Nintendo Direct February 2021 Review and Reaction

It’s hard to believe that it has been almost two years since the last true, full fledged Nintendo Direct or to be exact, 532 days between this Direct and the last one. That is a long time when you consider that the Switch has been available for quite some time now as we approach the four year anniversary in March. When put in this context, this means that we haven’t had a true direct for about half of the systems lifespan and when you have sold over 80 million units, that seems somewhat unacceptable.

On September 4, 2019, Switch owners were treated to some great announcements including Overwatch coming to the platform, a deep dive on Luigi’s Mansion 3, which was one of my favourite games of 2019, some great indie announcements, Super Smash announcements, in depth Pokemon Sword and Shield information, SNES online, The Witcher 3, Animal Crossing sneak peek and the one more announcement at the end was the Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition.

There were plenty more announcements but those were the headlines and that was all done in 38 minutes. The February 2021 Nintendo Direct was 50 minutes. Nintendo Switch owners fall into two categories for how they felt about 2020 regarding Nintendo. They either fell deep into the clutches of Animal Crossing New Horizons and loved the year or they felt like there was a drought. Obviously, there were other games that were released in 2020 like Paper Mario: The Origami King and even the indie darling Hades but overall if you didn’t fall deep in love with Tom Nook’s latest pyramid scheme, then you probably felt like the Switch under delivered in 2020.

Expectations Vs Reality

It’s for all of these reasons that the expectations for this Direct seemed like they were off the charts, which actually seems pretty standard for every Nintendo Direct. The length of the presentation, the amount of time it has been since our last, true Direct, the lack of tentpole AAA titles that were released in 2020, absence of many high profile IP and other reasons. It goes without saying that no matter what the announcements are and were, there will always be some people that are extremely displeased.

However, after the Nintendo Direct, is it possible that everyone left the presentation unhappy? Personally, the highlight was Mario Golf, which was one of the predictions that we made back based in October of last year based on Camelots release cadence, their portfolio, and a general gap in sports titles from Nintendo but that should not be the highlight of a 50 minute Nintendo Direct, especially after a hiatus of almost two years.

After a break of that long since their last Direct, Nintendo had to be aware of the expectations that would be put onto this presentation and I don’t think they did much to quell those expectations. Even their messaging could have been a little better. Coming out beforehand and telling people that the Direct won’t include breath of the Wild likely would have helped.

At the time of the Direct announcement, it was going to be 50 minutes of games that were coming to the Switch in the first half of 2021. Even though my highlight was Mario Golf, two of the biggest announcements were Splatoon 3 which closed out the presentation as well as the follow up to Project Octopath Traveller, which got an even worse name with Project Triangle Strategy. However, both of those games were listed as 2022, which goes against the messaging Nintendo delivered prior to the Direct.

Breath of the Wild 2

Even the way that they mislead some Breath of the Wild 2 news, which lead to a disappointing Breath of the Wild 2 news coming at a later date this year possibility. This messaging led into the announcement that in the meantime they would be remastering a Zelda from a few generations ago. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD was announced, which out of all of the Zelda titles that people wanted, this would likely not have been near the top of the list but near the bottom instead.

On the selfish side, being one of the few Zelda titles that I have never played I am looking forward to trying this game in July whether or not its regarded as the ugly stepchild of the Zelda series. Skyward Sword is likely a Zelda game that many people didn’t play and Nintendo likely has data on this backing up their decision on why they chose this game over the other titles right now. Skyward Sword didn’t even make the top ten games sold on the Wii according to Nintendo. When it was originally released at the end of 2011, it was likely that many of the hardcore Wii owners had moved on to other systems, leaving only the casuals behind, who were happy with Wii Sports and Wii Sports Resort.

Nintendo is clearly aware of peoples high anticipation for the sequel to Breath of the Wild. Telling fans that development is progressing well and more information might come later this year is a letdown if you are going to bring out the producer. Even giving the sequel a proper title would have gone a long way to satiate fans desire for news on the follow up to one of the best Zelda games of all time. Maybe that is wishful thinking and no matter what they did falling short of a full reveal and date, people would have been upset.

Ocarina of Time, Wind Waker, Grezzo style remake of Link to the Past in the vein of Links Awakening, or Twilight Princess all would have been a much warmer reception. The good news is that they have incorporated the Wii motion controls into motion controls using the Joy-cons or the ability to play using buttons only, if you want to play handheld or only own the Lite.

The unfortunate and expected news is that this game will be a full priced release. As we have seen with pretty much every port that Nintendo has released for the Switch from Mario Kart 8 Deluxe to New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe to the newly released Super Mario 3D + Bowser’s Furt, Skyward Sword will sell millions, no matter what the cost.

