Ocarina Time, Persona 4, and third-party Switch 2 games
This past few days was maybe the most similar early June has felt to E3 season ever since E3 died. I think the biggest reason for that is Nintendo. They actually did a Direct around the same time as everyone else, rather than waiting a week or two like in some other years. It just wasn't the same without them.
That said, overall this week of Summer Game Fest and the other livestreams that occur around it still feels vastly different from E3.
E3 was as an industry trade show where game publishers tried to convince retailers to stock their upcoming games. However, for an at-home viewer in the 2010s, E3 was essentially a few days of seeing a bunch of game companies trying their darndest to make exciting press conferences to hype up fans and get more eyes on their games. And it wasn't just the "big three;" you had Ubisoft, EA, Bethesda, and more doing their own conferences. Most of these press conferences weren't worth your time at all, to be honest. But there was entertainment in seeing how the companies tried to put on a show. Sometimes people romanticize E3 in a really weird way (the industry trade show was never "for the GAMERS" bro, regardless of what that guy on stage said), but honestly, I think the only time it really felt special was when I was a teenager. What a coincidence, huh. I was off from school and it was several days where I could go online and just get a steady stream of cool game news. That youthful magic just doesn't hit the same when you're an adult (I feel kind of pathetic whenever I talk about those halcyon summer days of... being on computer).
Because game announcements are a bit more spread out over the entire year now, the traditional "E3 week" now sort of feels like only a mild spike. Am I wrong? Still, it's not nothing, and there are events you can watch. Summer Game Fest is a thing. I didn't get a chance to watch it all this time, but there were some cool trailers there. PlayStation has been doing one of their State of Play events around this time of year for the last couple years, but they don't seem to make too big a deal out of those in comparison to any other State of Play that can happen throughout the year (in May 2023 they did a PlayStation Showcase, which is ostensibly supposed to be a bigger deal than a State of Play, but I mean, they haven't used that name since). The Xbox shows have felt pretty consistent with their timing, and for a few years now they've had Sega announcements there, which has made me more interested than I'd otherwise be.
Speaking of which—sure enough, a new trailer for Persona 4 Revival was at the Xbox show this year. Not only that, they had the first ever teaser trailer for Persona 6.
There isn't much to say about Persona 6. It's green, like everyone guessed. The teaser didn't clearly show any characters or give obvious hints about what the plot will be, but the tone was dark and spooky and it was definitely at a graveyard. Persona zombie game??? Well, maybe not zombies, but it will involve urban legends and the occult in some way. (Dandadan????? No, shut up, you can't just bring up your favorite things whenever the opportunity arises.)
Persona 4 Revival is easy to sell me on. Not gonna pretend to be above it. You give me a video game town I love and characters I love and show them in a new light and just demonstrate lots of love for the original game while adding fun new stuff and I'm like... duh I'm on board. It's not too hard.
The question is, what are they changing? I doubt they're changing the gameplay a ton. I suspect the investigation sequences will all become trivial with new map markers—which I don't mind too much, as the way you had to go to a certain spot on a certain day could feel obtuse. Sometimes I had no idea who I was supposed to talk to. I think there's a good chance they'll make getting the true ending more obvious (more blatant pop-up hints I'd guess?), but it will probably still be quite missable for people who are expecting a linear experience. Seems like dungeons aren't radically changing either. Yeah there are some new battle gimmicks and we'll see how that affects the balance, but fundamentally, I think we'll be going through those procedurally generated hallways still.
Story is the bigger question. There's a few scenes in Persona 4 I don't like very much, and I wouldn't mind some changes to those. And let's just say the Yosuke situation is crazy. And the storylines of Kanji and Naoto, well... the remake might want to better clarify its intentions with those. But I suspect a whole new era of intense online discourse may begin even if they do. I don't know. We'll see. Leave me out of it if that happens, though.
One of the most essential aspects of Persona 4 for me is that feeling starting up the game and finding yourself moving into this quiet countryside town. You eat dinner with Dojima and Nanako and watch TV every night, and you hear this music. It's just—gosh, what a feeling. Persona 4 may not be my most favorite one, but the atmosphere of Inaba is so especially memorable to me. So the remake's gotta get that right. Which they should be able to do just fine since, like I said, they're not gonna change that much.
