Yeah that's what I was thinking, too. I assume he meant Bayonetta 3 because Astral Chain had it's release date announced the same time it was revealed. But ... maybe he just said that because a lot of people didn't expect a game like Astral Chain to release this year? Like, as a surprise?

It's weird, but I'm not too "annoyed" by it. This year is already packed and honestly, with how many high quality action games have released since Bayonetta 2, I'd prefer there be extra time to polish up Bayonetta 3 and make it something really special. 

@poll

Said this rating in another thread but, 9/10, pretty magical overall besides the dullness of Three Houses.

Overall is up there for me with Jan13 and E314 directs, just in the amount of nice surprises I got from them.

In this one Link's Awakening, Astral Chain, Super Mario Maker 2, the presentation of Dragon Quest XI highlighting everything I wanted from it, plus some more footage of titles I'm really looking forward to like Yoshi and some funny out of nowhere moments like Tetris 99 and of course, my boy, the only man that can get his own direct highlight and just meme it to death, Toby with the Deltarune Chapter 1, I let out a squeal when I saw the annoying doggo, was really expecting it to only release on a console after all the chapters were done but nope, pleasant surprise.

They should have added Hollow Knight Silksong for the 10.

Let's make this the official Astral Chain thread! 

I said this in another thread but, this is my favorite direct ever. I would give it a 9/10. 

Sure, it didn't have something of the same level as Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey, or Animal Crossing. But that's actually why I loved this direct so much.  

Usually because Nintendo only release around 5 or 6 games per year, with only a few of those being major sellers, if one game is disappointing or isn't to your liking you potentially can have a drought for a month or even months. Nintendo looked at this year with Luigi's Mansion 3, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon Generation 8 and didn't stop there. They didn't restrain. Even with games as big as those, we're still getting titles like Link's Awakening, Mario Maker 2, and Astral Chain. And I love the focus on big surprising things rather than just a couple of games that will carry the year. 2019 was already looking stacked and now it seems even more so. I think this is really great because if one title isn't to your liking, then you still have a lot to choose from. Especially because a lot of these titles are coming out just in the last 7 months. 

Dragon Quest also really surprised me. It made me way more interested in the game then I was previously (and I've already almost bought it before). They actually added the extra content that has been rumored for forever, which is crazy, because I thought it was more like a pipe dream from fans. Similarly, I didn't think 3D World in Mario Maker would be a thing, yet here we are (*cries*). Dragon Quest's impressiveness was fantastic. As an outsider, this kind of extra content and care makes me want to buy the game. 

Now, it does suck that the first part of the year doesn't have a lot. But I don't really mind so much, and I don't think it affects the direct's quality a lot either. 

The only things about the direct I didn't like were: A ) that some of the third party content looked very poor, like it had very little effort and B ) Fire Emblem looks underwhelming. Aside from that though, it was great. 

Oh - and it really should have had Hollow Knight: Silksong. I have a feeling they didn't add it because Team Cherry didn't want to be overshadowed, but funnily enough I don't think they would have at all. I'm not a fan of Hollow Knight, but a lot of people love that game and that would have been hype.

Also, this means that E3 might actually have some huge surprises, assuming they don't spoil us with an April or May direct (they probably will though). They could unveil Animal Crossing, Luigi's Mansion 3, the Switch Lite, and even give us a sneak peak of Bayonetta 3 and/or SMTV. Even if they do show us LM3 or AC before then, that's still a lot of potential new things to showcase.

Even though I thought this was the worst direct of the Switch generation, I appreciate different viewpoints.

The middle of the direct wouldn't need "saving" if this was the best direct. For me, this direct was way too biased towards JRPG's and Character Action games, and I guess it was great for fans of those genres. Rune Factory, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, Astral Chain, DaemonXMachina, that wierd devouring souls game, etc. A couple of them did look appealing too me, and I'm not calling any of them bad, but there was just a much bigger ratio of them then needed.

A lot of the other stuff looked not so good, as well. Assassins Creed running at a clean 3 fps and Dead By Daylight looking unbearably ugly. That shovelware lookin ass Disney game.

And then Nintendo brought up the Smash Update: "What's going to be in this update? ... you have to wait to find out!"

