Here’s the full Direct if you just want to watch!

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom got a new trailer, which showed off more enemies and vehicles, but not much else. It releases May 12th, and will also be the first Nintendo Switch game to…sigh….be $70.

Pikmin 4‘s trailer revealed the new Hocotatians you’ll play as, the new Ice Pikmin, and an adorable dog-like creature that’ll help you on your quest for riches. The title releases July 21st.

Splatoon 3 is getting an expansion pass. The first wave will allow you to return to Inkopolis from the first Splatoon, letting you shop at the old stores as well. Wave two will introduce what seems to be a new story called Side Order.

Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games were added to Switch Online. Original Game Boy and Game Boy Color will be available to all Switch Online subscribers, but Game Boy Advance is only available for Expansion Pass subs. You’ll have to pay extra for Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga.

A remaster of the original Metroid Prime dropped on the eshop right after the Direct. It may say it’s a remaster, but many people are thinking this may be a full remake, with new visuals and engine effects. A physical release is coming February 22nd.

The Xenoblade 3 expansion pass has been fully detailed, with the final new hero, Masha, arriving on February 15th. Later this year, part four will release, which is a new story that stars Shulk, Rex, and other characters from the past games.

Fashion Dreamer is a new fashion design title by the creators of the Style Savvy games. No idea why Nintendo isn’t just publishing this but hey, it’s Style Savvy in all but name.

Ghost Trick is getting a modern port. This will also be available on Sony and Microsoft consoles as well as PC this Summer.

We Love Katamari is getting the Reroll treatment, dropping a remaster of the beloved second game in the series June 2nd. There will also be a new mode called Royal Reverie where you can play as a younger King of All Cosmos. This will also be available on all other consoles.

Level-5 is back from their hiatus, announcing three titles in one Direct! The first was a new IP, DECAPOLICE, in which you solve mysteries and otherwise perform police duties (the fictional good kind, for what it’s worth). They also announced a new Fantasy Life, Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time. Both of these titles are due this year. Finally, a new Professor Layton game was teased, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. No release date there, but it’s fantastic to see our favorite top hat gentleman return.

Advance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Camp has a release date of April 21st. Previously delayed due to the Ukraine war, hopefully it releases and there aren’t any other historical events that run into its release. Again.

The first details of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC’s fourth wave are here, and it will include a Yoshi’s Island course and the addition of Birdo as a playable character. Every time I (John) think of Birdo I just hear the audio clips from Mario Advance. This truly will be as far as I go.

Fire Emblem Engage‘s DLC was also detailed, with new Emblems Soren, Hector, and Camilla released now and Chrom/Robin and Veronica coming in wave three. Wave four will include a new story, “Fell Xenologue”.

Etrian Odyssey‘s first three entries are getting HD remasters, all releasing on June 1st for Switch and Steam. They will be $40 each or $80 for all three, and preordering the games will get you Shin Megami Tensei-related character portraits for each game.

Both Baten Kaitos games, deckbuilding RPGs for GameCube by MonolithSoft, are getting remasters for Switch. These remasters are pretty standard fare, with updated graphics and new battle functions, but not much else. This bundle will release this Summer.

Samba de Amigo is back with Party Central, allowing for the Switch Joycons to be used as maracas for rhythm fun. It’ll be out sometime this Summer.

The newest Mickey Mouse and co. game, Disney Illusion Island, will release July 28th. 

The remaster of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, the lesser-known Kirby title for the Wii, has a demo available now. There is also a new Magalor focused epilogue and new mini-games. The game launches February 24th.

TRON: Identity, an narrative puzzler set in the TRON universe by Bithell Games, releases in April.

There were more tidbits in the Direct, but for now let’s move on…

In other news…

YouTube contractors in Texas went on strike in protest of a policy requiring a mandatory return and reporting back to in-office work. Workers allege that Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, have recently tried to reinforce the policy as a union busting tactic.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC) is fining Activision-Blizzard due to its failing to disclose the issues of workplace sexual harassment to its investors, hopping in on the train of now more than a handful of government agents still taking legal action against the company. The SEC notes that the company failed to properly report and collect information on instances of workplace issues, which is deemed necessary to disclose to certain parties.

In a continuing string of the sunsetting of several games, Knockout City will be shutting down this coming June. However, there are at least intentions of a private-server version of the game to be released some time after.

CrossfireX servers will be shutting down in a much earlier time in mid-May. The Xbox Store has started halting purchases and providing refunds associated with the game.

Turtle Rock Studios has also ended Back 4 Blood’s string of post-launch content hopping on to focus on their next title.

Square Enix is apparently not doing so hot financially, citing their numbers of the previous fiscal year starting in mid-2022. Sales of games failed to reach numbers on part of the year prior, which also overlapped with the recent decline of mobile game use.

Meanwhile, Dwarf Fortress is popping off, and developer Bay 12 Games is celebrating the game’s latest, fantastic earnings report by finally considering the hiring of another person on the team. Bay 12 has been primarily ran by brothers Tarn and Zach Adams for years, powered by the donations of a dedicated playerbase that supported the original game.

