The last year of Nintendo Switch has been marked by numerous exploitation exclusives; titles rescued after a good coat of paint or sequels that a priori had little chance of materializing. For this reason, the latest Direct of the Japanese multinational aroused no little uncertainty among its fans: were there any aces left to reveal?
Starting at the end, just when we had given up all hope of seeing the first gameplay of ‘Metroid Prime 4‘ (title announced in 2017 via a logo), we got just that. The sequel from Retro Studios will arrive in 2025 under the subtitle of ‘Beyond’, maintaining the skirmishes and doses of first-person exploration that aroused so much praise regarding the original trilogy.
The community’s reactions to Samus’s new adventure are divided between those who talk about an intergenerational exclusive (which will take advantage of the technical capabilities of Switch 2) and those who consider that what is shown is still quite green. Be that as it may, we are talking about Nintendo’s best ‘one more thing’ in years.
But the thing is that Direct also started strong, with the return of a franchise that many considered lost: ‘Mario & Luigi: Brotherly Connection‘ (the ‘Brotherhood’ of the American version sounds much better) will arrive as an unpublished role-playing adventure on November 7, after the releases of ‘Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD’ (June 27), ‘Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition’ (July 18) and two other exclusives that caught us by surprise again.
One is the first The Legend of Zelda game starring the eponymous princess (‘Echoes of the Wisdom‘, under the graphics engine of the remake of ‘Link’s Awakening’). It will arrive on September 26 and promises to revolutionize the mechanics of the IP thanks to the possibility of summoning replicas of objects and enemies to solve battles or solve puzzles, which will instill free will similar to what was seen in ‘Tears of the Kingdom’.
Already on October 17 (and with this Nintendo makes sure to comply with its policy of releasing at least one major title per month) we will receive ‘Super Mario Party Jamboree‘; a return to motion controls with online games for up to 20 players and a whopping 110 minigames available, a record number for the party game par excellence.
The HD remastering of ‘Donkey Kong Country Returns‘, whose location on the calendar (January 16) suggests that, in effect, the next Nintendo console will be unveiled around the month of March.
The June 2024 Direct (which you can play in full on these lines) also confirmed Switch’s tremendous third-party support, which will host titles such as ‘Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake’, ‘LEGO Horizon Adventures’, ‘Just Dance 2025′ Edition’, ‘Stray’, ‘Funko Fusion’, ‘Darkest Dungeon II’, ‘Romancing SaGa 2: Revenge of the Seven’, ‘Fairy Tail 2’ or ‘Ace Attorney Investigations Collection’.
Thus, at the end of the announcement festival period, we could say that Microsoft and Nintendo have been left in a draw due to the impact of their respective novelties (most of them based on nostalgia).