There were a few good points in regards to Western third parties. Grid Autosport looks pretty good (aside from spiltscreen which could be further optomized). Hellblade is a good get, and based on what we know of the port it's one the devs have spent time on and not a quick cash-in. Unravel 2 shouldve been on Switch from the start. Nintendo finally delivering on their "special offers" with Tetris 99, and that gives hope that Nintendo puts more effort into the online.

Not that I'm downplaying those Japanese games. Infact, I'm mildly interested Dragon Quest and might get it down the line, as my first real JRPG (I've heard people say that DQ11 is what Pokemon should be like, so that got me interested too).

Honestly, I have to disagree about Fire Emblem, it's looking great. I really dig the Hogwarts inspiration, though I understand why people might be sick and tired of a school setting. Though I think we can all agree that it's looking better than Fates.

Mario Maker 2 looks ace. That was a short trailer that showed a surprising amount of new stuff  (3D World style, cat suit. boom boom, angry sun, banzai bill, self scrolling levels, and SLOPES!). I would reccomend watching the gamexplain analysis of the trailer. I have no doubt Nintendo is probably keeping another new graphical style as a secret for later. And that music!

Link's Awakening looks sooo cute. That clay/toy artstyle looks great. Never played the original, so this is as good as a new game for me.

As a direct to watch this felt very underwhelming for me , but all the stuff shown, when added to stuff not shown, means 2019 looks incredibly stacked. 

So this is how I'm guessing the rest of 2019 looks like:
June: Super Mario Maker
July: Fire Emblem, Dragon Quest Builders
August: Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3, Astral Chain
September: Animal Crossing, DaemonXMachina
October: Luigi's Mansion, Dragon Quest XI
November: Pokemon, mystery game revealed at E3
December: Link's Awakening

I dont think we're getting another general direct before E3. From now until E3:
Late February: Pokemon Direct
March: Nindies presentation
Early April: Smash Direct: Joker Gameplay, release date, all 3.0 info, fighter no.2 reveal
May: Fire Emblem Three Houses Direct going over the game
June: E3 Presentation:
- Bayonetta 3 full reveal, Janruary/February 2020
- Switch revision revealed, releasing alongside Pokemon
- A few third party ports (Fallout 4, GTA V, Injustice 2?), DLC announcements for existing Nintendo games, info on upcoming games
- A spin-off B-tier title for Fall (Mario Golf?)
- Luigi's Mansion 3 and Animal Crossing blowout

edit: Retro's Star Fox Grand Prix revealed,, coming 2020.

I'm pulling all of this out of my ass.

I suppose i'm a little late on this but heres my impression of some of the games in the direct.

I like what i'm seeing from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. The setting looks interesting, the characters look decent and the game looks like it'll have a lot of depth. I'm a little disappointed with character designs though, mostly the attire. They have a school uniform I guess, which makes their outfits pretty samey. I hope that it's just a class thing and that once they promote they get better designs but I won't hold my breath.

Really excited for Super Mario Maker 2. I'm already thinking up the type of levels I can create in it.

Dragon Quest XI has me interested. Turn based RPG with minigames and an (hopefully) good story? Count me in.

Yoshi's Crafted World might be the first Yoshi game I purchase since Yoshi's Story. It actually looks pretty good and the demo left me decently impressed.

I bought and am now playing Final Fantasy IX. It's the first time i'm playing a Final Fantasy game (excluding Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition) and i'm having fun with it. Nice that they released it after the direct.

Starfox: Battle for Atlus is a game i'll have to pick up soon. Seems like it's pretty cheap now and i've heard that it's the best Starfox game in years.

Astral Chain and Link's Awakening were pretty big announcements, both of which i'm gonna most likely get. Astral Chain looked super hype and i've never played Link's Awakening so i'm looking forward to both.

Their were some other stuff that I liked, such as Tetris 99, Daemon X Machina, and that racing game (I think it was Grid: Autosport?) but I don't have really have anything to say on those.

Overall it was a pretty good direct in my opinion and 2019 is looking stacked.

