E3 2015 Digital Presentation Review

Let's call a dog a dog. This year's E3 presentation from Nintendo was disappointing. I stop short of hyperbole here as they did show games -- most of which will release within six months, almost all within the next year, and several of which I will buy. However, I also won't go along with the historical revisionism and comparisons. One person I heard compared this reveal to the reaction Wind Waker being Cel-Shaded. I mean come on! This is nothing like that. Nintendo dropped the ball.

It is inevitable that they have an off year:

Reggie presenting the  E3 2015 Nintendo Digital Event

To accuse Nintendo of not listening would be dishonest. Nintendo knew they did well last year, they also knew people didn't care for non-games and would be hostile to mobile games so they thankfully left those for other events.

Nintendo's problem this year as the simple logic of how games are made. They rode the last couple of E3s with games far into the horizon that the chickens, so to speak, have come home to roost. They have to showcase the same games they announced one or two E3s ago because they are almost ready, but they can't show games further out because the Wii U's future is without a doubt tied up with their NX platform, which they already confirmed would be absent this year.

Nintendo's problem here was not entirely about content. It was context. As someone put it best, Nintendo went from weakness to weakness. In the Sony presser, a 'filler' Final Fantasy game was followed up by Final Fantasy VII remake. Nintendo simply didn't have anything to show.

Content Management:

Given the hand it was dealt (no Zelda), Nintendo then managed the content it had poorly.

Yoshi's Wooly World did not need another long-winded expositional 'developer' insight this year. They had one last year and the company heavily promoted this game at the Nintendo World Championships and in their half hour slots with Twitch.tv and Youtube E3 channel just a day before their Digital Event.

Star Fox Zero: No on-line Multiplayer (again) ; Mediocre Visuals

Star Fox Zero could have used interviews outside of Miyamoto to put at ease the the initial lukewarm reaction many people had that save for a few locales, the game looked more like a Star Fox 64 remaster than a true sequel running on 'new' gen hardware. 

Then again, given the game will not have on-line multi-player (again!) and had mediocre visuals in part due to the need for the game to render a separate scene on the game pad, it almost feels like Nintendo is sending out Star Fox to fail yet again.

The other game that could have used an extended preview was Metroid Prime Federation Force. The game admittedly looks rough and early. But some of those rough edges could be smoothed over with the developers explaining the concept of the game. It would also help break the monotony of Japanese only developers talking about their games. Metroid Prime Federation Force is made right here in my hometown of Vancouver and it's too bad the game got shuffled away like an uncle after Thanksgiving.

Further more, Nintendo sent their 'mature' games out to pasture once again by not showing off the games in their presentation, choosing instead to show them off immediately after their digital event. The one fall game I am really interested in, Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water was one of those titles they didn't show. Nor did they build hype on Itakagi's multi-player Devil's Third as a kind of 'change of pace' for people who maybe got into the multi-player 3^rd person shooter scene with Splatoon and now wants something different but along the same lines (hint: people can play more than one game at a time).

The most egregious of these content issue however is Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival. I don't begrudge Nintendo learning from their City Folk experience by wisely choosing to skip out on Animal Crossing on consoles so soon after New Leaf on 3DS to let their team recharge and dodge accusations they merely 'up-ported' their handheld game and did nothing more. However, I do take issue with the blatant attempt to get Nintendo fans, and more specifically Animal Crossing fans, to put money down on what appears to be a C-tier board game simply because it works with some really nice Animal Crossing amiibos. I can see the $79 boxed set now with an amiibo or two packed in the box. The game and the amiibo functionality is a blatant attempt at gouging us.

Animal Crossing Amiibo Festival (the most hated game this E3?)

I would have much preferred they cut this from the digital event and showed this game off at a Treehouse event and not bother playing with people's emotions at a digital presentation. People were expecting Animal Crossing for Wii U, and I nodded when I saw Isabelle in HD thinking "well there's Animal Crossing Wii U, right on schedule", only to be first confused and then let down by the game that was finally revealed to us. This has got to be the worst way to show off a game as it annoyed a lot of fans, and these are the people Nintendo needed to buy this thing. Heck, for all I know it might be a good game for what it is, but I certainly have no interest in playing it now.

Here's the kicker. Amiibo is doing very well for Nintendo right now and they badly needed Disney Infinity style game to tie together all their Amiibos  in a fun open-world game that would leverage the existing owners of Amiibos. 

I would be remiss to not mention Super Mario Maker, which fans know well enough, as well as Hyrule Warriors Legends, the 3DS port of Hyrule Warriors that was accidentally leaked early by Koei-Tecmo last week.  The game looks interesting and may have helped had it not been revealed early, but Hyrule Warriors Legends, along with the heavily multi-player centric Zelda: Triforce Heroes are filler games designed to push software that really didn't help or hurt their presentation. Super Mario Maker had just the right amount of exposure but it didn't really help here as the expectations were already baked in after this past sunday's insanely amazing preview at the Nintendo World Championships.

Expectations:

Despite a steady stream of warnings, including Reggie's direct disclaimer at the beginning of the Digital Event  advising fans they would only be showing games coming soon, Nintendo simply didn't manage the presentation and expectations properly and maybe they really couldn't.

Nintendo knew what they had to show wasn't going to blow people away and gave plenty of warnings. Iwata hinted heavily on Sunday there will be no major reveals as he was not going to be in attendance at E3 because there would be no new hardware, re-iterating a statement weeks before E3 that the NX platform and their mobile games would not be showing at E3.   But the fans failed to heed the warnings.  Perhaps encouraged by Nintendo Directs weeks before E3, as well as informational reveals on the Sunday before E3 of new Smash content (Ryu and Roy) and the surprise release of Earthbound Beginnings on Virtual Console in a rapturous Nintendo World Championships event on Sunday, many fans whipped themselves up into a fervour, believing that if Nintendo willingly let these mini-reveals go ahead, they must have amazing stuff for the Digital Event.

When Sony dropped their triple threat of Shenmue III, Final Fantasy VII remake and The Last Guardian plus several other very interesting original IPs in their presentation on Monday, fans doubled down on 'major announcements' because this is E3 and Nintendo wouldn't let themselves get beaten like that.

Well, Nintendo did, and part of the blame needs to rest squarely on the fanbase.

Apology Accepted:

Soon after the Digital Event, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata went on twitter to make his mea culpa, admitting, circuitously that the event had not met people's expectations and promising to do better.

Translation of Tweet by @Cheesemeister3k

To the team at Nintendo and Mr. Iwata, apology accepted. Your fans had themselves to blame too, though that doesn't excuse the poor structure and content selection in your digital event.

I do want to close with a bit of concern with the apology. The cycle of fan disappointment and Iwata apology appears to be a constant lately. I think this reflects positively on Iwata's personal style of taking ownership and being transparent, but I fear that it is in one-ear out-another form of apology where we're told they will do better but other pressures eventually take precedence and we will be back in this position in a few year's time . And let's not kid ourselves here, Nintendo has had disappointing E3 shows in recent memory, like E3 2012 with the over-long Nintendo Land 'surprise' or even arguably 2011 with the botched reveal of the Wii U. Each time, we are told Nintendo seemingly learned from their mistake but inevitably they make new ones, like today's presentation. Perhaps they should hire a panel of their own fans to focus test their presentations in the future. Most fans would gladly do it for free. I work cheap (free). My payment will be in the satisfaction of helping shape an important event for Nintendo.