I understand Nintendo porting all of the WiiU titles to the Switch as a lot of those games were excellent and went largely unnoticed due to the low install base of the WiiU of just over 13 million. Clearly these titles were excellent and they just needed a little more exposure as the best selling game on the Switch is Mario Kart 8 Deluxe with over 33 million is sales, which is over three times the total sales of the WiiU. There could have been many better options for porting an older Zelda title to the Switch. Even a bad Legend of Zelda game is better than most other games if there is a silver lining to this announcement and being the 35th anniversary, there has to be more Zelda to come in 2021.

Missing Link

For me personally, one of the biggest disappointments of this Nintendo Direct was the absence of Metroid. Despite not being a commercial monster for Nintendo, Metroid Prime is one of my favourite games of all time and will always have a special place in my heart. One of my favourite genres as I have gotten older has become Metroidvania’s, which makes me want a 2D Metroid on the Switch badly.

Unfortunately, there was no mention of anything related to the series. The soon to be infamous Metroid Prime Trilogy that has been finished for a long time now would be amazing to have on the Nintendo Switch, especially after four years and no Metroid entries.

Understanding that indie titles are typically reserved for Indie World Showcase presentations or Nindies as they used to be called which was much better, this Direct could have used a few anticapted premium indie titles. Some games that come to mind include Hollow Knight Silksong, which is currently a PC and Switch exclusive or even something like Axiom Verge 2. Both games have been in development for a while and are likely going to see releases in 2021, but maybe Nintendo wants to save those for a future Indie World Showcase.

If you have to look at the glass half full and be optimistic, you have to think that after doing not much but something for the 35th Anniversary of Mario that they have to do something for Link and The Legend of Zelda but Its also the 35th Anniversary of Metroid, although Nintendo has made it pretty clear about how much they care about that series, which is why I wouldn’t expect anything from Metroid this year. This means no Prime Trilogy, no 2D Metroid, and no news on Metroid Prime 4.

It would be great to be proven wrong on that thinking, but Nintendo is a bean counting type of company and Metroid just hasn’t sold that well over the years. Does it have a cult following and have the sales been good enough? Yes, but that just means that Nintendo will keep the franchise going but at a much slower pace than their other IP. Unfortunately, that feels like a chicken or the egg type of situation where it won’t turn a corner and become greater than it is because they don’t give the series enough attention.

More Directs Right Around The Corner

The positive thinking is that much more is on the way in 2021 for Nintendo and we won’t have to wait another 532 days for another main Direct. 2020 was a tough year for everyone including companies that had to figure out how to adapt to the new normal. It has to be expected that Nintendo has become accustomed to this new way of life of the time being and this year still has a lot to offer.

As mentioned earlier, the highlight of the show for me was definitely Mario Golf Super Rush, which doesn't have a lot to prove to make me happy. The game just needs decent mechanics which it looks to have, even the motion controls add a nice touch that would make virtual golfing fun every so often. It also has the potential to have an engaging story mode but its not necessary because I have poured plenty of hours into Mario Golf, Hot Shots Golf and Everybody's Golf over the years and none of them had strong and meaningful stories.

You have to give Nintendo the benefit of the doubt that a lot more is coming in 2021. It seems that E3 is back on this year and even though, Nintendo hasn’t been a part of it for a while now, they had traditionally done a big Direct around the same time frame. When Nintendo discontinued the 3DS in September of 2020, it made sense to assume that gaming on the Switch was going to improve. Obviously, the pandemic might have affected this outcome initially but you have to hope we will see these benefits sooner than later

If you look at the streak of success that the Nintendo Switch has been on, if they want things to continue they will need to deliver premium first party titles, as that has been what has made the company stand out from the pack since they decided to stop competing on visual fidelity.

There is no way to leave this Nintendo Direct thinking that will be all they announce for the first half of the year. I choose to be hopeful that more will come in the following months. This Direct didn't disappoint so many fans because the thirty plus games were not great but instead because it was missing a lot of pop. Outside of the Splatoon 3 tease at the end of the presentation, there is a lot of premium Nintendo IP that we haven’t heard from in a while.

No new mainstream Mario game to follow Odyssey in 2017, nothing new for Legend of Zelda, No Mario Kart news, nothing from Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero, Donkey Kong, Pilotwings, Wii Sports, Punch Out or many other titles that have just gone dormant. Nintendo is having record sales during their most recent fiscal quarters with hardware and software trending upwards constantly, but can they really rely on their back catalog for the rest of the generation?

It has been said by many industry pundits that the struggles of 2020 wouldn’t be felt for a year or two and with Nintendo being one of the more close knit companies, maybe the pandemic did affect them harder as it was reported last year. Just like last year with Paper Mario, Hades and many other titles, there will surely be more coming in a future announcement. If we look at last year, when adding up all of the Indie Directs, Third Party Directs and Direct Minis there were ten total, which means that more announcements are right around the corner. In the meantime I can’t wait for Mario Golf.