Having release dates and footage for DQB2 and DQXI S respectively is really amazing

On top of that, we get Rune Factory 5, Astral Chain and SMM2

The games I'm personally in is pretty substantial, probably won't be picking up FFX/2 and FFXII because of what is coming later this year. Don't really mind having less games for the first quarter since I'm still playing XC2, Splat2 and Vesperia anyways

Haha, sorry. Saying that Dragon Quest "saved" the middle of the direct was definitely exaggeration on my part. I think at this point I've just talked about this direct so much and why I loved it, that I'm looking for new ways to describe it, which leads to some reaching. Full transparency, I edited that part of my comment out because I don't agree with it, lol. Bad description. 

I appreciate different viewpoints and I can understand where you're coming from as well. I just don't agree personally. I think that what this direct really punctuated for me was that the circumstances surrounding a direct really affect it's quality. If this was just every game we had to look forward to this year, I would be disappointed. But knowing that we still have Luigi's Mansion 3, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon Generation 8 coming ... I feel like the direct was more than amazing. Especially because the "surprises" people were expecting was stuff like "Mario Maker Port", "Boxboy Collection", "Xenoblade Chronicles X Port", "Skyward Sword HD". Compared to all that, the announcements were way more inspired. Quite frankly, one of the big three games releasing this year could be delayed, and I wouldn't even be that disappointed. That's how much this direct added to the lineup. 

It's kind of hard to talk about the "middle" of the direct because really I think it's easier to categorize is at four quarters. Otherwise if you divide it into three sections than Dragon Quest would moreso be in the beginning than in the middle. I don't want to get too much into semantics because it's not really worth anyones time but assuming the 2nd and 3rd quarter of the direct are the "middle" then there were quite a lot of cool moments: 

-Dragon Quest Overview + Features Trailer

-Starlink DLC

-Rune Factory Series Continuation

-Oninaki 

-Fire Emblem Trailer

-Yoshi Trailer + Demo

-Daemon X Machina Demo 

To explain this a bit further, usually during the middle of a direct the entire pace is completely ruined and any momentum is lost. That wasn't the case, for the most part it was pretty consistently cool announcements. Granted, not everything interested me, but what's important is that a lot of the bigger stuff at the very least did interest me. And I don't think that's the case with a lot of the directs, they always tend to fall apart in the middle. For example I said that Fire Emblem looks "underwhelming" but it was still a vital part of the direct, and it's still a big title that I'm interested in. That's already more than I can say about a lot of segments in other directs. There's basically no way I'm not buying that game, unless the next few trailers just completely shit the bed. Another example is Oninaki. Knowing the reputation of Tokyo RPG Factory, I can't say for sure that I will go out and buy the game. But at the very least, it was an interesting title that didn't feel out of place with the rest of the content shown in the direct. Some stuff like the Rune Factory 5 announcement is just cool to see considering that franchise could have potentially died, and I've wanted to get into it for a long time but never wanted to go back to the 3DS. I'm not saying that I'll go out and buy every title this Direct had, but at least most of them felt worthy of showing, interesting to watch, and thematically consistent with what the direct was trying to communicate.

Also, Yoshi's best trailer was in this direct, far and away. It's hilarious too because it was just a small portion of the direct and we're only a month from launch. But they showed off so much cool stuff just in that one little snippet: Over 180 collectable costumes, MECH YOSHI, SHOOTING DOWN PLANES YOSHI, RACING CARS THUG LIFE YOSHI. Made the game seem way better than before. 

The most questionable part of this direct was the last set of Nintendo Switch headlines. That's where they showed off Dead By Daylight, Assassin's Creed 3 Remastered, and Unravel 2. All those games looked pretty ugly. Grid Autosports was kind of a mixed-bag, in some areas it looked cool in others it kind of looked too limited considering it's a Switch title. But even that set of headlines had Deltarune, Hellblade, Daemon X Machina demo, and the Final Fantasy game releases. 

To sum it all up, I think this direct really benefited from it's pacing and the rate of great reveals and showcases. I can understand it wasn't the best for everyone though, but it was my favorite. If we keep getting directs which are as consistently interesting as this one throughout then yeah, this could easily be dethroned. I just think that this kind of momentum isn't usual that common, it's kind of what's missing in these I feel. 

Nintendo basically announced an entire years' worth of Wii U exclusives, or hell even post-2014 3DS exclusives, as a bonus for a year which was already looking super stacked. 

Also, Astral Chain is now the game I'm most looking forward to, after DMC5.