NX and beyond

E3 2016 is almost certainly going to be a better show for Nintendo, just because of the cards they have dealt themselves. They bit the bullet this year to give themselves plenty of bombs to drop in 2016 with the NX, not to mention a hardware reveal is always exciting. Part of me want this half-decade long struggle of my favourite video game company to end in 2016. Perhaps it will be like their E3 2006 Wii reveal, or the one in 2004 when they kicked ass and took names. Let's hope this is the last 'bad' E3 for Nintendo in a long while. We've had way too many of them lately.

Nintendo World Championship 2015 – Shoestrings and Remixes

I wasn't planning on writing anything about the Nintendo World Championship 2015 qualifiers this past weekend as none of the events were near where I lived, but spotting Patrick Scott Patterson's epic story at his event led me down the rabbit hole and I sound found several other stories detailing what seemed like a lukewarm event across a couple of other locations.  

Several stories here and here, complained of low attendance, hours spent waiting outside Best Buy, and generally 'unfun' event management, with one participant questioning the use of NES remix as the game for the qualifiers. Nintendo apparently was expecting and allotted time for over 700 to participate in some of their locations, at least two reports indicate less than 200 showed up to their events.   This led to a rule-change mid-day that generated some controversy related to Patrick Scott Patterson's San Francisco event where only 150 showed up for the qualifiers and Nintendo allowed participants to retry their attempts, while other locations (presumably busier) may not have allowed it.  

Though to be fair, at least one report I found, from the Tacoma Washington event appeared to have gone off smoothly.  The Torrance California event (video below) also appears to have gone well.

Stepping back, this all seemed like something Nintendo of America's marketing department pulled together on a shoestring in early May with no time to properly organize. Nintendo have the Nokia theatre at E3 to fill (it's already rented and sunk) and Smash tournament last year did well for them so this is the next best thing. But announcing the whole thing about a month before E3 and jamming in qualifiers in just 8 locations weeks before the supposed 'championships' and on the same weekend on of their bigger releases (Splatoon) hit was probably not the best idea.

If Nintendo still have Nokia theatre for 2016 and want to continue with the World Championships format, I would hope they roll it out over many more months with qualifiers stretching across both the US, Canada (bonus points if they manage to set up events for Japan and Europe) with events happening across malls and Best Buys in the post Christmas late winter/early spring months, where space is cheaper to rent, and foot traffic wanted. This would lead to semi-final event held at PAX or some other major fan convention to build hype, with the event ending at E3 in June.

Nintendo is not the swaggering company that could do no wrong it was in the 90s, granted. But it's still a multi-billion dollar a year operation and a major player in video games. A very rich one at that. It is a bit disrespectful to its fans to organize such a bare bones event in so few locations on a what appears to be shoe-string budget.  The apparently low turn out and the resulting rule changes have already generated some controversy  that may have tainted the final outcome. Speaking as a fan, this past weekend's qualifiers is disappointing, and I feel for those who lined up outside Best Buys to participate. 

All that said, Patrick Scott Patterson's first hand account of his time at the qualifiers is a great read. Highly recommended.

The NX, Amiibos, and the Future

I must apologize for I have been remiss in updating this blog. The last time I made an update was in the glow of last year's highly successful post-E3 glow.

A year on, Mario Maker is still on the way so jury is still out (although I'm excited), Zelda has been delayed, and Amiibos as it turned out, was a huge success, selling well over 10 million units in less than seven months on the market, and it didn't even hit all the markets at the same time.

There has been a lot of other announcements in the interceding months. The biggest of which is Nintendo's partnership with mobile developer DeNA to create a platform for mobile games.

With E3 2015 around the corner, excitement is once again in the air. So let's discuss the two things that definitely won't be discussed at E3

The NX Platform

Announced at the same time of the partnership with DeNA to enter the mobile market, this is, as company president Iwata explained a reveal in name only to confirm Nintendo remains comitted to the dedicated games market.

As such not much is known about this platform and there is considerable debate whether it will be a console to replace the Wii U (which isn't doing well) or a portable to replace the rapidly aging Nintendo 3DS, which is likely the company's core profit center, or alternatively, it has been suggested that the NX is a hybrid platform that bridges consoles/handheld and mobile gaming.

Whatever it is, the NX, when revealed next year will likely give us our first understanding of Nintendo's unified platform strategy. My personal view on this is that the hardware and the software needs to be highly scalable such that they can release the platform at a reasonable price in 2016, but produce higher tier versions in the future without creating a segmented market. This would likely require Nintendo to be more upfront with their development partners in terms of supply specification differences to each NX tier as to allow them to program scalability into their games and Nintendo's secretic (need to know) way of operating historically is what worries me to most. But let's hope for the best here.

Imagine being able to play NX-portable games on NX-home console seamlessly, with the additional power of the console version allowing for games to be rendered at a higher resolution and or added effects. It could be as simple as the portable version being rendered at a lower resolution than the home version. Or texture quality being higher on home consoles. While each platform may and probably will have exclusives taking full advantage of each platform, this sort of home-mobile interoperability could prove helpful to skittish 3^rd parties looking to maximize sales on the largest market possible. If they can access a unified home/portable market it would help the economics of their games

Furthermore, this scaleability would allow NX-2, 3, 4 and future iterations to take software from previous NX versions and not only run them, but run them with all the new features of the new NX platforms enabled.

The biggest roadblock to Nintendo's otherwise well-planned backwards compatability is that the platforms are largely not the same and backwards compatability is only achieved by including the previous generation's chipset inside the console (think Wii mode in Wii U or DS mode in 3DS); This means that the newer platforms reconfigures itself to become a Wii or a DS when running legacy titles, losing all its other functionality. I would love to post screenshots of DS games or share them on Miiverse, but nope, DS mode in 3DS shuts all those features down. Ditto for the Wii U in Wii mode.

Nintendo + DeNA

There isn't much to say here but Nintendo has confirmed no mobile related news will be revealed at E3, at the event is meant to be for core gaming announcements. With at least one mobile game under the DeNA/Nintendo partnership due out this year, one would expect a safe title, likely free-to-start with microtransactions. This is the least interesting bit (for me) of what Nintendo is doing but I could be converted if they can marry their need to mobile revenues with their current business in videogames and leverage both in a way that allows me to spend extra money on their mobile apps without feeling like I sold my soul.

Nintendo @ E3

Leveraging last year's highly successful 'Digital Event', Nintendo is back again with another Digital Event. Eschewing the stage managed and often dull/embarrassing live conferences, the company is looking to recapture the excitement from last E3 with a Nintendo World Championship in place of last year's Smash tournament.

Will it work? It remains to be seen, but early indications are good insofar as they have a much bigger slice of the public looking at them this time around. A quick point of comparison. Last year's Mega64 produced trailer announcing their digital event has 1.13 million views and 25k likes in the 12 months it has been on-line on Nintendo's own Youtube channel (this is not including mirrors, and views in other services, such as the eshop). In comparison, the trailer released less than a month ago announcing their Digital Event in June already has 1.5 million views on Youtube (in under 3 weeks) and 37k likes.

