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A lot of ports from games already out on other systems, but still pretty cool to see them land on Nintendo. Glad to be reminded that Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection 2 is coming. And it includes the very underrated GBC game! Nice! And wow, NateTheHate was correct about the "other" N64 remake. Switch 2 really does have 3DS vibes. Latest Mario Kart and Street Fighter game, the same two N64 remakes as we got in 2011. Everything that was old is new again! Literally! Small thing, but I was surprised there is a Rayman Legends remake. Who was asking for that?
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on: 06/09/26, 18:46 |
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I'm stoked that Rhythm Heaven Groove looks chock full of meaty side modes. Many of the "headlines" in this Direct—Orbitals, Big Walk, that strange Devolver game—were refreshing simply in contrast to the infinite onslaught of medieval Europe/fuedal Asia Sekiro clones shown last week. It's nice to know that the game industry is still capable of using a range of colors. But man, that Ocarina of Time teaser was the epitome of stuck culture. A "Nintendo hire this man" cinematic trailer with nostalgia-baiting leitmotifs, zero gameplay, and a release window... they might as well have had Grok generate it yesterday. Between Nintendo's focus on movie tie-ins and now these two remastered N64 games, they seem to be losing the plot. I guess that's what everyone says about the first Nintendo console that comes out in their 30s, and I should take a moment to remind myself that a real Zelda game is in development too, but catering to the worst impulses of millennial consoomers is not a path I want to see them go down. I might skip Star Fox just because of the bad taste in my mouth now. Maybe they'll show some totally novel gameplay later on—or maybe the dungeons will at least be remixed enough to be interesting, or they'll really use these new graphics to bring the game's world to life in a way that's more compatible with what a kid would expect today—but in that case, just make a new game! I dunno, maybe it's more honest to explicitly re-interpret an old work than to make a "new" one that's marginally different. People have been doing it with Romeo & Juliet and Sherlock Holmes for centuries. There's cool stuff they could do. I'm skeptical, though. BOTW and TOTK, masterpieces though they may be, never shook off the overbearing, incessant narrative stylings of Skyward Sword. To see the trailer for the next Zelda have story as its main focus makes me nervous. The Mario and Zelda teams are maybe the only people on the planet pushing game mechanics forward in a big way. Any compromise on that whatsoever, and I worry about the future of video games. Nay, the future of humanity! I may be overreacting.Meanwhile, this bizarre clip of a ROM hack that I saw a few weeks ago bore its way into my mind, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since: And I still want more Mario Kart World tracks!
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on: 06/09/26, 18:54 |
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Secret_Tunnel said:But man, that Ocarina of Time teaser was the epitome of stuck culture. A "Nintendo hire this man" cinematic trailer with nostalgia-baiting leitmotifs, zero gameplay, and a release window... they might as well have had Grok generate it yesterday. I commented in the Discord that it felt like a teaser they made 2-3 years ago and didn't bother to place into a Direct until now. Because I just don't understand anything about it otherwise.
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on: 06/09/26, 19:00 |
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Yeah the Ocarina reveal was weird. What also struck me as odd is we didn't get an announcement that Persona 6 or Expedition 33 are coming to Switch 2. With all those other ports, I figured those might practically be a given. Also felt a little weird to not have a Call of Duty announced. I mean, I personally don't care, but that's a HUGE franchise and Switch 2 is killing it in sales, soooo...again, I suppose I just assumed that would also be a given. Will that series ever see a return on Nintendo?
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on: 06/09/26, 19:10 |
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This Direct was a showing packed to the gills with game announcements, reveals and trailers that all somehow just weren't my thing. By the fourth medieval-looking third-person action combat game I was getting Dark Souls fatigue. The three (!) first-party remakes coming this year happen to be games that I love but don't need remade at all. I've been overexposed to Fire Emblem, I've never been into Kingdom Hearts or Xenoblade or Deltarune, and as luck would have it, Dragon Quest Monsters is like the one DQ spinoff I can't get into! Then we have the monkey's paw situation of Final Fantasy finally being back to classic form (holy moly!)...but actually being a remake of an earlier mobile title (...oh). So file this Direct solely under "not for me." Remakes and ports and Switch 2 Editions and quirky "cozy" indie games just don't Mamma my Mia. Honestly the weirdly limited DK Challenge thing was one of the highlights for my tastes, lol. Still most looking forward to Rhythm Heaven Groove in terms of this year's releases, although I'm curious to see the OoT remake in action. Trust leakers to ruin our fun for their fifteen minutes as usual though. On the plus side, having the presenter spend 5 minutes of the presentation explaining and playing a simple thumb-wrestling minigame only to lose to the CPU is one of the most Nintendo things I've seen in years! Took me back to Ravi drums with Wii Music.
