Sleeper, Breakout and Bust of Nintendo Direct - 3.8.2018

Image Courtesy Nintendo Youtube

It doesn’t need to be said what the biggest news coming out of the latest Nintendo Direct was. Plenty of articles and videos exist breaking down and speculating on any and every aspect surrounding what Super Smash Bros. on the Switch will/could be. So instead let's highlight three things from the Nintendo Direct that certainly won’t get equal airtime:

Sleeper:

A sleeper is something that showed promise but is getting very limited if any at all, traction amongst the community. It’s something people may have seen and said, “Hmm, that looks neat” but moved on.

For this Nintendo Direct, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is the game that fits this category perfectly. Recognized as a bit of a cult classic, No More Heroes already has some name recognition with people after releasing one of the more unique Wii games almost a decade ago. The original game had all the style in the world but was held down with gimmicky controls on a console that people didn’t buy many games on, especially games that were not Nintendo made. But the blast of bizarre left a lasting impression on the people that gave the game a shot on a console with a limited and pervasive library of games.

With this new game, the laborious action and gameplay of the original seem to have been the main area to address as Travis Touchdown looks to be visiting the digital worlds of several different games with the gameplay being different in all. All the style that made the first game appealing as hell seems to have carried over here too, creating a recipe for a potential sleeper hit. As long as the inescapable repetitiveness from the original game doesn’t repeat itself Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes could be 2018’s Mario and Rabbids Kingdom Battle, a fun interlude in between the big Nintendo releases.

Breakout:

A breakout in this context is fairly similar to a sleeper in definition with a few differing details. Much like the sleepers, it refers to something under the radar, but in this case, it refers to something being talked about or hyped up somewhat and has the promise of living up to or perhaps even being better than said hype.

There is clearly only one game from the Nintendo Direct that is tailor-made for a breakout status and that is Octopath Traveler. Releasing this July, this game has previewed tremendously well over the past year, providing a retro look but with accouterments that could only be accomplished with today's technology. Square even put out a very early demo of the game last year showcasing the job system tied to the many possible playable characters and how each character will play differently which allowed for continued interest for Switch owners. Octopath Traveler is a traditional JRPG in the vein of Final Fantasy 6 or Chrono Trigger and comes from a team with a successful pedigree, as the heads for the Bravely series started up this project. The fact that this game is set to be an exclusive for the Switch combined with the striking visual style and 16-bit JRPG play style has this game set up well to be a potential breakout game for the system. And this is exactly the type of breakout the Switch and Nintendo need as the Nintendo port machine keeps churning out slightly updated Wii U games and third parties continue to test if they can somehow get a version of their games to run on the handheld hybrid console, Square is in a position to be rewarded for committing resources on a Switch exclusive breakout game.

Bust:

The bust isn’t automatically the worst thing shown, but instead indicates something that just isn’t working or going to work out well when it comes to fruition. Something perhaps you buy in on or have bought in on and just isn’t, unfortunately, going to return value in the end.

As a whole, this Nintendo Direct was full of known quantities, whether it be ports like Captain Toad, South Park and Luigi’s Mansion or new entries of capable franchises with Mario Tennis and Super Smash Bros., these games are already established. The new games are all interesting in one way or another, nothing stood out as something that seems like it just might not work out. Quibbles could be made about Mario Tennis looking very similar to the Wii U game that was not well received, but it looks like they are trying enough gameplay changes to make it more fun to play or that the Dark Souls port is not going to run as well on the Switch as it will on its counterparts. But, the actual bust of this Nintendo Direct, belongs to something that played a relatively small role in the 40-minute presentation. That thing would be ironically a literal bust, those physical formations of our digital ducks, Amiibo. The Nintendo branded figurines are harmless, most collectors seem satisfied with displaying them and Nintendo is most definitely satisfied with the sales numbers on them. It was in this Nintendo Direct though, that it became clear that any hope or promise Nintendo made about the digital utilization of these embellishments are non-existent at worst and highly forgettable at best. Will I buy the Dark Souls Solaire Amiibo, yes, absolutely! Will I touch its circular base to my controller to… make my character “Praise the Sun” over and over? Is that what Amiibo are doing? Serving as a way to do in game emotes? Remember when Amiibo were announced and the thought that some sort of collaborative game would be made around them, scan in your favorite Nintendo character and play as them in the platformer or some sort of RPG type of game and you scan in the three Amiibos you want to use as characters to take through a long journey. It’s a huge bummer that what Amiibo could have been will never be and therefore it is the bust of this Nintendo Direct.