The only thing that frustrates me about Persona 4 remake is people talking as if Persona 4 truly "needed" a remake. Look, people love the flashiness of Persona 5. But you're not playing dozens of hours of Persona just for some pretty animations. The fundamental elements of Persona that you love in 5 are there in 4. Are we just scared of a PS2-era game now? I mean, Persona 3 I do understand being scared of, because the design choice of being unable to directly command your party members has always been controversial (which I suspect is why Atlus made Persona 3 Portable available on modern platforms rather than FES), but 4? Persona 4 Golden? The beloved PlayStation Vita version of the game that came out in 2012? Rereleased on Steam in 2020, and other modern platforms a couple years later? How can you be scared of those adorable character models?
Now, as long as you speak on the original game with respect, I don't care if you'd rather play the shiny new version. Again, I'm obviously planning to play it myself.
This is really the Resident Evil 4 situation all over again. With the fixed-camera Resident Evils, people could easily get behind the idea of a remake, because fixed-camera games with tank controls have all but disappeared from modern video games. But when Capcom got ready to remake 4, a game with an over-the-shoulder perspective, there was this feeling like... Resident Evil 4 is not that old, and despite having tank controls and making you stop to shoot, it has a lot in common with modern games. Nonetheless, they made that remake and boy it was good. So now we have two excellent versions of Resident Evil 4.
So back to Persona 4, we do not "need" a remake. But I will still enjoy a remake, so long as they do a good job. Which I think they will.
Hey, speaking of... intense discourse. Fire Emblem Three Houses. Boy that discourse is insufferable. I understand why people would question stuff in Persona 4, but Three Houses discourse is just, "Here's proof my favorite character did nothing wrong, and you people's favorite character is pure evil." Anyway, there's an upcoming Fire Emblem game called Fortune's Weave that is connected to Three Houses, and I'm super excited about that. I loved the dark story of Three Houses. Of course I also just loved all them cute characters and the Support conversations. Have you ever seen Annette and Felix's Support? Adorable. Anyway though, I'm curious if Fortune's Weave will also involve some big decisions and twists. The graphics look a lot better than Three Houses.
Ok so maybe "discourse" wasn't the thing you wanted me to use as a segue. I had to mess with you. There's another video game remake I gotta talk about. Code Veronica! Well I haven't played the original game so I have nothing to say about it, but hey, you know I like Resident Evil.
Ok I'll stop delaying talking about the real big remake now: it's The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time!
Just months ago I was questioning if all the murmurings about an Ocarina of Time remake had any merit to them or were just wishful thinking. I'm still not sure where those came from, honestly. But, weeks ago, we did get a leak from a source with a strong track record. So I expected this game to be announced at the Direct.
The problem with knowing about this game's existence was that the trailer for it had a gradual reveal that just didn't have much impact on me. The moment I hear that bit of Saria's song, I'm like, yup, here it is!
The big surprise, though, from the very little that they showed, was that the graphics look much different. I had no idea if this was going to be a standard remaster or a full-on reimagining, and now I know at least that it's going to look a lot different from the original game and 3DS version. But I wish I knew way more than that.
I feel like I still expect Aonuma to appear for any big Zelda announcement, but this was seriously just a teaser trailer. Of course, when I think back to the first reveal of Tears of the Kingdom in 2019, that trailer showed us the game involved underground caves and possibly land ascending upward and a rehydrated Ganondorf, but we didn't know what new gameplay stuff was added. (I watched that trailer many times.) Still that's a lot more information than this!
Sometimes Nintendo knows they can drip-feed us. Just telling us "Ocarina of Time remake with fancy graphics" is enough to get us excited. But more info can't come soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.
My biggest question is: will the world be bigger than the original game's? When the narrator talks about "a small forest on the edge of the kingdom," I start to think about the scale of everything. I'd like the kingdom to feel vast. Not like, "the entirety of Breath of the Wild's map" vast. But still pretty big I guess. Make that first journey from the forest to the castle feel grand.
But like I said in my previous post, the game could just be essentially all the same design, but with super fancy graphics. (Because Nintendo hired that man). I hope for more than that at this point. However, it's Ocarina of Time. It's a fantastic game. So I'd still love it even without huge gameplay changes. Not sure that justifies this teaser trailer, though.
So yeah, I guess I want to believe this remake will be something bigger. But I'll try not to get my hopes up too high.
