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Nintendo Direct 13/02 10pm (UK time)

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54 minutes ago, Ronnie said:

I have a feeling Animal Crossing will end up being delayed till Q1 2020. With Mario Maker as a June release, Fire Emblem in July, AC just doesn't feel like an end of year game to me. I guess it could be August/September but that'd be a crazy short reveal > release schedule.

I mean, all we got in September when it was officially announced was a logo -- I don't think it's too surprising that they didn't show anything here.

I've barely dabbled with Animal Crossing games -- the extent of my exposure to it is that I watched a friend play Wild World on DS when I was in primary school for a few hours, and they let me borrow it for a day or two -- but unless something has drastically changed since then (or changes with this upcoming title), there's no reason for there to be a long promotional campaign for this game. From my understanding it's light on story, and is something that is perhaps best enjoyed when fired up every day for shorter play sessions. I don't think that it would stand to gain much from starting it's promotional campaign now as opposed to at E3, even with a release date in the latter half of this year -- simply due to the nature of the game.

Don't get me wrong, this game is going to be a juggernaut: it will likely end up the best selling game in the series, and the second bestselling Switch game of this year (behind Pokémon). September sounds about right to me -- Pokémon is bound to return this year with a release date in November (based on the last few release dates for Pokémon games, I think we might even be able to pencil in the 15th as the release date for this year's game, assuming that it hasn't been delayed), and will likely be Nintendo's last major game of the year. Luigi's Mansion 3 in October simply makes too much sense, too, though I don't think the release date of that game has that much of an effect on the release date of AC, so Animal Crossing could even be released earlier that month, with LM3 closing out the if it has a release date sitting next to Halloween, for example. 

 

I'm thinking of picking up a Switch in April, so I'm definitely starting to take note of which titles releasing this year catch my interest. From this Direct, which I think was really solid, I think my Day 1 must-buys are Link's Awakening (haven't played the original game, like a few others here, which I've only heard great things about; I like the art style, don't @ me) and Dragon Quest XI (played it on PS4 and adored it, apparently so much that now I'm going to love playing it in 16-bit with added story elements!). Super Mario Maker 2 of course has my attention (I love the idea of making my own 2D Mario levels!), and while I think I'll pick it up, I don't know if it'll be Day 1. I have my eyes on Astral Chain, which has great folks onboard, but I'll wait to see some more; I'm on the fence with Fire Emblem: Three Houses (played Awakening last year - really enjoyed it - but from what we've seen so far, it seems to be focusing too much on the parts which didn't add much of anything to Awakening for me) and feel like I need to see more before making; and I'll wait for reviews with regards to Tokyo RPG Factory's Oninaki, as from what I've read and heard, their games have to this point effectively been "good, but not great".

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I think it's worth pointing out (just looked at Wikipedia) that Animal Crossing has always been an end-of-year game, with the sole exception of New Leaf, and that was only the US/Europe release.  Maybe that one just took a long time to translate.

 

Furthermore, New Leaf was such an enormous hit, it's perfectly qualified to be their end-of-year game on that front.  With Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart and Smash Bros out of the way, I can't think of anything else as big.

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59 minutes ago, Grazza said:

Furthermore, New Leaf was such an enormous hit, it's perfectly qualified to be their end-of-year game on that front.  With Mario, Zelda, Mario Kart and Smash Bros out of the way, I can't think of anything else as big.

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2 hours ago, Grazza said:

I think it's worth pointing out (just looked at Wikipedia) that Animal Crossing has always been an end-of-year game, with the sole exception of New Leaf, and that was only the US/Europe release.  Maybe that one just took a long time to translate.

Fair enough, I must have just been thinking of New Leaf then. Animal Crossing has always just felt like a summer game to me.

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