2019 was a golden year for Nintendo. At E3, they were a tennis ball machine of announcements, pitching news on thirty-three games in just forty minutes. And they weren't just nailing it on quantity; they had quality too, with oodles of gameplay and landmark entries in their classic series to grab attention. There was Luigi's Mansion 3, the Link's Awakening Remake, Cadence of Hyrule, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, and the announcement of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2. A couple of years later, they are a whole different publisher.

Nintendo has been running at reduced capacity for a while, and that's likely due to the current semiconductor shortage worldwide and because of the big C. Japan is one of many countries still locked in a battle with the virus, and although Nintendo has had fallow years before, COVID is a probable factor in why they were not firing on all cylinders this time. It's also true that Nintendo, more than other companies of their stature, tend to stagger announcements through the year. Although, they haven't shown off a lot of big-hitters for 2021 and 2022 before now.

The most significant upcoming Mario games we saw in this showcase were a Mario Party greatest hits collection and another golf game. We got just a couple of minutes of the next mainline Zelda with the trailer keeping details vague, and that was two years after the original announcement. Metroid Prime 4, announced at the same time, was entirely AWOL. There's no further Animal Crossing news, nothing in the world of Pokémon, Kirby, or Donkey Kong, and only a mid-level Smash Bros announcement. We're also missing any update on the Switch Pro and Virtual Consoles. Nintendo of Japan also promised to take anyone who co-streamed the show to court, which is an uncomfortably controlling move that stifles fandom and healthy criticism.

As for the games themselves, production capacity is what you make of it. While I wish those big projects in development weren't hiding in the wings, the absence of Nintendo's brightest stars made room for some of their more niche titles. They're titles that don't get to share the limelight nearly as often. I've been looking for another Marble Madness-type game to play recently, so the announcement of Super Monkey Ball: Banana Mania couldn't have come at a better time. There's a lot to be said for an avatar that feels right on the edge of your control. The physicality of an object can powerfully exude from the screen, and runaway chaos can quickly ensue.

Speaking of physicality, it was always there in the animations of Advance Wars. The series emphasised the kickback of the cannons after firing and the raindrop effect of a hail of bullets hitting its targets. I wish that Nintendo had kept the original art for Advance Wars 1 + 2: Re-Boot Camp's showdown screens, but they've replaced it with a rounder, shinier style that looks a little too perfect. I like that the purpose of each unit in Advance Wars is transparent, allowing for approachability and depth. For both Advance Wars and the port of Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, I'm hoping for a reasonable launch price, not something we've always seen on the Switch store. Fatal Frame was ahead of its time in understanding that it's witnessing horror monsters rather than putting a bullet in their heads that is more disturbing.

I think when we talk about what defines a game's aesthetic, we don't make enough of structure. Warioware's play is never complex, but because it throws these tiny modules of challenge at you in quick succession, you get this sense of hyped-up disarray the whole time you're playing. There is an almost slapstick action in each of the microgames, and the surrealness of the Warioverse means you don't know what you're going to see the next time the curtain comes up. At least, until you've played through all the vignettes a few times. Wario's games are the Mario entries that aren't afraid to be ugly and discomforting, and as someone who exhaustively played WarioWare: Touched on the DS, WarioWare: Get It Together! is a welcome addition to the Switch library.

The base Shin Megami Tensei games are foreign to me, but the SMT V trailer is what I'm talking about when I say there should be systemic demonstrations of systemic entertainment. Being able to add more moves to your combo as a reward feels like something out of a tabletop game. Metroid Dread is a Metroidvania I immediately want to see more of, but not necessarily for the reasons you think. A lot of gamers have been talking about Dread being an opportunity to carry the torch of Super Metroid ahead. I played Super Metroid recently, and it doesn't entirely stand up to modern expectations. The controls are expressive, the combat's varied and intuitive, and your exploration richly rewarded. However, the game is abysmal at directing players through the campaign leading to a loss of purpose and excessive backtracking. At multiple points, your progress is dependent on you finding and destroying invisible blocks.

So, I'm excited about playing an action-adventure that revives the feel of classic Metroid but with modern design sensibilities. The look of the new antagonist M.I.M.I. doesn't suit the Metroid aesthetic, but the creepy alien atmosphere of that world has transferred intact into Metroid Dread. The smooth visual transitions as Samus changes between game states only sweeten the deal. I didn't expect an E3 presentation to make me rave so much about animation.

The Mario Party remaster was also a surprise, but with the number of annoying boards and minigames in that series, filtering it into its best moments makes a lot of sense, as does bringing the graphics for those elements up to 2021 standards. Mario Party has taken on so many visual forms over the years that if you're mixing all of these minigames into the same pot, having one graphical style helps prevent aesthetic whiplash. The addition of Kazuya to Smash Bros. doesn't mean much to me, but I think it was the right move to leave this long-form unveiling for another Direct, saving us from a repeat of the Smash Bros.-dominated show of 2018.

Taking the temperature of the room, Nintendo's E3 Direct this year was divisive. That's always somewhat the case: their keynotes contain a pick-and-mix of American and Japanese culture and games across many different genres. You wouldn't expect to see much turn-based strategy, Metroidvania, or JRPG entertainment from Sony or Microsoft. So, it's easy for someone to tune into the Nintendo Direct looking for one thing and not find as much of it as they'd want. But I thought that this Direct was, on balance, a win for Nintendo. They weren't at their prime this year, and probably won't be until the effects of the pandemic subside, but I've never seen one of the expo's big three show me so many games I didn't know I wanted. Thanks for reading.