This was a pretty mediocre Direct, although there have certainly been worse in the past. Going through the stuff that caught my eye and wasn't F2P or multiplayer-only garbage...
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD is disappointing. Motion controls aside, I didn't care for this game much at all because it introduced several unnecessary and downright bad features that only got made worse in BOTW - stamina and weapon durability being at the top of that list. I'm very glad they gave it proper controls (not that they had much choice, considering motion controls only would have alienated Switch Lite owners something awful) but...well, yeah, I'm a victim of expectations here, because I was hoping for Twilight Princess/Wind Waker HD...and maybe Four Swords Adventures for a triple pack. Given that every other Wii U exclusive asides Xenoblade X and Fatal Frame are now on Switch, now seems like the perfect time for those two to make the jump, and the lack of announcement for these was...sad, really.
Samurai Warriors 5 fills me with glee, because I love the Samurai Warriors series. It's my stress relief fuel and I need more of it in my life. Spirit of Sanada was pretty great, and given that Nobunaga and Mitsuhide are infinitely more interesting than Yukimura, I have high hopes that this one will have a better narrative and the same mindlessly addictive combat. The only downside to this is KT's general greed and stupidity when it comes to DLC, but...eh, the package is usually complete enough by itself, and the Ultimate Editions they release usually have enough content to justify the purchase. Usually.
Monster Hunter Rise is filling me with more dread the more I see of it. The multi-monster battles look like an absolute clusterfuck, and...FFS, Rajang again. I also feel like this is going to have horrendously boring unskippable cutscenes in the same vein as Monster Hunter World and what Capcom fail to understand is that I don't care. I want to hunt monsters, and that is all I want to do. Not having a skip button in this day and age is downright backwards and just plain bad design. I have a nasty feeling this is going to be just as aggravating as World was for exactly the same reasons and whilst I will probably get some enjoyment out of it I really do miss classic Monster Hunter more and more.
Legend of Mana looks fantastic, although my optimism is tempered somewhat by the spotty quality the Mana series has had thus far. Secret of Mana - both of them - was pretty poor despite its reputation, and the Trials of Mana remake was let down by generally poor quality voice acting and combat that never felt quite as smooth as it should...it's better than, say, Oninaki, but it's a far cry from the Ys series. But I love every iteration of Final Fantasy Adventure, so I'm hoping it'll be more like that than other games in the franchise.
Famicom Detective Club I will definitely buy if the price is right...which it probably will not be for quite some time, but I'm impressed by the sprite work and interested to see what all the hubbub is about.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity Expansion Pass I saw coming because of the datamines and I am not buying it. Not only because Age of Calamity was a terrible game that in no way did justice to Hyrule Warriors, but because the content they're adding to it looks pretty threadbare. This is a far cry from the original Hyrule Warriors, which had substantial FREE content added on top of the ridiculously content-rich season pass. Both times. It's early days yet I suppose, but...well, you can't do much with Breath of the Wild, really. Also, why isn't that new villain playable? Pretty poor form, honestly.
Project Triangle Strategy I will get because it looks pretty fantastic. I'm getting strong Tactics Ogre vibes from it, only with Octopath Traveler's visual style, and that's definitely a winning combination...IF it's done right. I don't intend to play the demo - I never do these days - but I will be keeping a close eye on it. They had me from the get-go with the posh as hell narrator, stellar soundtrack, and lovely sprite visuals. I was never NOT going to get this. High hopes.
Ninja Gaiden: Master Collection I will buy even though I shouldn't because Ninja Gaiden is bloody hard and I am just asking for it by getting them. But it's Ninja Gaiden! I've not played this series in years.
World End's Club has the most disgusting visuals possible but it's been fully dubbed by the sounds of it and the creative minds behind it make me want to pick it up when it rolls around. As long as it's nothing like Danganronpa V3, we're all good.
SaGa Frontier Remastered is yet another SaGa title I will buy and probably not play for months and months, haha. I own all of them now, and I still haven't started one of them. I will do...eventually. It looks good though.
So yeah, there was a fair bit I was interested in, but the amount of padding and outright garbage in this didn't make it feel much like a proper Nintendo Direct. More like an extended third-party Direct with a couple of bigger Nintendo titles thrown in for good measure. The number of F2P/online PvP titles added to this - and the amount of time spent on them - was pretty aggravating. Mostly because I don't like staying up so late and it was a colossal waste of my time. It didn't really live up to the 530 day wait between Directs, but then it was never going to do that, and all things considered it could have been much, much worse than it was.
