Search KoopaTV!

Translate

Wednesday, October 28, 2020

Delights on the Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase | October 2020

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - This is obviously the best one yet. (And the last one of 2020.)

Today, Nintendo put out a new Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase, denoted as October 2020. It's lengthy and filled with new information:


I can (and if I didn't have other things to publish this week and next, would) write entire articles about many individual portions of this presentation, but... I gotta condense this.

No More Heroes 3 and HD Remasters of the first two No More Heroes


After Travis Touchdown got turned into a Mii Fighter costume at the beginning of the month, things haven't been looking good for No More Heroes. There was a very expected but still sad-faced delay of No More Heroes 3 to 2021 (which didn't get a new release date, by the way, but Nintendo.com to this day claims it'll release in 2020). Quite frankly, there wasn't much information about No More Heroes 3 in this other than that it looks like a return to form (with extra story stakes), but the real news drop was that No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle—originally released on the Wii—are now available on the Nintendo Switch. Normally, they'll be $20 each, but they're temporarily 10% off! They're described as HD remasters. While I've doubted these would exist, they do, so... You should buy them if you've never played them before. I endorse them. They're much better action titles than what I'll talk about in two sections.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town


There are so many cute cows in Olive Town! I expect KoopaTV staffer Witch Princess to cover this in the near future, since she's been promising me Story of Seasons content on KoopaTV for months (years?) now. For some reason, Olive Town is a run-down disaster, and you need to construct your own farm facilities because there's nothing around. This involves being able to spin attack to chop down several trees at once, which appears to be more satisfying than in the next game we'll cover.

Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town cows flashback sepia
Cows in a sepia flashback.
If you never abandon your cows, you'll never have to have a flashback of their existence.


Story of Seasons: Pioneers of Olive Town cows petting headpat farm music note happy
Remember that petting your cows is always a good thing, be it in Olive Town or in Wagadu.


Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Demo


I am STUNNED that they released a demo for Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. I think that all this demo will do is make Nintendo/Koei Tecmo lose potential sales on the game. We've established gameplay is the least important—and worst—part of the game. The best way to sell a game like that is to hoodwink people with story trailers and expose them to as little gameplay as possible.

With that in mind, why would you ever release a gameplay demo?


Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity Battle of Hyrule Field demo battle record
I was waiting for this miserable gameplay to end.
(Except the demo keeps going! ...But I didn't keep going with it!)
By the way, all of the screenshots are Dragon Quest XI-esque and have copyright text at the bottom.


The demo gives you control of Impa in addition to Link, but there's no reason to choose to use Impa over Link. She's more complicated and her gameplay revolves around manipulating ill-explained symbols or something, but there's no greater reward for using her instead of the much-simpler Link. You can just spam Y-button slashes and end the combo with an X-button spin attack and be carried through most of the gameplay. There's other things you can do, but none of it is satisfying since the enemies are so pathetic no matter what you do. Doing an overkill combo gives you the same effect (gameplay and emotionally) as doing the basic thing.

I promise you that No More Heroes is a lot more fun as an action game. Likely contributing to my dissatisfaction with Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is that, since I have played The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and the user interface of Hyrule Warriors tries to stick to that, it's a bit uncanny how the gameplay is so different (and worse and certainly appears to be less inventive, despite things like bomb barrels meant to be activated by your Remote Bomb Rune).

Also the overworld map quest-picker is a disgrace and a disappointment. You thought you'd actually have gameplay? No, it's all menu-based.


Everything else


I don't really care about Bravely Default II or the rest of the series, but I'm probably stupid for not caring about it. That said, there was a demo I never played from earlier this year, and Square Enix solicited player feedback from it and made demonstrable changes to the game based on the demo. At the very least, this is genius public relations. Gamers, and all consumers, really, love to see big companies actually pay attention to what they have to say. And judging by this video, Square Enix actually collected feedback in a way that made sense, unlike, say, what Nintendo did for Super Paper Mario Club Nintendo feedback to lead them to make Paper Mario: Sticker Star the way they did.


The feedback may or may not contribute to the game coming out February 21, 2021.

There is an action game game called Immortals Fenyx Rising based on Greek mythology from Ubisoft Quebec, but “Fenyx Rising” sounds phonetically way too close to “Phoenix Wright” and that makes me upset. Meanwhile, that Bakugan game is coming out next week on Election Day, so that's going to be ignored. Rightfully so.

HAL Laboratory has been working on a game called Part Time UFO, available now for $9. You play as a UFO that suspiciously resembles UFO Kirby from Kirby's Adventure. It seems like something you would've played on Newgrounds 15 years ago, where you're struggling with crane game physics to solve puzzles in a quirky set of environments. There's (local-only) multiplayer with it.


Part Time UFO Kirby Kirby's Adventure NES sprite HAL Laboratory
(I edited in the Kirby's Adventure UFO Kirby sprite into the original image. It fits.)



Ludwig feels somewhat obligated to go back and finish the Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity demo because MAYBE IT GETS BETTER... but it's sort of dreading doing so. He's gonna go to bed instead. Let him know if you're buying the No More Heroes games, because you should. Also, they have really good music and voice-acting. (Unlike Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, which was terrible and shouldn't be discussed.)


Ludwig previously said the September 2020 Partner Showcase was the best one.
Don't buy Hyrule Warriors.
Ludwig provided his thoughts on the demo of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes in 2022.
The next Nintendo Direct Mini: Partner Showcase is... all the way in June 2022. But it was good!

12 comments :

  1. Part Time UFO released on mobile devices a few years ago. I played quite a bit of it on my old phone but never completed all of the missions. It's quite charming but can get repetitive rather quickly. As for the other announcements, the only one that really interested me was the Hyrule Warriors demo. I still don't plan on purchasing the game, but it is still nice to see a demo for it anyway.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Was the outright Kirby reference in the mobile version too?

      Delete
  2. Replies
    1. Well, yes, this is true, but don't ignore those adorable cows. <.<

      Delete
  3. Looks like I should get No More Heroes!
    (Unless a physical release is on the way...)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Alright, just 'cause you properly predicted the ports happening, doesn't mean you'll also predict a physical release is on the way.

      'CAUSE I DOUBT THAT'LL HAPPEN.
      ...
      >_>

      Delete
    2. Since there wasn't one announced at the same time, it does seem less likely.

      Delete
    3. Maybe they'd partner with LIMITED RUN GAMES or something. Like how Hollow Knight eventually got one.

      Delete
    4. I'll wait a little bit, just in case (and because I have enough in-progress games that I wouldn't be starting it right away anyway).

      Delete
    5. You could go through a whole game in a Sunday or two if you dedicate it...!

      (Not the most recommended way to play it though.)

      Delete
  4. I would like to purchase Part Time UFO as it intrigues me greatly. Hopefully HAL will pursue more new IPs, that filthy Kirby cannot be allowed to dominate the market any longer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But the Kirby cameo is the biggest selling point...!

      Delete

We embrace your comments.
Expect a reply between 1 minute to 24 hours from your comment. We advise you to receive an e-mail notification for when we do reply.
Also, see our Disclaimers.

Spamming is bad, so don't spam. Spam includes random advertisements and obviously being a robot. Our vendor may subject you to CAPTCHAs.

If you comment on an article that is older than 60 days, you will have to wait for a staffer to approve your comment. It will get approved and replied to, don't worry. Unless you're a spambot.