PixlBit

 Some thoughts/ideas for tomorrow's rumored games

Hey Pixlbit, how’s it going? Tomorrow is April 1st which is April Fools Day and it is one of my favorite holidays, if you can count it as a holiday. A few days ago, news on a Nintendo Direct was leaked and was to air on that day. The thing is that the date looked rather fishy since it is on a day people pull pranks. However today it has been confirmed that Nintendo will indeed be airing a Nintendo Direct that day. I’m excited for that but for all we know, it could be a prank too, but we’ll wait and see.

As you may have heard a few days ago, Zelda Wii U was pushed back for a 2016 release since the Zelda team had some new ideas on it. I was disappointed with the news, but it is for the better so we can get a better game in the end. Not only was Zelda delayed, but I heard Uncharted 4 was delayed too. So that’s 2 of the biggest releases this year that have been delayed. This gives the Xbox One a huge advantage with the holiday season thanks to Halo 5.

But what does that have to do with Nintendo Direct, you might ask. Well the leaked list says that we might see the first footage of Star Fox Wii U and that has me pumped. We know nothing of it which makes it even more interesting. Not only that but another thing that caught my eye is that Nintendo will reveal an unnannounced title that will take Zelda Wii U’s place for the holiday season. That is really intruiging to say the least. Is it Metroid, perhaps F-Zero? Is it Retro’s new game? Or a new IP? I also might have read that we might get more news on Zelda Wii U which is cool and I remember writing a post on what I wanted to see in it. Rather than reposting it, here is a link to it.

But for this, I’ll be focusing on Metroid, Star Fox, and F-Zero so I can get this out of the way before tomorrow’s direct. This will be about what new things I want to see if such games are revealed, so let’s get started.

Let’s get Star Fox out of the way because that’s the one that will most likely show up at the direct. It has been so long since we’ve gotten a new Starfox title, and to this day, no Starfox game has surpassed Starfox 64. Why? I’m not sure exactly, the last 2 console Starfox games have been developed by other developers. Adventures isn’t really a Starfox game, it was a new IP that happened to have Starfox characters in it. I guess maybe if it was a non-Starfox game, it would of gone unnoticed. Assault was developed by Namco using a modified engine that runs their Ace Combat games. While it didn’t live up to the hype of 64, one thing I loved about it was its multiplayer mode. I think I’ve played this mode 4x as much as the main mode. Command is either canon or non-canon but I liked it for what it was.

The game is rumored to appear tomorrow but here’s what I hope to see from it. I would love to see the main mode have branching paths in stages like N64 did that would lead you to an alternate boss and would take you to a new path on the main map. But here’s what I would love to see: the ability to use any member of the team. You know how each member of the Starfox team has assigned roles in the team right? What if you could use one of them and the level objectives change? You could use Falco instead and you could find alternate paths yourself. Missions would be different as a result of this. But what if you could also use Team Starwolf as well and see what they are up to as an alternate mode?

Here’s a neat idea I had for single player. They can take a page from the Rogue Squadron games and have Fox command his squadron. In the Rogue Squadron games sometimes an option during gameplay would appear and it would give you options to issue commands to your team, like fly in formation, to go after enemies, to fleeing. It would be neat if they could implement that into a Starfox game. And In some missions, you had to switch to another ship. They can do that in Starfox as well, but I heard that the Arwings in the new Starfox could transform so it might make that feature useless. I smell inspiration from the cancelled Starfox 2. They could try to execute on-foot missions better if they will be in the game. They could expand those by maybe sneaking into an enemy base or why not hijack an enemy ship? It would be some neat new elements if they can pull it off well.

I would also love to see a multiplayer mode of sorts too. Like I said, one of the selling points for me about Assault was its multiplayer mode. What if they can take that and make it online? Well obviously not the exact same thing, but a vastly improved one depending on what they’ll do with the game. You could have a team of players like Team Starfox go against other players using Team Starwolf, kinda like a team deathmatch thing. Or even a Cornerian Army vs. Andross’s army which could be neat. You could have custom loadouts for your ship and on-foot weapons if there is such a mode. And why stop there, why not add online support for the main mode? Since there are 4 members of Starfox, you and 3 friends can play together and go through all the missions? And maybe local co-op too. Nintendo has had almost a decade to deliver a great Starfox, here’s hoping they will deliver this time and maybe, it could surpass, if not match Starfox 64.

Let’s move away from that and move on to Metroid. This series has had it rough for a while. One bad game has caused it to go under radar for a while. Heck, there was a new Metroid game in development by Next Level Games but it was cancelled. It used a more stylized version of Samus and I think it was to be a traditional 2D game. Whatever the case may be, people have been craving for a new Metroid for a while now. Could that be what Retro Studios is working on? Who knows but it might end up being the rumored unannounced title that will replace Zelda Wii U during the holiday season.