Overall I had a good time with this Nintendo Direct. Apparently a lot of people thought it was bad, though. But if you're a certain type of Nintendo fan, I'll bet this Direct spoke to you too.
I mean, I thought Xenoblade Genesis looked amazing. And then we also get the return of Wuhu Island? Oh man, I have so much nostalgia for Wii Sports Resort, and this new Switch Sports is bringing back so many of the classics. Archery, table tennis, regular tennis, bowling, basketball, jet skis and (crucially) the game where you can fly the plane around the island.
Coincidentally, thinking about Wii Sports Resort causes some major E3 nostalgia for me, because E3 2009, which was shortly before the game's launch, was, I think, the first time I was able to watch an entire Nintendo E3 conference live (in 2008 I do remember reading some of IGN's live-blogging of the event and I think catching a bit of a livestream but it was 2008 sooo it was probably pretty spotty on our internet).
This Direct unexpectedly brought me back to the feeling of Wii-era Nintendo in another way when Koizumi demonstrated the new thumb-wrestling game in Switch Sports Resort. First of all, the concept of a thumb wrestling video game is inherently funny. And then he shows it on the Direct for a couple minutes? That's hilarious to me.
So how do I enjoy Nintendo Directs? Well I think one reason I've enjoyed recent Directs is because I tend not to ask myself "is this a good show?" while watching. Frankly, in a Direct I enjoy, there are probably only going to be two or three announcements that will truly excite me, but it's still interesting to see what's out there, and I like seeing other people get happy from announcements that speak to them. Another thing I do with Directs is not expect things. However, this time I expected Zelda and I was getting nervous when time was running out with no Zelda appearing. Even just my expectation of seeing more of Zelda contributes to why I was a bit irritated with how scant that teaser was. Other than Zelda though, I didn't convince myself that any particular game was going to appear in this. I dunno, I watch Directs to have fun, and if my fun is dependent on them giving me a certain amount of what I want, I'm setting myself up to have a bad time. Disappointment is still possible if a Direct is really dire (like the Mini Direct in summer 2020), but it's been quite a while since I felt bummed about a Direct. So I guess my chill attitude just works for me, even if they don't really bring the heat. However they did bring the heat in this particular instance because Fire Emblem looks sick and Xenoblade Genesis looks sick and I'm tired of all these JRPG haters.
I've seen comments negative about third-party ports, and partially I get it, because people who know video games already know about all these games. I am probably not going to get any of the third-party games on Switch 2, because I have a PS5 I'd rather use for those. Even so, I like seeing port announcements. And I'll tell you why: it's because I remember vividly what it's like to have Nintendo be your only real gaming device.
Wii would like to play? Yeah, Wii would, but Wii didn't have all those big non-Nintendo games I was hearing about, the "cool" games dudes were playing on Xbox 360 and PS3. So when Wii U was announced, I was like, "Ok, finally, this controller has all the buttons we need. We don't have to worry about adapting for Wii Remote and Nunchuck anymore. And the graphics seem pretty good. And EA guy was on stage at the Nintendo event. Now things are gonna be different."
But the Wii U third-party situation ended up worse than Wii's! I mean yeah it had those few ports early in its life, like Batman and Mass Effect 3 and Black Ops II but after launch, practically every third-party developer had no plans to make any more "core" games for it. Activision and Ubisoft finished the projects they had already announced, which meant we got Assassins Creed IV and Call of Duty Ghosts in the latter half of 2013 (and Ubisoft had to finish Watch Dogs eventually too), but that was basically the end of it. Wii at least got versions of every Call of Duty except for Modern Warfare 2 (they released the Modern Warfare 1 port that year and just never went back for MW2). So at least Activision was making sure the best-selling game out there was on the best-selling console. But Wii U was by far the worst-selling console at the time. How could this have happened. So my 2011-2012 hopes of getting a Nintendo console that could go toe-to-toe with the big boys in terms of "core" game support were quickly dashed.
And then there was the Switch. The debut trailer showed Skyrim and NBA 2K on the new console. Was I about to fall for the same old trick? Well, not quite.