Their job will be straightforward, although not easy. Show lots of games, announce a few surprise games, throw in a few fan favourite Virtual Console releases (Mother 3 anyone?) and don't take their consumers for granted.

This won't alter Wii U's trajectory very much as the 3^rd place platform, but it could mean entering their next hardware cycle as a relevant well-liked 'dark horse' instead of being a disliked 'has been'. And their continued support for the Wii U will most certainly mean a difference in sales that cumulatively could mean a much more profitable company going into a hardware refresh regardless of their placement in the console-warz epeen contest.

Amiibos

Before I go, a small note on Amiibos.

I understand the difficulty of manufacturing so many distinctly different character types and alloting enough units for each on a global basis. This makes shortages of popular Amiibo types inevitable. As much as the Amiibo craze has lifted the company's profile (at the very least among resellers) it is increasingly leading to frustration from consumers.

If proper supply allotment for each Amiibo type is a problem, Nintendo should at the very least institute a 're-order' program with Amazon and their retail partners allowing consumers to place an order for an out of stock Amiibo that Nintendo will then manufacture and ship out to consumers, thus reducing the risk of over supply of reprints.  Similarly, their pre-order programs should be expanded as a market-test to see which of their Amiibos would be relatively more popular.

As it stands, Amiibos are released in 'waves' and snatched up so fast that casual consumers who blinked would have missed out and there is then no way to guarantee a reprint down the line. Pre-orders are merely ways for Gamestop and Amazon to pre-sell their already alloted shipments, rather than polling consumer interest and adjusting supply as needed, further limiting Day 1 availability.

I want several legacy Amiibos but I don't want to pay scalpers with their 200-500% markup for one and frankly, after the relative ease of pre-ordering the Wave 1 and Wave 2 Amiibos last year (prior to the reseller market taking notice) it has been nigh impossible for me to easily get the Wave 3 and Wave 4 rare Amiibos. Fix this Nintendo and you'll have more of my money.

E3 2014 - Amazing

I've spent the last couple of E3s, especially since the weird Wii U reveal in 2011 trying to be positive but always walked away a little disappointed in Nintendo's approach to their E3 show.

Though I was mostly satisfied last year, it was hard to shake the narrative that Nintendo's cancellation of their big E3 press event and putting instead an E3 'Nintendo Direct' was a retreat by the company and admission it had lost the battle for mindshare.

This year, Nintendo turned what seemed like a continuation of their retreat into a clear-cut win. So stunning was the change in perception that no one could have predicted it prior to their June 10^th showing. Perhaps the only hint at their confidence was Nintendo dropping several trailers of eshop games a day before, right around Microsoft's Xbox One conference, including surprises like a sequel to the eshop bestseller and success story Gunman Clive.

The change is largely because of a slight adjustment to the same strategy last year. The biggest improvement was the pacing of the announcements. Instead of having a 'sizzle reel' with B-tier games no one is interested in just to pad the number of games shown, they actively focused on around 12 games in the digital event's 47 minute running time and created spaces for other games.

Eshop games got their day and Games that weren't quite ready (Sonic Boom) were relegated to their own publishers to show off, or had dedicated events (Devil's Third / Project STEAM) to give Nintendo more control in explaining how the games might be interesting, rather than letting trailers and unimpressive screens leak out and have the cynical games press spin it.

It was also a good decision to ditch Iwata's slow English and humble 'please understand' Nintendo Direct approach for funny and self-deprecating Robot Chicken claymation segments. Nintendo Direct works for a smaller audiences, for snap quarterly announcements and updates for fans, but not for a major event like this. Reggie's 'Not my problem' attitude and NOA's team works better in selling Nintendo at E3 and probably works better overall at selling Nintendo's message to the western audiences.

You know that the Digital Show worked when thin skinned gaming audiences laughed at a friendly jab made at their expense with Reggie setting fire to a gamer whose one liners were complaints about games he wanted to see, not what Nintendo was showing off – the prototypical hater who has complained about Nintendo for years.

The wealth of content that came after was also amazing. I personally haven't even began to scratch the surface of those feeds. Aside from spreading out some announcements of games outside of their digital event, the Nintendo TreeHouse event that spent tens of hours over the 3 day event going in-depth into various games introduced at E3 helped sell Wii Us to a lot of people.

Using their  Nokia space for a Smash Event was also genius. What was missing were fans filling in those seats in the early morning to watch the digital event. Not having a press conference is certainly not mutually exclusive from having people react to it live and recording those reactions.

So what interested me this E3?

Amiibo

Nintendo's promised 'Near Field Communication' (NFC) version of Skylanders and Disney Infinity looks interesting. While it's currently mainly heavily focused for use for Smash Brothers on Wii U, there is good value in that they will work across multiple games as a kind of ID. Further, I am interested in these figures mainly because the build quality looks good, and Reggie has indicated the prices will be in-line with Skylanders figurine, which means it won't be so premium priced to turn off a casual collector like myself.

Personally, I would really love to own a Samus and Link figurine from their Smash line-up.

Zelda Musou a.k.a. Hyrule Warriors

What a difference half a year has made. Although the new 'look' was teased some weeks in advance of E3, it's great to watch it in motion. It's also interesting to see that the game isn't just Link's romp through Hyrule, but the game allows for several Zelda characters, including Zelda herself to be playable participants alongside Link.

Visually, the game has took a huge leap from the initial reveal. Though the Musou games not known for their visuals as there is always an emphasis of dedicating system resources to pushing as many enemy units as possible on-screen, there has been significant leap in the game's visuals since its reveal.

This game has made it to my 'must buy' list later this year.

Bayonetta 2 + 1

The original PS3/Xbox game has incredible word of mouth, but I haven't played it. Visually it looks great and at 60 FPS no less. The reveal also dropped a little bit of a bombshell by including the original Bayonetta for free, with special Link, Princess Peach and Samus outfits.

This is clearly no lazy port, and no one can claim last gen when both games look and flows better than the PS3 port with no Vsync issues.

I'm leaning heavily towards buying this game just on the good word of mouth and incredible value from Nintendo.

Mario Maker

This will be the only 2015 game I'll discuss today.

The extended treehouse demo sold me on this, but I came away feeling a little worried but intrigued. There's the danger of Nintendo's convoluted sense of what it means to 'share' sabotaging this the same way they sabotaged Wario Ware D.I.Y's online functionality by crippling people's ability to share.

What they showed was a very early proof-of-concept which I think can be a killer-app for them if they let their younger designers handle the execution. This game needs on-line, and not just sharing between on-line friends but uploads to a community hub not dissimilar to an app-store where people can download levels and Nintendo can feature 'approved levels and worlds'

Furthermore, I am hoping the final game offers more variety in terms of tile-sets as well as enemies, power-ups, blocks and the ability to design longer levels (3 screens is not enough) and to connect individual levels together into a coherent 'Worlds'.

