A look into Nintendo's gaming future
On Sept. 13, Nintendo hosted a large informational livestream on the new games coming out for Nintendo and other big ideas the company is working on. The livestream held 22 million viewers as the anticipation and commitment from long time Nintendo fans ran high. The livestream was around 45 minutes long and featured the talk and future release of the big Nintendo titles of the year.In this segment Nintendo talked about “Kirby Star Allies”, Nintendo’s first Kirby title on the newest console, the Switch, and released news of them coming out with several sports titles on the Switch medium. They also devoted a large amount of time and information for the newest Mario game, “Mario Odyssey”, and their newest Pokemon game, “Pokemon Sun and Moon”.“Kirby Star Allies”, similar to “Mario Odyssey”, is supposedly the next big thing for the video game series. Despite there being large talks about this game, currently, there is no hard information on what is new in the game. The game has no concrete release date but is said to be releasing around Spring of 2018. “Xenoblade Chronicles 2” is another title to look forward to. This unique game features a story of seven kingdoms trying to get a hold of a legendary blade that is owned by a single girl and the conquests and ventures that come with it. “Xenoblade Chronicles 2” is a role playing game (RPG) which had a lot of success in its previous title “Xenoblade Chronicles”. “Xenoblade Chronicles 2” is releasing on Dec. 1, 2017 and will hopefully play even better than the last title. Although all these titles have excited a lot of Nintendo’s followers, by far the most talked about and highly anticipated game is “Mario Odyssey.” “Our team is always thinking about how to make new, exciting, fresh experiences, and the overall concept of the game, of traveling between kingdoms and collecting power moves and the basic setting, that was something that was decided at a very early stage of the process,” Mario Odyssey’s producer Yoshiaki Koizumi said. “In terms of deciding to make a Mario game and deciding to make it that kind of game, those are things that were both decided at the same time.”The Nintendo Direct livestream even saved the information on “Mario Odyssey” for last, implying how much this project meant to Nintendo as they literally saved the best for last.The new Mario game features an idea never seen before from the Mario brothers. This game features an adventure all around the globe. The maps in the game are based on various places all over the world such as New York, Hawaii and Niagara Falls. The game also adds a new companion in Cappy -- Mario’s hat combined with a spirit -- who now gives Mario new abilities such as the ability to control whoever is wearing the hat, thus allowing Mario to take control over his enemies along with nonliving objects to get around and fight the bad guys. In this game, Cappy and Mario are working together to help get Princess Peach (Mario’s love interest) back from Bowser (the main villain). The game gives off a “Mario Galaxy” combined with “Mario 64” vibe, and considering that “Mario Galaxy” is one of the most successful story lines of the Mario franchise, selling over 10 million units along with “Mario 64” being one of the most creative gaming titles of all time, we can hope that “Mario Odyssey” will live up to the hype and gameplay. “Mario Odyssey” is releasing October 27 and people are already talking about buying it. Nintendo is definitely meeting the expectations of the fans, giving them a ton of titles to look forward too and definitely some good games to pick up for the holiday season.