I’m a little over-the-top excited right now, so bear that in mind. I’ve also had 19 quarts of coffee today so exaggerations are bound to happen.

Anyway! As Nintendo’s E3 presentation is the one that affects me the most, I had to watch this one live. And boy, I’m sure glad I did. I would have hated to know I missed out on the excitement by hearing the results of the presentation third-party. And for good reason.

Simply put, every single “that’ll never happen!” item on my wish list, happened. It’s rare that these types of things happen, as the running joke this year regarding Nintendo’s presentation was an exercise in expectation management. We all knew we wouldn’t hear certain announcements that we were begging to get on our fancy new Switch devices, but we were playing the “wouldn’t it be amazing if…” game anyway. And yet, of all the announcements I was most skeptical of, every single one came true!

Xenoblade 2

Releasing in 2017! We all knew it was coming near the tail-end of 2017/2018, but recently there were many rumors about it being delayed till February of next year. While I wouldn’t have even minded it due to Odyssey coming out near the holiday, I’m impressed that they’re making the deadline. A behemoth game like Xenoblade Chronicles cannot be easy to hurry towards the end of the development cycle, yet here we are, and holiday 2017 is when we’ll see Xenoblade 2 hit the shelves.

It was great to finally see a little gameplay too. The second installment of the series clearly has more of an anime aesthetic, but I find it perfectly fitting for a fantasy game. The environments look gorgeous, and to be honest I’m finding it hard to wrap my mind around playing a game of this scale, with these graphics, on a portable system.

Super Mario Odyssey

Speaking of Odyssey, I was under the impression that it was releasing some time around the holiday 2017, when Xenoblade 2 is now releasing. But two big games so close together? Nope! It turns out Super Mario Odyssey will be dropping at the end of October. Apparently the holiday they were referring to was Halloween. This is great, as it gives me a nice chunk of time to complete it before the massive Xenoblade 2 is released.

You couldn’t ask for a better release schedule, which is very important for a new console. The worst thing Nintendo could do is release more than one huge game simultaneously or even too close together – they need a nice trickle of huge games, with smaller indies littered throughout. And that’s what the remainder of the year seems to have in store.

Kirby

A new untitled Kirby game is coming in 2018! It looked very familiar to Planet Robobot, and of course this is a complimentary statement, as that game was terrific. Not many details were revealed, but a 2018 release leaves a lot of time for additional details. Either way, I’m excited to hear about content beyond the current calendar year. Gotta stay thirsty for more!

Pokemon

Moving on to Pokemon, very little was actually said about Pokken Tournament, surprisingly. More surprising was a core Pokemon game teased as being in development. Of course, we know very little about it but next year sounds like a potential release window given how long Game Freak typically takes to develop.

Following the disappointment of the Pokemon Direct last week, some big news like a main-line Pokemon game in development is just what the doctor ordered!

 

At this point in the presentation, I could have turned off the stream and been over-excited for hours. Then it happened.

 

A gigantic 4 showed up atop an outer space backdrop.

Quickly I realized this wasn’t Half-Life 4 being announced… but then as the denial faded, it was announced. They’re actually developing Metroid Prime 4!

Metroid Prime 4, Baby!

It wasn’t more than a single teaser graphic, but that’s all I needed to see. Obviously they weren’t going to release a new Metroid game this year, not with Odyssey stealing the show. Heck, even if it came out in Summer 2019, the fact that it’s actively being developed is huge.

If you’re not an existing fan of the Metroid Prime series, you may be confused as to why this is such a huge deal. And that is that Nintendo has been all over the place with the Metroid series since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption was released on the Wii. Poorly received installments and spin-offs plagued the franchise, with die-hard fans begging for a return to the Metroid Prime formula. And yet here we are.

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Currently, there’s a beautiful gameplay demo going on for Super Mario Odyssey and it looks absolutely terrific. If you grew up in the 90s playing Super Mario 64 and have been craving a true-to-form sequel, this game may be it. At least that’s what I’m hoping, and how it looks. The hat mechanics look super fun, almost Ratchet-and-Clank-ish with the hat tossing!

The Super Mario Odyssey amiibos just announced are also gorgeous – let’s hope they release a whole bunch of them this time around, so we don’t get stuck in another amiibo crisis!

There are still more Nintendo announcements to come, but this is one heck of a great start. I’m ecstatic to see that Nintendo seems to have figured out how to market a product – I only expect more great things to come for them.

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How did you feel about the Nintendo E3 Presentation? What are you most looking forward to? Let me know about it in the comments!

UPDATE: Metroid: Samus Returns

Well, the AM2R takedowns make more sense then ever – shooting on to none other than the Nintendo 3DS is a remake of Metroid II, entitled Metroid: Samus Returns. This is truly the year of Metroid announcements. I’m having trouble understanding how one day can blow my mind so much, but I am enjoying it!