We got a few tidbits of news from a recent Japanese Nintendo Direct, and while we can’t 100% confirm that any of this will be coming overseas, it’s at least a good idea to pay attention so you’re not completely blindsided during E3.
First, something that’s actually certain to come here, Fire Emblem IF. It has been confirmed that you can build an entire village, which you manage through a sprite-based world map. Players can regulate resources, fend off attacks, and streetpass friends to invade their towns. Amiibo support has also been confirmed, as the Fire Emblem Smash Bros cast will work with IF and allows you to unlock Marth, Ike, Robin, and Lucina as playable units in-game. You can also pet your characters to boost morale, I guess. Pokemon-Amie has evolved into something almost sinister.
Katsuhiro Harada’s Project Treasure showed its first gameplay trailer. Not much to add here except that it looks fun, albeit rough around the edges. Hopefully it gets cleaned up in the time between now and its release.
NintendoLife nabbed the first footage of Pokemon Super Mystery Dungeon, and it….looks like a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon game.
Animal Crossing: Happy Home Designer is 4,000 yen, which translates to around thirty US dollars. That’s FAR more than we expected and that, coupled with the amiibo cards it uses, sounds like a recipe for disaster, at least in the States. Japan’s getting bundles that include the game with the amiibo scanner or the game and a New 3DS LL (XL). I’m sure this game will be popular in Japan, but I see US fans scratching their heads over how oversimplified it is compared to standard Animal Crossing games are. Hopefully the rumors of a Wii U AC game are true.
There was a bunch of Monster Hunter news, but I have no idea what’s an important thing to point out or not, so gimmie a break. The newest mainline MH game, Monster Hunter X, was confirmed, only a few months divorced from the release of Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate. It’s what you’d expect from Monster Hunter, new weapons, new monsters, the works.
A port of an old PSP Monster Hunter spinoff has also been confirmed, called Monster Hunter Diary: Poka Poka Palico Village DX. I don’t know much about this except it was co-developed by From Software so I know a huge group of people must be frothing at the mouth to play this game, even though it seems more like a “do me a favor” kind of adventure game and not the hunting game that people expect from Monster Hunter.
A new Chibi-Robo game was confirmed! And it uses a very cute amiibo! But it’s a platformer, and not the house-cleaning, family mending adventure that fans have been wanting since the original Chibi-Robo on GameCube inspired a niche audience. This was a huge disappointment to wake up to, even though the actual platformer doesn’t seem like the worst thing ever. The amiibo will boost Chibi-Robo’s speed when scanned.
To wrap it up, there’s also a new Mario and Sonic at the Olympics and a new Dr. Mario game confirmed, but none of those are mindblowing. Most of these announcements are very Japan-focused, and this seems to be Nintendo getting this out of the way before E3 so they can focus on things the US actually cares about. We’ll hear about the Star Foxes and Smash Bros DLC soon.