Does it all have to be Day 1 features? No. Some of these features can be monetized. I'd pay money for a Super Mario Bros. 3 skin plus the ability to create extra worlds with several levels in each. I'll then pay some more money for the Super Mario World skin plus the ability to add a few more worlds into my game. Imagine premium players who purchased all the DLCs being the top tier guys making entire Mario games, while everyone still can make their own levels and submit them.

Think of the collaborative projects that may arise where a premium player with world builder abilities take level submissions, string them together into a game and then release it into the community. This thing could be Minecraft for Nintendo.

That said, the core game itself should allow players to create at least one entire world spanning 1-1 to 1-4 for a true Mario experience, and allow us to explore our imaginations with hopefully more space per level than what was shown at E3.

There's way too much to talk about here. I'm skipping most 2015 stuff entirely, including Zelda U. But this is such a great E3 for Nintendo that I really want to say you guys did an amazing job. I almost feel a little bad ending in a bit of a downer with my Mario Maker commentary, but its out of a desire for this to not be another missed opportunity by Nintendo.

E3 may not change anything overnight, but it's a golden opportunity. Just as Sony played the long-game with PS3 and eventually dovetailed into increased consumer confidence and preference for their brand as seen in the PS4, Wii U could be the start of the rebuild for Nintendo.

Make it count.

Miiverse Two Years On

When Miiverse was first revealed in a pre-E3 digital presentation two years ago, I was hopeful that it could be a killer app for the then upcoming Wii U console.

Nearly two years after the Wii U's launch, Nintendo's sales have continued to decline and the Wii U, like the GameCube two generations before it, feels like the odd console out.  Ignored by third parties, defended by a core group of fans.

Dire as the situation might be, Miiverse, like Sony's PlayStation Network or Microsoft's Xbox Live holds the promise of Nintendo's future.  The service has since evolved into the nucleus of Nintendo's nascent unified platform strategy, linking the 3DS with the Wii U and allowing access on other connected devices with browsers, such as PC, phone or tablet.

The Miiverse community itself has been quite successful in terms of where it matters most, user participation.  Every obscure game has a community and the participants appear to be quite varied  in their skill level and time spent  on the service.  It's not difficult to find people who spend considerable amount of time posting and commenting and those who only do so casually.  There are sub-communities within 'open' channels like the YouTube Miiverse community who show off their amazing drawing skills on a quite limited black and white palette.

On that level, the optimism I expressed 2 years ago about the potential of the community has been fullfilled.  But Miiverse hasn't been quite the killer-app that I initially had envisioned.  Though I can certainly be wrong in this regard, I do still firmly believe that Miiverse is, if not in this hardware cycle, an integral part of a larger strategy to bring Nintendo back into competitiveness both in terms of mind-share among consumers as an integral killer-app feature.

What are the things holding it back?

1) Lack of Miiverse App outside Nintendo platforms
It's true that the Miiverse web application (miiverse.nintendo.net) is available on Tablets and PC.s but it's a web-based app and not an app from the appstore.  This in theory puts Miiverse on any machine, including SmartTVs, with a browser. But in practice there is simply no visibility for the web service. It's barely mentioned in Nintendo's own promotional material and it's not immediately obvious that there is even a web URL for people to go to.  

Furthermore, many tech-savvy users simply view web/mobile versions of something as a lower tier service. Just as Twitter has a mobile website, it is meant for lower powered  devices who only has a browser but no app environment.  Casual users who may have heard about accessing the Miiverse would naturally first look to for an app instead of a web address.   Having an app in the app/play stores also work as a kind of advertising billboard, getting eyeballs on passive app searches from low-information users who may be vaguely looking for something like Miiverse.


2) Uneven Miiverse integration
Miiverse works amazingly in games like Mario Kart 8 where almost every feature, from video sharing to Ghost data has a Miiverse component.  It also works in games like Mario 3D World where Miiverse posts are downloaded and integrated into the game world itself and a scroll of posts are shown at the end of each stage showing a selection of comments from players who have played the game.

Miiverse is well-used by first-party games

That is clearly the ideal Nintendo have for how Miiverse is to be used. Moving outside of their marquee titles however, Miiverse usage becomes less clear.  While some games integrate their own in-game achievements system into Miiverse, using it as a kind of twitter feed to advertise a player's progress in the game, many more simply use the bare minimum.  Hit the Home menu to pause the game to make a post with a screenshot.

Whether its the lack of time from the developer, tools from Nintendo or both, these kind of 'bare minimum' application of Miiverse are at best neutral to the service, and at worst giving people a negative impression (see the next point).  There needs to be more encouragement for developers to use Miiverse in a consistent way.  Perhaps make Miiverse integration with in-game achievements mandatory, or give away the technology to allow other developers to do what Nintendo was able to achieve in Mario Kart 8 with video/ghost data and other integration of Miiverse.

3) The Miiverse Application & servers needs streamlining
It simply takes 'too long' for the app to load on both the Wii U and 3DS. It only takes 14  seconds to access twitter mobile, including time tapping on the bookmark and about 10 seconds if twitter was pre-loaded as the last viewed website. This is on the 3DS.  In comparison, it takes 30+ seconds for Miiverse to load on the 3DS on a cold boot (including time for the system to connect to my NNID) and slightly less on subsequent uses once I've connected to the Nintendo Network.

Twitter Mobile Loads faster than Miiverse on 3DS

On the Wii U, It can take  about 15~20 seconds to access Miiverse from the Wii U menu/game on a cold boot and about 10 seconds on subsequent boots. It's worth noting it  only takes less than 5 seconds to access the 'lite' version in games with Miiverse integration.  But even there, Miiverse breaks the experience by pausing the background action. Rather than an application layering on-top of the game as is now common in applications found on multi-core systems where a CPU core could be assigned to handle such fuctions, the halting stops caused by the in-game use of Miiverse gives user  the distinct sense there isn't even enough processing power to handle both the game and Miiverse, and that's probably not a good impression to give even if  the issue may not be entirely hardware related.

Ideally, the load times need to be kept at 10 seconds on the Wii U and under 20 seconds on the Wii U.
 Given that Twitter Mobile on the 3DS browser loads much faster (though it only loads the 20 most recent tweets) it may be a good idea to consider a lite version of Miiverse on the 3DS that has the same access as the Wii U version, but simply loads less information upfront to speed up the process.  On practical day to day uses, most users just want to jump into a game community to post a screenshot/comment.  The ~40seconds-1 minute it takes to enter/exit Miiverse certainly cannot have a positive impact on participation in the community.

Miiverse's potential could be immense and it can be a huge asset for Nintendo going forward in terms of creating an ecosystem of users who can carry over to their other products and encourage network effects in a non-game environment. Put simply, Miiverse could be a selling point if there are people on the service with a stake in it and feel more comfortable migrating to a new product with Miiverse features.

Let's hope the next 18 months sees some of the major weaknesses of the service ironed out.  By that time, the 3DS successor should be well on its way and we may even know about it already and whether Miiverse features centrally in that platform could be telling for the future of this interesting experiment in on-line gaming communities from Nintendo.

The Successor

With recent talk of new hardware at E3 (denied by Nintendo), discussions about Nintendo’s successor to the 3DS have, not surprisingly, come to the fore.