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on: 06/09/26, 19:37 |
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06/09/26, 19:40 |
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Secret_Tunnel said:I additionally predict that we finally get details on the Secret Playtest Caveman Minecraft game...! I'm still so curious about this!
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on: 06/09/26, 20:19 |
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Looking at the highlights, it seems that it was a nothingburger of a Direct, for me. I still haven't gotten around to Xenoblade 2 and 3, so a new one doesn't excite me at the moment. I'll probably download the NS2 editions of 2 and 3 if and when I finally get to them; definitely 2 since I've heard the performance in that game is awful. I haven't tried Nintendo Switch Sports, so I don't think I have a need for Resort. Come to think of it, I don't think I ever played the original Wii Sports Resort, I could probably get just as much from going back and trying that. Gotta say though, I think only Nintendo would have the gall to dedicate 5 minutes of a large presentation to thumb wrestling. And I say that as a compliment! Oh, Spring Man won. IYKYKPokopia... I still need to buy that. Can't say if I'd buy DLC or not, but likely not. The new Rhythm Haven looks pretty rad, and I'm curious to know more about Splatoon Raiders. Both of those were known quantities, however. I kind of wish that the OoT remake leaks were not true, though they were so prominent that it felt pretty much confirmed. I'm sure I'll pick it up eventually because I'm a sucker, but remakes in general don't have much interest from me.
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on: 06/09/26, 20:37 |
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TriforceBun said:This Direct was a showing packed to the gills with game announcements, reveals and trailers that all somehow just weren't my thing.
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So file this Direct solely under "not for me." Remakes and ports and Switch 2 Editions and quirky "cozy" indie games just don't Mamma my Mia. Yeah, this is a good way of putting it. I feel the same way. I totally get why someone would get a lot of out this Direct but it just wasn't for me. Well, the Ocarina of Time remake is for me, but the reveal itself was lame!!
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on: 06/09/26, 20:45 |
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@TheBigG753It would have made a lot more sense if that teaser were at the Switch 2 reveal last year, wouldn't it? We're just gonna get a bigger trailer in six weeks now?
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on: 06/09/26, 21:09 |
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@TheBigG753To be fair to the Large N, the confirmation of a from-the-ground-up remake of OoT would've been pretty big had we not had people spoiling it for months beforehand. But to be less fair to the Large N, it's weird that a major game of theirs coming out in fewer than 6 months has no gameplay footage. Either way, I'm still not sure if I want an OoT remake or not. Projects like these tend to bounce between understanding the magic of the original (like RE1 and 2's remakes) or just kind of feeling hollow or unnecessary (plenty of examples here but off the top of my head, Mario & Luigi 3DS, Panzer Dragoon, Turtles in Time Reshelled, RE3make, Crystal Chronicles, some might even say Majora's Mask!). I need to see more. Sometimes I worry about what @Secret_Tunnel was alluding to with the leitmotifs and putting things too much on a pedestal and all that. Like in the GameCube General Board days of people wanting Zelda to be Lord of the Rings and have hours of voice acting etc. There's just a lot of ways it can go wrong.
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on: 06/09/26, 21:20 |
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06/09/26, 21:21 |
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I have a conspiracy theory about Ocarina of Time. Spoilers for the original game: one of the first things I noticed was that Link shouldn't have the Triforce mark on his hand yet; in original OoT, that doesn't appear until after the Triforce splits. So most likely they're changing that detail in this new one, it's a mark of destiny, yada yada, artistic liberties.
OR this is a secret sequel like FFVII Remake, taking place in the timeline after Link gets sent back to his childhood. On the one hand, that's way overthought and makes all the timeline shenanigans more canon than they've ever been, but it does give them an excuse to go nuts.
...it doesn't really make any sense (why would Link become an adult if Ganondorf gets executed? they can't change the ENTIRE game), but hey, I'm grasping at straws here!
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on: 06/09/26, 23:22 |
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@Secret_TunnelI hope it's something like that... the storytelling nature of the intro might lead to someone describing something a little different in the end. It was pointed out by someone online that the sword and shield of the logo isn't the original Ocarina one but maybe BotW even. So that's even indicating some benign update to art assets or that there is a lot more going on than it seems.
