It’s an appointment that Nintendo fans wouldn’t miss for anything in the world: every six months or so, the Japanese video game giant reveals, in a forty-minute video, what the future holds for owners. Switch console will be done. In authorized circles, this is called a “Nintendo Direct”, and the summer vintage of the year 2023 took place on Wednesday, June 21.
Let’s get rid of the nicest of the most anecdotal announcements, that is to say those that do not come directly from the stables of Nintendo. We think about compiling Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Vol.1 (out October 24), a very nice remake of Star Ocean: The Second Story (November 2), a new Dragon Quest Monsters (1er December) or Penny’s Big Breakawaythrough which the team responsible in the past for the game sonic mania will attempt to answer the question that has haunted the “gaming” planet for thirty years: is it possible to make a platform game that is both fast and in 3D that is not an infamous turnip?
A new “Super Mario” in 2D
No doubt possible: the main information to remember from this Nintendo Direct is the announcement of Super Mario Bros. wonder, new episode of the series – we give it to you in a thousand – “Super Mario Bros. “, is, possibly, the most cult ever developed by Nintendo, from the eponymous game of 1985 until New Super Mario Bros. U in 2012.
If the concept is not very revolutionary (you always have to cross a level, from left to right, picking up bonus objects and jumping on the heads of villains), Nintendo does however offer itself with this new iteration a graphic facelift that it would not be completely insane to qualify as audacious, since Mario and his companions adopt for the first time a look close to that of an animated film.
Playable up to four simultaneously, Super Mario Bros. wonder seems set to emphasize humorous sequences, detailed foregrounds and backgrounds, and really, really cute animations. The real surprise, however, comes from the irruption, within the already crazy bestiary of the plumber’s costumes, of an astonishing Mario elephant whose facetious trunk and pudgy look will most likely inspire various fan drawings in the hours to come. innocent. Release scheduled for October 20.
Other “made in Nintendo” games were unveiled this Wednesday, for example Return of Detective Pikachu (October 6), in which the electric mouse will drink too much coffee and, according to his deep voice, will smoke too many cigarettes. Or Wario: Move It!, whose string of mini-games will be available on November 3. Also mentioned was an HD version of Luigi’s Mansion 2 (initially released in 2013), scheduled for 2024. During an almost subliminal sequence were also revealed a few seconds of a game whose heroine will be Peach, more often confined to the thankless role of princess in distress. No name, no details, and as a release date, a vague “2024”.
The return of the “Super Mario” role-playing game
The other big announcement of this Nintendo Direct is nevertheless the return of super mario rpgthe result, in 1996, of the improbable collaboration between Nintendo and Square, a specialist in dense narrative games and ambitious stagings (Final Fantasy, it’s them). Unpublished in Europe until 2008, the role-playing game super mario rpg does not have with us the aura of the series Paper Mario Or Mario & Luigi, who have since walked on its toes, but enjoys a small cult following in other parts of the globe. This luxurious and all-3D remake, scheduled for November 17, will allow everyone to discover with fresh eyes this story that we won’t risk summarizing here, even if it’s a safe bet that it In the end, there will be essentially a question of the mushroom kingdom, the kidnapped princess and the evil king Bowser.
Largely absent from the Nintendo Direct, on the other hand: Everybody 1-2-Switch!, announced at the beginning of the month and available on June 30, was however not mentioned once. The previous episode of this title between board game and hazing in good standing was released at the same time as the Switch console in 2017, and had sunk into oblivion the next day. In 2022, an article from the Fanbyte website told the incredible genesis of this new opus which almost never saw the light of day, guilty, according to the journalist’s sources, of not being up to Nintendo’s standards.