Having grown up with the original GameBoy, the concept of portable games machine is quite natural to me. Even though I also own a smartphone, I still prefer to keep a separate games device.  I don’t see that going away, and the handheld space, with a strong base of users in Japan which it can then parley into success overseas, is Nintendo’s strong suit.

The challenge for Nintendo moving forward is to not get distracted by smartphones.  In the span of a little over a decade, the company has moved its mobile games machines from a plug-and-play devices like the  GameBoyAdvance to something very much like a miniature PC with an operating system, applications and services.

It’s a major change, something critics of the company often overlook. It also presents the danger of drift, whereby Nintendo chases after an ideal that may only exist in feedback from focus groups and internet forums rather than reality.  It is easy to say, and I hear this quite often, that Nintendo should release something more like a smartphone,  but executing that vague idea is not easy, and that is the kind of drift the company should avoid.

As such, I'm less interested into making lists of franchises I want to see or even services I expect than to outline what I think should be the core principles of the successor hardware.

1) Plug  & Play

The Game Boy Advance - The epitome of Plug & Play

This may seem obvious but the ease of use and quick boot-up of the device that we take for granted today can be the first thing to disappear in chasing after ‘features’ and OS complexity.  Being able to launch a game in under 5 seconds is a must.

Bought a year after my 3DS, my  Galaxy Nexus has a higher clocked dual processor and nearly eight times the RAM of the 3DS, yet my 3DS still performs  just as well (arguably better) than when I took it out of the box three years ago.  My Nexus, saddled with updates to the operating system designed for much faster machines that launched since, is showing its age. It chugs along, pauses, and sometimes shuts down when I want to scroll down or reboots when I least expects it to.  Both machines are not even 5 years old, my Nexus is only about half that.

Complexity has its costs.  And the simplicity and reliability of the fixed hardware model that has been the mainstay of the home and portable video games business offers the kind of reliability and functionality that consumers who don’t necessarily rant on the internet or say anything at all until they vote with the wallets at the store have come to expect.


2) From Silos to Services
Nintendo’s hardware R&D grew out of its roots as a traditional industrial-era company with multiple research and development divisions under a corporate framework. As such, though branded Nintendo, the portable hardware have, since the days of the GameBoy, very little in common with the home console business.  Many of the franchise killer-app for the GameBoy were developed separately from the home versions.

This was not a problem at the time, in fact, it was and is a strength as the different hardware approaches complemented each other and gave Nintendo the competitive advantage of having a handheld business that is distinct and separate from its home console business.

However, as the company has moved its portable machines from the bare bones devices of our youth  that merely ran games to something like computers with services and system OS, there is an imperative to not reinvent the wheel  again and again.

Many Wii Services have shut down

This, I feel, has been the biggest missed opportunity for Nintendo.  Because both the Wii and the DS were ran as silo-like experiences, the company had difficulty translating the experience to the Wii U and to a lesser extent the 3DS.   While keeping full backwards compatibility is welcome, the services from both the Wii and DS have instead slowly gone away, rather than being transferred and built upon to the new devices.  This stands in contrast to the likes of Apple and Google, who builds their services over many years across multiple platforms.  Successful services are kept and improved.   The Google account I signed up for around the time the Nintendo DS was revealed is still working today.

I strain to remember a service introduced on the Wii/DS era that is still around. All of them seemed like platform specific features that have gone away with time.  Heck, even the ability to play games online is going away for those platforms.  

Trivial as it may be, services like the Forecast Channel, Check Mii Out, Everybody Votes Channel that came to define the expanded experience of the Wii are all gone and no effort was made to keep and upgrade those services to the 3DS or Wii U.  These are kinds of things consumers would find difficult to understand. We would expect there to be a weather app when we upgrade our phones.  For Nintendo, the Wii weather app, a concept that was ahead of the curve in 2006, is now MIA on the Wii U.  This is the kind of regression that underscores the many critiques against the platform and its seemingly confused vision.
More importantly, the way Virtual Console games were handled has been the cause of much aggravation.  Rather than treating it as a platform with games transferring from machine to machine, we’re forced to repurchase games again and again.

Therefore, removing the silo effect such that there is enough interoperability between different tiers and generations of hardware should be a key focus for Nintendo.    Services that show up on a handheld should, if it makes sense, also be operable on other Nintendo devices.  And most importantly services introduced on one platform should be maintained overtime and over new platforms.  Too often, the bean counting mentality seems to prevail.

Perhaps no one really checks the Forecast channel, but I did occasionally, and it was something that made the Wii different.  The fact that it’s missing on the Wii U makes the Wii U just another games console, no matter how much Nintendo wants to say otherwise.

The focus should therefore be maintaining  software platforms that run across hardware generations and hardware type.  Things like Miiverse is a good example of this with both the Wii U and 3DS having access to essentially the same service.  The hope is for Virtual Console games to follow a similar path, along with any other services Nintendo wants to introduce.

3) It’s still about the games
Games are still going to matter no matter what spin futurists would like to put on things.  This is why the 3DS continues to sell, and why the Wii U struggles.

More broadly, the company needs to go back to the idea of anything goes that pervaded through the company in 2004.  This is how we got an entire line of point and click adventure games.  There were also many experimental games like Another Code, Electroplankton, EliteBeatAgents among others that defined a lot of the early buzz for the Nintendo DS. The Touch DS!/Touch Generations slogan was a brilliant line of marketing that betrayed the wealth of truly unique experiences covering games that may not have made Nintendo much money, but built a community that underpinned the platform’s long-term success.

Nintendo President Satoru Iwata at E32010 

The tragedy was that after success was reached, Nintendo seemed to have lost interest in the idea of making and marketing those kinds of games. The mood was decidedly different on the 3DS.  While Nintendo President Satoru Iwata stood on stage at E3 2010 with an impressive list of 3rd party developer support, the list of games for launch was sprinkled with ‘portable’ versions of safe bets.  The platform ultimately  struggled out of the gate with boring experiences, downported console experiences and very nearly felt like the relaunch of the PSP.  A powerful machine saddled by an incompatible vision.
With the rise of digital downloads and removal of ‘inventory risk’ it would seem to be an opportune time to go back to just being experimental.  Games that didn’t make sense to publish at retail should be allowed to exist on the eshop.

The hope is that rather than anchoring the hardware launch of the successor to the 3DS with 2-3 major must have Nintendo titles in the ’12 month launch window’  we would have lots more to play.  Small experiences, big experiences and everything in between.

And Nintendo cannot rely on just indies and 3rd parties to fill all of that while they hide away working on another platformer as the variety and quality of those experiences may be narrow.  The company should be actively involved funding projects that may not make a lot of money, but because inventory risks are minimal, should be attempted anyways because it may be worth it.

That’s what is missing in the Nintendo of 2014.  A lot of safe projects are on the horizon, not a lot of variety.

Bravely Default (Demo)

Demo Version  Town

It's been a long time since I've played a JRPG as tightly polished, beautiful, authentic and fun as the Bravely Default demo that was recently released on the Nintendo eshop.  (see the Demo Trailer)

Taking a clear homage from the old-school DS JRPG  4 Warriors of Light, Square-Enix's Bravely Default is its own creature and it is, I can say with little reservation, the kind of RPG that we've been sorely missing on the Nintendo 3DS or anywhere else for that matter.