Friend of the site Food4Dogs will be starting to take it easy on her video output in order to take care and prioritize her health. We wish her all the best! You can listen to our Starlight Car interview with Food4Dogs here.

The post The Bulletin: The Latest Nintendo Direct and More appeared first on Gamesline.

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Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @captaintrash, & @SocksMahoney, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

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Save her with Chooch via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download or listen below!

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Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski, @finaldasa, @sewerpeak & @captaintrash, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! You can also join our Discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

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The game features Professor Layton’s (super cute) daughter Katrielle Layton in the lead role, and has her solving puzzles all over London. Animation for cutscenes will be handled by A-1 Pictures, who have worked on several anime as well as the most recent installment in the Ace Attorney series.

The game will launch in Japan on 3DS, iOS, and Android in Spring 2017. No word on a western release but we’ll keep you updated on any official translated announcements in the near future.

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Full disclosure, I haven’t played much Professor Layton. I’ve played maybe an hour of Curious Village when I was in middle school, but that’s about it. For those curious, no, you don’t need to know much about either series to care about this game. In fact, I’d say this is a perfect way to test the waters and see if you enjoy the basic gameplay of each series.I’d say you should like at least one of them before you step in, but otherwise it’s a perfect entry point.

The story is hairbrained, but enjoyable. Professor Layton is visited by a strange girl named Espella who seems to recall a faraway land called Labyrinthia. After some sleuthing, Layton and Luke are sucked into a storybook to the aforementioned town. Phoenix Wright and his assistant Maya Fey are thrown into the mix when they mysteriously defend Espella in an assault case, and are promptly whisked away afterwards. Both duos meet and team up to attempt to figure out why the town thinks Espella is a witch, which is especially troublesome in a town where witchcraft is punishable by death by fire. There’s also the mystery of the Storyteller, a man whose every written word seems to come true.

PLvsPW is split right down the middle between Layton style puzzles and Ace Attorney style trials. The puzzle-solving segments are exactly how you’d expect them to be from Layton. You progress around town, talk to people, and solve puzzles to get information. You can score picarats based on how many attempts you had to take to solve the puzzle, and you can use hint coins, another series staple, to get….well, hints. Picarats aren’t used to unlock bonuses like in previous Layton games, so unless you’re really invested in getting a high score that nobody else will see, don’t stress.

There’s not much when it comes to evidence collection, most of the time important pieces of evidence are dropped into your hands minutes before the trial starts. It’s a bit jarring, as an AA fan, to have to focus on puzzles and not finding clues, but the trials are much easier than your usual Ace Attorney fare, so it can be excused. Layton’s famous hint coins reappear in this game, and can even be used during trials to narrow down potential choices. This is a really neat way to ease Layton fans into Ace Attorney‘s unforgiving trials, unless they want to do what we always did and saved right before presenting evidence.

Trials in this game are easier, as I mentioned, but they’ve also been changed in a unique way. Multiple witnesses are testifying at the same time during the witch trials, and their testimony can contradict each other. You can press a witness for more information, and then if another witness reacts, press the second witness further to get a contradiction out of them. This makes the lack of physical evidence in this town a lighter burden, since there is no forensic science in Labyrinthia. It’s a really fun tactic and pressing the different witnesses and seeing them interact with each other makes for a fun experience.

Almost none of the supporting cast from either series show up at all, except for two short cameos at the beginning and end of the game. The new characters, such as the foreboding High Inquisitor Darklaw and the smarmy Inquisitor Barnham are a welcome addition to the immense cast of characters each series has, but the lack of returning faces is a bit upsetting. It’d be a huge and hilarious event to see someone like Larry Butz in Medieval times. Thankfully, there are also some fun witnesses to round out the supporting cast, the highlight being the bungling Emeer Punchenbaug, who gets wasted on the witness stand. The game was written by Ace Attorney series creator Shu Takumi, and it shows. There are bad puns, cute dogs, and neat twists all over the place, which is exactly what you’d expect from him. Also, there are a ton of anime cutscenes in this game; absolutely welcome in Ace Attorney 5 and doubly so here.

My one big gripe is the ending, it just went on too long. Ace Attorney fans might remember the terribly long ending to Ace Attorney Investigations, in which you had to build the most airtight case in the history of the series. Something similar happens in this game, and there’s a last second flip-flop that, while interesting in theory, ends up falling flat for me. I felt like there was no reason behind it. The bigger, cooler twist that happened just moments ago grabbed me much better than the tiny one I had just figured out. Nailing down this tiny twist after I had felt like I was done made the end drag and ruined the punch it should’ve ended on.

Overall Layton v Wright doesn’t live up to its name. Both men do not beat each other up in an Earth Shattering Cage Match To The Death, and I’m very disappointed in that. But otherwise, it’s a generally alright story with cute puzzles and some neat spice thrown into the trials. At the very least, I’m interested in Layton games now, which is what I bet the developers were going for. You’re not going to become a fan of both of these series at once with this single game, but maybe you can be swayed to one if you like another already.

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