March 2025 Direct Reaction

GOOD MORNING! It’s Nintendo Direct day and we’re up bright and early, eagerly awaiting the sound of that familiar “click!” we’ve grown so used to over these past 8 years. It’s crazy to think that this could be the last presentation that features the original Switch’s iconic branding. How will we fair with our predictions? Let’s find out! (NOTE: I’m not going to talk about everything shown off, just the things that I have comments on)

Right out of the gate, no introductions from the brass at Nintendo, straight into the first game!

Dragon Quest 1 + 2 HD Remaster

I feel lke we’ve been hearing about this for a while. It looks cool though I’m not sure if Dragon Quest games are for me.

No Sleep for Kaname Date

The third entry in the Somnium Files is coming! This game apparently adds a whole new mechanic which looks like variations of ‘Escape the Room’ puzzles. Feeling more like an entry in the Zero Escape series than the previous two titles. I’m here for it. I liked the first game but haven’t tried the second yet. All three need a playthrough.

Raidou: Remastered

Persona mixed with real-time hack and slash? This feels like a Persona adjacent game I may actually really enjoy. This is going on my list.

Shadow Labyrinth

I wish this game all the best because it’s a crazy concept. 2D platformer that is also Pac-Man but dark is really a great idea.

Patapon 1&2

FROM OUT OF LEFT FIELD HERE IT COMES, PATAPON A SERIES I THOUGHT WAS TIED TO PLAYSTATION FOREVER! In my mind Patapon was basically the Sony Pikmin so I’m very surprised they coming to Nintendo. I’m looking forward to this because I was half-way through the first when my trial of PSN expired and they booted me out mid-level! Bring it on! Holy shit, is the Nintendo Switch the new PSP???

Story of Seasons: Grand Bazaar

This is cool, first released on the DS as Harvest Moon DS: Grand Bazaar. I like these but I don’t ever make time to play them.

Metroid Prime: Beyond

Dropped into the presentation as a “Look at this” title. I don’t know why, and I can’t explain it if you were to ask me, but this trailer had big 2007 energy. From the weird voice over, to the psychic powers, maybe its just because its the last time we saw a Retr Studios trailer. Either way, I think this great, the psychic powers look great and I’m ready for it.

Disney Villains Cursed Café

Who cares?

Witchbrook

I imagine this made a lot of people happy. Its been a long time coming for this, I think, and it looks cute. I like that it has multiplayer baked right into the core of it all.

Eternal Life of Goldman

I liked the art style of this and the animation is on point. The platforming looks challenging, which is good.

Gradius Origins!

This collection looks great. 7 or 8 titles of classic ‘shmup action plus a new title. Will keep an eye out for this.

Rift of the Necromancer

More indie rhythm action is always a good thing and this team has been great in the past and I think it’s worth a look if you like that style of gameplay.

Tamagotchi Plaza

smoke_weed_everyday.mp3

Pokemon Legends

I’m going to drop some cyberbuffalo knowledge right now. I’m not a Pokémon person. I’ve played them in the past, I think I had Pokémon blue in a gameboy when I was younger but it never clicked for me. I’ve spent time trying to get myself into the series, I even played a fair amount of Pokémon Go (who didn’t?)! But Sun & Moon and Sword & Shield, I tried both of them and my attention tanked both times. Pokémon is just not for me. This was no different, I felt my eyes glossing over during the trailer.

Rhythm Heaven: Groove

Hell yeah! This looks absolutely great. I don’t think you could have captured the tone of the world any better than they did with this trailer. I think this game is going to be great. It’s no Ouendan but it will certainly do!

Virtual Game Cards

I was watching this live and couldn’t for the life of me see where this was going to land. But the fact that they are making a consumer friendly move like being able to share digital titles across family accounts is great. And of course they are doing it in the most Nintendo way possible.

High On Life

thumbs down fart sound

Star Overdrive

I haven’t heard of this one before. It’s by a studio called Caracal Games that made the game Downward in 2016. This game looks like some kind of open world, character action, hoverboard surfing puzzle game. Interesting, and something to keep an eye on.

Fantasy Life

The framerate shown off in this trailer was not great, and it makes me worry about the game as well as Level-5.

The Rest!

Monument Valley 1 & 2

I know these are well regarded games, but it really is a sign of the times that a port of two mobile games that came out over a decade ago are one of the bigger announcements.

Monument Valley 3

This is a cool announcement because its releasing the game from the corporate clutches of obscure platforms. This was a Netflix Games exclusive which means 6 people played it and 45 others couldn’t figure out how to install it.

Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots

THE NINTENDO SWITCH IS THE NEW PSP!!!

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream

I didn’t play a lot of Tomodachi Life, but I did absolutely love Miitomo. This reminds me of Miitomo and I think that means I’ll be playing it. It’s just surprising to me that this was the last big reveal. Perhaps I underestimated the kind of draw that series has. Also, big woman.

Nintendo Today

I would have never guess this in a hundred million years but now that I’ve had some time to think about it, this should have been predictable. Nintendo is trying to get away from the Political bog that is Twitter and to do so they created an app that has one social media feed. Shout-out to the app designer who managed to make a better calendar app than Apple in the recent years. I like it, I have it set to the Zelda theme and I enjoy checking in on it.

Final Thoughts

Some of these announcements weren’t really surprises as much as they were just completely off my radar. I guess you could consider some of these stealth releases. I certainly wasn’t thinking Patapon could end up as a staple Switch game but I’m glad it’s coming out. It’s great to see that Nintendo is continuing to not just support the switch, they are hinging the entire company on it as the platform moving forward, and I for one think that’s a really smart idea.

Prediction results

So How did we do? It turns out, not great! Out of the four of us SlurpeeZombie was in the lead with 2 correct guesses (Pokémon Legends & Metroid Prime 4). I correctly guessed “something Pokémon related” so I guess that’s a point, and AbraCatrena nailed “…a shit-ton of games we’ll never think about again.” And the usually on-point, finger-on-the-pulse captain of industry Rappy came in with a hope and a dream, and those dreams were crushed.

I WILL be doing this again, send me an email at cyb3rbuffalo at gmail if you want in on this in the future.