In the intervening years since Final Fantasy VII, the JRPG genre has morphed from AAA status to a niche genre derided for its steadfast refusal to change and its often anime inspired tropes and designs.  While some of it comes down to ethnocentric derision of the foreignness/silliness of the premise of the stories found in these games, at their core, fantasy based JRPGs are I think still vastly appealing to the gaming public.

Bravely Default appears to deliver in this regard.  The demo is essentially a self-contained mini-RPG. Rather than present a cut-down out of context segment of the full game. There is plenty to see and do even with its single town, and 4 mini-dungeons. It took me 7 hours, with grinding and experimentation with the game's job and abilities system, to complete the demo.

Screenshot Source: Siliconera

The demo does a good job of introducing players to the game's unique mechanics.  At its core is the Brave and Default mechanics.  Think of it like borrowing and saving turns.  Brave allows characters in a party to borrow future turns, up to 3, to perform 4 actions right off the bat, in exchange for being defenseless for the next 3 turns.  Default works like the old 'defend' mode when you have no particular action for your character.  Choosing default not only increases your character's defense for that turn,  it also stores the unused turn,  so that the player could conceivably withdraw it for use later on.    What this simple system enables is a rich strategic balance in fights.   Against 'trash' mobs encountered for grinding, I often find myself tapping into the Brave mechanic for my damage dealers, dishing out 12 to 16 attacks on my opening salvo, often not giving the enemy a chance to attack and saving consumables and my mage's MP.   On boss fights, I default my mages first few turns as the boss mobs are unlikely to do any signficant damage, then dish out Cure, Protect in quick succession while my damage dealers are temporarily out of the fight while regaining points after their 4 hit opening salvos.   It's a nice balance that I find is workable 

There are also a lot of progressive things in this game.  Random encounters can be turned all the way up +100% or down -100%, allowing players to dictate when they grind.  Walking back to town after a hard battle is no longer an annoyance, nor is exploring dungeons for secret passages. Both can be done in safety.

I can't wait for the full game.  Collector's Edition get.   

Reflections on Pacific Rim

I rarely want to revisit or detail at length my thoughts about a movie after a review, even if I have more things to say.  But nearly two weeks  and two more viewings later,  I’m still buzzing about Guillermo Del Toro’s Pacific Rim. I’m as surprised about it myself.   Why does Del Tero’s ode to the kaiju and mecha films of his childhood have such a hold on me? Part of it is probably because I grew up on the same diet, though, a slightly newer incarnations of the same material – like Choudenshi Bioman , Ultraman, Voltron, Transformers, and Macross/Robotech.    The other part is because I think there’s really something there that many professional critics who gave backhanded compliments to the film as being a ‘fun’ summer blockbuster missed.   Pacific Rim is a very human story.  Very simple perhaps, but it was by design.  Del Toro had mildly criticized, though not by name, the  Christopher Nolan blockbusters that has seemingly dominated cinemas of late, as being "existential", "dystopian", "incredibly complex"  and one would assume, not fun (to watch).

And he is right. While I had a buzz for weeks after seeing Inception and enjoyed the movie quite a lot, the movie appealed to the engineering and logical centers of my brain. I was more interested in the intricate layers of Nolan’s dream world and how everything connected and how it all made sense than I was about the characters.  Debating the ending aside, I didn’t really care about Cobb, nor did I want to explore Inception’s world beyond what is there on screen. Pacific Rim appeals to me on a deeper more emotional level.

What’s interesting to me about the film is how it has affected other people.  There is a whole community of fans, on twitter, tumblr and elsewhere blogging about a movie that is sort of considered a flop domestically.  There are hundreds of fan fics, fan art with ‘pairings’ of Newt and Herman, the two comedic relief, and just about ever character,  including and especially the Russian crew of Cherno Alpha who has a few lines and even fewer scenes on screen. This is also why the graphic novel explaining the backstory ‘Tales from Year 0’ is doing surprisingly well.  Pacific Rim has reached the cult fandom that your typical summer blockbuster do not.  I do not see the same enthusiasm for Man of Steel as I do for Pacific Rim, even though the former outperformed the latter at the box office.

Pacific Rim is also the reason why I sorely miss Roger Ebert's insights at the movies.  Ebert respects films for what they are, judging each by their merits and comparing them within the context of their creation.  Just as every film cannot be a Battleship Potempkin or a Godfather, he does not try to compare them as such.

He rarely condescends and in his reviews he gets to the heart of the movies. With his recent passing, a voice that echoes the passion for film has been removed from the broader conversation.   Instead, we have salaried critics vying for the trailer quote or writing lazy haphazard reviews to cram into a 500 word summary at the edge of a newspaper column.  If Roger Ebert was alive, I think he really would have liked the film.

I think Ebert would point out that Pacific Rim ultimately makes the audience care about the characters.  There’s a lot in this film that’s non-Hollywood by design.  It isn't jingoistic, there's no shoehorned in army scene with troops running around city streets to appeal to the Call of Duty crowd.  It's just a fun movie about robots vs. aliens where characters are relatable on a very simple level.  While the characters generally fall into genre stereotypes as a shorthand for explaining where they come from, motivations and so on,  Del Toro has crated a universe that people want to explore.  Like the characters in a good anime, the characters of Mako Mori, Raleigh Becket, Stacker Pentecost have a certain earnestness and humanity about them. Their interactions within the film's universe creates a certain narrative inertia that makes people care.  Just like any good anime, the audience keeps coming back for more and wants to know what happens to them.   That is why I think Pacific Rim is greater than the sum of its parts and it is also why I very much want a sequel. One that either tells the backstory or the story of the kaijus return.

If I learned anything from my childhood.  The monsters always find a way back.

Pacific Rim

Once in a while a movie like Pacific Rim flies under the radar and almost slips away from a first viewing on the big screen. I am very glad I didn’t let it slip away.   I had started out highly anticipating the film given the film’s pedigree (helmed by Guillermo del Toro) and the premise (mechas).  But as release neared, the marketing which tried to evoke a Bill Pullman moment in ID4 with Idris Elba’s ‘Cancelling the apocalypse’ speech backfired for being too over the top and hokey.  It didn’t spike my interest.  As I had vowed to keep myself spoiler free, the negative comments and weak box office numbers seem to have confirmed what I feared. It was a bomb. It didn’t connect with the nerds and anime-fans who should love this.

I’m glad I reconsidered.  Going to see the film on a whim, I was hooked from beginning to end.  I knew immediately I was going to like the within the first 15 minutes, before we even see the opening title which did not appear until after an extended prologue.  And here’s the thing. There’s nothing cerebral about Pacific Rim.  Del Toro made no bones hiding his inspiration was the giant monster (Kaiju) films of his childhood.  This is essentially a big budget version of those films, aimed at children inspired by a  staple of Japanese and Asian pop entertainment.  However, unlike Michael Bay’s Transformers and a bevy of blockbusters with flashy effects, Pacific Rim respects the source material and treats the audience with respect.  The end result is a great movie about giant robots fighting giant monsters with a distinctly non -Hollywood sensibility.

