Peach! Paper Mario! Luigi! F-Zero!
Today’s Nintendo Direct was one for the Nintendo faithful, with remakes and remasters from classic franchises aplenty – and a star turn for Princess Peach.
The Direct’s line-up, including an F-Zero 99 announcement, and big finale, a port of the beloved Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, were fan-pleasing additions to the Switch’s bulging catalogue.
And they are perhaps the kind of smaller announcements we’d expect at this point, for a platform widely-expected to be replaced next year. Still, as we saw, there’s plenty of life left for the next six months at least – and beyond?
Top of the bill for me was Princess Peach: Showtime! which sees the Mushroom Kingdom’s royalty take the stage and dress up in different costumes to unlock themed special attacks. Peach can become a swordfighter, ninja, chef and more. It’s out on 22nd March 2024.
As highly-requested remakes go, they don’t come much bigger than Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. It remains the pinnacle of the Paper Mario series, and is a GameCube classic well worth bringing to new audiences on Switch. Nintendo was vague on a release date, however – saying only that it will arrive at some point in 2024.
F-Zero fans had their patience rewarded by F-Zero 99, another take in Nintendo’s online battle royale series. It launches for Switch Online members today.
And speaking of remakes, Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, a remake of the 3DS game, is now listed for a summer 2024 launch. That’s the furthest out of any Switch game.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong jumps from the Game Boy Advance to Switch on 19th January, with its dinky puzzle combat also available to play in local multiplayer.
The cult DS classic Another Code and its sequel will head to Switch next year as a remastered single release. It’s called Another Code: Recollection, and launches on 19th January.
We also got a look at Detective Pikachu Returns (due 6th October), Splatoon 3’s next DLC pack Side Order (due spring 2024), WarioWare: Move It (coming 3rd November) and Super Mario RPG (due 17th November).
Nintendo will wrap up its Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC at some point this winter with a final set of tracks including Daisy Circuit from Mario Kart Wii, and the addition of Diddy Kong, Funky Kong, Pauline and… Peachette. A boxed version of the DLC will also be available.
Oh, and a quick amiibo update: Zelda and Ganondorf Tears of the Kingdom figures launch on 3rd November, Noah and Mio from Xenoblade 3 arrive 19th January, and Sora from Kingdom Hearts completes the Super Smash Bros. Ultimate line sometime next year.
Away from first-party announcements, there’s a remastered set of Tomb Raider 1, 2 and 3 coming to Switch on 14th February next year (which I’m reliably informed is Lara Croft’s birthday). The games’ original polygon graphics are also available as an option.
Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown launches for Switch on 18th January, ahead of new NCsoft 30-player brawler Battle Crush in the spring – with a beta test this October.
Unicorn Overlord from 13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim developer Vanillaware launches on 8th March. Eiyuden Chronicle: Hundred Heroes launches on 23rd April. Square Enix’s SaGa Emerald Beyond also arrives on Switch next year.
The meme-tastic Trombone Champ launches today, while Dave the Diver arrives on 26th October.
Eastward: Octopia is a delightful-looking expansion to Chucklefish’s farming life game, due this winter. Speaking of Chucklefish, Wargroove 2 launches 5th October and our Christian Donlan just published his thoughts!
Konami’s musical Super Crazy Rhythm Castle launches on 14th November. A reimaginging of the original Contra, now dubbed Contra: Operation Galuga, comes to Switch in early 2024.
League of Legends spin-offs Song of Nunu (a single-player story-driven adventure, due 1st November) and Bandle Tale (a cute-looking crafting RPG, due in 2024) were shown.
We also glimpsed Horizon Chase 2, an online racing game out today, Wartales, a tactical turn-based title out today, and SpyxAna: Operation Memories, an arty story-based game due next year.
And last but not least, there’s a new map named Fungle for Among Us in October.
