Shadow Drops & Surprises – A Stuffed Direct With Something For Everyone
Have we all recovered yet?
On the surface, today’s Nintendo Direct Indie World & Partner Showcase wasn’t as show-stopping as the main June 2024 Direct. It was never going to be: by name and virtue alone, this is a Zelda and Mario-free presentation. And we’re slowly approaching the end of the console’s life cycle, with constant reminders of “Yes, the Switch successor is coming, but we’re not talking about it today.”
Yet, here we are, hours after the double-header, 40-minute bonanza, looking at our empty coffee cups after seeing over 50 games get announced or get new trailers. 50. And, after last week’s dismal Gamescom presentation (for us, at least), it was a real breath of fresh air. No one does a presentation like Nintendo.
The format of this Direct was a little different than we’re used to — Indie Worlds and Partner Showcases are usually their own thing, shorter affairs that help fill the gaps between the main courses (the big Directs). But seeing as we are getting close to the eventual Switch successor, it makes sense that Nintendo would bundle these two shorter shows together into something a bit meatier. So, we got 40 minutes of back-to-back announcements, release dates, and trailers, and barely a second was wasted.
Let’s start with the Indie World first, then. We weren’t sure what to expect from this part of the show, but that’s what always makes them so fun. Luckily, one of our biggest wishes was granted. We’ve been dying to see Pizza Tower on Switch since it came out on PC in 2023. And better yet, it’s out now. It’s just one of the many shadow drops we got today, and we’ll touch on a few of those as we go.
Nomada Studio’s Neva finally got a release date during the showcase and looks like another tearjerker when it lands in October. A few curios were tucked within the Indie side of things, such as Moth Kubit, a top-down RPG where you play as a moth. Are we going all Franz Kafka Metamorphosis with our video games here? Sea of Stars‘ DLC, Throes of the Watchmaker, made its debut — and it’s going to be free. And GOTY contender Balatro also got a huge free update today featuring The Witcher, Dave The Diver, Among Us, and Vampire Survivors.
The Indie World wasn’t stuffed with wall-to-wall bangers, but every single game felt very different from the last. We’re usually ploughing through fields of farming sims and cosy games during these, and while Coffee Talk Tokyo fits that latter niche, it was really the only one of its kind. Plus, Coffee Talk is great — we won’t say no to another game set in a very different city.
This was a really great showcase of what an Indie World is — variety, quirk, ambition, and a mix of old and new faces. It might not have been the absolute best of the best, but there was a slice of something for everyone, both for this year and early 2025.
The Partner Showcase followed in much the same fashion; even in a show with multiple ports, remasters, remakes, and collections, variety was the name of the game here. What else would you expect from a console in its eighth year? And you can’t be disappointed when those collections include things like Digital Eclipse’s museum-style Tetris Forever, Capcom Fighting Collection 2 (Street Fighter Alpha 3 Upper, Capcom vs SNK 2, and Power Stone? Yes please), or the darn Castlevania Dominus Collection. Many of these games have been trapped on older systems for a long time, so having them now — literally now in the case of Castlevania, which was another “it’s out” reveal — available on modern consoles is excellent.
Sure, the new, new games were a little light, but we did get some — Star Overdrive might have got lost in the nostalgic shuffle a bit but the open-world adventure lets you ride around on a hoverboard, and looks pretty stylish to boot. The new Rune Factory project got a name in Guardians of Azuma. And we’re getting a new Atelier game in 2025.
On top of that, we also have a handful of expected release dates like the Marvel vs. Capcom Fighting Collection — though not, surprisingly, LEGO Horizon Adventures , which did get a little bit in one of the montages, but no official date, even with yesterday’s potential leak.
Even when it focused on those aforementioned ports, though, Nintendo had plenty of surprises. Tales of Graces f Remastered isn’t the Tales game we expected to see on Switch next, but it’s coming. Did anyone see Yakuza Kiwami making its way onto Switch for $19.99? And the Trails in the Sky remake, randomly slotted in a montage sequence, with little-to-no acknowledgement in the West? Sure, okay.
The thing is, we have to remember that the Switch is in its twilight years. Retro collections and compilations will be a dime a dozen at this point; classic games with rereleases will always be a feature, they just might be more noticeable at this time. Yet, a console eight years old can still put out presentations that feature over 50 games, and if there’s nothing in the showcase that delights or surprises you, that’s okay.
Admittedly, the genius move here is that Nintendo stitched together two small Directs into one big one. On their own, either one might have fallen a bit more flat; together, however, the pair made for a tasty showcase that has us clinging onto our Switch’s for a few more months.
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