Reviewing the February 9th Nintendo Direct

Published on Feb 10, 2022

This week began like any other. Then suddenly, there was a Nintendo Direct. People proceeded to lose their shit over whatever wild, unconfirmed rumors and assumptions made it to Twitter's trending topics, setting themselves up for disappointment once more.

The Direct has come and gone now, and I took some very loose notes, so here's my very brief review of everything I remember and the release dates I bothered to write down:

• Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes
  They made another Warriors game, and it looks like all the other ones. Congrats if you like those I guess.

• Advance Wars 1+2 ReBoot Camp - April 8th
  Still very excited for this! Looks like it's in good shape! Wouldn't expect this to get pushed again.

• No Man's Sky!!!?!!?!?!?!? - Summer
  Was not expecting this! I've been a big fan of NMS over the years, and I remember them mentioning an interest in the Switch at one point, but wow. Didn't see that coming. Not looking forward to seeing how this runs 😬

• Mario Strikers Battle League
  It's another Mario soccer. Neat! All the other Mario sports games on Switch seem to have been pretty whatever and received not very good support (see: Mario Golf), so I'll sit this one out.

• Splatoon 3 - Salmon Run
  There are kaiju now? Or something? Sure. I'll watch someone play this once, probably.

• Front Mission - Summer
  Ooh okay. This looks pretty sick. And people seem excited about this series. Never played myself, but I'm down.

• Front Mission 2 - Eventually
  See above.

• Some Disney shit
  I don't remember what this was. Enjoy, children and weirdos!

• Star Wars: The Force Unleashed - 4/20 😎
  Looks like this is a port of the Wii version? It doesn't look very good! Wasn't a terribly enjoyable game anyway, if memory serves. Star Wars games don't usually get a shrug from me, but 🤷‍♂️

• AssCreed trio
  The three games with Ezio are coming to Switch, so you can run to a marker and then find more markers to run to in handheld mode.

• SD Gundam Battle Alliance
  More mecha love? Alright. This looks like it could go either way for me. I probably won't pick this up unless I see the right kind of hype from the right people.

• Chrono Cross Remaster - April 7th
  Yo. I will play some fucking Chrono Cross. I have never played Chrono Trigger, but I will play this. FF7 has opened my eyes to the PSX era of JRPGs. I am ready. Also they're throwing in a text adventure called Radical Dreamers that was previously exclusive to the Satellaview? Weird! I like it!

• Kirby ATE A CAR - March 25th
  I was already gonna play this Kirby game, but I'm gonna play it even more now that the little boy can wrap his lips around a car and drive it with his mind while his little feets dangle behind him.

• Baseball something
  Now you can play it inside.

• Kingdom Hearts
  I tuned out, I don't know. Congratulations. Or I'm sorry that happened.

• Klonoa
  I don't know what this is! Seems like a cult following sort of thing. I'm not in that particular cult, but have a good time!

• Portal Collection - this year
  Oh neat, okay. I don't know anyone who hasn't played Portal, but this could be cool on Switch for sure. Wouldn't it be funny if Half-Life 3 was a Switch exclusive?

• Live A Live HD2D - July 22nd
  Never heard of this game but it looks rad! Give me more JRPGs, I'm ready to feast!

• Nintendo Switch Sports - April 29th
  Looks like Bad Wii Sports! Also there aren't enough of the sports! I won't play this!

• Taiko no Tatsujin Rhythm Festival
  Bang that drum.

• Triangle Strategy Demo
  Another demo. This time with more of the game in it. Is this... Is this game just a series of demos?

• Cuphead DLC
  I'm good on Cuphead, but it looks as nice as the base game did! Fleischer warts and all.

• Metroid Dread free updates - Today, then April
  1-hit KO mode coming free today (yesterday (Feb 9th)), then a "Rookie Mode" coming in April.

• Earthbound on Switch Online FINALLY - Feb 9th
  THANK YOU! Christ almighty, why did this take so long? More people should play this! Go play this!

• ALSO MOTHER 1 - Feb 9th
  Aw man! I'm so excited to finally play the first one of these! Released as "Earthbound Beginnings."

• MarioKart Track DLC??
  48 new tracks??? Released in packs over the course of the year??? $25 total??? Alright!

• Xenoblade Chronicles again
  There's a guy with a big sword and maybe some dragons. I don't know. They always end these things with some anime bullshit I'm not here for. Sorry to end on a downer.