Nintendo Direct June 2023 Roundup

Well, yesterday I was worried for no reason and the only elephant in the room was Mario, so I'm actually relieved with how things went. It was way too early to announce DLC for Tears of the Kingdom, so they really only brought up the two upcoming amiibo figures, where we already knew about them thanks to data-mining, and that was it. I can now return to playing the game in peace and then be ready for some more relevant news in the usual September Direct. So, I'm actually happy with the Direct, believe it or not.

The big announcement was the rumored 2D Mario game, where for a moment I was worried that the Peach game was meant to be it, but it's actually Super Mario Bros. Wonder and comes out on October 20th. It looks like the New Super Mario Bros. games with some LSD sprinkled on top, where I personally was hoping for something more different, but it should be fun nevertheless and the visuals have improved quite a bit. It's also great how they are acknowledging Alice in Wonderland here, where it was an inspiration for the original Super Mario Bros.

Then there was a first look at the upcoming fifth wave of the Booster Course Pass for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, where I will talk about that in a separate post, because I'm a bit more invested in that than with the other Mario stuff. Also, the rumored Super Nintendo remake turned out to Super Mario RPG, so it was a very Super Mario-heavy Direct, but that's exactly the cost that you need and maybe want after a big, new Zelda release.

No Metroid news, but we already got Metroid Prime Remastered in the previous Nintendo Direct, so I'm not greedy. And with Tears of the Kingdom inserted into all our Switches, as well as Hollow Knight: Silksong potentially coming out later this year, fans of classic Adventure Adventures already have a lot to chew in 2023. I still could see a remaster of Metroid: Samus Returns happening later this year, though, where they are dropping these type of ports left and right.

We will get Luigi's Mansion 2 for the Nintendo Switch, for example, where it would be nice to have the entire trilogy on the system at some point. I have the first two games on the Nintendo 3DS, but never played them and I tend to focus on the Nintendo Switch by now, where it's likelier that I play the entire series on the current system at some point.

And you can also play all three major Pikmin games now on the Nintendo Switch, right before the release of Pikmin 4, which gives hope that they might have the same goal with the Metroid Prime Trilogy and Metroid Prime 4. But this will likely be a topic for next year. (Update: Pikmin and Pikmin 2 are only emulated, however, see here.)

The Nintendo Switch is a fantastic video game system and it's here to stay for now. Also, whatever comes next will most likely be backwards-compatible, so I'm all for getting as many Nintendo classics onto the Switch as possible. They might not be of interest for everyone and you might be sick of such announcements by now, where I can fully understand that – I've been there as well. But when it comes to preserving games and keeping them easily accessible, for new and old players alike, this is still of big value and should by all means continue.

With that in mind, it should only be a matter of time before we will also get The Wind Waker HD and Twilight Princess HD on the Nintendo Switch. But as already explained yesterday, this won't happen in the near future, because people are still busy with Tears of the Kingdom.