwei were coming down the road.

[Shorty McNostril]

I don’t think there was any way to land the ending especially with the villain being a mindless Ganon with no personality.

This really annoyed me.  He was Ganon in name only.  I would have much preferred they just left 'Ganon' out of in entirely and had this Calamity to be a completely new entity.  The other standout disappointment in the ending was the fact that Zelda was nowhere to be seen.  The whole game had been telling us that Zelda had been locked in a terrible battle with Ganon for the last 100 years.  When I arrived I expected to see Zelda being awesome, and I was expecting to fight alongside her.  None of that happened.  Once again, contrast that with TP.  Zelda was on horseback with me shooting Ganondorf with light arrows.  I loved that I was finally fighting with her.   BotW, despite the build up had none of the sort.

I didn’t cook much so I didn’t mind. Weapon degradation is too severe though I understand that it’s supposed to force players to try all of them and to keep exploring to find new ones. Would you mind going a little more in depth regarding the quality of life improvements in the user interface? I didn’t mind the UI.

To be honest, it's been a while since I've played so I can't remember too much about the QOL ideas I had at the time, but one that I do remember was the cooking.  Going through and manually selecting ingredients every time was terrible.  It makes sense if you're cooking a new recipe for the first time, but after I've unlocked a dish I should just be able to pick from a list of recipes and have the ingredients automatically put into the pot.  You could have that list sortable by the results (stamina, health, cold resistance etc), and some favourite slots to mark dishes you cook frequently.  Would have saved so much time.  The less time in menus the better.  That should be the goal for any adventure game.

[Mop it up]

I just realized I don't have enough time or budget to play all the Switch games I want to play this year... You should have delayed more Nintendo!

Ha ha, yeah, I don't even have enough time for the games I already own!

[Louieturkey]

I just realized I don't have enough time or budget to play all the Switch games I want to play this year... You should have delayed more Nintendo!

Ha ha, yeah, I don't even have enough time for the games I already own!

I’ve probably bought more games I haven’t played than I’ve ever played in my life, not to mention the free ones that come with services like Nintendo Online and PlayStation Plus. I think even if I stopped buying games right now and never bought another game and just played the games I’ve never played that I’ve bought I still wouldn’t get through all of them by the time I died.

[Mop it up]

This was easily the best part:

https://twitter.com/Mopitup255/status/1138613546118459393

[Adrock]

I completely missed that part because I just skipped the Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Games trailer.

I went back and watched it and noticed Sonic is surfing with shoes and socks on which gave me anxiety because wet socks are my worst enemy.

[ShyGuy]

oh man, you're walking around in socks at night and step in puddle of water in the kitchen...

[Adrock]

I use slippers without socks. I’m not a savage, ShyGuy.

[nickmitch]

That BotW sequel trailer looked kind of like they had a story going, with Link and Zelda exploring caves below the castle.  And I remember reading they focus on story second, so I'm wondering  if the game is farther along than implied.  Perhaps it started as DLC and just grew from there.

[Tad59]

Despite this E3 being a bit slow due to the new set of consoles coming out soon, I thought it was okay. I can't imagine PS5/Scarlett being cheap going by the AMD Navi chip specs alone...there might be a chance for Nintendo to grab a large chunk of the market from the two of them here if they release an updated switch/something at a lower price.

Nintendo...not sure what to think here. They had the best show in my opinion, but this should have been Nintendo in their stride as the Switch is selling strong and in the middle of it's life I imagine. Think the set backs of MP4 and AC not being ready probably hurt them to be fair. It's unforunate. The main positive for me is BotW 2 already looking like it has a better story than BotW 1. Main negative from the show is the lack of variety. Wish Nintendo would make some western games as it's the one area they always lack.

[Stratos]

That BotW sequel trailer looked kind of like they had a story going, with Link and Zelda exploring caves below the castle.  And I remember reading they focus on story second, so I'm wondering  if the game is farther along than implied.  Perhaps it started as DLC and just grew from there.

They could be pulling a Xenoblade 2 - Torna where it is stand-alone DLC offered for less that $60 (or charging full price because they know they can get away with it).