Oh boy this was one heck of a direct. Lots of surprises so here we go.
- First, Danganronpa FINALLY gets a Switch port. And with an expansion of V3's minigame. I don't think I'll buy this since I've already played through the games on PS4 (At the most I might pick up V3 by itself for the expanded minigame), but I'm just excited that Danganronpa got attention in a major direct and that more people are able to play it. Seriously people, play it. Danganronpa is one of my favorite series and there is nothing like it.
- New Mario Party? Didn't think about that at all. It looks good but I'm not a huge fan of Mario Party.
- It's nice to see Monkey Ball coming back. I love that Sega is resurrecting so many of their I.Ps. I've never been that interested in Monkey Ball but it has me kind of intrigued now.
- It's great to see another WarioWare game. I've been thinking about picking up a game from this series.
- ADVANCED WARS?? It's returned? And I don't have to track down expensive GBA copies to try this out? Sign me up. It's an instant purchase.
- SMTV looks interesting. I've been keeping an eye on this series for a while now. It's just a matter of when I'll be pushed to try it.
- Fatal Frame??? That was another pleasant surprise. I gotta check that out someday. It looks interesting.
- For general stuff, that was pretty much everything I cared about. Now onto the main topic: Kazuya
- First, I was not expecting Tekken at all. I really thought it had zero chances due to Heihachi's Mii costume. It makes me wonder why didn't they just save that costume for Kazuya's wave? Because of that, that threw everyone off. Funny enough when I saw Ganondorf being carried to a volcano I actually was like "This reminds me of Tekken" and yet I did not actually register that it was Tekken until it was clear it was Kazuya.
- Overall, I'm fine with Kazuya. Luckily even with Vergeben lying and getting me close to believing in a super hype character, I still had a level of hesitancy and I am glad. While Kazuya was never a character I actively wanted or even supported, I embrace him. Sure, he kills the chances of some of my most wanted (Nightmare, Agumon, and Klonoa) and I was hoping for other characters like Crash and Dragonborn. But you know what? I enjoy Tekken 7 a lot and I have respect for the franchise and its legacy. Plus I'm excited for the music as Tekken has a bangin' OST.
- Plus I'm just happy that Bamco got another character after 7 years(!). Another great addition from their library.
Now let's take a look at my predictions:
I was correct on BOTW 2 getting a vague "2022" release date, a dead series being revived, and the fact that we got one reveal with the presentation being at the end of the month. Still a lot of misses though, but that's par for the course.
Overall, I'll give this Direct a
8/10. If they had announced a new Xenoblade title and one of my most wanted characters, that could have pushed it up to a 10. But yeah this is by far the best E3 presentation this year. So many pleasant surprises and my jaw dropped multiple times.
In terms of where my head is at when it comes to speculation:
- I no longer believe in many of the heavy hitters. Crash, Dragonborn, Eggman, Master Chief, Dante, Chun-Li, Ezio, etc. If they were in this pass, they would have been revealed today or earlier. Smash never ends on a high hope so I'm not expecting any of these anymore (Which is a huge shame).
- I still believe that we won't get double dips. That means I'm not expecting anyone from Square, Microsoft, and no one else from Bamco.
- For the last character, my gut still says Ayumi or Arle Nadja but now they just got even more competition which should spice up speculation for a while.
- For franchises with no real frontrunner that got a Mii costume earlier this pass, they are back on the table. An example would be Assassin's Creed getting the Altair costume but it could still get Ezio as a playable character (Although that was at the end of the last pass but it was still announced in the same presentation where Sakurai said that the fighters were already decided).