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After a long wait since last fall, the first Nintendo Direct of 2019 has emerged from the always enigmatic Nintendo curtains. It’s always fun to speculate beforehand which titles we will get updates on and what the new announcements will be. Franchises that got big attention included Dragon Quest and Fire Emblem, but there’s a lot more that was shown, along with a few surprises in store, and here’s everything you need to know. Mario Maker, Bloodstained, and When’s Marvel? So we start off with Super Mario Maker, the familiar Wii U game where players can create Mario levels of their own, being ported to the Switch like other titles ha– wait, this is no port, it’s Super Mario Maker 2, a new game! They could have just ported the first game, so are we leaving the Wii U port town, at last? The game’s new features don’t seem to…

A new Nintendo Direct is scheduled as of tomorrow, February 13th. Many upcoming games, both announced and unannounced, have the potential to be covered and revealed, including Animal Crossing, the mainline Pokemon game for the Switch, and the recently released hit Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The first of Ultimate’s DLC characters, Joker from Persona 5, has been announced already. Due to be included in the game this month, he will likely be featured in this month’s Direct. But a new, yet unannounced character may emerge as well. It’s always exciting to see who will be drafted next into the Smash roster, and with four more DLC characters coming after Joker, it could be a motley crew indeed. Although Smash Bros. characters are often incredibly difficult to predict beforehand due to their unpredictability, some make more sense than others. And while who knows which character will be revealed next, there are some that could be…

There are two things I love in life that when mixed are the perfect combination, and that is Mario and America’s greatest pastime. Sure, realistic games like MLB The Show are fun, but it’s way more entertaining to play against friends with a roster filled with Mario and his pals and enemies. I’m sorry, it just is. Mario Superstar Baseball is a game that I am always down to play. I still have my Gamecube (the Gamecube Mario ball is better than the Wii’s) and will take on anyone who is foolish enough to challenge me to a game of five innings. We’re turning off power-ups though; power-ups are a total scrub move. What makes the game so fun is the fact that you can pick a new team every time, and each player is unique and skilled in their particular area. You could go for a team filled with…

“I want to be the very best, like no one ever was.” A line every Pokemon fan is familiar with from the original show’s first song lyrics. In order to be the best, though, you need the most powerful Pokemon. As much as weaker Pokemon may be our favorites, sometimes they just don’t cut it. A constant recurring theme in Pokemon that it’s not how strong the Pokemon is, but how much their trainer cares about them, that wins a battle. As any Magikarp can attest, that’s not entirely true, but from a different perspective, it’s not entirely wrong either… Even the Pokemon most famous for being powerful can be outshined by weaker species of Pokemon by the way that they are raised. In that sense, putting more care into how you raise your Pokemon really does matter compared to just going by how strong a Pokemon inherently is. So…

The Nintendo Switch is a smashing success. With millions of consoles having sold worldwide, Nintendo has put a truly historical gaming machine on the market. That being said, it would appear that the company is far from done iterating on the console. The Nintendo Switch went on sale back in March 2017. A hybrid console, the Switch is uniquely designed to be played from the couch as well as on the go. Just as with the Wii and WiiU, the Switch has been experiencing incredible hardware sales. As of the end of 2018, over an estimated 32 million consoles have been sold worldwide. As well as the console is selling, Nintendo is potentially now looking to buff things up even further. As reported by Japanese news outlet Nikkei, a smaller version of the Switch is potentially being targeted for a 2019 release at a lower price point. The console will…

Indeed: as of this week, the game’s first DLC fighter, Piranha Plant, has gone live. Since its inception in 1996 on the Nintendo 64, the Super Smash Bros. series’ biggest draw — its hook that no other games can swing — is that it is the ultimate crossover (sorry, Marvel) of Nintendo characters. In no other game can stealth operative Solid Snake be slapped around by a sentient pink puffball. That description could even be referring to multiple characters, which shows how diverse the Smash fighter roster really is. Now, we’ve gone into ultra instinct diverse with the addition of Piranha Plant as the first of the DLC characters. Nobody expected this. Piranha Plant didn’t even expect to be included — it always shrubbed it off as some warped kind of pipe dream. But here we are, as its vines are being unleashed in Smash the world over. There is…

Pokemon is a series that is loyal to its traditions, perhaps like no other — if you get a mainline Pokemon game, you know exactly what you’re getting. In a world where a franchise might take a sudden, confusing shift into a direction that you don’t gel with, staying true to the formula can be seen as trustworthy and a good thing. On the opposite end, it’s also possible for a franchise to play it too safe and things could start to get stale. While Pokemon is definitely still enjoyable, it’s a peculiar series of games in that it’s kept up with the times in some ways, but in others is very archaic and has hardly progressed. I get it: why mess with the formula of one of your biggest cash cows? But in 2019, much of its features feel like anachronisms from the past and are outdated. In some…

Nintendo and their consoles have seen a rollercoaster of success over the years, but they are very pleased in recent times, throwing their plumber’s cap in the air at the surging success of their Switch console. They have seemed to have found a happy medium where they can sell a console with the popularity of the Wii, but with the focus being on traditional first-party games, in the spirit of the Wii U. As reported and translated by Nintendo Everything, there are no plans for a price cut or successor to the Nintendo Switch, as stated by Nintendo president Shuntaro Furukawa through The Sankei News. Furukawa references the Switch’s great sales numbers and their lofty target of selling 20 million units this fiscal year. In short, they have no plans on stopping the Switch train anytime soon. But if there is potentially a new Switch version on the horizon, that train…

Like the true heel Pokémon that it prides itself on, Incineroar took a spot in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate that was almost given to the arrow-shooting owl Pokémon Decidueye, game showrunner Masahiro Sakurai has stated. Feeling the need to have a Pokémon series representative in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, Sakurai and his team narrowed their selection down to these two characters. Ultimately, Sakurai wanted a wrestling-themed fighter, so the muscle-bound grappler Incineroar won out. This information was found in an interview with Sakurai by Japanese magazine Nintendo Dream, as shared by Eurogamer. The interview goes on to mention other fun facts about fighter selection, including that the reasoning behind the unexpected Piranha Plant was to show that any character could appear. Incineroar’s own inclusion came as a surprise to some in the Smash community, as its addition to the roster was contrary to alleged leaks that came to surface before the…

The Wii Shop Channel has been live for nearly 12 years. Despite the smashing success of the Wii and the continued achievements of the Wii U, it is now the era of the Switch. With the Nintendo Switch having topped the hardware sales charts for 2018, it seems few fans are complaining. That being said, it’s still the end of an era. Now Nintendo fans are about to experience the brunt end of that loss. After nearly a solid dozen years of selling WiiWare and virtual console games, the Wii Shop Channel is now planning to shut down on Jan. 30, 2019. Many of the games offered within the service were never given a physical copy release or shifted to newer Nintendo consoles. Beyond that, Nintendo reportedly plans to eventually cease providing the ability to redownload previous purchases from the now fading channel. Consequently, many of these wonderful games will…