Nintendo Direct

[hisak]

Nintendo has announced a Nintendo Direct event in North America and Japan tomorrow morning. For those unfamiliar with it, these are prerecorded presentations made by Iwata and Reggie for making announcements.

Where and When to Watch:

The Japanese stream (which won't include English subtitles) will begin tomorrow morning at 6 AM EST.

The American stream will begin at 9 AM EST.

There might not be anything exciting announced, but who knows? Note that Nintendo doesn't have a keynote address at GDC this year, so any announcements that they would likely make there will probably be announced through this instead.

[hisak]

Mario Tennis Open (the 3DS game) is releasing in North America on May 20, with online. No mention of RPG elements like the last handheld Tennis games, so I wouldn't expect it.

Also: Xseed is publishing The Last Story in NA this year. No word of a release date yet.

[Shin Illuminated]

I heard June 9 2012. Or sometime in June anyway.

[hisak]

Another one of these tomorrow night at 11 PM ET. It's Japan-only, but to my knowledge these events have a perfect track record for new game announcements, so it might be something to look forward to.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

Europe is getting a show at 1pm CET (12 noon BST, 11am GMT). Fingers crossed for some unseen goodies.

[hisak]

Big announcements!



Already announced, but now we have a title and Japanese release date for New Super Mario Bros. 2: August.

This is also happening:



Other news: The shortcut bug in Mario Kart 7 is getting fixed, and the 3DS finally has app folders.

This also happened:



Roll on E3!

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

European show just finished. Satoru Shibata (who is not just a moustache-wearing Iwata, disappointingly) brought us some of the goodies that the Japanese showing had, but not all. Highlights were:

- Mario 2 on 3DS in August.
- Mario Tennis Open May 25th.
- Kingdom Hearts in July.
- Pokémon B2W2 in Autumn.
- Rhythm Paradise Wii to feature the Japanese songs!
- Kid Icarus cards (400+) to be available in stores sometime in future.

No mention of Kirby's 20th anniversary though! I felt compelled to bug @NintendoEurope on Twitter. If Nintendo America pull the same shit, I recommend you do too so they can completely ignore it as well.

We're getting the same system update on the same day. I'll be downloading all the Ambassador games and no longer whining about how cluttered they make the menu look. Hooray!

[hisak]

Kirby Anniversary and NSMB2's August release date have both been confirmed by NoA on Twitter, so no such misfortune. Looking forward to the latter a lot. Hopefully it has more in common with the Wii game.

[Ezlo's Apprentice]

There was a Japan-only Direct today, although there was still plenty to be excited about if you could handle an hour of gibberish Japanese. There were four key bits of news for me, jam-packed in amongst a whole lot of very Japanese whizz-bang flashy effect affairs involving robots and magic and the like...

- Animal Crossing is hitting Japan on November 8. As the mayor of EAisawesomeville, you'll be able to buy bridges, benches, wells and other landmarks to brighten up your town. You'll also be able to make your home more elaborate inside and out, with a number of themes on show in the trailer. You can also design your own rad threads and share them with QR codes. There will be an Animal Crossing-centric Direct sometime before launch!

- Professor Layton 6 is in development and pencilled in for a 2013 release in Japan. There was no word on the Layton/Ace Attorney game, which was a bit of a shame. Professor Layton And The Remains Of An Advanced Civilisation (that's definitely gonna be shortened/improved for the West) has been described as not just the final game in the prequel trilogy, but Layton's final adventure. Not while those bad boys continue to sell like the proverbial hotcakes.

- I got rather excited when Iwata started coughing up some words I recognised. Namely, Pocket Monsters and Gamefreak. While the reveal was not what I expected, I was still pretty excited by what I saw. Gamefreak have unveiled a new title, Rhythm Hunter Harmo Knight. This download title is part platformer, part rhythm action which sees your metal-clad hero collecting notes in time with the music, including familiar Poké-tunes. It looks absolutely gorgeous, has a great premise

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRLuP9GFUM" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjRLuP9GFUM</a>

- Paper Mario Sticker Star also got a new trailer, as did Inazuma Eleven 1-2-3 and New Art Academy, featuring an absolutely bonkers Japanese version of Where's Wally/Waldo. No idea what that was about. Other games shown included AKB48+Me which looks like a poor Mii-focused version of EBA (where's our proper new EBA, Nintendo?), Girls Fashion Mode and the aforementioned array of magicians and robots on crack.

Oh, and Nintendo are making all sorts of Kirby merchandise you will probably never get your hands on.

[hisak]

Game Freak's Bit.Trip Runner game looks awesome. I think I'll pick it up for a twofer with Pushmo whenever it's released. Or the Fluidity sequel (no news on that front?).

Paper Mario isn't clicking with me as much as I hoped it would this close to release, but I'll be picking it up regardless. It's the game that sold me on a 3DS, after all.