Whilst not appearing in force at this year’s E3, instead opting to stream a press conference from their global HQ, Nintendo have announced a host of new games based on their existing lineup of characters, plus some very interesting new games such as Splatoon.
Of course, the other big announcement is amiibo (no caps), Nintendo’s answer to Skylanders and Disney Infinity, which includes figurines from all of Nintendo’s flagship franchises. We’ve seen Metroid, Dong, Zelda, Mario, Animal Crossing and of course, the ever popular Wii Fit Trainer.
Each figurine has a chip embedded in it which records data such as the character’s individual stats and other two-way info, such as abilities and experience, just like the way Skylanders does. You can tap the toy to a special game pad to update the information on the chip, and a new gamepad has been announced for the 3DS, so you can also enjoy amiibo on your handheld too. Ten toys will be released on November 10th this year.
The amiibo toy range will also interact with the upcoming Super Smash Bros for Wii U and 3DS, with toys taking a supporting role within the game. The upcoming Smash Bros will feature revamped rules, lots of familiar characters, plus an innovative character creation system, which lets you use your Mii and give him or her your own list of abilities from a custom set of 4 specials and 36 moves.
New games include Yoshi’s Wooly World, where a Yoshi made of Yarn traverses a world, also wool, in a fresh action platformer setting for up to 2 players. Wooly World drops in the Wii U in 2015.
Also teased was an open-world Zelda game, shown below in this screenshot.
The games is billed for 2015 for the Wii U. The screenshot is pre-rendered, but we can expect the game to be as breathtaking as this preview.
Other previews showed a custom level builder for Mario, Mario Maker, which allows the player to create their own classic 8 bit Mario levels. The game uses a grid system that allows the player to place blocks and platforms to create their own challenges. Levels can be ported to high definition graphics too.
Splatoon, a team based shooter for 8 players, has the player battle the opposing team in a deathmatch style setting, with the weapon of choice being paint. The paint adheres to any surface, whilst enemy paint sticks you firmly to the ground like quicksand. Amazingly, players can transform into squids and swim through their team’s paint, even up walls and other obstacles.
Toad finally gets his own game, as Captain Toad: Treasure tracker. This fun 3D platformer, similar to Super Mario 3D world, sees Toad hunting for riches in some extraordinarily pretty levels, which although small are impressively detailed.
Though aesthetically similar to Mario’s 3D outing, Treasure Tracker seems to employ a new and more interesting control scheme.
That’s about all of the Nintendo releases that caught our eye at E3 this year, but of course more releases are out there and will be announced soon. We’ll keep you updated with all the Nintendo news when it arrives. Stay posted.