To research games pitches as a class we watched the Nintendo Direct live on the 27/03/25 to gather research on game pitches

My personal prediction was for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remake/remaster of the Explorers games but due this not being shown at the pokemon presents a month ago my hope were not high. The class predictions and hopes were trailers for: Metroid prime 4, Hollow Knight: Silksong and Pokémon: Legends ZA.

• The first game shown was Dragon Quest, showed the art style of the game and I will rewatch for more research as I want to create a similar art style. I believe the focus of this trailer was to show the game running on the Switch however I feel this would be best played on other platforms or maybe the Switch 2.
• Next there was a 2D game with depth the viewport called Shadow Labyrinth which was similar to Hollow Knight but had a character similar to Pac-Man called Puck which accompanies the character but also seemed to be an enemy at some points.
• After that they announced Story of Seasons: Grand Bazar, it looked cool and had a charming art style but not much more to note of.
• A big announcement was Metroid Prime 4 Beyond there was a trailer and breakdown of gameplay to show off combat and alien creatures. The quality of the environment design felt old, one person in the class likened it to the old Halo games. They also showed off psychic abilities similar to Mass Effects Biotics.
• The direct was interspersed with low quality announcements, including Disney Villain cafe, Tamagotchi plaza, monument valley 1 & 2 & 3: looked like a mobile game, No Sleep for Kaname Date, Raidou Remastered: The Mystery of the Soulless Army, Patapon 1+2 Replay, Rift of the NecroDancer.
• Witchbrook was a top down game, I found its art style charming
• They announced a retro collection of Gradius called Gradius Origins but it was not included in the Switch Online membership or the Expansion Pass so that was disappointing
• they showed more footage for Legends ZA, they showed off the envrioment of lumiinoues city and the wild areas, it also showed off roof traversal, it showed off that when night falls the royale where trainers are out in force with a ranking system and mega eveloutions.
• The Direct showed off a rhythm game called Rhythm Paradise Groove which showed off lots of little rhythm games in one game, one person said it looked like warioware. I like the way they introduced the rhythm concept.
• They then announced virtual game cards allowing users of digital games to eject their games and move them to another system they are logged in on. They added that you could share games for 14 days with members of you Switch family, this is similar to Steam’s family share but not as good in my opinion. This announcment seem to be preparing for the Switch 2 to come out so people could still have both consoles and play on whichever they felt like at the time.
• There was then a reel of games that were being released on Switch soon including: High on Life (which I think deserved it own segment as this is a very popular game), Star Overdrive, The Wandering Village (which had an art style not too dissimilar to what I am aiming for in my game), King of Meat, Lou’s Lagoons and finally, Fantasy Life I: The Girl Who Steals Time. some of these game looked more interesting than other that got more screen time
• After the reel they showed off Saga Frontier 2 Remaster looked cool and was another 2.5d game with turn based combat. This time the style was pixel art characters with hand drawn textures for the environment.
• Next was Everybody’s Golf: Hot Shots, an anime golf game similar to golf in wii sports or mario golf. this announcement was one minute long, this is time I feel could have been better spent on some of the games in the reel a few minutes prior.
• Then they showed a Marvel game called cosmic invasion that was a 2D Beat em Up. It showed off many characters like Wolverine, Spiderman and Captain America.
• The last game they announced was Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream, I initially felt like this was a poor way to end the games segment of the direct as it is a game I didn’t think too many people are excited about but looking online at X and Instagram I found a large amount of people excited for it.
• The DIrect finished off by announcing Nintendo Today a nintendo news app for Android and IOS devices, giving people another way to get Nintendo news.

Conclusion

Unfortunately I did not get what I wanted but my hopes for it were not high. A few of my classmates were happy as Pokemon: Legends ZA was shown off, more were happy Metroid Prime 4 had a trailer and those waiting for the Hollow Knight sequel resolved themselves but hoping it would come in the Switch 2 presentation next week.

My conclusion is that this was somewhat of a sponsored Direct considering the amount of games from third party developers and only a handful of first party titles. My takeaway for what I need to show off in my game pitch is the art style as a main point, some cool story rundown that shows enough to get people excited but not to spoil my twists and turns I have planned.

L3 U8