Before the trailer, I was not feeling excited about the widely-reported handheld/home console hybrid concept. It sounded to me like Nintendo was giving up on home consoles, which seemed sad. However, the debut trailer really came out swinging. The message was that Nintendo Switch is an exciting new tech product that enhances busy young people's lives. And showing not only Zelda, Mario, and Splatoon, but Skyrim and NBA 2K too further solidified my impression that they were doing a good job of appealing to a variety of people, rather than just Nintendo nerds like myself. So suddenly I was convinced Nintendo Switch was a good product that was definitely going to sell... at least better than Wii U did.
Did I have a repeat of my 2011-2012 thing where I was like, "Oh man, this console is going to have a lot of the games the other consoles do?" No. But at this point I understood that this console was different in a way that could actually work for Nintendo. Wii was different in ways that made it an incredibly successful console initially but just felt like a pain to me after a few years. And Wii U was different in ways that simply made it confusing to most people—not to mention that it wasn't easy to develop for with how underpowered its CPU was. But Nintendo Switch? This "switch" concept was impressive and simple, and it was not hard to imagine why people might buy the console, even if it wasn't going to have a ton of third-party games.
Switch really became a must-have for me when Super Mario Odyssey was announced, to be honest. And then the next year there was Smash Bros Ultimate? What a good console.
But yeah, third-party support was definitely not too impressive on it, especially early on.
That Skyrim port did indeed happen, I'll say that much. Not that it was that crazy for a 2011 game to be able to run on the device, but still, it felt kinda cool at the time.
What about newer games, though? Throughout the console's life, there were sometimes surprising ports of PS4 games, like Doom or even The Witcher 3. Sure there are compromises, but sometimes you just want to play a game on the go, and Steam Deck wasn't going to come out for years.
Other times, you'd get a version of a PS4 game that wasn't really that game. EA remained skeptical about Nintendo for years, it seemed, but they started releasing FIFA—except it was the so-called "Legacy version," which was an old version of the game with current rosters being the only difference from the previous game. Final Fantasy XV came to Switch—the mobile version of Final Fantasy XV, that is.
And then there were the dreaded cloud versions of games. Basically, you buy a game, but it's not running on your device, but is streaming from a server somewhere.
Still, overall, third-party support on Switch felt a lot better than it did on Wii. But if you were someone interested in the big single-player AAA games, you were really gonna need another device for most of those.
But now jump ahead to today, and hardware is in an interesting situation. PS5 feels like another iteration of PS4: it's smoother, faster, and overall can make games look more impressive in lots of little ways, but fundamentally it's never felt like a massive leap from the previous generation. Xbox Series X is similar to PS5, but then you got Xbox Series S, which is a less expensive, less powerful version that developers have to adapt their games for if they want to release on the better Xbox. And now we have Switch 2, which seemingly is not quite on par with Xbox Series S overall, and certainly is not as powerful as PS5. Yet it's starting to get more and more of the big third-party titles in a way that sort of feels unprecedented for Nintendo. You can compare it to the Gamecube I guess, but frankly a lot of big games skipped the Gamecube too. Ubisoft has brought several of their recent releases to Switch 2, Capcom seems to be in the process of bringing over their entire modern library, and even Call of Duty is coming back to Nintendo this year for the first time since 2013. Final Fantasy VII Revelation is launching on Switch 2 day-and-date with the other consoles, and apparently so is Kingdom Hearts 4. Indiana Jones released for the system recently, and that new James Bond game is supposed to come out later too. Already we're starting to get surprised when a game is not announced for Switch 2—like Persona 4 Revival. And we're getting a brand new exclusive game from Fromsoftware? Boy I hope that turns out good. (They really didn't show any actual gameplay for it at the Direct, so despite the announcement of a network test, you wonder if it's actually going to come out this year).
With so many third-party games on Switch 2, it feels like my delusional hopes from 2011 that Nintendo would have a console that could get a lot of the "cool" games are finally being fulfilled. So maybe that's why many port announcements of AAA game, while maybe seeming like a waste of Direct time, are still enjoyable for me. And that's despite the fact that if I buy any of these games, it's probably gonna be on PS5.
Giving time to the Switch 2 version of Minecraft felt super unnecessary though, I will say that.
So uh, yeah, I guess overall there are some good games to look forward to. Definitely Fire Emblem, for one. And hopefully we see more about Zelda soon. So that's all pretty cool. Is it troubling that I'm excited for like three remakes at the same time right now? Maybe. But I like pretty graphics. I'm not going to dwell too much on it yet.