I'm over the moon, personally.

I usually consider a Direct to be a win if there's at least one thing that gets me excited.

This time there was 6; Ocarina remake, Xenoblade Genesis, Dragon's Dogma 2, Space Marine 2, Switch Sports Resort, Onimusha.

I can see how those who only play tentpole Nintendo games might find it to be middling, but for me it was awesome.

The Kingdom Hearts Collection are Game-Key Cards on the Switch 2. Its not even entirely on disc on the PS5. Add that to the AI art they have shown for the game and this is just a very low effort release unfortunately. Really wanted to play the games on a Nintendo system, but oh well. My PS4 versions will have to do.

Just tried out the Star Fox demo. Its great. I have already preordered the game, so Im ready

Happy with the direct personally because as I mentioned earlier the S2 is being handled like a primary platform for consumers rather than just a vehicle for first party titles and the NDs for S2 have reflected this as they're pushing the platform to new consumers as a one stop shop for most of their gaming needs with comparable fidelity and portability added in. Directs in future are going to be exactly like this one with fewer first party titles but solid third party showing, I have a very good PC but have still opted to get a significant amount of games on S2 and double dipped on some.

3rd party wise I'm playing almost everything on Playstation aside from FF Dissonance (if its good) and Metaphor.

I'm disappointed with the lack of imagination or boldness but the games are looking solid and will keep people entertained.

I hoped they would be more imaginative with Switch Sports although it serve its purpose fine enough. It feels a little bit like they're resting on their laurels a bit too much. I liked how instead of just just doing Wii Fit they done Ring Fit and built in some genuine interesting mechanics and setting. I wanted a bit more of that for Switch Sports Resort but ultimately its fine.

Splatoon Raiders still looks too much like a horde mode, tons happening on screen but very little design or context. Just waves of enemies, very flat level design and movement. Its totally giving DLC instead a standalone single player game worthy of my excitement.

Xenoblade looks more generic than past entries. Leaning a bit too much much into the ambigious fantasy/gatcha territory and loosing the mech and slightly more dark aesthetic of Xenoblade 3 & Chronicles X. I'm sure it will be good but it just didn't impress. 

That more or less sums up my feeling. There are a lot of games, but I'm just not exciting for them personally. I look forward to Orbitals and Zelda OOT (which they only teased) and will see if anything else surprises me as more gameplay is revealed/reviews drop in. 

More on the Xenoblade comparisons:





Genesis just looks the least interesting of the bunch settings wise. And I was expecting a bigger technical leap, it feels like this also began as a Switch title. The geometry doesn't stand up by modern standards and I personally dislike the outlines/strokes around the landscapes.

I never liked Kingdom Hearts anyway, but using AI slop is a big reason to say "Fuck Kingdom Hearts.".

Ehh… there were only three first-party games revealed, one of which being a Switch Sports and another having been leaked well in advance. Definitely not just a “oh I need Mario NOW!” kind of gamer. Again I’m thrilled with the line up currently, just unsure on my emotions pertaining to the Direct presentation in particular. If it’s gonna be 35min of partner info, just do a Partner Direct. Same issue with SoP presentations as of late.

Yeah, this Direct for me was ensuring Nintendo mains that the Switch 2 will be a prominent third-party machine just as much as first-party. Switch made great strides in that direction, but was still left out on most third-party games just due to lacking hardware power. Switch 2 is catching up QUICK!

So it was definitely a good Direct, but I'm not a Nintendo main, so it was a bit disappointing for my personal expectations to have more first-party announcements than what we got.

I feel like Nintendo just needs to rethink how they do Direct presentations. IDK. It’s so weird how a presentation can both be super good but also leave me kinda confused on my emotions. Again, all games I have been really looking forward to, and jam packed with great third-party/indie offerings, but something feels a little off… hm.

ALSO, it seems Xenoblade Genesis has been in development since 2017. Much to my surprise! More info here (link to thread from ResetEra: “Xenoblade Genesis is confirmed to be Monolith Soft's internal project, named Project Legacy”).

Very excited to see more from this game! Reactions were oddly mixed here on VGCZ, but have been overwhelmingly positive elsewhere. Don’t know what’s up with that. Anyhow, I’m just hoping I don’t need to have played the original trilogy before jumping in.