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on: 06/10/26, 03:26 |
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I was late to the Direct so I missed Rhythm Heaven, but can't wait for that one. Also can't wait for Splatoon Raiders, as it seems much more like what I always wanted in a Splatoon game (since I suck at the series and multiplayer is an exercise in frustration and futility)! I will always take more Xenoblade, especially NEW Xenoblade. The character looked ugly to me, but the world looked absolutely incredible. They have fully, fully earned my trust thanks to the first three games (and even with the iffy X which had its highlights too) so I am here for it. Can't WAIT. Day 1 for sure. Everything else was just meh to me, but that's still a good amount above. Fire Emblem looks like Three Houses all over again, so hard pass there, but some of the random other stuff seemed worthy of getting from the library eventually. I loved the Mario and Luigi outfits for DKB, even though I will sadly miss them since I don't have the DLC. Overall I just haven't been that enthused about video games in general as of late, so I'm not sure what they COULD have shown to get me bouncing off the walls. Even a new Mario at this point is going to have me thinking "Sure, but I doubt it will be better than Bananza" cause I think Bananza took the Mario concept to a whole new, improved place. (I was sad no Pikmin 4 Switch Edition.) EDIT: Also TOoT Link looked awful to me, from an art standpoint. Maybe when he opens his eyes it will look better, but as stated above, it seemed like AI Generated overdone HD to me. Blech.
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on: 06/10/26, 05:08 |
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06/10/26, 05:09 |
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@Secret_TunnelI don't know if this ties into your theory at all, but I was speculating a little while back (when the remake rumors really started to heat up) that they might introduce the "Hero is Defeated" branch of the timeline, either as the main story in the remake or as an alternate ending (e.g. maybe there's a way in the remake to fight Ganondorf without beating every dungeon, and you lose because you don't have the power of all the sages, something like that). Because that's one thing from the Hyrule Historia that always made me roll my eyes, the three timelines all branching off of OoT. There's really nothing in the original game to justify it -- by that same logic, any time you get a "Game Over" in any Zelda game you're creating another branch of the timeline. So part of me almost expects that the remake will address this in some way.
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on: 06/10/26, 16:33 |
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06/10/26, 16:36 |
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@TheBigG753The timeline makes zero thematic sense as a whole. The hero's shade in Twilight Princess is literally, canonically Link from Majora's Mask? That totally undermines the arc of OoT/MM, not to mention makes Link into way too much of an independent character as opposed to a player avatar. It works great as an allusion, though. Same with Sans maybe being Ness. These relationships aren't meant to be mapped out in an encyclopedia. They're vague on purpose, they're in a sort of superposition between being metaphorical and having practical relevance to the plot. The three-timeline split makes sense from any individual game's perspective. ALttP needs something like OoT as a prequel, WW needs something like OoT as a prequel, and TP needs something like OoT as a prequel. It's beautiful storytelling if you keep it abstract, but turn it into a flowchart and you get comic book store merchandise to sell to Zelda YouTubers. For the most part I think BOTW was super classy in how it handled its relationship to other games. "They say Ganon once took the form of a Gerudo." "The Master Sword endures, whether skyward-bound or lost in twilight." There were a couple moments that were not classy. "This is a tablet honoring princess Ruto of the Zoras." That tablet has been around for like 50,000 years and remains the most important moment in all of Zora culture!? One of my fears with this remake is that they use it to make the lore more explicit. Imagine reaching the Master Sword and Fi popping out. Or even the presence of Hylia statues. (I noticed their phrasing in the teaser of Hyrule being created by "divine beings." Not "gods"?)
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on: 06/10/26, 18:11 |
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Secret_Tunnel said:One of my fears with this remake is that they use it to make the lore more explicit. Imagine reaching the Master Sword and Fi popping out. Or even the presence of Hylia statues. (I noticed their phrasing in the teaser of Hyrule being created by "divine beings." Not "gods"?) George Lucas' Ocarina of Time 
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on: 06/10/26, 18:54 |
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So, apparently the new Call of Duty is in fact coming to Switch 2. Surprised it wasn't talked about during the Direct. Not sure how many Switch 2 fans would care about that announcement, but I mean....that's a huge franchise, why NOT mention it?
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on: 06/10/26, 19:55 |
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Nailed it.
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on: 06/11/26, 01:18 |
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