So, I know the E3 announcements were a week ago, but I wrote this and forgot to publish it. Whoops. It’s not too late, is it? Well it’s my blog so if you don’t like it you can… not read it I guess?

Ah, E3. While it’s not what it once was (PAX has stolen a lot of its thunder, and media-centric cons seem to be less necessary with the rise of social media), it’s still always an exciting time filled with lots of big surprise announcements. Here are a few of my highlights from this year.

Bethesda had a really strong showing last year, but this year was a bit of a letdown. There was no information about Elder Scrolls VI or Starfield, which seems like a mistake to me. Or, perhaps more accurately, the mistake was to reveal both last year if they weren’t going to be ready to say anything about either a year later (especially since they had plenty of other material to talk about last year). Maybe it would have been more impressive if I cared about doom or horror games.
Elder Scrolls Online’s DLC trailer was good (Kamira being epic! Sai Sahan! Even more dragons?), and I’m excited that TES Blades is coming to Switch (I think I’ll enjoy it a lot more there than mobile). I was really excited to see the revival of Commander Keen, even though it looks like mobile garbage. Commander Keen was one of my favorite games as a kid, so if mobile garbage is the first step to convincing Epic that there are people who want a reboot of the originals, I’ll play it. I’m really confused as to why Zenimax Online Studios is handling this, since it looks like something an indie studio could crank out in a year, but, as much as I would love for there to be another AAA MMO on the market, I’m secretly a little relieved that they won’t be pulling too much talent away from ESO for another MMO.

Quite honestly, I didn’t pay much attention to the Square Enix presentation. I’ve recently come to realize that I just don’t care about Final Fantasy. I’m even apathetic toward the Final Fantasy MMOs, which I probably should be excited about. I keep buying Final Fantasy games and then not playing them more than a few hours. I don’t know why, and even stranger is that I enjoy many of the spinoffs like Chrono Trigger and Bravely Default, but actual Final Fantasy games, not so much. And that’s ok; I can’t be into every franchise. So, while I’m happy that other people are hyped for all of the Final Fantasy goodness that Square released, I’m just… not.
I’m not sure how to feel about this Avengers game. Mainly because, like so many trailers and reveals, they told us absolutely nothing about the gameplay. Yes, the story is an important piece, but if the game is just a bland button masher that’s no fun to play, it doesn’t matter. Also, you know there are a lot more than just five avengers, right? It just feels kind of lame when it’s next to Ultimate Alliance 3. I guess they’ll come in DLC.
A lot of people seem to be hating on the Avengers’ character design. I guess people expected them to look like their MCU actors? Maybe it’s because I’ve seen enough non-MCU Marvel media to not feel too tied down to one specific look, but I thought it was fine. If anything, I thought it was too influenced by the movies.
Also, it’s sad that companies have to specify “no lootboxes or pay-to-win” now, to thunderous applause. Good job, you’re doing what used to just be expected?

Finally, the day arrived for Nintendo’s presentation. As a big Nintendo fan, this was my most anticipated presentation, and they did not disappoint. And, as a Super Smash Bros. fan, the new DLC fighter announcement was the part I was most excited for. The Hero(es) from Dragon Quest didn’t get me that excited. I haven’t played the Dragon Quest games, and “anime guy with a sword” is approaching a quarter of the roster now. Granted, my two main characters are among them, but it would be nice to have something with a new and different style. But hey, I’m sure a lot of fans, especially Japanese fans, were excited, and the more characters the merrier. Then, at the end, they surprised us with a second DLC fighter announcement: Banjo-Kazooie! Smash Bros. fans, including this one, have been asking for these guys to be added since the Nintendo 64, but it looked like it was never going to happen since Nintendo sold Rareware to Microsoft a while back. Somehow they worked out a deal, and they look perfect! I’m so excited to play them this Fall!
They crammed a surprising number of ports into this presentation, both from older consoles and contemporary ones. There wasn’t a whole lot that jumped out at me, but the sheer number of titles coming to Switch is impressive.
They brought the stream to a close with a teaser for an unnamed sequel to Breath of the Wild. This was surprising, because Nintendo doesn’t usually move that fast on sequels, especially given that there’s another Zelda game (the Link’s Awakening remake) releasing this year, but BotW is one of their most successful games ever and it’s a lot of what made the system so popular, so I guess they’re hoping to capitalize on it. I’m certainly not going to complain!

What was the biggest surprise? I thought it was more likely that one of these days we’d hear that Phantasy Star Online 2 was shutting down than to hear it was coming to America, but I’m happy to be wrong. I never played the original, but I like the original Phantasy Star games well enough (aside from the weird spelling), and it’s not every day that we get a sci-fi MMO, let alone one attached to a long standing IP.

What am I disappointed that we didn’t see? I already touched on TES6 and Starfield, so there’s that. We also didn’t get any Metroid info. I guess I was expecting that, since Nintendo recently announced that they had scrapped Prime 4 and started over with Metroid Prime’s original studio (which was the right move), but I was hoping for at least a little something. Also there were rumors that the original Prime trilogy was going to be remastered for Switch, but that hasn’t materialized either. We also know that there are some new Mega Man games in the works, but that was also absent. The rumor is that it’s for mobile only, so I’m prepared for disappointment there, but I’m still interested.