Nintendo Direct February 2023 Impressions

Nintendo gave us the first direct of the year and I wanted to give some quick impressions on it. So first let’s get this out of the way, Metroid is my all-time favorite video game franchise, and Metroid Prime is in my personal top five favorite games ever. So, as you can imagine, I went nuts when they announced the Remaster. But what surprised me about it was how new it looked. This game to me is practically a remake, and I can report after some time playing it, its easily for me the best looking Switch game ever. What’s even crazier is that Nintendo doesn’t usually do these types of remaster/remakes for re-releases. It’s crazy that I’m playing such a beloved and revolutionary game and its been updated to be the best looking HD era Nintendo game.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom looks good, and as someone who was worried how it would hook me after the consequential game that was its predecessor… I’m in. I do wish they would show more, which makes me believe we will get a dedicated direct for it. Pikmin 4 looks solid and could be up against Metroid Prime Remastered and Luigi’s Mansion 3 for best looking Switch game. I’ll admit it, I’m not a big Pikmin fan, but I am willing to give his one a look this summer. Another thing is the new Professor Layton game. I’ve never played a game in the series, but I always wanted to. So, I’ll be right there to pick it up day one and finally check what all the commotion is about.

Outside of that, everything else was nice. Some solid DLC, including a surprise Splatoon 3 expansion. Xenoblade fans and Fire Emblem fans will be eating good this year. And then lastly, there’s the Game Boy and Game Boy Advance coming to NSO. I was pretty hyped about this announcement as well. I had a Game Boy Color when I was a kid, but that was mostly for Pokémon. I think the GBA library alone will have some great additions as the months pass; such as Metroid Fusion, Golden Sun, and the Mario & Luigi games. So overall, this was a fairly solid direct.

So with that out of the way, what does this mean in the grand scheme of things for Nintendo? Well actually, I think it means more than it seems on the surface. For starters, Nintendo didn’t really show any huge new thing for later this year. It’s also been reported that despite many expecting it, Nintendo does not plan Switch price cuts. And what does this all mean? Well, in my opinion it means Switch 2 is coming next year. There is no doubt in my mind the successor to the Switch will be out next year, whether its early or late in the year is still up in the air. In fact, I’m willing to predict that both the next major Mario game and Metroid Prime 4 will be launch window titles for that system.

One last note, while I think its possible the summer direct comes back after missing last year, don’t put full faith in it. There’s a chance Nintendo goes the route they went last year and does PR and Twitter drops all the way to a direct in the fall. I hope you enjoyed the direct as much as I did. And let’s see what Nintendo has in store for us in the next one.