Nintendo, in the face of financial turmoil, needed a big showing at its E3 Digital Event today. While some titles like a new open-world Legend of Zelda and Xenoblade game fulfilled those desires, most of Nintendo's announcements were smoke without a fireflower.
Done in collaboration with the team at Robot Chicken, Nintendo used the event to unveil its plans for the NFC figures, continue the Super Smash Bros. hype train, and show off some of its agenda for the coming year.
Actual release dates were few and far between, as most of the demos shown were for late 2014 or early 2015 - with the exception being Hyrule Warriors, which will hit store shelves worldwide on September 26.
Read on for the full breadth of games coming out of the House of Mario at this year's E3.
Super Smash Bros. for Wii U / 3DS
Wouldn't it be interesting to pit Mr. T against Spock and see who comes out on top? (The answer here is "yes.") Good. Nintendo thinks so too, that's why they're including Mii support to the upcoming Wii U and 3DS games.
Miis will follow one of three move sets - brawler, gunner, or sword master - and will be able to choose from a pool of 12 special moves. Also announced was a new character, Palutena from Kid Icarus. The 3DS version will come out first on October 3, while the Wii U version is still slotted for a holiday 2014 release date.
Nintendo NFC … er, Amiibo
Following in the footsteps of Activision and Disney, Nintendo officially announced the NFC figure technology, now officially called Amiibo. Amiibo characters will store data that will impact games like Super Smash Bros. and, soon, Mario Kart 8.
Ideally, these characters will learn from previous matches and grow in skill. What they exactly do, however, and - more importantly - when they'll come out, are however still a mystery.
Yoshi, Kirby and Toad, a.k.a. the B-Team
Not every rumor was revealed before this year's event. Yarn Yoshi or as it's now called, Yoshi's Woolly World, was one of such game that avoided the limelight.
In the brief, 5-minute demo, we saw up to two Yoshis terraform the string-laden landscape with their tongues and heard about the ability for the green dinosaur to transform into different objects just like he did in Yoshi's New Island earlier this year.
Not to be outdone, Kirby will make a debut in 2015 with Kirby and the Rainbow Curse. It looked similar to Kirby: Triple Deluxe, but with improved graphics that almost undoubtedly shouts "hey, this is on Wii U."
Also revealed was Captain Toad Treasure Tracker, based off the eponymous fungi helper's levels from Super Mario 3D World. While the game looks like a simple puzzle game based off recycled gameplay, it's nice to see the hardworking royal helper getting a game of his own.
Hyrulean Renaissance
The star of this year's show, however, was the green-hatted hero of Hyrule as The Legend of Zelda for Wii U was finally shown in glorious full HD. While buzz words like "open-world" and non-linear got more play time than actual gameplay, the cut-scene sequence we did see was incredibly well-scripted. But, like most of the games shown on the stream, no release date has been announced other than the ambiguous "2015."
But to tide us over until then we've got Hyrule Warriors coming to the Wii U on September 26. Sporting Impa, Link, Zelda, and some of the more obscure heroes of Hyrule, the game blends the staple hack-and-slash of the Dynasty Warrior series with the thoughtful bosses of the Zelda universe in a crazy, frenetic brawler.
Po-ke-mon plus Bayonetta
Pokemon is going to evolve later this year with Pokemon Omega Ruby and Pokemon Alpha Sapphire. While no new news came out of the event regarding a release date, we did find out that the basic starters, Treecko and Mudkip, and legendaries, Kyogre and Groudon, will get a mega-evolution and join Torchic in the select group.
