Topic: Next Nintendo Direct?

I'm biased as a big DK fan, but I'd say Bananza is better than Mario Odyssey overall, though Odyssey gets a few points like better music and better themed levels. Bananza has better controls, bigger levels, more purposeful collectibles, better story, better characters (the Void Company Kongs have way more depth than the one-dimensional Broodals), and a WAY better finale.

If the next Animal Crossing has a big city theme like many seem to think, "Animal Crossing: New Heights" is what I would name it.

This sorta sums up why I was frustrated with that "Bananza is just a sideshow" take from earlier. There was a time when Donkey Kong was successful enough to stand alongside Mario as a big system seller back in the SNES and N64 days. Now we have a game where Nintendo is basically trying to get DK back in that spot and the fact there's dismissiveness to that idea at all just kinda baffles me.

@UpsideDownRowlet nearly all of this i can find reasonable except the controls thing. probably like the only person i've ever seen that prefers run buttons.

@squiddu-real I do hear a lot that people like Odyssey's controls, so I'm not surprised someone would disagree with me there. While I do generally prefer run buttons, I'm content to not have one. If I recall correctly, Bananza didn't have one either. My problem was that the normal speed of Super Mario Odyssey, unlike Donkey Kong Bananza, felt weirdly slow.

To be fair, run buttons are in almost all Mario games. I much prefer a run button to games which just make you want to break your stick to run. Although a button which just toggles run off and on so you don't have to hold the run button constantly is nice.

My goodness we've gotten a bit distracted from the task at hand, eh? 😆 I love a good (friendly) debate, though, so no complaints here!

February will have a big Direct once again after last year’s no-show.

I’ll keep my expectations in check for once, but SURELY Splatoon Raiders will be fully revealed in that. Can’t shake the feeling it might get a sudden update on Nintendo Today just as suddenly as its announcement though.

I wonder how Nintendo's going to approach the end of the voucher program. We know that's happening at the end of January and we also know that there's voucher games being added throughout 2026 however currently there are none for 2026.

This is another thing that makes me think there's a chance we may get a January Direct Mini and save the next general Direct for March/April/May. Announce some NSO voucher games in the Direct Mini to push NSO subscriptions and voucher sales before vouchers are no longer available.

@Grumblevolcano If either Tomodachi Life or Rhythm Heaven are $50 or $60 games (and I'm guessing Tomodachi Life at least definitely will be), I'm sure they will be added to the voucher program.

Since we get Zelda almost every year and we had new games in Warriors/2D/3D for the last 3 years, a port coming to both Switch and Switch 2 in 2026 feels likely so that could be another voucher game.

And ... possibly some other random game or possibly not? Even if they said voucher games were coming out 'throughout 2026', I could imagine that being anywhere in the 2-4 games range with e.g. Tomodachi Life first half of year and zelda second half of year.

I can't see what kind of Zelda game they could release next year. Outside of re-releasing a remaster or something, we're definitely not getting a brand new game for a while.

I agree, but we were trying to think of 2026 Switch 1 games. So a port or remaster would work for that.

Unrelated, but page 999 of this thread.

Only about twoish months until the next direct should happen. I'm so impatient to find out when rhythm heaven releases

@VoidofLight That's what they did for the 30th and 35th anniversaries. A remaster (Twilight Princess HD in 2016, Skyward Sword HD in 2021) and more content for Hyrule Warriors (Legends port + more DLC in 2016, Age of Calamity DLC in 2021). There was also some kind of special hardware (themed New 3DS XL in 2016, Game & Watch in 2021) but it's probably too early in the Switch 2 era for limited edition consoles, maybe a Switch 2 Pro controller happens instead?

I'm wondering what they'll port, though. I know Wind Waker and Twilight Princess are the popular picks, but I want to see a 2D game.

I think there were some Nintendo patents filed recently that depicted a gameplay reminiscent of Ocarina of Time. Maybe a remake is in the works for 2026 or 2027. If not that, I would expect Switch ports of either Twilight Princess HD or A Link Between Worlds HD.

I suspect the Switch's support after Tomodachi Life and Rhythm Heaven will mostly consist of Wii, Wii U, and 3DS HD ports.

Weren’t those rumors about one of the GameBoy-era Zelda games making the rounds? A remake of Minish Cap or the Oracle games.

@rallydefault oh, PLEASE be the Oracle ganes

I was rather surprised that they didn't do remakes of all the 2D Zeldas using the Link's Awakening engine, because it would seem perfect for that.

Still, I guess that they were busy with Echoes of Wisdom, instead.

It's a potential schedule filler if they're ever at a loose end though.

At this point there have been rumours of remakes and remasters of almost all the old zeldas 😆 One of those rumours will definitely be true by default one of these years soon.

I loathe the idea of more Zelda remakes, but if we're going to have them at all, I'd much rather have remakes of the DS Zeldas instead of the GB ones. Those ones I can understand wanting to update them to work on modern hardware.