Here’s what I want to see in the new game, if there is one. I would really love to see another Prime styled game, but what if they made it into a 3rd-person game instead? We’ve had 2D and first-person games but we haven’t had a proper 3D game. What if they can make it in 3rd-person and in first-person? It might be possible. You could leave all the 3rd-person stuff for the exploration and main gameplay, and a first-person mode for scanning things. Or even better, third-person on tv, but in first-person on the gamepad? You could then use the gamepad to scan objects that wouldn’t appear on tv. It could be possible and I heard that Starfox Wii U is using something almost similar, as in having a full 3d view on tv while having a first-person view on the gamepad, so there’s really no reason it couldn’t be done.

For the gameplay, it can probably be faster-paced. Depending if there will be more action. I did love Other M’s faster-paced action and maybe they can take that and use it here. I would also love to see the Gunship/Starship take a more active role. I loved that you could do much more with it in Prime 3 and it’s a reason why I like it so much. But instead, what if you could pilot it? If there will be more planets to explore, what if you could pilot it to another planet? Like maybe trying to pilot it through a planet’s atmosphere or through an asteroid field? Or through an enemy fleet or planetary base to make it through?

I might get hated on but I would like to see an online mode for the game. I liked the multiplayer mode in Prime 2, but it really didn’t lend itself for a real fleshed out mode because of Metroid Prime’s gameplay style. But what if they can do more with it this time? Each player can be Samus, but you can use different suits with different loadouts as in different weapons from those suits? It might unbalance the gameplay, but what if you could play as a Galactic Federation soldier instead? You could have a Federation vs. Pirates and so forth. And the player who becomes top player during the matches can use Samus briefly and use her weapons and such to get kills? Or why not have a team of bounty hunters like Samus with different loadouts or Federation soldiers play online and work together to take out bad guys from the Metroid series? Like every 5-10 waves, a boss enemy appears like Ridley and so forth. It could be neat. It could work if they execute it well.

And last but not least, F-Zero. The only reason I’m adding this to the list is because earlier today, a new F-Zero game called F-Zero U was leaked by a team of hackers who hacked the Nintendo Direct site. There are some leaked images of it, but it seems rather fishy to me, and could be an April Fools Prank but we’ll see. Oh and that image is from the leak.  F-Zero is a fairly well know game to Nintendo fans, and probably outside of the Nintendo community, but I think it is more obscure than say Starfox or Metroid. Could that be the title that Nintendo plans to release for the holiday? I highly doubt it is but I might be wrong.

So let’s talk about what I want from these games. As I’ve explained before, F-Zero is my favorite racing game not called Mario Kart. I love it and have said about how much I love GX and how hard it is. There really hasn’t been an F-Zero game that has toppled it down, there was GP Legend but that was based on the anime of the same name. I would love to see it being fast-paced like GX, but have the metal/rock music that F-Zero X had. I would love to see a track editor because I can imagine the crazy tracks people could come up with. I would love to see the emblem editor return too because that could make you personalize your machine. And bring back the machine editor too so you can make your own machine. And one thing I hear is that people don’t really love the character designs in these games. Why not add the option to create your own original character? It would be neat because in GX, you could make Falcon, or anyone else pilot your own custom machine, but it just feels wrong for some reason. The ability to make your own pilot would be welcomed.

I think this game could benefit from online greatly. I think it might be hard because F-Zero has 29 other racers on screen at the same time with no lag in the framerate. That might be hard to implement but I think they might be able to pull it off. One of the things I loved about GX was the story mode. I loved that it gave the game a story. But why not expand on it and maybe allow you to go on Falcon’s bounty hunting missions? Like on foot or something. It would be a nice change of pace.

And that’s about what I can think of for these. There are more stuff that was leaked like Yoshi’s Wooly World, to Mewtwo’s release date, to the wave 5 SSB amiibo figures. I didn’t list Mario because I think Nintendo can do a better job at that than me predicting it. Unless they announce Galaxy 3 then I called it. There was more stuff too but not sure what I can honestly say about that since those might happen. Here is also a list of games that I would love to see remade, should they announce another remake of sorts.

I only listed these franchises because these seem like the most likely candidates to show up and/or replace Zelda during the end of the year. Besides Mario. But who knows what we’ll see later. But I am excited.
So, what are you hoping to see for Nintendo Direct later? Thanks for reading and later.   

Oh and before I forget, tomorrow or today is State_Alchamist's birthday, so be sure to wish her a happy birthday.

Okay I'm really going now, later.