During the event, I played demos of seven upcoming Nintendo titles, five of which will be on the Wii U, with the other two premiering on the 3DS. While Nintendo has published numerous third-party titles in the past, Nintendo’s own characters took centre stage. Most games featured familiar faces to Nintendo: Mario, Luigi, Donkey Kong, Link and many more.
Pikmin 3 (Wii U)
After a little less than nine years, a new Pikmin title is making its way onto a major Nintendo console. On the Wii U, the graphics look stunning and colourful. Pikmin has always been a colourful game thanks the titular multi-coloured characters, and Pikmin 3 adds two new creatures to the mix: Rock Pikmin, who are heavier and can smash through objects, as well as Winged Pikmin, who can carry out aerial objectives. There’s also a new multiplayer mode called “Bingo Battles,” which allows players to face off in trying to collect various objects. Each player has a 4X4 card and will try and complete a line. Adjusting to the Wiimote controls might take some time, but there’s enough variety in this game to warrant hours-long play times.
The Wonderful 101 (Wii U)
So much happens in this game on so many fronts. In this game you control a literal swarm of citizens as you fight off an alien invasion. Using the Wii U’s gamepad, you can draw shapes to convert your citizen army into a whole bunch of different weapons, including a sword, a whip, a gun and a giant hand. You can also draw circles on the pad near citizens who you can then add to your mob. The action is fast-paced — before long I was in a full-on alien battle and my gathered citizens were lying defeated all over the place. My personal favourite weapon was the sword, though the gun is kind of fun in that citizens literally become the gun’s bullets.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze (Wii U)
DK and Diddy are finally getting another major-console appearance, and it’s about time. You can play solo or co-op, but the co-op is certainly the more rewarding experience. Diddy can jump onto DK’s back and use his jetpack to bring the two across longer distances. With the Wiimote, you can pound the ground as DK or fire the peanut gun as Diddy. The colours of this game are also lush as you paradoxically explore frozen tropics. Also notable is the three “hearts” that Diddy and DK have, which allows them to take a few more hits than they could in early games.
Super Mario 3D World (Wii U)
Those who think this will be exactly the same as the 3DS game released previously should think again. 3D World will allow players to choose between Mario, Luigi, Peach and Toad, all of whom have distinct abilities. Mario has average abilities, Luigi can jump higher but falls slower, Peach can hover through the air, and Toad can run the fastest. The game also adds the cool Cat Suit, which allows characters to climb walls. Also, all four characters look more beautiful than ever on the Wii U. The game is crazily fun when you play with up to four people.
Mario & Luigi: Dream Team (3DS)
This game is similar to the RPG game from many years ago, but with improved graphics and a variety of strangely fun in-game mechanics. Luigi can interact with various environmental objects. In one playthrough, Luigi became a living plant whose mustache can move Mario to various points in the stage. There’s also a new mode called Giant Battles, where Luigi becomes a giant who then battles other giant monsters. The demo of this mode was particularly hilarious, featuring a helpful character who uses dramatic adjectives to describe what’s happening.
The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker HD (Wii U)
A nice graphical update to the classic GameCube game. Link looks better than ever, and the game incorporates well the added functionality of the Wii U game pad. With it, you can equip items to Link, manage maps and also your bottles. The bottles are part of a new “message in a bottle” feature that lets players communicate simply by putting a message in and then throwing them in various places. The game also improves the sailing mechanics, allowing the boats to move faster than ever.
The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds (3DS)
While long hinted-at, gamers will finally have a sequel to A Link to the Past. The game features improved graphics (of course) along with the same top-down view. New to the game is the slightly creepy ability of Link to turn into a painting and move along walls (as seen in the above screencap). Apparently the idea for Link’s ability came from Phantom Ganon’s power in Ocarina of Time.