Del Toro had a movie he could have made that he didn’t and it was for the better.  The film’s first 15 minutes summarizes a series of events spanning years.  Describing the first attack of the Kaijus, the devastation the wrecked, and the triumph of humanity over these monsters with the first Jaegers (hunter  mechas) developed to stop them.  This would have sufficed for a Hollywood sci-fi movie.  Cities destroyed, millions dead, and a rousing ending.

But instead of making that movie, Del Toro made the sequel.  His story is about the peace that did not

happen after the victory. The film opens at a high point.  Kaijus have apparently been dealt with, Jaeger pilots have become more than heroes, they are rock-stars and the mechas they pilot have entered as pop-culture merchandising machines.  Humanity has grown comfortable with their own power and supremacy.  At this point the audience knows something else is about to happen. It is only the beginning of the movie. The question becomes how the story would wind its way into the eventual monster-mecha brawlfests we’ve seen in the trailers and ads.  The journey there forms the core of Pacific Rim, and in doing so, Del Toro allows for the characters, who we barely yet know, the ability to show emotion, weakness when they are in positions where we expect them to be triumphant and confident.

While it is not unusual for a summer popcorn flick to show a flawed hero with emotions, we expect those to happen in canned family scenes where innocent civilians and family members are killed by the wanton actions of the villain, we expect the hero to collect his emotions and go out and kick ass in a rousing epic battle.  The narrative arc of the typical Hollywood blockbuster almost wills it.   But not in Pacific Rim.  We see tragedy after tragedy befall the Jaeger corps.  at the height of the protagonists power.  Doing this, Del Toro and writer Travis Beacham frames the character in a way that makes it easy for the audience to identify with their emotions and motivations.  There’s no need to spend screen time emoting  badly written lines about duty, honor and vengeance.  We simply know by observing the tragedies.  In Pacific Rim, I really cared.

While not without its hokey, clichéd moments and anime staples, Del Toro manages to make it work.  The film doesn’t feel like a cheapened by them.  Clichés like the rivalry and redemption between Jaeger pilots whose resolution we could see coming a mile away merely acknowledges that these kind of tropes exists in the genre and is a narrative staple in the genre.  As someone who grew up watching Evangelion, Macross, and countless other Japanese mecha anime, I appreciated the anime inspired tropes.  Watching them done in live action by a director who is respectful of the source material is refreshing.   The anime inspired hero poses and one-liners (in Japanese) comes to mind.

Even more impressive are the fight scenes. These turn into all-out-brawls, with some pretty brutal  moments. When I felt distress as a Jaeger is crippled and its pilots slowly killed  blow by blow by a Kaiju, I knew Del Toro has got it right.  He wasn’t just cutting together pieces of CG action sequences commissioned from ILM, he was telling a story with the brawl sequences.  Like a boxer being knocked  around,  the audience is right there rooting for the Jaegers to win as the living hell is beat out of them.

On the same token, Ramin Djawadi’s (Game of Thrones) provides an unobtrusive and excellent mix of electronic and choral score.  I’v e spent the past several summers having my ear drums blasted by Hans Zimmer’s sometimes overbearing scores that Djawadi’s guitar riffs seems decidedly understated.  In hindsight, that is Del Toro’s style. The music shepherds you from one scene to another and it wasn’t  until the visuals had faded away and the story ended that the score’s quality comes to the fore. As I walked out the theatre with the credits rolling, the guitar riffs from the main theme struck me as being catchy.  I had been hearing riffs of the main theme through the entire movie, but didn’t realize how good it was until then.

Rinko Kikuchi as Mako Mori

Having said all that, the inner geek in me was disappointed by a number of things.  The relative short screen time of the Chinese and Russian Jaeger and what is essentially a cameo from the Japanese Jaeger Coyote Tango.   While I don’t fault the Beacham and Del Toro for focusing on the American Jaeger,  the high profile of the Australian Jaeger was surprising.  I feel its role could have been shared by the machines from the several other participating nations.  

I want to close by noting that Rinko Kikuchi’s and Idris Elba’s performance were superb.  The poorly cut ‘cancelling the apocalypse’ speech shown out of context in the trailers may have given a lot of people the wrong impression.  In-context, the speech works.  Elba’s  role  as Stacker Pentecost is the glue that holds the film's narrative together.  While he is seen shouting in the trailers, most of his screen-time is understated acting more as the narrative anchor of the entire film, or as his character puts it, he is the ‘immovable point’ on the screen.   Kikuchi’s Mako Mori is surprisingly good, channelling the anime mecha pilot personality to a tee.  There are fleeting resemblances to many anime characters in her role, but I felt like she’s closest to Evangelion’s Rei Ayanami.  A  wounded soul.  Vulnerable,  but incredibly lethal in combat.  It is worth noting that one of her final lines was left untranslated to the English speaking audience.  A little bit of searching on Google should yield its meaning, normal spoiler warnings apply.  The line is a poignant and fitting touch by Del Toro and Beacham as it fits the Japanese inspiration perfectly and would be the kind of thing you wouldn't expect in a Hollywood blockbuster but it is something someone in an anime would say in the end, at the climax, when decisions are made.   It wasn’t lost on me that at that moment, when she said those words that I realized what I had just seen.  Pacific Rim is the live-action mecha  movie I had always wanted to see and make myself.

E3 2013 - Final Analysis

So E3 2013 is done and over with.  I had commented last week that I hoped to seesurprises and the unexpected but sadly that didn't happen. I think it was obvious given the reduced pomp in this year’s presentation that Nintendo would be focusing on tried and true franchises to kickstart Wii U sales.   That said, it was still a little disappointing that there were no surprise “one more thing” game to show off and that the core of what was shown to us was known, via various Nintendo Directs in the past.  And maybe that’s also part of where the expectations game needs to be played.  We get announcements from Nintendo now almost every other month, so the big news dump at E3, at least for a ‘games only’ year like this one doesn't feel as overhwleming or exciting.

 I was unable to attend the Best Buy E3 demos this year, but that’s not the purpose of this article.  What I want to reflect on is to frame my reaction in context of what others are saying on-line, and to reflect my first ‘feel’ of a game after checking out the video and media Nintendo released.

Super Mario 3D World

A lot of bytes have been spilt commenting on why this wasn’t Super Mario Galaxy U; and to be quite frank, I was never the biggest fan of the Galaxy series (full disclosure: I haven’t yet played Super Mario Galaxy 2 which I understand is the better of the two games).  That said,  3DWorld is surprising take.  Edge-Online openly commented they suspected the game may have even started life as a 3DS sequel to 3DLand and was up-converted to the Wii U to have a big Mario title for Christmas.

I think the disappointment has to do with the fact that the game, while looking visually strong, appears to be a sequelized 3DLand and lacked the 'wow' factor visually and conceptually that console gamers have come to expect when a new Mario game is announced for Nintendo’s home console.   There's little concern that the game won't be fun, in fact I'm willing to bet that it will be a great game, so in that sense some of the disappointment is due to expectations.   Were they too high?

It’s really hard to say, but for me personally, I expected a console Mario to feel more substantial.  It’s nice to see Nintendo explore co-op multiplayer in a 3-D Mario game, but I doubt it will have on-line co-op, and I haven’t yet seen the kind of conceptual and technical leap  Super Mario World had over Super Mario Land between 3DLand and 3DWorld.   Super Mario 3DWorld feels at this point more like a sequel than a console cousin that shares similar branding.  I want to be proved wrong here, but I did enjoy 3DLand quite a bit and will likely be picking this up.  

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD

Wind Waker was one of the few games that got me back to the GameCube ten years ago when I had drifted away to PC gaming and doing other things. It was also released during a very good period of my young adulthood, so there’s a certain bit of nostalgia involved here.  I’m glad that Nintendo hasn’t abandoned what was at the time a very controversial decision to make a cute (Toon) Link when the industry, under Sony’s domination, was going for ‘mature’ with breakout hits like GrandTheftAuto 3. 

I’m glad that the series producer/director Eiji Aonuma is actively trying to address the game’s two major flaws.  The overlong sea voyages between islands and the game’s pacing, especially around the Triforce fetch quests. That said, Wind Waker is still a flawed game and always felt a bit short.   The **spoiler alert** underwater section of Hyrule right before the final battle was pretty amazing.  It was my first glimpse at Hyrule on a hardware powerful enough to render it in impressive detail, but it felt half-finished and rushed.  There was a short area outside to explore and the player literally walks through a narrow corridor through a bridge and to the final battle.

Given that this will be a full priced release, I was certainly hoping that there would be new content.  There’s certainly precedent for this in the many Zelda remixes when they port a Zelda game to new hardware.   Four Swords dungeon in A Link to the Past on GBA  or  the special color based dungeon for Link’s Awakening DX.  Unfortunately, it does not appear new dungeons are on the way. 

Here’s to hoping there’s surprise extra content when more is revealed of this HD remake.  For now I’m certainly interested.

“X”

This is perhaps the most interesting Wii U game shown at the conference.    With the current zeitgeist of the nerd crowd around Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim, it’s nice to see an unashamedly Japanese mecha game take center stage.  The game’s pedigree from Xenoblade developer Monolithsoft doesn't hurt.  The visuals deliver the kind of next-gen look that makes this a standout title on the Wii U.  Very interested.

Mario Kart 8

Easily the most visually impressive Wii U game next to Monolithosft’s “X”.  The trailer looks awesome. I was wondering where Nintendo would take the franchise after Mario Kart 7 and it’s very nice to see that they’ve kept the core of what makes Mario Kart great and added a new twist by allowing racing  sideways with anti-gravity karts.  Opening up the tracks even more and adding more angles to attack in the race.

News that we're able to record videos of our matches and share them on Miiverse is awesome and welcome.  As a very casual player, this interests me far more than any amount of tournament communities can, though I do hope they keep the excellent Mario Kart communities on-line system they have on the 3DS for Mario Kart 8.

The Legend of Zelda : A Link Between Worlds

On any other E3, news of a handheld Zelda game based on A Link to the Past would have been big enough  news, but we got to know about this game several months ago from a Nintendo Direct.  I already discussed my impressions of the reveal trailer. 

Given the E3 trailer is showing much more of the game, it really does look like a 3D interpretation of A Link to the Past.  The environments look slightly better than the trailer we saw last April, with more detail to the textures.   That said, I still can’t see a single torch in the test dungeon where the Eastern Palace used to be.   This may sound trivial but I think part of what made A Link to the Past look great visually is the unity of purpose of the elements on screen.  Dark rooms are dark for a reason. Lit rooms have an obvious source of light.  It certainly didn't hurt that this showed off the SNES transparency capabilities at the time.  It’s a little curious that the outside of the singular window we see Link wallcrawl through from the trailers, there are no obvious light sources in the dungeons.   It’s not like the 3DS isn't capable of nice lighting effects.  I don’t want to feel like playing through floors  floating in space.  I want to feel like I’m fighting through a dungeon and be terrified when I enter a darkened room.  The even lighting in the test dungeon we've seen so far is a little worrisome.

That said, I want to say the remastered A Link to the Past overworld and dungeon themes (as can be heard in this playthrough with direct feed sound in the embedded video above) is absolutely brilliant. 

Easily my most anticipated game this year, and given the pedigree of the world it is building from, I have very high hopes for this. Don’t screw it up! Give me torches!

Donkey Kong Country Returns Tropical Freeze

This is probably where a lot of people were disappointed.  I am still enjoying Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D  on my 3DS so this game feels entirely too soon.   Visually, it also looks like an upscaled Wii game.  Not that there is anything wrong with it, but the game actually managed to look better on the 3DS because the smaller screen made everything look crisper, and the 3D added the right kind of volume to the graphics making them pop out from the environments which is reminiscent of the ‘ACM graphics’ (made up marketing word) from the original Donkey Kong Country games.

The Wii U game looks far too clean in the sense that there are no shiny shaders we normally associate with HD games.  While I have no doubt the platforming will be superb and the music will be top notch with Rareware's David Wise on board again, I’d much rather they delay this game and work on the visuals.  Look at Trine 2 Director’s Cut on Wii U and see how a 2D game can look with the power of modern graphics chipset and apply it to Donkey Kong Country Returns: Tropical Freeze. 

Give this game the proper love and Nintendo polish and I will be there day 1.

There are several games I haven’t touched on here. Pokemon X&Y, Smash Bros U/3DS,  Mario & Luigi Dream Team, Pikmin 3 Bayonetta 2, Yoshi’s New Island.  I either have no strong opinions about these games or are less interested in them than usual.  That doesn't mean I won't be picking them up.  The new Mario & Luigi game is the closet (visually) to Super Mario RPG, which is awesome in my book as I really dig that style of graphics plus I love the series offbeat humour, but I just really don't have enough to say about these games at this point in time.

Please Understand

Finally, I want to touch on Nintendo’s E3 performance.  From a game’s perspective its leaps ahead of last year’s seriously disappointing reveals and it brings into focus what we’ll be getting for the rest of the year plus see a preview of some of the titles in 2014.   I applaud them for bringing E3 playable games to games at Best Buy and hope they do it again next year, at expanded locations, perhaps even at GameStops.  Part of the reason I couldn’t test those games out this year were the BestBuy locations they chose and the times didn’t mesh with my schedule.

For the E3 direct itself, I hope the massive demand for the stream on the day of the stream imparts some important lessons.  Get more servers for the Nintendo Direct steams, and perhaps defray some of that load by allowing a 3^rd party, such as GameTrailers to also carry the feed.  That kind of cross promotion has merit as you may reach people who otherwise may not have been aware Nintendo was going to be having a video feed that day. 

The High quality feeds on the Wii U eshop also shows off the games much  much better than the lower quality versions on YouTube.  Nintendo should upload and show off the best quality versions of their trailers.

Last by not least, bring surprises to E3. I mentioned this already, but people need to have their expectations exceeded.  I felt like we knew all the games going in.  I was also disappointed that Square-Enix threw all their bones at Sony.  No Final Fantasy V remake for the 3DS?  No RPG support for Wii U? 

Some things for Nintendo to rectify in their next Nintendo Direct in the weeks and months ahead.